Tag Archives: Savage Adventures

February 6, 2026 · 4:28 pm

Not much writing done this week, but I anticipated that

Thursday I only worked a half-day because the housekeepers were here. Sitting in the spare bedroom with all the pets to keep them out of the way (and make sure Snowdrop and Wisp don’t run out) does not inspire creative work. For the first time in a few months, they showed up late enough I could have made a full work day out of it; by the time I realized that I’d turned my brain off.

And Tuesday I took one of my days off to devote to TYG and my “death document” — instructions about our finances, ordering dog drugs, when to give dog drugs, plans for our bodies. Because contrary to this Nick Cardy cover, death can come at any time. We’d like to be as much help to each other as we can.

I’ve been slack about updating the stuff I know but it turns out not much has changed since the last time I checked — Trixie has one added med, little things like that. Still it’s good to keep everything current and good to know that it is.

With Friday devoted to stuff like blogging and catching up on email, that left two days. I got another chunk of Savage Adventures rewritten, though not as much as I’d like. Then I had my work for The Local Reporter: a story on the snowfall and how local towns dealt with it (not up yet), one on how Carrboro is scoring its performance and one on what the former Chapel Hill Weekly was reporting when it started publishing in 1923 (“On the whole, Chapel Hill is ultra-conservative in the matter of hats.”).

As I mentioned a while back, they recently lost one of their government reporters so I’m doing more work. Which is good — more money — but it’s frustrating how much work I have to do to find enough stuff to write about (it consumes a surprising amount of time). The reporting and writing is relatively simple. But such is life.

I anticipate being way more productive next week.

One thing that did surprise me about this week — this blog has racked up 1,500 views the past two days. While there are times I can explain a rush in traffic, like my posts about Taylor Swift a couple of years back, I have no idea what triggered it. None of my specific posts have received a huge hit either. I’m not complaining of course and if any of y’all are reading this, thanks for visiting.

All rights to cover image remain with current holder.

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January 2, 2026 · 4:30 pm

I know I wrote stuff in 2025, but it doesn’t feel like it.

Earlier this week I told myself, hey, at least I’ll have finished Jekyll and Hyde by the end of New Year’s Eve … sigh.

The manuscript went off today, thank goodness, but even so … sigh. A bigger sigh because I didn’t get anything else finished this year. And because the worn shoes I usually walk the dogs in — good, supportive sneakers, though ragged — got a disastrous amount of shit on them Wednesday after Plushie took a gooey poo in the dark. So they’re toast. Then today when I was supposed to start PT for my bursitis, the rehab place called to say my therapist was sick, can I reschedule for two weeks. I’d really hoped to start on a day I wouldn’t be putting in a full day’s work.

Getting back to writing …Southern Discomfort didn’t come out. I didn’t finish Savage Adventures. Didn’t get the next draft of Let No Man Put Asunder or Impossible Takes a Little Longer done. I have a couple of short stories that need just a little tinkering … which they didn’t get. I sold some books (thank you, all my readers! I appreciate you!) but I ended up the year with slightly less money in the bank than I started out. Not Christmas presents, just a bunch of extra, and necessary expenses at the end of the year.

Part of the problem is that writing for the Local Reporter kept eating up my time — long meetings, a bunch of interviews in one week. Theoretically that should have meant less work the following week as I got ahead. Somehow it never did. I like the work but I’ll have to manage it better in 2026.

Part of it was that working on Jekyll and Hyde took up a lot of time and, of course, more of it as I moved to the finish. I should have anticipated that — movie books are fun but they always take more time than I expect.

Plus the perennial challenge of increasing pet demands. Dealing with two cats in the morning, albeit ones I love, is somehow more than twice as distracting.

Part of it … I don’t know. I made progress on all my projects but I didn’t finish anything. That’s the perennial risk of writing, particularly when 90 percent of my deadlines are self-imposed: I can write and rewrite until the cows come home and then decide to rewrite some more. If anything, that’s a weakness that gets worse over time. As Lawrence Block said, I can see more ways a story can go than I could when I was younger. That can produce better stories; it can also lead to lots of second guessing and deciding to do it over or telling myself it could be perfect if I just rewrite … like they say, the perfect is the enemy of the good.

For 2026 I have ambitious goals on my 68 for 68 list. Not ones that should exceed my grasp. Two drafts of both novels. Finish Savage Adventures. Publish Southern Discomfort. Make more money. Submit more stuff (I’d gotten out of the habit this year). Plus, of course, enjoy my life (not a stated goal on my list but still). Despite the frustration with my writing, I had a good year in most other ways. I’d like to have another one in 2026.

