BLOG POST 250

Tessera Trilogy Blog Post 250

Took advantage of the offer of a local small business owner, Book Exchange on Route 218 by Breezewood, to put several items on sale in the shop there:

            Three CDs with PDF file copies of both Golden Gate and Sooley Base.

            Two printed copies of Kashan Kashmeeri.

            One printed copy of The Next One.

I noticed that another RWG member, Bronwen Robinson, also had several of her books on sale at the Book Exchange.

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BAM member –

1.       First part was too long – agree, working

2.       Recognized the character’s PTSD symptoms –

3.       Minimize use of “She’s good.” - agree

4.       Interviews had too much non-important information. Condense to essentials – agree, working

5.       Correct POV shift – agree

6.       Clarify the story confusion about deputy being Jonesy or Smith – agree, working

7.       Shrink interview recording to what the deputy considered important … agree, working

8.       Numerous editorial suggestions – agree, working

BAM member –

1.       Introduce more tension, conflict between characters – agree, working

2.       First portion was weird, almost third person POV – agree, was what I was aiming for, working

3.       Felt hints to importance of the well-being a treasure were too obvious – agree, working

4.       Felt uneasy with power company meter person not changing over eighteen months – disagree

5.       Correct POV shift – agree

6.       Minor editorial suggestions – working

BAM member –

1.       Well written, very descriptive – thanks

2.       Characters well developed – thanks

3.       Liked better than Middle East stories with foreign words, could follow - thanks

4.       Annotate uses of inner dialogue, correct punctuation of quotes – agree, working

5.       Clarify the story confusion about deputy being Jonesy or Smith – agree, working

BAM member –

1.       Good continuation, flowed well – thanks

2.       Annotate inner dialogue – agree, working

3.       Minimize use of “She’s good.” - agree

4.       Minor editorial suggestion – agree

In a brief discussion after the critique above, and before my wife arrived to pick me up, the subject of PTSD symptoms exhibited by a character came up. I noted that I know a veteran of hand-to-hand combat in Hue City who displayed obvious PTSD effects.

One BAM member noted that some PTSD sufferers use cognitive disassociation, in which they can talk in third person, as a form of self-protection. This third person sense was picked up by Another BAM member, who described it as weird. Of note, a previous segment of mine had the same main character speaking in third person.

The first BAM member noted, when I brought up the topic of Steganography that there are programs which can break up text messages into dispersed bits that can then be imbedded into photos. Another program, possibly named “Open Sten” can sort through the pixels of a photo and pull out that hidden, imbedded text.

He added that he was now certified as an IT person and described the test process. I asked about sanctioned hacking and he said that certified hackers are termed CEHs, or Certified Ethical Hackers. I noted that two Spotsylvania detectives had told me they know how to hack, but leave it to certified personnel in the department so there are no legal uncertainties in court.

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As reviewers are aware, the theme of my newest novel, Payroll Deduction, includes the subject of gold coins from a Civil War Union payroll. Recently an 1854 $5.00 gold coin minted in San Francisco was evaluated as worth more than a million dollars.  This lends a bit of credibility to my novel.

See -  https://www.yahoo.com/news/man-told-rare-gold-coin-155929482.html