Do aliens like coffee? Of course they do. It’s the most awesome hot beverage in the galaxy, after all. And we believe extra-terrestrials are visiting Earth to trade for it, and we can prove it. We even have pictures! All those UFO sightings are really aliens coming here to shop for coffee.
Galactic Smugglers series, Book 1
As I’ve written previously, UFO’s are just aliens looking for coffee. Consider the following syllogism based on known facts:
Premise one: Coffee is the most awesome beverage in the galaxy.
Premise two: All intelligent beings love coffee.
Inescapable conclusion: Therefore aliens love coffee.
Premise one and two are simple facts that all rational people will freely admit. Considering these facts together, the chain of logic is irrefutable and therefore the conclusion we arrive at is unavoidable. UFOs must be aliens looking for coffee. It’s only logical!
Fact!! Aliens like coffee!
I challenge anyone to refute the soundness of this logic. We all know coffee is the most popular drink in the world, for good reason. It’s awesome. All smart people know this, and any alien capable of traversing inter-stellar space to get here must also be highly intelligent. They know how to build spaceships, after all. Therefore, they must be here for the coffee.
Here’s more photographic evidence:
When aliens come for coffee, they bring the entire family
They come in peace
The good news is we can be pretty confident that their intentions are peaceful. How can we be so sure? Well, it’s simple. To put it in a nutshell, buying a cup of coffee is going to be much cheaper than an inter-stellar war.
Think about it: An inter-planetary war is going to be pretty expensive. It cost the western alliance 4 trillion dollars just to invade Iraq, a small country on our own planet just a few thousand miles away. If it costs that much just to invade a country a short distance away, think how much an inter-planetary war would cost!
Buying coffee is cheaper than inter-planetary invasions
It would be much cheaper to just buy the coffee from us. If I can do the math, I’m pretty sure an intelligent visitor from space can also do the math. They’re not stupid. Also, they wouldn’t want to risk ruining the Earth’s climate, which is perfect for growing coffee. Inter-planetary war is sure to wreak havoc on the environment, to say the least, which would put the world’s coffee harvest at risk. No intelligent being would take that chance.
So we can all relax, order another latte and get back to solving our Wordle puzzle for the day. The aliens aren’t here to start a war. They will be down at the local shopping centre disguised as humans buying coffee.
I’ll keep this short and to the point: As of today, I’ve removed all my books from Amazon. There’s a massive grassroots boycott of America, and in particular Amazon, Walmart and Tesla spreading through Canada, Europe and even America, and I’ve joined it.
The reasons are pretty straightforward, really. I won’t bother listing everything that’s wrong with Trump, Bezos and the Republicans – that would be an exceptionally long and tedious list. Besides, most of you will no doubt be as familiar as I am with Trump’s daily stupidities, so why repeat it here.
So I’ll just hit a few high points, especially as they relate to Canada and our friends:
Donald Trump continues to insult Canada, with jokes about being the 51st state. We don’t think it’s funny and have no interest in joining that seriously messed up country ruled by a clown.
Trump has stopped all aid to Ukraine, a friendly democracy fighting for it’s life against an evil, blood-thirsty dictator. Then he accused Ukraine of starting the war and refused to say that Russia invaded them. He’s clearly siding with Russia.
He has threatened a NATO ally Denmark (Greenland) and Panama with military action to get what he wants.
He has launched an unwarranted trade-war with my country in an attempt to bully us into submitting to his demands for annexation. That’s never going to happen and Canadians don’t like bullies.
Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon, continues to support Trump. Bezos and his tech bros have clearly shown that they are more interested in kissing up to an authoritarian in order to get richer, than they are in the welfare of their own country and its people.
I’ve been an author for thirty years and first self-published “Aliens, Spaceships and the Occasional Latte” on Amazon in 2014. Since then I’ve published 9 titles on Amazon in both print and digital formats. In the spirit of #BoycottAmazon I’ve removed all my books from that platform.
Along with thousands of other Canadians, I’ve also cancelled my subscription to Amazon Prime and stopped all purchasing from that platform, as well as all ‘made in America’ products.
