Category Archives: Nonfiction

June 21, 2024 · 4:34 pm

What’s not getting done

My four-day/seven hour workweek continues to be a productive approach. The downside is, not everything I need to get done gets done.

(As I’ve said before, there’s always one armored killer you don’t realize you need to deal with).

If there’s something specific that needs doing — picking up dog meds, dealing with contractors, giving the pups dog meds — I’m on it. But there’s non-urgent but necessary stuff (cleaning things, sorting stuff, keeping up with non-urgent paperwork, dog exercises) that I don’t get around to during the week. I end up too focused on work, which is good, and on the weekends I’m focused on relaxing. Doesn’t leave much time.

Also my efforts to Pomodoro and take a break every half hour somehow get forgotten when I’m working so intensely. This relates to the not-doing as there’s stuff I might squeeze into these breaks except I don’t take them.

This week was unsatisfactory as it was all nonfiction. I cover Carrboro Town Council for The Local Reporter and this week was their last meeting until September. They had a lot on their agenda. Sitting and watching a 4.5 hour streaming meeting and recording the key moments is more work than you might think. I did have one story, published, about expansion plans for the Kidzu Children’s Museum.

The rest of the time I continued proofing the first 30,000 words of Savage Adventures. I got it done but still have to go back and confirm some of my details about the books are correct. It’s definitely looking like September will be pushing it to finish the book. I’m not definitely postponing yet, though.

I sat down and mapped out a rough schedule for my Jekyll and Hyde film book. It’s a lot of work but it’s doable without knocking myself out the way I did for The Aliens Are Here. The list of movies I need to see is much smaller.

And that was it. No Atomic Junk Shop — getting all my blogging done on Friday is proving harder than I’d hoped. No fiction (sigh). No submitting stories — I came across one market that might be good for Obolus but I balked at $10 for an 8,000 word piece.

Efficient scheduling can’t solve everything, just some things.

#SFWApro. Luke Cage cover by Billy Graham, Doc Savage by James Bama. All rights to images remain with current holders.

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June 14, 2024 · 11:16 am

The four-day work week is still working

The week still wasn’t as productive as I’d have liked, but leaving blogging and email (well, most of it) to Friday really does improve my ability for focused work. On the downside this wound up being another Local Reporter-heavy week. I got in a story on a recent Carrboro City Council meeting and then needed to get a second story in early for next week. I spent more time than planned, and it spread out over parts of three days. It’s much easier to work on other stuff I can confine it to one day.

Plus we had checkups for Plushie and Trixie Thursday and refocusing after a big errand never comes easily.

And last weekend we took in Wisp for her annual checkup, plus I had a Con-Tinual panel and a Zoom meeting for the Ceaseless Way anthology. As a result I didn’t get to recharge as much as usual.

The plus side? All our pets seem to be in good shape. Plushie and Wisp have both been very snuggly this week; in Plushie’s case that may reflect that with his recent trip to the groomer, he’s no longer got mats tugging on his skin and making him uncomfortable. Occasionally they get displeased someone else has my lap.

All of which meant the time for my own projects was all about Savage Adventures, as editing nonfiction doesn’t take creative juice. Disappointingly, it required a lot more rewriting and polishing than I’d expected, making me wonder if I need to push the release date back to October.

I also got out a couple more Atomic Junk Shop posts. One on the bizarre 1968 series, Brother Power, The Geek—

—and another rounding up various interesting stories from the Silver Age.

No panels or vet trips this weekend so I should be re-energized come Monday. Fingers crossed!

#SFWApro. Brother Power cover by Joe Simon, all rights to image remain with current holder.

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June 7, 2024 · 11:58 am

I think I could do with less disorder under heaven, thank you.

Once again, going to a four-day workweek proved successful. However the work that got done wasn’t the work I wanted most to do.

On the other hand, given a fair amount of dog drama, I did well. First, Plushie started doing the yelps and flinching he does when his back goes out. Unusually, he didn’t flinch when we touched his back but we know better than to think it’ll pass. We doped him up with painkillers and muscle relaxers, took him in yesterday. The vet concluded it was some sort of muscle strain rather than his back so it should be easier to fix. Most likely Plush Dudley thrashing during his grooming Tuesday pulled something. While I haven’t a photo handy, this one from previous grooming is pretty accurate. You can see the change compared to this Before photo.

