Tag Archives: let no man put asunder

October 6, 2023 · 4:30 pm

Clobbered by the contractor

But it was worth it.

One of the selling points when we bought our house was the built-in drawers and shelves in the living room. Some of them contain our DVD collection and the weight, over time, has bent them enough that they scrape along each other when we open them, or not at all. One drawer refused point blank to open — more frustrating as I wanted to get out the DVD of my brother in The Drowsy Chaperone.We called in a handyman whose done work on that sort of thing before. He fixed the drawers but it took waaaaay longer than I (or he) expected. And required removing all the DVDs from all the drawers, then replacing them. As I budget a certain amount of task time into my planning, that doesn’t wreck my schedule — if everything goes smoothly, I’ll make it up later in the month.

I also wound up doing two stories for The Local Reporter, one about a local road-construction project that’s running over deadline (this is not surprising. I don’t think I’ve ever covered a road project that didn’t hit unexpected delays), then one about the Chapel Hill library’s push back against censorship efforts. They don’t have much to deal with but they still want to take a stand for those who do. This wound up sucking up more time than expected, though again I should make it up later in the month. And I’m taking next week off so that way I’ll still have a story in.

I read another chunk of Let No Man Put Asunder to the writing group and got thumbs up, with some criticisms (helpful ones). I think I’ve got the next section of the book figured out too, but I didn’t get to it. I started editing Southern Discomfort for publication next year (via Behold the Book) and got some work done on the next section of Savage Adventures.  And over at Atomic Junk Shop I posted about some mythos development with the Fantastic Four and the Legion of Super-Heroes.

Plus our drawers work now.And Wisp is still doing fine as an inside cat. As you can see, she’s comfortable napping in my lap.

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September 15, 2023 · 4:05 pm

Did I fall short or set my sights too high?

I may have been premature in declaring Wisp a contented indoor cat. We got Snowdrop to come in a couple of times this week and it was adorable: they nuzzled, licked each other and she bopped him on the head like she used to. However, it also looked at times like she was ready to follow him back outside. We discouraged this: she’s still a little slow on one leg and it’s just better (for cats and for the wildlife outside) if she stays inside.

The downside is that she’s still restless when she’s on the bed with me, though not as bad as when her leg was in the cast and the cone of shame.And I no longer get mornings to myself because she loves me and follows me down when I get up. The loss of privacy gnaws at me more than you might think. If that’s what it takes to keep her indoors, though, so be it. This morning was an exception and it felt great — until I discovered she wasn’t sleeping on the bed, she’d followed me into another room and been trapped inside when I closed the door. Oops.

While adjusting my schedule to fit our new indoor cat — write in the early morning, exercise later in the day — still feels awkward, I’m getting used to it, and managing my time a little better. The lack of sleep, however, still lowers my creative ability some. I was supposed to work on Let No Man Put Asunder this morning and I just couldn’t. That said, I did get quite a bit done.

I finished a Local Reporter article on Chapel Hill’s participation in Vision Zero, a program for eliminating road fatalities and serious injuries. However there’s a major development on the Chapel Hill town council agenda for the week after next and I wound up scrambling to prepare an article for next week. That sucked up a lot of time away from my own work.

I got another 4,000 words done on Asunder and I finally see where the action’s going after this current section of talk. That’s a relief. I got less relief working on Oh the Places You’ll Go — I still can’t fix the ending. But I did sell The Adventure of the Red Leech to a new Durham specfic magazine, Dimension Zero. No pay, but I’m still pleased.

I got more work done on Savage Adventures (that was the work I did instead of the creative stuff) and finished my press kit for future Behold the Book releases. I also did some other publisher-type work, not worthy of note yet. And I had a couple of Atomic Junk Shop posts, one on writers who think they have clever insights and musing again about the end of Netflix DVDs.I also sold a copy of 19-Infinity and someone checked it out from a digital library service. Thanks, both of y’all, whoever you are.

And so the week ends. Have a good weekend everyone.

#SFWApro. Cover by Kemp Ward, all rights to image are mine.

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September 1, 2023 · 3:38 pm

Snowdrop is alive and well

No, he wasn’t in any danger and hasn’t suffered any accidents like Wisp. But his annual checkup is due Sept. 13 and we try to get the cats in ahead of time. That way if they put up resistance, we can try again.

Sure enough, our effort to catch him Tuesday failed miserably. Today, TYG simply picked him up, thrust him into the carrying cage, then I slammed the door shut. She’s awesome like that. Snowdrop was not happy and meowed pitifully until TYG took him to the vet, and when she brought him back and probably all the time in between. But he’s in good health, has had his deworming and vaccines for another year, so it was worth it.

