Whether you love or hate Harlan Ellison, he is the defender of all writers:





One of the FAQs on my website addresses folks who write me and ask me to contribute stories for free or for a contributor's copy. Sometimes, when I say "No. No. And no." I'm called snobbish, or unappreciative of the "plight of new writers." That "plight" will never change if you write for free (and come on-- a freakin' penny [or less!] per word might as well be free), and those folks who call me those things tend to run out of responses when I ask them if the grocery store will take that contributor's copy and give me a loaf of bread, or if I can mail that contributor's copy to the electric company to cover my monthly bill.

Yeah. Go Harlan.


(Thanks to my friend, Shira, on whose Blog I found the video.)

What the heck -- where did the end of February and most of March go?  Man, have we been horrifically busy.  Work, projects, visiting relatives, you name it.  Some fun times, some not so fun-- that's life.  Among the highlights of this blur of a month was buying the very first brand new car I've ever owned, then, at mile 17 that I put on it (with a total of 43 miles on the odometer -- I hadn't even signed the freakin' papers yet) getting a written warning from a Highway Patrolman.  Unfortunately I was paying more attention to the whiz bangs in the new car -- mirror, radio, what's this button do?-- than my speed.  A week and a half later I was gifted with an extremely pricey (and annoying) speeding ticket, a real one, by a different Highway Patrolman.  Alas, I will be spending Easter Sunday morning in Defensive Driving School.  ::sigh::

Find of the Month:  A German-made bookshelf unit in the Post Thrift Store, made of three sections of beautiful varnished knotty pine.  One of those sections is a curved corner unit.  I rearranged the other two sections a bit to fit my office and it's just fabulous. 

My ancient cousin fell and broke her hip 2 days before I had her scheduled to go into assisted living.  She had surgery and went from the hospital straight into a nursing home and we had to empty out her apartment.  She was quite the pill for the first two weeks but is finally calming down, so we might be able to get her into assisted living after all.  For awhile she was so difficult that they wouldn't have accepted her.

Goblin came through his surgery with all the grace of a drunken sailor.  My poor boy was on the table for quite a bit longer than anticipated, with the accompanying increase in anesthesia.  It seems the cyst was attached to some kind of larger mass underneath.  The vet speculated it might have been caused by an old injury.  (What old injury?  ::grrrr:: to his original owners...)  Anyway, they got it all, the biopsy came back negative, and my staggering little boy is now his old self but with a nice long scar from 14 (ow ow ow) stitches.


Ghost is fine, cute as a button and my CuddleBug.  Poe is also fine.  She likes Daddy's nose.


The Husband (westonochse) and I will both be presenters at the World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City, coming up in about two weeks.  We're also on a bunch of panels -- I have to get one of my rare Google Groups newsletters together.  If you aren't signed up and want to be, let me know.  I mean it when I say I send updates only rarely-- I've only sent one out so far.

And finally, best for last:  I pulled out a long-ago novel proposal and reworked it from start to finish, then, because the old stuff just wasn't on the mark, hammered out 50 new pages of writing-- yes, NEW PAGES-- to start off the novel.  I did all this in 4 days.  For awhile, it felt like the old me, circa mid- to late-1990s, was back.  Said packet has been sent off to an agent and I am now typing with fingers and toes crossed.  Feel free to cross a few of yours on my behalf.

It snowed here today.  Yes, we live in Arizona.  WTF???

Okay, so I haven't managed that one hour a day thing, but I did manage an almost all day writing stint today. That pile-o-hours got me 6 pages, and it's been since October that I wrote more than 2 or 3 pages at a time, so I'm pretty pleased. The story is finally starting to move on its on, the characters are starting to think outside my box, and I think I mentioned before that I've finally decided on HIGHBORN as the title. Sweet.

