Chris Shirk

New Pin Time! The Aos Si's Gift is available as an ebook, hardcover, and two paperback formats. shop.ingramspark.com/b/084?params=s… shop.ingramspark.com/b/084?params=k… shop.ingramspark.com/b/084?params=h… amazon.com/Aos-Sis-Gift-N… barnesandnoble.com/w/the-aos-sis-… booksamillion.com/p/Aos-Sis-Gift… kobo.com/us/en/ebook/th…

First step is always figuring out what they're after and making sure recommendations align with taste. If they like Agatha Cristie style detective stories, then HP Lovecraft or Robert Howard are pretty terrible recommendations. Are you looking for a recommendation, by the way? If so, Alone Together by S. S. Fitzgerald would probably be right up your alley. Alone Together is a great zombie thriller. I loved it, and I usually detest the zombie genre outside of videogames.

I've had people block me on here for this opinion (cough, cough: looking at you Brian) but it's not crazy. Do you constantly want people selling you something when you just want a recommendation or would you rather have an honest recommendation first? For example, if I am looking for a car, do I want the dealer selling me what he gets a commission for, or would I rather him tell me, "Hey man, these cars are the best for what you are looking for. You may also like this car but know that I get a higher commission for it."? Maybe we are in a world where transparency isn't as valued, but I would rather people be honest and not hound me to read their books. All the indie books I have read have been from other authors I have connected with. They may have promoted it, but they were all willing enough to promote other books first. That goes a long way for me, and I would think others agree.

@SDDonovan I maintain a website because it's fun.

I have my own domain that I keep active, but I don't have a website. It almost seems pointless with how social media is. I probably should make it but I am SO bad at that stuff that I wouldn't know how to even start. Do you maintain a website?

One does not accidentally do these things. It requires lots of investment capital, movement of people and tools, and so on. The best of them were just trying to make a quick buck while not caring if their neighbors starved. The rest of them, well...you can see what they have to say for themselves in various posts they make on this and other platforms.

Do you think that Mass Migration and Deindustrialization was an accident, or was it done on purpose to harm Americans?

@tod_1992 @MillerDakotaJ Gotcha. Thanks for indulging my curiosity.

I think club sports has a strong tendency to being less kid-focused. I have a bias, though, as a "school sports" coach who doesn't coach club. My take is that the motivation for money (due to the jobs it supports) begins to take first place. What I see is well-planned and run practices coupled with poor talent management and no attempts at leadership development. At my school, we struggle (as not full time coaches) to have the same level of practices, but we excel in talent and leadership development. Because that (not money) is why we're there.

A hard truth to swallow is that our world will never truly have this again.

@tod_1992 @MillerDakotaJ Out of curiosity, have you seen it becoming less kid-focused as a coach?

Yes. This is my belief too. The organization creates paid jobs (coaches, organizers, etc.) which leads to higher dues. Then they need to grow and recruit more/new kids, using the "your kid could be great if he played against more competitive kids." Then they need to go places 6 or 12 hours away to play even more competitive teams. Little League is still hanging in there, but my last year coaching there I started to notice kids dropping out because of the time constraints from their "club baseball". Sad.

I wonder if the organization hasn't been part of the problem. When I was a kid, we played things like street hockey, soccer, volleyball, and football because we wanted to, not because we were trying to get on teams. The sports that didn't have a little league equivalent were the popular ones. We didn't bother with baseball, even in the 90s. Baseball was little league and smacked of overenthusuastic parents insisting on driving someone to practice for some reason. If a kid got interested in baseball, that was basically the end of their social freedom. Their parents scooped them up, signed them up for little league, and they had about half the year taken up. Ugh. No thanks. We'd rather see who can make the grossest farting noises.

@MillerDakotaJ Unless we get hit by a massive electromagnetic pulse from space. Now you can't get kids to play sports unless it is organized (school or club). At least that's what I'm seeing.

Correct. This is something that a lot of people get wrong by wanting a return to nostalgic notions of the 80s or 90s entertainment status quo. You're not going back there. You have to press ahead to something new. Unfortunately, this means that there is some need to step past entertainment alone. We're hitting a point where we have to have something cultural to say. No, you don't have to be political. Nor do you have to critique modernity and modern culture. Modern politics is too high-turnover to maintain longterm cultural relevance, and critiquing modernity is, at this point, just kicking a dead horse. You do, however, need have a system of values which, despite their flaws, your characters at least attempt to hold to. Tolkien and Howard remained relevant to fantasy for so long because both had cultural input in their work: Tolkien's idealized pastoral life in the Shire and Howard's veneration of the barbarian's strength and bluntness being two examples. Even Lovecraft's idea of horrors being beyond comprehension said something about his views of man's relationship with a vast and terrifying cosmos. I guess what I'm trying to say is that instead of lionizing the (often commercialized) entertainment of the past, we need to look to the future. We need to be planting the trees whose shade we won't live to enjoy. We need to learn from the entertainment of the past, but we can't treat it like some kind of copypasta formula. We have to decide what values we want to pass on while still being fun and entertaining.

@Noodles_Now @ReviewsPossum "all black apron and darker eyes" The way I interpreted that sounds more like cosmic horror.

