• NaNoWriMo2022 Completed

    About 20 minutes ago I reached the end of chapter 29 on a novel I’m not calling First Born. That put me at 50,258 words, which made me a winner of NaNoWriMo for the third straight year. It’s been an interesting and enlightening month of writing and reading and listening to podcasts about marketing. When…

  • NaNoWriMo2022

    Last November 17, I crossed the 50,000-word mark on a literary book I call Yes or No and won NaNoWriMo for the second year, giving me a perfect 2-of-2 record. (I wrote Mother for NaNoWrimo2020.) Tonight I reached 26,647 words. There are a few reasons for the slower progress. The biggest one is the day…

  • I miss the SASE

    I began submitting manuscripts in the mid-1980s. It was all horror. Mostly short stories; novel submissions didn’t begin until the early 1990s. I think. But it’s been a while, so maybe I was sending out The Prometheus Syndrome in the late ’80s. Anyway … I’d put the story (or sample chapters) into the big tan…

  • Help me decide…

    In my continuing quest for employment independence, I’m considering creating a Patreon. What is that? Well, here’s a video that will explain it better than me, but basically, patrons sign up to give me money each month and in exchange I give them free stuff, advance looks, advice, etc. For a really good example, look…

  • 1st Progress Report

    In my quest to become self-employed by June 2023, I have made a few small steps forward. There’s nothing major to report yet, as there is a lot of prep work, but I have accomplished a little, so I thought I’d share it. I have created a spreadsheet listing all of my published titles under…

  • Quest for Independence

    Teaching has lost its luster. I’m not actually teaching. My job, really, is to maintain a tenuous grip on sanity as I battle the chaos that is a room full of 8th graders. It’s stressful. It’s unfulfilling. It’s hell! I fully suspect this will be my last year in education, and that’s IF I make…

  • Books of 2021

    I read 51 books last year, beating my goal of 50 by … that’s right … one. I read a lot of good books, and there were a few stinkers. This is my annual post where I recount the best and worst of the year. If you’d like to see them all, you can click…

  • Good Riddance 2021

    This was a horrible year and I can’t wait to slam the door on it in 32 minutes. Back in March, my 18-year-old dog Bubba had to be put to sleep after being with me for 16 of those years. We’d been dealing with cancer and fluid around his heart and lungs for about a…

  • The Teacher: A Novel

    My first literary novel is available now! It’s been a busy autumn for me. My most recent horror novel, Mother, was released in October. In November, I participated in National Novel Writing Month and produced a 61,000+ word novel called Yes or No, and then, in early December, came my first mainstream literary novel, The…

  • Shift in Perspective

    When I was a younger man I couldn’t imagine writing in any genre other than horror. Now I think I had to make up boogey-men back then because I hadn’t experienced the real monsters of loneliness, depression, and loss. There’s nothing scarier than the human condition. Steven E. Wedel The above is a post I…