If you imagine distracting events as the axe-men Luke Cage is busting on this cover —
— then unlike last week, the third axe-man did me in. Almost nothing got done this week.
I knew it wouldn’t be a stellar week because TYG had an out-of-town trip which left me with all the dog care (not a criticism of her — she does the same when I go out of town). Still it wouldn’t have been too bad, except early Sunday morning Trixie’s UTI returned. Peeing on the bed does tend to rob one of sleep. Monday I had to take her in; the vet confirmed it’s a different bacterial soup inside her from last time. This could mean some bacteria got antibiotic resistance or that her equipment is looser and weaker., leading to incontinence. Either way it’s treatable.
Happily the UTI doesn’t seem to affect anything else. She’s lively, up for walks, eats, snuggles. No small thing.
In the short term, however, I got minimal sleep Saturday and Sunday night (she got up early Monday morning too). Then Monday night I was too stressed with worry to sleep well and felt half-dead Tuesday. Need I say I didn’t get much done? Wednesday was better but not much better. TYG returned and I got more sleep Wednesday night. However Thursday I was still tired and we had a recheck for Trixie to go to.
Result? Almost nothing done. Some work on Savage Adventures and a final review of my two stories for Become the Sky. We’re shooting to get it done next month so that has to be a priority.
However, as I’ve blogged about several times over the years, some bad weeks are inevitable. Sooner or later you hit a week where everything goes wrong. This ain’t the first. Won’t be the last. The solution is to do better next week. This will be a little challenging — three different medical appointments for various things — but I shall do my best to rise to the challenge.
To end on a plus note, I sold several copies of various books so as always, thank you buyers! Hope you enjoyed them.
Cover by Billy Graham. All rights to image remain with current holders.
You know, these axemen. I’ve posted this Billy Graham cover before because it sums up the way life keeps bushwhacking us just when we think we’re out from under. There were more axemen this week than expected but like the first week of September, the work got done.
A lot of the distractions were paperwork, like submitting for our dogs various recent vet visits, ordering fresh dog drugs, etc. There was also tiredness due to Trixie’s drug regimen keeping up up late to get the last ones in. Her UTI and her GI issues have resolved themselves, though, and the drugs are done. However she developed a slightly shaky left rear leg so we have an appointment this Saturday. It’s nothing serious but it’s definitely not normal — I don’t want to wait for serious discomfort like we did with the GI bleed.
Despite the leg, she’s 100 percent better from last weekend. Hungry, bouncy, eager to play, willing to walk and just more her usual self. Dudley too is in good shape. We had his rehab recheck Monday and the vet gushed over the great shape he’s in for nearly 16. Yay Dudders, yay vet, yay us for taking good care.
Overall life was nowhere near as intense as last week. However it was intense enough I didn’t really get to draw breath, either.
So, walk. As one of my October articles for The Local Reporter is a listicle of Carrboro nonprofits I spent Monday researching them. There’s quite a lot for a small town so it’s a good thing I started. I imagine I’ll break them down into different groupings (kid-related, sports, arts, charity, etc.) when I write it next week.
I’ve proofed The Savage Adventures through 1937 which is about 45 percent of the book done. Having reread the second draft of Let No Man Put Asunderlast week, I began planning Draft Three. That meant reading a lot of articles about rewriting, developing character arcs, etc., then starting work on Paul and Mandy’s character arcs (details next week). That was very productive; hopefully the work will translate into a smooth, faster-than-usual draft.
My two stories for the Become the Sky anthology have gotten two rounds of editing so I made changes Thursday. This took longer than expected so I didn’t write anything further. However the critiques were really good and the stories are stronger for it. So yay. If all goes well we’ll have this out before year’s end so you can decide for yourself.
Oh, and my sensitive teeth appear to be getting back to normal so maybe a crown won’t be necessary. Hurray! Second hurray, I sold another copy of Southern Discomfort. Whoever you were, thank you — I hope you enjoy it.
