Story list update

Back in March, I gave the random tip to keep track of everything you can for your writing.  To recap my situation, in Excel I had a Submission List where I kept track of every story I submitted, where, when, when I heard back, and when/if it was published.  I also had a Publication List, that listed in order each of my published stories, but I only counted the first time they were published.  This list also had a one sentence outline for each story to make it easier for me to find them since I’ll remember that I wrote a story about X, but can’t remember what title I gave for it.  Nice and straight forward, except my numbers didn’t match, and there were other things I wanted to keep track of.  After putting off making a new list for years, I finally decided to do it, and part of the reason for that post was to make myself do it.  Well, I didn’t expect to finish this new list so soon, but I’ve had some internet issues, so instead of spending hours watching YouTube videos, I worked on these new lists.

Anyway, while working on the new lists, I realized that I actually had a third list of my stories.  On my website I like to have a little blurb about my stories and a link to them if they are online.  Turns out, between the three lists, I had just about every mistake option.  There were stories on my Submission List that weren’t on my Publication List and vice versa.  And I had stories on my lists that weren’t on my website, and even one story on my website, but not on either list.  (That’s an interesting tale, but for another day.) But after countless hours of work, I can say that my new Submission List, my new Publication List, and my website are all in agreement, more or less.  There are a couple stories missing from my website, but they were first posted on websites that no longer exist and have been posted elsewhere, or in one case is a story I don’t really like that is still up on a dying website.  And there could be some fundamental flaw in my lists, but to the best of my knowledge I’ve covered everything.

So what did I find out?  Well, as of the posting of this blog, “Old Story” is my 679th published story.  My most recent publication is a reposting of the story “Worst Foot Forward,” which marks my 243rd reposting of a story.  Now, some of these reposted stories have been reposted three, four, and I think in one case even five times as they made the circuit of dying websites.  I haven’t worked out exactly how many of my stories I’ve reposted, but if for some reason I ever wanted to, I could figure it out.  Part of the reason I got around to finally redoing these lists, is because I jokingly thought that the reason I was able to publish so many stories is because half of them were under 500 words.  Well, now I know that 429, or over 63% of my published stories are under 500 words.  The full numbers are, I have 39 stories of 100 words or less, 155 between 101-250 words, 235 between 251-500 words, 116 between 501-750 words, 57 between 751-1,000 words, 59 between 1,001-2,500 words, 12 between 2,501-5,000 words, 4 between 5,001-10,000 words, and two over 10,001 words.  If you’re curious, my shortest story at only 20 words is “Never Done,” which is on a dying website and some may find in poor taste.  My longest story is “Relics” at 15,794 words, which some may also find in poor taste.

The other things I’ve found out, is that 612 of my stories, or 90.1%, were published by me, while 30, or 4.4% were published on a friend’s website or by a writing group I was a part of.  The remaining 37 or 5.4% were published by someone else.  The total number of words in all my published stories (using the word length of the most recent reposting) is 428,857 words.  I also have been keeping track of how many words I write each day for the past twenty years, and that stands at just over 863,000.  Meaning there are over 434,000 words that I’ve either cut from stories or are in stories I’ve started but never finished.   

Stories weren’t the only things I kept lists on, since I also dabble a bit in poetry.  These are mostly haiku, but there are a few non-rhyming poems thrown in.  Again, I had a Submission List, Publication List, and my Website list, and even though I do far less poetry than stories, these were somehow even more out of whack.  I had haiku on my website that didn’t show up on either list, and haiku on at least one list but not on my website.  It felt like it took just as long for me to hammer it all into shape as it did my stories. 

My most recent new poetry publication, is the haiku “the rich get richer” which is my 132nd poem.  My most recent poem publication is the reposting of “Stealer of Daylight,” which is my 35th poem repost.  Of my published poems, 116, or 87.9% are haiku, while the other 16, or 12.1%, are non-rhyming.  I’ve published 129, or 97.7% of my poems, 1, or 0.8%, were published by a writing group I was in, and the other 2, or 1.5%, were published by someone else.

