I recently wrote a blog post about unintended consequences. I talked about my resignation to the fact that once I complete a manuscript and send it out into the world, I lose all control over how the audience reacts to it. I write the words, but it is the reader who draws meaning from them, filtered through the screen of their own life experiences, varied and vast and completely beyond my control.
And because I have an artist’s ego, I naturally assume that this experience is unique to me, or at least, to my particular corner of the art world.
When you’re done laughing, take a breath and read on.
War is a tough thing to tell a story about. Like all extreme scenarios, it tends towards polarization. It’s either a glorious affair of flashing sabers and burnished medals a la Alexander Nevsky or it’s a meat grinder that chews up promising young men and turns them into shrieking red mist long before they can realize their potential (Platoon, All’s Quiet on the Western Front). Warfighters are either steel-eyed heroes (The Illiad) or adolescent killers (Generation Kill).
(Read 
A few months ago, I turned pro.
