Tag Archives: Atomic Junkshop

February 13, 2026 · 4:32 pm

The camel’s hump is an ugly lump

(Title taken from Rudyard Kipling. I’ve used it before).

Wednesday is, as we all know, hump day — once we pass it, we’re on the downhill slide toward the weekend. Lately, however, I seem to be having trouble getting over the hump. My Wednesday is a slog.

Part of that this Wednesday was Plush Dudley (seen in an older photo while he was still on cage rest). Usually he sleeps most of the afternoon. For whatever reason, he was lively. Bark. Whine. Try to get my attention. Licking my feet. A lot. I finally had to give up getting work done for the last couple of hours, though I wasn’t able to read or relax much either.

He’s still my boy.

Even before that, I was struggling to write. I had a relatively simple article to write on Carrboro’s budget discussions but it turned into a plodding exercise, though I think the results were good. Reflecting on it, I realized one problem is Monday and Tuesday evenings. Monday I work into the evening to make up for us taking the dogs to PT during the day; Tuesday I often have my Zoom writer’s group. After I finish, it’s typically another hour to take care of the dogs. I end up going to sleep later than usual and I don’t usually make it up in the morning. This Wednesday that left me tired; I also woke up late (compensating for Tuesday’s late night) which always throws me off my game. Mentally that left me behind the eight-ball.

Monday and Tuesday were productive though. I worked on Savage Adventures, went through all the books where my manuscript was unclear (why did Doc Savage do X? What exactly was the villain’s plan?) and made the corrections. This draft is done!!!!!

Next up: rereading some of my Doc Savage reference books for anything worth adding, working on the bibliography, then printing the manuscript out and proofing it. Then the writing is done and I can look at indexing (sigh), finding a cover and I’ll be ready to rock.

Thursday I put in more time writing for The Local Reporter. I got in one good story about Chapel Hill’s budget decisions — they have $3 million left over from fiscal year 2025 to spend — but nothing else. Nobody returned my calls. Annoying. However I already have the materials for one, possibly two stories for next week, and there’s a Carrboro Council meeting. So I’ll be in good shape.

Over at Atomic Junk Shop I blogged about mondegreens, the death of the Green Goblin and comic book writers as psychics.

And this blog is still getting lots more hits than average. Hi there, whoever you are. I hope you stick around. If nothing else, the pet photos are adorable.

Doc Savage cover by James Bama, all rights to images remain with current holders.

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January 30, 2026 · 4:02 pm

On the plus side, we didn’t lose power.

Which was something we worried about during last weekend’s freeze. The predictions were for heavy ice — literally enough weight to snap power lines — along with snow so we charged up our generator and our small chargers, kept the heat up high so it would take longer to freeze inside if the power died.

It didn’t die, like I said. There was some ice but mostly snow.

That big square near the steps is a tarp TYG laid down so the dogs would have an ice-free spot to walk on. It worked, though Plushie insisted on walking on slippery places as much as possible. With four legs he and Trixie did fine; we had to be a little more cautious.

While the storm itself wasn’t a catastrophe, a week of sub-zero temperatures means the ice still hasn’t thawed. It was off the roads by Wednesday so I was able to get to a dental appointment yesterday and physical rehab today, but we still have to exercise caution when going outside, going to the mailbox, etc. And this weekend we’re anticipating another storm — all snow, probably, so we hopefully won’t lose power. But that means no going anywhere this weekend (I got my shopping done today), nor for the first couple of days after. Frustrating.

As we wrap up the first month of 2026, I feel pleased. I didn’t accomplish all the writing goals I wanted — I didn’t have time this week to finish Oh the Places You’ll Go —but I got most of them. I caught up on saving my Local Reporter stories to my computer and saving my blog posts (I see no reason my blog should suddenly vanish but just in case…). I made slightly over my word count for Impossible Takes a Little Longer and Let No Man Put Asunder. I’m 2/3 through with this draft of Savage Adventures. Because of my one colleague at the Local Reporter leaving, I earned slightly more money this month than usual.

