Scott Pearson's Blog, page 6

Wherein I Self-Publish a Short Story and Get Somewhat Thwarted

I've been announcing my impending entry into the brave new world of self-publishing e-books for some time now but, as with everything, it was taking much longer to get organized than I had originally hoped. So last weekend when a couple of friends independently ask me for my feedback on publishing with Smashwords, I decided, "Eff it, I'm going to self-publish this weekend or cough up blood trying." Okay, maybe that's a little melodramatic, but I made a vow and stuck to it. Last weekend I uploaded my short story "The Mailbox" to Smashwords.

"But, wait," you cry, "how come this is the first I'm hearing about it? Why haven'y you blogged, tweeted, or facebooked about this if it's been up for a week already?!?"

A fair question, sailor. Well, the first thing I noticed is that the mobi file (the format used by the Kindle) created by Smashwords had a glitch in it, a blank line like an extra return in the middle of a paragraph. I tweaked and retweaked my specially formatted Word document, uploading it over and over, but no matter what I did that blank line kept appearing in the same spot. The epub version (used by Apple and others) and the pdf, generated from the same Word doc, looked fine. I emailed Smashwords support about the glitch and am waiting for a response.

Next I was going to assign an ISBN to my story. You have to have an ISBN to be sold by Apple, Sony, and Kobo. But I got an error message when I tried to assign the ISBN. Turns out Smashwords has run out of them. They've ordered another batch, and should get them soon. Okay, another small annoyance, but I'll just have to take care of that issue when they get the new lot of numbers in the system.

Next I noticed another speed bump. Although Smashwords creates a Kindle file that readers can buy directly from Smashwords, due to some technical gobbledygook with Amazon, the files aren't listed there. Ka-what? Amazon is practically taking over bookselling but my story won't be for sale there? Never fear, however, you just have to deal with them directly. So today I clicked over to Kindle Direct Publishing to upload "The Mailbox." I figured it would be easy, because I've already got the text and cover file I created for Smashwords.

Turns out I was counting my unhatched chickens before the horse, as they say. I uploaded the file and, being new to the Kindle Direct process, realized too late that I'd already published it before previewing the results of the file conversion. I finally figured out how to preview it and discovered all my paragraph indents had disappeared for no apparent reason. Yay. So I unpublished the Amazon version and now have to figure out what went wrong there. At least that damn blank line in the Smashwords Kindle file wasn't there.

This might sound like I'm bashing Smashwords, but that's not my intention. These are just some bumps in the road. Keep in mind that the Smashwords service is free and gets you a free ISBN and uploads your story to several retailers; it's a great deal. I'm going to stick with them and handle Amazon separately. I'll get the bugs worked out and let you all know what happens. Meanwhile, I'm considering this blog my soft launch of "The Mailbox." Click on over to Smashwords and check it out, it's only 99 cents. 

"My name is Scott, and I'm powerless over computer games."

Two things you need to know about me: 1) I love computer games, and B) I don't have any time to play computer games.

The result of these two incompatible facts is I have tons of games. That I've essentially never played. I rarely reach the end of a game, because I don't invest enough time to play all the way through. So I never get rid of games, because I haven't finished them. And I keep buying games, because I love them. It's a form of madness.

And it gets worse. As computers and operating systems evolve, backward compatibility lasts only so long. Eventually you have a game you haven't finished that you can't run anymore. Unless you maintain an older computer. So now I have an iBook that I need to keep going because it's old enough that it can boot in OS 9. And I recently picked up an old G5 pre-Intel tower that runs OS X 10.4, so that has access to a bunch of software my new Intel iMac with 10.6 can't run. I'm reluctant to upgrade beyond 10.6, because I know I'll lose a ton of games. 

But, of course, it's not like I'm really playing those games anyway. Did I mention it's a form of madness?

And it gets worse. The interesting thing about Intel Macs is that because they're running on the same chip as Windows, it becomes possible to run Windows software on your Mac. Do you see where this is going? Yes, I'm now buying Windows games that I don't have any more time to play than the tons of Mac games I already own. Weird thing is that the Mac versions wouldn't run on the Intel Mac,  but I can run the Windows game. I'm running the Windows version of Command & Conquer from 1995--seventeen years old!--on my iMac.