After I wrote the first draft of this post, I realized something else about this week: I’m waaaaay more focused than I have been in a while. I’m having no trouble concentrating on my work and only wandering off to check BlueSky (or whatever) occasionally. That hasn’t been the case in … a while? I’m not sure what changed but hopefully I can keep it up next week (much chaotic stuff to deal with, details next Friday). Because it feels good.
The old saying is that if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. I planned to get a lot done this week; God said “ha!” meaning there were a ton of obstacles. Despite which, to my pleasant surprise, I did get a lot done.
First the obstacles. We were still dealing with Plushie’s ulcer (diagnosed last week) but as of his Thursday appointment, it’s cured. Once again our dog has beaten a health problem despite his nearly 16 years of age! That’s always nice. He’s still on an antibiotic for the ulcer but that’s more a precaution than a necessity. We’re taking it though.
Trixie didn’t do so well. Last week she was becoming weirdly picky about food and reluctant to eat her meds. She also felt … off, in a way I can sense but couldn’t define. Sunday she began not eating at all so we took her into the vet Monday, followed by the emergency vet (they could do a couple of tests Park Vet couldn’t). At first the news was horrifying: anemic, blood count up, white blood cells up, which could indicate an infection, or possibly internal bleeding. At the end of the day, by virtue of eliminating the alternatives, they settled on probably some bleeding in the GI tract (I will skip the technical details).
We came home with directions to switch some of her meds and to have her drink a protective slurry an hour before her meals. It’s working: we took her in for a recheck Wednesday and all her signs have improved, though not by a lot (but the vet said that’s expected). She’s livelier, though also sleepier — she’s on Gabapentin now and it knocks her out. But she’s clearly happier and more interested in eating so this is a definite win. A demanding one — the need to time the slurry and her food and some of her meds makes our schedules that much more complicated.
Oh, and I also had to take our car in for an oil change and checkup. That took up a couple of hours too.
Despite which, work went well. I got two articles in for The Local Reporter, both out next week. Might get a third one done but I think that’s where the dog drama will leave me too wiped. I also got three posts up at Atomic Junk Shop, one about iron-on shirt decals in the 1970s, one on a really weird 1971 cover (above, by Murphy Anderson) and one about the path to (IMHO) the definitive Phantom Stranger run by Jim Aparo and Len Wein which kicked off with the cover at left by Aparo.
I worked through another year of Doc Savage’s history for Savage Adventures, and polished the bibliography. And then, on Let No Man Put Asunder, I really got some good stuff done. First I went through the writing guide Writing the Breakout Novel, taking notes on stuff that might be useful to think about (give your villains goals. Your supporting characters too). Maybe not — while I’ve read the book a lot, I’m not sure I use it’s techniques not. But I think I’m using it early enough in the rewrite process that might be different.
Then I started rereading, taking notes along the way. Insights or phrases someone offers more than once (“making the beast with two backs” is not going to appear more than once). Thin characterization or motivation. Implausible plotting. Places where it needs more tension. I got a third of the way through the book; that’s pretty good.
I also received by McFarland second-half-of-the-year royalty check. Small, but my books are still selling, which is cool; if you bought one of them, thanks!
And I now have three stories in the “made the first cut” category. No guarantee any of them will sell — I’m quite used to “This was a really tough decision, but …” emails — but they’re all possibilities. More disappointingly, I won’t get an author table to sell my books at Retcon next year. It was quite lucrative this year because it’s set up so all the con-goers go past the sale area frequently, probably why table requests have quadrupled. I’m on the waiting list so fingers crossed.
Fingers crossed too for more weeks like this.
Below, a typical Len Wein opening to a Phantom Stranger story. Aparo art.
Which is to say, this was another frustrating week. Looking at how often I type that, I wonder if I’m losing my ability to concentrate as I age? Or is it just that sometimes, shit happens.
This week was definitely partly “shit happens.” First off, Monday evening Plushie’s good eye had something wrong with it, making him squint so much it was barely open. TYG rushed him down to the nearby emergency vet who did not perform well. We may not go back which is a crying shame (it’s a lot further to the next closest E/R). However we were able to get a Tuesday morning appointment with his eye doctor (they’re also close): it’s an ulcer, which is manageable and it was back to normal by Thursday (though we’ll be doing added eyedrops for a week or so). Still that meant we got to bed sometime around midnight, which ain’t good.
