Al Gore made me do it
I’ve been experimenting with the new compact fluorescent light bulbs. Maybe you’ve seen them in the store. Wal-Mart is really pushing them. They replace a normal incandescent bulb and use about ¼ the power. They also run far cooler than a normal bulb. You can easily unscrew a “100W” bulb that has been running for [...]
Fact or fiction
I was going to sleep in this morning. I woke up about 30 minutes before the alarm and reset the alarm for 30 minutes later than usual. 5:30. But I couldn’t get the opening scene of a new short story out of my head, so I got up at 5:05, only five minutes late, and [...]
Rapid response
Sometimes we complain about response times from certain markets. We send out our stories and wait three months, six months…longer. Some novel markets have response times better measured in years than months.
Then there’s the other side of the coin. I sent out my most recent short story on Sunday and got the response back two [...]
Bigger on the inside
I spent yesterday revising the new short story. A long session on-screen, then I printed out the draft and went at it in hardcopy. As I’ve alluded to previously, I think, these two types of editing are quite different for me. I’ll key in the changes today and make another read-through on-screen, then I plan [...]
A lender and a borrower
I’ve lived in this community for over seventeen years. I decided it was time I should have a library card.
I’ve used the library a lot over the years, but I’ve always gone, done my research and come home again. My daughter had a card, but I’ve never taken anything out until now. I was doing [...]
All stars
Congratulations to Joe R. Lansdale, who was just announced Grand Master of the World Horror Convention. Hisownself lives up the road a piece from here. I first encountered him at a local writer’s guild meeting many years ago, back before I was writing. He was funnier than most stand-up comics, telling amazing-but-true stories out of [...]
The state of the union
So, eyes glued to the TV last night, watching…Law & Order reruns. After NCIS, that is. I just couldn’t bring myself to watch. There was absolutely nothing I wanted to hear during that speech except “I quit” (riffing on an editorial cartoon I saw yesterday where Bush asked his speechwriter for a line that would [...]
My day in court
I spent the morning in county court observing proceedings as research for a short story. My main objective this morning was voir dire, the jury selection process. Since I’m not eligible to serve on a jury in the U.S., I won’t ever experience the process first-hand. The case was a DWI, which seems fairly simple [...]
Going Brrr-less
This will be the last post with a “brrrr” theme. I promise. We’re getting lots of rain these days, but the temperature is rising into the forties. By contrast with a few days ago, it feels positively tropical.
I received a royalty check last night for a short story in a hardcover crime anthology that came [...]
re-Brrrr
The freezing rain came last night. Not in the huge fractions of inches we were originally supposed to receive, but enough to cause some school closures and a few multi-vehicle accidents. Overpasses have been closed. It was 36° when I went to breakfast this morning. Then I drove a mile north to work and it [...]
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Bev Vincent is the author of The Road to the Dark Tower, the Bram Stoker Award nominated companion to Stephen King's Dark Tower series, and The Stephen King Illustrated Companion, which was nominated for a 2010 Edgar® Award and a 2009 Bram Stoker Award.
His short fiction has appeared in places like Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, From the Borderlands and The Blue Religion. He is a contributing editor with Cemetery Dance magazine and a member of the Storytellers Unplugged blogging community. He also writes book reviews for Onyx Reviews.
