Blogging Toward Bethlehem

T he basic outline for my 4th cozy mystery has been approved by my client. I am a step closer to being paid by Readict for the two books of mine that they're publishing, having filled out my W9 and an invoice. I submitted a revised sketch for a cartoon to another client. We got our screen door fixed, and some of our windows measured for new screens. Our friend John was here for a few days, but he left sooner than we expected he would. I haven't done any work on the cover for Before Baker Street , but I will -- possibly tomorrow. And that's all for tonight, because I just got a short story rejection and am feeling grumpy. Prallsville Mill , 2003, oil on board, about 24" x 18"

A llergies are kicking my butt, yet I soldier on. I'm outlining my third paranormal cozy mystery, and getting ready to ramp up marketing efforts for my first self-published book, Before Baker Street . It's a collection of short pieces, some of them previously published, about the adventures of teenaged Sherlock Holmes. He's joined for a couple of them by his cousin, Tom Stubbins -- formerly assistant to Dr. John Doolittle, the man who could speak with animals. So, yes, there are animals involved. I enjoy doing these "mash-ups," and I think these came out quite well. Holmes also interacts with some other literary figures, but I'm going to keep their identities secret for now. I will drop one name -- Bram Stoker. No, not  his best-known character, Dracula; Stoker himself, who was something of a character in his own right. I'm also including a couple of familiar names from the works of Jules Verne. And in closing, here's another painting I did about 15 ye...

B ecause I'm a writer! So how can you be sure you know that anything I say in this blog is true? Well, you can't. The best way to get any insight into me is to read some of my work. Yes, this is a rather underhanded way to get you to check out some of the stuff I have online. Kronkheit! - A super-rat from the future tries to recruit some contemporary street-smart rodents. Funnier than most stuff I write. Itinerate Pandemonium - A flying nightclub lands outside of Doylestown, PA and tangles with local environmental agents looking to shut it down. A Tune Played Coldly - Looking to confront a reviewer after she trashes his latest effort, a vengeful musician gets more than he bargained for. Halieis Anthropon - Investigating the decline of civilization on Earth, a Martian cultural anthropologist uncovers a bizarre mystery. Baking Day - A young woman who has illegally been taught to read and write seeks to escape from the constraints of her life. March 11, 1936, 5:30 AM - An as...

T his is another short blog post, largely due to the fact that I am under the weather today -- an aching back and a congested head being the prime symptoms. So y'all can rest easy. The idiots referred to in the title are those folks who responded to the gas shortages, caused by the pipeline disruption this week, by hoarding gas: loading canisters, and even plastic bags , without realizing that gas only remains usable for a few weeks before becoming useless. Degraded gas will gum up your engine something fierce. I hope it happens to every single one of these bozos. Because I felt crummy today I didn't get much done. I have a couple of small illustration jobs that I mean to get off my plate this coming week. I also have to get cracking on the cover of Before Baker Street . We did manage to get a few household tasks accomplished, though, so that's good. I'm reading Robert Heinlein's  Tunnel in the Sky  and enjoying it, as well as a book on the Indian epic, The Mahabha...

B ut you're not going to learn about them in this post, because it's late and I'm gonna update this blog with a very short post. All I'm going to say, in fact, is that I'm still plowing through the Mahabharata and that I finished reading Starman Jones  by Robert Heinlein. Oh, and that I'm taking some satisfaction in watching the Republican party tear itself to bits. They've been heading for this since Nixon, and even more so since Reagan. What I am not  enjoying is watching the reports of all the idiots hoarding gasoline. Some of these fools are filling up plastic bags and plastic storage tubs. As I understand it, gasoline will melt those things. I'm sorry I can't be there to see it. Well, let's close with a picture of me performing in The Acoustic Bite Trio from 2014. That's Scott Charles Harrington on the left, on guitar and vocals, me in the middle on drums and vocals, and Shawn Cavanaugh at the right, on bass. Photo by Bill Stank I don...

T he past week has been a busy one. My wife, Grace, and I have done some work in the garden and around the house; I ordered a screen for our front door; I finished (mostly) scraping off the paint that the previous owner of our home had used to cover up the glass in window of the downstairs door; I completed the draft of a short story; I wrote a guest blog post for another writer; we got the second of two Pfizer Covid-19 vaccinations; I posted a bunch of my art on Facebook in response to being nominated to show 10 pieces of art in 10 days; I read over an amended version of my contract with Readict; did some cooking; attended an online seminar on self-publishing; accepted a commission to design a logo; and probably did some other things. We do not have boring lives. For people in our 70s, Grace and I keep pretty busy. I am also manfully struggling through JAYA: An Illustrated Retelling of The Mahabharata , by Devdutt Pattanaik (the link is to Amazon, but I got my copy from eBay). I don’t...

I was working in a pornographic bookstore in New Haven in 1975, when in walked Wally Wood. I knew him from the local science fiction club, NHSFFA -- the New Haven Science Fiction and Fantasy Association, commonly known as "Fred," because NHSFFA isn't pronounceable. In fact, I met him at one of our members' home. I had never seen Woody, so when I noticed a stranger sitting in a chair off to one side, smoking a cigarette, I thought he was the fellow's father -- so I introduced myself. He said, "I'm Wally Wood." I had already sold my first two short stories, and I had been working on doing some comic art for a friend's self-published zine. But I had had no training outside of a couple of years of college. I knew Woody was in the area, because I'd heard he had moved to West Haven, the town south of New Haven. So meeting him as it were out of the blue was pretty surprising. Not being the fanboy type, all I did was shake his hand and say something ...

U sually when I sit down to write an entry into this blog, it's without knowing ahead of time what I want to say. Unsurprisingly, I don't know this time, either. But that's okay. I'm still working on getting my butt into gear to get my first self-published book out into the world. I tell myself that I'll publish it on the last day of June. The prose is all written, but I have yet to do the cover art. I'm tempted to do it all-text, as opposed to painting something. You can call that laziness. I think that if my allergies weren't plaguing me so severely these days, I'd have more motivation. The pills I take alleviate most of the symptoms but they leave me feeling kind of worn out. And that means I don't have much spare energy for coming up with stuff to write about. I'm sick of politics, and I don't want to fill this blog with a bunch of complaints. There's enough of that going around. Besides, I'm not a pundit or a poli-sci specialist ...