Yesterday I went in to my own doctor, who confirmed I have sleep apnea. The most likely outcome is that I’ll end up wearing one of those freaky masks hooked up to a small air pump. I’ll be talking to a specialist about that. The other alternatives are a smaller mouthpiece that would widen my air intake or to take the GLP and see if my weight comes down. My doctor favors the CPAC pump and I’m inclined to agree. While I’m obese by BMI standards I’d need to lose 30 pounds to be non-obese; while I’m nobody’s idea of six-pack abs I do not believe I have 30 excess pounds to lose. In any case, that took a chunk out of my day.
Oh, and Trixie came down with a tummy this weekend and refused to eat. Since then she’s eating but she’s ultra-picky. Won’t take her meds on anything but the same canned chicken we give Plushie. Won’t eat kibble, only soft food. Refuses most hard treats — I’d think she had a tooth issue but there are some treats she does eat so … well, you’ve got me. If it keeps going I may ask the vet for insight.
All that said, part of the problem this week was me not being organized. I had three stories to work on for The Local Reporter and in-between sending out emails and waiting for replies my mind kind of wandered (the lack of sleep didn’t help). Plus I had some personal plane travel I might take before the end of the year and that always messes up my mind: do I want to spend the money? Do I want to get to the airport at 5 in the morning if it saves $100? I’ve spent much of my life living on a struggling writer salary so it’s impossible for me to be just “yeah, that’ll do for anything over a couple of hundred bucks. And if I plonk down the money now, who knows what’ll happen between now and then?However I did get most of the work done on the stories. Plus I got more work done on Savage Adventures, including adding footnotes. I’d been mostly attributing stuff in the text when appropriate but it’ll flow much smoother with footnotes.
And that was about it. Part of the problem is that I kept trying to do more than one project in a day and that’s usually a mess unless I plan it very carefully. I’m going to try to avoid that in September.
(Photos are all from our yard, like this morning’s post. Here we have Mr. Squirrel acrobatically chowing down on the suet we put out for the birds)
This week, we began a renovation project. The master bathroom bathtub has enough problems we decided it was worth fixing them now rather than waiting until they become serious major problems. If you’ve ever heard that major renovations are a massive pain, it’s true. Knowing that I decided to work on Savage Adventures because it’s nonfiction and editing the manuscript doesn’t take creative thought the way resuming work on Let No Man Put Asunder would.
It was as bad as I’d figured and then some. As TYG normally works her IT gig in the master bedroom, she relocated into the spare bedroom and moved her bathroom stuff into mine. I’d almost forgotten how many things she has on her bathroom counter so mine is quite cluttered now.
A much bigger issue is that with people coming in and out, we worried the cats would freak, particularly Snowdrop, and bolt out away from the strangers. If they were spending the day sleeping upstairs we could simply lock them in. The past couple of weeks they’ve been hanging out in the living room so I had to keep constant watch they weren’t sitting too close to the door. Fortunately neither of them tried to get out, though they clearly weren’t happy.
That, coupled with dealing with the contractor if they had questions or requests (TYG did some of that, but with Zoom meetings to attend she can’t do all of it), plus the jarring noises from upstairs left me somewhat frazzled. Because I concentrated on Savage Adventures I was at least somewhat productive. I went through the book and made sure all the Doc Savage novels were attributed correctly; while Lester Dent wrote most of them, Street and Smith assigned other writers to some, and Dent occasionally used ghostwriters. I edited the first three chapters as well. The rest of the time I did some blogging, paid bills, etc. Nothing super-demanding. If not a spectacular workweek, I don’t feel I fell down on the job either.
Over at Atomic Junk Shop I blogged about toxic masculinity, reposted some book reviews from this blog, and posted about Southern Discomfort coming out (same post as I put up here, more or less). And that’s about it.
The contractors will be back Monday-Wednesday next week. I’m slightly more ambitious about what I plan to do. Wish me luck living up to my plans.