Jeff Bezos’ support for Trump is cowardly and unjustifiable. Hopefully America will regain it’s senses soon, before it’s too late. Until then, no more Amazon.
Here is a great article about Amazon, why Jeff Bezos deserves to be boycotted, and a list of his companies. At the end of this article are also lists of Zuckerberg’s and Musk’s companies and why they should be boycotted:
Sorry, I can’t stay neutral any more. I can’t just write fun fan fiction about coffee loving aliens and remain silent about what’s happening. Because what’s going on is so extreme, so mind-boggling awful, that neutrality and lukewarmness is betrayal and cowardice.
This is not the time to be neutral or lukewarm.
Trump is threatening my country Canada, and attack other friendly allies like Denmark and Panama. And he’s attacking our NATO friends while cozying up to Russia who’s naked aggression against Ukraine is utterly disgusting and inhumane.
Many Germans in the 1930’s weren’t necessarily fanatical Nazi’s, they were just lukewarm and opted for a ‘neutral’ position on the political events of the day. They didn’t want to “get involved”, and thought they’d stay safe if they didn’t stick their necks out.
When dealing with fascists, that strategy doesn’t work, and it didn’t end so well for many of them …
From time to time I come across someone in my circle of friends, family, neighbours or church folk who are still sitting on the fence, or just otherwise lukewarm when it comes to politics, who haven’t yet grasped the gravity of the moment we are in.
So in this blog I’m offering a list of people who are doing a fantastic job of keeping us updated on the news of the day with informative and helpful insights on the day’s events. If you’re not sure what to make of today’s craziness, the best thing you can do is get informed.
I offer this list of recommendations to give those still on the fence, or who aren’t sure, a gentle nudge in the right direction. I’ve found these contributors to be extremely knowledgeable, informative, and well researched. They offer solid, useful information on today’s news and events, backed up with facts.
In the future I will be making updates to this list on substack here, rather than maintain this same list in two different places.
Ground News: https://ground.news/ Based in Ontario Canada. Very balanced look at all the news around the world, reporting on what different news sources are saying about the same story to get a balanced looked between right, left, centre, liberal, conservative, etc.
MeidasTouch on BlueSky and YouTube is extremely good. Informative, fact-based coverage of the news, and they bring the receipts.
The days are short and the nights long and dark this time of year up here in the Great Canadian North. And to compound the dreariness, the news has turned into a daily horror show that just keeps getting worse and worse.
There are times when I feel a knot in my stomach after spending a few minutes perusing the news, and it’s very hard not to fall into depression. It can be a real struggle to keep one’s mood upbeat, and I know I’m not alone in this. Millions of thoughtful people are deeply worried with the insanity being unleashed on the world by the Orange Fascist in America, and his oligarch buddies.
So to help lift our moods, in today’s blog I thought I’d share some fun facts and happy thoughts related to the world’s most awesome beverage.
I’m talking about coffee, of course!
Today’s Happy Thought
We’ve always known that coffee drinkers are generally much more interesting and intelligent people, especially when compared to tea drinkers. I think we can all agree that’s just a simple fact.
Today’s good mood brought to you by coffee
But there’s more! The really great news is that coffee drinkers also live longer!
It’s true. There is now scientific evidence that drinking coffee improves your chances for a longer life than the non-coffee drinking crowd. According to researchers at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute, drinking 2-3 cups of coffee a day lowers the risk of cardiovascular disease and early death.
According to Peter Kistler, head researcher at the Institute, “moderate intake of ground, instant and caffeinated coffee should be considered part of a healthy lifestyle…”
The novel that George Orwell wrote, 1984, gave rise to now familiar terms like ‘thoughtcrime’, ‘big brother’ and ‘Orwellian’. In his novel government agencies are hard at work to cleanse society of wrong thinking, and has defined what ‘correct’ thinking is. Saying (or writing) the wrong thing gets you arrested for “thoughtcrime”. People arrested for thoughtcrime get disappeared into a gulag of prison camps.
Intellectual courage in the face of official censorship.
