Category Archives: Short Stories

May 29, 2026 · 4:37 pm

Well, this week could have gone better

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.

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May 15, 2026 · 4:30 pm

Sing hosannas and release the doves!

This week came the day we dreaded — Wisp going to the vet! She gets warier every year, plus we can’t feed her after midnight. Which means Snowdrop can’t get any food either as they eat together.

Fortunately it was mostly smooth sailing. The cats sat by where their bowls go, but didn’t complain too much. TYG was able to grab Wisp and throw her in the big cage; after about half an hour of plaintive meowing, I took her in.

The good news: she’s in great shape. Some tartar on a back tooth, only .25 pounds heavier than last year (we’d thought she’d put on a lot more weight). And she forgave us fairly quickly.

It was a week with a lot of appointments like that, all of them turning out well. I had a dental appointment Wednesday (checkup and cleaning), then Plushie had his eye checkup later that afternoon (still in great shape). Good news, but a lot of time taken up. Plus I had to submit a bunch of invoices to our various insurers for online purchases.

The downside, of course, was that all those appointments ate up time. Plus, of course, time after each to recover and refocus my thoughts. On top of which I had a late night Tuesday and Wednesday which left me zonked on Thursday. Despite which, I got some good work done. The best thing is that I successfully formatted Southern Discomfort for Draft2Digital and Amazon. Draft2Digital is invaluable but their ebook formatting sometimes makes my Word formatting look wonky. That’s now fixed. And D2D will provide me with a PDF I can upload to Amazon.

I did some work on Savage Adventures. I really need to get to work on a cover artist ASAP. Not that I’m close to done, but once I am, I’d like to move much faster than I did with Southern Discomfort. Speaking of which, the cover is done for the digital version (Amazon needs some technical tweaks); I’ll announce a release date next week.

I read “Honey on the Grave” to the writing group. They really liked it, which was great; it’s only about my fourth draft and it usually takes many more before a story is any good. They also gave me some suggestions for polishing it, which I will look at later this month. The meeting was the reason I was up late Tuesday; we discovered Zoom was automatically recording our readings with AI and because they guy who officially hosted it is no longer with the group, we can’t do anything to turn it off. We set up a new Zoom link with myself and one of the other writers as co-hosts; however some people had bookmarked the old link rather than clicking on it from the group’s webpage so we had to go find them and tip them off. A learning experience.

Over at Atomic Junk Shop I reviewed some books about African-American films and reposted my old review about Brother From Another Planet.

On the downside, waking up late led to me missing much of my usual morning exercise and stretching sessions. Next week should be better, though — zero appointments.

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May 8, 2026 · 4:17 pm

A Charleston fountain plus a week in review

I still haven’t uploaded all the Charleston vacation photos so today you get to see the Pineapple Fountain we visited in a waterfront park. When it was built, being able to import and serve pineapples was a mark of wealth and Charleston was both a hub of trade and a wealthy city.

The fountain, with my sister wading in it. Birds did that too.

After a frustrating April, this week went well, despite taking time off Monday to visit Costco. With god knows what about to happen to our economy due to the Toddler’s stupid Iran war, TYG and I figured picking up some bulk supplies now might be wise.

I wrote 6,000 words on the current draft of Let No Man Put Asunder, despite the fact I’m having to change a lot more of the book. As I realized last month, Mandy’s character arc isn’t strong enough. I’ve added a couple of scenes this section that will help with that; hopefully more will come to mind as I move forward. However I also realized I cut out some scenes where she realizes whatever magical transformation she’s undergone is compelling her to quit smoking, something she’s not happy about. It simply looks like halfway through the book she stopped lighting up. I’ll have to go back and fix that.

I rewrote the short story Honey on the Grave and it looks good. I’m reading for the writing group next week; we’ll see what they make of it. If it’s got problems I can’t see, they’ll spot them. I also reread Die and Let Live and started restructuring it so that it’s less of a talk and exposition fest. I haven’t actually written the changes — there’s places where I’ve no idea what to replace the exposition with — but diagnosing what needs to change is the first step. I also reread my short story Inherit the Howling Night (title very much a placeholder) and I want to work on that one next. It has substantial problems — no good ending, no idea of the lead character’s arc, protagonist is a writer and “struggling writer” is a character type that rarely works for me — however I’m starting to see fixes (character may become an actor instead).

