A Story in Reverse
Life in Trump’s America Last night, when things were looking a little grim but before it got to the “Oh, hey, 2016, how’ve you been?” stage, The Magpie made a point of firmly shutting the door between the office and the kitchen. “Why are you blockading the cat from the kitchen?” I asked. “I’m not. […]
July 4, 2024
In 1973, ITV network in Britain aired the documentary, The World at War, a 26-hour look at events on the battlefield and the impacts of the war on nations as a whole as well as the individuals who fought or were otherwise caught up in it. Narrated by Sir Laurence Olivier, it used archival footage […]
The Statement
It’s done. Not NaNoWriMo, because I skipped it once again. As we came ever closer toward this fabled month I considered NaNo. It’s been a few years since I’ve done one and I actually had a couple of things that would have fit the bill: there’s the project I wrapped up last year that I […]
The Reading List 2023, Part II
Well, somehow nearly three months have gone by since my last post. As usual, I didn’t intend this. As usual, I will promise to post more frequently. Also as usual, I can’t guarantee I will follow through on that promise. On one level, I felt like I didn’t read as much in July, August and […]
The Reading List 2023, Part I
Long-time readers of this blog may remember my sharing of my reading list. Why share my reading list? Well, I figure if anyone’s actually reading me, they may be interested in what I read. Also, maybe you’ll find something here that will interest or excite you and you’ll be inspired to pick it up. Note […]
The Thicket
About a month ago, maybe two, I don’t quite recall, I started working on something new. It came about in an odd way for me, because I knew three things about it before I had set a single word to page: The title. This is really unusual for me. Titles rarely come so early in […]
Pulling the Thread
Last year I got a t-shirt for volunteering at an event sponsored by our local Soil & Water Conservation District. I liked the shirt: it fit me nicely and it has a nice logo. It also had a loose thread at the hem on the bottom. Even though I knew better, I pulled the thread. […]
Pound, Pound, Pound
Yesterday morning I did something that I a) thought I would do several weeks ago, and b) thought I might never do: I typed ‘###’ at the end of my WiP. In case you don’t know, ‘###’ is a fancy way of saying, ‘THE END.’ This brought to a close the first stage of what […]
Too Many Twists?
I just finished a well-regarded thriller/horror book. I cracked it open a few days ago with great anticipation. When I joined Twitter and started engaging in that world, this author started popping up everywhere, and I’ve been meaning to get to one of their books, and I finally did. The book itself was…okay. It was […]
Finished, and Not-so-finished
Happy 2023. When I started thinking in earnest of this post to wrap up 2022 and set up 2023, I was going to start by saying the year ended a lot like it began, with me working on revisions of a project created long ago, but a quick search of the “archives” revealed that this […]