I've just ordered Star Trek Online, which was never released for the Mac, and look forward to giving it a try, since play is free now. Of course, I'll barely play it. I've also recently ordered an old game, Deep Space Nine: The Fallen for Windows. It was released for the Mac, but it's very rare and, if you do find it, it's usually priced far higher than what I would want to pay for a game over ten years old that, realistically, I'll rarely play. But I was able to pick up the Windows version for $8. Fun side note: Star Trek writer Dave Mack contributed dialogue to The Fallen.

I do, every once in a blue moon, show some restraint. Sort of. To a point. About a month ago I noticed the Mac version of Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn along with the expansion pack Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhal on the shelf at my neighborhood Half Price Books, at $10 a piece. Oooo, I wanted those games. But I forced myself to not buy them. I knew I wouldn't get around to playing them, and why not save the $20? The following week they were still there. No, I stood strong. The week after that they still taunted me. I walked past, but my resolve was weakening. I decided to look up some reviews, hoping they'd say the game was a major disappointment so that I'd not buy them. Instead, the reviews were jubilant. The game has sold over 2 million copies. I was back to coveting them.

Last week I could stand it no more. I grabbed them off the shelf and took them to the counter. The guy rang them up, then got the discs from behind the desk and dropped them into the case. I saw disks one, two, and four go by. No three.

"You're missing a disk," I said. "I guess I'll be returning those."

"Sorry about that," he said. "I don't know why we took this with a missing disk. You still want the other one?"

"No, it's an expansion, you need the original game to be able to play it." The guy started crediting them both back to my card. "Quickest. Return. Ever," I said. 

I guess that's what I get for giving in!

Which Wich. What . . . what?

So our neighborhood got a new sandwich shop chain, the somewhat cleverly/annoyingly named Which Wich. They advertise having over fifty customizable sandwiches (I refuse to say "wich" like they do), and it's true, take a peek at their menu. Their shtick is that they have the menu printed on the bag your sandwich will go in. You're supposed to grab a sandwich-specific bag from a rack on the wall--say, vegetarian--and then, using the provided Sharpies (Sharpies and paper bags...huff much?), choose which variety of vegetarian sandwich you want, perhaps caprese, and then also check off all the other customizable options: white or wheat, toasted or not, various condiments, veggies, etc. They've even got an employee stationed by the bags to guide newbies through the process. You turn this bag over to the cashier, she rings it up, hangs it in front of the sandwich makers, who work their wichcraft (sorry, couldn't resist) and put the sandwich in the very bag you Sharpied up...it's a souvenir with a sandwich inside!

Or not so much. We first approached via their website. The site's a little counterintuitive: at first glance it's all about the bags. Dudes, I'm on your website, I don't have a freakin' bag. Then we discovered that our location doesn't take orders online anyway. Okay, we print out three fax order sheets--which also clearly say you can bring them into the store instead of faxing. (Besides, faxing? What is this, the twentieth century?) Half of the page has on outline in the shape of the bag, replicating the in-store experience. I'm starting to get the hang of it. The kid just wants a cheese sandwich with lettuce and tomatoes and mayo. She checks off those ingredients on hers, but that leaves a big blank at the top that says "Which wich do you want?"

I remain annoyed by "wich" but that's probably just me. "Maybe we should write in vegetarian?" I suggest.

"Why, it's not like they'd put some random meat on there," the kid says.

But I do so anyway, just to fill in the blank spot. It was bugging me, like not filling in an oval on the SATs. So then we fill out the other half of the page, which has beverages, chips, and cookies. Off I go. I head straight to the counter, past the suckers in line at the wall o' bags. I hand over our orders. The cashier looks blankly at them for a second, and it seems clear she's never seen one of these. To be fair, they did just open. She starts trying to reformat her bag training onto the pseudobag. Then she holds up my daughter's order.

"What kind of vegetarian sandwich?" she says. "Caprese?"

"No, just the ingredients that she listed."

