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5 Funny and Weird Things I Found This Month

5 Funny Things

5 Funny and Weird Things I Found while cruising on the internet. I scan through the internet every day. If something tickles my fancy, I post it. Let me know if this tickles YOUR fancy and I’ll give you an audiobook of your choice. Here they are:

5 Funny
Your free audiobooks – click to get. Subscribe then email [email protected]

5 Funny Things – Your First Funny/Weird Thing

Who wouldn’t like a bouquet of dragonettes? I’m sorry I can’t give each of you one. But how about this?

This is your chance to enter this contest

What contest? This one:

Fellow author C.L. Cannon’s giving away books. Find out how to win $200 worth. Click above.

I’m part of this contest, so you can win one of my books too!

Your Second Funny/Weird Thing

Now You’re in the Middle of 5 Funny and Weird Things

Man, there are so many angles to this story! I could write about the insurance claim on the damaged/dead robot. I could write about a robotic lawyer suing the car company, who is defended by another robotic lawyer. Or I could write about a robot mortuary. What would you like to read? Let me know.

Heading Around the Fourth Weird/Funny Bend . . .

There’s a story behind this one. I read Heinlein”s “Methusaleh’s Children” when I was 12. It begins with an exciting chase scene where the hero has a ‘tricar’–a car that can fly and is amphibious, even operating as a submarine. I loved that. I still love amphibious cars, airplane cars, and flying boats. Fifty-two years later.

The Big Finale – My Last Funny/Weird Thing

Gary Larson is one of my favorite cartoonists.

I might as well let you know I’m giving free audiobooks away. They’re simple to get. First, subscribe to my newsletter here.

Then, simply email me at [email protected] or via this website. Be sure to tell me which books you want: one, two, three, or four.

5 Funny Things My 4 free audiobooks
5 Funny Things My 4 free audiobooks

Now, I have one more book that becomes an audiobook this year: Oops! Tales From the Zombie Turkey Apocalypse. I just have a paperback or ebook for you. Signed, of course.

5 Funny Things
Oops! cover. Click to get your signed copy
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How Do You Keep Writing and Where Do You Get Ideas?

How Do You Keep Writing and Where Do You Get Ideas? I’m glad you asked because that’s what I’ll tell you.

The first rule is to desire to write. I love writing crazy ideas into books, surprising and entertaining people. I truly would do it for nothing. In fact, my net profits so far are nothing.

I loved writing Zombie Turkeys. That way I got to write ridiculous chapters with weddings and zombie turkeys.

How Do You Keep Writing
Zombie Turkey dressed for a wedding. Chapter icon

Then, I sought to top myself with My Undead Mother-in-law. I had to make a new villain, one so evil you would feel sorry for the zombies. I made a sociopath who used cyborg animals to commit crime, like capuchin monkeys, rats, and black mambas.

How Do You Keep Writing
Rat, capuchin monkey, and black mamba cyborgs chapter icon from My Undead Mother-in-law

Now, how would I top myself again for my third book? I hated repeating myself. I needed something related, but totally beyond a mere undead mother-in-law. How about if I put the zombie family on a luxury yacht, give them a letter of marque from the President, and send them around the world fighting American enemies, public and private? That’s a start!

My undead family would be zombie pirates. But that phrase is too common. Paranormal Privateers became the title of my third book.

How Do You Keep Writing
Paranormal Privateers Andy’s third book

Next, a disaster happened.

Ruh Roh! Writer’s Block

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEffUAATOY8

I got stuck writing this book. How could I keep topping myself? My paranormal privateers fought pirates, slavers, terrorists, and prevented a nuclear holocaust. What could come next?

I needed a change, a total surprise. But how do I get there? What did I want to write? I loved 1950s science fiction movies. So I wrote what I loved. That is how you break writer’s block. Return to your passion.

I can’t tell you what I did without spoiling the book, but I’ll give you some hints.

Your first hint:

Your first hint

Now, your second hint.

Your second hint.

