Category Archives: Advice to the Reader

Apr 12 2013

The Huffington Post is Gay

Me: The Huffington Post really has a tendency to fly off the deep end. Check out this article.

You: Vaccines Produce Homosexuality?

Me: Crazy right? Some old Italian (so-called) doctor still thinks being gay is a disease. Some days I just can’t wait for these old bigots to kick the bucket so their lame prejudices can die with them.

You: That’s a little harsh. You can hardly blame the elderly for their prejudices. It’s the way they were raised. Fifty years ago, being gay was practically synonymous with being a pedophile. Is it any wonder they have such differing opinions.

Me: This isn’t a differing opinion. It’s morally wrong.

You: I’m not disagreeing with you on that point. But from their perspective, if being gay is akin to pedophilia, can you blame them for thinking that being gay is the morally wrong choice?

Me: Yes. They need to update their world view. Homosexual behavior is nearly universal in the animal kingdom.

You: Come on. You know most people don’t stay abreast with current scientific news. Especially the Baby Boomers, an entire generation of elderly and soon to be elderly, with a world view filled with skepticism for authority figures, like scientists.

Me: Don’t get me started with the Baby Boomers and their New Age – Egalitarian – Everybody’s opinion is equal bull crap. Some people become experts and their opinions bear more weight than others. They should deal with it.

**SHOUTS** Hey old people: Science! It works bitches!

Getting back on point, this isn’t new news. I first started hearing about traits of homosexuality being universal over a decade ago. This research has been ongoing since the 80′s. That’s 25 to 30 years they’ve had the chance to acquaint themselves with modern science and reality in general.

You: Try not to alienate too many people will ya? I thought you wanted people to read this blog. Your thoughts are all over the place. What point is it you’re trying to make?

Me: Hmm, what point indeed… I think I’ll go right back to to the top: The Huffington Post. I firmly believe printed news is effectively dead. Which means those of us who want quality news are going to have to look for it online. Unfortunately, the masses tend to shun actual science news. Even worse, most people will head straight to the low hanging fruit when it comes to news aggregation. I think it’s the responsibility of modern news organizations to report the news accurately. They should filter out obvious nonsense.

Just because someone writes a press release, it doesn’t mean you have to print a story based on that press release. On the contrary, you could even print a story saying: “Hey! Look at this old bigot and his fake scientific bologna.”

You: Now who should update their world view? Besides, the article isn’t uncritical. The author states, “Some of Vanoli’s arguments, however, have been disputed for more than 30 years.”

Me: True, but not really true. This style of reporting is uncritical in my opinion. By treating “all opinions as equal” this automatically lends credibility to a guy who is an obvious fraud as a doctor. Consider his own words:

“The problem will especially be present in the next generations, because when gays have children, the children will carry along with them the DNA of their parent’s illness. Because homosexuality is a disease,…”

He’s talking as if being gay is a disease that one can contract, but he’s also talking as if being gay is genetic and passed on through DNA. Which is it?

You: In his defense, their are some diseases that can be passed on from mother to unborn child. But I get your point, most of those diseases are passed through the blood and if being gay is a disease that passes through the blood how does it also get passed through DNA? Of course, you’re also missing the point that gay people don’t breed in the numbers that heterosexual people manage, so how are we going to be inundated with gay people in the coming generations?

Me: Oh, I wasn’t forgetting that. I just found it too obvious to mention. Like if being gay is passed through the blood, say from mother to child, why don’t EMT’s, doctors, and nurses who get exposed to other people’s blood suddenly become gay?

You: I’m sure he’d say that heterosexual people so exposed are adults and already have their sexual identity set, or something along those lines.

Me: That’s called “special pleading“. It’s a logical fallacy that people should be taught to see through and respectable news organizations should reinforce proper logic in their readers by asking the “next question” rather than taking his comments at face value. There are plenty of experts out there that can refute this guys nonsense and expose it for the mystical mumbo-jumbo that it is.

I’m not even a medical doctor and I can see through this crap. What’s wrong with the reporter? You see, I do live in the real world, and I know most people aren’t going to critically read that article. Which means that even if they don’t buy into it, they’ll have the nagging suspicion that maybe, just maybe, there might be something to what this quack says when very obviously there is not.

You: So what do you suggest? People stop reading the news?