"It says she wants vegetarian. We have caprese, hummus, black bean patty--"

I politely interrupt. "No, she just wants those ingredients listed."

"But for vegetarian choices we have caprese, hummus, black bean patty--"

"She just wants the ingredients she listed. Forget that it says 'vegetarian.' Can't we just get a sandwich with those ingredients?"

She calls someone over to confer. That person goes over to the wall o' sandwich bags and brings me back a bag with "vegetarian" stamped at the top and hands it to me along with a Sharpie. She doesn't seem to perceive that this just gets us back to where we were. It's becoming all Sisyphean up in this place.

Meanwhile, a new guy comes over. I've now got three people puzzling out my cheese sandwich with lettuce and tomatoes and mayo. But, silly kids, they've armed me with a Sharpie. As the new guy holds out the offending order slip, probably about to start repeating the vegetarian choices for me again, I reach across the counter and cross out "vegetarian." 

"Let's forget that," I say. "Just make a sandwich with only the ingredients she checked off."

The new guy looks at me and says--wait for it--"No meat?"

I shit you not. That's what he said to me. "No, no meat," I say. "That's why I wrote 'vegetarian.' "

But wait, there's more. Now that we've got the sandwiches settled with the cashier, the new guy has folded all the orders in half, so only the bag outline is showing, and has hung them up for the sandwich makers. The cashier looks at me and says, "Any chips or beverages?"

"Uh, yeah . . . they were written on the order forms." Cue SFX.

Well, we got that sorted and I got the food. I should say that the sandwiches were fine, and I'm sure our next ordering experience won't be blogworthy--although I think I'll just fill out the orders on the bags. Lastly, for those of you wondering, it turns out we should have just written "plain" at the top of that cheese sandwich order.

Back From the Grave and Ready to Tweet

I haven't blogged in months, but I'm feeling a little re-energized by finally getting on Twitter (follow me at @SMichaelPearson) a few days ago. I've had a pretty good run already from a geek standpoint.

On my first day I got a shout out from , director of Free Enterprise, a supergeek film starring William Shatner as himself, more or less. I'm sure most of my readers, who number in the high single digits, are familiar with the film. I've chatted with Rob via Facebook over the years and he's enjoyed my Star Trek fiction, so it was great fun to have him show up in my first hours on Twitter.

One of the first people I followed was Wil Wheaton, formerly of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and also known as Sheldon's archnemesis on Big Bang Theory. My daughter, Ella, and I had recently seen him on Chris Hardwick's Nerdist Year in Review. Wheaton posted a photo of himself, Hardwick, and Jonah Ray (one of Hardwick's cohosts on the Nerdist podcast) hanging out and I sent the photo to Ella. She promptly made it her Facebook cover photo. I did a screengrab of that and tweeted at Wheaton and Hardwick (Ray wasn't really visible in the cropped image) that I hoped they didn't mind that my wondergeek daughter stole their photo. Wheaton retweeted it to his nearly two million followers. A bunch of people commented on it, favorited it, and followed me. That was cool.

Now I just have to try and keep up on it. As well as blogging. And Facebook. And updating my website. Oh, yeah, and writing.

Steve Jobs, 1955–2011

It's been nearly a week now since the passing of Steve Jobs. I was surprised by how much it affected me emotionally. Sure, I'm a dedicated Mac user, but it's not like I knew the guy. When an actor dies, someone you've watched on screen for years, perhaps decades, it's more understandable, because there's a greater illusion of knowing the person. Watching that person in favorite roles does build an emotional attachment, never mind that it's on a fictional foundation. Steve Jobs was a guy who had great ideas for cool gadgets that I like. I didn't make a point of watching his public appearances or reading about him. I just love his machines. How did that turn into personal attachment?

Thirty year flashback. I'm in high school, a dedicated sci-fi nerd and raving Star Trek fan. For the first time the school offered a computer programming elective. We didn't even have the computers in our little school, we had an arrangement with another little school four miles away to share their computer lab. I don't remember how many times a week I had the class, but we'd get a ride over there and learn BASIC programming on an Apple--this was pre Macintosh--probably an Apple IIe. In color! It was like the future. I loved it. I think I still have the 5.25-inch floppy disk with my programs, tucked away at the bottom of a drawer. I remember one of the programs: just a bunch of colors moving across the game in geometric patterns. It seemed amazing.