So that is the update on my story/poem lists.  But it’s not the end.  When I decided to write a quick outline for my published stories so I could find them easier, I also realized I should do that for my unpublished stories.  Sometimes I’ll remember that I started a story about X, but can’t remember how far I got with it.  So I have an Unpublished List, that has the title or working title, what type it likely is – be it a short story, or more like a novella which also indicates which folder I have it in – as well the brief outline.  I set all this up, and kept it updated for a while, but I haven’t done such a good job for the past year or so.  Which means my next project will be sorting all that out and getting it up to date.  Which will be annoying because I’ll be revisiting all these stories that held so much promise, but I never got around to finishing.  Joy.

Writing Newsletter First Quarter 2026

 

As I said in My writing plans for 2026, instead of trying to write a story each month for my website, I’d only do one each quarter.  The story for this quarter was “Keep Writing,” which I almost didn’t finish in time.  I started another story, but it turned out to be too big for me, so I had to set it aside and then scramble to come up with something else.  But I did manage to do it.

As I also said in my plans, I was only going to post one story each quarter on my blog, and I came up with a story, but then things happened so I had to delay posting it until the second quarter.  So I had a story for the second quarter, and I had to scramble to get one for the first quarter, which I did with “Still Relevant.”

I wanted to post a story on Ko-fi and Buy Me a Coffee, but I didn’t get to it.  I did start a story for Buy Me a Coffee, but in the scramble of the last few weeks of the quarter, as well as yard and garden work, and a collapsing society, I didn’t get to finish it.  But that just means I already have a story mostly done for the second quarter.

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It seems so easy a task to keep track of how many microfictions and haikus I post, but I keep forgetting to mark what I’ve done, and then I get confused trying to go back and recount them.  So moving forward, I’ll just say that I’ve posted some of each, and if you really want to know how many there were, you can count them yourself on my Untitled Works Page and my Haiku Page.

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And I think that’s it.  With everything going on in the world, trying to get my garden stuff ready for spring, and a few mild illnesses, I really haven’t had time to do much writing.  Will that change?  We’ll just have to wait and see.

***

Image from Pixabay.

Save America EBook Sale

I think for the past decade, every Fourth of July I’ve had a sale for some of my ebooks.  Which ones vary over the years, but Political Pies, my collection of forty short stories of a political nature, is always included.  The sale is usually just to mark the Fourth of July, but this year – with an ever-quickening slide into authoritarianism – I’m making it a Save America Sale.

How will my ebooks save America?  Well, I could argue that most of my stories are science fiction and show worlds where very alien aliens have learned to live and work together, thus showing the idiocy of people being upset their neighbor doesn’t have the exact same shade of skin color.  But really, my ebooks don’t contain some magic formula to save America.  It’s just a nice gesture.  If you’re fighting authoritarianism, then it’s likely you read, so here is a collection of free ebooks you can pick up.

In previous years, I’ve had sales at points throughout the year where I asked people to also register to vote or to vote.  But apparently, offering anything to get people to register or to vote is technically illegal.  I doubt they’d go after some unknown author giving away free ebooks, but I’m also not a billionaire who can just bribe his way out of problems.  So for this Save America Sale, I’m not asking anyone to do anything.  If you do decide to register to vote, or run for office, or march in the streets, that is entirely on you.  But if you have some time waiting for the march to get going, some of these ebooks are collections of short stories you can read in a few minutes. 

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From Tuesday July 1st through Saturday July 5th, the following eight ebooks will be free to download.

Political Pies

Everybody complains about politics, but does anyone do anything about it? My attempt to do something about it is to collect forty of my short stories with a political element into my Political Pies anthology. The stories are either politically neutral or equally condemning of the national parties. Instead of trying to sway you to one ideology or another, my goal is to just get people thinking about politics in the hopes a rose might grow out of all the political manure.

