Was it just me, or was January the longest month ever? I really did feel I was on Monday, January 73rd. Maybe it’s because the weather here has been really, really crappy this year. We’ve had a lot more snow and cold than usual, which is really saying a lot for North Dakota.

Hopefully, things will be better this month. At least there’s a spark of hope, as we can start making camping reservations in the middle of this month! At least that gives us something to look forward to!

As always, it’s been Busy City around here.

I started my new class and officially added communication as a minor, but I’m really starting to think about switching it to be my major. We will see what happens. I’m really enjoying the class, especially the fact that it’s online so I don’t have to slog across campus this shitty winter. Weather aside, the class is interesting and, honestly, it seems a lot less stressful and there seems to be a lot less work than what I experienced with my English classes. Not that I’m complaining, mind you, I loved my English classes. But sometimes the workload seemed ridiculous (one class consisted of ten small papers and two long papers; reading was regularly 75+ pages between class meetings). The work in my current class is quite manageable. I’m not sure if that’s a function of it being a different department (comm vs Engl), because it’s online, or because it’s a lower-level class (200-level vs the 300-400+ levels I was taking in English). Maybe it’s for all of those reasons. Either way, so far so good, and I’m enjoying it.

And for those of you who were following my parking ticket drama, the ticket WAS voided and everyone in our department can now park in the “Research” lot at the vivarium, as we always should have been able to. It did, however, burn my butt when, for two or three days toward the end of last week, there was a personal vehicle parked in one of the “service vehicle only” spots at the vivarium. So, I park in a spot I should have always been designated to, and I get a ticket; but this personal vehicle keeps parking in service spots, which there’s no way it’s authorized to, and I have yet to see a ticket fluttering on its windshield. I didn’t call parking services on it yet because I’m trying to be a better person, but that can only go on for so long, lol.

More good news: I also received the official hard copy of my diploma and now have that hanging in my office, so woot for that!

One of the fun things I did recently was to participate in a mystery book exchange on Facebook. This one was run by a friend, so I knew the exchange was legit. The book was done “secret santa” style, so I didn’t know the person I drew.

The idea was to send them a favorite book, so my first two thoughts were Watership Down, by Richard Adams, and Love Medicine, by Louise Erdrich. After I thought a little more, I assumed that the person would likely be a fan of horror/scifi, given our common friend, and so those might really miss the mark. On the other hand, I couldn’t pick a standard in the genre (like a Stephen King book) because they likely would have read it all already.

I finally decide on the first book in the Wayward Pines series, Pines, by Blake Crouch. In spite of being turned into a miniseries on Fox, it’s not as widely known as it should be. It’s clever and interesting with some twists you see coming, and then twists where you *thought* you knew what was going to happen, but really didn’t. I like that in a book. So, I thought I’d try that one for my book exchange person.

Of course, I ran into a problem right out of the gate. I hopped on to Amazon to buy the book and have it sent directly to the name on my list, but new copies weren’t available and used copies ranged from $35 to $85.

Undeterred but muttering “the hell if I’m going to pay $35 for a book for a stranger,” I surfed over to eBay and found a couple of copies for $5. I bought two, one for myself and one for my recipient. I had both sent to me to first to make sure that both are in good condition. I don’t want to send someone a horseshit copy. It delayed my book getting to the recipient (I hope they didn’t think I forgot them) and it cost a little more in postage ($7 for first class, yikes), but it was worth it.

Frankly, I think there should be more of these. It’s a lot of fun, especially when it’s complete strangers. If I did a book exchange at work, then I’d just get books that my coworkers would think I would like, you know? With strangers, you definitely get a chance to try something new. As evidenced by the book I received (not from the same person I sent to): Bang the Drum Slowly, by Mark Harris. I look forward to reading it!

I’ve been doing pretty good on my mindfulness/wellness goal of taking a picture a day. I started out doing it on Instagram, but I abandoned that pretty quickly because Instagram is nothing but trash. So about halfway through January I stopped posting on my Instagram author account and started posting my picture of the day on a new WordPress site. It’s certainly nothing exciting, but if you are curious or bored, you can check it out here:

My Picture of the Day site

And believe it or not, I actually made some progress on writing. I started with resubmitting some stories.