In college I didn't have the money to buy a computer, and I was taking English classes, not computer classes. The first computer I owned was some sort of Commodore that I got for free. I played around on it a little, since I knew BASIC, but it had no floppy drive, and I didn't invest in one. The next computer I owned was a dedicated word processor, a glorified electronic typewriter that plugged into a monitor and a disk drive. That was all I could afford in 1987 with my first professional sale. But in 1991 or so, I bought a used Mac SE/30 from a coworker to replace the word processor thing. And started getting my Mac geek back on. In glorious black and white.

From there I went to a Performa 6200 Power PC, then got an iBook G3, then an iMac G5. Now've I've got an iMac Intel Core Duo. And there are various iPods and an iPad in the house as well. At my day job for the last nine years I've worked on Windows machines. I prefer the Mac for a variety of reasons. One is simply style. Yes, the eye candy. Hardcore anti-Mac people often make fun of that, but when you spend as much time on the computer as a freelance editor and writer does, you want it to be fun. I overheard a Windows person on the bus one morning saying Windows was the best because it forces you to learn something. Which, from my perspective, is a lot like saying it's best to have a car that breaks down all the time so that you learn how to fix it. I swear, that will be the only bit of Mac snobbery I allow in this post! That one was for Steve.

So now I write on the computer, edit on the computer, do my checkbook and taxes, keep in touch with friends, play games, watch movies, video call with the kid on her iPad when she's out of town . . . I'm a person of the twenty-first century, and for good or ill that means I'm on the computer a lot. A ton. A lot of tons. And to me that computer lifestyle is infused with the Mac OS. Windows is just work. Mac is life. And that, of course, is what Steve Jobs was going for. That's why when he came back to Apple he started the assault on the boring beige boxes that all computers were. He was the driving force behind so much innovation, yes, in style, but also ease of use. Which, contrary to the person on my bus, is not a bad thing.

Not that I'm a blind-faith fanatic. I'm perfectly willing and able to acknowledge and point out Apple's missteps. I think Steve's battle with Flash was ill-timed, for one thing. The Cube was too far ahead of its time . . . to get it that small, the components were too expensive. It looked amazing, but who could buy it? But I remember thinking, "Look . . . if you took that cube and made it a flatter rectangle, it would fit on the back of a monitor. The monitor would be the computer!" I felt pretty good about myself when that was actually what happened.

At some point across the years (or, I suppose, incrementally), without me fully realizing it, Steve Jobs, the man behind the machine, became important to me. But even when I felt concern for his health, and knew he must have been in a bad way to step down from Apple, it seemed like more generic sympathy, that you feel for anyone. But it turned out to be more. Like most people, I didn't expect the end to come so soon. And I certainly didn't expect I would be repeatedly getting misty eyed as I read the various reminiscences there have been posted on line over the last several days. Stephen Fry's was quite good. Stephen Colbert's was funny but with a poignant end that really got me (I did the same thing myself before I saw it; check it out so you'll know what I mean). 

I don't know if Apple will ever be quite the same. They've got a good set up now, and could have a good run just making the existing products better. Apple TV, although much improved, still needs work. The computer and pods and pads and phone can just keep getting faster and cooler and more interconnected. But they also need to be able to come up with the game changers, the crazy things that Steve would take to his people and say, "Can we do this?" I don't even know what those are. I just hope there's someone at Apple, or soon to come to Apple, that does. And then it will be insanely great.

Deadlines, Campfires, and Wi-Fi: The Craziness of a Freelance Writer

Things continue to be a blur, and not because I've had too much wine; but writing that did make me get up and pour myself a glass of Coppola Claret. That's just a little product placement in my blog, although it's never worked for me before. My first published Star Trek story (Happy 45th, Trek!), "Full Circle," featured the fabulous Scoma's on Fisherman's Wharf as a setting, bit I never received a big shipment of fettuccine with smoked salmon and rock shrimp. Not that I hold it against them. Just means I have to get back there in person for a giant plate of incredibly fresh seafood. But I digress. 