Trixie gave a pained yelp Monday when our doggie PT person touched her in the sore spot. That’s alarming because the pain meds she’s on have kept her fine the past month. Then twice more during the week. My personal guess is that because we ran short briefly on her meds, she became sensitive again. I hope that’s it as the alternatives — built up a resistance, her condition’s growing worse — are more alarming. Fortunately she was scheduled for a checkup anyway. I worry a little more about her as she’s normally so stoic. That means it really hurts, and possibly that she’s hurting (but not enough to cry out) the rest of the time.

Oh, and Wisp is going in tomorrow for her annual checkup. That means a lot of very upset meowing. Hopefully, no bad news.

On the plus side, Snowdrop disappeared late last week. Around Tuesday I saw him in the woods near our house which was good news — he’s alive! — but why wasn’t he with us? And it’s way safer if he’s snoozing on our deck. Wednesday he finally showed so we feel a lot more relieved.

Amidst all that, and with TYG sleeping downstairs so we don’t have to drag Plushie up and down the stairs (this is completely the right call but it does disrupt my morning routine) I still got work done. Regrettably The Local Reporter took over the schedule instead of my own work. I like the work, I get paid for the work but I try to keep it to a minimum each week. This week, it didn’t work. I had a rush job to write about a local movie theater, then the Carrboro Town Council meeting ran three hours. I did get a good story out of it though, about the water utility raising rates $12, primarily to pay for removing PFAS “forever” chemicals from the water. It was more complicated to write than you’d think and by that point my brain was largely shot.

As a result I didn’t get any work done on fiction, only began the editing on Savage Adventures. Frustrating, though I should be able to make up the time in the rest of the month. Though I’ve said that before and been wrong.

Oh, over at Atomic Junk Shop, I reblogged my post about the first issue of Captain Action, and the rest of his short career, including them as part of my Silver Age Reread. I also blogged about a 1960s toyline called the Zeroids — turns out more of my friends have them than I expected.

#SFWApro. Captain Action cover by Irv Novick, all rights to images remain with current holders.

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May 31, 2024 · 3:10 pm

If it wasn’t for the nights …

Insomnia was appalling the past three nights. I’ve no idea why. It made me feel miserable at times during the day but the days were still productive.

As I said last week, I’ve decided to switch to a four-day week for creative work, leaving blogging, email, etc. for Fridays. It worked well. The biggest problem is when I wrap up my assigned work for the day early, as happened yesterday; it takes a conscious effort to switch to some other productive work that needs doing. An easy fix, though: I have to make sure I have backup work in mind for situations like that.

The big accomplishment this week was finishing this draft of Southern Discomfort. I’ve edited out verbal tics, fixed plot problems and adjusted character bits. I also find myself wondering if it needs a bigger rewrite before the final proof, something I’ll blog about next week. Still, the work is good; I shall pat myself on the back for getting it done rather than fret about the remaining work.

There was some drama over the Ceaseless Way anthology when it became clear we’d had a major misunderstanding about some of our plans. We’ve worked out, though with some hurt feelings along the way. Everyone seems back on track, though. This was a good example of something my various business-writing articles over the years have discussed, the importance of getting everything absolutely clear. It’s why oral agreements often result in problems. We’re taking steps to avoid a repeat.

The Local Reporter ran my article about two Carrboro town leaders winning an award. Over at Atomic Junk Shop I look at where the Spectre’s Silver Age series went wrong.

#SFWApro. Cover by Murphy Anderson, all rights to images remain with current holder.

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May 24, 2024 · 2:34 pm

“Weasel, this time work WITH the drugs!”

Title is a line (maybe not verbatim) from the musical Angry Housewives. The point being that sometimes going against the flow is counterproductive.

Case in point, a while back I began devoting an hour on Friday to clearing out my email, another hour to planning the next week. Worked great … except that instead of wrapping up my day that way, I’d start by clearing out my email. And somehow after doing such mundane tasks, it was hard to get my mind back in a writing groove.