Part of what slows me down on getting back on track with my writing is fixing all the records I pretty much abandoned last year. Normally, submitting a story involves researching to find a publication that the story would fit with, reformatting the story so that it meets the style guide of the publication, sending the story off, and updating the records of the story to say when and where it was sent. Then, those records are updated when I hear back on the story.

Since I pretty much just stopped all the writing business in July and haven’t even bothered to update records since, I’m finding that I have stories that were sent out in last February that I’ve never heard back on and have to hunt down what happened. I’ve got stories that were rejected as far back as May that haven’t had their records updated (so they still show basically as “pending”). And I even have stories “pending” at publications that have since went out of business.

In other words, my records are a mess, which really complicates the submission process.

In spite of that, I’ve gotten four of my stories submitted to new markets. I’m working on two new stories. And, I’m working on an odd (for me) writing project (more on that later).

So the good news is, there is finally some progress on my writing goals. YAY ME!

Also, there has been progress on my reading goals.

January 2022 #500Stories500Nights

• 1: “Love and Assimilation,” by Bryce Heckman (Tales to Terrify 510)
• 2: “Junippy Paw,” by Gordon B White (Tales to Terrify 510)
• 3: “The Lunch Pail,” by WB Stickel (Nocturnal Transmissions 112)
• 4: “Joey and Rue,” by Dominick Cancilla (Podcasts from 3F)
• 5: “Mum,” by Luke Kondor (The Other Stories 67.1)
• 6: “Migration,” by Laura Garrity (Overcast 154)
• 7: “An Acid Trip Through Time,” by Michelle Lane (The Wicked Library 1102)
• 8: “The Masque of the Red Death,” by Poe (Tales From Beyond the Pale 49)
• 9: “The Hollow,” by Greg Jackson (The New Yorker: The Writer’s Voice, 11-22-21)
• 10: “In the Name of Bobby,” by Julio Cortazar (The New Yorker: Fiction, 11-1-21)
• 11: “Smoke Bomb,” by Matt Thompson (StarShipSofa 674)
• 12: “Fairness,” by Chinelo Okparanta (Selected Shorts, 11-18-21)
• 13: “Little Nightmares, Little Dreams,” by Rachel Simon (Selected Shorts, 11-18-21)
• 14: “Little Free Library,” by Naomi Kritzer (Cast of Wonders 474)
• 15: “Girls Have Sharp Teeth,” by Genevieve Mills (Fantasy Magazine Podcast, 11-23-21)
• 16: “Shock of Birth,” by Cadwell Turnbull (LeVar Burton Reads, 8-23-21)
• 17: “Inkmorphia,” by Julianna Baggott (Nightmare Magazine, 11-17-21)
• 18: “Mulberry and Owl,” by Aliette de Bodard (Uncanny 42A)
• 19: “Licking Roadkill,” by Richard E Dansky (Pseudopod 786)
• 20: “The Doom That Came to Sarnath,” HP Lovecraft (Drabblecast 454)
• 21: “It Creeps in the Corners,” by Erik McHatton (Tales to Terrify 516)
• 22: “The Only Way Out is Through,” by Alex Laurel Lanz (Tales to Terrify 516)
• 23: “Insectivorous,” by Joe Palumbo (Nocturnal Transmissions 114)
• 24: “There’s Something in the House,” by Thomas Teller (The Other Stories 72.1)
• 25: “Truer Love,” by Edd Vick (The Overcast 155)
• 26: “The Sound of Madness,” by Ricardo Victoria (The Wicked Library 1103)
• 27: “The Falls,” by George Saunders (The New Yorker: Fiction, 12-1-21)
• 28: “Not Here You Don’t,” by Thomas McGuane (The New Yorker: The Writer’s Voice, 10-12-21)
• 29: “Stars So Sharp They Break the Skin,” by Matthew Sanborn Smith (StarShipSofa 677)
• 30: “The Elevator Dancer,” by NK Jemisin (Selected Shorts, 11-25-21)
• 31: “Marigolds,” by Eugenia W Collier (Selected Shorts, 11-25-21)

In addition to the short stories, I finished reading Crooked Hallelujah, by Kelli Jo Ford.