I've been working on a short story to submit to A Quiet Shelter There, an anthology from Hadley Rille Books edited by Gerri Leen. The deadline was August 31, and my work was complicated by a week of vacation in midmonth, so time was getting short. Also had a review due to Author Magazine on September 1. Sent the story into the editor at 9 p.m. August 30. And I was still reading the book for the review. Emailed Jeff Ayers, my editor at the magazine, that I had Thursday, the first, off, so would finish the book and review then. Jeff responded that he wouldn't be reading the reviews until Sunday, so I could take until the fourth.

That worked out nicely, because I'd taken the first off because it was my birthday. So I did absolutely no work that day. It was relaxing. Meanwhile, I had heard back from Gerri on the thirty-first that she liked my story, but she had some suggestions for rewrites. She gave me until September 7 to submit revised manuscript. Which brings us back to me taking Thursday off, but knowing that I had some work to get done and was coming into the holiday weekend. Further complications because my mom has a Labor Day tradition of having a big camp out. Friends come in RVs, tent campers, and tents, set up in her big yard, and spend the weekend eating and drinking around the campfire. Not the most conducive environment for writing, but there it is. I decided to write the review and work on the story over the weekend.

This required some planning on my part. I'd be writing on my iBook, but my mom has a Windows machine. Okay, make sure to bring a flash drive to move review from laptop to desktop, and I'm set. My mom's out in the country and only has dial-up internet, but it'll still get the job done. We arrive on Friday evening, and just about the first thing my mom tells me is her computer isn't working. All right then. Had to head into Cloquet, Minnesota, home of the world's only Frank Lloyd Wright designed gas station, on Sunday to find a place with Wi-Fi. Ella tagged along to go to Bearaboo Coffee Escape, which gave her a chance to get online on her iPad. Tangentially, the Bearaboo should not be confused with the cat named Beariboo, which I inadvertently discovered while trying to confirm the spelling of the coffee shop. Beariboo has his picture on a charming website called "Cats That Look Like Hitler." I'll let you judge for yourself. But I digress.

Sent in my review from the Bearaboo, then decided we needed malts and fries from Gordy's Hi-Hat, a family-owned burger joint that opened in 1960. They were recently featured on Guy Fieri's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on Food Network. Classic juicy fresh-made burgers, lightly battered fries, great malts . . . an essential stop when you're in you're in the area. There I go again with product placement. I don't think their fries would ship well, but I'd be willing to give it a try. Again with the digressions.

Got home Sunday evening and did some writing. Pulled a late night on Monday and sent in revised story at 9:30 p.m. Tuesday. Meanwhile, on the fifth got an email from Tony Dierckins, publisher at X-comm, my second day job. Next freelance copyediting gig is ready to download. Then found out on the eighth that my story, "On My Side," will indeed be in A Quiet Shelter There, along with stories from some of my Star Trek writing friends, Amy Sisson and Bill Leisner. Cool. So, you know, not much going on. Now for another glass of claret. Which is never a digression.

That Was a Strange Jumble of a Weekend, yet Productive

I went to work Friday morning optimistic that I'd be taking advantage of our summer hours and heading home about 12:30. I finally left at 3:00, disappointed that the long afternoon of writing I'd been looking forward to had evaporated, and I decided to just relax. Had a too-late lunch while watching a few episodes of Mr. Show. Then got a call from my wife . . . the kid had been helping move some boxes and a bungie cord came undone and whipped around and hit her in the eye. The nurse hotline had recommended we take her to urgent care to get it checked out. So we go to the urgent care in our neighborhood.

