Friday, July 31, 2015

Twenty-five

I finished and submitted my twenty-fifth short story of the year this evening. This one's a 4,600-word fantasy I started writing May 13, 2010.

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Twenty-four

I finished and submitted my twenty-fourth short story this evening. This one's a 5,900-word Christmas confession I started July 15, 2011.

Thursday, July 23, 2015

Twenty-three

I finished and submitted my twenty-third short story of the year earlier this evening. This one's a 3,900-word confession, told from a male POV, that I started writing on July 21, 2011.

Monday, July 20, 2015

ArmadilloCon

I will be at ArmadilloCon in Austin July 24-26, speaking about erotic fiction and story prompts, and reading "Seeds" from Fifty Shades of Green. All of my events are on Saturday, and one-day passes are available. Learn more about the convention at http://2015.armadillocon.org.

If you're there, find me and say howdy.

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Twenty-two

I completed, but did not submit, my twenty-second short story of the year this evening. This one is a 3,000-word bit of crime fiction I started August 31, 2014, and apparently wrote as a trunk story because there is no appropriate market for it at this time. I hope a new market will open soon or an existing market will open for submissions in the near future. Until then...

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Stuff

George Carlin once said, "Your house is just a place for your stuff. If you didn't have so much God damned stuff, you wouldn't need a house. You could just walk around all the time. That's all your house is, it's a pile of stuff with a cover on it."

After 21 years in the same home, my pile of stuff is daunting. My second wife died in this house and a significant amount of the stuff was hers before we married. My third wife spent more than 10 years in this house and added a layer of her stuff to the pile. One of my sons lived here for several years, my daughter lived here for a couple of years, and my other sons have visited. Some of the stuff in this house once belonged to them.

About a year after my third wife and I divorced and my son moved into his own place, I went through every room, clearing away the unwanted, unneeded, or no-longer-useful things that had accumulated. I filled the trash can several times and took many carloads of stuff to Goodwill.

I thought I had done a thorough job. I hadn't. I went through the entire house again several years later and discovered stuff tucked away in places I had not thought to examine--drawers that had gone unopened, boxes not thoroughly rifled through, files of paperwork no longer of value. I eliminated even more stuff during that purge.

A few days ago, I started another purge, one that I anticipate will take much longer because I have already eliminated the stuff of least consequence. Much of what remains has value, either real or emotional, and decisions about what to keep and what to discard will be difficult.

The stuff I hold most dear can be the physical confirmation of treasured memories (photographs of my children), proof of my creative accomplishments (books and periodicals containing my writing), or simply things previously owned by, given to me by, or jointly purchased with a loved one.

This last category of stuff is by far the most difficult. This is the stuff that serves as a lifeline to the past or as an anchor that prevents me from facing the future. Too often I've insisted it was a lifeline while those around me insisted it was an anchor.

Do I have what it takes to weigh the anchor?

The purge I have just begun will answer that question.

Monday, July 13, 2015

21

A few minutes after receiving my 20th acceptance of the year, I received my 21st. This one's a story about love and friendship.

20

I received my 20th acceptance of the year a few minutes ago, this time for a Halloween romance.

Friday, July 03, 2015

Twenty-one

I completed and submitted my twenty-first short story of the year this afternoon. This one's a 2,700-word confession I started writing May 16, 2014.

Wednesday, July 01, 2015

18, 19, and published

I overlooked a brief non-fiction acceptance earlier this year, and I had another non-fiction acceptance and publication today. The first was a brief essay in Writers' Forum #162, and today's acceptance and publication is "Good Writing, In Short," in the July issue of First Draft.