That last sentence contradicts their actions. If they truly believed that it’s best to defer to communities, and if they truly have a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion, they should have left their advertising in place.

Advertising during a particular television program doesn’t mean you support the program. Do advertisers who pay $1milliion per minute for a Superbowl spot really endorse the game or a particular team, or are they just trying to get their product in front of as many eyeballs as possible? It’s the latter. Advertising is about getting people to know what your brand is, and what you sell, and doing that in the most cost-effective manner possible. If you’re trying to increase your sales in a particular demographic, it makes sense to advertise on a show that demographic is watching.

Nielsen says the show averages 1.2 million viewers per episode. That’s several hundred thousand potential customers. Compare that to the number of people who have heard about Lowes’ actions now – probably in the double-digit millions at this point. Most of those people are strongly polarized about Lowes right now, and that’s not a good thing for Lowes.

Lowes probably couldn’t win this one either way. But deferring to a small anti-Muslim group was not the best way to handle this. As one poster on Facebook says, “Muslims are probably the last group in America where it remains politically fashionable to collectively demonize and discriminate [against].” I’d add that Christians and gun-owners are right there too, but that would be awfully ironic.

Read that again. No booze, beer, or alcohol of any kind while carrying. Nothing.

Opponents are predicting blood in the bars, just as they predicted blood in the streets ten years ago when Ohio finally reformed their self-defense laws. “Guns and alcohol don’t mix,” we’re told. And they’re right. The Ohio legislature agrees with them. The ORC says you can’t be under the influence when you’re carrying a firearm. They’ll allow you to have a drink or three, up to 0.08 BAC and still drive, but they don’t think you should have any testable amount of alcohol in your bloodstream when you have a firearm.

Before we go too far, we need to work on our language choices here. In Ohio, a D permit allows consumption of alcohol, including beer, wine, mixed beverages and spirituous liquor on the premises. D permits apply to any establishment, from Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Applebees and Hooters to Mccarthys Ale House & Patio, Union Bar & Grill, and Billy Goat Tavern, if they sell alcohol for on-premises consumption.

So it’s not just bars. Ohio news media has been fanning the hysteria by using the phrase “guns in bars,” which certainly paints a particular picture in one’s mind. Far better would have been “restaurant carry.” “Firearms in liquor permit premises” would be technically correct as well, but it doesn’t role off the tongue with the same flair and drama as “guns in bars,” does it? Not nearly as hysteria-inducing.

“How are bar owners and bartenders supposed to enforce this?” “How do we know people won’t just say they’re not carrying, and drink anyway?” The same way bar owners and bartenders enforce drinking and driving statutes now. They don’t, and no one expects them to. One person pointed out to me that “Bar owners/bartenders are by law not allowed to serve people, that they can visibly see becoming drunk, more alcohol. It is called the Dram Shop Act.” Let’s look at that.

According to Ohio’s dram shop law, persons who were injured by an intoxicated person may have a cause of action against the business establishment who sold them the alcoholic beverage. The business’ liability depends somewhat on where the injury actually occurred:
• On the premises: If the injury occurred on the business owner’s premises, or in a parking lot under their control, the business owner will be held liable if the injury was caused by the negligence of the business or a business employee.
• Off premises: A business owner or employee may be held liable for injuries that occurred off premises if the establishment sold alcohol to a person who was visibly intoxicated, or if the person was a minor. These injuries may include automobile accidents as well as attacks or fist fights. (Info courtesy LegalMatch.com)

My friend went on to say “It IS the responsibility of the bar owner to make sure that his/her patrons are not intoxicated to the point that they cannot operate a vehicle.” Not exactly. Considering the presumption of intoxication happens at .08 BAC, I would guess that the average bartender or server has no clue when their average customer has reached that legal point, which happens long before they’re stumbling, or slurring their speech. For most people, it happens after the first or second drink. And when’s the last time your server asked you if you were going to drive before they served your third or fourth or fifth beer? When I still drank, I never got asked about my post-consumption plans by a bar employee.

The bee in everyone’s bonnet seems to be that they’re fine with trusting you to stop drinking in time to be safe before you start driving, but they don’t think you can be trusted to not drink at all. Why people fine with allowing people to get behind the wheel of a car after a couple of drinks, but doesn’t think they can be trusted with a firearm at the same point? Scott Heimlich, vice president of the Central Ohio Restaurant Association, says “The law says they can’t consume alcohol, but will that person be honest and play by the rules and not have a drop of alcohol when they have a gun on them?” Well, why wouldn’t they? You trust them about not driving after they’ve consumed a mood-altering depressant. Why shouldn’t you trust them about not consuming that mood-altering depressant in the first place?