This week it hit me: with a little reshuffling of my schedule I can put in slightly more time Monday through Thursday, use Friday for email, planning and blogging and not lose any writing time. That fits the way my mind wants to work and it might feel good. It certainly did today. Unhurried morning, email and planning done, next week’s blogging done. And as I donated blood at noon, I wouldn’t have been focused in the afternoon anyway.

This week it was my little Trixie who had the health problems. A trifecta, in fact: weird rash on her nose, dewclaws grown so long they dug into her pads and after we brought her back from the vet, she started puking. All good now: antibiotics for the nose, dewclaws trimmed, Cerenia to keep her stomach stable until whatever it was passes.

Yes, I did some writing too. I’m about 60 percent done with the final section of Southern Discomfort. Other than that, I spent my time working on Local Reporter stuff. One on this week’s Carrboro City Council meeting, another about a local charity working to alleviate period poverty in NC. I’m really pleased with that last one — it’s a serious issue and not talked about enough.

Over at Atomic Junk Shop I took a look at Marvel in 1968. Up until late ’67, Marvel relied on DC’s distributor to reach the newsstands and that limited it to around eight books a month. Now that era is over and Marvel has expanded fast, but not always successfully. On the plus side, Archie Goodwin’s sole issue of Incredible Hulk gives Betty Ross a chance to do something heroic instead of staying Wimpy Love Interest.

I followed that with a look at what the comics companies besides DC and Marvel were doing in ’68.

Oh, and MA Kropp gave a favorable review to Questionable Minds. Thanks!

And now the weekend. Enjoy!

#SFWApro. Art by Marie Severin, all rights to images remain with current holders.

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May 17, 2024 · 3:45 pm

Disorder continues but the work gets done

Overall, much less disorder than last week. But for various reasons we’re having Plushie sleep downstairs this week. TYG sleeps down there with him so he doesn’t have to feel alone. I sleep upstairs with Trixie in the master bedroom.

The result? Instead of getting up for tea in the early morning I wait a couple of hours until TYG is awake. That throws me off schedule, even though I bring my computer up to the bedroom and work there early. I’m also sleeping much more than usual, which means I don’t wake up as early. This is a net win but again, it’s disruptive. I have no idea why; apparently our huge bed with one dog in it gives me the right amount of space for good sleep hygiene.

Despite the disruption, work got done. I finished this draft of Savage Adventures and met my May word-count for Let No Man Put Asunder. I completed a bunch of IRL tasks and bills that I’d left unresolved because of all the chaos last week. I worked on a couple of articles for The Local Reporter but one had to cancel an interview, one couldn’t give me definite answers yet.

Catching up on Con-Tinual, here’s a bunch of panels I’ve been on, on the Spectre, on Nexus, Agents of SHIELD, the Doom Patrol, comic-book couples, and magic in the comics. Over at Atomic Junk Shop I look at the beginning of the end for Batman’s New Look. The art below is by Irv Novick.

I did not meet my exercise goals. I thought breaking my efforts into five minute bursts throughout the day would work but our pets keep getting needy when they see I’ve put the computer down. Sigh.

Overall, though, an excellent week.

#SFWApro. All rights to images remain with current holders.

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May 10, 2024 · 4:30 pm

Disorder under heaven (again) but the situation is excellent. Sort of.

Sheesh. This was a week.

We had carefully mapped out our schedule to account for various things — business to take care of Tuesday afternoon, TYG to the dentist Wednesday, housekeepers Thursday, me to my next blood donation Friday morning, then probably resting the rest of the day.

(This is a cicada case. It’s rise-and-mate time with them and man, they are loud. By midweek we could even here them from inside our house).

Tuesday afternoon things went wrong and we had to postpone until today. That meant I had to push back my blood donation until tomorrow, but that won’t work either. And TYG’s dentist had to switch her appointment around which complicated her work schedule. I postponed my blood appointment until tomorrow.

On Wednesday I noticed that while our A/C was set to 70 it was running at 76. Wonderful. When they came out Thursday to check on it, they almost couldn’t find anything but the key glitch kicked in at the last minute (and they say there are no miracles). They performed a temporary fix with a pemanent one next week.