Me: No. People should stop reading generic news aggregation sites like the Huffington Post. I know they’re convenient, but getting your news from more specialized sources, written by appropriate experts that take a more critical look at the news can only improve one’s understanding.

You: Basically, you’re asking people to push themselves mentally? You got out of education because the average student all but refuses to intellectually push themselves and you want people to do it with their daily news because it’s good for them?

Me: Yes?

You: I thought you said you were living in the real world?

Mar 4 2013

Wound Up

Me: When I get bound up I find a pound of carrots will usually do the trick by the next day.

You: Wha? … What? I said, “wound up”. You should do a post about being “wound up”.

Me: Oh, … so uh, … OH!

Carrots

Carrots (Photo credit: chriscook04)

You: Yeah! Get your head in the game.

Me: Sorry, I mis-, …. Nevermind. Yeah, actually I am a little wound up. I finally finished a huge project for work, so that stress is out of my life, for the most part.

You: Such things can always come back to bite you when you least expect them.

Me: Of course. My boss could always say, “Now we need this…”. Mostly I am excited because the local courthouse expanded its hours so that people like me who have to dig through the records won’t get locked out.

You: Locked out? Of a public building?

Me: You don’t really want to know. The details are even more boring than looking through old documents.

You: But you like looking through old documents.

Me: Yeah, but most people don’t. Actual dig your heels in and get your hands dusty research is not something most people enjoy. Suffice it to say, the courthouse has been so busy with researchers like me they had to start limiting the number of people in per day. Things have gotten so bad in recent months they had to increase the number of hours the records room is open. The upshot is that now scheduling a time to get in is a breeze. In fact, my favorite time to do this sort of work is in the evenings when it’s least busy, so I can get even more work done.

You: Is that why you’re so wound up? You can look through old documents for longer?

Me: Sort of, though mostly I’m pleased because this type of schedule leaves my early mornings open. This means most days I’ll be able to get back into writing first thing in the morning.

You: You could have done your writing in the evenings all this time.

Me: This is true. And I should have, but I guess I just feel more creative in the mornings. It’s no excuse mind you, but this is a start.

You: Speaking of starting, why haven’t you?

Me: Uhm, because you told me to blog more. You told me to blog about being wound up. Look, I even added a picture of carrots because supposedly pictures will help drive traffic to the blog. … I’m not sure how though.

You: And you have to do everything I tell you? Everything some “supposedly expert blogger screwball” tells you?

Me: No, but sometimes you give good advice. The blogger screwballs I’m not so sure about.

You: Thank you. My advice now is to get writing. And that goes double for the two people that’ll read this.

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Jul 2 2012

What is a Story? (Part 2)

Several months ago I asked the question, What is a story? After getting some feedback, I came up with the following definition: A story is an event or series of events that changes a noun (a person, place, or thing).

I was satisfied with that definition and myself for a while before it occurred to me, can you write a story where the purpose of the story is to find change in a verb? That is, can the point of the story be for the action to change?

I still find change to be a necessary component for a story, even if the change is to leave one state and then go back to the way it was before. Of course, that’s still change; two changes in fact. But if you have a scene where nothing changes, all you have is an image, not a story.

Anyway, I decided to see if I could write a story where nothing changes but the action. I think I have accomplished that task, thus rendering my previous definition moot, or rather, incomplete.

I have a couple of short stories I plan to put up on Smashwords by next week. Once I get it posted, I’ll let people know where to find it. It’ll be free, of course.

Until then, as a bit of a writing challenge, see if you can come up with a story where the only thing that changes is the action of the story.

May 17 2012

How Does a Writer Think?

I probably should apologize for neglecting the blog this past month, but honestly, this blog isn’t the most important thing for me at the moment.  Have you ever had someone tell you that they are trying to find a direction for themselves? I’m sure most of us have. Finding a direction for yourself is only half the problem, and believe me, I know it can be a tough half!

The other half, actually traveling the path can be just as hard. Sure it’s easy at first. Once you decide you’re going to do something, motivation abounds. The energy for your new projects/hobbies/lifestyle whatever it is you’re looking to change about yourself flows like a freshly tapped well. After the shiny has worn off, that’s where the adults are separated from the little boys and girls. I mean, if you’re truly looking to change yourself, you have to be that person even when you feel like all motivation is gone.

