937 / 120,000 (0.0%)

Yes, I know that looks pretty pitiful, but we all have to start somewhere. The 120,000 is a WAG (Wild Ass Guess). The Husband (westonochse) has some strange way of predicting to the nearest thousand how long his stories and/or novels will be. I have no such way. In fact, I have no earthly idea. So I'll just go for the WAG and see what happens.

It seems I don't write particularly quickly anymore, not like the days or weeks or months or even years back when I got up at 6 a.m., commuted to work, came home and did homely-type stuff (including yard work and snow -- ewwww -- removal), then ate my Lean Cuisine in front of the computer and wrote until midnight, then REPEAT. But I'm going to monitor my progress, and so is everyone else (eeek). So far this weekend I've done mostly research and reading, plinking away at a sort of skeleton outline. The SSP remains, thus far, untitled. I've never come this far on a book and not had it scream at me what it wants to be called, but it'll happen eventually. Right now I'm going to look at what I've written so far (done at the very end of August), take the Prologue and make it Chapter One, and write a new Prologue. The typewriter icon is what I'm going to use when I'm writing. It will be fun. :)

Well, as usual I am behind in announcing something.  Last month finally saw the publication of Mondo Zombie.  This has been a loooooong time coming.  Included among stories from contributors such as the late Robert Bloch, Jack Ketchum, Doug Winter and other excellent writers is my story, "Feeding the Dead Inside."  Since the premise of the anthology is zombie apocalyptom (hee-- I just made up that word... I think), this one is definitely not for the squeamish.  In fact, The Husband (westonochse) read it and all he could manage was "Damn."  There is actually very little gore in the story, but the editor, John Skipp, has always grinned and had this to say about it: "Damn.  That's just cold."  So there you go.  Check it out at Amazon, Cemetery Dance Publications, or Shocklines.

So here I go: It looks like Outsiders, the anthology in which I have a story called "Craving," has gotten a bunch of recommendations on the 2005 Preliminary Stoker ballot. That's kind of neat.