David Joiner's Blog, page 3

May - June

Here’s the cover to my new novel, Kanazawa. I chose the image myself – a street in Kanazawa from almost 100 years ago – with my publisher adding my name and title to it in what I feel is an appealing, non-invasive way.

May was a strange month, and one I’m not unhappy t...

May 2021

My wife at the University of Arizona’s vaccine walk-in area, waiting to see if she’d have any immediate reaction to her second vaccine shot. She didn’t. But it laid both of us out for the next two days with fatigue, fevers, headaches, and muscle soreness. We’re all better now, thankfully. Here’s hoping that the rest of the wor...

April 2021

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March 2021

Popo-chan and Baby Popo-chan #1. I now understand how two cute adult doves can wreak havoc on a human habitation. I’m happy to lend the local birds parts of the exterior to our home to raise their endlessly growing families, but not on the shelf shown in the photo (that is, no longer than it takes to raise a pair of offspring)...

February 2021

After seeing no snow in southern Arizona last year, the mountains here recently got a dusting. To have a brush with a fourth season, even if only for a couple of days, is a rare treat.

Kanazawa

I finally have news from Stone Bridge Press about my novel. The publisher to...

Going to a Monthly Blog Post Schedule

In an effort to ramp of my writing in the new year, I’m planning to start a new blog post schedule – the first week of each month rather than every Sunday. While I can see through my website analytics page that I get visitors every day, I don’t find myself engaging with these visitors, or vice-versa, and so will scale thi...

Week 48

This looks less messy in a photo than it feels to me in person. I’m hoping that organizing my office better will help me be more productive in 2021.

This will be my final post for 2020. And though I’ve titled the post “Week 48” – as it’s obviously the 52nd week of the ...

Week 47

My wife and I last winter in Kusatsu Onsen, in Gunma Prefecture. Back in the good old days, when the pandemic was limited to China and Korea and a cruise ship or two, and before American politics got completely out of hand.

This will be my penultimate post of 2020, whi...

Week 46

At night in southern Arizona, while its snowing in much of the rest of the US, December is a great time to enjoy hot sake under the stars. Theres not much else to do at night during a pandemic, anyway, so its a lucky thing we have a stash of sake to go through!

With only two and a half weeks left in 2020, a year I will not be sorry to leave behind, I intend to do what I can to finish my revision of The Furthest Distance in the World, a literary novel set on the Mekong River in Vietnam...

Week 45

I normally dont overflow with Christmas spirit, though, depending on where I am and how easy it is to do it, I often try to have a Christmas tree at the very least. But this year my wife has pushed to go whole hog on things, and this in addition to a Christmas tree with lights and decorations, individual Christmas stockings, numerous unsuccessful searches for Christmas tree stars, and other random holiday items is my attempt at outdoor Christmas lights. One can barely see them from the...