David S. Atkinson's Blog, page 80

Thinking About Doing 30 Days Of Titles

People really seem to dig the titles I’ve got going in Roses are Red, Violets are Stealing Loose Change from my Pockets While I Sleep. I’m kind of thinking of running 30 days of titles here on the blog in September, nothing but one title of a story from the book each day. There are over 100 in there, so no problems at all.

I wonder if I could get away with that, or if I’d lose all traffic here entirely. It’d be kind of nice not to have to think up posts all the time though. Will I do it? We’ll have to see. I’ve got a couple weeks to waffle about it.

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I Felt Very Capable Yesterday

I am not a handy person. However, I was pretty sure there was something off with my furnace. I had water dripping out of the top pipe instead of the lower pipe by the drain.

I didn’t remember it ever doing that before. It splattered everywhere due to the height, so I thought I’d remember. I swore the builder guy told me when we moved in that water from the upper pipe instead of the lower signified an issue, but my wife thought it had just been extra humid recently and that the air conditioner had been working hard. Both went to the condenser, so I thought she might be right. I knew there was a third pipe that definitely signified a problem, a vertical one that definitely meant something wasn’t draining, but I wasn’t sure about this.

I finally decided to mess with it. I poked at the lower pipe a bit. I noticed it could move, and that the end was tilted slightly upward. That didn’t seem right. I pushed it back and it moved a couple inches. Suddenly, water came flooding out the bottom and the upper pipe stopped dripping.

At some point, someone must have kicked the lower pipe out of whack. It wasn’t much, but that lower pipe is long enough that even a small tilt can cause water to build up. It only needs to build up a little bit before it seals the elbow at the back. At that point, air pressure alone apparently can force the water out the top pipe instead.

Good stuff to know, but I’m way more thrilled with myself than I should be for figuring that out. My furnace room floor is now as dry as it should be. Such a minor thing, but now I’m not worried that there’s actually something wrong with my furnace.

Upcoming Events- At the Inkwell Denver: Flash Fiction Night!

More upcoming events! At the Inkwell Denver: Flash Fiction Night! Hosted by Hillary Leftwich, featured readers include Tara Campbell, Kathy Fish, Nancy Stohlman, Trent Hudley, Brian Seemann, and me! Sunday, August 19 at 5:30 PM – 8:30 PM BookBar 4280 Tennyson St, Denver, Colorado 80212.

I’ll be reading from Roses are Red, Violets are Stealing Loose Change from my Pockets While I Sleep. You should come on out.

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Panic Until I Remember I’m Walking Next To A Kitchen

I came into my office this morning and panicked. Burnt toast! I’m having a stroke!

Then I remembered that I was walking near the office kitchen. No, the stroke thing is only if you smell burnt toast when someone isn’t cooking toast. This was just somebody’s breakfast.

Stress can make you assume stroke first.

Time For Me To Whine About Facebook Killing The Normal Account Autopost Like Everyone Else

Well, Facebook killed the ability to have wordpress blogs autopost to normal Facebook accounts. That means it’s time for me to whine about that like everyone else is doing.

Sure, I can link it to my author page now, and I did that, but my author page has about 91 likes whereas my Facebook page has 1358 friends. There’s also the fact that Facebook buries page posts more than normal account posts if people don’t pay to boost, and I won’t. Somehow I think I’m not going to get as much traffic on here. Twitter is likely going to be a little more important now, Facebook being less and less useful as time goes on, but they don’t really do a preview so I’m not expecting much.

Oh well, we’ll just see what happens. It’s not as if this is horribly important anyway.

One Week Until The August Fbomb Surprise!

It’s only about one week until the August Fbomb Surprise! 7:30 PM Tuesday August 14th at the Mercury Café 2199 California St, Denver, CO 80205.

There are few writing techniques more impactful than surprising the reader with something they do not expect. Not a trick, but something done in an unexpected way. Well, surprise! Fbomb Denver will be on the second Tuesday of August instead of the third for the first time the writer of this description is aware, perhaps ever.

To celebrate our surprise, host David S. Atkinson brings us Natanya Ann Pulley. Natanya Ann Pulley is a Diné writer of fiction and non-fiction. She’s published work in numerous journals including The Collagist, The Offing, McSweeney’s, Waxwing, and As/Us. Her essays have been anthologized in #NotYourPrincess: Voices of Native American Women, Creating a Compass: Essays for New Creative Writing Teachers, Women Write Resistance, and more. A former editor of Quarterly West and South Dakota Review, she is currently the founding editor of the Colorado College literary journal, Hairstreak Butterfly Review. Natanya is an assistant professor of English at Colorado College where she teaches Literature by Native American writers, Fiction Writing, and Experimental Forms in Ethnic Literature. Her short story collection With Teeth will be published Fall 2019 by New Rivers Press as a 2018 winner of the Many Voices Project competition.



We will also have a number of special guest readers: April Bradley, Pavlos Stavropoulos, Jayne Martin, Anne Weisgerber, Chelsea Voulgares, Nancy Stohlman, and Paul Beckman. Open mic spots will be available, though fewer than are normally available due to the number of guests…so arriving early to claim a spot is recommended.

One Week Until The August Fbomb Suprise!

It’s only about one week until the August Fbomb Surprise! 7:30 PM Tuesday August 14th at the Mercury Café 2199 California St, Denver, CO 80205.

There are few writing techniques more impactful than surprising the reader with something they do not expect. Not a trick, but something done in an unexpected way. Well, surprise! Fbomb Denver will be on the second Tuesday of August instead of the third for the first time the writer of this description is aware, perhaps ever.

To celebrate our surprise, host David S. Atkinson brings us Natanya Ann Pulley. Natanya Ann Pulley is a Diné writer of fiction and non-fiction. She’s published work in numerous journals including The Collagist, The Offing, McSweeney’s, Waxwing, and As/Us. Her essays have been anthologized in #NotYourPrincess: Voices of Native American Women, Creating a Compass: Essays for New Creative Writing Teachers, Women Write Resistance, and more. A former editor of Quarterly West and South Dakota Review, she is currently the founding editor of the Colorado College literary journal, Hairstreak Butterfly Review. Natanya is an assistant professor of English at Colorado College where she teaches Literature by Native American writers, Fiction Writing, and Experimental Forms in Ethnic Literature. Her short story collection With Teeth will be published Fall 2019 by New Rivers Press as a 2018 winner of the Many Voices Project competition.



We will also have a number of special guest readers: April Bradley, Pavlos Stavropoulos, Jayne Martin, Anne Weisgerber, Chelsea Voulgares, Nancy Stohlman, and Paul Beckman. Open mic spots will be available, though fewer than are normally available due to the number of guests…so arriving early to claim a spot is recommended.

Crap! I Haven’t Done A Book Buying Post This Month Yet!

Crap! I haven’t done a book buying post this month yet! Let’s get right on that:

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Whew! That’s better.

You Know What We Should Have? Spray Deviled Eggs.

You know what we should have? Spray deviled eggs.

Think about it…like spray cheese. Just whipped deviled egg filing, spray it on crackers or something. A little paprika, a good amount of spicy mustard or horse radish, all that kind of thing. You can’t tell me this isn’t possible.

So why don’t we have it?

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!

I just got this spam comment (link removed):

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Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Myspace! They’re killing me!