Category Archives: Short Stories

July 24, 2026 · 4:30 pm

Cats and cons, bathrooms and battle plans

A week ago, I drove to Greensboro for ConGregate 2026. Up until this year, the con’s been held in Winston-Salem, but they had issues with the hotel and had to relocate. This worked out well for me as Greensboro is only an hour away.

The worst thing about the hotel is that it’s on the airport, several miles from anywhere else to eat. Not for the first time, I relied on the breakfast buffet to feed me for the entire day. And the collapsible kettle TYG bought me took care of my tea needs. The best thing is that the author alley, where I set up my table above, runs right outside the meeting spaces so everyone has to pass us by.

Did that boost sales? Not massively. However attendance seemed smaller than ConGregate 2025 — I can’t swear to it — but I made roughly as much money. That’s cool. And all the panels and readings had audiences that outnnumbered the panelists. That doesn’t always happen.

The patterns in sales always fascinate me. No sales on Atoms for Peace or Sex for Dinner, Death for Breakfast (that’s usually a consistent seller), one or two of most of my other books, seven of Questionable Minds. Which as it’s the one I most want to sell right now, suited me fine. One seller bought purely because of the cover, which is cool (thanks Sam Collins!).

Finally home, where I cooked a Thank You meal for TYG for having to care for all the pets while I was gone. Happily we’ve introduced Plush Dudley to canned chicken and for the moment he’s willing to scarf down his drugs if they’re mashed up into it. Fingers crossed that lasts until after TYG does some traveling in a couple of weeks, leaving me alone.

As I’ve been saying lately, no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy. Last week I took into account that we’d be having contractors trooping in and out to work on the master bathroom. This week we had that to deal with — finished today, at last! — plus we had to take Wisp in to have a couple of problem teeth removed.

This was a challenge. Catching and caging Wisp is always a challenge. Happily for once we got good news: when the dental vet took an X-ray look at the teeth, it doesn’t require removal. No surgery, check back in six months. We’re happy she doesn’t have to be cut on, particularly as removing bottom teeth can have bad effects on the jaw.

And on Wednesday, my physical therapist said my knee has improved enough I don’t have to book another appointment unless/until I need one. She did great, but I’m happy not to take the time. Especially as I screwed up the time and had to go, come home, go back, return.

Somewhat less happily, my glasses broke today — the right-hand screw holding the frame around that lens just snapped. I tried taping it up; didn’t work. Fortunately I have a backup pair and my eyesight hasn’t changed enough for them to be a problem. I will look for a repair place. Annoying but not catastrophiic.

Now, as to writing, my original battle plan had been to focus on Savage Adventures, like I did last week. It’s at the proofing stage and that adapts better than fiction to constant interruptions. Monday that went well. I rewrote some of the text, trimming quite a bit of it, and corrected some errors that had crept in. After Monday, though, things got nuts.

One thing I’ve started doing is taking little tasks and errands — submitting pet bills to the insurer, for instance — first thing in the morning. Gets them out of the way and I don’t have to worry about when to fit them in later in the day. However it’s very easy for them to expand and take up too much time. I’ll have to be careful going forward. This week, I was not.

Plus I had an unexpected experience with The Local Reporter. When I contact someone for an interview I don’t always get a prompt response, or any response (I suspect that’s partly because we’re not the paper of record for Chapel Hill/Carrboro the way the Destin Log was for Destin). I’m working on an article about the effect of the ongoing drought and this time everyone I contacted called me back. I spent much of Wednesday doing interviews.

Thursday I worked on proofing stories for Become the Sky, the sequel anthology to Ceaseless Way. As it’s a collaborative project we all have stories to proof. I have three: Maggie Maxwell’s “The Survivalist’s Guide to Faeryland,” Ada Milenkovic Brown’s “The Nixie of Alken Bog” and Kat Traylor’s “Surviving Dr. Bloodflask.” I got the first two finished Thursday.

So it’s actually a productive week, just not the stuff I planned to produce. Which isn’t the worst way for the battle plan to go off the rails.