Here, at last, is a current word count, which is pretty good improvement over the last posting of 22,457:



Lots going on. Tomorrow we're (finally) going to take down the Christmas decorations. Theoretically we'll actually put them where they belong in the garage as opposed to leaving stacks of boxes on the garage floor and wads of wrapping paper and empty tubes in the drawing room. Time will tell. The wall is still not fixed; already there are issues with the driver's insurance company, which after promising the adjuster would make an appointment when we could be here, had an adjuster come out for an appraisal when no one was home. I have yet to speak to said adjuster. I can see this has the potential to be an unpleasant thing.

I got a bunch of great books for Christmas, the last of which just came in because of a lost shipment. Good stuff, and I'm looking forward to reading... after I get some new reading glasses. I think the glasses being out of date (and that stupid dry eye thing) really contribute to me not reading as much for pleasure anymore. I miss it, and I have way too many great books waiting.

Dawgs are fine, The Husband (westonochse  ) is okay. Occasionally I have to pound on him to keep him straight. Family is as okay as they're going to be. Still working on the job thing. Some potentially interesting stuff there, but we'll see. In the meantime, plesae keep invisible fingers crossed on my behalf.

I'm working, very slowly, on a long overdue complete new web page for myself.  Only have a few pages done so far, but it's coming along.

Alex got her report card, which was pretty doggone good. We're all happy, and so sometime soon we're going out for steak to celebrate.

We have six dead or nearly dead plants to dig up and return to Home Depot and Lowe's for refunds. One would think these stores would learn not to sell (and guarantee) outdoor plants here that cannot survive the high desert (i.e., COLD) winter climate.

Guess that's about it. Happy New Year, all!

One must always promote.  So...


My heart-tugging (and I mean that in only the most  gentle way-- really) little tale in here is called "Dad Brings a Deader Home."  It's a melting of horror and science fiction.  Click on the photo to get a readable view of all the fabulous company I was privileged to have in this book, and Tina's hysterical intro is not to be missed.  (Teaser: "So let the idiots die in a cadaverous, cannibalistic orgy...")  If you'd like to have more details, they can be found at TwilightTales.com.  I don't think purchase details are up on the site yet, but I'm sure they'll be there any day.  And there's always that "Contact" link at the top of the page.

I thought I'd best post so folks wouldn't think I'd shriveled up and blown away. I'd love to tell everyone great and exciting tales, but the truth is there just hasn't been much going on. Summerish weather with a bit of rain, very busy at work, not much spare time at home. Lots of cactus blooms and cherry tomato buds, a few long jalapeno peppers-- pictures coming when I have the energy to download/upload/tag, etc.  Progress on the writing front has been extremely slow, particularly this past week. I should get a little break here, though-- with the end of a cycle at work, I can head home early tomorrow and have Thurs/Fri off. I plan to spend the time writing, at least until my eyes give out. The Rx had seemed to show a bit of improvement, but for some reason, today they have been bugging the beans out of me. It might be due to an Excel spreadsheet marathon at work with lots of tiny number entries involved.

The bunny in the previous entry's photograph has been driving Goblin and The Ghost insane. It, and likely its mommy, come into the back yard to munch on the tough desert grass tufts, then easily escape through the wrought iron fence or the drainage cuts along the bottom of the wall when the dogs come out. The dogs would in turn drive me insane, were it not for the possibility of facing MomZilla, said creature being born the last time The Husband went out of town and the dogs doing exactly this for about seven nights in a row: Waking me up every hour starting at 3:30 a.m. in the pursuit of bunny capture. They have learned the hard way that they DARE not move from their beds until they're told it's okay, which is generally somewhere around 6:10 a.m.