On the downside I let the side down (as the phrase goes) on the dog’s daily exercises. Not completely but with Plushie on longer confined by his cage it’s a lot harder to keep him in one place for particular workouts. Yesterday I was using treats to tempt him into an obstacle course; he decided he’d get up on the couch and sleep instead. As the time for caring for them continually increases, I’ve no idea how I’ll work it out once the snow’s gone and Trixie’s back to full morning walks.

I also blew my GOTV effort for the second month in a row, getting half of the 40 cards I’d agreed to write out. I have to get better next month. I did do a good job with the various household/contractor/vet appointment tasks I dealt with.

As for the week itself, in addition to fiction I got in three Local Reporter stories, one on Chapel Hill changing its land-use ordinance, one on a local volunteer rescue service (not up yet) and a companion story about the technical rescue team (they handle water and missing person rescues). At Atomic Junk Shop I pondered whether too many comics are out of continuity, and Earth-Two comics in the post-WW II years.

And yes, the exercises the PT pro recommended did indeed help with my bursitis. Hope for continued improvement next month. And my dentist said my teeth look great, actually improved over last visit. A pleasant surprise, given that I had to delay this appointment two months (no time during the Watching Jekyll and Hyde finishing marathon) — usually that long without getting my teeth and gums cleaned causes (small and fixable) problems. Yay teeth1

Now, another cold weekend. Still, snow is pretty.

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January 23, 2026 · 4:12 pm

2026 introduces its first plot twists

The first twist: I was supposed to be at Mysticon in Roanoke. I was last there right before the covid shutdown; after things opened up again Mysticon didn’t (loss of some of the key conrunners was a big issue). I figured it was gone for good but no, here it is!

Only I’m not because we’re having a winter storm hit and it looks like Durham-to-Roanoke will be fimbulwintered. It’s possible it won’t be that bad but driving on ice is not in my skill set. And the odds look excellent that when I came home, our subdivision would still be unsafe driving even if the main roads had been cleared off. So I canceled.

In a sense, it’s a win. I didn’t have a table to sell books so from a monetary standpoint this would have been a loss. And money has been flowing out too fast the past couple of months. Lots of pet meds, a ramp for Plushie when he was recovering from his CCL tear (turns out we didn’t use it), really steep electric bills … so spending money on what would have been a fun vacation more than a business trip might not be the best thing.

Only it’s not a win because I was really looking forward to going. It’s been a hectic, intense month with lots of writing, doggy care, much of last weekend being solo doggy care (TYG had some alumni activities she attended) so a break would have felt very nice. It’s not like I can come up with some fun activity as an alternative break this weekend because we’ll be snowed in. Sigh.

The other twist is that of my colleagues at The Local Reporter jumped ship for an outlet where he can focus on sports reporting so my editor asked me to take over covering Chapel Hill as well as Carrboro. That’s a good thing — more money — but it will cut into my time for my own projects. This was the first week I blew any of those goals — nothing done on Impossible Takes a Little Longer — though that’s also because I spent one day this week also dealing with errands (get dog drugs and some extra food before the roads are covered in ice and snow) and various household obligations (getting paperwork to our new groomer).

Still, I got stuff done. Some promotional paperwork for McFarland on Watching Jekyll and Hyde, responding to Sam about the new cover design, and several Local Reporter pieces: a Chapel Hill lawsuit settled, prepping for the frozen weather, Carrboro’s plan to close one road on weekends, and other road plans. I worked on Obolos, one of my short stories for the new collaborative anthology, adjusting according to the feedback from my collaborators. Over at Atomic Junk Shop I looked at proposed new costumes for the Legion of Superheroes and discussed the moral implications of Jekyll and Hyde.

I also picked up Oh the Places You’ll Go which I haven’t looked at in months. One of my goals for this year is to get almost-finished stories like this one done and out into the world, whether it’s submitting to others or putting them into an anthology of my own. I got through most of the story but then I hit the ending. It needs fixing; fixing may require killing a couple of scenes that I really like. Due to my newspaper work I didn’t have enough time to decide.

