This weekend brings one of my favorite events of the year — Balticon, a science fiction/fantasy fan convention, held at the Marriott Hotel in Hunt Valley, Maryland. For the second consecutive year, I am a guest at the con and will be participating in a number of events. Here is my schedule for the weekend:

Saturday, May 25

• Noon – Blogging for Dummies, with Brand Gamblin, Suzanne Rosin, Allison Gamblin (Chesapeake Room)

Sunday, May 26

• 10:00 a.m. – Autograph session with Mur Lafferty and Dina Leacock (Maryland Foyer)
• 1:00 p.m. – Talk To Me: How To Conduct Podcast Interviews with Hugh O’Donnell, Stephen Granade, Thomas Gideon, Chris Lester and Alex White (Chesapeake Room)
• 5:00 p.m. – Reading, with Chris Evans and Alicia Goranson (Pimlico Room)
• 6:00 p.m. – WordPress 101, with Pamela Gay, Doc Coleman and Nutty Nuchtchas (Chesapeake Room)
• 7:00 p.m. – Full Cast vs. Straight Read, with Veronica Giguere, Christopher Snelgrove, Chris Lester, P.C. Haring, Renee Chambliss and Nobilis Reed (Derby Room)
• 9:00 p.m. – Music in Podcasts, with Alicia Goranson, Chris Lester, Alex White and P.C. Haring (Derby Room)

I can’t wait for the weekend to start! If you’re going to be there, please stop by my panels or reading or autograph session and say hello.

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Photo by Justin Marty. Used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.

I’m in a bit of a limbo land, not sure what to work on next. My ghost hunter novel, tentatively titled And Ghosts Return, is out to a bunch of agents. I’m not working on a new novel yet, though I have a couple of ideas kicking around in my brain. So, rather than writing, I’m spending a fair amount of time these days contemplating what I should write next. Some of the options:

• I got the idea a few weeks ago to design a role playing game based on P.G. Holyfield’s Land of Caern universe, which most of us know from his terrific novel Murder At Avedon Hill. Have I ever designed a game before, let alone an RPG? Um, no. I’ve spent a few minutes jotting down ideas and researching how one goes about designing a game, but this idea is still in its embryonic stage. P.G., to his credit, told me to knock myself out.
• Write some short stories. I know possible topics for short stories are all around me, but I’m having trouble finding some that appeal to me. I suspect I’m letting the perfect be the enemy of the good here. An idea doesn’t have to be The Greatest Thing EVAR, it just has to be a story someone might want to read. Of course, pondering what would make a good story idea is also an excellent way to procrastinate on actually writing a story. Like exercising, I find writing stories exhilarating once I get going, but actually getting started requires convincing myself.
• Start outlining a new novel. Since no one has actually made an offer to me for And Ghosts Return, I’m not inclined to work on a sequel, though I think the story line has sequel potential. The logical thing is to start something brand new, and the options are limitless. To date, I’ve written four novels — one drama/romance, one action/adventure, one humorous, and one paranormal/horror. Should I pick a new genre? Sci-fi? Epic fantasy? Another paranormal book with a different set of characters and setting?

Now, if someone else wrote this post and I was reading it, I’d say, “Just pick something and start working, already!” Which I will do. Watch this space for a progress report over the weekend.

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Ginger
August, 2001 – April 4, 2013

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Photo by Richard Eriksson. Used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve queried 13 literary agents about my ghost hunter novel. To date, I’ve heard back from four of them. Three were the all-to-familiear “dear author” email — this-project-is-not-right-for-us, etc. However, one did send a request for the full manuscript, which I sent out the same day. I’ll take that batting average.

As Mur Lafferty said in a recent podcast, rejections are part of the writer’s job. If you’re not getting rejections, you’re neglecting your work. I’m not going to say that I really enjoyed finding a rejection email in my inbox first thing this morning, but I’ve received enough so that I can feel disappointed for a few minutes, sigh, note the response in the spreadsheet I use to track submissions, and move on. I’d like to start by querying at least 20 agents, so I have more to send out.

How many rejections have you received lately? How do you deal with them? Get the conversation rolling in the comments.