To end on an up note, we took the Christmas tree down yesterday. Because it’s in the living room this year (easier than rearranging the two cat litterboxes where we normally put the tree) I realized I could take it out through the French doors (visible behind it) and across the deck and not have to deal with a trail of needles all the way through the house to the front door. It worked! Much less physical strain too. I’ll take it as a good omen.

And frustrating as missing my deadline was, when I got Jekyll and Hyde off this morning, it felt sooooo damn good. I went to celebrate at a local coffee shop … which was closed until tomorrow.

It still felt good to finish.

Happy New Year and best wishes to all y’all.

All rights to images remain with current holders. Comics cover by Jack Kirby with Ditko inking.

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July 25, 2025 · 4:22 pm

I didn’t think this would work …

Some time back I conceded the increasing demands of pet care were cutting into my time to the point working seven hour days made more sense than trying to put in eight hours. Though of course, they’re worth it.

The thing is, the last hour of the “work” day, from 4 to 5 PM, never seemed to work after that. I couldn’t quite relax but couldn’t think of anything that really filled the hour either. Well, this week I tried working all the way up to 5 … and strangely enough, that works better. I quit at 5 PM much more comfortably than at 4 PM — has the concept of “9 to 5” been that burned into me over the years? Still, I’m not complaining; getting more writing done is a good thing.

And I managed to get a lot done, even though Trixie got me up around midnight Sunday and Monday to go out and squirtle (worse, she didn’t quite make it outside). Fortunately whatever brought that on, it stopped after that.

I got some work on Savage Adventures done for the first time in a while, bringing the finished book almost up to 1939. My Local Reporter work included one story on Vimala’s Curryblossom Café, which is helping feed the victims of Tropical Storm Chantal, and a more general one on local recovery efforts. At Atomic Junk Shop I blogged about the start of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Pellucidar series, then a second post on the rest of the series.

I got a lot of work done on Jekyll and Hyde. Rewriting some of the book (I need to become much more organized and systematic), reading the section on Jerry Lewis’ Nutty Professor to the writing group, and watching a couple of movies I only just stumbled across.

I’m almost done with watching the movies, though there’s a lot of TV to get through too. But given I have until the end of the year, I’m confident things will go smoothly barring some unforeseen catastrophe (and those are always possible). Fingers crossed.

Oh, and I’ve been remiss in posting about Con-Tinual online convention. I’m on a couple of panels about breaking writer’s block and one on best and worst comics adaptations.

Also one on Lovecraftian horror —

— and superheroes and mutants. All of these will show up on Con-Tinual’s YouTube channel eventually.

Cover by Frank Frazetta. All rights to images remain with current holders.

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May 16, 2025 · 4:18 pm

Despite the last guy with the axe, this week was reasonably productive

I have long felt this Billy Graham cover for Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #6 is a good metaphor for life, which is why I’ve posted it before. You think you’ve got a handle on everything but you don’t see the armored axe-man coming up behind you.

The first axe-man was taking our dogs for their twice-yearly exam at Quartet Rehab Monday morning. We knew about it in advance but still, coupled with the pups’ regular weekly rehab session, it took up the entire morning. That’s a chunk of time out of the workweek.

Wednesday we had a minor emergency, dealt with promptly but it threw me off my game the rest of the day. TYG also took Plushie in for his eye exam, even though it looked like the problems from last week were over. Nope: as usual she was right when she suspected a problem. Ulcers in both eyes, now treated (though he’ll get more eventually). That and the new set of exercises we got from the vet have added to the distractions.

This morning Trixie woke up a little after midnight with an urgent need to go out … except she didn’t do anything. It still through my morning routine completely off (having barely four hours of sleep didn’t help, obviously).

Still, I managed to get a fair amount done. For The Local Reporter I wrote one story about local artist Aliyah Bonnette and another about the Chapel Hill/Carrboro school district budget. At Atomic Junk Shop I got in an article about the last issue of the original Challengers of the Unknown (with a Neal Adams cover) and the demise of several once popular series as the Silver Age wound down.

I didn’t get any fiction written but I wrote a lot on Jekyll and Hyde (as well as some research reading) and got some rewriting done on Savage Adventures. Under the circumstances, I’m pleased. Oh, and I wound up reading another section of Jekyll and Hyde to the writing group and got some good feedback. One part of it was that the book was more interesting when I offered my own opinions rather than just going over the plot, visuals, themes, etc. I thought I was offering my own opinions about all that so I’ll have to parse out what they’re talking about.