It saddens me to think that so many people lose the ability to think clearly when an issue includes the right to self-defense. “I’ve never seen a case that warranted the use of a gun in the bar,” said one Columbus bar owner. But that’s short-sighted. What about the block-and-a-half their patrons have to walk to get to and from their car? What about the trip home? The idea that violent crime only happens in certain areas is frighteningly naïve and prevalent. Violent crime can and does happen anywhere, and the police have no duty to protect you as an individual. It’s nice when they can keep something bad from happening, and they sometimes catch the bad guy quickly, but they’re really only there to write reports, draw chalk outlines around your body, and go after the bad guy after he’s committed the crime.

Ohio is not the first state to recognize that their citizens can be trusted with the ability to carry guns in places that serve alcohol. The predicted blood did not run in the streets or bars or restaurants there, and there’s no reason to think that Ohioans are that different.

The only person directly responsible for your protection and safety is you. Restaurant carry in Ohio just means you can protect yourself in more places.

Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

That pretty much sums up my thoughts about this arrest. I’d be curious to know how many law enforcement officials charged with enforcing child pornography or drug laws or weapons laws have crossed the line and violated the very laws they’re sworn to enforce. Maybe this essay should become required in-service training.

Local coverage, with a link to the indictment.

we have regular internet access again, so look for more posts here soon, like my rant about the 28 ¢ per gallon of diesel fuel surprise in Indiana.

We arrived at Marmon Valley Farm for what was supposed to be a 2 ½ week stay. Our boys had a week of summer camp, then two of the girls had a week of camp at MVF, making it pretty centrally located. We emailed them before we left in February, offering to trade a couple of weeks of work around the farm for an RV site. It was a new experience for us and the staff at MVF. We had never workamped before, and they had never used workampers. But Wrangler Matt Wiley knew us from regular visits to the farm, and agreed to try it out. Near the originally planned end of our stay, he asked me “How much longer are you guys planning on staying?” We talked it over and decided to stay until mid-September, just after their Family Work Weekend.

Farm living is, well, different. The kids have grown up in the city, and even though I was raised in a rural part of Ohio, I grew up in town, not out in the county. I’m not used to being at by 7 or so, and taking a break for breakfast. Making and putting up hay. Mucking the stables. Standing inside a round hay baler as the hatch closes, so you can manually rotate the baling chain. Baling hay by moonlight. Getting a recalcitrant horse to move so you can saddle her. Helping dig a 400-foot ditch. All of them new experiences and I love it.

God has been working with me and our kids throughout our stay here. I’ve learned a whole new respect for people I hadn’t realized I had looked down on when I was growing up. I’ve learned that clothing is just stuff, and it can be replaced. I’ve learned that my kids are more resilient and flexible than I had ever dreamed they would be, and that my youngest daughters are quite the charmers (each week, they seemed to get adopted by a new cabin of campers). I’ve learned that I can handle 95° inside the rig when our air conditioner goes out. (I’ve also learned that we should have bought the second AC unit when we bought the rig, but oh well.)

Adam says he’s learned the value of personal space. Owen says he’s learning to trust God to lead you, but it’s hard. Welcome to the world, kiddo. Eli notes that it’s hard to fit a big family in a small space. Erica has learned that she needs to work on her patience, and not losing it so quickly.

Favorites:
The Night of the Tornado
Kentucky Horse Park
Marmon Valley Farm
Oklahoma

Least Favorites:
The Night of the Tornado (No, it’s not a mistake that this is on both lists. My kids are like that.)
The 4-Day Jump From TX To PA (I’ll go along with this. It was hard to get back in the truck for the last day.)

We’re here at MVF until 12 September, when we head back to Muskogee, Oklahoma. We may or may not be headed for an Amazon gig in October. It’s that whole trusting God thing again.

WordPress For Android was listed at the bottom of a blog post I read this morning, so I wanted to try it out. Install was seamless as well as painless. Interface is nicely laid out, although I can’t see writing thousand-word posts on my phone.

The only drawback I see at the moment is adding images to posts. I suspect I can add photos pretty easily from the phone, and I can access the existing gallery. But a lot of the images I use come the web and I usually edit/resize them first. I won’t be able to do that, so I’ll have to plan ahead with some general images.

Still, for short quick posts or live-blogging, this should come in pretty handy.

Added: Seems I can only add images from the phone, not the existing gallery I’ve built up at the blog.

Added: I’ll be using this image as a default for posts made from the phone.