I finished reading Stoicism for Inner Peace, by Einzelganger.

I haven’t made much progress on the two reads I’ve been working on for months; I’m still working on Walking Dead and Philosophy and still working on Moby Dick.

Next up on my reading list are books related to the UND Writers Conference coming up in March. I’ll have to double-check, but I think I’ve purchased at least one work written by all the conference authors, which means I have a lot of reading to do!

To aid getting back on track with my writing, I’ve been prowling the internet for calls for submissions. Not only is that a good way to find markets for existing stories, some submission calls have a theme which can inspire a new story. For example, one of the calls I found is for stories about giant bugs. I haven’t written a giant bug story in a while, so I think I might try it!

The prowling reminded me of one of my . . . traits? quirks? handicaps? . . . as a writer. While I treat the act of writing as an art, I treat publishing as 100% a business with a product to sell. I make art; but then I want to *sell* that art!

For example, a penny a word is my minimum for submitting. I see a ton of calls for $10 or whatever, but unless the pay rate works out to be at least a penny a word, that’s not for me. This is actually somewhat unusual because there is a large cohort of writers that follow the “for the exposure” theory of publishing. That theory follows the belief that the more publications you have, the more name recognition you earn, which parlays into higher pay later. I agree with the writing cohort that says, “do accountants, car mechanics, and lawyers work for free to gain name recognition?” I guess you could call our theory of publishing the “show me the money” method! I’m not saying one method is better than the other. Heck, there are a lot of writers that I recognize because they are being published *everywhere* for free, which means that part of their method definitely looks like it works!

Another example is that I never, EVER enter contests. I don’t mean the kind where a publisher recommends your work for the Pushcart Prize; I’m talking about the ones the writer has to actively and intentionally enter.

First, a lot of contests require a fee. While I do understand that the fees cover the costs associated with the contest, I stand firm on the belief that money should only flow toward the writer.

Second, the danger is that might end up giving away your story, which means you are giving away your product for free. In a lot of contests, your story gets published whether you win or not. Really, you are gambling. You ante up your story in the hopes you’ll take the pot. If you don’t win the pot, your story gets published by the contest and can never be published anywhere else except at reprint rates. Again, not a judgment call on entering contests, but it doesn’t fit with my writing business.

BUT, in an immediate example of every rule has an exception, I actually *am* entering a writing contest . . . for poetry. One of my unstated goals for this year is to dabble in other writing. During my prowling of sub calls, I found a cute little poetry contest I plan to enter. It’s really outside my comfort zone. I’m willing to take the gamble on trying something new. I have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning, but it’s a fun little exercise in refreshing the creative well by trying something new.

Here’s a link if you want to see what type of writing I’m going to be trying: Scifaiku!

And, last but not least (or more accurately, “holy crap I almost forgot”), the question of the month:

What’s the dumbest way you’ve been injured?

I don’t know. I’ve been injured so many dumb ways! The top two would either have to be the time I nearly cut my finger off trying to slice through a frozen kielbasa, or the time I had to go to the ER in Grand Forks, North Dakota to have a porcupine quill pulled out of my thigh. I was the highlight of the ER that night, as there are no porcupines for many miles from here, and none of the doctors had ever, in their whole careers, ever had to pull a porcupine quill out of a human being. There was some debate on whether they should maybe call in an expert for my case . . . a veterinarian. Fortunately, after waiting while every single person on staff that night tromped in to see the spectacle and hear my lame story, a quick surgery removed the quill and left me with no noticeable scar.

And for those wondering how I got the quill? I had decided I was going to learn how to do quillwork (crafts using porcupine quills), and I decided a good place to work would be in front of my patio door because the light was good there. At some point, I either dropped a quill on the floor or one blew out of the jar (because I was sitting in front of the open patio door). I was working sitting cross-legged on the floor, and at some point, I shifted and rested my leg on top of the quill. The rest is Grand Forks history.

That’s it for this month (see, I told you it was January 912th; look at how long this post was)!