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The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America have announced the nominees for the 2013 Nebula Awards. If you’re a regular listener to Escape Pod and/or Podcastle, you’ll recognize a lot of names on the list — Saladin Ahmed, Tina Connolly, N.K. Jemisin, Caitlín R. Kiernan, etc. Nancy Kress’s After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall, which currently resides in my pile of books to read, is nominated for best novella.

Even better, if you’d like to check some of these out, Galleycat has made links to free samples available. This is some of the best spec fic work done in 2012. Enjoy!

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Photo by Keith Williamson. Used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.

These are excellent questions for anyone critiquing a book or story to use, whether you’re a beta reader for a novel or the members of a critique group. I’m going to send them to the members of my group before we get together next week. Thanks to Gabrielle Harbowy for posting this.

Are there any parts where it felt like it dragged / you got bored / wanted to put it down?

Are there any parts where you weren’t sure what was happening?

Do the characters feel well-rounded and human? Are there any characters you especially like or don’t like? Did any characters seem especially flat, dull, or lacking in distinctiveness, who shouldn’t have been?

Were there any characters or places with names so similar that you had a hard time telling them apart?

Does the world feel well-rounded and realistic enough for you to imagine it as you read?

At any point, does a character do something that feels like it’s impossible, implausible, or against their nature?

How would you describe what this book is about to someone else, in one sentence? (This is a great one for making sure that the most important elements are coming through with appropriate weight for the reader. If what they think your book is about isn’t what you think your book is about, that’s really good to know.)

Did the plot climax and resolution take too long / resolve too easily / seem implausible / let you down?

Was the plot / resolution predictable? Did it surprise you? At what point did you know what was going to happen?

via Getting Meaningful Feedback.

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Photo by Liz West. Used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.

This is a new story that I whipped up yesterday, for your holiday reading pleasure.

A Dungeons & Dragons Christmas Story

The situation looked hopeless. I was surrounded on all sides by a snarling horde. I had no magic spells left, and I carried no sword, not even a dagger. My hard-fought-for treasures were in jeopardy. Trying my best to think despite the sound of what must have been some kind of singing, I glanced to my left. To my dismay, I found the aisle blocked. To my right, three members of the horde bore down on me with fully-loaded wagons. The realization sank in that I would be trapped in this strange land, never to return to my home.

Suddenly, a voice sounded from above, distracting my adversaries, and a small opening appeared in the crowd. Seizing my treasures, I summoned my last ounce of strength and all of my 14 points of Dexterity, charging through the space before it could close again. Relief swarmed over me as I saw, standing mere yards away, one who would grant passage out of this land to my treasures and me. She was a quiet young maiden who methodically examined my belongings, nodded, and handed me a piece of parchment. I offered my thanks, shoved the parchment inside my robe, and made great haste to my transport. Once there, I breathed deeply and rose my eyes to the heavens, thankful for my narrow escape.

And that’s how I got out of Wegmans on the day before Christmas Eve.

This song has been running through my head for the last day or so. My sister had this record when we were kids, and I think it’s a fitting sentiment, one that so many of us are feeling right now. The slideshow is heart-melting. Words, particularly my words, are a poor tribute to those whose lives were stolen on Friday. I hope you’ll find that images and music do it better.

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Hard disk photo by walknboston. Used under a Creative Commons attribution 3.0 license.

I’m going to state this up front for emphasis: Back up your important files.

Repeat with me: Back up your important files.

The last time I posted here was on November 2. Two days after that, I left for a business trip to St. Louis. Two days after that, I used my laptop while waiting in the St. Louis airport for my flight home. The next morning, the laptop wouldn’t boot up. I brought it to the experts who informed me that my hard drive was, in the parlance of the characters on Battlestar Galactica, “fracked.” Dead. Extinct. No more. Late. Lamented. You get the idea.

When was my last complete backup of my files, you may ask? Many, many months ago. I am alleged to be an intelligent human being, but I had no recent backups of some pretty important files, among them:

• The most recent draft of my ghost hunter novel
• The ebook files ofPurgatory
• Some financial records, including receipts from this year’s conventions

Fortunately, a few beta readers had the ghost hunter novel, I’ll be able to re-create the convention receipts from credit card statements, and I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to recover the ebook files from CreateSpace. If worse comes to worse, I’ll have to rebuild them. This will be a huge pain in the butt, but if I want to submit the book to more book bloggers, I’ll have to do it.

