This is a sketch I did of my oldest daughter when she discovered her sister got something from the toystore and she didn’t.  (all pen, no pencil, lots of swearing)

Bath Buddy

Just had myself a pleasant bath, although I did find a dead moth floating in the water while cleaning my feet.  It was a small one, thank goodness. (the moth, I mean.  My bath is medium sized.)  I don’t know how I’d have reacted had it been one of those chickadee-sized buggers bobbing up and down there next to me. 

It was kind of funny, because my initial reaction was to wonder if the thing was already in the bath when I first turned on the water, or did it wind up falling in later on?  Funny because really, what does it matter?

It’s actually sort of sad when you think about it:

—an animal drowning because someone wanted to relax in the tub before lunch—  

You know if I were Hindu, I’d probably have wondered what exactly it did in a previous to deserve such a fate. (literary agent?) But I’m not, so the only thing on my mind at the time was how to get the moth out of the water without actually having to touch the stupid thing.  (I wound up using the spaghetti strainer from the kitchen.  All I can say is thank goodness the Mrs. is at work.)

I said this on twitter yesterday and immediately lost five followers.

I like scarecrows.  It’s hard to put my finger on why, exactly.  Maybe it has something to do with the whole ‘artificial man’ thing.  You know, like robots and mannequins. Whatever the reason, every now and then, I feel compelled to draw them. And maybe throw in a garden implement for good measure.

I Did It!

I finally got my first novel up on smashwords!  It’s called Escaping Entry, and, man, I can’t tell you how much of a relief it is to have it up there.  I’ve been working on this monstrosity for seven years —seven whole years!—and to finally have it available to people is both exhilarating and terrifying.

I’ve always had a difficult time making anything I do public, and this is no exception. (I’m drinking vodka right now. Otherwise I’d be in a fetal position on the floor, wondering if I shouldn’t have given it just one more edit.)  I’m trying not to be too silly about it, though. I worked really hard writing this story, and while I know this is highly subjective, I’m confident this will go down as the greatest novel to feature characters named Billy, Harold, Rudy, and Greenie in at least fifty years.

Now comes the hard part: getting the word out. I am, by nature, painfully shy, but if I am ever going to make more than ten dollars from this venture, I must get out there and tell people what I’ve done.  So, to all those people who enjoy fantasy novels and have a hankering for something to read, why don’t you download my novel?  The first five chapters are free, and if you happen to like it, you can purchase the whole thing for 99 cents.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to refill my mug with more vodka.

Wisdom

'nother excerpt from my novel, Escaping Entry

For anyone who knew him, that he should have decided to go for a stroll would not have come as a surprise.  After reading and sleeping, it was his favorite thing to do.   He didn’t have anywhere in particular in mind when he went walking, yet the vast majority of his walks brought him to one of either two destinations, one of them being the wrought iron arch decorating the city’s exit onto the hill.  Tall and black, with the top spreading out like a giant fan, it always struck Billy as gloomy, like a park of dead trees.  Even the roses his father had planted at its base couldn’t hide its depressing nature.  That’s not to say the arch didn’t hold some kind of attraction for Billy; that so many of his walks led through it was a clear indication that it did, and as he approached it on that chilly May morning, he couldn’t help but notice the roses, and how brilliant they looked.

“Must be the weather,” he thought.  “With a day as gray as this one, anything with color is going to stand out.”
He didn’t have time to really think about it though, for almost as soon as he stopped to examine them, a disturbance happened somewhere down the hill.

It sounded like crows, dozens of them.  Not really thinking, Billy started in the direction of the noise.  Could it be the mountain lion?  Or an eagle?  He’d seen a big bird through his bedroom window just the other morning, circling slowly above the rooftops.  Sometimes when an eagle’s soaring brought them too close to a crow’s nest, all the crows in the area would gather into a noisy throng, rushing the larger bird until it decided to leave.  Whatever it was, it must have been causing the crows a considerable amount of stress, because not only did their screaming continue, but it seemed to be gaining in intensity.

“I bet it’s the mountain lion,” Billy said to himself.  “She caught herself a crow and now its friends are trying to drive her away.”

Billy continued down the hill, following the noise through the trees, until he noticed the ground on which he was traveling was level.  “How long have I been walking?” he wondered, anxiously running his fingers through his hair.  The forest he knew existed at an angle, and not to see it like that was enough to send his heart beating.  He wasn’t really lost, though; the road leading back to Entry was only a few yards off to his left.

“That’s a relief!” he said, moving to stand on the road’s edge.  Following its passage through the trees, Billy was able to discern a slight change in angle as it started up an incline.  “So if the hill’s back there,” he thought, turning to peer in the opposite direction, “the flats must be relatively close by!”  He stood there, picturing the road as it exited the forest to cut across a vast prairie.  And then it occurred to him: “What would happen if I kept going?”

It was while Billy was contemplating the ridiculousness of that thought that he noticed how still the forest was.  “What happened to the crows?” he wondered.  It wasn’t much later that a bloodcurdling howl filled the air.  Too terrible to be a dog, it caused the hair on his neck to stand to attention.  The horrible noise was still echoing through the trees when a second noise appeared: the cries of a man frantically calling for help.