I’m honestly not sure, but whenever I sat down to work, my creative juices were not flowing.
Stuff which didn’t require creativity went fine. I finished the draft of Savage Adventures, which is not a small thing. One more draft should do it, a combined line edit with fact-checking (did I get the names of all the characters right, for instance). However I wanted to make progress on fiction as well and my mind just balked.
Short stories? No idea how to progress.
Rewrite of Let No Man Put Asunder? Ditto.
I did take the beginnings of two new untitled stories I worked on last week and share them with the writing group. The feedback satisfied me they’re worth working on and some of the suggestions were interesting (could they be part of the same novel? Probably not but if I could think of a way …). That was it, though.
I also didn’t do as well as usual with our dogs’ home PT care, or my own exercise regimen for that matter.
I did find that if I concentrate my various non-writing tasks — errands, bills, submissions to our pet insurance, Trupanion — in the first hour of work this gets them taken care of and lets me concentrate better the rest of the day. That helped with Savage Adventures at least.
Part of it may be that I’m still sleep-deprived — a couple of bad nights, no nights quite good enough to catch up. Plush Dudley being extremely restless is a big part of it. Sometimes I think he just likes to sleep on my side of the bed and he knows if he makes enough trouble, I’ll have to move and try to sleep in the spare bedroom. Wicked boy.
He’s so stinking cute, though.
Part of the problem may be that I haven’t had much break from our various pets the past month and a half, except when I’m out running errands. Over time it erodes my personal space and that does get draining.
I did get to attend my Genre Book Club, as I discussed over at Atomic Junk Shop. That was fun. And I had lunch with one of my writing friends, the first time I’ve managed that in a while.
Tune in next week for (hopefully) a better result! Cover by James Bama, all rights to image remain with current holder.
The title, for anyone who hasn’t heard the phrase refers to the line “if you want to make god laugh, tell him your plasn.” After the mess of our a.c. dying for two weeks, last week was a welcome lurch back toward normal. I’d hoped this week would be better still. Instead it turned way chaotic, though I still got some work done.
First off, I’m happy to report that feeding Plushie a fatty treat last Friday did not bring on a surge of pancreatitis or diarrhea. Phew! However pet drama did suck up a lot of time. There’s some utility work being done in our neighborhood so a crew went through last week and painted lines on lawns to indicate existing cables, pipes and conduits. Plushie rolled on the paint Monday, getting it all over his face. We had to give him an unplanned bath before he started licking it off, which consumed quite a bit of time.
Then because Trixie’s been licking and chewing on her paws, I took her in later that afternoon. They gave us some antibiotic wipes for her paws; they seem to be doing the trick.
Tuesday we’d planned to take Snowdrop in for his annual checkup. There was a miscommunication with our vet so that didn’t happen. However TYG worried Plushie had a new eye problem so I took him in to the vet. No eye problem as it turned out (other than the old ones). I’d tease her about it but she’s right often enough it’s wise to listen when she worries.
Wednesday I had my annual dermatology checkup (all good). Thursday I structured my schedule around lunch with a friend but they had to cancel. I think I’ve managed one lunch out with friends this year — either they’re busy or stressed or sick — and it’s disappointing. Today we had a plumber coming to fix an outside tap (under warranty so no fee), the gutter cleaners and Wisp has a sore spot so I was supposed to take her to the vet. She did not cooperate so we had to reschedule but only after a quarter-hour’s efforts.
All those things chop up the day into smaller chunks. Each time I finish one it takes added time to refocus. The non-writing time adds up. Plus I had another lousy week of sleep: Plush Dudley’s been fidgeting night after night, and since he likes to lie next to me (or sometimes climb on me) that doesn’t work out well.
That said, work did get done, mostly editing on the final section of Savage Adventures. And Southern Discomfort will definitely go live as an ebook next month as I’ve worked the last kinks out of the manuscript. I think I’ve fixed the cover for the paperback version; I’ve ordered a copy to be sure. Preorder links to follow.
