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I have discovered many things recently. The very first is I love the bed and breakfast we stayed in for our anniversary. It is an inventive idea for a bed and breakfast type place. The rooms are actual cabooses. That’s right, railroad cabooses.

These cabooses are outfitted in different themes. We have stayed in three of them now. We will stay in all six I am certain. They have a haunted caboose on the property which I will not stay in. Am I scared? Not really. I have dealt with my fair share of haunted things and yes, they do scare me but this caboose is not one of them.

My reaction to such things is to burn them to the ground. I discovered this as a young man. Not such a recent discovery, however, it is worth talking about. As a young man I was exposed to the Stephen King books in his prime. I read The Shining in a single night which makes getting up out of my well lit room and traveling down the dark hallway to the equally dark bathroom an eye opening experience.

With a backgournd at the time of horror books by many authors, it was no wonder when a group of us visited the county’s local haunted house I decided not to go in. It was a dare of course. The girls were harassing us guys. Trying to get us to spend the night in the place.

As each of the girls and boys stepped through the old wrought iron fence to make their way to the porch, they noticed I hadn’t moved. I caught a blast of crap from all of them of course. “Coward” and “Smuck” and worse was thrown at me by the group. Until I laughed, told them I would come pick up their bodies in the morning, and left.

I offered to burn the house down but the volunteer fire department chief thought I should let it be. A shame really because I truly wanted to burn the old place down.

I don’t deal well with the supernatural. Nor do I deal well with people who profess to having supernatural powers and don’t. How can I tell? In my experience, most of those who truly do suffer from the possession of supernatural powers don’t deal well in life.

Some are thought to be crazy and locked up while others use drugs and alcohol to help them deal. I haven’t seen or met a single person who possesses supernatural powers to announce they have them to the world. Only a small few know and most of them are doubtful.

In the more recent discovery list, I have discovered I know almost nothing about the science required to write a hardcore science fiction novel. As I began to edit a short story, I found myself drawn deep into the mechanizations of warp drives, plasma drives, worm holes, and more. I was drawn deep enough to realize I don’t need the fine details to edit or write a science fiction novel. At least, not one that isn’t hardcore.

Few of us have the knowledge about such things. What I discovered was a writer could write a story set in a future world, or time travel, or space battles, as long as the story was good. If the story is good, then the reader will fill in the rest of the science for you.

This was pretty mind blowing actually. I decided to test the discovery and came upon so many examples in television, movies, books, short stories, etc. The list goes on and on. The science is the basis of the story but not the story itself.

Another recent discovery I found was that as an editor I do not need to be so hardcore on the grammar. Grammar is an interesting thing. It shapes and defines our use of the language. What it isn’t is static. It does not exist like it says it should inside our tenth and eleventh grade English classes. It never really did.

The English language is ever evolving and grammar has evolved with it. One of those points I am insistent about in the books I work on is combined punctuation points. You’ve seen them. The ones like “?!”. I abhor such punctuation. However, even in writing it inside this blog I made an error grammatically.

Technically the period should be inside the quotation point but it doesn’t work there in this instance. Most would call me on it, but as I said, grammar evolves. Even if I hate such things as combined punctuation, it is a common facet in the modern world and I must accept it.

One of the more recent discoveries I have made is I have actually gotten older, physically that is. And it sucks like a Hoover . In my mind I am still twenty – just ask my wifesty. I think like it and think I act like it but that isn’t a reality. I actually move like an old man, lol.

Let me repeat – it sucks getting older. Don’t get me wrong. I have no desire to go back in time and relive any of my days. I like where I am right now. I have an incredible wife and partner, I live better than I have most of my past, and I am happy with my life. Something that was missing from most of my past. Why go back?

However, the abuse I put my body through has come back to haunt me. Not something I wanted to discover but hey, it is what it is.

What I really want to discover is the best place on a beach anywhere in the world where the breezes are awesome and the margaritas are even better and sundown is just around the corner.

I’m Ross, the Editor-in-Chief at The Pyrateheart Press and I’m out.