Here's the progress meter. I've crawled my way up to around 97 pages and am trying to decide at what word or page count I might reveal what I think I might title this novel:



(By the way, I learned the hard way about five minutes ago NOT to accidentally click on "Rich text" (when you were aiming for HTML) on the Update Journal page. It makes you lose your entire entry. ::sigh::)

One of the nice things about not working for lawyers anymore is that I actually get holidays off. Lawyers, particularly large city corporate/real estate/franchise lawyers, will work their staff (and themselves) through every holiday they can get away with. In fact, if they can manage to get approval to pay staff overtime, they'll work on EVERY holiday (I am not exaggerating). And when they can't get approval for staff O/T, they'll make the staff work anyway, to the extent their bullying powers succeed. (And I have seen and been subjected to some significant bullying.)

Ah, but my days of corporate real estate law, mall leases, and franchise closings are far behind me. Yesterday was Presidents' Day and I enjoyed staying home immensely. Maybe too immensely, as I keep thinking today is Monday. Weather-wise, yesterday was a freakin' bear-- we had enormous wind gusts, with the patio chairs (even the heavy metal French one) blown everywhere, the pool cover landing IN the pool, etc. The cover on the neighboring resident's cooler was literally shredded by the wind, and at one point, in the space of literally a minute, the wind entirely changed direction... thereby blowing everything it had already blown over there right back over here, but now in dilapidated shape. Before the wind was over we had a nice, long blat of cold rain. :-P

But on to cheerier stuff. If anyone is interested, there are two auctions (not mine) currently on eBay. Both are Overlook hardback editions of my books, which can be on the expensive side if bought new, and both auctions end on Thursday at around 1 p.m., depending on your timezone. I think they're even signed:


In a few minutes, I'm going to start working on the Super Secret Project. I am plugging along, and the night before last I passed the ten thousand word mark, so I'm now into five figures (so to speak).



Here's my word count as of right now, and I need to start writing soon. I also went to the gym today and hammered out 2.49 miles in 30 minutes. That's not too shabby considering how horribly lax I've been and some other issues I've been dealing with cardio-wise. My goal is 3 miles in 36 minutes by my birthday. That's the point at which my back will start screaming and not allow me to run any farther (I learned this the hard way back around 1996 or so, when I'd worked my way up to half-marathons). As for now, I have to admit, I'm pretty freakin' tired. And, of course, The Husband westonochse made me my own form of favorite dinner sandwich: med. rare roast beef on a wheat roll with reduced fat mayo, a bit of garlic salt, layered with half a sliced avocado and sliced onion. We even had good old healthy broccoli.

Must write.... !

Today I plan on keeping household chores to a minimum -- change the sheets, scrub myself and my hair (just one, to heck with the rest of 'em), and that is about it.  I've got nearly the entire day free, although I have to be careful or it will whittle itself away, as they are wont to do, and my Dad will be here for dinner and a movie.  We told him 4:30 or 5, which means he'll be here at 4:00.  The Husband westonochse will be cooking some manner or another (he always changes the recipe) of his fabulous ribs.  We are going to try cauliflower as a potato substitute.  Yummy.  Frankly, there just isn't enough cauliflower in my life and I don't know why.

It seems that "Feeding the Dead Inside" from Mondo Zombie actually made it to the final Stoker ballot.  Considering all the excellent competition, I'm utterly flabbergasted, and I have to admit that's just being on the ballot makes me feel a lot better about my determination to get back to actual writing.  Congratulations to everyone.  There are lots of wonderful writers and works on this ballot, so the HWA'ers who aren't caught up with their reading have a lot to do before the final vote.  Here's something that's just too fun not to report: GAK, the artist, did a picture for "Feeding the Dead Inside" sometime ago, and he titled it "Mondo Von."  If you like, you can see it on the Shocklines site.

Speaking of fun, all you NECON CAMPERS TAKE NOTE!  We have an LJ Community right here on, well, LJ!    Please come and join us.  You don't have to have ever attended a Necon to be in on the fun.  We're new, we're fledgling, and we're lonely (not to be confused with a dating service, because everyone knows that What Happens At Necon Stays At Necon).  Come visit and/or join us at the Necon LiveJournal Community!

