"Hide the Weird" to appear in Space and Time Magazine, January 2012!!!

According to Hildy Silverman, publisher of Space and Time Magazine: The Magazine of Fantasy, Horror and Science Fiction:

"Hiding the Weird is slotted for inclusion in the next issue, #116, which is set for release this winter (January, 2012)."

Very exciting!!!  Write it down, everyone, and buy the January, 2012 issue of Space and Time Magazine to read my story!!!  In fact, buy the current issue of Space and Time, as well.  It's a cool magazine with a fine mix of fantasy, sci-fi and horror.  And I'm not just saying that because they were awesome enough to purchase and publish my story.

It's because my story is technically speculative fiction, which is not specifically fantasy, horror or science fiction.  So it's got a bit of everything in there.  Go take a look: Space and Time Magazine. 

Please spread the word to any and all online writing or discussion groups that you're a member of.  If anyone who reads this is a published author in a print or online magazine, please let me know in a comment or email and I will spread the word for you, as well.


Thanks, everyone!


(And I apologize in advance for the reminder posts that may come in December and/or January.)

My Father's Awesomeness

Spoke to my better half's mom today, and she mentioned that at her first gathering with my family at my relative's place--where she didn't know anyone else but my better half and myself, and (barely), my father--he bought her a small box of chocolates and wrapped it up, and put her name on it, just so she got at least one thing there from somebody and didn't feel too much like a stranger spending a holiday at someone else's place.  (She and my better half and I had exchanged gifts already at my place.)

The point: That's how awesome my father was.  He thought of everyone else, and of the little things they may feel.  Who thinks about how the girlfriend's mother will feel at my relative's place?  He did.  And so here are a just a few other things that show my father's awesomeness:

--He visited our tax advisor with boxes and boxes of paper and envelopes, of all sizes.  She makes her living with these things, so they're like gold to her.  When she told me this recently, she couldn't stop crying, explaining how much she'd liked him and how nice he'd been to her.  "Who thinks of his tax advisor?" she cried.

--A guy he bought train parts from spoke to me for maybe half an hour about how nice he was, and about how he'd miss him.

--His landscaper speaks to me constantly about how kind he was to him on several occasions.

--The across-the-street neighbors tell me all the time about how he got their mail, collected their paper from the driveway, and either shoveled their driveway himself or paid the landscaper to do it.  (These neighbors are in their 80s.)

I could give a ton more examples, but you get the picture by now.  My father was awesome.  It can be explained in one word: Kindness.

He was a gentleman.  Rare these days.

Killing the Blues by Michael Brandman (and maybe Robert B. Parker, too)

I wanted to dislike it because the continuation of someone else's baby by another writer just doesn't sit well with me--and they usually fail, or seem intent to just make money (see: James Bond).  But Brandman does a good job here, keeping most of Parker's Jesse Stone while adding the inevitable small changes.  Most of these changes work.

Jesse talks a little more; he actually sounds a bit more like Spenser.  I thought the original character was too quiet, as Brandman apparently did.  Parker also got hung up too much on Jenn; it was time for her to go, and she has.  The Parker combination of Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall always seemed forced to me; perhaps he felt he had nothing much more to say about her,especially after Helen Hunt turned down the role.  I don't know, but they definitely needed to break up, and they have.  Stone also comes across here as a little more...stoic (sorry), which is odd since he speaks more here.  But he admits directly that he didn't miss Sunny.  In a Stephen King story, he'd be asking Parker directly why he had to date Sunny, anyway.  His direct actions and verbosity work for me, though he also seems too Spenserian when he helps the ex-hood find a job, and when he talked to the female students, the teacher and the principal.  (Note to Brandman: Massachusetts doesn't have homeroom anymore; it's now called advisory.)  Parker's anti-teacher torch is definitely carried on.

So Stone doing his Spenser impersonation didn't work for me, and Stone is certainly not a cat-lover.  I guess Brandman wanted to set up a Stone/Spenser duality; maybe he's taking over Spenser, too.  If so, it was wise for him to turn out a Stone book first, before he tackled the iconic Spenser.

Brandman's book is a little edgier than Parker's would've been, maybe a little more noir.  That's okay with me.  A few things didn't work, but that's to be expected.  And Brandman creates an admirable mixture of a book that's 70% Parker and 30% Brandman.  Perhaps Parker, notoriously productive, already had a large part of the ms. written--notice that the copyright belongs to the Estate of Robert B. Parker, not to Brandman.  Had this been 100% Brandman, I doubt that would be the case.  We'll have to see with future Stone books.

The torch has changed hands, but it hasn't gone out.  Brandman has earned the right here to run with it.

A Writer's Despair

So I've been writing on envelopes and pads because I can't find my journals and notebooks, which are still in a box somewhere in the garage.  (I just spent a half hour looking for them.)  It's been just over a month, and I haven't finished unpacking my life and my office from the garage.  That's sad.  What's even worse--What made me think that I could go without writing so long that I didn't put my journals and notebooks in an easily accessible place?  Why not walk them up to my office like I did with my computer?  Have I been writing so erratically that I didn't even think about where I was putting them?  Yes, it's been over a month, I now realize, and I haven't written in them.  What the hell was I thinking?  So now I'm writing on a pad that someone gave me, and I'm thinking now of just taking CDs with me to work, and back home, so I can write on those on whatever computer I'm sitting beside.  (This is actually not a bad idea.  Maybe I should have done this anyway!)

I realize that I need to write a little bit throughout the day--wherever and whenever time allows--so that when I get home and need to work a lot more in the office, sitting down and writing won't be that new to me.  I've been having trouble lately just sitting my ass down, and I realize now--with the help of a writing group forum on LinkedIn (and thanks to anyone there who may be reading)--that this is due to the fact that writing is still not a consistent, everyday, blah experience to me, like sitting down to eat, for example.  I don't have to prepare too much for that, and I certainly don't procrastinate about eating, so why can't I also sit down and write?  This from a guy who has been published and paid for his writing (both as a reporter and short story writer) and who has written literally thousands of pages.  Yet writing now in my hectic life is a hassle.

Disheartening.  So I will write on these CDs and pads until I can find my journals and notebooks--and maybe even after I find them.  And I will write a little bit a few times per day so that when I get home to write, it's not such a big deal.  I will increase my output.

I will.

Quick Update

Hello, again.  Sorry I've been away so long.  The job's in gear, and so is the writing!  I'm a bit back on track and very excited about it.  New novel is underway; some drafts of some chapters done; getting a little more square and solid in my head.  The TimberTech deck is done, too--and that's where I've been doing more reading and writing!  Great view and beautiful look, too.  No complaints.  Been a bit useful with the man-toys, too.  Lots of sawing, chainsawing and axe-cutting, as I get lots of wood ready for the fireplace.  (I predict a really cold and snowy winter.)  Actually finishing moving in has stalled, but you can't do it all, right?
How's everyone else?  Drop me a line or leave a comment.  Thanks for reading.