Here’s a photo of him coming in and exploring Wisp’s pillow from a couple of weeks back.It feels like he really wants to be our indoor cat but can’t quite bring himself to do it. TYG loves him so much, she’ll be over the moon if he comes in and snuggles like Wisp does.

Wisp is doing well. She misses Snowdrop — they did get to nuzzle briefly before we trapped him — but otherwise she seems comfortable as an indoor cat. My guess is she’ll go back to being outdoors once we give her the option, but it would be nice (and obviously better for local wildlife) if she didn’t. Her leg appears to be healing (it’s hard for my untrained eyes to judge) and she’s much easier to sleep with. Wednesday, when we went out on a midweek date to catch a Carolina Theater show of All About Eve (I’ll get to the review in a couple of weeks) —we put Wisp in the spare bedroom and closed the door — just to make sure Trixie doesn’t get in her grill demanding to play — and she was fine with it. This frees us up to go out even if she stays an indoor cat.

The week was fairly productive. I wrote an article for The Local Reporter on protecting pets during hurricanes (for instance, do you have a place to evacuate to that will accept pets?). With Idalia making landfall the timing couldn’t have been better, and my editor let me use a Plushie photo as an illustration. I got most of the work done on my next two stories. I’m finally in the groove.I also have a piece at Atomic Junk Shop on the many spy organizations of Silver Age comics (and other media) plus the Con-Tinual panel on Alfred Hitchcock and horror films I participated in is now live.

I got a variety of tasks done, mostly setting up appointments for various contractors (some for repairs, some for improvements). Plus I made my regularly scheduled dental visit (everything’s in good shape).

My own writing? Once again that got a little squeezed. My big accomplishment was adding another couple of thousand words to Let No Man Put Asunder. It’s the kind of slower, character-centric scenes that my beta readers say I need more of but I don’t think this is quite what they want: it’s very much in the “discovery draft ” mode where I’m putting down a big block of exposition because it’s stuff I need to know. Next draft I shall space it better, of course — but the thing is, it’s stuff I did need to know, so yay.

I’d expected to get a bunch more stuff done Thursday but getting back around 10 PM from All About Eve was the first time in a long time I’ve been out that late on a weeknight. I did not get my act together Thursday.

Today though I got a lot of little tasks done to get them out of the way. I gave TYG a letter listing all of my stories and books so that if anything happens to me (and while I hope it’s years off, sooner or later something happens to all of us) she’ll know what she’s inherited the rights to. I don’t think there’s any gold mines there, but you never know.

I added a page for my publishing imprint, Behold the Book, to this website. I’ve already laid claim to the domain name but haven’t built the site yet. I updated my accounts and got to deposit my McFarland royalty check in the bank today. It’s good enough I feel ready to propose another book — but given everything I already have in my plans for 2024, I’m not sure I have the time. I shall think about it and decide.

I did a couple more minor but necessary tasks too. They’re the kind of thing that often slips through the cracks so taking care of them is a win.

I also bicycled to the bank, 4.5 miles, the first time I’ve taken the bike out in at least six months. A little hotter than I anticipated but I made it there and back. Exercise has in general become a problem with Wisp in the house so much: like the dogs she takes me stretching as a sign I want her to snuggle. I suppose I will have to start stretching out up in my home office while she snoozes.But she’s still my cat and she’s welcome to stay in if she wants.

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August 25, 2023 · 4:32 pm

A productive week for some definitions of “productive”

First the good news; Wisp’s bandage came off Wednesday. They applied some topical steroids to her foot so her cone had to wait another day. Here she is Wednesday afternoon, snoozing with me.Now she has the next  couple of weeks to strengthen her leg while staying indoors. If everything goes smoothly we don’t need to bring her back to the vet. And while she’s sleeping better, which means I sleep better, if I get up to pee, that’s her cue to get lively. So it’s about three to 3.5 hours a night; better than when this started, still not ideal.

Worse this week because I didn’t get my usual sleep on the weekend when TYG takes all the pets. Friday night TYG was out until late and I woke up when she came home (not her fault — I’m a light sleeper). Saturday night I took an Ambien and slept alone in the spare bedroom. Trixie, however, puked on the master bed and while TYG changed the bedclothes Plushie decided to come and paw at the spare bedroom door until I let him in. Without those two good nights of sleep I felt exhausted for much of the week. At Tuesday’s Zoom writer’s group, I fell asleep during the final reading.