Rise

“Rise” is a standalone story set in my Human Republic Universe. The story follows the events after the tragic deaths of the colonists on a small colony in a distant star system.

Duty

For reasons of safety and avoiding paradoxes, Time Travel Incorporated assigns a Guardian to all its travelers. So when there is an accident during political historian Roj Hasol’s trip back to 1968, it’s his Guardian Susan who sets out on the arduous task of cleaning up the mess.

The Only Certainty

On The Day, for reasons unknown, people began changing. They went to sleep as their old selves and woke in their beds in different bodies: bodies that had belonged to other people. And each time they fall asleep, they wake in a new body. Set months later, The Only Certainty follows Derrick Gorton on an average day in this new world as he deals with food shortages, the semi-collapse of society, and how to finish his latest novel.

Lonely Phoenix

Partway to a new colony world, board member Geoffrey Ames is woken from hibernation by the caretaking crew of the Lucian. They require him to look into the matter of their fellow crewman Morgan Heller. Morgan’s claims – such as being over 1500 years old – would normally land him in the psychiatric ward, except he can back up some of his other claims.

An Ounce of Prevention

Like most people, Jason Fisher wanted to make the world a better place, but he doubted he would ever have the chance to make much of a mark. Then a “woman” came to him, asking his help to save humanity by threatening it.

The Moon Before Mars: Why returning to the moon makes more sense than rushing off to Mars

Over the last few years a lot of people have caught Mars fever. It seems a week doesn’t go by without a report of some new group wanting to send people to Mars, or some big name in the industry talking about why we have to go to Mars, or articles talking about the glorious future humanity will have on Mars. All of this worries me. In my opinion, a Mars base is currently not sustainable because there’s no way for it to make money. A few missions may fly doing extraordinary science, but if it’s then cancelled for cost the whole Mars Project may just be seen as an expensive stunt.

Fortunately, there are other places in the solar system besides Mars. While bases on the moon and amongst the asteroids won’t be as inspirational as one on Mars, they will have opportunities for businesses to make goods and services as well as profits, meaning less chance of them being outright cancelled. This will make life better on Earth and secure a firm foothold in space for humanity. The essays in The Moon Before Mars: Why returning to the moon makes more sense than rushing off to Mars allow me to describe my ideas on what can be accomplished on the moon and with the asteroids, and why Mars isn’t the destiny of humanity its cheerleaders make it out to be.

The Future is Coming

As a science fiction writer, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how technology will change the way we live. I’ve come up with these ten short essays about science fictional elements that will – almost certainly – one day become science fact as a way for people to start coming to terms with them. Because I’ve spent time thinking about clones and AIs, I feel I’ll be okay when they do finally show up whereas most people will probably freak out. I hope these essays will get people to start thinking about the future because, no matter what we do, the future is coming.

Short story – “Ticket to the Future”

 

“Ticket to the Future”

Part of Angelica Daffin’s mind told her what she was doing was illegal.  The rest of her mind told her that what she was doing was insane.  But right now, she was listening to her heart.  I. M. Allen was her favorite author and ever since she read his first novel Doomed to Repeat, she had wanted to meet him; to know what his motivations and influences were.

It was just something about the tale of human colonists landing on a world wiped out by a genetically engineered virus that struck a chord with her.  To her it was so realistic that while trying to “learn” more about the virus and the technology behind it – for the good of all mankind of course – that the colonists ended up wiping themselves out.  Angelica wasn’t an anti-technology, new-age, hippie type, but she always recommended Doomed to Repeat as a word of warning to anyone who felt science was the solution to every problem. 

Unfortunately, the prolific author (three novels a year) was also extremely reclusive.  He never gave interviews, or went to conventions, or even had a blog.  His agent and publisher said their only contact with him was through email.  Since his books were best sellers, nominated for and winning most awards, they allowed him his eccentricity.