On the dog front, good news. After weeks of Plushie in his cage —

— the vets have told us it’s time to let him out and “let him be a dog.” He’s been having great fun running around and sleeping on the couch (his fave spot) though we’ve carefully fenced him in so he has to use ramp. Trixie had her stitches removed from her biopsy so she’s free to get back to normal too. Yay!

Now comes the weekend and (probably) the ice and snow. Send positive thoughts that our power stays on, or at least doesn’t go off for too long.

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January 16, 2026 · 4:37 pm

No matter the odds, I struggle on to victory!

Which is to say, another hectic but productive week. We’ll talk the hectic first.

We spent the first half of the week dealing with Trixie still caged for her leg surgery. Yesterday we took down the cage. We still want to discourage her from jumping and she still wears the cone of shame for another week, but she can get up and snuggle with me on the couch now, so she’s much happier.

Plush Dudley got the thumbs up from his physical rehab doctor (that’s him in their waiting room above) that he can gradually assume normal activity. We were supposed to get a confirmation from his leg surgeon but they had a schedule conflict so TYG will have to take Dudley in next week (and to the surgeon’s Raleigh office — had it happened on schedule it would have been around the corner at our regular vet’s). Still, we’re comfortable letting him go up and down the outside steps without being carried, which is a load off TYG’s back. (I’m still carrying Trixie but I’ve learned to minimize the strain on my bursitis elbow).

Tuesday we had in an electrician to check out two problem lights in the kitchen. Easy fix (pricey, but preferable to doing it ourselves) but it did take time out of my morning to interact with him.

Thursday I finally had the physical rehab session that got canceled Jan. 2, when I’d scheduled it so I’d be off work. Fortunately it’s quite close, and the session was productive. My therapist mapped out some exercises to do daily, gave me some other advice (don’t rest my shoulder on my pillow, support my elbow better when I’m writing) and sent me home. The exercises feel like they’re working, though obviously one morning isn’t a significant sample.

Less fortunately I’ll have two more sessions this month and two in early February, adding to my already busy schedule. But if it makes the bursitis go away, I’m all for it.

Once again, the writing flourished despite the obstacles. Having gotten around 12,000 words rewritten on Impossible Takes a Little Longer I did the same with Let No Man Put Asunder this week. These are the earlier, more polished chapters so it’s not that astonishing an accomplishment — except unlike last year around this time, I feel there’s significant improvement going on, not just minor tinkering. Let’s hope that continues.

I completed my rewrite of Savage Adventures up through 1940, which is to say I’m 2/3 done. Woot! And I got the latest cover design from Sam, though I haven’t had a chance to think about it yet.

Writing for The Local Reporter was very busy. I had multiple different interviews through the week which isn’t the way I like to roll — it’s much better to have them all squeezed into a small block of time. Still, I got three stories in: a profile of Carrboro’s firefighter of the year; a look at the Carrboro Southern film festival; and an interview with one of the documentarians showing a film there. At Atomic Junk Shop, I posted about one particularly groovy comics ad from 1971.

I also started looking for markets for some of my short fiction only to realize with Bleeding Blue now out I have almost nothing new and unpublished to submit. Perhaps that will change this year.

End result, the week was hectic, exhausting, but productive. And without the dread January sense of trying to super-achieve I get so often — my goals for this month are realistic and manageable, whether or not I achieve them.

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January 9, 2026 · 4:37 pm

Sometimes the only way to make a choice is not to choose

I love cooking. The past year (I’ve probably mentioned this before) I’ve found myself going back to the same recipes over and over; when I try to pick something else, my mind goes blank.

It finally occurred to me that the sheer amount of options available — recipe books, online recipes bookmarked, old copies of Vegetarian Times — is what’s freezing me up. I used to work around this by keeping a list of my cookbooks on my computer and working through it, one cookbook this week, a different one the next. I didn’t have to sit and think about which book to use and not choosing freed me up.