Oh, and my editors at McFarland contacted me with some detailed editing questions about various passages in Watching Jekyll and Hyde. That’s pleasing — it shows they’re paying attention to the details. Not that I’d expect less, but it’s still good to see.

Over at Atomic Junk Shop I looked at Flash #209 as a harbinger of the Bronze Age. It had Cary Bates take over as Flash’s writer, a gig he’d hold all the way until the Crisis on Infinite Earths killed Barry off. It also showed that after a couple of years of avoiding super-villains, DC was bringing them back. I was delighted.

All rights to cover images remain with current holders. Southern Discomfort cover by Sam Collins, Ceaseless Way by GetCovers based on design by Arden Brooks, Flash cover by Dick Giordanoo.

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July 10, 2026 · 4:30 pm

So where did I misplace my mojo this week?

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.

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July 3, 2026 · 5:15 pm

Cats, borders, knees, writing, blood! My week in review

First the blood: Saturday I made my regular donation to the Red Cross. They’ve remodeled their facility and I was the first “power red” (double dose of red blood cells) donor there. I wrapped up just a little too soon for someone from the regional HQ to photograph me, darn it. That would have been kind of cool.

Tuesday, it was cat day: time to take Snowdrop in for his wellness exam and shots. He’s way harder to cage for the trip than Wisp; she’ll let us pick her up which gives us a chance to shove her in. Snow’s less trusting. However I got a dose of gabapentin — painkiller that also makes ’em sleepy — into him with a small morning meal. That left him just groggy enough to load into a cat carrier. He’s mostly in good shape, however he does have a heart murmur. Those can be bad in cats so we’re waiting to see what the labwork says.

Minor bonus, they applied his topical heartworm/flea med so we don’t have to do that again for two months.

Borders: as I type this, the theme I use for this blog has suddenly dropped the illustration on the vertical borders so there’s nothing but the image at the top. Maybe it’s a temporary thing and it’s gone by now. Maybe I’ll have to change themes because the brown border looks dreadful. I haven’t had a chance to do anything about it yet.

Knees: Tuesday, after TYG brought Snowdrop home, I went to physical therapy. Nothing major but my left knee gives me twinges in certain positions. I’d like it to stop. The therapist gave me a set of exercises which I’ve been working on. Too soon for any miracle cures, though. I also got a sleep apnea kit in the mail — my doctor thought that might relate to my recurrent insomnia — and I spent three nights with a testing kit on, making me feel like a cyborg. My grimace below is because I also felt like Hannibal Lector in his muzzle in Silence of the Lambs.

I slept better than I expected with that thing on. However it was choppy, which contributed to my tiredness for some of the week. Plus the pets were needier than usual. Still I got some good stuff done. Articles for The Local Reporter on Carrboro’s 2027 budget and the drought’s impact on Carrboro (not up yet). That took up Monday and Tuesday.

Wednesday I tackled the next chapter of Let No Man Put Asunder. Didn’t go well. The changes I’m making are good but they’re the kind that require further changes — if the sinister Community of All simply puts everyone in Bluestone in a stoned trance, Mandy doesn’t have the conflict of fighting innocent mind-controlled people. It still works better and fits the Community’s strange goals; however I have no idea what comes next. And Wednesday I was most tired.

Thursday I worked on “Die and Let Live.” It’s steadily improving but ends up way too talky as Colin and Deadbeat explain what’s been happening and everyone debates ethics. Either I shift some of that material earlier in the story, I come up with a more dramatic ending or both (ideally both).

I also got the first scene of a new story. My mind generated several new details: one character, Claire, comes from the town of Riddle Grove where her family lives at Enigma Towers. And their last name, Maistery, sounds a lot like “Mystery” if you say it aloud. Her estranged best friend notes the pattern and decides they’ll make a joke about it later. I have no idea what it means but it isn’t anything funny. So my mind’s clearly engaged — not enough to figure out what comes next yet.