We walk into a nearly empty waiting area and someone hands us a clipboard of paperwork and says, "We'll see her at six." I look at the clock on the wall again, which says 5:30. Now, sure, it's not an ER, but we've walked in with our daughter holding a hand over her eye and they haven't even asked what happened, they just tell us it will be a half hour. "That doesn't sound very urgent," I say. Yeah, I'm the cranky sarcastic dad in these situations. I'm the one most likely to pull a Shirley MacLaine in Terms of Endearment. So my attitude gets the explanation that should have been given in the introduction: they open the doors at 5:30, but they don't start seeing people until 6, those are the hours. Sandra explains that the person who referred us to them didn't mention that, trying to smooth over my instinctual annoyance at bureaucratic BS when Debra Winger is in pain. Or, in this case, my own daughter. Sandra fills out the papers and when she turns them in she explains what happened and then they say, "OK, something like that we'll look at her right away." Now, I'm not a doctor, but maybe asking what happened up front is a better procedure. Like when the girl comes in the door holding a hand over her eye.

So we get in a room, the nurse takes a cursory look, asks a few questions, leaves the room to confer with a doctor--or a Magic 8 Ball as we'll soon have reason to consider--then comes back and tells us we have to go to the ER because they don't have the right equipment to examine her: a slit lamp. If you'll pardon a slight digression, who the hell named something used to closely examine an eye a "slit lamp"? Someone just got whacked in the eye and you're telling them you need to use a slit lamp on them. You might as well say "the slicey-dicey thing." Slit lamp. You've got to be shitting me. It's like they got Wes Craven to name it. Just off the top of my head, how about "narrow-aperture lamp"? Okay, end digression.

Then we're off to the ER. Some more paperwork, more waiting, then the doctor arrives. She starts looking at Ella's eye with the regular bright look-in-your-eye thing, the very same item that was on the wall at urgent care that was never used because the doctor couldn't be bothered to haul his or her ass into the room to see a patient. She puts a drop of dye in Ella's eye, looks some more, and diagnoses the issue right there (without the rotating-razors-of-death lamp) and also expresses her disdain that urgent care didn't take the time to do this test. Anyway, minor scratch on the white of her eye, some antibiotics to avoid infection, we're good to go. We get home after 9. Well, that was our Friday night out. Wife and kid soon go to bed, I decide to watch a schlocky seventies horror movie courtesy of streaming Netflix: The Incredible Melting Man. It's a nonsensical movie on a variety of levels, but the gooey special effects by Rick Baker have a certain entertainment value for people who like people who are melting. And, really, who doesn't? It had been a long week, however, and I was too tired to make it through the thing. I go to bed looking forward to a long sleep. 

But Sandra had to work Saturday. She got up at 6:30 and then I couldn't get back to sleep. So at 7 a.m. on Saturday I'm at my computer with a cup of tea watching a dude's skin melt. (Strangely, that's the second time in my life I've used that sentence, but I'm not allowed to discuss the first time because it's a matter of national security.) Melting completed, I got into the writing I'd been hoping to do on Friday. Ended up writing nearly all day, finally completing a story that's due to the editor on the 31st. Leaves me a couple days to polish and tweak, then it's off.

Writing done, I had just enough time to get ready and then we got together with friends for pizza and wine. Actually, the wine was all for me, because they were having margaritas, which suited me just fine. The night was a bit of a celebration, as our friend Susan Koefod has just had her first novel published, a mystery called Washed Up. So, pizza, wine, brownie bites for dessert, wine, and some signed books wrapped up a lovely evening. And wine.

Sunday morning we were off to the Science Museum of Minnesota for the special King Tut exhibit. It's only there one more week. If you're in the Twin Cities area, it's worth seeing, even though it turns out mummies have never actually come back to life. That was a bit of a downer, I thought, but don't let that stop you. They're fascinating even though still dead. And the movie in the omnitheater about mummies was narrated by Christopher Lee. Get it? He played a mummy in the 1959 Hammer film The Mummy. And the audio tour was narrated by Harrison Ford. Indy! We didn't buy any King Tut merch, which seemed kind of odd anyway. A King Tut shot glass? That's not the kind of immortality he was hoping for. Ella opted for some little cake molds that put the impression of a fossil dinosaur head into the cake. Instead of cupcakes, we're first trying them with Jell-O.

