Comment spam: Ugh...

Since returning to the blogosphere after a break of many months, one surprise was "comment spam," anonymous comments tacked onto a post that advertise some get-rich-quick blog. The careful reader will notice some energetic policing going on here in Free Range Novelist. Getting totally unrelated comments, then taking the time to remove them, is annoying... Ugh.

Your Brico has no intention of removing or even filtering legitimate replies, so long as they meet some modest standard of civility, so we'll see if cleaning up bl-spam (sblam??) after the fact is good enough. Bet some junk comment gets tacked onto this post within minutes of its publication, though.

2005 Novel Title

This year's novel will be called Drunkard's Leap. As mentioned a couple of entries back, it is a science fiction adventure.

In slightly more detail, the main character learns a trick, as do the people around her, that lets mankind take a shortcut from the Moon to settling Mars and a handful of asteroids. With the power she learns comes... well, actually, limitations and reaction, and finally a few things done right. Stay tuned for snippets starting in a couple of weeks.

Obligatory Political Musing

Since there's no election this year, YT supposes it can't be a political rant. Looks like the "values" crowd has overreached, so any digs at them in the novel might soon be passe. Looks like a lot of the crowd in power has overreached, and have been caught up short by a couple of the reasons Americans traditionally prefer clean, competent government.

Now the triangle trade of corporate cash for lopsided majorities for favors to cronies is coming unraveled. The ol' Brico predicts one of three things will happen in the next half year.

1. Massive indifference by the public.
2. Gov't officials going to jail in Reaganesque numbers.
3. Greek tragedy.

Or maybe the country is already working its way down the list, item by item. In any event, with a quiet November coming up, except for Mayor and City Council in Detroit, there will not be the distractions from noveling like last year's.

Thinking back over the last three years, though, and all the people who've had the public ear, YT finds it easy to tweak their extremism lightly to form a societal backdrop for Drunkard's Leap.