Until next month, stay spooky, my friends!

Happy New Year!

Lord have mercy, let’s hope this year is better than the last two! Hubby and I did our ritual of burning the calendar to get rid of the bad juju from the past year. We were going to skip it this year because it is ridiculously cold here (it was -37F this morning with a minus fifty-something wind chill), but he was so angry and sick of last year that he decided he was going to do it in spite of the weather. So we put the 2021 calendar into the fire pit outside, doused it in lighter fluid, and burned that bitch to ashes!

The good news is, I’m officially a college graduate. The bad news, I’m not sure when I’ll be receiving my diploma. See, I’m in a dispute with our parking office, and they have a ridiculous amount of power. I have a hold on my student account (transcript something-or-other) which I’m assuming means they aren’t releasing my diploma until the parking ticket is resolved. I’m a little worried that if it isn’t resolved before classes start, they might even cancel my registration!

Anyway, this all happened because I drove my own car over to the vivarium and parked in “research” parking. I’ve done it before several times over the last three years. The girl who had the job before me did it. But, for whatever reason, I got a parking ticket this time. Thinking it was an error, I filed an appeal. I mean, I work for the Center for Biomedical RESEARCH, and I transport and take care of the RESEARCH animals, and my email address ends in RESEARCH.edu. I should be authorized for the research lot next to my vivarium, right?

They rejected my appeal.

I requested an in-person meeting. They denied it, saying the only way they allow in-person meetings is if there is significant (their emphasis) additional information that I was not in violation. You mean besides the stuff I just listed?

So then I asked, who CAN park in the research area, then? They replied that they can’t tell me that.

Seriously?

So I may be in violation, or it might be a clerical error, but you can’t tell me which.

They did say, “We have a list of names that are allowed to park there.” Obviously, I must not be on that list, so I talked to my supervisor. He was as shocked as I was. He parks there. All my coworkers park there. Worse still, no one ever asked him for a list! And when I do take my personal vehicle over there, it’s usually because my supervisor wants to use our mouse-transport van for other business (like picking up parts for our wash bays, etc).

So our admin, on behalf of my supervisor, sent an email to them saying the ticket should be voided, that we need to park there to tend to the vivarium, and here is the list of names that should be added.

The parking office replied, “The list of names is given to us by the SMHS.” In other words, they politely told the admin and the CBR supervisor to bugger off, that they aren’t high enough on the food chain to request parking at a facility that we are partly responsible for.

Of course, the holiday has delayed any further progress on it, so I won’t know what happens next until some time next week. I know our admin had copied a couple of folks from the SMHS on the emails, but I didn’t see any responses or reactions from them. Either that was handled in private, or perhaps they were already gone for the holiday.

So you’ll have to wait until next month to see how “RESEARCH tech vs Parking office” ends. Even if it has a happy ending for me, I feel bad for all the students that have to deal with this over-reaching parking office. Can you imagine if you were some kid from Ohio who graduated and went back home, and you needed your transcript for the job you had lined up, but the parking office was holding it hostage because of a parking ticket? I would be livid!

My reading and writing were pretty stagnant in December. There was just a lot of other stuff vying for my attention.

On the writing front, I accomplished absolutely nothing other than finishing off that final for my last English class.

I’m still listening to the audiobook version of Moby Dick;

I’m still working on The Walking Dead and Philosophy;

I failed on #500Stories500Nights again. Got one good month, then fell off the track again. Ah, well. It’s a new year.

I did finish two ebooks: Plague, by HW Buzz Bernard, and DRYP The Final Pandemic, by RA Scheuring. I love books about pathogens, so I enjoyed them both.

I’ve also started Crooked Hallelujah, by Kelli Jo Ford (in actual dead tree book form)!

Another “thing” that I’m starting is the study of the philosophy of stoicism. There are a couple of different books that I’ll be working on as part of it. Part of it will be The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman (and the accompanying journal), and also the Stoic Six Pack: Meditations, The Golden Sayings, Fragments, Discourses of Epictetus, Letters from a Stoic, and The Enchiridion. Nothing like a light reading project!