Somewhat less satisfactorily, my exercise program flatlined this week. Most days, breaking it down into short five minute bursts is the only way to do it. When I get really busy, though, it’s much harder to get up and deliver on that than when I have time blocked out for it. In my head-canon I’m ending the week a flabby blob whose heart’s going to give out at any minute — don’t worry, I know that’s bullshit but it’s still frustrating.

On the whole, though, I’m still satisfied.

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May 7, 2025 · 5:15 am

I don’t hate the game but I don’t play it.

I picked up THE SAVAGE DYARIES: The Collected Doc Savage Essays of Dafydd Neal Dyar, Volume One, to read his article on the Doc Savage novel Land of Long Juju. I knew from a reference elsewhere that Dyar had discovered that it was originally set in Latin America, which explains things like African tribes who speak Mayan and shrink heads — Donovan changed the setting but not the details (so I’m sure the dreadful racism would have been equally dreadful in the original).

The essay didn’t provide any information why it got switched but I was still glad to read it. There are also other interesting stuff — a detailed discussion on the disappeared airship that inspired part of The Lost Oasis, speculation whether the Mayans giving Doc jade wouldn’t make more sense than gold and an article about what Pat Savage really thought about her cousin (it includes the interesting reveal that Dent would have had her running a detective firm before his editor pushed for a beauty salon). This stuff is definitely useful for writing Savage Adventures.

There are also a number of essays built around the premise that Doc is a real person whose exploits were fictionalized in Doc Savage. Two interviews with Doc in the style of Philip José Farmer. Doc revealing he deliberately influenced Warner Brothers to make the 1975 movie campy. Discussing the hypothetical backstory of Doc’s mother.

I have no objection to this approach (which Rick Lai’s chronology also uses) though it’s not the path I’m taking. In Savage Adventures I assume Doc is “real” in the world of the series but not our own; reading Dyar makes me realize the two approaches sometimes lead to different places.

Lai’s chronology, for instance, involves a lot of figuring out which real countries Doc was adventuring in during Dust of Death, Golden Peril and other stories. I can simply assume fictional countries such as Hidalgo and Santa Amoza exist in Doc’s secondary reality and not worry about it. Farmer has to explain how Doc can have offices on the 86th floor of the Empire State Building when it’s an observation deck; I can note the discrepancy and move on.

Or consider World’s Fair Goblin. Set at the New York World’s Fair, it came out the same month the fair opened. Obviously if it happened then, Lester Dent wouldn’t have had time to write it up, nor his editors to go over it, then get it on the stands. Farmer declares it’s a fiction Dent wrote to cash in on a big event; Lai suggests it took place before the official opening. I can assume it happened just as Dent wrote it.

That doesn’t mean their approach is wrong. It’s the same one Sherlockians have been using to write about Holmes for years, and it’s equally legitimate for other fictional characters. Reading Dyar just made me aware how the two paths end up in different places.

Covers by James Bama. All rights to images remain with current holders.

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May 2, 2025 · 4:39 pm

Raven(con) on the wing

(Title is hat tip to a British comic strip I read as a kid)

For the second year in a row, I attended Ravencon in Virginia Crossing near Richmond. It’s a lovely place to hang out.

The programming schedule was perfect: enough time between my panels to browse the dealer’s room or go back to my room and crash (with four pets, I’m almost never completely alone these days). I ran into a couple of friends (Wayland Smith, Lisa Hodorovych), talked to a few writers I hadn’t met. The only drawback? I didn’t get an author table so I didn’t have a chance to push my books. Despite which I sold two — one two a guy who’d bought one last year and liked it, one to a dude who liked the cover of Undead Sexist Cliches.

I was supposed to follow that up with Atomacon in North Charleston, SC, this weekend. However lugging my suitcase full of books (just in case …) and a stuffed backpack around Ravencon kicked my bursitis into high gear (the old “doesn’t feel too bad, I can lift more stuff” error). I decided the four hour drive to Atomacon, followed by more lifting stuff — I did have a table reserved — was a bad idea.

That was disappointing — I like selling books and I was one of only two panelists on a couple of panels (so it’d be a pain if I wasn’t there). I looked into flying, thought it would be affordable (probably not practical for my bottom line, but still) and it was … but by the time I’d checked the time-frame with TYG, it was $300 more and that’s with the return flight getting in close to midnight Sunday. I contacted Atomacon who were wonderfully good sports, and said they’d credit my table fee to next year.

(Cosplaying Holy Grail‘s Killer Rabbit)

I haven’t once second-guessed myself so it was definitely the right movie. And my shoulder, while improved, is still sore enough I know how much it would have hurt Monday if I’d gone.