So while I put in a full week of work, that’s partly because I counted a lot of stuff, like blogging, as writing hours, that I don’t normally do. That said, I got various household tasks (e.g. calling contractors) done; got a little more written on Let No Man Put Asunder; did some editing on a collaborative anthology I’m in; and got a little done on Savage Adventures. Plus taking cats to appointments and having tea with a friend (I budget part of my writing time for weekday socializing).

I reread the redraft of Oh the Places You’ll Go that I finished last week and it looks much better than I thought. The ending still feels off, though. I want the ending to feel like a resolution: character arcs settled, plot issues resolved. As written it resolves them, then raises more questions, like it was Part One of a larger work. It’s not and I don’t see it becoming one. I can’t get rid of the questions but I need to write the ending so that even with questions it feels finished.

The largest chunk of time went to work for The Local Reporter. Figuring out how to manage the work and fit it in with my own projects has been challenging, partly because I’ve been bouncing from lead to lead trying to develop a steady stream of stories. But I got one done this week (not out yet), I have another ready except for a final proofing and a couple more in progress. If I can get it down to about six hours work a week in most cases, I’ll be satisfied. But that wasn’t this week.

Meanwhile, over at Atomic Junk Shop, my Silver Age reread looks at editor Jack Schiff’s retirement and the characters who vanished with him, from Animal Man and Immortal Man — — to the Green Glob and Automan in Tales of the Unexpected.

#SFWApro. Covers by Carmine Infantino (t) and Jay Scott Pike, all rights to images remain with current holders.

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August 18, 2023 · 4:30 pm

A fact so dread, he faintly said, extinguishes all hope

Okay, not all hope. But we’d been optimistic that Wednesday would be Wisp’s last day in her leg bandage and cone of shame (without it that bandage would be gone). Nope: another week in the bandage, though the vet’s optimistic that will be enough. But then come three weeks or so keeping her indoors for her leg to build strength while limiting excess activity.

It’s frustrating because we don’t want both of us out of the house at the same time if we can avoid it; Wisp has occasionally gotten around the cone of shame to the bandage and we don’t want to make an emergency visit to get it replaced. Maybe after it comes off we can do something; if not, date nights will remain in-house. But she’s our cat, we’re not going to abandon her. Here she is sitting with Trixie. Not as chummy as it might look, it’s just that I got up while they were both snuggling with me.On the plus side, Wisp is sleeping a lot longer at night which means I sleep longer. Not a full night’s sleep but enough I’m not such a zombie. As a result, I had the presence of mind to get creative work done this weel/

I finished a chapter of Let No Man Put Asunder and would have gotten more done except I have no idea what happens next. I gave Oh the Places You’ll Go another going over and it’s much improved, including the end. I’m not sure the ending is enough improved, but I can make this work, I know it now. I got some work done on Savage Adventures and started developing my promotional plans for Behold the Book. I have a page for the publishing imprint almost ready but I need to check the links first. I also reserved the domain name but haven’t set up the website at all yet.

I worked on a number of stories for The Local Reporter. I’m really surprised how few businesses call back; I know we’re not as big in relation to Chapel Hill as the Destin Log was to Destin but still, it’s not like we’re calling to ask about their criminal record or the rats in their kitchen. I did get one article done, on Crazy Alan’s Emporium, a gift and pen store. Way expensive pens like the $2,100 Emperor which comes in its own wooden box.Elsewhere online, I appeared on a Con-Tinual panel on the Green Lantern Corps. Another on time travel movies, a subject I know something about.

And one announcing 19-Infinity is live.Over at Atomic Junkshop I posted my thoughts on John Romita and Spider-Man. Much as I love the Lee/Ditko era of Spider-Man, I’m acquiring fresh respect for Romita in my Silver Age reread.I also blog about Green Lantern becoming an insurance adjuster and revisit those wacky musical adventurers the Maniaks.And now the week is done. Enjoy your weekend off, everyone. I will!

#SFWApro. 19-Infinity cover by Kemp Ward, comics by Romita (top) and Mike Sekowsky. All rights remain with current holders.

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August 11, 2023 · 3:26 pm

My cat, my enemy! OR why I didn’t get much sleep this week

I love Wisp but this week she’s been a little too needy.As I said last week, she’s been very restless in the night since her leg injury. Last weekend she was quiet enough I thought she’d finally adjusted … but nope. Most nights this week she spent her time nuzzling and meowing at me, demanding petting. Sometimes she’d settle down and snuggle against me, but she’d be up and moving before long. I don’t blame her but that doesn’t make getting woken up every 45 minutes any easier. The vet thinks next Wednesday we might be able to get the bandage off and let her out, but it’s going to be a slog until then.