I got some work done on The Savage Years and my cover is almost ready to go for Southern Discomfort. It’s just technical stuff like formatting to make it work on the Amazon paperback. I should have a release date soon and hopefully will have some copies in hand at ConGregate this summer. Details soon.

I also got my first article in at The Local Reporter in the new monthly format, a longish one on why Chapel Hill/Carrboro is looking at school closures.

From some time back, here are Con-Tinuals panel with me discussing humor comic books, another where I talk Swamp Thing and one about Britain in 1940.

May the rest of the month flow as smoothly. Don’t bet money on it though. I certainly don’t.

Cover by Bernie Wrightson, all rights to image remain with current owners.

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May 1, 2026 · 4:30 pm

Rhiannon Giddens took me down

TYG has been a huge fan of folk musician Rhiannon Giddens since catching Giddens when she was just starting out. We went to her local concert last year and Monday, she was performing in Durham again, so …

As you can tell we were waaaay close to the stage. We got to see Giddens up close, and she was clearly over the moon about performing. As with her last concert, she had a roster of talent performing too: Mavis Staples, Blind Boys of Alabama, Rissi Palmer, Toshi Reagon. I don’t know any of those names (music is not one of my fields of expertise) but damn, they can sing.

Trouble was, rather than wrapping up around 9:30, the concert ran until well after 10. Then we had to get an Uber home. Then we had to dose the dogs. We crawled into bed around 12:30 AM which is late for us (particularly me). That left me off my game Tuesday (which I’d anticipated) but the rest of the week as well. I think maybe I had some sort of mild bug or my pollen allergy kicked in — I shouldn’t have felt as wiped as I did. Though the concert was still worth it.

I got in an article for The Local Reporter, though in our new format, it won’t be out for a week or so. Over at Atomic Junk Shop I blogged about Marvel’s execrable War Is Hell series and the appeal of Bill Bixby in The Incredible Hulk (a repost from this blog). I got some work done on Savage Adventures because proofing nonfiction doesn’t require the kind of creative thought that writing fiction does. And following the two shorts I sent off last week, I submitted a third short story, “Champions of Darkness,” this week. It’s a no-pay market but there aren’t that many places to submit a 6,000 word reprint so I’m cool with it.

At this point, 2026 is one third over (you may have noticed). It’s tricky to assess my performance so far, given that a lot of it is long-term stuff (e.g., two drafts of Let No Man Put Asunder). I’m doing well on short stories, not just submitting but writing them: “Oh the Places You’ll Go” is finally done, for instance, though I haven’t found a market yet. “Honey on the Grave” and “Die and Let Live” are both looking closer to finished than they have before.

However I’m way behind on writing Impossible Takes a Little Longer or Let No Man Put Asunder. I think I can still get in two drafts of each but it’s looking tougher. Part of that’s because I used up the vacation time and “time off for disaster” that I’d budgeted in this year. Which, of course, doesn’t guarantee I won’t have to take more time off for more disasters … fingers crossed.

Financially, things are still dismal. Dog drug expenses are up, other expenses have been up and with Local Reporter dropping back to monthly coverage, income has been down. I’ve been looking around for more freelance work, no luck so far (while we are a two income family, I do take some satisfaction in covering my designated share of the bills).

Health, last time I had it checked, is good. Weight down a little, blood pressure back down. Exercise was off with everything else this week, but hopefully not enough to reverse the improvement.

And now May. Let’s hope for reasonably smooth sailing.

Cover by Gil Kane. All rights to images remain with current holders.

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April 24, 2026 · 4:14 pm

I thought I would spring back into writing this week …

I came back from my Charleston trip refreshed and rested, ready to write. Only of course getting in at 7 Monday night, I limited Tuesday to blogging and attending to bills and such — I knew I wouldn’t be on top of anything more challenging

(Photos are from a visit to the Charleston Tea Garden, which was very cool).