I'm slowly dragging myself back on the path, and my fingers are crossed that I can keep this up. I've gotten a number of things out of the way-- an unexpected side thing, taxes, a bit of other stuff. The bookstore isn't yet packed up, but I'll do that a little at a time. And let's face it: I'm not up for working in the garage when it's 45 or 50 degrees out there; I need at least 70 degrees and daylight. The chilly (for us, anyway) weather is holding, so that's likely to wait awhile.

Looking forward to a 3-day holiday weekend. A bit of family and The Husband (westonochse ) plans on cooking ribs. Yummy.

The Zokutou wordmeter site is down, so I have no meter. I can't get the other one from Writertopia to work. I'm not up for the fancy cartoon one, not yet. Hopefully something will show up eventually that I can use. I have decided on a name for the novel and the series, but that, too, I'm keeping to myself until I get more completed.

I'm flattered to say that "Feeding the Dead Inside," my twisted, cold-hearted story from Mondo Zombie, is on the recommendation list for the Preliminary Bram Stoker Ballot. For those HWA members who might be interested, there's a link to a pdf file of it off the Stoker Recommendations page. I would give it away free to everyone, but I can't in good conscience do that because then the publisher doesn't get paid (everyone knows how I feel about bootlegged copies of DVDs and videos and such). I haven't done much promo for it, so it still needs a couple of recs to be able to hang in there for the finals against all of the great competition.

In other news (okay, not much), The Husband (westonochse) and I found ourselves completely exhausted last night. He went to bed with a book (no comments, please - ha ha) at 7:30; I followed with no book (shhhhhh) at 9:40. Oddly enough, we're both still tired tonight. Maybe it's the weather, which turned cold and rainy sometime after lunch (and yes, I'd left my car window open because it had been so pleasant at lunchtime) and now has a chance of snow. Wait, I'm in Arizona, right??! Anyway, I actually went to the gym and got on the treadmill for the first time since November, and even did some lat pulldowns. It is, after all, a New Year.

Not doing stellar on the writing, but I have done some. The only thing we're tasked to do this weekend is to put away the Christmas decorations, so I'm looking forward to getting back to it.  It's amazing how fast the time goes when I'm writing, and how slow it goes when I'm not. 

5,026 / 120,000 (4.2%)

I suppose I have many of the usual resolutions that everyone else has-- eat less, stress less, exercise more, be nicer, yadda yadda, yadda.  I won't bother with listing them because as far as I'm concerned, there is only one in my life that really counts:


As 2006 has proven repeatedly, I am not happy if I don't write.  While there are many wonderful things about my life, I am empty and unfulfilled, I am miserable, if I can't squeeze writing into my life.  There was once a time when everything revolved around my writing, but it has somehow evolved to the opposite: now my writing revolves around everything else and as a result it takes a backseat to everything else.  I have to turn it back to where it was or face and accept that fact that this means I am no longer a writer.  This has been going on for so long that, indeed, this may already have become fact, and I can't fathom continuing this way emotionally year after year after year.  The last novel I managed to complete was a tie-in, Ultraviolet, in March of 2005.  The last solo novel was Mirror Me, way back in December of 2001.  Here and there between March 2005 and now were some stories and essays, but they, too, have dribbled away to no output.  I blame part of this on my former agent, who I think took much of the momentum out of my career by lying for several years about submitting Mirror Me (which was finally published by a small press in January 2004, but never made a paperback sale), but let's be honest: a writer certainly can't sell something that hasn't been written.  The responsibility for the switch in priorities rests solely on me-- I let other things and people and circumstances in my life smother the thing I love the most.  I, and only I, allowed this to happen.  And it has to me who unhappens it.  So.

Here are those who are gone but not forgotten with the passing of an old year and the birthing of a new one.  In fact, as I get older, I seem to remember-- and miss-- these wonderful spirits more each year.
Relatives:

Yvonne Spraggins, Rochelle Holmes, Debra Pique, Kay and Andrew Kish, Garlon and Virginia Sanders, Eddie and Mazie Buechel.