~
It was supposed to be fiction
I’ve always been interested in Orwellian themes of individual courage in the face of oppressive autocracy. When I first started working on Heretic a few years ago, I had in mind autocratic regimes in distant, far off countries such as Russia, China and North Korea – and increasingly countries like Hungary and Belarus – in which freedom of thought and expression is actively repressed. People who don’t tow the party line are arrested – especially in Russia where it’s a criminal offense to question the war against Ukraine.
It was supposed to be fiction. I didn’t think I’d see it coming to America. But watching the insanity now sweeping the US, it’s only a matter of time before Trump and Elon go after the free press and start shutting down dissenters.
What’s happening in the US is fascism 101, right out of Hitler and Mussolini’s playbook.
It will soon be a thoughtcrime to question Trumpism
Heretic follows the story of Jack, who is raised by his mother to be a loyal citizen of the New Order. The Order has strictly defined what is acceptable to believe and think, and has banned all books and social media platforms that it does not approve of. Dissenters are arrested as intellectual terrorists.
Jack’s father was a famous scientist who went missing shortly after being branded a criminal for intellectual dissent. Later, his father is presumed dead in a suspicious car crash.
But Jack’s life is turned upside down when he finds evidence that his father is still alive – and on the run from the Tolerance Bureau, the federal police force assigned to track down dissenters. Jack risks everything to look for his father, and soon finds himself in a deadly race against shadowy agents of the New Order who also want to find the missing scientist.
Heretic is about intellectual courage in the face of fascist censorship. It’s a future that is starting to look all too plausible now.
The third in my Galactic Smuggler’s series, “A Spaceship for Hire” is now published and available in Ebook on all major Ebook sellers.
Book 3 in my Galactic Smuggler’s series
Book #3 picks up where “Coffee to Go, With a Spaceship” leaves off, continuing the story of Jack and Donna and their nice alien friends.
Exiled from Earth and unable to return home, Jack makes a living running a small cafe on a distant planet at the edge of the galaxy. But when marauding space pirates start raiding galactic trade routes, Jack and his alien friends find themselves cut-off from the rest of the galaxy.
It looks like Jack is soon to be out of business and out of money, and with war spreading he’s unable to go for help.
Help eventually comes from a very unlikely person: Donna, his ex-girlfriend. She’s learned how to fly an old alien spaceship that’s been abandoned in the woods behind her farm, and agrees to help Jack and his friends out.
Jack really, really, doesn’t want to go back into space, but he’s got no choice. Jack, Donna and a band of alien friends leave in Donna’s spaceship to go for help.
Along the way, the unlikely couple discover that they still have feelings for each other. But before they can start living their happily-ever-after, they first have to fight off space pirates, stop an inter-galactic war from spreading, and try to find their way back to Earth for another load of coffee.
This is a ride you don’t want to miss!
I think you’ll really enjoy “A Spaceship for Hire”. I’m really excited about it, and I think you’ll find that it’s a fun read.
Today I’d like to share some exciting news for my fans … the long-awaited 3rd book in my popular Galactic Smugglers series is on track to hit its planned release date June 28.
I’ve been writing like mad for a couple of months now, and recently finished a good clean final draft. The manuscript is currently being edited and reviewed by my editorial staff (full disclosure – as a indie author I don’t have staff, strictly speaking, but I do have lots of friends and a very patient wife). I really do work hard at publishing my books without typos and other errors, and I’ve paid for professional editing for ALL my books in the past. It really does pay off.
But I digress. The point is that I’m well ahead of schedule and right now it looks like I’ll be able to release “A Spaceship for Hire” early. Which is only fair because it’s been too long since the last book came out.
Way too long.
I first published “Coffee to Go, With a Spaceship” back in December of 2017, a little over six years ago. Kind of embarrassing, and I’ve had a lot of fans asking when the third installment was coming out because the end of the second book left things hanging – especially with regards to Jack and Donna’s relationship.
Some fans even noted that the book ends on a sad note because of that. Well, personally I hate sad and depressing endings. We’ve got the daily news for that, so when it comes to fiction – especially the mindless fluff I prefer to write – I’m a HUGE fan of happy endings.