For years Angelica lived with her disappointment.  She would preorder his books and take a day or two off from work to read them.  His stories and characters were always so fascinating.  From the generational starship where each generation descends further and further into madness in Going, Going, … to the simplicity of building a time machine and the complexities that result in Today, Tomorrow, or Yesterday?

With each book her curiosity grew and morphed into obsession.  The final straw was With This Ring, concerning the bigotry surrounding an interspecial romance.  When she finally put the book down and wiped away her tears, she vowed that she would meet him.  For months she tried every legal method she could to track him down, all without success.  In the end she had to date a hacker who got into his agent’s email and traced Allen’s computer.

So now, Angelica stood with binoculars in the woods surrounding a little log cabin in the mountains, fifty miles from the nearest paved road.  Not wanting to give away her presence, she had parked her car at a motel and hiked three days to get here.  She couldn’t see any vehicle or even a satellite dish, so she wasn’t sure how this could be the right place.

She had only been watching the cabin for about a minute when the front door opened and out walked a short, green skinned alien with large black eyes.

#

Angelica woke lying on a soft bed.  The air was warm and filled with a flowery scent she couldn’t identify.

“Are you all right, Miss Daffin?” a soft, musical, male voice asked.

“Yes, I’m …” She opened her eyes and saw the alien standing a few feet from her.  She screamed and tried to get away, but the bed was against a wall and there was no where she could go.  Turning back to the alien she saw him just standing, silently, watching her.  A thousand questions jammed in her throat.  She swallowed and asked the first one that could get out, “How do you know my name?”

The alien reached over to a table and picked up her wallet.  Holding it up to her he said, “Your driver’s license.”

“Oh.” The situation was too weird for her to be disappointed by such a simple answer.  “How did I get in here?”

“You fainted at my appearance.  I couldn’t leave you to lie in the leaves, so I brought you in.”

Angelica nodded.  “Thank you.”

The alien bowed slightly.  “You’re welcomed.”

“Who are you?”

Holding his hands behind his back, the alien stood up straight and replied, “You couldn’t pronounce my real name, but you know me as I. M. Allen.”

Sitting down on the bed, Angelica nodded.  “Really?”

“Yes.”

After a moment, Angelica asked, “What are you going to do to me?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?  Aren’t you afraid I’ll expose you?”

“To whom?  Yes, the people who wear tin foil hats would believe your tale that a famous author is really an alien, but …”

“All right, all right,” Angelica interrupted him.  Taking a deep breath, she asked, “What are you doing here?”

“It is far easier to remain inconspicuous in a place like this,” he waved his hands to indicate the cabin, “than, say, an apartment in New York.”

Angelica paused.  Did an alien just tell her a joke?  “I meant on Earth.”

There came the faintest of smiles to his tiny mouth.  “I know.  Your species has accomplished much in a short time, but you have barely scratched the surface on knowledge of the universe.  You are at a critical point in your development where you not only have the ability to destroy yourselves, but also the mentality which makes such a fate a possibility.”

“Are you here to save us?”

Shaking his head, he replied, “No.  My … charitable organization is probably the closest term you have for us, finds species in such situations and we try to help them save themselves.”

Angelica raised an eyebrow at that.  “By writing scifi novels?”

The tiny smile spread.  “That is not all we do, but my specialty is artistic expression.  Most species have some form of art, but few have such a range as yours.  We’ve taken special interest in your science fiction because it’s perfectly suited to our goals.  What other art form forces you to consider how your species – and even you yourself – would react to First Contact?  Or time travel?  Or immortality?  Getting people to think about the future is the first step in making sure that you have a future and that it is a good one.”

Voter registration drive book sale!