That did give me a full week to work, which was good. I spent a lot of it research reading: The World War II Combat Film by Jeanine Basinger (that took a while. It’s a very dense book) and The Savage Dyaries by Dafydd Neal Dyar (reviews to follow). I got some work done on Let No Man Put Asunder and three movies watched for Jekyll and Hyde.

Oh, and my short story Bleeding Blue sold to Stonecoast Literary Review, my first sale in a while! Me, a literary person, imagine that!

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April 11, 2025 · 4:20 pm

A week of dodging bullets. Yes, that’s a good thing.

First up, I spent today proofing our income taxes. I spotted several errors and when I crunched all the numbers our bill went from $500 in to maybe $100. Whoot! My brain is shot but all I have to do now is print out the forms and send them in.

Second, it was Plush Dudley’s eye checkup this week. He’s had glaucoma for a year and the pet optometrist told us that’s usually the point at which the drugs stop working. Nope, his eye pressure is still excellent. That’s really good news.

Third, TYG went to a social event last weekend and developed a hacking cough a couple of days later. Then I started to hack and cough. No, that’s not good news but it’s very good news that it’s largely cleared up for both of us. Normally she has a hard time fighting off these things and I’ve had multiple infected throats intensify into laryngitis. Doesn’t seem to be happening.

And last but definitely not least, Wednesday morning my iPhone stopped charging. Bad news, obviously, but when I took it to the Apple Store right after lunch, the young woman at the Genius Bar solved the problem — debris in the charging port — and cleared it out easily. I’m impressed and relieved.

Work was … okay, partly because I had to spend the whole day working on the taxes. I’d thought it would be smoother but I made more errors than I thought, and kept thinking “Oh no, that makes us pay out more” followed by “oh, but this error cancels that one out and then some.” Trust me, not as exciting as it sounds.

I didn’t watch anything for Jekyll and Hyde but did work on the section covering Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde. Reading some of the reviews and analysis of the film, I found it more interesting (not necessarily more entertaining) than my review at the link.

I proofed another dozen or so entries in Savage Adventures including yes, The Mental Wizard. I wound up writing two articles for The Local Reporter, one of which they’re holding for next week. They printed one article on the local Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle and one held over from last week on Carrboro’s commitment to Vision Zero, a program for eliminating pedestrian deaths due to traffic.

Over at Atomic Junk Shop we’re suffering an ongoing problem: our tech/admin person is AWOL (valid personal reasons), the site won’t let us load photos a lot of the time, and the hosting company isn’t answering my emails. In hindsight having one person handle the admin with nobody designated as backup was a mistake but this was always meant to be a fun project so none of us thought about that. TYG, skilled IT pro that she is, would have known better.

Still I managed to get some stuff up: reprinting an old post about the choice between buying old vs. new comics, one on what makes a good antihero and one on Timothy Dalton’s debut as Bond in The Living Daylights (Maryam D’Abo, below, plays the Bond Girl)

And the taxes are done! That’s a load off my mind, as is the smaller tax bill.

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

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March 18, 2025 · 5:17 am

My birthday: life is still good, the world is getting darker

A year ago, I felt a lot more upbeat on my birthday.

It’s not that my personal life has gone sour. It’s going well. Snowdrop’s an indoor cat, I’m getting out socially more, my books sell (albeit not in large quantities) and my health is good. TYG and I grow, I think a little closer every year.

A year ago, though, we were under a competent, decent president, Biden, rather than the corrupt, evil triumvirate of The Felon, Musk and Putin (I used to think the idea of Trump as a Russian asset was too over the top but as I said yesterday, the evidence is persuasive).

Last year I was optimistic the year ahead would be good. I was confident both Savage Adventures and Southern Discomfort would be published by now. I had hopes we’d beat the fascists and stay a functioning democracy for another four years. But neither book is done and the election did not break that way.

While President Snowflake will definitely not usher in a golden age or make America great again (Russia, maybe), we’re not necessarily doomed. I’ll keep speaking out, writing GOTV cards and donating to activist groups and groups that simply help people. As David Rieff puts it in A Bed for the Night, applying a bandage to one person’s wound doesn’t feel adequate, but it’s important — sometimes people need bandages. Or blood

And I’m still writing. Both books will come out, as will my Jekyll and Hyde work.

For today, I’m taking the day off as I usually do. And doing takeout at Cheesecake Factory because I can get a free slice of the tastiness along with my order. Beyond that? Well, we’ll see.