As I’ve mentioned on this blog, I had high hopes for this year in terms of getting a lot of writing done, but it just hasn’t panned out. Mind you, I’ve done okay. Just nowhere near what I was looking forward to accomplishing. I spent some time thinking about it, and rather than lament squandered opportunities, I focused on gathering knowledge about myself.

I came to a conclusion. I wasn’t thinking about being a writer enough.

I was thinking plenty about my writing, but I wasn’t thinking like a writer should. Or at least, the way I presume a writer should be thinking at this early developmental stage where I’m at.

How does a developing writer think, you ask?

Beats me.

I’m sure it’s different for everyone, though it seems reasonable that step one is finding a process that works for you. I’ve spent over five months working on my sequel to Dim Speak and I had hoped to be done with it in about four. One of things I’ve been thinking about a lot this past month is why it has taken me so long. If I’m to write and make promises about my writing in the future it seems I need to know what I am capable of and why I couldn’t write the first draft of this story in that time frame.

Additionally, much of my efforts have gone into actually finishing the story, and I should be done in a couple of weeks. I’ve already decided on at least one darling I shall have to kill during the edits, but that is what edits are all about. Chopping that which doesn’t work no matter how much you love it.

Anyway, I’m getting off track. In summary, I wrote more in the last month than I have any other 30 day period this year, and I have been focusing on my own process in order to make myself more efficient as a writer.

It seems to me that a “pre-published” writer should be focusing on these two things.

I’ll get more specific soon.

Apr 7 2012

Meta Thoughts On My Own Novel.

It has taken me a bit longer to get to this post than I would have liked. Actually, I’ve rewritten it a couple of times because it just didn’t turn out the way I envisioned it. Not that I’m saying this post will be a work of art, but it is time to get something out there for April. After all, it is the 7th!

I’ve blogged about genre fiction before in my post where I complain about Pacing and Coincidence. I’m sure the average reader does not agree with me on that one. They might agree with me in principle, but if they’re reading the story, they want the coincidences that make the story snappy. That is, unless they like the exact opposite where a story meanders about going on and on without a whole lot of anything happening. (My complaint with epic fantasy.) In one of the podcasts that I listen to, one of the speakers recently talked about George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series. He said one of the subtexts he enjoyed about the first book was that “oh my, winter is coming!” in a world where winters could last a decade this could be important. Then he says, “Now I’m reading book six, and winter’s still coming…”. Mind you, Martin’s books are behemoths and definitely not “snappy” in their presentation. If he’s writing six books before the change of a season, I’m not interested.

In my book Dim Speak, I tried to keep things on the middle ground in terms of pacing and coincidence. Though, Dim Speak is a parody at heart and I’m trying to mock some of the these tropes. I do have some “coincidences” in my plot which I pawn off on one of my characters whose magical Gifts include the ability to read omens. She usually refuses to discuss them, so they become plot coincidences in my eyes. I found this to be the best way to advertise the coincidences that often go unmentioned in other stories. A way of playfully pointing out similar things I have read in other books that made me ask WTF?

In terms of fantasy and its magic, far too often I see characters get into a situation where, they come across problem “X”, if only they had some sort of magical solution “Y” they’d be saved. And of course, it just so happens someone in the group has solution “Y*”. It may not be exactly what they need, but conveniently enough, it’ll do. When it comes to this sort of problem solving in stories, I would prefer Harry Dresden’s “I’ll just burn everything with my fire rod and sort through the ashes later” approach because at least it is honest from a story telling perspective. We know Harry can do this and he does it all the time.

In my opinion, any solution that involves magical means really needs to be set up delicately. Everything my main character, Chip, manages to do with magic is something you saw him practice or happened to him earlier in the book. He’s a beginner, so any solutions he comes up with had better be simplistic. And honestly, this was my thought process as I wrote the story. I put him in a situation and asked, “Okay, based on what he’s learned so far, how can those lessons get him out of this danger?”

On the other hand, I did force my main character into another fantasy trope that annoys me. (Mind you, this complaint is often not true in epic fantasy!)  The protagonist is often an orphan never having known their parents, or their parents passed away while they were young. That’s if the protagonist is young, if the character is older they tend to be estranged from the parents or their relationship is at a point where everyone is ready to move on, “Time to make your own way in the world my son/daughter,” says the father/mother. Either way, there is no parental subplot. They’re just not involved in the story. In epic fantasy, one or more parents are alive and part of the “droning on” of the story.  The relationship between protagonist with both parents becomes added intrigue, subplottings, and so forth.