 The other day I saw something about the deadline to register to vote for some special elections is like, next week.  I don’t live anywhere these special elections are happening, so I haven’t paid much attention to them.  But every election is important, especially now.  If you want to vote, you need to be registered.  And who knows what new hoops will be added to the registration process in the coming years.  So if you are an American citizen over eighteen, now’s the time to register.  The information to do so should be on your state’s website, but you can also check out Vote411.  And if you’re already registered, these sites should also let you check your voter status, because while voter lists need to be updated as people move or die, some go overboard.  Any “mistake” found now can be fixed long before the next election, making the election run smoother.

To draw a bit of attention to this, and to give some slight encouragement to register, I’m running a book sale from Monday February 24th, through Friday February 28th.  For that week, four of my ebooks will be free to download on Kindle.  I think it is against the law for someone to offer you something to register to vote, but it’s not like I’m offering you a million dollars to vote.  And it’s only four ebooks from an unknown author just to register.  If I was rich and famous, I’d be doing other things to pull democracy from the jaws of authoritarianism. 

If you’re not an American, you can still grab my ebooks.  I just ask you to participate in your government however you can.  Since America is no longer the leader of the free world, someone else will need to step up.

***

Political Pies

Everybody complains about politics, but does anyone do anything about it? My attempt to do something about it is to collect forty of my short stories with a political element into my Political Pies anthology. The stories are either politically neutral or equally condemning of the national parties. Instead of trying to sway you to one ideology or another, my goal is to just get people thinking about politics in the hopes a rose might grow out of all the political manure.

Useless Cogs

Useless Cogs is a collection of forty, of my science fiction stories. They range from only a few dozen words to a few thousand and are filled with time travelers, AIs, clones, aliens, even sexbots, although not often as you would imagine. As example, there’s a time traveler that’s always a step behind, an AI that’s late on rent, and a sexbot with bad software. Some of the stories are humorous, some horrifying, and some … depend on your point of view.

The Only Certainty

On The Day, for reasons unknown, people began changing. They went to sleep as their old selves and woke in their beds in different bodies: bodies that had belonged to other people. And each time they fall asleep, they wake in a new body. Set months later, “The Only Certainty” follows Derrick Gorton on an average day in this new world as he deals with food shortages, the semi-collapse of society, and how to finish his latest novel.

The Moon Before Mars: Why returning to the moon makes more sense than rushing off to Mars

Over the last few years a lot of people have caught Mars fever. It seems a week doesn’t go by without a report of some new group wanting to send people to Mars, or some big name in the industry talking about why we have to go to Mars, or articles talking about the glorious future humanity will have on Mars. All of this worries me. In my opinion, a Mars base is currently not sustainable because there’s no way for it to make money. A few missions may fly doing extraordinary science, but if it’s then cancelled for cost the whole Mars Project may just be seen as an expensive stunt.

Fortunately, there are other places in the solar system besides Mars. While bases on the moon and amongst the asteroids won’t be as inspirational as one on Mars, they will have opportunities for businesses to make goods and services as well as profits, meaning less chance of them being outright cancelled. This will make life better on Earth and secure a firm foothold in space for humanity. The essays in The Moon Before Mars: Why returning to the moon makes more sense than rushing off to Mars allow me to describe my ideas on what can be accomplished on the moon and with the asteroids, and why Mars isn’t the destiny of humanity its cheerleaders make it out to be.

Five Sentence Stories

 

Over twenty years ago, a writing friend and I would email each other these short, five sentence stories.  I think one of us had read about some famous author using such short stories as a way to get the juices flowing.  It was a challenge and we saw it as a way to hone our skills.  Ultimately, I turned a couple of these exercises into longer short stories and I’ve had a few in some of my story collections.

A few years ago, I gathered four of these stories and posted them on a website.  Unfortunately, the other week when I randomly remembered these and went to reread them, I found the website was no longer around.  But I fortunately was able to find a copy of the post I had made, so these random writing exercises from over twenty years ago will see the light of day again.

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It’s uncanny how at the most inconvenient times – for me at least – my neighbor will start having sex. Last week I was talking to my parents and his girl of the week started screaming unintelligible words.

“What is that?”