The result, of course, is that solid sleep eluded me most of this week. I got work done but (as I keep saying since we first confined Wisp) nothing that required creativity, like writing new material on Let No Man Put Asunder. I did read another section to the writer’s group. They’ve been saying the earlier chapters were too fast to catch their breath (I get that complaint a lot) so this slower section was welcome.

I did make final edits on Love That Moves the Sun based on editorial feedback. I got a lot of work done on Oh the Places You’ll Go but my brain crapped out on the last stretch. Next week, hopefully. I’m also working on multiple articles for The Local Reporter and got my check for the first two stories published. Money is good. I also did some research reading.

Frustrating as the week was, at least I’m getting more done than last month.

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July 28, 2023 · 3:18 pm

Light at the end of the tunnel!

After a month of frustration due to Wisp keeping me up at night, this week was wonderful. For one thing Wisp spent Tuesday and Wednesday night mostly still and quiet which meant I got to sleep. That felt soooo good. Last night she was a lot more restless so I don’t know if it’s a permanent shift. Tonight and tomorrow night, though, TYG takes the cat so I have a chance at a deep sleep regardless. (Wisp still has her cast on, but I like this shot from before her injury).

Equally pleasing, I had a productive writing week. Not as productive as a regular week, but I did get some stuff accomplished. For starters I gave Love That Moves the Sun another going over and it looks good; I’ll have revisions finished next month and then out it goes, if I can find a market. If not, there’s always more self-publishing.

Speaking of which, Oh the Places You’ll Go got a thorough revision and I think I’ve nailed it. That will take more work next month: the changes are significant enough I need to think them over thoroughly. But unless I spot errors I’m blind too — and I’m still a little sleep deprived — it’ll be done by next month too.

I’ve also done a couple more Atomic Junk Shop posts, one on DC reboots of the mid-1960s (something I’ve already done a couple of pieces about — there were a lot of them) and one on the tangled continuity of Silver/Bronze Age Plastic Man.

Let No Man Put Asunder didn’t do so well. I talked to a couple of doctor friends about how Mandy would feel after using her body like Bruce Lee — she’s not the athletic type — and incorporated that into Chapter Three. However when I reviewed the most recent chapter (ten) my brain wasn’t ready to start writing. Rather than just browse online, though, which has been my default since the injury, I worked on Savage Adventures, my Doc Savage history, instead.

I think I’ve mentioned the Local Reporter, an online Chapel Hill paper. I pitched them a couple of ideas last week and got a story assignment, due Tuesday. Paying gigs are good. I’ve also applied for a couple of others. Much as I prefer working fiction or fun nonfiction projects, it’s good to have cash flowing in.

I’m optimistically planning for August as if I’ll be up for a full workload. Fingers crossed.

#SFWApro. Plastic Man cover by Gil Kane, Doc Savage cover by James Bama; all rights remain with current holders.

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June 23, 2023 · 3:10 pm

Productive, though not in the way I planned

I had planned to get a lot of work done on Let No Man Put Asunder this week, as well as the short story  Only the Lonely Can Slay. Neither happened. The short story — well, I know there’s a story there, but I can’t make it work past the first couple of scenes. Frustrating but I’ll keep pushing.

The novel? I left in the middle of a fight scene and I’m still not sure how to resolve it. Eventually, even if I’m unsure, I’ll have to forge ahead but the morning I sat down and worked on it …. it didn’t happen. Part of the problem is that (I know I’ve mentioned this before), Plushie likes climbing into my lap, then stretching out. This leaves me in an awkward physical position for writing, especially as he invariably squishes my crotch in the process. But he’s so cute and we won’t have him forever so I can’t say no.

Another factor was that I started freelancing for The Local Reporter, a not-for-profit online newspaper in Chapel Hill (part of the same city as Durham and Raleigh even if technically they’re three different places). I hit on the idea of covering some issues involving a strip mall where the local management may be squeezing out local businesses (or maybe not). Trouble was, nobody called me back.

This isn’t unusual with business owners — there’s more pressure on government officials to respond promptly — but back when I worked for the Destin Log, it wasn’t this bad. But of course, Destin was a town of 10,000; Chapel Hill’s six times that and we’re not the paper of record the same way. So it’s not surprising, Though it’s annoying that even after repeat calling, I couldn’t get anywhere.