Wednesday and Thursday I got back into the swing of things. I sent off two stories, “All Happy Families” and “Mage’s Masquerade,” the first submissions since a year ago. I started work on the Local Reporter story due at the end of the month. And I reread the 40 percent of Let No Man Put Asunder that I haven’t worked on yet. I wanted to refresh my mind about what came next so I could structure the story better.

As I thought, there are several characters, including the mercenaries Peacock and Mountebank, who drop out of the story. I’ll have to work them back in. I still need to strengthen Mandy’s character arc (also a problem I was aware of). The climax needs a massive reworking; fortunately I have the new climax already in mind. I’m also unsure whether to set this up as a duology, my original concept, or leave it reasonably standalone with options for a sequel.

I’d intended to start the next bit of rewriting today; didn’t happen. After several nights of rough sleep, I made up for it by oversleeping, which threw me off. A bigger problem is that while I’ve diagnosed the problems with the story, I haven’t figured out the remedy. I think my mind needs to process a little more. So today wasn’t as productive as I expected. Next week maybe — but I have a lot of Local Reporter work to do, and some household IRL duties. We’ll see.

Over at Atomic Junk Shop I wrote about what supervillains think about their portrayal in comic books, And songs that make me wonder what happened after the last lyric.

(The warning sign is because the tea fields include cottonmouth, rattlers and coral snakes).

In other news, the dogs are over their digestive issues and in great shape. Trixie missed me while I was gone and was happy to have me back. Here’s a photo of my little angel and one of her toys to wrap up the week with.

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April 17, 2026 · 4:24 pm

Not much to say about my work week

A lot of IRL kept me distracted. Trixie having to go out in the dead of night Monday. Finishing up taxes and getting them mailed off. Family fun yesterday and today.

However I did complete, edit and proof both “Mage’s Masquerade” and “Oh the Places You’ll Go” though I don’t have a market for either story yet. Over at Atomic Junk Shop I blogged about the success of Marvel Comics in the 1960s of Earth-616 —

— and two about superhero love lives as the Silver Age became the Bronze. First Marvel —

— and then DC.

I also wound up visiting the emergency care last Saturday for a sore I thought might be a sign of something very serious. Turned out it was just an ingrown hair — annoying and I’ll be glad to get rid of it, but not a threat.

If y’all were at work this week, I hope yours was more productive.

Art by Jack Kirby (t), Gil Kane and Dick Giordano (b). All rights to images remain with current holders.

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April 10, 2026 · 4:23 pm

That was not how I wanted to spend last Saturday!

It looked like a great day. TYG was going to be out for most of it so I figured on kicking back, snuggling the dogs and watching movies. Instead, the Internet went out a little before noon. I spent about five hours trying and failing to restore it. First turning it off, turning it on. Then going back to factory settings. Then going to the help desk. More unplugging and rebooting and unplugging and deleting the Google Home app, then restoring it to my phone, then deleting the routers from the app … finally it appeared it was an outage after all. Except fixing the area outage didn’t fix things.

Finally they sent out a tech the next day. Turns out the router had died. Everything’s working now but dang, that was not a fun period.

In more cheerful news, TYG cut the first rose of the year off our rose bush — we haven’t been good about trimming it so the bud was unbalancing it — and brought it inside. Fragrance is beautiful. Even Plush Dudley thinks so.

The rose has blossomed beautifully.

Writing? Not much to say. Most of this week was spent on taxes. I thought for a while I’d have to apply for the six-month extension (it’s an automatic Yes if you ask) but we’d have had to figure out enough of the tax bill we could send in a check for what we owe — so what’s the point? I went ahead, crunched the numbers and it looks like the hit won’t be terrible. I’ve been wrong before but I think I caught all the errors. And some of them were actually in the government’s favor, like forgetting to deduct the money I pay for this website.

I got several thousand more words of Savage Adventures proofed and did a rewrite of a couple of older stories I never finished. “Honey For the Grave” is one of the shortest things I’ve ever written, coming in under 3,000 words. After some tweaking it looked surprisingly good. If I had a market for it (I spent some time looking) I’d submit it. Instead, I’ll probably read it to the writing group soon. “Die and Let Live” (still working on the title) isn’t anywhere near finishing but I have the plot, the premise and the ending payoff clear. Now I have to find a way to tell the story without being so damn expository.