That is your second rule to keep writing year after year: write what you love.

I finished Paranormal Privateers two months after NaNoWriMo, in January 2018. It appeared in ebook and print on Amazon and later Audible.

(By the way, you can get all my books at Audible. They’re free if you’re a member. Zombie Turkeys, My Undead Mother-in-law, and Paranormal Privateers. Or, if you want a free copy, just write me and I’ll send you one in exchange for an honest review.)

But what would I write next? I burned myself out on zombies. This leads to your third rule.

How Do You Keep Writing: Write Something New

Where could I go next? What else did I love writing? What did I love reading? Young adult science fiction. Everyone wants a superhero origin story. I wanted to do one of those for my fourth book.

But this had to be different, unusual. Superman got his power from birth on another planet. Batman got his power through intelligence and training. How about an ordinary hero? How about an unlikely hero? What was the least likely hero?

Now I get personal. My daughter’s been disabled with cerebral palsy since her birth. What if my hero had cerebral palsy–and his superpower didn’t take it away?

Then superheroes often come in teams. What if they were all disabled, each with a different disability and a different superpower?

I had my next book: Secret Supers.

Finally: Your Free Books

These offers are just good until October 31st.

First, you get Zombie Turkeys for free. Click here.

Free Zombie Turkeys
Free Zombie Turkeys ebook

Now you get your BIG GIFT: 31 Free books follow and end this blog post.

31 free books for you
Click for 31 free books. Only until October 31, 2019
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5 Weird Things I’ve Never Shared With You

5 Weird Things I’ve Never Shared With You in the whole three years I’ve been writing this blog. How can I be sure? I’ve just learned about them in the past month.

But first, let’s have this:

I wasn’t planning to count this as one weird thing since it’s satire, but I wanted to start with something funny.

Okay, this next item begins the weirdness:

This triggered so many things in my mind: first, the cloaking field from Star Trek.

The Enterprise decloaking

Next, Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility:

https://giphy.com/gifs/harry-potter-magic-J5lxA8X7kisRG
Harry Potter getting his invisibility on

But the oldest example is below:

The Invisible Man – “I’ll show you!”

On we go to the next weird thing.

Your Second Weird Thing of 5 Weird Things

How can I not have the phrase ‘intelligent slime mold’ in my blog post? You may ask, ‘How can a slime mold be intelligent?” They can efficiently solve the famous ‘Travelling Salesman’ problem. You haven’t heard of that? Check out the following article:

5 Weird Things
The Travelling Salesman Problem – click the image for more

Earlier in my life, I worked in operations research and this problem was difficult to solve by computer. How difficult? It belongs to a class of problems called ‘NP hard problems’. That means the difficulty goes up as a factorial (1*2*3 = 3 factorial) of the number of cities.

You can solve this by brute computing force, but the slime mold does it without brains! That’s weird.

Your Third Weird Thing

But first, a book break!

I am an author, so I love books. Tell me your favorite and I’ll send you a free short story.

On to our next weird thing! How about a robot that does gymnastics? It also weighs about four hundred pounds.

If this robot isn’t grist for a science fiction story, then I’ve never read SciFi before!

The Penultimate Weird Thing

I love vocabulary for its own sake, ever since I read the ‘Abecedarian Book’ when I was twelve. Penultimate is one of those weird words you read, but may not know the meaning. Look it up.

I read this book when I was 12.

Your new weird thing begins here.

Do you believe this?

You know it’s weird when you can’t believe it (I didn’t) and yet it’s true.

The Last Weird Thing of 5 Weird Things – And Free Stuff

Who doesn’t like dragons?

Finally, I bid you adieu!

5 Weird Things
Andy Zach at Archon in St. Louis

PS: I forgot to tell you where you can get free stuff.

First, you can get 31 free books here:

5 Weird Things
Click image to get 31 free books

Then, you can get my comic paranormal animal book, Zombie Turkeys here:

5 Weird Things
Click to get your free copy