I am also trying to learn wood carving. It’s something I’ve always thought about trying, and hubby’s been encouraging me to find something that we could do together out in his workshop.

He does all kinds of woodworking. He’s built a lot of things around the house and camper (like custom doggy steps for our bed in the camper, a custom storage unit for the camper, my beautiful–but dusty–altar pictured above, and even those crows above the altar). So I’ve been watching some YouTube videos and once the supplies come, I’m going to try it. Even if I never get good at it, it’s something hubby and I can do in his workshop together, working side-by-side. I just hope I don’t lose any fingers. I’m not one of those writers who is very good with dictation software, so I kinda need all my fingers.

Last but not least, let’s get to that goal I set of doing a “question of the month” here on the blog.

For this month’s question, I picked: what’s the worst job you’ve ever had?

That’s a complex question. I’ve always been really flighty in my employment, flitting from job to job. Up until my current job, the longest I’d ever stayed at a job was two years. When you spend that much time changing jobs, you tend to have a wide range of employment, and a lot of them are pretty shitty jobs.

One job clearly stands out as the worst, though, and it’s one of TWO brief jobs that I had right before I took my current job. And when I say brief, I mean BRIEF!

The first job, I lasted only three days. It was night shift sorter at the post office. I was hired part-time, no benefits, but I ended up putting in thirty-six hours in those three days. When I asked my co-workers, “Wow. When are they going to hire enough people that it won’t be like this anymore?” They laughed and exchanged knowing glances. One gal stepped forward and said she’d been doing the job for seven years, and it had *always* been like that. They said they just gradually got used to it, and by the time they realized they were always going to be working twelve to sixteen hours a day, six days a week, they were so in love with the crazy amount of money that they were making, they couldn’t walk away. Well, maybe they couldn’t . . . . I walked.

I went straight from that job into the worst job I ever had: pest control call center. The job was an awful lot like telemarketing, except that some of your contacts were also regular customers. But whether you were making cold contact or they were contacting you, the icing on the cake was spending the whole day talking about bedbugs and mice and cockroaches in five-star hotels and fancy restaurants in places like Vegas and Beverly Hills. Yay! Jobs like that will make you never want to travel (or eat anywhere) again! God it was awful. I think I lasted three weeks or so at that job, and the only reason I lasted that long was because the first week or two was training. Once I got out of the training modules and on the phone, I soured on the job pretty quickly.

Almost worse than the job itself was the animosity from the other workers. This job was one of those places that tries to screw over “employees” by hiring everyone through a temp agency. So most of the workers there were unbenefitted and not “guaranteed” continued employment (not that anyone is “guaranteed”, but you know what I mean). For reasons I don’t quite understand, I was hired as a standard employee, not through a temp agency. So I had more benefits and job security than everyone else, and they were pretty pissed about it. I bet they were even more pissed when they found out I just abruptly quit my “cushy” job. Bleh. One man’s shit show is another man’s stable income, I guess, and that one just wasn’t for me.

Thankfully, I saw an ad for my current job shortly after, and that’s where I’ve been ever since, nine years and counting!

That’s it for this month, folks! Hopefully next month I’ll be able to tell you all about the really cool short story I’m working on, LOL!

Until then, stay spooky!

Welcome to the last month of 2021. There’s finally light at the end of the tunnel . . . but, with the shit show the last two years have been, let’s hope the light isn’t a flaming tree!

I’m not going to do my usual “how did I do on my goals” year-end post, because we all KNOW how that went! Instead, I’m just going to skip to my goals for 2022.

My writing goals for this year are going to be small and manageable. I want to put the enjoyment back into writing and also leave time for adventuring. With that in mind, I’m setting a goal of writing six new short stories/flash pieces and doing three reprint submissions (half the number of new short stories). That’s it, the entirety of my writing goals for 2022. I can do more if time and desire permit, but that’s my minimum.

My reading goals are going to be expanded this year. In addition to keeping #500Stories500Nights, I’m setting a goal of reading at least three long nonfiction works. These can be my long put-off Lovecraft letters/essays, books on the craft, any of the pop culture and philosophy/psychology books I love so much, etc. Below is a pic of my most current TBR shelves.

