Monthly Archives: May 2020
This is a bit late today. I got up at 7:00 in the morning and came downstairs and did all the proofing and formatting and… woke up. So, in fact, it wasn’t done. Grumpy, I rolled over and got up and came downstairs and proofread and formatted and then… woke up again. Third time apparently is the charm, but it’s unusual to have dreams that mundane. You can’t call them nightmares because it’s awful only once you’ve woken up and realize that all that theoretical work was a dream and it still has to be done. I have no idea why my subconscious is trying to give me ulcers. I mean… once? Okay. But twice? As I’ve been doing, the story in .pdf download is here. The story has … Continue reading →
There was no post on Saturday, because on Friday, for the first time in over two months, I went into the bookstore. I therefore did not write on Friday, which meant I wrote on Saturday instead. I was asked to come in because “the shelves are a disaster”, and as there’s only been two people in the store — the owner and the full-timer — for the two weeks, I considered it relatively safe, and on Fridays, there’s only one person in the store otherwise. Two of our distributors are sending only full cartons of books, which works for some new releases, but means we’re not getting backlist for those two distributors. They are doing this to cut down on actual handling of books; in order to send us … Continue reading →
It’s Monday again. Today’s short story is What She Won’t Remember. As usual, the .pdf, linked above, can be downloaded for free (you might have to “save as” after you’ve clicked on the link). The book page is here. B&N and iTunes have not gone live yet; the former is propagated through Smashwords. I’ll add links as they go live. This was written for Mike Resnick’s Alternate Outlaws just over a quarter century ago. It was only a little bit longer than what was requested. I was still far more comfortable with novel writing than with short story writing. And in some ways, this has continued, which will probably be a surprise to no one. *** I am still writing. I can’t remember if I mentioned that I’ve sold the … Continue reading →
So, last week I mentioned Dimash Kudaibergen, and linked a couple of clips. The couple of clips were not, of course, all that I listened to — on his official channel he has, ummm, a lot. Including full concerts. But I was very curious — as one is — about who did beat him in the Singer 2017 contest. So… I found the full episodes (there are 13 +1 benefit concert) (someone subtitled them), each about 1 hour and 20 minutes long. Then I had to go to wikipedia because I didn’t understand the contest rules. It’s a contest for professional singers. So you have to be invited to go. But you get voted off the island every second episode. The judges are 500 audience members, and at the end of all performances they list their favorite … Continue reading →
When I was in high school, I took French. In French, the standard curriculum involved the reading of a book – in French, of course – and essays or discussions (also in French) about said book. But our French teacher, Bob, decided to go an entirely different route. He brought in a record (yes, record — no CDs existed at that time, and no MP3s – it was a 33 RPM record), and printout of the back cover sleeve, which contained all the lyrics. The record was for a rock musical, Starmania. We studied specific songs – but of course, we all listened to the entire thing. It is… a younger person’s musical. Also: the French aren’t post-modern in their musicals. There are things that work in French that just do not work in English – like Notre Dame de … Continue reading →
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