Plushie is in good shape, full of energy and no digestive issues. He’s more likely to snuggle in my lap than sleep on the floor, which reflects TYG trimming off all his mats (and perhaps his tummy not hurting). This gets uncomfortable after a while — I wind up sitting in an awkward position — but I won’t push him out. He’s sixteen in November, which is old for a shih tsu mix, and I want to give him the best dog life possible until then.

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April 3, 2026 · 3:37 pm

March was a month that happened …

Despite Plushie’s fortnight of diarrhea, it was fairly productive. Of course, as I’ve mentioned before, that’s partly because of The Local Reporter switching to monthly so I didn’t have actual paying gigs distracting me. I’ll be back to work on it next week, prepping for the April issue.

I got close to 34,000 words rewritten on Let No Man Put Asunder, redrafted “Mage’s Masquerade” and “Oh, the Places You’ll Go” and proofed the first chunk of Savage Adventures. I applied for a couple of writing jobs (remote) and started checking various short fiction markets — no luck so far. And we made it through diarrhea and out the other side er, so to speak. And the multiple trips to tire places or our VW dealer.

Yes, it’s mostly Snowdrop photos today. I think he’s worth it.

This week was choppy, with enough errands Wednesday it was a struggle to get anything done. Still, overall satisfactory. I got another 3,500 words finished on Asunder (that was what I struggled to complete Wednesday). I reread “Oh the Places You’ll Go” and I think I’ve finally finished it. I’ll proof it later this month but I’m satisfied I’ve fixed everything I didn’t like (or my beta readers didn’t like). First story finished in a long while. I read “Mage’s Masquerade” to the writing group; the overall reaction was way favorable though with several slight changes. For example it comes off as if Sinclair is waaaay older than Cecily; while that’s not out of line for a Regency plot, it’s a sensitive enough subject I’m going to make it clear he’s maybe a decade her senior, nothing more.

Finding markets for two 7,000 word short stories will be a challenge. But I can always publish them in another collection of my work.

I got several thousand words of Savage Adventures proofed and polished and I started looking for a cover artist. No luck so far.

I also began editing my Hellboy Chronology. At first I was only going to update it to add one of the new Hellboy-verse TPBs. However I wound up converting it to blocks which threw the spacing and the whole look of the page out of whack. I’ve begun correcting for that, though I’m only up through the 1960s. Please be patient as I keep working. All the information is still good.

Over at Con-Tinual I talked about The Worlds of Andre Norton, Favorite Superhero Moments, the return of Superboy, now all available on FB at the links.

Week is almost over, as I’m stopping work early to cook something for TYG. Have a great weekend, y’all.

Cover by James Bama, all rights remain with current holder.

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March 27, 2026 · 4:23 pm

Victory through air power! Or in this case, low-fat dog food

It appears Plush Dudley’s diarrhea drama is over.

Certainly it’s much reduced. He’s stopped pooping on the bed in the night and the accidents he did have this week were small before they dried up completely. It appears the root cause was pancreatitis reacting to too much fat in his diet — so from now on, it’s low fat diet for Plush Dudley. Cheerio, veggies, low fat kibble, low fat soft food (we’d already bought some for Trixie for similar reasons). And rice mixed in with soft food to help firm up his stool. Fortunately Plushie’s perfectly happy to eat Cheerios and vegetable chunks (and rice) so we don’t have to deny him treats.

On the plus side, he’s been so lively this week, it’s been amazing. Even before the problem went away, he was bounding around, wrestling with Trixie, walking with a bounce in his step. Possibly he’s feeling better than he has in a while. Also possibly, losing around four pounds has made him lighter and his joints less strained — lord knows I’d have a lot less bulk to move if I lost 20 percent of my body mass.

Dealing with diarrhea the first couple of days was demanding, especially as TYG had some stuff of her on she needed to get done. While I miss the weekly payments from The Local Reporter I would have gotten nothing of my own stuff done this week if I’d been covering Carrboro. I applied for a couple of telecommuting reporting gigs I found online, no answer yet. I’ll keep applying. Much as I like writing fiction, I also like bringing in money.