That about wraps it up. Did a number of chores in the afternoon, and I printed out the story from Saturday so I can read it tomorrow on my bus ride. I've already put a red pen in my bag so I can mark up the manuscript. Monday morning, back to the day job.

A Small Post to Keep My Blog On My Mind

I was on vacation last week, and so there is very little to report by way of writing. We did have a lovely time in the great Northwoods of Minnesota, however. We were way up in beautiful Ely, Minnesota, just twenty or so miles from Canada as the crow flies. Went to the International Wolf Center and the North American Bear Center, which were both pretty cool. And we got to see some, well, wolves and bears, as you might expect. Also seemed like a good place to hide during the coming zombie apocalypse. Was most amused to see a book I cowrote, The Mosquito Book, on sale in a number of gift shops. This book is essentially out of print at this point, so it was a pleasant surprise to see the few remaining copies on the shelf somewhere.

On the way up we spent a day in Duluth and popped into the Fitger's Bookstore. The manager actually recognized me and remembered my name, which was impressive. So I did some schmoozing about books I've written and edited, and a few more of them may turn up on the shelf there. Cool.

As mentioned last week, I have a short story due to the editor by August 31. I've gotten some good work done on that the last couple nights, so I think I'll make that deadline. Took tonight off. Watched some Dr. Who with my daughter, and then I'm going to bed at a reasonable time instead of falling asleep at the keyboard. Because that's just silly.

Progress made. Momentum slowly building.

OK, step one taken care of. I've finished a handful of short sketches for novels. Some of them read like jacket copy more than anything. But this has helped me get my mind around these ideas and assess their potential. Now I need to show them around, get some advice, and choose one to move forward on for now. I think at least four of them are solid ideas, and I'm sure I'll keep taking notes on them even as I work on other projects.

Another nice bit of progress over the weekend was on my website. My poor, neglected yeahsure.net has received a solid update. New projects and publications added, as well as a major updating on the reviews page, showing the books I've reviewed this year for Author Magazine and Suspense Magazine. New publication honor goes to my sixth article for Star Trek Magazine, a guide to Star Trek: The Animated Series. It's mentioned on the updates page, but still need to add it to my list of publications, and my editing projects at the day job need to be updated as well, but I can only fiddle with html for so long before my head explodes.

Next up is the frantic completion of a short story for an open-call anthology with a due date of August 31. You may surmise with a quick look at a calendar that I'm cutting it close on this one. Hope I can pull it off!

Existential Malaise is Not a French Condiment

In my last blog, over a month ago, I mentioned existential malaise. I thought I was over it, but then I disappeared back into it's murky depths. Granted, there was a freelance project in there that devoured a lot of time, and then a day job project that demanded attention, but the turmoil in the publishing industry and the confusion it has rained down on my writing has knocked me for a loop. I'm sure many people have wondered what happened to me--readers of my blog number into the high single digits, after all. But, no worries, I'm back, dammit, to take another run at this.

Today I spent some time working on original novel concepts. I'm putting in order a handful of the ideas that most interest me at the moment. I look forward to running them past some people and then deciding which one to proceed with. It's far past the time for me to get a full-length manuscript to show around.

Meanwhile, I've got a few other things in the air. I've got a short story about three-quarters done that needs to be sent in to an open-call anthology by the end of the month. I need to get cracking on the last couple of scenes. I also have some stuff out to markets . . . but, well, they've disappeared. Two things have been with publishers far beyond their regular turn-around time. I've queried, and then so much time passed I've had to query again. Still no response. I've almost convinced myself they must have responded already only for me to forget during a psychotic episode. There was that time I woke up in Philly with a lot of missing time and wearing a Dick Nixon mask . . .

My last post was about getting ready for Shore Leave. I think I missed the boat on doing a full what-happened-at-Shore-Leave post, but let me say this: seeing all my writer friends was great, with a special shout out to David R. George III for our first in-person meeting, and getting my M*A*S*H soundtrack LP signed by Sally Kellerman was pretty damn cool.

So I've just got to get back in the saddle. This week I'll need to update my webpage too. If anything, I've got to do it for "Hot Lips" Houlihan.