Plus the housekeepers closed the stopper in my sink. It turns out the opening lever is broken so it’s closed until we get the plumber in. I’m not sure if it’s the cleaning crew’s fault or that it was already broken and I never close it.

Astonishingly I got good work done. I went over the final section of Southern Discomfort though I didn’t finish editing it. I got a lot of editing done on Savage Adventures though again, not finishing. And I got another chapter finished on the Let No Man Put Asunder rewrite

I turned in a short Local Reporter article on renovations at a local-government building and two Atomic Junk Shop posts, one about some stories by one of my favorite Silver Age writers, Gardner Fox, and one about the changes in comics and pop culture as the Sixties came to a close.

A frustrating week, but overall a definite win.

#SFWApro. Cover by Gil Kane, all rights to image remain with current holder.

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May 3, 2024 · 4:30 pm

May is off to a good start!

Will it stay in that groove? Don’t miss a single thrilling blog post to find out!

Monday was not particularly good as I was wiped out from a)Ravencon b)Culturequest, a Mensa general-knowledge contest that I competed in Sunday afternoon. Much as I’d have liked for all five of us to work together — Courtney, our leader, runs a tight ship — we had to do it over Zoom and we don’t work quite as smoothly. We wound up debating endlessly over the questions, slowing us down — it’s a timed quiz — and then I’d cut through the debate by pushing for an answer. A lot of mine were wrong. Oops. Though I did kill it on the literature section — more so, surprisingly, than film.

That left me exhausted on Monday. Tuesday, though, I finished a fun Local Reporter article about the new library planned for Carrboro and got started on future articles (always work ahead of deadline).

Wednesday I worked through the 1941-49 sections of Savage Adventures and got them done. Not completely: wherever I wasn’t sure how to interpret what I wrote or that it was an accurate synopsis, I made a note. Next week I’ll check the novels to make everything accurate and clear.

Thursday I sat down with Chapter Three of Let No Man Put Asunder. It’s the second big fight scene and a lot of my beta readers said it was less interesting than some of the conversations later in the chapter. I needed to change that, obviously. I needed to map it out so it worked logically. And I wanted to have more result from it than “we fought, we survived.” As Lester Dent says, action has to do more than move characters over the scenery. I studied the book Fight Write, browsed a few articles. Plotted the scene out in detail. Finally I went to work.

I think I succeeded. We’ll see what the writing group thinks, though it’ll be a while before it gets to them.

I also put in some work on the Ceaseless Way collaborative anthology and printed up the last section of Southern Discomfort. Didn’t quite get to work on it.

Oh, and I seriously worked to put the Pomodoro break-every-25-minutes approach to time management into action. While it’s hard to do exercises when I’m watching the pets (as I was most of the week) I can squeeze in five minutes every so often (ditto for their own exercises). I made my exercise goals for this week by working out on pomodoro breaks and I’m pleased with that.

#SFWApro. Cover by Charles Ravel, all rights to images remain with current holders.

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April 26, 2024 · 4:35 pm

April really is the cruelest month. At least this week was.

It’s also the month our garden started blooming so here are some photos to go along with the story.

First off, we’re continuing to devote an hour a day total to Plushie’s eyes. We were starting to get the hang of it but Plushie’s now had enough: he avoids getting into position for the eyes (one where it won’t hurt TYG’s back to bend down and apply the eye drops) as much as possible, even when tempted with treats. So that adds to the time and frustration.

Trixie spent Wednesday afternoon and early evening with diarrhea — thank goodness it didn’t last any longer — plus the pain in her ribs that I’ve mentioned before (I don’t have links) resurfaced. TYG triggered it for the first time and freaked out over the pain cry (I don’t blame her, it sounds terrible). We had that to worry about and an extra doctor’s appointment. The squirtling poop stopped on its own and we put her back on pain meds. Those will keep her fine until her next big checkup — and at least this visit the vet heard her cry out, which apparently helps (as I thought, the sore spot is on the side of their ribs though they don’t know why it’s there).