And on a happy note, yesterday TYG and I celebrated our fifteenth anniversary. Astonishingly she’s not done with me yet. Which suits me fine. We had dinner at Sage, which remains our favorite Durham restaurant and traded gifts (honey and cookies for me, a medical book for her).
Send positive thoughts that next week will be more productive.
Cover art by James Bama, all rights to images remain with current holders.
Tuesday, the HVAC repair crew showed up with the part to fix our air conditioning. After nine days with no a/c we were excited, though half fearful something else would go wrong.
Something else did. Turns out the compressor broke because something called a TVX broke so they had to order a TVX replacement. That left us broken and miserable the rest of the day. I wound up missing writing group and a Con-Tinual panel.
Next day, TYG got a second portable air-conditioning unit which we set up in the spare bedroom. That helped a lot, even lowering the temperature downstairs. I checked with the vet who assured me the cats would not die at 85 degrees in the house, provided they had water and a cool place to stretch out (they had both). Then Thursday, the part came in, they fixed it up and the heat is now back to normal.
This did not do my writing any good, of course. I made progress on Savage Adventures (Doc Savage cover here by Bob Larkin), rewriting up through the start of 1943. Only about 15,000 words to go this draft. But everything else … no. Nor exercise. It would have been easier if we’d been able to open windows or doors, but the cats might have gotten out, so we gritted our teeth. I did work up in the bedroom with TYG and the pups for a couple of days — we have one of the portable units there — but it’s always distracting when we’re working at close quarters.
Oh, and I got my first turn-down of the year, for All Happily Families, from Bourbon Penn. Does not dismay me at all, I’m happy to be submitting shorts again after a long time without.
I really, really, really hope for a smooth June. Fingers crossed.
AHEAD OF TIME is a Henry Kuttner short story collection drawing on his 1940s and early 1950s work; “Ghost,” for example, has a computer but as the word isn’t coined yet (the word still meant a human who computed numbers) it’s a “thinking machine.” Other stories involve celebrity head-hunters, alien peacemakers, suicidal robots and the immortal Hogben mutants of the Appalachians (heavy on the hillbilly stereotypes but still funny). I particularly liked “Camouflage” which feels like it’s in conversation with his wife CL Moore’s “No Woman Born” as the cyborg protagonist proves he’s as human as the gang of pirates he’s fighting (“I told you Tom, you’d forget our friendship before I did.”). Good stuff
Kuttner’s The Dark World has always felt to me like he’s knocking off A. Merritt’s Dwellers in the Mirage. THE VALLEY OF THE FLAME (cover by Ed Emshwiller) is also very Merrittesque, but more in style than a direct steal. For no discernible reason, this 1945 novel is set in the 1985 Amazon jungle, where the protagonist discovers a mystery that leads him to the lost land of Paititi. There an evolution meteor that landed 30 years ago has turned jaguars into cat people, speeding up existence in the lost land so that they’re civilization has (from their perspective) lasted for centuries. Now, though, the meteor is dying, which may devolve them into monsters; however a mad jaguar scientist’s plan to restimulate it may prove equally disastrous. The weirdly speeded-up life in Paititi is eerie and entertaining though I question Kuttner’s assumption that feline-evolved humanoids must be culturally different from us monkey people.
I could have sworn I reviewed SLAYING THE DRAGON: A Secret History of Dungeons and Dragons by Ben Riggs, a year and a half ago when I read it but nope. A very good job looking at the birth of the game in the 1970s and how it struggled despite being one of the coolest entertainment options out there (obviously my definition of “cool” is not universal). Under co-creator Gary Gygax’ tenure as company boss, it suffered from “we’re rich, let’s blow lots of money” syndrome. It gained, however, from the religious right denouncing it as Satan’s tool for initiating kids into black magic — that made an innocuous game experience as wild and rebellious as listening to death metal!
After Lorraine Williams bought a majority share in the company it faced other problems: complicated, unsound financing arrangements, bad decisions (favoring bookstores for distribution and ignoring gaming/hobby stores) and poor treatment of its creative personnel. Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman’s Dragonlance books launched a long line of D&D tie-in books but they wound up leaving the company and having even bigger success writing their own stuff. Despite which, of course, D&D endures and still has devoted players; I’m no longer one of them but I’m glad lots of people are.