As to my own work, I got another 8,000 words on the second draft of Let No Man Put Asunder. So far it’s proceeding smoothly and I like my output. I also started two new stories when I wasn’t quite ready to do more on Asunder. Good Morning Starshine is a rewrite of a novel I wrote the first draft of years ago, then never got back to. Recently I’ve been trying without success, due to being unable to figure out the protagonist’s character. I’m not sure I’ve figured it out yet, but he does have a character and I’m forging forward with the strange story of a hippy heading to San Francisco for the Summer of Love, then finding she’s in 1987. Labyrinth of Books involves a disgruntled grad student stumbling into a strange bookstore with an even stranger salesclerk. I have no idea where this goes from there, though I did get past the part I’d plotted out in my head.

I also tackled the usual range of chores including taking the car in for a tire replacement and paying our vehicle registration online. Over at Atomic Junkshop I looked at what Marvel Comics publishes in the Marvel Universe—

— and at that mainstay of Silver Age Superman, the “imaginary” story.

I do hope the IRL demands on me and TYG ease up a little in April. Still, this wasn’t a bad week of writing given what I had to overcome.

Oh, and one cool thing: with Project Hail Mary in theaters, that Christian Science Monitor article quoting me about aliens is now live. I’m only one of the experts quoted — given how long the interview ran, I’m surprised Stephen Humphries didn’t use more (I guess when you work for a major newspaper, you can take the time). Still, that’s way cool.

Covers by Jack Kirby (top) and Carmine Infantino (bottom), all rights remain with current holders.

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March 13, 2026 · 5:21 am

Do you remember Morris, the finicky cat?

Morris was the star of a long-running series of commercials for 9 Lives catfood, emphasizing he was finicky about his food — but he loved 9 Lives! Which I was thinking of this week because Plushie seems to be in a “Morris — hold my beer!” mood.

We have to give both dogs lots of drugs for their various ailments. Trixie will eat hers on soft food; Plushie’s finicky and unpredictable. Depending on the day he may eat gabapentin on either soft food, chicken-broth concentrate or Delectable cat treats. I have no way to know which the chosen substrate will be. This adds several minutes to the process and sometimes waste the drugs. It’s frustrating. Sometimes he’ll turn the gunk down on the plate but eat it off my hand. Currently we’re randomly switching day to day — that seems to help but he still sometimes gets picky. And no, we can’t force it into his mouth the way we do Trixie when we have to. Plush Dudley’s more likely to bite and too stubborn to force easily.

So far we’ve managed to keep him doped enough for his own wellbeing. Hopefully we can keep it up.

(Plushie rolling in snow, from earlier this year)

On the plus side, no dog health disasters this week, so that’s a win. And we took care of one house problem, some foundation work that needed doing. Nothing urgent but it’s good to have it taken care of.

Now, as to writing, this was a good week. I was disorganized after spending last weekend at Ret-Con. Even so I was productive. I completed my March writing goals on Let No Man Put Asunder and on Savage Adventures, covering Doc’s adventures up through The Red Skull. I also rewrote, and I think finished my short story “Mage’s Masquerade.” I realized a while back that some of the key supporting characters weren’t developed enough for readers to tell them apart (a complaint made about a much earlier draft). I think I’ve got it fixed. I also much improved “Oh, the Places You’ll Go” by chopping about 1300 words off the end. I’ll look at both stories the last week of the month and see if I still think they’re done (the first story, maybe, the second almost certainly not).

There’s still no Local Reporter work — hopefully we’ll be back next week. However over at Atomic Junk Shop I blogged about the comic-books of Earth-One. The cover above suggests they looked exactly like the ones in our world; as I detail at the link, probably not. I also post about Doctor Doom’s short-lived run as a co-star with Ka-Zar in Astonishing Tales.

Doom’s racism in that scene does not work for me.

Things will get crazier next week when I have some IRL tasks to take care of. Still, I budgeted the time for that, so hopefully it’ll still be another good week.

Art by James Bama (t), Carmine Infantino and Gene Colan (b).

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