Christian hard SciFi writer. Software PM. TNSG Staff Sergeant. Married foster dad. I’m not buying your promo program.
Joined February 2026
- Tweets5K
- Following937
- Followers723
- Likes8.3K
Ian is Writing and Publishing retweeted
The real problem is not that some Christians watch The Exorcist; it’s that most Christian storytelling has become allergic to difficulty. Scripture itself is full of violence, dread, betrayal, and unresolved tension. The tradition that produced Dante, the medieval mystery plays, and the older Gothic imagination did not treat “Do not fear” as a content restriction. It treated it as a moral orientation inside stories that took evil and judgment seriously. Once that is abandoned, what remains is usually sentimental and unconvincing—precisely because it refuses the conditions under which faith actually has to operate. Horror is not mandatory, but a culture that can no longer tell a hard story is not healthier for the loss.
Ian is Writing and Publishing retweeted
This is way more than 200 words, but...
Requiem for Hank Johnson
When Hank Johnson was about three days old, his mother finally put down the thick, hand-rolled stogie and held him to her breast.
“Lord! This child’ll be the death of me!” she wailed. “If only I'd learned to use a typewriter or a sewing machine! Oh, Lord…oh Lord. He'd have been born whole and not a useless cripple! Oh, Lord!”
The doctors said, “He'll never live past twenty, Lord, Lord! That palsy will be the death of him. Just wait and see.”
That was life that began that day. The boy, Hank Johnson, was handed a struggle. Lord, Lord! He wasn't useless. He wasn't worth less. But nothing was easy. Lord, Lord!
Through childhood… the jeers. He couldn't seek, but… Lord, Lord… he could hide. Though tweens and teens, he couldn't run or bat… Lord, Lord… but he could catch. He hid. He caught. With all his might. Lord, Lord!
His father died young, Lord! His mother worked long, Lord! Hank Johnson left school at sixteen to hold the drill. Lord, it was all he could do.
How he envied them, Lord, Lord! Their bodies were whole. The rail crew giants swung hard, all muscle and sinew. But they trusted Hank Johnson to be steady, to be true.
It wasn't their hands that stung from the singing hammer blow. It was the shaker’s teeth that clenched and ground. Oh, Lord! Many had flinched, and paid the price. Not Hank Johnson. No Lord, no.
John Henry's challenge rang out. The machine he'd defeat. At Big Bend tunnel’s mouth, Hank Johnson harkened and prayed: “Lord, let me stand tall!”
The machine was metal, heartless and cold. It had the power, but could do nothing alone. He could face John Henry. Lord, Hank Johnson knew.
That fateful day saw twenty years dawn. He'd beat the doctors. Lord, Lord! This, he would boast and make Mama proud. All he'd suffered; this day would atone.
He'd set the tripod. He'd picked his drills. He'd shaped his own points. Lord, Lord, he was ready. John Henry called, “Go!”
Hammer flew, strike after strike. John Henry cursed the mechanical demon. Why, Lord, why? Hank Johnson, sweaty and shook, was wedged between boiler and crag. His face showed the strain of holding the piston against rock.
For the first time, Hank doubted. Why this fight? Does he not see the man behind the machine? I'm striving with a giant where before I just knelt. Lord, oh Lord!
But the crowd grew frantic. “John Henry!” they cried. The man with the hammer dug deep and responded. Hank Johnson pushed through pain and reset. The drill jumped off granite. Oh Lord, oh Lord.
John Henry screamed in triumph, folded, and expired. His task was complete. His hammer lay in the dust. The steam drill thrust into the air, on its side. Hank Johnson, sightless, sprawled on the ground. His smile competed for attention with an ugly gash on his forehead.
Oh Lord. Oh Lord.
The crowd cheered and departed–loudly proclaiming, “John Henry finished first!” Porters stowed the chairs and took down the awnings. The ticket boy tugged on the sleeve of his gilded Lord.
Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord. Who won here today? The man just shrugged and pocketed his wallet. There's always a price for all human progress. History will judge, not I.
Oh Lord. Oh Lord.
@mondaymicrofic
Ian is Writing and Publishing retweeted
The vote that would create the United States was deadlocked, and the man who could break the tie was eighty miles away, dying of cancer, on the wrong side of a thunderstorm.
His name was Caesar Rodney. On the first of July 1776, while Congress argued itself toward independence in Philadelphia, he was stuck back in Delaware. He was tamping down Loyalist trouble, in constant pain from the cancer eating at his face and fighting for breath due to his asthma.