The rain hammered the sidewalk like a cheap espresso machine on its last legs, spitting steam and regret into the night. I pushed open the door to The Bitter Bean and the little bell above it jingled like a hooker’s laugh. Inside, the air was thick with burnt coffee, desperation, and something sweeter—whipped cream and bad decisions. She was behind the counter, all black apron and darker eyes, sleeves rolled up to show forearms that could probably bench-press a sack of Ethiopian Yirgacheffe. A name tag said “Velvet.” I didn’t believe it for a second. Girls named Velvet in coffee shops after midnight are never just selling drinks. She looked at me the way a cop looks at a suspect who’s already confessed. “What’ll it be, stranger?” I leaned on the counter, close enough to smell vanilla and sin. “Something hot. Something dirty. And make it hurt a little.” Velvet smiled like she’d been waiting for that order all night. Then she reached for the whipped cream canister, and I knew the night was about to get a whole lot stickier than the floor mats.

"Write what you know" is bad advice when given to an aspiring writer who only knows coffee shops and porn.

I just realized I forgot to take out about $60k in capital gains, which was 15% last I checked. But that just goes to $364,529.77. Median in Oak Ridge is $325k and Crossville is like $315k. That's just a couple of examples. I don't think the writers really thought it through. A golden apple is way heavier than a normal one. It'd weigh in around 3.6 kg. That is a LOT of money right there.

@ChrisShirkWrtr Love this!

Eve is more than willing to kill her unborn child than create gold to buy a home.

Serious question: If kids can graduate without leaning to read complete books and recall at least something about them, then why do we have schools? Why do we continue funding them except as glorified daycare centers? When I was in school, we had to read complete books. We read and performed plays, recited poetry, and even learned to write our own poems and short stories. Seriously, what are we doing? We're failing children on a national and industrialized scale. It needs to stop.

I honestly had to read that twice. It's not that I don't believe you (I have no reason not to), it's that it seems so bizarre. I can name several books I read in school, along with ones I want to reread as an adult. We did readings of Shakespeare, had to do poetry recitations, and read books both in class and independently. Why does a school even exist if they're not doing things like that?

At the beginning of every semester, I ask my Comp I students what they read in HS. More often than not, the answer is “nothing.” Wait, you say. They have to have read SOMETHING. I’m sure it’s not true that they’ve read *literally nothing*, and I always press them about that answer. Much of the time, they can’t name a single thing that they read. No stories. No poems. No articles. Certainly no books. And if you ever heard some of them read out loud in my classes, you’d understand why I take them at their word when they answer “nothing.”

Oh, look, a political candidate out preaching heresy and antichrist doctrine. Christ explicitly stated: "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except by me." Teaching otherwise is a dangerous heresy which leads people away from God and keeps them trapped in their pagan practices. Furthermore, the statement that Jesus was a son of God but not THE Son of God is not only heresy, but one which denies the divinity of Christ and the foundation of the Holy Trinity. That steps past mere heresy and into the realm of antichrist doctrine.

@UnderCoercion He's out there not just spouting heresy but making statements that are an affront to Christian doctrine.

Vivek: Jesus is A son of god but Jesus is not THE son of god. Jesus is A way to heaven but not THE way to heaven.

It's a heresy sandwich with a sprinkling of antichrist doctrine. "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except by me." I cannot imagine a more clear statement than that which comes from Christ Himself. Jesus isn't just a way to Heaven, He is the ONLY way to Heaven, in His own words. Any statement to the contrary is heresy. Furthermore, the statement that he was a son of God but not THE Son of God is pure, unadulterated heresy that openly opposes the divinity of Christ and undermines the Holy Trinity. It is a profound affront to Christian teaching that should not be tolerated. Anyone who says this is openly preaching a doctrine of antichrist.

After a year of having my country and history explained to us by foreigners it was only a matter of time before we would then have the delightful experience of having a Hindu explain our Religion to us. For those keeping track- Your country, your job, and your savior are not yours.

@The_JBS We've become entangled in a web of foreign alliances, both formal and informal. It's time to leave all of them. The United States should never act as either a crutch or cat's paw for foreign governments.

Do you support leaving NATO?

As a reader, I don't care about adverbs. I care about story and flow. That's it. It's okay for a character to move swiftly, parry deftly, or walk quickly. So, I will continue to use appropriate adverbs in my writing when I want to emphasize something, like when a character is moving with a sense of urgency over a leisurly stroll.

I don't have a problem, ok? I can quit whenever I want! Also if not Prose then why Prose shaped?

@MillerDakotaJ I appreciate it.

@ChrisShirkWrtr Sending over good vibes!

If you’re a grown man and you can’t bench 225lbs then the only thing I have to say is: If you want it and keep working at it. You’ll get there! Congrats on focusing on your self growth and getting out of your comfort zone!

@MillerDakotaJ Yeah, my stupid was a little different. I didn't immediately think, "yeah, but you can still do upper body work," when I hurt my foot. Took too much time off before that occurred to me. Next couple weeks are going to be rough getting back into squats, cleans, and deadlifts.

@ChrisShirkWrtr I’m right there with you! I got 305lbs in December. Tried to start my routine again with minimum rest and shocked my nervous system. Took some time off to rest and now work is so crazy I don’t have time to train. So close to 315lbs I could taste it!

@MillerDakotaJ There's definitely a place for it. Sometimes you need to grease the gears and while you rest. Oh, and kicking hardwood is a dumb thing to do.

@ChrisShirkWrtr 💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻 Light weight, baby!!!