The goal of my novels is to entertain. That’s it. I think writing light-hearted, mindless fluff is a high calling, because there are times when people need that. So all of my books end on an upbeat note and happy ending for the good guys eventually. If you don’t like that, or feel that’s too Pollyanna, feel free to read someone else to leave you sad and depressed. There are plenty of pretentious authors who feel they are being ‘serious’ and more ‘realistic’ by being depressing. Or better yet, don’t waste your money on those guys at all and just turn on the news or read CNN for free.
Anyway, the second book did leave things hanging on a sad note for our two heroes, as I’ve mentioned, and I feel bad that’s it’s taken so long to write the next in the series. But I’m in good company: it took Harper Lee, the author of the world famous novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird”, forty-five years to come out with a follow-up. So maybe I don’t need to feel all that bad.
Why has it taken so long? My list of excuses:
So why’d it take six years? many of my fans have been asking. What follows is my numbered list of excuses, in no particular order:
I’ve been busy. Up until recently I was still working full-time, holding down a ‘day-job’ that almost all creative people who have to support themselves dread. So I’ve only been able to write part-time.
I’ve got kids and grandkids. Lots of them. Six kids and eight grandkids – far too many in my opinion, but my wife wouldn’t let me send any of them back, so I’m stuck with all of them.
I got sidetracked. Between 2017 and now, I was busy with a few other writing projects that took most of my free time, like The Heretic and The Tolerance Bureau.
I was indecisive. Very indecisive, to be honest. I’ve been working on outlines and story ideas for the third book for much of the last six years – I promise. I’m not lying, I really was. I wrote and re-wrote about twenty different outlines for this book, throwing them all out eventually. I couldn’t come up with a story line for this book that I was happy with until recently, and I never start writing a book without a good outline that I feel really happy with.
That’s it. These are all my excuses to date, but as I think of more I’ll add to the list.
I think you’ll be really happy with “A Spaceship for Hire”. I’m really excited about it; it’s a fun read. It’s available for pre-order now at a special price of 99 cents. I strongly encourage you to go ahead and reserve your copy today, because the price will go up to somewhere between 3.99 and 5.99 when it’s released. I do have to make some money on this, after all.
When the book is released, it will be automatically downloaded to your device if you’ve pre-ordered.
During the dark winter months when the nights are long and we hardly ever see the sun, when we’re stuck inside for days at a time, it’s important to find ways to keep our spirits up. Writing and blogging helps me stay sane during the long winter.
I also like making humour memes for fun. At least, I try to be humorous, but that’s for you to decide. Here is a selection of some graphics I’ve made up over the last few years, usually when I’m up early in the morning with my first coffee and don’t feel like doing any serious work yet.
I made these memes using images I purchased or found for free on the internet. This first one is one of my favorites. I found this image of the coffee cup beaming up a coffee bean on Depositphotos, and I think it beautifully captures what my ‘aliens and coffee’ novels are all about, so I bought it and used Canva to add my own words to it.
A day without coffee is terrifying to contemplate…
Not much can happen in the morning until after I’ve had a cup or two. I made this when I found the image of the screaming woman, and thought, “Yup, that’s what it would feel like if I was forced to go a day without my favorite beverage.”
Save the Earth!
The earth is worth saving for many reasons, but, let’s face it, it’s the only planet we know of with coffee, and that makes it pretty special.
Why do they only abduct crazy people?
I got the idea for this next meme while browsing a general store in a small town in northern Ontario. I think it succinctly captures why I’m highly suspicious of so-called alien visitor stories. It seems we only hear such stories from people who are nutcases. Why don’t the aliens ever visit high-ranking political and social leaders and real scientists? NASA astronauts even? Serious people with real credibility that if they were to say, ‘Hey, an alien just visited me and gave me a plan for world peace’, we’d be inclined to listen. Instead, aliens seem to only be interested in sharing their solutions for our world problems with unbalanced fruitcakes no one could possibly take seriously. Not very smart of the aliens. If these stories really are true, than it can only mean the aliens are really pretty stupid.
This about sums it up…
…When you get up in the morning and find there’s no coffee in the house…
A silent cry for help…
This next one is not very original. I’ve seen the meme on signs in a few different shops. But I like it and made my own sign.