Then the letter came. Delaware's two delegates in Congress were split. One for independence, one against. Without a tiebreaker, the colonies would not stand united. And a divided front was exactly what the Crown was counting on.
He did not hesitate. He climbed onto his horse near midnight and rode straight into the storm. Lightning split the sky. The roads turned to sludge. A journey that normally took two days but he made it in eighteen hours. He stopped only to change horses, soaked with every mile.
He reached Independence Hall on the morning of July 2 just as the vote was called, still in his boots and spurs. Caked in mud. Thomas McKean never forgot the sight of him standing in the doorway.
Rodney walked in and cast his vote for independence. It broke Delaware's tie, and with that, not a single colony stood against the break from Britain.
On this day, 250 years ago, a dying man rode all night through a storm so America could be born.
America 250 🇺🇸
Ian is Writing and Publishing retweeted
The purpose of art is not to descend to the lowest common denominator, but to invite humanity to ascend toward something greater. People should elevate themselves to meet the standards of art, not demand that art diminish itself to meet theirs.
A random thought for the day. 🔖
Ian is Writing and Publishing retweeted
My vocabulary is less "obscure" and "high flown" than it is the case that the vocabulary of the average American is embarrassingly bad. And recently so. Yes, I have a larger vocabulary than most people, and always have had.
Yes. I was that bookworm/literary kid. Yes, I know lots of words, and use lots of words, that aren't in the most common circulation.
But stop. A great deal of my vocabulary would not have been considered "arcane" *even just 15 years ago*. I've watched this happen.
The words and associated concepts-including actual history, European folktales, foundational Western works of literature and plays-that Americans don't know today is astounding.
I'm talking about references that *any literate person, no college degree required* would have known 15 to 20 years ago. No, it's not that "the information is obsolete/it's just time marching on." It's NOT that.
That phenomenon exists, but this is not that. This is a profound cliff drop in literacy, and cultural literacy, that happened almost overnight with Millennials and Gen Z.
I didn't get "more arcane" recently. The population got signficantly more ignorant recently, and noticeably, and faster than we've ever seen in prior generations.
Hell--I'm watching fully grown adults react to seeing a word I use that they don't know exactly the way kids in 4th grade did when they picked on the bookworm kid.
That's embarrassing. You're THIRTY and instead of wanting to know what "Habsburg" refers to, you respond with "lol what does that EVEN mean ur so cringe."
I'm not the one who's "cringe."
-J
Ian is Writing and Publishing retweeted
There’s always 2 stories at once.
The who, what, where, when, how story that make up the mechanics. These are worldview basics.
The why story that makes up the substance. The author’s message. The implied moral of the story. The reason you wrote it.
Ian is Writing and Publishing retweeted
Writing is such a magical gift. We can raise the dead, time travel, and right wrongs - or wrong rights. We can mend fences or build and destroy empires that never existed in real life. We can make readers laugh and cry - sometimes on the same page. Keep writing! #5amwritersclub
Ian is Writing and Publishing retweeted
AI is not killing art.
It is redefining the canvas.
London’s Frameless museum just demonstrated something important.
Immersive AI and digital projections are not replacing artists. They are expanding human expression in ways static walls never could.
For years, I’ve argued that the real power of AI is augmentation, not substitution.
This is what that looks like in practice.
Technology fades into the background.
Human emotion becomes stronger.
That is the future of intelligent systems.
Now the real question:
Are you deploying AI to compete with human creativity… or to amplify it?
#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #HumanCenteredAI #Innovation #Creativity #FutureOfWork
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
This is not AI. It was made by ARTISTS at the VFX studio Cinesite.
cinesite.com/cinesite-honou…
Ian is Writing and Publishing retweeted
For a lot of people that's true. But it's not true for all people.
I promise you that it's helping me do work in hours that would normally take weeks, and of a higher quality than reviewers have ever seen before. 👀
AI is a vehicle, but people need to drive it properly.
The real question isn't whether AI edits make writing worse, but whether the writer had anything worth saying in the first place. AI doesn't create bad submissions, it just makes mediocre thinking more legible.
Ian is Writing and Publishing retweeted
Please support all #authors!!!
#writers #writingcommunity #writerslife #amwriting #books #novels #poets #playwrights #writersoftwitter #writerslift #readers #readerscommunity #reviewers
Ian is Writing and Publishing retweeted
Other writers aren't your competition. They're people to learn from, to cheer on or who might cheer you on, who you might become friends with one day.
Yes, even if they write in the same genre. Their readers might love your work too.
Let's build community, not competition 🌱