“Nothing mom.” It would probably be really annoying if he could last more than a couple of minutes.

***

While walking home one day, I saw a guy waiting at a bus stop look in my general direction and mutter something. I thought I heard him ask what the time was. I looked at my phone, but before telling him that it was 4:37, I asked, “Excuse me?”

“Oh, nothing,” he said.

A few seconds after I had passed him I realized how odd it would be if you were minding your own business and some stranger walked up to you, told you the time, and then continued on their way thinking they had done you a favor.

***

“Living Death”

Nick sat on the couch with the TV remote in his hand. Click, click, click. The talk show channel, the game show channel, the unbelievably bad movie channel all flicked across the screen. Click, click, click. The sound of his life passing by.

***

“Captain Belch verses Sir Sudorific, Part III”

When last we saw brave Captain Belch, he had just discovered that the villainous Sir Sudorific had captured the lovely Polly Precious and tied her to a keg of gunpowder.

“You’re too late Captain Belch; all I have to do is drop this torch and your Polly Precious will be gone forever.”

“Bleeeeeeeaaaaaaacch,” replied the Captain. Not only did the noxious fumes of his belch render Sir Sudorific unconscious, it also blew out the torch, thus saving Polly.

“My hero,” she said, as Captain Belch untied her and took her in his arms.

***

Image from Pixabay.

Writing Newsletter Third Quarter 2024

 

This quarter I continued writing a story each month on my website, publishing, “Sink to Their Level,” “Hot Enough for Ya?” and “Other Means.” I also reposted “Choices,” “Same Old Line,” and “Flaunt It” on my Ko-fi profile.  I also reposted the story “Hot Heads” on one of my blogs.

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If I counted correctly, this quarter I posted seven microfiction stories, which can be found on my Untitled Works Page.  I also, if I counted correctly, posted 17 haikus.  The links to them can be found on my Haiku Page.

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I think the only other writing news from this quarter was a decision I made about my writing plans for next year.  I’ll write up a blog post about that around the end of December, which will explain everything, so you’ll just have to wait until then.

***

Image from Pixabay.

Fourth of July Voter Registration Drive Book Sale!

I know a lot of people are tired of being told that every election for the past decade WILL DETERMINE THE VERY SURVIVAL OF THE NATION!  But it’s true.  It seems every election now is a choice between democracy and the literal forces of evil.  And the fastest way for the forces of evil to fully seize power is if We The People can’t be bothered to vote.  To keep our democracy, we need to vote, in this election and every election.

But in order to vote, you need to be registered.  If you’re an American citizen who will be eighteen by Election Day, November 5th of this year, and you are not registered, I ask you to register.  Your state’s website should have all the necessary details.  

To try to sweeten the pot for people doing their patriotic duty, the week of the Fourth, three of my ebooks will be free to download.  All I ask is that if you download them, you register.  There’s no way for me to check if the people grabbing my books for free registered, so we’ll just go on the honor system.  Read them now, or hold on to them to have something to read while you wait in line to vote come November. 

But what if you’re already registered?  In that case I ask you to check your registration.  The list of voters needs constant updating as people register, move, and die.  And even without nefarious voter purges, it’s possible for mistakes to happen.  But if you catch the mistake now, you have plenty of time to get it fixed so that come Election Day, things will be smoother.  Your state’s website should also have the details on how to check your registration.

But what if you’re not American?  Well then, all I ask is that you participate however you can in your government.  The literal forces of evil aren’t just working here in the states.

***

The following three ebooks will be free to download from Monday, July 1st, through Friday, July 5th.  The title links take you to the US site for the book.

Political Pies

Everybody complains about politics, but does anyone do anything about it? My attempt to do something about it is to collect forty of my short stories with a political element into my Political Pies anthology. The stories are either politically neutral or equally condemning of the national parties. Instead of trying to sway you to one ideology or another, my goal is to just get people thinking about politics in the hopes a rose might grow out of all the political manure.

