VODKA O’CLOCK 2020-04:
STEPHEN BLACKMOORE
AMBER LOVE 20-MAY-2020 My work is supported by the generous backers at Patreon.com/amberunmasked who appreciate my reviews and my stories; and they also get first access to what’s happening with my books and podcast.
Download this episode of Vodka O’Clock on iTunes, Stitcher, or listen here. Older shows have been archived and are available only on AmberUnmasked.com. 
STEPHEN BLACKMOORE is back on the show to talk about life, depression, all the updates to his Eric Carter novel series, Impostor Syndrome, the quarantine, changes to social etiquette, Nazis, faith, and parapsychology. Yeah, that’s why this episode is nearly two hours.
Publishing, Finances, Quarantine Life, and Parapsychology
Stephen is with a new agent and, like the rest of us, dealing with a new kind of life because of COVID-19. Since authors are rarely the best-seller blockbuster types that live comfortably off royalties and advances, there are other ways they supplement their income. Stephen mentions a few options like being on panels (which isn’t happening right now), teaching, and Patreon. He dove in and started his Patreon this month where he is going to be writing a novel without editing for the backers to get a live draft experience. His Patreon will include other things like his infamous horrorscopes and writing advice. Conversations about money, in particular income from creating, is something we need to discuss more. Not only in jobs like fast food workers, IT, or whatever other industry there is, it is nothing but helpful for wages to be more transparent. Occasionally in Hollywood this comes out when people discover how much less female co-stars make.
“You’re never going to convince a true believer. You can argue and they’re still going to come up with something because they’re a true believer. You can’t shake up. You can’t argue God out of existence because somebody is going to believe strongly enough that they’ll just throw everything that you toss.†— SB
About an hour into the episode, we get into the discussion of parapsychology and Stephen’s knowledge base about the Rhine experiments with Zener cards. If you have the original Ghostbusters movie memorized, you will recall the scene where Dr. Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) is using those cards with two test subjects. Let us know if you find statistics boring! We had to get into how sample size makes a difference in the results of any clinical trial or experiment. Stephen informs me that the Ghostbusters’ ghost classification is based on the real work of George N.M. Tyrrell’s Apparitions (this book is old but I found it on OverDrive which is what libraries use for digital book lending).
“I don’t necessarily think I believe in ghosts. Sometimes — I know that there’s weird shit out there and that’s about it. And that opinion has shifted over years. In fact, the more I’ve read, the less convinced I’ve gotten.†— SB
Some recommendations
TV:
- Evil on CBS
- Cults & Extreme Beliefs on Hulu
- V-Wars on Netflix
Books:
Comics:
- Insider Art (coming in June)
- The Skeptics, a comic by Tini Howard, Devaki Neogi, Jen Hickman, Aditya Bidikar (Black Mask Studios)
Podcasts:
- Unobscured podcast by Aaron Manhke season 2 (2019)
I happened upon this tweet and it was befitting of this conversation:
If you think about it necromancy is really just recycling
— M. L. Rio (@SureAsMel) May 19, 2020
Links:
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of AmberUnmasked.com and Vodka O'Clock Podcast. Author of The Farrah Wethers Mysteries, comic book short stories, prose, and non-fiction. Cosplayer and figure model.