Werwile of the Crystal Crypt was a pulp short story by comics legend Gardner Fox that I read simply from curiosity what a werwile is. It turns out it’s just the title of the Satan figure who destroyed the galaxy’s first civilization; can Nuala, a beautiful super-genius preserved in suspended animation, defeat him with the help of a “present-day” space adventurer? This is familiar pulp stuff, fun but not up to the level of Fox’s later comics SF stories (e.g., “The Invisible Dinosaur” with the Murphy Anderson cover). And the ending is horrifically sexist: Nuala gets mind-wiped in the final battle, losing her memories and her intelligence which delights the hero — now she’ll be happy to marry him and become a perfect little homemaker!
One of pulp hero Doc Savage’s best-known gadgets was his invention of mercy bullets that tranquilize their target rather than killing or injuring. I never much thought about that as a tween fan of the series — tranquilizer darts were familiar from lots of TV shows — but while working on Savage Adventures I began wondering what the state of the tech was in the 1930s. On the Trail of the Mercy Bullet: Pain, Scientific Showmanship and the early history of animal tranquilizing, c. 1912-1932 by Mia Uys answered my question. Uys looks at one Captain Barnett who developed a prototype tranquilizer dart and coined the “mercy bullet” term.
Barnett wasn’t the first; a 1912 inventor hit on the idea of putting grooves in bullets and morphia particles in the grooves, though nothing came of it. Barnett’s concept involved bullets that were miniature hypodermics; despite dubious effectiveness in animal capture he was still promoting it in radio and in-person lectures in the early 1930s. Presumably he inspired Dent to create Doc’s armaments, though firing them from a machine gun, it’s hard to see how they wouldn’t do serious injury or give the target too much of a dose if they were hit by multiple drafts.
All rights to images remains with current holders.
As I’ve mentioned previously, when I set my goals for 2026, I factored in that I’d be working on proofing and indexing Watching Jekyll and Hyde. And taking some time off. And allowing a couple of weeks for whatever problems might crop up and derail me.
You may also recall that our dogs’ gross digestive upsets already used up the emergency time I’d set aside. Life, alas, continued throwing emergencies our way. Last Sunday, TYG pointed out the thermostat showed the house was a higher temperature than she’d set. I’d noticed this over the previous couple of days but thought she’d just set it higher than usual. Nope. So we called our HVAC people, they sent someone out … compressor is dead. Covered by warranty so it won’t cost us to replace it, other than the diagnostic visit. But it has to be ordered from the factory which meant we had to spend this week sans A/C. And wouldn’t you know, the temperatures got up into the 90s?
Fortunately TYG acquired a portable A/C unit a while back; it’s big and bulky but we can plug it anywhere. It made the bedroom upstairs livable. The rest of the house, not so much? Nobody passed out from heat exhaustion (including the pets) but day after day it got increasingly, cumulatively exhausting. It didn’t help that I couldn’t sleep. Partly the heat, partly that TYG was restless and I’m too light a sleeper not to wake if she gets up.
So heat, plus exhaustion, plus umpty-zillion extra chores that turned up. Researching window air conditioners (we decided not to get one) and pet hotels (not practical — the cats would freak). Spending what seemed like two hours helping TYG fix a problem with the app controlling our thermostat. Various other odds and ends that popped up out of nowhere. Trying to tie some of our pet insurance reimbursements. As my title says, my battle plan did not survive.
I did get more work done on Savage Adventures and a Local Reporter story about a proposed cut to the Chapel Hill Library budget (not online yet). At Atomic Junk Shop I blogged about the importance of good cover art even for reprint book.
Fortunately the weather turned cooler this morning. The house is cooling off though it’s a slow process. The cool weather should last until Tuesday when the HVAC is up and running again.
Still, every week of lost time is, well, lost. And I hate that.
Cover art by James Bama. All rights to image remain with current holders.