Today was, as usual, devoted to next week’s blog posts, planning what to write, and emptying my in-box. Plus we took Trixie and Plushie in for some shots and, as Plushie’s been walking wobbly recently, asked the vet about it. She says he might have some back pain and recommended upping his gabapentin dose for now. Makes sense as we lowered it a couple of months back. We’ll see if it helps.

What made the visit memorable is that Plushie expressed his displeasure by pooping on the exam room floor. And then several alarmingly runny poops after that. Hopefully it’s just a momentary lapse and not the return of his dread diarrhea. We’ll see.

And now for something completely cool, author’s copies of Southern Discomfort arrived this week.

Cover by Samantha Collins. All rights are mine.

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June 26, 2026 · 4:01 pm

Not a stellar week but I didn’t collapse into a black hole either

A combination of things slowed me down this week: invoices to submit to our insurer, Trixie having a recheck exam, having the cleaners in. That means spending two to three hours shut in with the cats and Trixie to ensure the cats don’t react to strangers in the house by bolting out. It’s a possibility, particularly with Snowdrop, as he’s still skittish after 18 months as an indoor cat.

I’m also having some odd twinges in one knee. Nothing serious but I set up a PT appointment for next week. Oh, and one problem that eats away at my time — a few minutes here, a few minutes there — is that Plushie is refusing to eat his meds on the food or treats we normally give him. We have a limited range of options as eating anything with fat would trigger his pancreatitis and related diarrheal problems. It took twice as long as last week to get the drugs into him. TYG and I are both quoting that line from A Christmas Story, “Every family has a child who won’t eat.”

I got some advance work done on my two Local Reporter articles for next week. Beyond that, I only wrote 6,500 words on the redraft of Let No Man Put Asunder. That’s primarily because I hit a tough point: the chapters I worked on this week were way too talky and slow in the previous draft. I knew that; I knew what would happen once the action kicks in; I did not know what should replace the slow, talky bits. That led to a couple of hours of dithering and not writing and only sort-of thinking about writing.

Eventually I reminded myself that I had to write something so I might as well bite the bullet; if it didn’t work, I’d rewrite. I accelerated the Community of All’s attack on the city of Bluestone, cutting out a lot of the talk. I used a teleportation spell to throw Paul and Mandy into the middle of the trouble without any “what should we do?” discussion. Coupled with some other changes, I think it works much better.

That was pretty much it. I can’t tell you how good it feels to write fiction and know I’ve made at least one small step toward finishing this draft. Hopefully more steps on more fiction next week.

Oh, and New Myths is holding my story “Honey on the Grave” as a contender for one of next year’s issues. Not an acceptance but the first non-rejection I’ve had in a while.

On that note, have a great weekend.

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June 19, 2026 · 4:08 pm

“Should have known better than to cheat a friend” — wait, that’s not the lesson I learned this week

The lesson is one I already know: I work more efficiently if I focus on one thing per day. If I spend a day working on, say, Let No Man Put Asunder, I focus better than if I do half the day on that, half on, say, newspaper work or sending out submissions.

The divided day (the “divided” theme is a flimsy excuse for posting this Murphy Anderson cover but it’s one of my favorites) goes wrong too easily. I end up focusing too much on one of the two things, typically not the most important one. Getting writing done is usually job A but browsing possible markets online or doing research for The Local Reporter is typically easier. If I’m tired, I may go with easier or at a minimum start it sooner in the day. It’s also possible that I’ll throw in a third task to fill an odd moment and end up with even less writing time.

This week, however, I did have to do a lot of divided time. I was working to get the last steps done for the publication of Southern Discomfort next month. Revising the back-cover copy. Working through Amazon’s cover creation system to get the image (created by Samantha Collins) right on the front cover — that was the big challenge. I created the cover, ordered the sample copy (it arrived Wednesday), saw some problems, went back and did it again.

This takes time but it’s not something I can work on hour after hour. Once I ordered the test copy I was done; when it came in I dropped everything to go over it. For example I discovered my About the Author page in the back was several years out of date so I had to replace it with more recent information.

The end result? A patchwork week. Couldn’t be helped. And it paid off. Southern Discomfort will go live July 11; the initial ebook links are here, which is where Amazon, Barnes & Noble and others will show once they process it. The paperback goes live too, but Amazon doesn’t allow preorders.