I am setting a goal of reading six novel-length works. This one should be easy since I listen to audiobooks at work. I know I read at least six novels this year (heck, I think I read six CORDYCEPS novels this year, lol).

Odds and ends “author goals” include an image a day over on my Instagram. While it’s part of my “author platform,” it’s also for my mental health, because it makes sure I’m mindful during the long winter (a stop and smell the roses moment initiated by the necessity of finding a photo to take).

Another odds and ends “author goal” is to add a monthly get to know me question on this blog. It’s to make it a little more personal.

Speaking of personal, I have some personal goals, old and new, this year.

I’m going to try and jump back on the journaling bandwagon. I’ve never been very good at it, and though I’ve been doing it sporadically since this summer’s insanity, I’m still not doing very good at it. BUT! When I do, I enjoy it. So I’m going to try and make it a daily habit, even if it’s only a sentence or two per day.

I’m going to get back into my exercise program. It’s been hit and miss (more miss) since we moved into this house three years ago. Hubby is on a diet due to medical issues, so I’m jumping on that bandwagon too. My A1C isn’t that great, so I could use some mindful eating (Hey! I think that’s going to be my word for 2022: MINDFUL). I’ve built a pretty impressive home gym, plus have several apps/memberships, so there should be no excuses about not having the right equipment or tools to exercise!

So that’s my plan for MINDFUL 2022.

Now. What did I accomplish last month?

Nothing as far as writing. Actually, I take that back. I’m currently in the middle of working on the final for my last English class before my graduation. Our take-home final is a “short” essay assignment. Three questions. Each questions is supposed to be answered in two pages. Single-spaced. So . . . in essence, my final assignment of this class is to pull off a twelve-page paper in two weeks. Did I mention I’m continuing school after I graduate? Yeah. That’s another reason for the smaller writing goals next year. I’m entering a new program, and I don’t know what it’s going to be like. Maybe in that program, the assignments are going to be fifteen-page papers. I’m hedging my bets.

I did accomplish some reading. I finished Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff, and I loved it. The audiobook I’ve started now is Melville’s Moby Dick. It’s a 25-ish hour audio book, so I’m going to be at it a while.

I’m still working on The Walking Dead and Philosphy: Zombie Apocalypse Now by Wayne Yuen. There’s a part in it where they talk about hooking a bunch of zombies up to make a rudimentary computer. It’s not as crazy as it sounds, since computing is just a state of zeros or ones. The best part is, when building a computer out of zombies, how many zombies make a megabyte? (waka waka)!

And, without further ado, after a four-month absence, here is my #500Stories500Nights list for November!