I wanted to defy this trope, so in one of my earlier drafts, travel was possible with the earth dimension. (In short, when Chip was brought through the barrier, it broke and allowed dimensional travel again.) I wanted Chip to have a relationship with his parents that wasn’t estranged or filled with intrigue. Just two parents dealing with a teenager who he could control plants in another set of worlds. The problem was that there was very little story to be had by adding in these characters with so little dynamic. They bogged down the plot more than I was willing to let it get bogged down, so I had to cut them. In the end, I cut off travel/communication with earth entirely, but not before removing both parents from Chip’s life at an early age.

I guess some tropes are there for a reason and even I can’t find an excuse to avoid them. It took me some time to learn that lesson, and I had to write the story to see why it wouldn’t work, but it was a good lesson to learn.

Jan 19 2012

Why Aren’t You Happy?

It’s funny most people really aren’t happy. All kinds of scientific research has gone in to finding out why the people of our culture are so depressed. I personally think the problem is our culture itself. No one is allowed to sit back and enjoy what they have. Everyone is expected to constantly strive for the next greatest thing, the next biggest item, the next whatever. We are taught to want to consume, consume, consume. At no point are we taught to use.

Most people I know have so much junk they don’t know what to do with it. We just went through the holiday season and each year during this time we’re forced to buy each other more junk. And we’ve been taught this is what we’re supposed to do. I haven’t bought my grandmother a Christmas present in over five years. She’s going to be 82 years old. What exactly does he need that she hasn’t already gotten for herself or someone hasn’t already gotten for her? She has now been living in the Home, and by that I mean a home using the capital  “H”. She has had to purge just about every unnecessary thing from her life and she certainly has no room for any more crap that I might want to buy her. She’s actually happier now, though I suspect part of that is she is now getting the care she needs, but invariably she is just happy to see me when I come visit. I don’t need to bring her any stuff to make her any happier. In fact, I doubt it would work.

I have another friend, not Trevor, but I’ll call this one Trevor anyways, that I talk about a concept we refer to as comfortable mediocrity. Trevor and I are both of the opinion that we don’t need to have a ridiculously large house, a whole lot of stuff, or more more more. We enjoy the stuff we have. We enjoy having our friends. What more does one really need? if you’re enjoying your friends, enjoying what you have, you will quickly find you don’t need anything more than that. We have both become very adept at creating our own fun.

I grant you I probably have fewer responsibilities than most people. I honestly don’t think it changes anything. If you are married, if you have children, you certainly have more responsibilities than I do. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, you have that much more to enjoy. I suppose the hardest part about having children would be to pass on this sort of mentality considering all the advertising they are inundated with that tells them to buy buy buy consume consume consume. I know as a child, I didn’t have this figured out.

Of course, I don’t think all drive for the next greatest thing should be given up. We all have to strive for something. We all need to have goals. I just think people should focus more on working with what they have, rather than worrying about what they don’t have.  I honestly think people would be happier.

Then again, I tend to be more intellectually motivated than the average person. Even if I had more stuff than I could ever want, if I weren’t learning something new, I would never be happy. I am very fond of saying, “my time is worth more to me than money.” I don’t think this is true for most people. I think most people have been trained to believe that money it is worth more than their time. I find this sad. We only get one life, I hate the thought of wasting it working myself to death all for a few bucks and a bunch of stuff I can take with me when I’m gone.

Dec 18 2011

Titanic Tickets, Half Price!

I recently received a “promise voucher” from my local cable company.  If I acted now, or relatively soon, they promised me a land line for $25 per month for life.  And if that weren’t enough reason to jump on this deal, they were throwing in unlimited local and nationwide calling; caller ID, call waiting, those sorts of extras; Emergency 911 services that automatically display my address when I call; and a free transfer of my current phone number.  I’m not sure if they meant my current cell phone number but that point is moot.  I won’t be buying Titanic tickets, even at half price.

I’m venerable enough to remember the days when a person only received local calls for free. Long distance calls (which could be as far away as across the street because of the strict lines demarcated service areas) cost more the longer the distance.  Then about twenty years ago, land line phone companies started offering local regional calls.  For a premium, of course.  After all, families started spreading out.  It only made sense to offer such a service.  Of course, the fact that cell phones just arriving on the horizon had nothing to do with it.  Eventually, service broadened even more, cross country plans became available.