That kind of erratically scheduled work is the pits for getting other tasks done on the same day. You’d be amazed how much time fiddling with the cover can consume. But now it’s done and I don’t have to do it again. On to fresh adventures.

I did get some other stuff done. I finished rewriting my short story, “Honey on the Grave” and sent it in to New Myths. I thought the rewrite suggestions from the writing group had made it too long but it was still under 4,000 words. That’s remarkably short for me.

I rewrote one chapter of Let No Man Put Asunder. I’d anticipated doing more but like I said, the book publishing process siphoned off my focus. Equally inconvenient, the last third of the book requires way more revision than the earlier two-thirds. It needs to move faster, scarier, with less talk. Everything that I’ve been hinting at has to be explained clearly. The bad guy has to go down — I know how that will happen but I have to get there logically. So it’s going a lot slower.

I also went back and rewrote one of the earlier chapters, where Paul is discussing his biophysicist mother’s insistence psychic powers are all fake. After reading How the Hippies Saved Physics I wanted to make mention of the early 1970s experiments that attempted to prove quantum non-locality (electrons can affect each other at a distance even though there’s no possible way they can) could be the basis for telepathy.

I still have to rewrite some of the chapters to show Mandy stopping smoking. Or give up the idea and let her keep puffing away. Finding she’s somehow compelled to quit has more potential so I’ll probably go with option A.

I got a little work on Savage Adventures done. I’m close to the end of this draft; one more draft and I’m done with the writing part. I wrote two posts over at Atomic Junk Shop, one on Doc Savage’s Crime College, one on how certain comics writers are so good they make you realize what you’ve been missing.

Another obstacle to getting work done was that I had my annual checkup Tuesday. That took a few hours out of my day. Good news, though, I’ve lost weight and my blood pressure’s down. There’s a couple of other problems that might need some work or checkups with a specialist but nothing calamitous.

With Southern Discomfort under wraps and no appointments next week, I look forward to full days and more productive output. I hope it comes true.

All rights to images remain with current holders.

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June 5, 2026 · 4:20 pm

Sleep, stiffness and a stupid mistake: my week in review

For several months now I’ve been enjoying a respite from my chronic insomnia. As I know from experience, sooner or later my body resets and the start of summer is often when it happens. Sure enough I began waking up stupid early this week. Not disastrous, as I can write in the middle of the night as well as in the daylight, then catch up with a nap. Or two. I’d prefer solid sleep but I can deal with working while the city sleeps.

The stiffness is harder to explain, hitting my shoulders/back of the neck and my hips but nothing in between. I suspect it’s a mix of lifting the portable air conditioners we used last week when the HVAC went down with sitting in some bad positions while working and not getting up to stretch enough. When the work is going well, that’s an easy mistake to make (“Just fifteen more minutes, I’ll have this draft done …”). However I’m back on my regular stretching routines after feeling two hot to do them last week so that should help over time. I can already feel a difference in my posture and sense of balance.

The stupid mistake? This morning when I was giving Trixie her post-walk treat I meant to give Plush Dudley a lower fat one; he’s older and his pancreatitis is much more reactive to fat than hers. Oops — I handed it to him without thinking. Hopefully after several weeks of low fat food it won’t have a significant effect. Then again, I may be up early shoving beshitted sheets in the washing machine. Send positive thoughts, please!

Most of my work involved writing about local hurricane preparedness for The Local Reporter. It’s a good article, though not up on the website yet. I also worked on an update about the Chapel Hill Library budget (ditto). That took up a couple of days. I also redrafted Honey on the Grave based on the feedback I got from the writing group. I started the next draft of Die and Let Live but it didn’t get far. I did some work on Savage Adventures and more work on prepping Southern Discomfort for release. I got a proof copy from Amazon’s print-on-demand service but haven’t had a chance to judge how the cover looks yet.

And that’s it. Not spectacular, but a vast improvement after the previous couple of sweltering weeks.

All rights to poster image remain with current holders.

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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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