367 Days Later

"Lately it occurs to me / what a long, strange trip it's been."
-- The Grateful Dead

Where does a year go? You flip a few calendar pages, tear down the old one a week into the new year, hang the new one, flip a few more pages, and BAM - one year down. Would that time travel was so easy. (Actually, since time is a matter of arbitrary measure, time travel is as easy as deciding it's last Tuesday. You just need to get everyone else on board. Ergo, the true impediments to time travel are not science or physics, but perception and consensus-building.)

I could probably reconstruct the last year, from relocation to publication, but I'm not in an archeology place. Transitional, perhaps, but if you were around for bits of it, it's rehash for you. If you weren't, well, I suspect you'd care even less now. If you wanted to sift Facebook, I suppose you could see the highs and lows. And mayhap a few things eaten, a few movies seen, a few articles passed along.  I think the big problem is just how digitally fractured I've become.

So in an effort to take back the blog and create a more unified presence, there will be no looking back or reheating last month's lunch. We'll leave it at the Dead quote above. We're looking forward. Blowing away the dust. Blogging as means of relating news, views and IOUs, stepping stone to the personal website in the works (seeing as I've been camping on the URL for a decade), and finding an efficient direction for self-promotion, publication and other writerly pursuits - since the roads to traditional publishing are beginning to look like the southbound route through the El Yunque National Forest. Watch this space for further details.


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Item: I've been accepted as an author for the Kindle All-Stars project. It's the brainchild and labor of writer/editor Bernard J. Schaffer, and it promises to be a barn-burner. For me, it's the opportunity to appear between covers with mentor/inspirer/friend Harlan Ellison while also contributing to a good cause. I'll be posting much more about this project in the coming weeks, but for right now, click for an overview of the project.

Item: As I peck away at the novel and various short stories develop, finalize or set sail for consideration, I'm also mulling the possibility of a limited edition chapbook as part of a website launch. Since that would ideally be in the next few months I am, perhaps, short on time. There are certain things I may need: design the thing, find an artist, shop the print job, figure the price point,  etc, etc.  The alternative might be a broadside, but while I have one in mind for the flash bit "Shady Acres," I mull whether anyone will want to use wall space for my weirdness. In any event, tag that as "you heard it here first".

Item: Believe it or don't, but my first professional publication was five years ago this month, with the appearance of the Poe-centric tale "Mister Eddie" in the pages of Tales of the Unanticipated magazine (#27). Copies are still to be had from TOTU, easily ordered from their website - and at $7.75, a steal.