• 1: “Ghost Birds,” by Karen Russell (The New Yorker: The Writer’s Voice, 10-5-21)
• 2: “Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey,” by Haruki Murakami (The New Yorker: Fiction, 9-1-21)
• 3: “Half Past the Dragon,” by Grant Carrington (StarShipSofa 671)
• 4: “Loose Change,” by Andrea Levy (Selected Shorts 10-21-21)
• 5: “Anyone Can Do It,” by Manuel Munoz (Selected Shorts 10-21-21)
• 6: “Matches,” by Sydney Paige (Cast of Wonders 470)
• 7: “Glimpses in Amber,” by Adam-Troy Castro (Nightmare Magazine podcast, 11-3-21)
• 8: “The Years of My Birth,” by Louise Erdrich (LeVar Burton Reads, 8-9-21)
• 9: “Heirlooms,” by Zebib KA (Fantasy Magazine Podcast, 10-12-21)
• 10: “The Wishing Pool,” by Tananarive Due (Uncanny Magazine Podcast 41A)
• 11: “The Flickering Dusk of the Video God,” by Luciano Marano (Pseudopod 780)
• 12: “How to Get Back to the Forest,” by Sofia Samatar (Drabblecast 451)
• 13: “The Black Cat,” by Poe (Nocturnal Transmissions 115)
• 14: “Teeth,” by Michael Teasdale (The Other Stories 69.4)
• 15: “The Great Angel Deluge and How It (Nearly) Ruined My Special Day,” by Patrick Barb (Tales to Terrify 508)
• 16: “Marry the Rat,” by LM Zaerr (The Overcast 159)
• 17: “My Last Skinwalker,” by Carolyn A Drake (The Wicked Library TDiB S1E13, 9-19-21)
• 18: “Game Night,” by Glenn McQuaid (Tales From Beyond the Pale 48)
• 19: “The Haunting of Hajji Hotak,” by Jamil Jan Kochai (The New Yorker: The Writer’s Voice, 11-1-21)
• 20: “The Balloon,” by Donald Barthelme (The New Yorker: Fiction, 10-1-21)
• 21: “Forty-Flesh Barrier,” by Raluca Balasa (StarShipSofa 670)
• 22: “Yours Truly,” by AM Homes (Selected Shorts, 10-28-21)
• 23: “Omakase,” by Weike Wang (Selected Shorts, 10-28-21)
• 24: “What If We Remembered?” by Amadin Ogbewe (Cast of Wonders 469)
• 25: “An Arrangement of Moss and Dirt,” by KP Kulski (Fantasy Magazine Podcast 9-28-21)
• 26: “On the Lonely Shore,” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (LeVar Burton Reads, 9-6-21)
• 27: “Caw,” by WC Dunlap (Nightmare Magazine Podcast, 10-6-21)
• 28: “Presque vue,” by Tochi Onyebuchi (Uncanny Magazine Podcast 41B)
• 29: “Sleep Hygiene,” by Gemma Files (Pseudopod 783)
• 30: “Watch Anya Blume,” by Michael Piel (Drabblecast 452)

Okay! It’s late and I have a paper to write, so here’s a picture of my cool light that reminds me of The Crystalline Entity from Star Trek TNG. Happy Holidays, and I can’t wait to see you in the New Year!

Welcome to NaNoWriMo, which every writer except me seems to be doing this month!

For those unfamiliar with the term, NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. During November, writers all over the world participate in a challenge to write 50K words during the month. Yeah, technically not the standard length for a novel, but a good start for the word count standards of most genres.

As a short story writer, I haven’t done NaNo in years. I had considered doing a modified NaNo this year to get back into the swing of writing…maybe just 50K across multiple short stories. Of course, my average short story length is 3-5K, so that means I’d have to write ten to sixteen short stories and, well, as you can see from the lateness of this post (cough, cough), I’ve been busy and behind on everything, so 50K just isn’t going to happen this month.

I’ll be happy if I just get ONE short story written this month. The bar is low, baby, and I still ain’t making it, lol!

That’s okay. There’s always next year!

As for reading, I finished The Last Survivors and settled on Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese as my next read. I liked it, but I had no idea just how much hockey figured into this book. I don’t understand why this book isn’t required reading in every high school here where I live. I kinda wish I had bought it in book form rather than the audiobook. Book-form would have made it easier to skip the in-depth hockey parts.

After that, I was perusing for another audiobook to listen to, and I settled on The Phoenix Descent, by Chuck Grossart. Guess what it’s about? Yep. You got it. Cordyceps fungus. This time, the story involves time travel. People on the mission to Mars get sent ahead in time 200 years and return to earth after cordyceps fungus has caused an apocalypse.

I had alway thought the cordyceps fungus was fascinating, and I always thought I might write a story about it. Now I’m disinclined to, lol.

For a nonfiction read, I’m working on The Walking Dead and Philosophy: Zombie Apocalypse Now. I’ll save my notes on it and share them when I finish it (so that’s either something you have to look forward to, or it’s an advance warning, lol).

I didn’t manage to get any short story podcasts listened to in October, but I have downloaded several and hope to get back on #500Stories500Nights *this* month (yeah, I probably said that last month, too, right?).

On the TV/movies front, I Finished watching Reservation Dogs. The season finale was the best episode yet, and I can’t wait for the next season.

I’m watching the third season of Creepshow, but I haven’t finished it yet. It’s a great series. It has big shoes to fill because the original was so campy and fun, but the writers they’ve chosen have done a great job of living up to it!