I’ve no idea why I stopped but I started this week by making up the list again. I found it much easier to pick recipes — a potato and lentil dish, chocolate brownies, a chia/raspberry pudding (I have a packet of frozen raspberries I need to use up). I think that’s a good sign.

Now as to writing … last week, as I mentioned, was a mess. I got Jekyll and Hyde out late due to coping with medical stuff, doggy care, little errands, etc., etc. It would have been nice if this week had been smooth sailing … but no. I had to take the car in today for a broken rear light. I opted to Lyft back (the dealer’s shuttle service proved unreliable) which took more time than waiting on-site but hanging out over there is kind of wearying (I’ve had experience). On top of that, we had the dogs get shots Tuesday and Wednesday Trixie went in for a small growth on one of her legs. The vet says it’s not a life-threatening thing but they wanted to biopsy it and get it off her.

Somehow we’d convinced ourselves recovery was no big. Oops. She’s not to jump on anything, run, climb stairs, jump off anything for about 10 days. So now she’s in a cage like Plushie. And if I’m not in it and she’s awake, she looks at me in despair.

Yes, it’s a cone of shame situation too.

Needless to say, I melt and sit in there as much as possible, hence the presence of my husband pillow on the floor. However it’s not comfortable and I have to sit on the couch at least part of the work day to focus, sad stare or not.

Oh, and we had the housekeepers in. Let’s just say that moving those two cages so they could clean was a challenge. It used to be the cleaning didn’t get in the way of work but now I spend it sitting upstairs with Wisp and Snowdrop in the spare bedroom. It’s hard to focus.

Despite which I somehow managed a good work week. I got about 12,000 words on the next draft of The Impossible Takes a Little Longer. This time I’ve set it in 1984 (slightly alternate history) and I think that’s really improving things. The opening is way more intense and my other ideas seem to be adapting to fit smoother than I thought.

I resumed work on Savage Adventures, rewriting the 1940-42 entries and noting where I needed to go back and reread the relevant books. I got in a couple of stories for The Local Reporter, one on Carrboro’s efforts to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, the other an interview with Carrboro’s cop of the year. Neither up yet. A bad night of sleep left me flatfooted — I took way longer to write them than I should have — but they’re both good work (though probably of less interest to anyone outside Carrboro. Such is the nature of hyperlocal journalism). And at Atomic Junkshop I blogged about which superheroes you trust and reposted an old post about what Golden Age comics were like on Earth-Two.

Good omen for the year that I got the work done? Bad omen that I faced so much interference? Time will tell.

Doc Savage cover by Emery Clarke. All rights to images remain with current holders.

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December 5, 2025 · 4:30 pm

Nothing says Christmas like the vulture on the tree

Last weekend we bought our Christmas tree.

We had to change things up from last year because the cats’ litter boxes sit where we normally put the tree. With a little rearranging of the living room, sticking it near the French doors worked out well.

TYG bought a lot of bird ornaments for the tree, some of which are visible in the photo. I think the weirdest one is the vulture.

Snowdrop was not at all happy with this big thing we brought into the house. He went and hid upstairs in the master bedroom.

This was a productive week. My brain is in high gear working on Jekyll and Hyde, the kind of intense state where I have a hard time getting up from the computer to exercise, stretch, etc. Which I regret after a few hours but I need that intensity to finish the book. I got a lot of polishing done this week, as well as some research reading and watching the 1982 and 1996 Incredible Hulk cartoons.

Over at The Local Reporter I wrote about Carrboro’s downtown plan, profiled outgoing council member Randee Haven-O’Donnell and a Saturday event marking the day the Thirteenth Amendment ended legal slavery (though as the article notes, some people found a workaround). At Atomic Junkshop I looked back at the mystery of why, after 18 months without buying comics, I suddenly picked up Teen Titans #32 (cover by Nick Cardy).

I also looked at how the sword-and-sorcery genre in Bronze Age comics did not begin with DC’s Nightmaster.

