Unable to think of a decent argument, he nodded. When she rose, he snatched her hand and held it. “Thank you.”

“For?” she asked.

He thought about this for a moment. “Everything.”

She gave him a very small smile that warmed his heart, before pulling her hand from his and walking away. Laying back down, he decided to close his eyes and get just a little more rest. Sleep came quickly.

I typed these words Friday night / Saturday morning and was very happy.  I’ve finally completed the final battle scene from the Epic Fantasy I’ve been working on, which is, in itself, a complete rewrite.  Saturday was spent doing all the things I have to do like grocery shopping, cleaning litterboxes (and the rest of the house), but I did sneak in some writing time on what will either be the final chapter/wrap up or epilogue – haven’t decided which yet.  I am a fan of the epilogue, though I know not everyone is.  I do want to tie up some loose ends.

I’m still coming in at 174,000 words.  The inevitability of having to cut a lot away is looming over me.  Right now, I can’t see where those words will come from.  Hopefully, when I can back away from it for a bit, everything will fall into focus.

In general writing news, I’ve felt disconnected and adrift.  Even taking the laptop to work, which gives me some small opportunity to write during my lunch, hasn’t been a total success.  Yes, I’ve managed to get some words on the page, but – how to explain this…?  A friend of mine used to get annoyed with me because I was working 60+ hours a week at the time, and whenever she’d ask me how I was, I’d say, “Tired.”  She got tired of my saying I was tired.  Well, I’m tired again.  The new job includes long hours and loads of stress.  When I am home, more than ever before, I find it really hard to put butt in chair and do the work.

I keep waiting for the balance to come.

~P

Official Description: Welcome to Rekall, the company that can turn your dreams into real memories. For a factory worker named Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell), even though he’s got a beautiful wife (Kate Beckinsale) who he loves, the mind-trip sounds like the perfect vacation from his frustrating life – real memories of life as a super-spy might be just what he needs. But when the procedure goes horribly wrong, Quaid becomes a hunted man. Finding himself on the run from the police – controlled by Chancellor Cohaagen (Bryan Cranston), the leader of the free world – Quaid teams up with a rebel fighter (Jessica Biel) to find the head of the underground resistance (Bill Nighy) and stop Cohaagen. The line between fantasy and reality gets blurred and the fate of his world hangs in the balance as Quaid discovers his true identity, his true love, and his true fate.

Unofficial Description: I DVR’d this.  Oy.

Ok – some positives.  It looked great.  Special FX?  Really well done.  Other than that?  It never hooked me.  It felt light on substance, like a story half-told.  I think it suffered from reboot-itus in that it was trying to rehash the same plots but put a new spin on it.  The problems come from that spin.  Pull a thread loose and everything unravels.  They didn’t do enough build up, make us care about the characters before jumping into the mind-fuck aspects and the revolution.

~P

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Due to POPULAR DEMAND, May’s free eBook giveaway is now available for purchase via Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble! A lot of people downloaded Cahill’s Homecoming and then started telling other people, prompting them to head out to Amazon looking for it, so I had to scramble to get the book out there where folks could buy it.  I’ve uploaded it to Amazon and B&N and since it’s a novella, I’m selling it for $2.99.

Description:

After fifteen years in space, Cord Cahill is coming home. His parents passed long ago, his younger brother is off defending border worlds from the expanding Republic, and his sister, whom he left behind, is dead. How she died, he doesn’t know. But she left him a video message predicting her own death, and he wants to know what would drive her to do such a thing. His home has changed, but so has Cord, who now wears the gray cloak and hat of a Sentinel. They mark him for what he is; a gun for hire. But this isn’t about Cord, it’s about family, about Katie; how she lived, and ultimately, how she died.

Check it out at Amazon or Barnes and Noble, tell your friends, write a review.

~P

RANDOM THOUGHTS!

OMG!

/begin random thoughts

….have you ever seen someone who looks perfectly healthy park their car, which has a handicap icon on it somewhere (license plate/mirror), in the handicap spot and then walk into where ever it is without any issues whatsoever?  This always makes me pause.  I really want to go up to them and ask them what, exactly, their handicap is.  Would that be rude?  Wrong?  Maybe they have a spouse or dependent who legitimately deserves that spot…

* * *

Running through the grocery store shouting, “OH MY GOD THE GROUND BEEF ISN’T COW!  IT ISN’T COOOOWWWWWWW” would probably be a bad idea.

* * *

Fries or onion rings – CHOOSE NOW!

* * *

wooo-ooo that smell! Can’t you smell that smell?

* * *

I always find it curious when teenagers gain superpowers and an instant sense of duty and honor.  Specifically, boys.  I think girls could totally gain an instant sense of duty and honor, but boys… um… no…

Comic book teenage boy:

“You can turn yourself invisible?!”

