My new Storytellers Unplugged essay is up. It’s called “Potpourri” for the simple reason that it’s a meandering, stream-of-consciousness hodgepodge without a point. I was really stumped for a topic this month, so I opted for a State of the Union ramble.
My eBay auction of The Silent Land by Graham Joyce ends this evening. A great opportunity to snap up a fantastic novel a couple of months before it’s published here.
I read A Drop of the Hard Stuff by Lawrence Block, the new Matt Scudder book. It’s great to be back in Scudder’s company again. The book is something of a nostalgic flashback as it does not pick up where All the Flowers Are Dying left off six years ago. Instead, it begins with Matt and Mick Ballou having one of their late night gabfests during which Matt recounts the story of a childhood friend of his whose path he crossed a couple of times in later years, the final time nearly a year into his sobriety. It’s very much a 12-step novel, as the AA process forms a crucial element of the storyline and Scudder’s struggle to remain sober is soaked into every page.
Next up is The Janus Stone by Elly Griffiths. The main character is a British forensic archaeologist who sometimes assists the police when bones are found at a crime scene.
I’m not sure why fruitcake gets such a bad rap. I love fruitcake. I’ve even made it once, which was a ton of work. My sister sent me two after Christmas, one light and one dark. I used to favor the dark version, but now I think I slightly prefer the light variety.
Watched some football this weekend while reading and doing jigsaw puzzles. I was rooting for the Seattle team simply because they were such underdogs, but they were put in their proper place by Chicago. The Steelers game was interesting because it seemed so one sided in the first half. Was mildly disappointed by the Patriots loss. They didn’t look like their normal powerhouse selves.
Also watched some of the Golden Globes. Gervais. What can you say about him? Cheeky doesn’t even begin to touch it. Tom Hanks and Tim Allen looked like they were the hit men sent out to put him in his place. Some of his jokes were funny, but a lot of them were cringeworthy. My favorite moment of the evening was Kaley Cuoco’s reaction to Jim Parson’s win for The Big Bang Theory, and the way Parsons reacted to it.
I received my first rejection letter of 2010. No, maybe it’s my second one. I think so. They don’t sting quite as much as they once did, but I had hopes for this one. It was intended for Blood Lite 3 but it failed because it wasn’t funny enough, according to the editor, who wrote me a nice message about it. That was my biggest fear. I think the story is quite good, but it’s more satirical than funny. I don’t really do funny well. Droll, maybe. “The Bank Job” has funny moments, but it’s not hilarious. I’ll try placing it somewhere else, of course.
According to CNN, as of this morning there was snow on the ground in all fifty states except Florida. And, yes, that includes Hawaii, the meteorologist clarified, as if someone might speculate that Hawaii wasn’t one of the fifty. Our snow is far north of us, though they keep suggesting that we might get some flurries today. It’s cold enough for it, but I have my doubts.
With my most urgent deadline met, I spent the morning writing session today catching up on email. I’m one of the judges of a fiction contest this year, so there was correspondence pertaining to that that needed my attention, plus a bunch of other things that were accumulating in my INBOX. Happiness is an empty INBOX.
I wrote a 3000-word short story beginning to end this weekend. I’ve been contemplating the story for weeks, and I even made a false start of a few pages on it a while back, but I finally figured out what the story was going to be like and from what perspective it needed to be told. It all came together in my waking moments on Sunday morning. I plotted out about 80% of it in my mind before I was fully awake. When I got to the computer a few hours later, it poured out of me pretty much as I had mentally constructed it. I despaired that I didn’t have a solid ending for it, but that came along naturally, too. It’s a wonky story, more of a satire or parody than anything else. Hopefully it will be received in that context by the editor to whom I sent it this morning after making a couple of more revision passes.
The recommendation period for the 2010 Bram Stoker Awards is winding down. In fact, it ends on January 15th. I don’t campaign for my own work, as a rule, but I would like to advocate for a few anthologies. That category is currently a little sparse, in my opinion.
Next up is 
In most anthologies, you only get one story from a particular author, so you don’t get a good general feel for his or her work. In a Dark Arts sampler, you get four or five. Again, full disclosure, WtNCD has four of my stories in it, but it also has tales by Nate Kenyon, Joseph D’Lacey and Robert Weinberg. If you haven’t read any of these authors, here’s an excellent way to sample diverse works from them. In my case, you’ll find a werewolf story (Silvery Moon), a story about a haunted bookstore (Something in Store), a supernatural detective story (Purgatory Noir) and a story about a guy whose book tour is cursed (Knock ’em Dead).
Another 
For several years, I’ve been trying to remember the title and author of a book I read in high school. I would get close, but it kept slipping away. I thought the author’s first name might be Eric and that he was from Nova Scotia. I remembered one plot point: a man getting trapped by a falling tree. I did all manner of searches, including pouring over lists of Canadian authors from the Maritimes, but to no avail. Then I saw a book last week that my daughter was reading for school and I recognized the format: New Canadian Library. At the back, they had a list of all their titles and I found what I was looking for straight away: The Mountain and the Valley by Ernest Buckler. I now have a used copy of it en route. Wonder if it’s as good as I remember it being.
I finished 