I’m typing this on a new laptop (the one with the dead hard drive was, as the computer tech said, old enough to start kindergarten.) I imported my most recent backup, but it was not nearly current enough. I’ve learned my lesson. I’m backing up my stuff.

Have you backed up your important files in the last week? If not, do it today. Seriously.

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Photo by Martin Pettitt

Halloween is over, and we’re in that uneasy period between the warm days of Indian summer and the frantic pace of the holiday season. I’m sitting in a Panera Bread restaurant not far from my office. The sky is an ugly gray, it’s raining out (whether the leftovers from Hurricane Sandy or a new weather system, I can’t tell), the temperature has taken a decided turn downward, and it’s just kind of … blah. This seems like the perfect time to focus on the positive. And the negative.

Herewith, 10 things I like about autumn:

1. Starbucks’ pumpkin spice lattes.
2. Football. My New York Giants are kickin’ butt.
3. The change in the leaves. Some people may not consider upstate New York to be the coolest place to pitch your tent, but withhold judgment until you’ve driven through the Adirondack Mountains during the fall.
4. No humidity.
5. Halloween. Alas, my children are grown now, but some of my fondest memories are of eating their Halloween candy when they weren’t looking.
6. Syracuse University Orange basketball returns! We’re ranked number nine in preseason polls.
7. In a couple of weeks, I won’t have to feel weird when I catch myself humming a Christmas song.
8. Turkey. Yes, you can eat turkey anytime of year, but it just tastes better in November. I’m pretty sure scientists have proven this.
9. I get to start wearing my favorite sweatshirts again.
10. Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant.

Not to be outdone, here are 10 things I don’t like about fall:

1. It’s not summer anymore.
2. Very soon, I will have to start using an ice scraper on my car each day.
3. Soon after that, I will have to start using a snow brush on my car each day.
4. Soon after that, I may have snow up to my hips in my driveway.
5. Baseball season’s over.
6. The Giants traditionally swoon in November.
7. Election campaign commercials are still on TV. I am fascinated with politics, but the people who produce negative campaign ads should be forced to spend 14 consecutive days after the election doing nothing but watching and listening to their work. That might scratch the surface of suitable punishment.
8. Those of us blessed with a modicum of common sense understand that it’s too cold to wear shorts. Not everyone has chosen to read that memo.
9. The sun rises later and sets earlier.
10. Next summer’s convention season and annual reunion with my college buddies feels like an awfully long time away.

What’s on your lists?

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Illustration by DonkeyHotey

I saw something on TV the other day about there being an election next month. That kind of came from out of nowhere, didn’t it? You’d think somebody would have run a commercial on TV. How am I supposed to make up my mind about Candidate A without an ad telling me that he’s a socialist scumbag who wants to double my taxes, give free Cocoa Puffs to the undeserving poor, send housewarming gifts to new illegal aliens, and outlaw churches? How can I make a decision about Candidate B if a scary-sounding guy doesn’t warn me that he wants to post law enforcement officers in my bedroom, force poor people to sell spare parts of their bodies to survive, dump buckets of money on rich people, and is a bit less liberal than the Taliban on women’s rights issues?

Actually, I saw those ads on every TV at the gym I go to. Over. And. Over. And. Over.

Nevertheless, despite their less attractive elements, U.S. election campaigns hold a definite fascination for many of us. Sometimes, they become the subjects of good books, both fiction and non-fiction. In the spirit of the season, I hereby give you a list of good books about the U.S. electoral process. I’ve linked to their listings on Amazon.com, though you might have better luck with a couple of the older titles in libraries and used bookstores. In no particular order:

The Last Hurrah. Politics in the pre-internet, pre-TV days, when Irish politicians in big cities got votes by attending wakes and candidates relied on newspapers for character assassination of the other side. A compelling read.

Primary Colors. A rather thinly-veiled fictional account of Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign for the presidency. John Travolta starred in the film version.

Game Change. A history of the 2008 presidential election campaign, written by reporters with inside access to all of the major candidates. HBO released a film version earlier this year that focused almost entirely on the John McCain-Sarah Palin ticket, but the book is far more comprehensive.