“Yes, and I will use my power TO DEFEND THE WEAK AND INNOCENT!”

Real teenage boy:

“You can turn yourself invisible?!”

“Yes, and I will use my power to STEAL BEER AND SNEAK INTO THE GIRLS LOCKER ROOM!”

* * *

More rain?  Seriously, nature?  Seriously?

* * *

I had to walk out in the freezing rain to get the license plate number off my car to give to the security desk at work because, apparently, they want that now.  Yay…

* * *

So far, I have used my new BluRay player exclusively to watch shit streaming from Netflix…

* * *

Just when it got cold again, my furnace stopped heating things… d’oh…

* * *

Shadow the Cat is driving me crazy lately.  He is unhappy with my current job/schedule.

* * *

Nothing unreal exists.

/ert

~P

Well.  I finally did it.  I installed the update for Scrivener.  This brings me up to the 2.4.1 version and should fix some bugs – I’m just not certain that I was aware of the bugs.  Either way, I’ve done the update and I have to say, so far, so good.

Here’s the full list of what this update does / fixes:

Scrivener 2.4.1 Change List

Scrivener 2.4.1 is a bug-fix release that addresses some minor issues with 2.4. It should also help resolve the eSellerate registration and activation issues that some users have been experiencing.

Changes:

• Fixed bug whereby file references with spaces in the file path could not be opened from Scrivener’s references pane.
• Fixed bug whereby there could be a typing lag in scaled footnotes in the inspector.
• Improved buffer area around editor split-divider when double-clicking to make editors same width or height.
• Fixed bug whereby clicking the “Move…” toolbar items repeatedly and quickly could cause an exception to be thrown.
• Fixed bug whereby replacements didn’t work in e-book NCX titles.
• “Project Properties” is now the first pane in Meta-Data Settings.
• Fixed bug whereby Compile presets panel resizing would not resize the presets tab view.
• Moved “Show Titles in Scrivenings” to the Format > Options menu.
• Updated certain non-Retina toolbar items to match those used on Retina displays.
• Forward references are now supported in autonumbering, using e.g. <$n#keyword:tag> to refer to numbers generated using <$n:keyword:tag>.
• Fixed bug whereby exception could be thrown when typing in old script formats.
• Scrivener no longer throws up internal error alerts by default. The error alert feature was introduced in 2.4, but there are too many harmless errors that get thrown by plugins or OS X itself which can trigger an alert message. It can be turned back on via a new “Show internal error alerts” preference, but should only be turned on if you encounter strange problems in Scrivener.
• Fixed bug whereby footnote markers would not have a space after them in exported RTF files if the text was not left-aligned.

As I said, so far, so good.  I’ll let you know if anything comes up.

~P

Official Description: Senior Charley Brewster (Anton Yelchin) finally has it all. He’s running with the cool kids and dating the hottest girl in high school (Imogen Poots). But all hell breaks loose when charming Jerry Dandridge (Colin Farrell) moves in next door. Charley thinks there’s something odd about him, although no one – including his mom (Toni Collette) – seems to notice. But after too many of his classmates vanish under bizarre circumstances, Charley comes to an unmistakable conclusion: Jerry is a vampire preying on his neighborhood! Get set to sink your teeth into this thrilling, modern-day re-vamp of the wickedly entertaining horror classic. Featuring a star-studded cast and crawling with bonus, Fright Night will captivate you from the very first bite!

Unofficial Description: This movie lacked the…charm? of the original.  McLuvin was terrible.  You could tell that Collin Farrell was having some fun with his part, as was David Tennant, but it was a poor copy of a cult-favorite that I remember quite fondly.

The cameo from the guy who played the original vampire was amusing.

~P

I mentioned recently that I have some new tv/dvr equipment.  What I think I failed to mention is that the new equipment, unlike my old TiVo, doesn’t support Netflix – which sucks.  I have come to miss Netflix immensely, even with all the stuff I have the ability to record now.

For example, I’ve really wanted to watch the new Netflix shows like Hemlock Grove.  Also, The Killing, season 2.  So with that in mind, I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to get Netflix back on the big tv.

My first thought was to use my XBOX 360, but when I did a little research and discovered I would have to subscribe to XBOX Gold Live – that nixed it for me.  Why would I want to pay for two services?  That’s just stupid.  And I already hate XBOX Live/online bullshit, so I am not going to give Microsoft any money for it.

That left me with getting another device.  Choices included: a Roku player, Apple TV, or a new DVD or BluRay player.  I’ve been using my XBOX for DVD watching ever since my DVD player died last year (or the year before?).  I’ve resisted the impulse to get a BluRay player for years now.  First, because I had a DVD player that worked just fine, and later, since I had the XBOX.  Would having Netflix back be worth getting a BluRay?