On the “I’m a big nerd” front, I ordered this shirt from ShirtPunch and am anxiously awaiting its arrival!

And, on the “what kind of internet rabbit holes can I fall into in order to avoid writing?”, I saw this interesting thing called The Science of the Cards. It’s essentially astrology with playing cards. My birthday makes me an Ace of Diamonds, and diamonds represent fall.

https://cafeastrology.com/playingcardsbirthdaychart.html

What they say about Aces: Aces are leaders. Ambitious, energetic, motivated, and dynamic. They are independent people who easily initiate new projects. If expressed negatively, they can be over-bearing, impatient, and self-centered.

Why, that doesn’t sound like me at all!

Whether you believe in astrology and these sorts of things or not, it’s still fun to check out.

That’s it for this month! Next month is usually the goals assessment post, but I’m going to skip that this year because we both know I fell way short of my mark this year. That’s okay; it happens. So next month I’ll be posting my goals for 2022 instead.

Until then, Stay Spooky, my friends!

It’s that melancholy time of the year: camping season has ended (boo, hiss) but spooky season has started (yay)!

The last few months have flown by. July was chaos; August was a rollercoaster of uncertainty; September was for decompressing and healing…

October is time to get back on track.

My intent for this month is to get back to my writing and back to reading for #500Stories. I know it’s not going to be easy, especially since school is back in session, but it’s time to get writing again.

Speaking of school, I’m currently taking the last class I need for my BA in English. I will “graduate” in December.

But the story doesn’t stop there.

I’ve decided I’m going to keep going. Up next? Social Science “degree” (technically an addendum to my other degree) with Communication minor. The communication minor is the closest thing my university offers to a journalism degree. The social science degree means taking an interesting mix of courses in anthropology, sociology, psychology, political science, criminal justice, economics, geography, and history. Of course, I’ll probably sneak a few English classes in there, too. I’m pretty excited about getting started.

Although I haven’t made any progress on writing or #500Stories, I did still finish a few audiobooks and movies.

We had several movie nights while camping. I watched Near Dark and Monsters, and frankly, I hated them both. I did finish them, at least, which is more than I can say for the Nomadland movie (loved the book, hated the movie). I also watched Tomorrow War, which was supposed to be awful, but I enjoyed it. We also finished most of the series Reservation Dogs while camping, and hubby and I both loved it.

I’ve finished three audiobooks:

The Good Hand is an autobiography of an oil rig worker’s experiences working here in North Dakota. Extinction Code is scifi, and Cold Storage is scifi horror. Interestingly, quite by accident, I’m continuing on with a theme. Cold Storage is horror involving the cordyceps fungus (the fungus from The Girl With All the Gifts). Completely by accident, my current read is also a story about a cordyceps fungus! I’m currently reading The Last Survivors, a series where the cordyceps fungus has basically caused an apocalypse that has thrown the remains of humanity back to the middle ages. They know “of” the technology used by the “ancients” (us), but they call it “tech magic.”

Also, I started an Instagram. Or, more accurately, I started another Instagram because I forgot I had one in the first place. Anyway, here’s how my social media works, so you know where to follow me.

Twitter: I keep forgetting about it. I don’t post a lot on there, but I remember to hop on every now and then and retweet stuff. You’ll see a lot of retweeted horror/scifi-related news on there, but I don’t do a lot of original content on there unless I have a story coming out. Brenda’s Twitter.

Facebook: I have a personal page and an author page. The author page is sporadic, but it’s all horror-scifi related (even the shitposts). The personal page is fairly public, but I don’t do friend requests. So you can follow the author page or creep on my personal page. Brenda’s Facebook.

Instagram: a more personal glimpse of things. I guess it’s sort of the cozy publicity account, LOL. This is where you are most likely to see pictures of my writer’s deck or pictures from road trip I’m on. This is also the account where you will most likely catch a glimpse of the elusive husband (aka, hubby, or hubs). If you are following the brendakezarmedia account, that’s the dead one. Be sure to follow BrendaKezarAuthor on Instagram.

http://www.instagram.com/brendakezarauthor

That’s all for this month! Enjoy the most wonderful time of the year!