If Denny O’Neil’s writing were as cool as that Joe Kubert cover, perhaps it would have.

That’s my week. As usual these posts are less memorable when things are going well. I’m okay with that.

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November 28, 2025 · 4:27 pm

It is not the beginning of the end but it is definitely the end of the beginning

With three days of work this week, I poured myself into getting a first full draft of Jekyll and Hyde written. I pretty much succeeded.

(No relation to the topic, I just like showing photos of Wisp).

There’s still lots and lots of work to do and some of the later chapters need heavy revision. I’m not completely satisfied with the chapter breakdown (some chapters are too short, some have the wrong mix of movies). But getting to a milestone makes me feel I got something accomplished this month, despite all the vet appointments, errands and contractors that got in the way. It gets me excited to surge forward in December.

Other than that, nothing much written (but that’s enough, right?) as the Local Reporter had a week off. Over at Atomic Junk Shop I had two posts related to the Silver Age collections I reviewed Sunday. One looked at two good Superman stories dealing with Superman lookalikes —

— while the other looked at how DC’s science fiction anthologies in the early 1950s anticipated the Silver Age. For example giving us an early, if unsuccessful superhero in Captain Comet —

— and in one story pitting him against a prototype for Gorilla Grodd.

On the medical front, mixed news. My iridotomy was a success, which is good for my eyeballs. Trixie’s new medicine has improved her energy and reduced her cough. Even if she doesn’t look energetic in this photo, trust me she is.

Plushie’s surgeon, unfortunately, agrees with our vet that he’s not healing as well as we’d hoped. Worst case, more surgery and longer recovery; best case, he’s just healing slower than expected. We have another recheck next month. Prayers and positive thoughts appreciated.

Of course TYG and I also had Thanksgiving yesterday. A quiet, lazy day with a big lunch at Cafe Parizade, which hosts a massive vegan event every year. Awesome food; it was difficult but I stopped just short of discomfort.

All rights to images remain with current holders. Superman cover by Curt Swan, Strange Adventures by Murphy Anderson.

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November 7, 2025 · 4:15 pm

When life gives you lemons … sometimes you wind up eating lemons

Usually, for obvious reasons, I try not to schedule lots of contractors and errands for the same week, unless I’m taking a day off to deal with all of them. This week, though? Monday, Trixie’s health checkup. Tuesday, a contractor checking our basement dehumidifier still runs smoothly. Except after waiting for them (and trying not to be embroiled anything when they showed) they had to postpone to Wednesday.
Wednesday? The first contractor, plus a foundations checkup. Thursday? Trixie in for some scheduled tests.

That’s a lot of extra time and distraction. Plus somehow we had the housecleaners assigned to come Thursday and neither of us put it on the calendar. That meant three hours sitting in the spare bedroom comforting the cats. It’s surprisingly numbing. And because the cleaners were three hours late, that threw my schedule further off (I postponed stuff because I didn’t want to be in the middle of it when they arrived). I made a run to Dudley’s eye doctor to pick up some of his various drugs today; I could have done that yesterday if I’d known I’d have the time. And Trixie had to wait twonextra hours at the vet before we could reach her.

Plus the effect of a couple of nights of really bad sleep.

On the plus side, the house inspection stuff went great: no massively expensive repairs required. Trixie’s Monday recheck found she needs added daily exercises but no major problems. Thursday, we won’t know for a while. And if nothing else, having the cleaners in on a day when I was already off my game may mean more productivity later this month

The end result? I got some good work done on Jekyll and Hyde though nowhere near what I wanted to. I also sold two copies of Sex for Dinner, Death for Breakfast — whoever bought them, thank you!

I also turned in two stories for The Local Reporter, one on the biannual Carrboro record show, and one on Mental Health First Aid. At Atomic Junk Shop I blogged about Jack Kirby’s Forever People and about the story rebooting Flash’s wife Iris into a Time Traveler. How the CW missed that when it’s Flash show had so much time travel, I’ll never know.