Apparently, the answer is yes.

I checked my bank account, didn’t cringe (for a change), and made a trip to BestBuy.  My criteria?  I wanted the least expensive player I could get that also supported Netflix.  A very helpful gent (a plus for BestBuy, where they usually bug the shit out of me), walked me over and said, “This one or that one?”  I eyed the two players with a $10 difference between them and asked, “Which is better?”

“This one has a better processor, so it’ll be faster, more responsive.”

“Sold.”  It helped that it was a Sony, and I’ve had Sony players before and liked them.

I brought it home and did a little rewiring of tv stuff, which I’d been planning to do for a while.  A long while.  I’d bought new surge protectors that were sitting around collecting dust, so I pulled everything out, cleaned and dusted behind the tv shelf, rearranged some things and hooked up the new BluRay.  I hard wired it to the router, which I’ve also done with the DVR.  The process to getting Netflix up and running included a trip to a Sony website, but once that was done, it was smooth sailing.

I have to say that I prefer the TiVo interface for Netflix, but the BluRay player caches quickly, never seems to pixelate or freeze, and looks absolutely freaking crisp and clear – and I’ve got it set to HD, 1080p.

NETFLIX IS BACK, BABY!

~P

More accurately, I ran out of time…

…should that be ‘too lazy’…?

~P

I put out Witchcraft & Satyrs a little while ago, and folks are putting some very kind words up on Amazon.  Words like:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent read! April 14, 2013

By feya

Amazon Verified Purchase

I loved the storyline and was pulled in instantly with the characters. It left me wanting more of what was going to happen next. It would be so cool if it was a series of more books. Mr. Hester this was great please write more on this topic. Love the fantasy….makes you wonder….

5.0 out of 5 stars Stop reading this, just buy the book. April 21, 2013

By Terry

Amazon Verified Purchase

How good is this book? I got it for free, then i brought it when it was for sale. Get it before Patrick realises he’s selling his work short and raises the price accordingly.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Voice! April 22, 2013

By J. T. Evans

I’m constantly impressed by how Patrick can capture the feel of an environment by changing his writing voice to fit the setting. The characters are genuine enough that this could have been based on something that really happened to him. I’m just blown away by this story. The ending… well… I’m not giving it away, but you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how Patrick twists the world around the characters.

Thanks to everyone who put up reviews.  Now is your chance to get Witchcraft & Satyrs from either Amazon or Barnes & Noble – Just $0.99!!  And tell your friends!

~P

“Are you on a diet or something?”

This question came about because the group was reading a little scifi I’d written wherein the characters were (GASP!), eating.

One character had lunch (a turkey sandwich, light mayo).  Next, he had dinner with a friend:

Dinner turned out to be a Mexican Sushi place in one of the smaller domes attached by a small tube to the Military Dome. Carter had the guacamole tuna tataki, minus the cilantro, while the Master Chief ordered this thinly cut grilled rib eye and asparagus rolls with a chipotle-teriyaki glaze that the chef called, asugyu. This was followed by an entree of thinly sliced jalapeno rolled over grilled manchego cheese with tempura shrimp, chipotle sauce and avocado. Everything was better than anything he had eaten in recent weeks, and quickly devoured.

Another character woke to the scent of bacon cooking.  After, she had lunch with her aunt:

Gloria steered them into a little cafe.  They sat on the patio, ordering both water and drinks before taking in the menu.

“Soup, I think,” Belle told the waiter.  “The clam chowder.  Extra crackers.”

“Cheeseburger,” Gloria told the man.  “Mayo on the side, no onion.”

Lastly, there were some raw recruits chowing down in the mess hall:

The line moved quick enough and soon they were seated at a table with other members of their platoon.  Uly looked at the food with a critical eye.  Used as he was to fresh vegetables straight from the fields behind his house, the mushy mounds piled in the sections of the tray were less than appealing.  With a stomach grumbling, however, he didn’t see much choice in the matter.  He sniffed it before he ate it.  All he could smell was a hint of potatoes, and that came from the orange-ish stuff in the upper right hand corner of the tray.  He slid his fork into that pile and shoved it into his mouth, chewing mechanically.

These moments stood out to some, and I want to say it’s because of something I’ve talked about before; there’s no food in science fiction.  Or rather, very little.  A running joke about the Enterprise was that they never showed a toilet, but I always thought it was odd how fantasy books portray people eating quite often, whereas science fiction books tend to not.

So my brain wonders if these scenes stood out to the readers because they are unusual in scifi…

Hrm.

Thoughts about food in scifi?

~P