Fear and Loathing: On The Campaign Trail ’72. Hunter S. Thompson. Nixon. McGovern. Need I say more? This was the last campaign in which the Iowa caucuses did not play a major part.

Convention. I read this back in high school. A suspenseful novel about the days when the national political conventions actually picked the candidates.

All the President’s Men. Richard Nixon wins 49 states in the Electoral College and sows the seeds of his own downfall. One of the great detective stories of our time.

1876. The late Gore Vidal’s novel about America’s centennial year and a stolen presidential election.

Angels & Demons. Okay, this one’s about the election of a pope, not a U.S. president, and I know that a lot of people have issues with Dan Brown’s writing. Still, it’s a page-turner.

Too Close To Call. Jeffrey Toobin’s account of the biggest electoral debacle in modern American history — the 2000 presidential election. This story still raises blood pressures on both sides of the political spectrum.

The Making of the President 1960. A modern classic of U.S. political literature. The 1960 campaign brought U.S. presidential politics into the television age. For better or worse, it’s never been the same since.

So there you have it — my list of top 10 election-related books. Do you have any favorites that I left out? Any that are on my list that you don’t think belong? List your nominees in the comments.

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While the Sox and the Yanks are tied 3-3 in the 12th inning as I write this, the game is only commanding part of my attention. It’s got me thinking about sports as they appear in fiction, particularly speculative fiction. Speculative fiction, by nature, places its focus on the future, not the present day (urban fantasy being a possible exception.) Consequently, I can only think of a handful of spec fic books or series with a sports setting:

• Scott Sigler’s Galactic Football League series: The Rookie, The Starter, The All-Pro and The MVP.
• Tee Morris’s The Case of the Pitcher’s Pendant: A Billibub Baddings Mystery.
• J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, the first six of which had terrific scenes featuring the sport of quidditch. The fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, showcased the Quidditch World Cup.

Those are the only ones I can think of at the moment. Why not any stories with soccer, hockey, hoops or lacrosse? Tennis or golf? Surely our descendants will be as masochistic as we are and will continue to play golf. Or what about the 25th century version of the Olympics?

I love sports and have always been a total spaz at them. Nevertheless, I have an urge to write some sports-centered spec fic stories or even a novel. I’ll get back to you on how that goes.

In the mean time, can any of you add to my list? What titles have I not thought of?

PS The Yankees just won the game in the bottom of the 12th. GROWL.

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I have been a nerd since my first five-syllable word

Brilliance. If you get the chance to hear her perform live, you may get the impression that she does primarily humorous songs (her karaoke song is hysterical.) As I’ve listened to Something Fierce, what has struck me is that these are (for the most part) serious songs, though some are light-hearted. Even some of the light-hearted songs pack some bite:

Well I had a good time sweetheart, that’s for sure
Well I wanna thank you for all your trouble
But if you lose my number now I won’t complain
‘Cause you’re my avocado baby — only only good for one day
‘Cause you’re my sushi baby — only only good for one day

Or this:

Oh, I wish I were a real Alaskan girl
Because I hear that they kick ass
Oh, it’s easy to see why a local woman’s in demand
The guys have to queue up for years to hold your hand
I’d find me some big burly bush pilot boy
I would hook and reel him in and fiancé him
But if he ever double-crossed me or tried to do me wrong
I wouldn’t hardly hesitate to skin, gut, and filet him

Contrast that with the picture she paints to the driving beat in  Temporal Dominoes:

He likes the smell of the incense / she likes her Indian food
The sweltering subway so intense / not a gesture is left unpursued
‘Cause they’re not in the mood to miss miracles
Culling their half-baked assumptions / paradigms toppling untried
Demolishing decades-old hunches / with their eyes all unraveled and wide
At the top of the tide / and nowhere to hide

One of the sweeter songs is Highway Five. Marian Call is from Alaska, and this is her ode to the Pacific Coast Highway:

This is my coast, this is my home, from San Diego up to Nome
Haven’t seen it all yet but I will
And I want to memorize it, every inch, want to remember where I’ve been
I bless these waves, I bless this wind, I bless this grace and all my sins

I love the “I’m okay the way I am” spirit behind Whistle While You Wait:

