Craig Johnson Book Tour.
Last night I joined about 150 people at the Viridian Events Center (8030 South 1825 West, West Jordan, Utah) to listen to Craig Johnson, who authored the "Walt Longmire Mysteries". His work is the inspiration for the popular "Longmire" series on the A&E network.

I've watched the television series and enjoyed it immensely. I have not read the books, a situation in which I intend to correct, soon. He had a video introduction which was well done, but I thought ran a bit long. Nevertheless, his talk was very entertaining and earthy. I think most folks in attendance enjoyed him, but there were a few who seemed a bit taken aback by an off-color joke and the word "horseshit."

The joke was attributed to the star of the TV series who is from Australia. I won't retell it here, but it had to do with New Zealanders and sheep. I heard later from a lady in attendance that she would not be buying any of his books, largely because of his foul mouth. She would, however, continue watching the TV series which does not include profanity, but does include rape, murder, child abuse, etc.

Everyone has their standards. I respect those standards as long as they are not imposed on others. It seems a shame to me when good writing is ignored because of an impression of the author as profane. I try to adhere to the social norm, but sometimes I fail. For that, I apologize.

The world is filled with profanity. Not all of it is easily recognized as irreverent, disrespectful, or insulting. I have worked and lived in environments where profanity of the first order has dominated conversations. You learn to recognize it as a means to vent frustration, communicate humor, sadness, joy and most any other emotion you can list. It has a gut-level beauty of it's own. All you have to do is listen.

We often hear from intelligentsia how immature and uneducated such language is. In my opinion, that is nonsense--or, I could say, "horseshit." Every level of society experiences some measure of profanity. Leaders of all types have used it--or not. Followers use it, fence-sitters use it, but it's the values of those people that matter.

It seems most people who are offended by profanity tend to overlook the values of the speaker and condemn him/her as illiterate or a fool. Vice President Biden notwithstanding, such judgments are themselves foolish.

This past week began with snarling and grousing about the continuing saga of writing, or rather, revising my book. "The Singing Stones of Rendor" plot line is completed, but my editor has said a few of my characters need some added punch. So I punched them.

They aren't happy, but I am. I feel better now. I even created a new character to get my main character in trouble. The scene was inspired by two books from Mary Stewart's Authurian Saga, "The Crystal Cave," and "The Hollow Hills." (I highly recommend these two books, as well as the other books in the series.)

My problem now is to complete the revision. I'm only on chapter six of 30 chapters. So, how hard can this be? Well, they're putting up a lot of resistance. We've literally gotten down in the dirt and fought over some of these new scenes. I'm winning, so far. I have a conniving mind, but they have youth on their side. We'll see who wins later.

I called a time out to attend an Oquirrh Writers function tonight. Tristi Pinkston presented information about blogging. That's a subject I've resisted for some time, but I was surrounded by a bunch of alluring women who persuaded me to get started. (I was the only testosterone laden person in a room of 15 females. It was overwhelming.) Tristi is one fun and funny lady. She was the Master of Ceremonies at the LDStorymakers Conference this year. It just so happens I also attended her lecture about blogging. She convinced me I needed a blog then, but I still had a lot of internal resistance. Today I finally succumbed.

Another task assumed this week has been to do some brainstorming and critiquing on a book in Diann Thornley Read's new military SciFi series. (I'll not spoil it by revealing titles here. Visit her blog or website for the announcement.) The first book is expected to be released by Tor Books in February 2014. I've stolen my Kindle Fire back from my wife to download and read her "Sergey Chronicles" series. How did I miss these books? I love military SciFi. How great is it to be involved with an author of this caliber? Well, "exciting" doesn't even come close to defining the event.

Well I've rubbed elbows with some great people this week, both virtually and actually. Including the characters in my book. What fun!!