While on vacation in Owen Sound last week I wandered into Birgit’s Bakery & Café in search of coffee, and this looked like the kind of cute, funky little café that might know how to brew a good cup.
I wasn’t disappointed.
A coffee roaster with a sense of whimsy and humour
I found their coffee absolutely lovely, smooth and fruity. I asked the barista behind the counter who her roaster was, and that’s when the day’s coffee adventure got even better. She pointed to some shelves along the wall lined with bags of whole bean coffee. “That’s them,” she said. “The Believer Coffee Company.”
When I went over to look and saw the picture on their bags, for me it was love at first sight. I just had to buy a bag and take it home.
The logo, as you can see from the photo above, features a UFO beaming it’s light down on a Sasquatch. In their own words, “at Believer Coffee we believe in the possibility of bigfoot & aliens, but most of all we believe in fresh roasted coffee for our consumer.”
They were singing from the same hymn book and I couldn’t resist
How could I resist, considering what I do – write sci-fi about coffee loving aliens? So I bought a bag of their medium/dark Ethiopian and took it home. I found it full of flavour, smooth and fruity with a hint of blueberry.
Now here is a coffee roaster that gets it! And they clearly have a sense of humour as well. You can order from them online and have your bag of coffee delivered right to your door.
Next, in addition to great coffee from a company that ‘believes’ in aliens, you may also want to check out Aliens, Spaceships and the Occasional Latte, – a sci-fi adventure in space with coffee smuggling aliens.
I’ve often been surprised at the number of wanna-be writers attending writers groups who’ve never completed a book. They’re still “working on it”, but it remains unfinished – sometimes for years.
So in today’s post I’d like to offer some well-needed advice for those aspiring writers who haven’t finished a book yet. Maybe you’ve started a manuscript but can’t seem to finish it, or you haven’t started yet and are still thinking about it.
I think I can help with that, because I’ve finished 8 full-length books since I got serious about writing in 2007 (7 full-length novels and one work of non-fiction over 400 pages) – while working full-time and raising a family.
Who am I to offer advice? What cheek!
Why listen to me? Who’s MJ Wahl and why should you take any advice from me? I’m not exactly a household name and I haven’t got rich (yet) from writing. I’m not independently wealthy, and I don’t have a spouse who is supporting me while I chase my dreams. I’m just a regular guy with a full-time job, lots of kids and grandkids – who loves to write.
And that’s precisely why you should listen to what I have to say, because like you I’m not a full-time writer with the luxury of having all day to think and write, and I work to pay the bills. Like you, I’m a regular person with a job and a life – but unlike you, I’ve also managed to finish eight (8) full-length books to date. I haven’t published all of them. Two of the novels I finished were crap and not good enough to inflict on an unsuspecting public – but the point is I finished them to the best of my ability.
This post will be about how to get that book written. How to write well is an entirely different topic, and will have to wait for a future blog. For now, let’s just focus on getting it done. Then we’ll worry about the polishing. So let’s get going…
Make time each day
This first point is, I think, the most important and the reason why I’m leading with it.
The big thing here is don’t wait for some special dispensation of time. You might get lucky and be able to get a book started with some special chunk of time, but you’ll never get a book finished that way. I’ve come across lots of people who say they want to write, but are waiting until they can take a month off to sit alone in a cabin in the woods to write it (yes, I actually had someone tell me that), or some other special magical dispensation of time. It seldom happens and you’ll never be a writer that way.
To be successful at writing, you need to figure out how to write a little bit each day in the midst of your regular life. Stop looking for big chunks of special time, and carve out a little bit EVERY DAY. If you get nothing else out of this blog, this is the one thing you need to remember – this is the single best most important piece of advice you’ll ever get from me or any other writer’s advice book.
Don’t wait for those special chunks of time
The most important point is to set aside a bit of time each day, even if it is only 30 minutes. The key is to keep up a regular rhythm and pace. Make time each day that impacts the people in your life the least – that way it will be easier to maintain and you’ll get fewer complaints from your significant other.
Maybe stay up late after the kids have gone to bed, or get up early before the busy-ness of the day starts. I’m a morning person, so for me getting up at 4:30 or 5 AM worked well. I’d get in a couple hours of writing before getting ready for work and my wife’s alarm went off. Often my wife didn’t even know I had a writing project on the go.
