Tag Archives: Atomic Junkshop

July 17, 2026 · 4:31 pm

My battle plan survived, sort of

As I’ve talked about before, one of the military rules of thumb is that no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy. I knew this week would demolish any regular plan, so I adjusted accordingly.

(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.

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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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June 12, 2026 · 4:37 pm

One of those “God says ha!” weeks, but he didn’t laugh too loudly.

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.

Speaking of links, here’s my account of Carrboro’s storm season preparations. At Atomic Junk Shop I look at the Bronze Age and processed cheese.

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.

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May 22, 2026 · 4:28 pm

No battle plan ever survives first contact with the enemy. And this is like fourth contact or something

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.

And that’s pretty much it. Though several older Con-Tinual panels are now online on Facebook: on favorite nonfiction history books, C and D list comics characters and Swamp Thing.

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.

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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 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 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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