Fast forward to today with the ubiquity of cell phones, and it seems they’re practically giving the service away.  They have to!  Cell phones have made cross country plans the modern expectation.  The funny thing is they gloss over the fact that the service is really a bundling offer that requires the subscriber to also purchase cable services.  Either internet or television or both.  Well, no surprise there.  There’s always a catch and who doesn’t subscribe to internet or cable TV these days?  Even I, who hasn’t owned a TV my entire adult life, subscribes for the internet service.

Huzzah!  That means I can get cheap phone service as well.

Alas, another catch is that this phone service isn’t really through the land lines, it’s over the cable lines.  Duh!  It’s from the cable companies, so this isn’t really a secret.  But it does mean that if the electric is out, or if the cable is out, you get no service.  Whereas with a true land line, you usually get phone service during power outages.

“PsShaw!” you say.  “How often does that happen?”

Honestly, when the power goes out.  Often, that’s when you need the phone service, so phone over the cable lines is no bonus.  I’ve never been a fan for this very reason.  Thus, when you need phone service the most, you’ll still be relying on a cell phone to get help anyway.

The fact that they’re trying to push this service for such a cheap rate tells me land lines are in trouble and won’t be lasting much longer anyway.  Sure, they’ll probably be available for some time, but as time passes I don’t see the service getting any better.  It’ll have more and more technological restrictions.  And honestly, if I maintain this service for thirty years and my cable company plans to scrap it altogether are they going to update and upgrade everything because they promised me the service at this rate for life?

Obviously, the answer is no, this rate is only good for as long as they want bother offering the service.  They have no more loyalty to me than I have for them.

If you haven’t given up the land line and switched to cellular completely.  Now may be the time.  The telco & cable companies are tipping their hand by sending out such desperate offers.  Land lines are a sinking ship.

Dec 9 2011

More Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam Please

My previous post discussing spam, no joke, gets two or three spam messages per day, minimum.  I intentionally tagged it with every buzzword I could think of in 60 seconds, so it isn’t really a surprise, but then again, it is.  You would think that a post tagged with the label “spam” would be a red flag to spammers.  A discreet signpost that says, “Psst.  Buddy, I’m on to you.  Go hit a post that’s at least not labeled spam.”

More insidious of late, there is a character that has been posting to my blog and at least one other blog I follow, that goes by the name “Content Writers”.  I haven’t deleted his (I’m going to go ahead and demonize him as a dude, it could be a demoness though) posts as yet, though I’m thinking about it since they are spam in disguise.  I’m making this post to see if this guy actually reads my blog, or if he is just making quick comments like, “Great post thanks. I really enjoyed it very much. You have excellent content on your blog.  Love writing? We would love for you to join us!” to any post he can click his fingers on.

Just to check it out, I followed his link.  Like any spam, you have follow it through a couple of bogus blogs before you get hit with the real scam. They do this for SEO purposes.  Apparently spammers haven’t learned that this no longer works.  As it turned out, it wasn’t a scam exactly. Well, okay, it was a scam but not in the “I’ll take your money and give you nothing in return” kind of way.  It was a scam in the sense that for a monthly fee of about $50,  you’ll be signing up for a service that will aggregate writing jobs for you.  That is, this service goes out to a bunch of free sites that list requests for writing jobs.  Typically offering a few bucks for a blog post, that sort of thing.

Mind you, you can do all this for yourself for free if you just search for these types of sites and bookmark them.  Essentially, you’re paying this service to bring it to you all at once (that’s what an aggregater does).  If you’re so hard up for cash you’re willing to work for $5 on a 600-800 word blog post, then you’re probably not going to want to waste the $50 a month for this service.  Take the time to look up the websites in Google.  Google is your friend.  They do no evil.

So as I said, it’s not a scam per se.  And this is probably why WordPress hasn’t squashed him already.  Just make sure you go into anything like that with your eyes open.  Here’s my advice, if you want to be a professional, or even semi-pro writer:

The first rule of write club is money flows to the writer.

The second rule of write club:  Money flows to the writer!

This is actually referred to as Yog’s Law.  Just keep this simple maxim in mind, you should never have to pay, to be paid to write.