Did I mention that TYG’s schedule left me handling dogs most of the week. And when I wasn’t, I had errands to run. As I’ve noted before, this is fair — she has to deal with bosses and other people’s deadlines, i don’t — but it gets exhausting. Wednesday in particular. Trying to finish this week’s Local Reporter article — on the Carrboro town council meeting and an upcoming business expo —and get technical facts straight while tired and taking out Ms. Squirtle got very frustrating.

We also took the car in yesterday for a checkup. By the time I got back, I should have given up writing and done something non-work for the day. However I’d gotten into the mental state where (to paraphrase CS Lewis) I did neither what was fun or what was necessary — that is, I worked at writing but without much result.

This weekend will be hectic too, but fun. I’d almost like to skip everything and hide in my bed, but I know I’ll feel better once things get going. And next week should be a lot better.

Oh, over at Atomic Junkshop I did discuss how my memories of DC’s House of Secrets in 1968 do not match the reality.

#SFWApro. Cain image by Jack Sparling. Credit for flowers goes to TYG, who’s in charge of the garden — I just move pots and tools when she tells me.

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April 5, 2024 · 4:02 pm

My week in review, illustrated with plants

TYG took some time off recently and went gardening (hopefully everything survives this weekend’s turn to cold temperatures). As the dogwood in our yard kept poking her while she worked, she trimmed it back and brought the trimmings inside.They have now died but it was quite decorative for a while. Here’s her table of seedlings from before she planted them.
This was a good week. We’re still giving Plushie a lot of drops for his glaucoma and related issues (antibiotics for a scratch on the eyeball) but he’s doing well and we’ve finally got the rhythm down: it’s still a chunk of time but I’m finding ways to read or write between the drops. After his coming recheck we’re hopeful we can cut the antibiotics and maybe reduce the length of time between doses.

Despite the drops, I did get a lot of work done. I completed edits on Savage Adventures through 1940 so that April task is done. Mostly I’m going through the books to clarify any points where my synopses or comments were unclear — did I have the correct spelling of Pharaoh Pey-deh-eh-ghan in Resurrection Day, for instance? After that comes one final round of edits. I was going to ask a friend of mine to do the cover but I missed our coffee date due to one of Plushie’s eye appointments and I haven’t caught up since. Darn it.

I printed out the next 100 pages of Southern Discomfort and went over it, marking misspellings, errors (when I switched Maria’s POV to first person I didn’t change every “her” to “I”) and simply places where the writing needs tightening or clarifying or changing to avoid repetition. As I mentioned last week, I’m way overfond of compound sentences linked by “but.” Next week I’ll go over the manuscript and start making the changes.

I also read a chapter of the book to the writing group. I’d picked it partly because I’d rewritten that chapter to provide more context for some of the period references. It worked better than previous readings but a couple of the group members thought it could still use added context.  I must think about this.

I got about 3,000 words done on the rewrite of Let No Man Put Asunder. As the group has suggested, I’m slowing down and giving Paul and Mandy chances to catch their breath and think. I’m also working to provide more context, based on feedback from last year. When Paul talks about the mysteries he found in the used book store, rather than just rattle off names it’s “three Shell Scott hardboiled PI mysteries, a John Dickson Carr locked-room mystery and two Agatha Christies” (I don’t think anyone needs context for Agatha Christie). Will that do the trick? We’ll see next time I beta-read it.

I do wish I had a firmer idea of Asunder‘s plot arc. I’m not sure now that I did enough rethinking and replotting before starting round two. However I can always stop and think some if that’s the case.I submitted my proposal for Jekyll and Hyde Adaptations in Film and TV (I imagine the title will be something close to that) to McFarland. Now I wait and see if they like it. I think my sample chapters were excellent so fingers crossed.I posted one article at Atomic Junk Shop on how comics handled women in 1968 (spoiler: not well) and on the introduction of George Stacy, Gwen’s retired-cop father and of Earth-Prime, the world where we live in the DC multiverse. I also published a Local Reporter article about Chapel Hill Public Library competing for a national award and how the Carrboro PD is working to avoid incarcerating the mentally ill.

And that’s about it, but I think that was more than enough. Whoot! Have a great weekend, y’all.

#SFWApro. Resurrection Day cover by James Bama, Spider-Man art by John Romita.

 

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