Is it morning already

I swear I need to get to bed early tonight. I have already been up for an hour and a half and that was after I was up way too long with my son last night. God only knows why he woke in the first place. I am getting way too old for this stuff.

The house is quiet now, my boy is sleeping (for how much longer I don't know) and the resident college student is still asleep as well. Everyone else in the house has either gone to work or school.

I am considering taking this time to edit my 2012 story, although I really want to start on my Dead Bait piece as well. I am thinking of using the character I used in the piece I sent to Devil's Food. He was an interesting character and he liked to fish so I think I can make something work. Plus I have the added bonus of already knowing the character (even though that could work to my disadvantage and I might not include enough about him to make him real in this story.) I think I can do it, especially if I know where the potential weakness may lie.

I know I am procrastinating my book Invasion but I can't help it. I feel I can jump back into a book easier than I can write short stories right now (damn my fingers. They aren't working at all today. I have to keep one finger on the delete key) I had better get a pot of coffee going and start the day. Good luck to everyone and happy Wednesday.

Done, with that one

I am done with my Devil's Food story, Mr. Calloway's Dirt Farm and it is off. I am pretty happy with it and I am glad I had some help with it, especially the beginning (Thank you Aaron and my wife, Ann!) It would probably have worked equally as well with the Dead Bait antho but I started it for Devil's Food so that is where it is going, at least first. I am thinking of re-using the title character and farm pond for the Bait story. I liked the setting and it reminded me of home, only without man-eating bait.

That was all I got done yesterday because I had to run to the doctor. I found out I have had a kidney infection for a week or so. they gave me muscle relaxers but, gosh-darnnit, I have a pretty high tolerance for that type of stuff so they don't throw me for a loop (Actually, that is one of the reasons I have never tried drugs.) My children (one is on break from school) don't let me get a lot done during the day and at night I am too busy to write (my creative juices don't flow well at night anyway, kind of my lag time. I think my mind actually shuts off right after supper.)



I am still debating working on a short story or continuing my novel today. Just as long as I get something on paper, I really don't care I guess. (I am still down to one short story a month. I know- quality not quantity)

Merry Week before Christmas

Congratulations Barry Napier. You are the proud owner of Jonis Agee's Book, A .38 Special and a Broken Heart. Send me your address to jeyberg74@gmail (dot) com and I will be happy to get it in to you. I hope you enjoy it.

In other news, the ice storm they are predicting for the area hasn't hit yet. In fact it is sunny with blue sky right now but if they are half right by tonight I will be in the thick of it with stinging pellets of frozen water accumulating on everything they come in contact with.

I re-wrote the beginning of "Mr. Calloway's Dirt Farm" yesterday. I am waiting to see which opening my wife likes better (if she likes them at all). Then I managed to get another 750 words into Invasion. It currently sits at around 56000 words although I know some of it needs to be taken out in the editing process.

Well, I will now sit back, watch Jack's Big Music Show with my kid and wait for Barry's address so I can run to town, mail the book and get some milk before the snow flies.

Last day

Today is the last day to enter the drawing for Jonis Agee's very cool book, A .38 Special and a Broken Heart (It sounds like a title that Cate would have come up with.) If you haven't signed up go here.

today is supposed to be the nice day around here. Not too cold. No snow. No wind. A pretty good day for the season. Tomorrow is supposed to turn to crap. Ice accumulations of up to 1 inch and snow on top of that. If that happens it will look like what Tim Deal is dealing with in New Hampshire right now. I hope the forecast is wrong because while it is still really neat to hear a tree snap (and we aren't talking small trees here, we are talking TREES, like the climbing kind) I don't want to break out the chainsaw any time soon.

Guess I don't have a whole lot to say right now. I have to re-write the beginning of my Devil's Food Story (Thank you Aaron, I was kind of thinking the first two pages or so needed to be scrapped but I didn't know what to do with it) Now I have an idea to go with and I am going to run with it. That has been a fun story to write. I do hope it makes it into a format that everyone can get their hands on.

Until tomorrow, when I post who needs to get me their address, have a good day.

New story up

First off, I want to thank Cindy Crosmus over at Yellow Mama for accepting my short piece Fire and Brimstone. It is up and available for anyone that wants to read it now.

My contest, not much of a contest more of a drawing, is still going and I want to thank everyone for the reading suggestions. (By the way Aaron, The Things they Carried is an awesome story. I have it in an anthology somewhere. I had almost forgotten about it.) Post your entry here.

I also want everyone to read Cate and Aaron's posts about snarkyness in the writing community, that is, if you haven't already read them. They are very honest about this very real problem in our very small communty.