• Writing is not the solitary, highly competitive existence that keeps so many writers from getting started. At least it doesn’t have to be. It’s competitive in that it takes a lot of hard work to get published these days, but it’s not competitive in the sense that someone is going to take your perfect idea for a story and steal it. That’s not the way the professionals work.
• Most importantly, it doesn’t have to be solitary. Jonathan Maberry sang the praises of writers organization in general and Pennwriters in particular. He said PW is a “shining example” of what a writers organization should be and do.
• Read and support your genre! You’ll learn what’s going on in your genre, and you’ll support fellow authors. When the time comes, they’ll support you, too.
• I think the two best things you can do to further your career as a writer are to join a writers organization and go to writers conferences. PW is my first writers organization, and this was only the second conference I’ve been to. The last was some ten years ago and was a purely commercial conference, without the backing of a writers organization. I learned a good bit, but I felt like I missed out on the camaraderie and networking that I had heard so much about. PW was nothing like that. There were plenty of well-published writers who were happy to answer your questions. It felt like everyone there really understood PW’s mission that the group should “provide members with opportunities to improve crafting, promote their work and interact with industry professionals.”

Here’s a non-exhaustive list of links to lists of writers organizations. Even if you can’t find a local organization, you should be able to find a ‘Net-based group that’s good. And Pennwriters has Area 7, for members who live outside the state. There’s even a member in Alaska!

• http://www.forwriters.com/groups.html#orgs
• http://www.ebookcrossroads.com/writers-associations.html
• http://www.authorlink.com/conferences/writersorgs.php
• http://www.squidoo.com/localwritersassociationsbystate
• http://www.writerswrite.net/orgsrch.cfm?search=general
• http://www.google.com/search?q=writers+organizations

The main part of the conference kicked off Friday morning. There were several sessions during the weekend with conflicting workshops and I had a hard time deciding about the pre-conference sessions too. I ended up following the “Improve Your Craft” track for most of the conference, since the only feedback I’ve gotten from the only agent who’s seen Don’t Stop Believin’ has been that she couldn’t get involved with the characters.

Ramona Long kicked things off with the “Four Truths of Characters.” Every character has four basic facts or truths about them: Society (who they are in relation to the rest of the world); Family (who they are in relation to their family); Personality (everything about them); and Flaw (their weakness or vulnerability). We deconstructed some well-known characters (most from Pride and Prejudice), and it was amazingly helpful to look at Danny Cumberland from The Sad Girl through that lens.

My next session was “Psychoses and Psychopaths: Crafting Believable Characters” with Brent Maguire. This was a high-level session giving us background on lots of personality disorders and personality traits. Again, it gave me a new lens to look at some of my characters, and gave me and idea about how to handle one of them disappearing for a long time without killing her off.

Ramona was back for “Shaping Story Arcs,” and this was another big eye-opener for me, much as it was for Jeanette Grey. The important thing for me is that every character has an arc, and every major character must change. So how does Danny Cumberland change?

I took a workshop on Historical Fiction because I have had in the back of my mind an idea for a great epic Second Civil War novel, and I thought such a workshop would be helpful. It gave me some more books for my reading list, and a few ideas—especially “Be careful choosing your Truth during research.
That was it for my first day. I skipped the evening keynote, and after reading all the tweets, I’m regretting it.

Saturday morning I started off with Nancy Martin’s “Author-Agent Relationship” workshop. Best quote ever: “You can only write so much sex before you want to start killing people.” All sorts of tips here: Listen to body language when you’re talking to an agent – or anyone, for that matter. Read your genre! Visit the bookstore to see who gets thanked in your favorite books. Network with authors and agents at conferences. They really are normal people! Here’s the biggie: You’re looking for business partner, not a friend. If you become friends, great. But writing is a business first.

Nancy also pointed out that authors and agents want a lot of the same things in their relationships. They want good communicators. They want people who can help them make money (it’s a business, remember?). They want people who are passionate about their work. They don’t want jerks.

Agent Victoria Skurnick was next with the Dos and Don’ts of Finding an Agent. I missed part of the session as I was dealing with nails in my truck tires, but here’s what I did get. Younger readers are going away, but e-pubbing may be a salvation. 50% of agented books don’t get sold. Listen to consistent criticism – consistent being the key. Read agent guidelines. Even if the guidelines don’t mention putting the first few pages in the e-query, do it. She said most agents still read that.