A Man of Few Words

A Man of Few Words is a collection of fifty of my flash fiction stories. What would really happen if a “T-Rex on steroids” attacked a city? Why do science fiction writers make the best lovers? How does a company get to Second Base with VIPs? I explore these questions and more using less than 1,000 words and in various genres from humor to horror and general fiction to science fiction.

Duty

For reasons of safety and avoiding paradoxes, Time Travel Incorporated assigns a Guardian to all its travelers. So when there is an accident during political historian Roj Hasol’s trip back to 1968, it’s his Guardian Susan who sets out on the arduous task of cleaning up the mess.

Short story – “I Just Write Stories”

“I Just Write Stories”

As a regular patron of the bookstore, Janet had often seen the fliers for the Pen Jockeys, the writing group that met every month in the store’s café.  She didn’t consider herself a writer, just a dabbler who wrote two or three short stories a year to post on her blog.  Several people – not just her friends – had said that she had talent and should write more.  After much debate, she decided to at least check out the writer group and see if she could learn anything from real writers.

In the café, two tables had been pushed together to make room for about a dozen people.  A sign in the middle of one proclaimed the tables reserved for the Pen Jockeys.  It was still about ten minutes until the meeting time, but two men and a woman already sat there.  They welcomed Janet and had her join them.

“I’m Brian,” the first man said.  “I write gay fantasy.”

The second man introduced himself as Doug.  He explained, “I write science fiction with strong libertarian underpinnings.”

“And I,” Samantha added, “write historical fiction with strong female characters.”

“It’s nice to meet you all,” Janet said.  “I … just write stories.”

The three looked confused.  “What kind of stories?” Doug asked.

Janet shrugged.  “Whatever comes to mind.”

“Do they have specific themes?” Brian asked.

“Um … no.  Just your basic run-of-the-mill stories.”

“What are you trying to achieve with them?” Samantha asked.

“Ah … they’re just fun.  I usually post them on my blog.” Janet looked around at them for a moment before asking, “Is that a problem?”

The three looked at one another.  “Well,” Doug began, “if you really want your writing to take off you need to write to a specific audience, be they gay, libertarian, feminist, what have you.”

“Oh,” Janet replied.  “Well, I’m just starting out, so I’m more interested in learning about writing, not the marketing aspects.”

“Writing is a business,” Brian stated.  “Too many people who want to be writers never learn that.”

Janet was quiet as she thought that over.

Samantha then asked, “You said you just write … for fun?”

“Yes.” Janet looked around.  “Don’t you?”

Short story – “Conditions”

“Conditions”

With a mug of his favorite coffee, John went into the storage room/his office and locked the door so the cat wouldn’t get in.  He set the mug on his desk, then walked over to the stereo set on a metal shelf and put on a Vivaldi CD.  The music started and he adjusted the volume until it was a soft background.  Returning to his desk he sat down and turned on his laptop.  The twins had birthday money burning holes in their pockets, so his wife Melanie had taken them out for a day of shopping, giving him an afternoon of peace and quiet to work on his novel.

He opened the file and read over the last few paragraphs.  After a sip of coffee, he put his fingers on the keys … but nothing came. 

Sipping his coffee, he read over the last couple of pages he had written.  When he got to the end, he put his fingers back on the keys, but they just rested there.  He knew where his novel needed to go, he just didn’t know how to get it there.

With a sigh, he sat back.  For the first time in months, he had hours where he wasn’t at work, or sleeping, or dealing with two rambunctious six-year-olds.  It was everything he’d been wishing for.  Looking at the ceiling, he gave a mirthless chuckle.  “How could I be expected to write under these conditions?”

2023 Election ebook sale!

I know that a lot of people are tired of being told that every election for the past decade is THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION EVER!  But it’s true.  The fastest way for the anti-democratic forces to seize power is if The People can’t be bothered to vote.  And they have too much power as it is.  To keep our democracy, we need to vote, in this election and every election. 