When it’s the first time you could get to West Hollywood and you’re slathered in sunscreen
And you drive really slow, so you know that they know that you’re another Joe with a dream
And you’re wearing your old secondhand blue jeans
And you keep turning your head at limousines
And everybody else looks so damn pretty
And you’re feelin’ extra grungy and extra indie
Oh it takes a little effort to hold your head up straight
To dress just like you want to, to whistle while you wait
It takes a little effort to not avert your eyes
To trust that you belong there — it might just be yourself that you surprise

The album opens with the happy vibe of Good Morning Moon:

Good morning Moon, love, how you doin’?
I’ve got business with you today
Good evening, Sun, I’ll see you soon
I wake on my own terms lately
Who’s to say we’re upside-down
Who’s to say we’re falling if we miss the ground
Who’s to say we’re going nowhere
If we like spinning ’round and ’round?

Musically, her vocals remind me a lot of Joni Mitchell circa Court & Spark. The arrangements are tight and the production is never over the top. I recommend this CD to anyone looking for intelligent songwriting and creative melodies. If you get the chance, check out her live act (her tour schedule is on her home page.) I saw her twice this year at Dragon*Con — at the Atlanta Skeptics party and again at the Parsec Awards. She brings humor and energy to her performances, at which she plays somewhat unusual percussion instruments (manual typewriter and rain stick.) I hope she makes the trip east to Dragon*Con every year.

Any other Marian Call fans out there? Chime in in the comments.

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Jennifer Povey offers an interesting perspective on Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games series:

It’s my opinion that The Hunger Games and its sequels are the best anti-war novels of recent time. They deserve to stand next to Joe Haldeman’s Forever War (a different take on the fate of the veteran). I hope that the popularity of the film will pull the books out of the young adult ghetto and put them in the hands of the parents. On the other hand, perhaps it IS the children, the future leaders who need to read it.

So. Why the heck has The Hunger Games been classified as young adult? It’s actually fairly simple. It’s a sad fact of the publishing industry at present, and something I’ve seen myself, that if your protagonist is under 18, the industry classes your work as ‘young adult’. I’ve written pieces not intended as young adult but with teenage protagonists and I inevitably get told ‘send it to a young adult magazine’, so I’ve seen this myself.

And this has to change. Not every book with a young protagonist is suited to teenagers and will be enjoyed by them. I don’t know for sure whether Suzanne Collins did intend the books to be adult fiction and was funneled into YA by industry suspicions…hopefully one day I’ll have an opportunity to ask her. But I’m afraid that is exactly what happened.

I find this interesting because my youngest son, a high school senior who would himself say that he is not an avid reader, devoured those books a couple of years ago. On the basis of that purely unscientific sample of one, I concluded that they are YA titles. I have not read them yet myself and cannot offer my own conclusion. However, Jenna knows literature; I’m more inclined to read the books having read her opinion.

Her other point about the way publishers pigeon-hole certain books is spot on. Worse, the inability to easily classify a book makes publishers less likely to buy it. I don’t know how many writing panels I’ve attended where at least one of the authors mentions that he or she had trouble selling a book because publishers didn’t know where to put it on the shelf.

As a writer who hopes to move beyond self-publishing some day, I find this frustrating. I submitted Purgatory to a lot of agents and publishers, and for the most part I received form letter rejections. Maybe they didn’t like it, but maybe they didn’t know how to classify it. It’s part comedy, part speculative fiction (the time-travel element), part spiritual/religious, and party buddy movie. As I write this, the final episode of the podcast version has been downloaded 3,211 times, so apparently a few thousand people liked it enough to listen to all 12 episodes. That makes me think that its chances with publishers were hurt because it’s not easily classified.

I don’t know what the answer to this is. Publishers are businesses; businesses need efficient ways to market products, ways that assure buyers that they’re getting what they believe they’re paying for. I get that part. However, I also think they probably pass on a lot of good books (and I don’t just mean mine) because they don’t fit the pre-existing mold. I won’t even begin to compare anything I’ve written to Harry Potter, but I have to wonder how many series that are just as enchanting may be languishing on hard drives because editors don’t recognize the potential. J.K. Rowling certainly got more than her share of “thanks-but-no-thanks” letters before Scholastic bought The Sorcerer’s Stone.

Once upon a time, a book about a kid who turns out to be a wizard was too outside the box. I think the lesson here is to make that box a little larger.

