Another Video, This Time On The OODA Loop

The Very First Professionally Produced Neural-Based Training Video

This is the first cut of the “Neural-Based Training” training video directed by top training professional Ralph Mroz and his company The Firefighters Support Foundation. For many years I’ve resisted doing training videos around the mental aspects/accelerated learning/stress inoculation work I’ve been doing. Why? I was very skeptical about the ability to translate those concepts into film. Ralph convinced me it was worth a shot (and he paid me, too, LOL!)

This is the first pass — it’s still rough, but the polished final edition will be available for free on Ralph’s site later this year. PLEASE do not scrape or repost the video on other sites — PLEASE HONOR Ralph’s work, expense and time and if you want to get a copy of it, the final version will be available for FREE on Ralph’s site. Feel free to link to my blog page so people can watch it here, though.

Comments and feedback solicited and appreciated!

My Alter-Ego’s Bio, or Dr. Hyde’s Mr. Jekyll…

My good friend Ralph Mroz just sent me the rough cut of the first training video I’ve done on neural-based training. This particular training is in the context of retaining critical skills under stress for fire-fighters. I may be doing one in the future focused more on law enforcement.

As part of the process, I was asked to do a brief bio. Most of the three of you who follow this blog know my writing bio, and I’ve detailed at some length the history of the mental training material. But I like this bio! So here it is:

Marcus Wynne is the world’s foremost training designer for high-stress occupations. He introduced John Boyd’s OODA loop to the law enforcement community, brought neuro-linguistic-programming into military combatives, and evolved a cutting edge training protocol that embeds stress inoculation within the context of accelerated learning. He is a military veteran of the US Army’s 82d Airborne and a federal law enforcement veteran who served with the Federal Air Marshal Program. He’s taught at FLETC and hundreds of law enforcement and military academies; his work has been adopted at the national level in South Africa, Sweden, and Norway. He continues his research in consultation with DARPA, NASA, Naval Research and other cutting edge military research institutions here and abroad. He’s honored to share his work here with you.

And then there’s my thriller-novelist bio:

Marcus Wynne is a charter member of the Been There, Done That Club. He’s got all the T-shirts and knows all the secret handshakes. He enjoys poetry, ballet, knife fighting, and serial monogamy with fierce feminists. He is the author of NO OTHER OPTION, WARRIOR IN THE SHADOWS, BROTHERS IN ARMS, WITH A VENGEANCE, JOHNNY WYLDE, AIR MARSHALS, LOVELADY and, most recently, TOO WYLDE. He manages, with more than a little help from his friends, to eke out a living in this silly business.

So there’s the official bio for at least two of those pesky multiple personalities…yeah?

Random Thoughts on the Writer’s Process, or meet The Achy Man…

In between marathon revision on my own almost-due manuscript, I’ve dipped into the DARK TOWER series by Stephen King. I’m astonished that I missed this when it came out and I’m making up for lost time now. King recounts in the foreword to THE GUNSLINGER how he woke from a dream with a disturbing refrain that later became Roland’s beachside encounter with the Lobster Things.

I’ve had a similar series of dreams.

My dearly appreciated fans often tell me how they LOVE my bad guys: Jonny Maxwell, Alfie, Johnny Wylde and his crew, the Faceless Man His Own Self, Mr. Smith aka Hank…there’s an interview on my friend Lance Storm’s (the WWE great) website http://www.stormwrestling.com/bookmarks/warrior.html about evil, villains and story-telling that I wrote for his Book Club’s about WARRIOR IN THE SHADOWS.

My recent dreams are about an evil character I call the Achy Man: bent and twisted with chronic pain and hatred, the patriarch of a clan that makes GAME OF THRONES look like THE SOUND OF MUSIC. Like Stephen King’s strange refrain that birthed THE DARK TOWER, mine started with a non-sensical riff on that old nursery rhyme: Lady Bug, Lady Bug, fly away home, your house is on fire and your children’s alone…

But instead I got these, a long series that I woke up and wrote down:

Achy Man, Achy Man, fly away home,
Your life is on fire, your children’s alone —

Achy Man, Achy Man, fly away home,
Your sons are all cowards, throw ‘em a bone —

Achy Man, Achy Man, fly away home,
Your friends are all laughing, that’s why you’re alone —

Achy Man, Achy Man, fly away home,
The Country Club dissed you, you’re a no-fly zone —

Achy Man, Achy Man, fly away home,
Your PI done lied to you and left you alone —

Achy Man, Achy Man, fly away home,
Your car needs polishing, are you getting stoned?

Achy Man, Achy Man, fly away home,
Fox News gots your picture and your friends’s picture too —

Achy Man, Achy Man, fly away home,
There’s a Federal indictment in your time zone —

Achy Man, Achy Man, fly away home,
I’ll be there next week — maybe I’ll leave you alone —

Achy Man, Achy Man, fly away home,
I’ll be there next week, all old and alone,

Achy Man, Achy Man, fly away home,
Maybe I can help you? For a significant loan —

Achy Man, Achy Man, fly away home,
Threaten a child and I’ll burn down your home —

Achy Man, Achy Man, fly away home,
There’s some Street Crimes killing in your patrol zone —

Achy Man, Achy Man, fly away home,
Your hookers done left you and they laugh at your bone —

Seem crazy? There’s a story here, I think…like THE DARK TOWER it may connect to my previous stories and to those in the pipeline.

I thought I’d share that with you, since I rarely write about the creative writing process, being one of those writers that would rather write than write about writing. But going back and forth between projects has given me a particular perspective right now.

Among those projects: nearing the end of the revision to THE SWORD OF MICHAEL (working title, may be changed) my first urban fantasy for Baen; once that’s done, sometime next week I’m thinking, then it’s on to finish THREE’S WYLDE. I’m also working on some short fiction, some of which I’ll post here and some of which will appear in some magazines.

Thanks for staying tuned — more later!

PS: You know what’s great about the Achy Man rhymes? They make PERFECT tweets…

cheers, m