Keep up a daily pace, keep a momentum going, and avoid long gaps of time between writing sessions. Don’t wait until you ‘feel like it.’ Approach it like a part-time job – a job you have to do whether you feel like it or not.
Stop talking about it
I’ve run across lots of people who talk about that book they want to write. They can do a lot of talking, but not so much writing. These people fill writer’s conferences and clubs. Usually the people who talk the most aren’t doing it. I think sometimes such people are perfectionists. And perfectionists often won’t get around to do something because they’re afraid it won’t be perfect. So they are endlessly seeking advice and researching.
Don’t be one of those people. Stop telling your relatives about that book you’re going to write, and start writing.
Stop looking for – or needing – encouragement
If you are a real writer, you’re going to write regardless of what anyone says. If your spouse or partner or best friend is constantly having to shore up your confidence and encourage you to write, then maybe you’re not really a writer and should look at doing something else. Writing is a very solitary and often lonely enterprise. You’ll write if you want to – real writers have to write. Success and recognition, while nice, are secondary.
Re-writing and editing separates real writers from wanna-be’s
Your first completed draft will probably suck. Don’t worry about it. The important thing is that you finished it. Finishing a full-length book, even if it’s not perfect, does something for you. It re-wires your DNA and gives you a confidence you didn’t have before, because now you know you can really do it.
Now the fun really starts! Go through your MS again and start re-writing. Then re-write the re-writes until it makes you sick and you can’t take it anymore.
It’s the re-writing that separates the serious writer from the wanna-be. It’s the re-writing that turns you into a real writer. I’ve gone over and edited/re-wrote all of my books at least 10 times (seriously – I’m not exaggerating), some of them more, before publishing. Sometimes I’ve gone over a manuscript so many times I feel like I’m going to throw-up if I have to look at it one more time.
Once you’ve gone over it a number of times and it’s as good as you can make it, then find a professional editor to proof read it. Don’t even think about publishing until you’ve done this.
What I didn’t do…
I’ve talked about what I did that was right, but there were a few things I didn’t do that I think was also right and contributed to my success:
I didn’t read ‘how-to’ books on writing. They can be a waste of time and won’t make much sense until after you’ve finished a book. You need to make the mistakes first before ‘self-help’ books can help you fix them. Finish your book first, then go back and fix it.
I didn’t go to writers groups or conferences. I never attended a conference until after I finished my first book, and I think I got more out of it because I actually had a full-length finished book under my belt. Writer’s conferences are filled with wanna-be’s who haven’t written a book yet. You don’t want to be like that.
I didn’t talk about it. I told almost no one that I was working on a novel. My wife was barely aware and I seldom said anything about it. I was just concerned with doing, not talking.
Wrapping it up – in a nutshell it comes to this…
I wrote every day for years, and finished 8 full-length books, while I had a job, a wife and three kids. I didn’t seek advice and I didn’t waste time running around to writer’s conferences or sitting in the local writer’s club. I just got up really early every morning and kept plugging away. If early mornings aren’t your thing, than stay up late. You might have to turn the TV off at night, but whatever, the thing is to plug at it each day.
The big thing is – find a regular time each day, and keep at it until it’s finished. Don’t stop to edit or re-write until you’ve finished it. Then go back and do the edits/re-writes.
Oh, and stop listening to motivational speakers until after you’ve finished a completed, full length book.
And stop reading ‘how-to’ books on writing. They won’t make much sense until you finish a book. Instead, just write, and keep writing until you’re done. Then go out and buy a book on how to write better.
One of the best is “Self Editing for Fiction Writers”, by Browne and King. Available on Amazon. This is an excellent book that will help you improve your writing, but you actually have to write something first before this will help much. So in my humble opinion, you will be better off ignoring such ‘self-help’ books until after you’ve finished a full novel and gone back over it a few times. That’s it in a nutshell. It worked for me – like I say, I’ve finished a bunch of novels while holding down a ‘day job’.
If you have any questions, feel free to drop me a line using my contact page.