Friends:

Patty Wold, Dorothy Harrington, Charlie Grant, Mark Siegel, David Gemmell.

Pets:

Frisky, King, Coco, Daffy, Chanci, Lily.

Happy 2007.  Let's get on with it!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

End of the day word count at 10:51 p.m.:

4,343 / 120,000 (3.6%)

3,186 / 120,000 (2.7%)

It's not much, but I am crawling along. I have a possible partial title (not ready to reveal it yet).

Today I started the first day of an intense 2 1/2 week Army training course. I am cranky and stressed-out (mostly due to being the ONLY never-been-in-the-military person in the entire 28-person course). I can't have so much as a capped bottle of water at my desk in the classroom, much less my usual never-ending supply of Smarties (although we're supposed to get out of there eventually and cycle around to a different classroom where we can). I must eat lunch with no BTAM Husband (westonochse). I hate eating alone-- I'd just as soon not eat at all.

::grump grump grump::

upA productive Saturday-- yay for me!   Got up fairly early and putzed until about 8:30 or so, then got to business.  Worked on the FNRD for a bit, went shopping with westonochse, who is fixing me yet another fabulous dinner (roasted duck with some kind of cherry/honey sauce, dark red rice, something else; he's even fancying up the table!) and had lunch at Appleby's, which wasn't bad.  Alas, they cannot cook like The Husband.  Then spent time, FINALLY (no one's fault but mine own that it took so long) putting to paper a rather complicated series concept that The Husband has been helping me "think aloud" on for quite some time.  Not ready to talk about it for awhile yet, but I am quite happy, because this one-page piece of progress is the catalyst that will start the whole thing.

In the meantime, I nabbed this from eldritch00.  Since it has to do solely with books, I loved it.  :)

Ten Nine questions, simple but not easy:

1. One book that changed your life.  They Thirst by Robert McCammon.  It made me want to be a writer.
   
   
2. One book you have read more than once.  Pet Sematary by Stephen King.  Obviously there have been others (including, of course, They Thirst), but this is the only book I ever finished, turned back to page one, and started again in the same sitting.
   
   
3. One book you would want on a desert island.  They Thirst by Robert McCammon
   
   
4. One book that made you laugh.  Marley and Me by John Grogan
   
   
5. One book that made you cry.  The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
   
   
6. One book you wish had been written.   A sequel to They Thirst
   
   
7. One book you wish had never had been written.  -- This one I can't answer, except to say fill in the title of any book I've ever read that wasted my time and disappointed me with a cliched, trite, and slapped-together ending because the author had finally made the word count.  Under this heading would fall my first (and the only one I will ever read) J.A. Jance novel.  There have been lots of others.
   
   
8. One book you are currently reading.  World of Hurt by Brian Hodge.
   
   
9. One book you have been meaning to read.  Speaks the Nightbird by Robert McCammon... among several hundred (yes, hundred) waiting on the shelves.
   
   
10. Now tag five people.  I don't tag.  I don't like it when people tag me (and I don't respond), so I don't do it to other people.

Goblin has been a bit under the weather since yesterday, but he finally seems better.  After Lily, it always terrifies me when the pups won't eat.  After refusing food all day yesterday, he ate his entire dinner tonight (::whew::).  Now it seems to be Ghost's turn; she hasn't eaten anything worth mentioning all day, and believe me, normally she's a definite eating machine.  Goblin still feels a ittle on the warm side after being downright hot last night, and now she's starting to heat up.  If this follows the pattern of Goblin's "bug," Ghost should be okay (and pretty darned hungry) by tomorrow morning. 

Okay, back to The Project.  I have yet to think of a name for this series, much less for the first book.  Okay, I have yet to think of a name for my main character.  But it will all come together.  I have faith.