Now that business is taken care of, my plans for the week involve editing my entry for the Devil's Food Anthology, Mr. Calloway's Dirt Farm. I hope that after re-reading it, it sounds as good as I remember writing it (They rarely do but I can still hope). I am still working on my NaNo book (yes I realize that NaNo has been over for a couple of weeks now but I am fleshing the story out) and I hope to bring it closer to done every day although I have cut my daily production on it in half or more (750 to 1000 words a day instead of 2000-2500) I am still enjoying writing it and I can see the end in sight.

In case any of you missed the post, Tim Deal over at Shroud publications has been socked by the ice storm that made N.H. an iceball and some things are going to be delayed until they get power back. I told him in a comment post that it reminded me of October 1991 when Iowa was nailed by a major ice storm. I was working at a grocery store at the time and it started as all ice storms do, with rain. Soon it changed over to ice and we stood at the back door of the store and listened to trees break under the weight of the ice. It sounded like rifle shots going off. soon the power was out and we were handing out flashlights to customers with markers so they could mark the price of the groceries on whatever they were buying. It was nuts but me and one of my buddies Jared Rickabaugh had a blast. He had a Ford Festiva and we went sliding through town in that thing. If it slid off the road into the ditch I just got out and pushed us out and we would do it all over again. good times. Great memories, althought they actually called off Halloween that year. some people didn't get power back for almost a month but my families house was only out for seven days.

Talk at you all later, this concludes another issue of Jamie's storytime.

nothing but fun

I love it when a seemingly good story comes together. Granted "Mr. Calloway's Dirt Farm" isn't finished yet but I really like where it is going. I just hope that the Devil's Food people like it as much as I have enjoyed working on it. I can honestly say it doesn't seem like work. I am taking my time with it to be sure. I have worked on it all week and I started last week and I am only 2800 words into it. I am not sure how many I will have in it when I wrap it up. It is just taking its time and, as I said earlier, I am pleased so far.

The Apex Digest raffle ends today. They have some really kick butt stuff in there and you too can have a chance at for only a dollar each. they have said that the tickets have been going very s-l-o-w so your chances of winning are better than they should be.

I am pleased to say that I think, kinda, like Carrie Harris at least when it comes to which celebrity is which creature (can we really say that Paul Rubens is a celebrity? At least he was in a Tim Burton film.)

Oh, and I forgot to caption the picture I posted yesterday. It was taken earlier this year about three miles from my house from the window of my van on a gravel road. It was a family drive to look at the fall colors. I thought it turned out rather well.

Rambling man

Okay, a multitude of completely non-related things today.

First off- My daughters school play was last night, she is in kindergarten and was snowflake like the rest of her class. I was amazed that the class, as a whole, could carry a tune. Much better than the first graders but not as good as the third graders. It was a fun and brief time. While we were in the school gymnasium though ice was accumulating on the roads outside so the drive home was slick and very slow. I was thankful that I live on a road that doesn't get a lot of traffic. Meanwhile, this morning, every school around my district called school off or had a two hour late start but we were right on time. The bus slid to stop in front of our house and I haven't heard of any bus accidents yet so they must have made it.

Second- I have seven stories out that have been at their perspective markets for over 100 days (I actually just deleted the word years) one has been out for 337 days and From the Asylum has had a story for 297 days (They still seem to be up and running so I don't know what is going on there) The others have either just hit the 100 day mark or are one 30 or 40 days over that. I think I have hit an editorial black hole. (Yes one of those markets is Boston Review at 130 days now. So much for their average of 57 days.) The rest I didn't expect to hear back from yet so I won't name names here. I knew they had long lead times and I am fine with that. (I have also had one at Apex Digest for 40-some days now. I only mention that because I really like the story I sent them. It received an Honorable Mention, along with one of Cate's stories, in the Return to Luna Antho which I need to order)

Third thing- I am taking a couple of days off from novel writing to work on a short story for the Devil's Food Antho. The story is really starting to go places that I like and despite the antho's title I am not making this story a bloodbath. It is actually coming along quite nicely (well, people are going to die but the story is coming along nicely, although my main characters true colors have yet to show.) I hope I like the end result as much as I like the way it has started. I don't know what it is reminding me of yet. maybe a Mark Twain meets Hemmingway meets Brian Keene. (You figure that one out) Needless to say it is, stylistically, unlike anything I have written before and I am really enjoying the process.

I also want to thank everyone who had an opinion on yesterdays post. I thought it was something that needed saying. I am sorry if it sounded like a lecture by Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.