And for the year ahead, who knows? Because every birthday is, in a way, a new genesis

Art by Frank Brunner, all rights to image remain with current holder.

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January 3, 2025 · 4:30 pm

Free!

TYG was off work this week, which was cool. She’s way more relaxed so I’m more relaxed. Plus, to make up for how much I deal with the dogs when she’s at work, she took them all of Thursday, leaving me to do what I liked (we tried that during her last week-long vacation but then dog vet visits sucked up half the day). Much as I’d have enjoyed wandering through Barnes & Noble or one of our local comic book stores, I decided to make it a writing day. Rather than stick at home, however, I headed out to the Bean Trader, a nearby coffee shop. I sat and worked on rewriting Jekyll and Hyde, ran a couple of errands (we have a dog appointment Saturday morning which is my normal errand time) came home.

It was really fun. Hot chocolate to keep me going (it’s been freezing cold which is perfect chocolate weather), no pets to distract me. It was much more fun than back in Florida when I’d occasionally write at a Starbucks. The difference, I think, is that I had no real reason to be there and this time I did.

In the afternoon I worked up in my room on more Jekyll/Hyde, and then some on The Savage Year. The opening chapters are in better shape than I thought; next week we’ll see how the book-by-book breakdown looks.

And as I mentioned Tuesday, I finished editing Southern Discomfort. I’ll feel better once it’s published but I’m way pleased to have it done. And glad it’s not on my to-do list for this month.

The Local Reporter took a week off so I didn’t have any articles published. I did have two posts up on the Atomic Junk Shop blog. One was about yet another noteworthy issue of Captain Marvel — as I say in the piece, the Silver Age Mar-Vell’s adventures aren’t terribly good but they keep being worth writing about. #18, for example, plants the seed that would eventually turn Carol Danvers into the next Captain Marvel.

I also posted about Marvel’s ongoing efforts to find the next big thing in comics. Spoiler: knocking off Casper the Friendly Ghost was not the answer.

With Wednesday a day off and Tuesday devoted to planning 2025, there wasn’t much time to do anything else. It was a good week though.

Captain Marvel art by Gil Kane; Homer cover by Dan DeCarlo (presumably the same DeCarlo who created Josie and the Pussycats at Archie Comics). Doc Savage cover by Emery Clarke. All rights to images remain with current holders.

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January 1, 2025 · 5:30 am

What new surprises lie in store? 2025 begins

When I looked back to 2024’s New Year’s Day post, I discovered my big goal for last year was to restore order to my day that I’d lost from Wisp becoming an indoor cat. While I didn’t mention that in yesterday’s 2024-review post (I’d forgotten about it), I think I pretty much pulled that off. I’ve adjusted to having Wisp in my lap most mornings and I’ve become good at taking exercise during the week in five-minute bursts.

As I noted yesterday, organization didn’t translate into getting lots of writing finished. I will have to do better this year. I have no particular insights on doing so other than 1)allowing more time than I anticipate to get things done, and 2)budgeting time for the little shit that falls through the cracks. I’ve had my short story Obolus ready to self-publish except I’ve never gotten around to finding a cover. I think it’s time to do that. I’ve also gotten out of the habit of checking for potential markets for my few unpublished stories.

The big project, of course, is completing Jekyll and Hyde. It’s the one with a deadline. Part of “allowing more time,” as noted above, is budgeting much more time each month to watching the movies and writing them up. I’ve done enough not to worry about meeting deadline but I can’t slack up.

Next up, I want to publish Southern Discomfort. It’s finished but I still need cover art (and I’ll probably have to edit the manuscript to account for Draft2Digital’s formatting process). Having failed to publish Savage Adventures last year, I want that done, plus some work on new projects.

I also want to make material contributions to the side of good. I have no idea what kind of mess our new president is going to make but I want to help clean it up. I haven’t figured out how, other than donating money, but I’ll let you know when my ideas become better formed. Last year I did GOTV postcards; I’ll do those again, but I don’t think it’s enough any more. I’ll be contacting our elected officials more frequently though I’m not sure how effective it is — while I give Thom Tillis credit for responding to my missives (not everyone does), I’ve yet to see him depart from the Republican Party line.

On the personal side, I want to enjoy myself (well, duuuuh): reading, movies, more time with TYG and the pets. Keeping myself healthy. Spending more time with friends.

I’d also like to make more money, which is tough in my line of work. I’ll give it a shot, though.

Happy New Year everyone. Looking back, I can see I really was happier by the end of 2024 than I’d been at the start. May it be so again, for all y’all too.

Film still from 1920 Jekyll and Hyde; all rights remain with current holder.

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