The lunchtime keynote from Jonathan Maberry was uplifting, energizing, and eye-opening. He attended Pennwriters even with a book due Monday. He mentioned that after critique sessions Friday night, while I was whining about nails in two tires, he went back to his room and cranked out 6,000 words. Wow. I do 6k in a week, and I’m feeling good. The Really Cool Thing™ that he talked about thought was the idea of community. The fable that writing is a fiercely competitive and lonely existence is just that. It doesn’t have to be, he pointed out. Join a writing group. Hone your skills with other writers. It’s not a competition. No one is going to steal your plots. The one thing that every writer wants – to be published – is the one thing that will help the industry succeed, and that’s ultimately what writers really want. If the publishing industry fails in some way, then writers lose.

I did Saturday afternoon sessions about “The Geography of a Novel” and “Acting For Writers,” both giving me more tools to sharpen my work. Place can be a character, and land has a rhythm. Senses draw you to a place—all five of them. Habits grow out of place, like dimming your lights when you come to a gated entrance because that’s what you did at military installations. Live with your senses on.

Sunday morning sessions were about “Breaking in to Business Writing,” and “Travel Writing.” Lisa Kastner—a past president of Pennwriters, and published author—had a great roundtable discussion about business writing, and how our fiction can help and be helped by that kind of work. For example, to write a speech, you must gain insight into a person’s speech patterns. You need to know how they normally talk, so you can write something that sounds like them. Where could that come in handy for fiction? Lisa thinks, and I agree, that getting the byline and building the portfolio are most important at the beginning, even if the first couple of bylines are free. Keep in mind too that the church newsletter or similar thing that you write on a volunteer basis can all be used to build your writing resume.

Don Helin was similarly helpful about Travel Writing. You’re really only limited by your imagination he pointed out. Don’t write a travel brochure – write a story. Bring the destination to life. Look for sidebar details too. Research your destination before you go. Take quality photos, and most of all, have fun.

I’ll have a wrap-up post Friday with what I think of as the main takeaway points.

There were several pre-conference sessions on Thursday. I chose the “Many Genres, One Craft” track, thinking it would give me the most bang for the buck. Yes, I’ve got a novel done, but I know I need to improve my craft.

MGOC is a collection of lessons from the faculty, students and alums of Seton Hill’s MFA in Writing Popular Fiction. The pre-conference is described as Six workshops for craft and career. The three morning sessions focus on plotting with Victoria Thompson, character with Timons Esaias, and setting with Heidi Ruby Miller and Jason Jack Miller. In the afternoon, sessions focus on pursuing publication with Natalie and Matt Duvall, building a brand with Mary SanGiovanni, and investing in your writing with Michael A. Arnzen.

The sessions were shuffled a bit due to last-minute schedule changes. Tim Esaias started us off with his Character session. The takeaways from that were many:

• You can reveal characters through their “stuff.” We read excerpts from several books, including Devil in a Blue Dress, Empress Orchid and The Decanter of Tokay, and deconstructed the first pages to learn about the characters. Very revealing.
• You can find out more about a character from the way they describe stuff, such as Phillip Marlowe in The High Window when he first arrives at the Murdock home.
• Get your readers to care about your characters first. Then give them a reason to worry about your character.
• Think about what touched you in something you read, then do that to someone else.

Next up was Jason Jack Miller, talking about “Building A Vocabulary For Our Stories.” His handout led off with this line:

Be yourself, be our guest, be all that you can be. Be anything but a Be verb (or a dull noun).

Lots of tips here.

• Strong nouns and verbs can render descriptors futile, making your prose move faster.
• Action verbs create drama and don’t give readers a chance to slow down.

Jason had an entire page of discussion about how the devil is in the details. Vocabulary detail such as regional dialect cements the setting. Everything from local colloquialisms, food and restaurants to events in local history, and even smells.

Matt and Natalie Duvall introduced the FreyReDuv Plot Method, combined from the Freytag and Regis plotting tools. Very interesting concept, and I’m going to be giving it a try on my next story.

Heidi Ruby Miller gave a great session on building your brand. There were several such sessions throughout the conference, including a focus on social media.

Matt and Natalie came back with their “Paths to Publication” session. They asked us what publication meant to each of us. I came up with this big flowery twenty-word passage, but one of the other writers really nailed it: “Finding an audience.” The follow-up question—what’s the best path to publication—got a similarly short answer from the same writer: “Whatever gets me to my definition of publication.”

Michael Arnzen wrapped up the day with “Investing in Your Writing.” What does a writer have to invest? Plenty: Time. Ideas. Skills. Money. Property. “Every heartbeat is a moment you can be hitting a key.” His discussion included a comparison of investment strategies to writing and pointed out that writers who chase trends probably won’t catch them.

Thursday was a great day, and primed us well for the rest of the conference. More about that Wednesday.

Typewriter Photo R. Schmidt, Kronberg/ Germany, www.club-pac.de