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Reporter Michael Doyle describes some disturbing actions by a few public employers:

“Like” the First Amendment? Then prepare for a fight, as courts and employers figure out whether a simple click on Facebook deserves free speech protection.

It’s 21st-century technology meets an 18th-century Constitution, and the real-world implications are starting to erupt.

In rural Mississippi, two firefighters and a police officer are serving 30-day suspensions because they hit “like” on a controversial Facebook post.

In Virginia, a sheriff’s department employee said he was fired for “liking” a page sponsored by the sheriff’s political rival. One federal appellate court already is being asked to weigh in; others surely will follow.

“As we continue to develop new media and new means of expression, it is important to ensure that they are constitutionally protected,” Rebecca Glenberg, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, said in an interview.

When users click “like” on a Facebook post, their names are displayed next to the post. They’re also visible to other users.

The Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is considering the case of Hampton, Va., sheriff’s department employees allegedly fired for using Facebook and other means to back their boss’s rival. One employee communicated the support by clicking “like.” Another wrote a Facebook post.

A trial judge concluded last April that “merely ’liking’ a Facebook page is insufficient speech to merit constitutional protection.” He said it wasn’t the kind of “substantive statement” that courts traditionally have protected.

The subsequent appeal is the first to consider whether a Facebook “like” falls under the First Amendment, Glenberg said.

Underscoring the case’s importance, the ACLU and Facebook have filed separate friend-of-the-court briefs urging free speech protections.

“I am not aware of any other instances of an employee being fired for ’liking’ something,” Glenberg said. “There is, however, a trend toward employers monitoring employees’ social media use, so the potential for this sort of thing is certainly there.”

All of the examples in this story are of public employers — fire departments, law enforcement agencies, etc. There is no mention of private businesses taking these sorts of drastic actions. Still, it raises some serious questions about the rights of employers versus those of employees. If an employer has the right to discipline an employee for actions taken (or not taken,) it follows that the employer enjoys a certain amount of control over that employee.

Should that control extend to what an employee does on Facebook or other social media? Does the answer change, depending on the type of employer and type of job? Does the answer change, depending on the nature of the employee’s action? Consider these hypotheticals:

• An employee of Joe’s Pizzeria clicks the “like” button on the Facebook page of Mike’s Pizza & Knee-Buckling Wings. Mike’s is one Joe’s major competitors.
• The employee of Joe’s leaves a comment on Mike’s Facebook page, saying, “Have you tried the new butterscotch-flavored wings at Mike’s? They may be the greatest invention since Bud Light.”
• The employee of Joe’s tweets, “Grabbing a pizza at Mike’s as soon as I get off work.”
• The employee of Joe’s leaves a one-star review of Joe’s on Yelp.

Should Joe’s Pizzeria have the right to discipline its employee for any or all of these actions? Conversely, what if Joe’s has a Facebook page and the employee refuses to “like” it? Should Joe’s be able to discipline its employee for that?

These are difficult questions that will only become more frequent. Employers have a right to expect a certain amount of loyalty from their employees, but does that right have an ending point? If so, where is that point?

We live in a time where employers have a great deal of power in the employment relationship. The U.S. economy has not yet recovered all of the jobs lost during the recession that began in late 2007. Private-sector unions have been in retreat for years. Anecdotes about abusive employment practices enjoy a large and sympathetic audience, which is why the media loves to run them. Rightly or wrongly, these stories plant the impression that those fortunate enough to have jobs have the deck stacked against them.

In this context, the issue of employer control over employees’ private actions is magnified. It might seem less important if the unemployment rate was four percent instead of eight (the key word there being seem.) No one had ever heard of social media in the late 1990′s, which was the last time the unemployment rate was that low. It’s a whole new world today.

I don’t pretend to know the answers to the questions I’ve just posed. As an employee myself, I have an emotional reaction to the stories cited in the story I quoted, but that doesn’t mean that employers don’t have a valid point. As a society, we are going to be having this conversation for a very long time — on blogs, in the courts, and in the halls of our legislatures. It is likely to be a messy one. Place your tray tables in the upright position and fasten your seatbelts, because there will be some turbulence.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Sound off in the comments section. Just please keep the discussion civil and polite. Much obliged.

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Hope you enjoy!

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