The tiniest part that I’m doing is having a sale of five of my ebooks.  All I ask – and there’s no way for me to know – is that if you’re an adult American you vote in this Election.  Here’s a site to help you find your polling location.  And you don’t have to wait until after you vote, if you grab my books now, you can have something to read while you wait in line. 

If you’re an American under 18, you can still get my books.  All I ask is that once you turn 18 you register to vote.  Information on how to do that should be on your state’s website.  You can also grab my books if you’re not an American.  I just ask that you participate in your country’s political system, because the anti-democratic forces are not limited to the US.

The following five ebooks will be free to download from Friday, November 3, through Tuesday, November 7.  The title links take you to the US site for the book.

 

Political Pies

Everybody complains about politics, but does anyone do anything about it? My attempt to do something about it is to collect forty of my short stories with a political element into my Political Pies anthology. The stories are either politically neutral or equally condemning of the national parties. Instead of trying to sway you to one ideology or another, my goal is to just get people thinking about politics in the hopes a rose might grow out of all the political manure.

 

The Most Powerful Man in the World and other stories

The Most Powerful Man in the World and other stories is a collection of five, short, scifi stories to provide a sample of my writing.

A being from the distant future with almost unlimited powers comes back to help Ian Steele make the world a better place in “The Most Powerful Man in the World.” One bookstore customer has an entirely different reason for wanting books in “Black Market Books.” “Motherhood” tells the story of Thomas Gillespie, the surrogate mother for a baby AI. “Storyteller” is about an author thinking his book into existence. And “Deadworld” is about the alien world humans are reborn on – in alien bodies – after we die.

 

A Man of Few Words

A Man of Few Words is a collection of fifty of my flash fiction stories. What would really happen if a “T-Rex on steroids” attacked a city? Why do science fiction writers make the best lovers? How does a company get to Second Base with VIPs? I explore these questions and more using less than 1,000 words and in various genres from humor to horror and general fiction to science fiction.

 

Duty

For reasons of safety and avoiding paradoxes, Time Travel Incorporated assigns a Guardian to all its travelers. So when there is an accident during political historian Roj Hasol’s trip back to 1968, it’s his Guardian Susan who sets out on the arduous task of cleaning up the mess.

 

The Future is Coming

As a science fiction writer, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how technology will change the way we live. I’ve come up with these ten short essays about science fictional elements that will – almost certainly – one day become science fact as a way for people to start coming to terms with them. Because I’ve spent time thinking about clones and AIs, I feel I’ll be okay when they do finally show up whereas most people will probably freak out. I hope these essays will get people to start thinking about the future because, no matter what we do, the future is coming.

Short story – “Procrastination”

I just published The Uncapped Pen, a collection of fifty short stories dealing with writing in some way.  I got the idea for this story about a month ago, long after I had the fifty stories selected for the collection.  So I’m just posting it here as a bonus.

“Procrastination”

With a fresh cup of coffee, John sat down at his desk and opened his laptop.  He put the cursor over the file for his novel, but hesitated.  “I think I’ll play some solitaire first.”

He was quickly at Solitaire Universe, a site where one could play hundreds of versions of solitaire.  His current favorite version to play was Lady of Devoke, where you had to organize three decks of cards out of a random pile.  One hand usually took about fifteen minutes to play, with only a 10% chance of winning.  But something about using simple, basic rules to turn chaos into order just appealed to John’s sense of the world. 

Starting a new game, he said, “I’ll play until I win a hand, then I’ll work on my novel.”

For the first five minutes or so, the outcome of the game didn’t look good.  But then came a lucky break, and as each new card was revealed, it just came more and more likely that he’d win.  And he did.

As the cards started their animated victory dance, John said, “I guess even the universe is telling me to write.”

But like most people, John didn’t like being told what to do.  And while he’d promised to write after winning a game, he decided it wouldn’t hurt to play one more.