The thing is, I didn’t want to start writing fiction and have the anticipated call-backs distract me (I’ll get to what I did work on in a second). So that cost me a day. At the Log I could find something else to work on and even if just twiddled my thumbs (it happened sometimes) I was still on the clock. I’m not getting paid for waiting now and I’m much busier writing than when I did stories for the Raleigh Public Recorder a decade ago. I couldn’t get the rhythm right to make best use of my time. Next week I’ll have to fix that.What did fill my time? Well I finished the first draft of Savage Adventures, my book on the Doc Savage series. It took more rewriting of my blog posts than I anticipated and I have a bunch of notes where I’ll want to expand or clarify things for the book. I’d sooner have done fiction but it’s good I’m ahead of the game on this one.And 19-Infinity is now live for paperback order and ebook pre-order (it doesn’t list all the reetailers yet). I’d have preferred to release the paperback simultaneous with the ebook, which I’m putting out in August; hopefully that will give me time to do a little extra promotion. But I’m heading to Con-Gregate next month and I wanted at least a few copies to sell, so … Finishing that took quite a bit of time but again, it’s done ahead of schedule (except the promotion part).

Like I said, not the week I’d planned but a productive one.

#SFWApro. Doc Savage cover by James Bama; 19-Infinity cover by Kemp Ward. All rights remain with current holders.

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June 16, 2023 · 3:50 pm

Not a creative week, but someone read one of my books!

Draft2Digital notified me that the Hoopla library service paid for someone checking out one of my books.  I’m not sure which book it was — sometimes that information lags behind — but whoever you were, thanks for giving me a try. And Draft2Digital now reports sales (or rentals) as sales for Behold the Book which makes me feel way professional.

Once again 19-Infinity dominated my week but it paid off. I have the cover (reveal comes next week), the text is set so all I have left to do is figure out some promotional stuff and order some copies for the Con-Gregate convention next month. I’ve ordered one final proof copy to double-check all is well, then it’s a go. That frees me up to move on to my next project, Savage Adventures (the book on Doc Savage I’ve mentioned before).

I also got another chapter of Let No Man Put Asunder finished, and that was about it. There was a lot of life stuff going on: Tuesday, after taking Wisp to the vet, I also dealt with a roofing contractor and a landscaper. I decided to do mostly smaller errands or blogging the rest of the day as it was chopped up into small chunks of time.

Wednesday I had lunch with a friend from the writing group and added a few errands. Unfortunately I forgot another errand, for TYG, so I headed out Thursday morning to take care of that one. The end result was, obviously, less time to write, especially when I add in the time to gather my wits after I leave the house for an errand.

I did manage to get four stories returned from Friday June 9 to yesterday, 6/15. I suppose that’s an accomplishment of sorts.

On a more positive note, I also blogged at Atomic Junk Shop about Thor’s breakup with Jane Foster and the introduction of Sif.

#SFWApro. Art by James Bama (top) and Jack Kirby, all rights to images remain with current holders.

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June 13, 2023 · 5:11 am

Pop culture references in Let No Man Put Asunder (and other stories)

Last week I read the first chapter of Let No Man Put Asunder to the in-person live action group. They repeated a criticism I’ve heard before (including the Zoom group on the same chapter), that I don’t give readers time to catch their breath. And like the Zoom group, they had some criticisms of my use of pop-culture references. Mandy’s a movie buff, Paul’s a mystery story fan and there are multiple references to both in the book.The Zoom group’s criticism is that I’m overusing the references: like Ready Player One I’m at risk of just endless name-dropping without context. This is true: I love making little pop culture references and I’ve already begun trimming back in spots. I’m doing the same in Impossible Takes a Little Longer, avoiding too many comics references.A second criticism, echoed by someone in the live-action group, is that (for example) when Paul refers to his TBR mystery shelf including The Mysterious Mr. Quinn, Shell Scott and John Dickson Carr there’s no context for them. They have no meaning.

This surprised me a little; I’d have assumed nobody needs a context in that example beyond “mystery novel someone’s reading.” I assume it the same way I’d assume that if someone’s watching Zane Grey Theater or General Hospital on TV — I’ve used them both in the background of different stories — nobody’s going to care if they don’t know the show (I don’t think Zane Grey is the brand-name he used to be). Should I rethink that assumption? Or is it that the mystery references are important to Paul and not just background stuff?

The counter-argument is that if someone doesn’t get a reference, they’ll just Google it. I’ve never been thrilled with this perspective; the last thing I want is for someone to stop reading and go online because I’ve confused them. However books such as Alex Segura’s Secret Identity employ references way more obscure than I do, which has made me wonder if I worry about it too much. Though according to some of the critiques, maybe I should worry about it more?

Yep, this is another No Conclusions post but I will keep the unanswered questions in mind.

#SFWApro. Mystery covers by Gerald Gregg, all rights remain with current holders.

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