Dec 6 2011

Because in Life, You’re Either Creating or You’re Waiting

As much as I’d like to lay claim to the pithy title, I have to admit I came across it in an email this morning from Jason Calacanis’ email news feed.  He’s a famous internet tech guy, if you’re unfamiliar with his name.  There’s plenty of info out there about him, so google him if you’re interested in learning about an smart business entrepreneur.

I have always felt that there are two kinds of people, Creators and Imitators.  Truth is, we all land on some spectrum point in between.  We can’t all be purely creative or purely imitative.  It is closer to say everything we do has elements of both and depending on who, what, when, where, and why in the situation, we respond with the amounts of creation and imitation that we are capable of at the time.

Still, as a general rule, some people will tend to respond with more creation versus imitation and other people the opposite.  And I do believe that people have caps on their “ultimate creative bounds”, whatever that means.   As a society, or maybe just as people, we tend to prize creativity over imitation.  And, of course, we’ve all met “that guy/gal” we wish we were more like because we believe them to be more creative than us.

But are they really?

I have always been a more creative sort than imitative.  (Or so I have been accused.)  Part of being creative is being imitative, it can sometimes be a simple matter of what you do with the imitation, but that’s a post for another time.  I found the past couple of months I had gotten myself into a rut, waiting.  I was waiting for my job situation to change so I could work on my writing.  Somehow I had linked the two in my mind and I couldn’t seem to get any writing done until I was working my job less.  I was waiting to create.  And thus, I was not being more creative than imitative, because I wasn’t really doing either.

Waiting seems to have worked.  At least in some sense.  The past five days I’ve written 6-7 thousand words, a haiku, and several Christmas Carol parodies for a gag.  I’ve exploded with creativity and I had to wait two months to do it.  No surprise really.  My creative well obviously overfloweth.

But what about those people who are more creative than us?  Are they really?  Maybe they just weren’t waiting.  Would I have faired better overall if I had written 100 words a day for the past 60-70 days to get the same 6-7 thousand words?

You know what?  Probably.

We all know the creative well runs dry at times and we absolutely do have to wait for it to refill, but would it have run dry if I were sipping at it 100 words at a time?  Even I can admit that I should’ve been doing at least a little something to keep the creative juices flowing the past two months.  As much as I’d like to say it was time well spent, I’d be deluding myself.  It was time poorly wasted.

Another thing we all take as fact is that you can’t be creative if you’re not trying.  Sure you have an epiphany every now and again, but if you’re too busy waiting and not keeping track, these ideas eventually flitter away like the residues of a dream.  Our brains aren’t terribly good at holding ideas for long unless we reinforce them.  Waiting dries out our creativity.  Leaves precious ideas rotting on the vine.

Take me and my wasted two months as your poster child.  Even if you’re just sipping from the well to keep your creativity from drying out.  Don’t wait.  Create.

Nov 17 2011

Advice to the Reader: Call an Astronomer

I was recently directed to the following video:

The video is actually an audio file of an emergency services call in England.  It was released as an example of non-emergencies that people call in about all the time, especially around Halloween.  In the video, some guy calls about a strange light hovering in the sky and he doesn’t know what it is.  He gives his information and then hangs up.  Two minutes later he calls back apologizing.  Sorry, it was the moon.

How exactly one mistakes the moon for a strange light in the sky is beyond me, but when I see a strange light in the sky, my first instinct isn’t usually, “Oh my!  A UFO!”.

You want to know why?  Because I realize that just because I don’t know what something is right away, that doesn’t mean that every single one of the other seven billion people on the planet must not know either.  It’s strange how easy it is to become so mentally insular that that simple fact can escape us.

Oddly enough, Venus is the most common UFO culprit, though Mars is another common target.  I admit, I’m not much for astronomy.  I think the vastness of the cosmos is amazing, but personally, staring up at billions of point lights doesn’t terribly interest me.  Besides 99.99% of the complexities of the universe lies in the fact that it somehow revolves around each of us.

It seems once or twice a year I read or hear about some UFO story like the above.  I can honestly say that if people did the smart thing when they see a strange light in the sky, I’d probably never read about UFO sightings.  So what’s the smart thing?  Well, if you want to know what a light is doing in the sky, call an expert, call an astronomer.  Dr. Phil Plait is probably the most famous one I know, but you may want to try someone local first.