And here’s a link to a Con-tinual panel I participated in on magic in comics and another on best and worst team leaders.

Next week should be a lot easier. Fingers crossed.

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October 31, 2025 · 4:21 pm

They said it couldn’t be done. Wait, who are they and why do I care what they say?

I did it.

Working like crazy I got a very crude first draft of Jekyll and Hyde.

By which I mean I’ve assigned everything to chapters (some entries will be shifted around to make the lengths right) and taken all my scribbled (okay, typed) notes and turned them into synopses and commentary. Not all of it’s well written and I still have some things to watch (Hulk MCU movies for instance) but I set that as my goal and I pulled it off.

No particular trick to it, just that I prioritized writing and really made myself focus. Go me. This will make it easier to balance time next month between viewing stuff (TV, movies that need rewatching) and rewriting.

That was 90 percent of my writing week. The rest included little stuff (applying to next year’s ConGregate and ConCarolinas cons) and The Local Reporter. One of my articles was on an ongoing Carrboro lawsuit against Duke Energy. Another article dealt with a site offering Chapel Hill High School’s digitized annuals online and the differences between 1925 and 1973. At Atomic Junk Shop I blogged about Jack Kirby’s Hairies, successes and failures in late 1970 Marvel Comics —

— and the moment Superman discovered all kryptonite on Earth was common iron!

In other news Dudley is feeling very lively, enough to think he can run down the stairs. We have so far prevented this. Stitches come out Saturday which will be good (no risk of it getting infected if he rolls or licks it). Several weeks of care after that.

Plus I finally got my iridotomy eye surgery scheduled!

So a pretty good week. And as it’s Halloween, have a closing image:

Comics art by John Buscema (top) and Curt Swan. All rights to images remain with current holders.

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October 17, 2025 · 5:15 am

Inch by inch, I crawl towards glory!

Which is to say this was a week of solid but unspectacular progress. Sufficient but no “I can coast now!” But “sufficient” is good.

It was an oddly disorganized week, though I can’t pin down why. Sunday afternoon it started with a zoom call for the new Ceaseless Way anthology. We’re not making the original deadline for getting all our stories in but we’re only slightly behind, much closer than we managed on the first book. We’re also beginning the critiquing, starting with my friend Ada Milenkovic Brown’s stories (I’ll get to them next week). Then come mine.

I got three Local Reporter stories in, though none of them are on the website yet. I also got back into the swing of Atomic Junk Shop blogging after several weeks away: one on the Sub-Mariner’s 1970 engagement, one on changing creative teams of the same era and one with cool comics images and the stories behind them.

Then there’s Jekyll and Hyde. I got a couple more chapters finished, completed watching Dark Shadows (er, that is, the portion relevant to my book), and watched the two Incredible Hulk TV pilot movies. Next week, more focus on writing, less on TV.

We’ve submitted the Plush One’s appeal for his CCR damage to the insurer but I’m still waiting on my eye doctor to deal with the insurance preapproval or to give me the information to handle it. Their office says it’s a billing-office problem, billing-office says not; given this was the doctor’s recommendation and they’re getting paid for it — it’s not like I’m challenging a bill — I’m baffled why this is such a slog.

Plushie is holding up well — if anything, he’s quite lively as he adjusts to his new situation. Still very needy so I sit with him in the cage a fair amount. As the vet said, he would probably end up okay if we didn’t give him the surgery but we think the outcomes are better this way. It’s next week, followed by a long stretch of recuperation. And then hopefully. as normal as our addled doggie ever gets.

I do feel a little dispirited realizing the year is ending and finishing Jekyll and Hyde will be the only goal I accomplish. I will have it done, and that’s something, but at my age the sense of running out of time constantly gnaws at me. But if I can focus as effectively on my writing next year … we’ll see.

Ceaseless Way cover by GetCovers based on concepts by Arden Brooks. Comics images by Jack Kirby (top) and Sal Buscema. All rights to images remain with current holders.

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