May 2026 Stuff & Photos

Time flies, now it's May.  Almost June.  I did get about 25 submissions sent out in the last few months and just heard back about 5 poems being accepted by the Plutonian Shores anthology by Weird Wide Web.  I got two new short stories and a few poems written in between work and distractions.

Thanks to the Thursday group that I was able to attend a few times last year, I ended up writing a few poems with David C. Kopaska-Merkel, and we got an acceptance on a piece called "interweave" to be published in the may 2027 issue of Scifaikuest.

On the unexpected side, Anne wanted us to go through the thousands of photos I have taken on our trips over the last few years, to print up the best photos to frame and put on the walls around her house.  She finally got tired of the old generic art that was there.  It was fun looking at those old memories, and I was a bit amazed to see the quality of the best images when printed on glossy paper at Staples, straight from the phone.  I guess the phone effectively has 11x14 resolution, and they look crisp and gorgeous on the walls.  So it's a reminder of yet another unbankable skill of mine.  But a pleasure to dig them up and see them on display.  Here is one from Lake Havasu City:

It made me wonder if I could get big prints (36x36" maybe?) f some of my best fractal art from the 90s and get them into one of the local art shows.  They have a great variety of themes and rotating exhibits.  But I can picture myself standing there defending against every idiot who's going to say, "It's AI, you're a lowlife cheater."  It is NOT AI.  There's a big difference between computer rendered (CG) art that might have taken hours to set up and just typing a prompt and having the work handed to you (AI).  AI is fucking up everything.

So there are always these multiple talents fighting for my limited time.  I should stick to written works.  Even if I never write another pieces, I have over 1000 pieces which have never been published, and about 800 that could run again as reprints.

Other than that, I had a 60th birthday where I gave away some old books and zines.  We enjoy giving things away.  I'm okay with the reality that I will almost never make any money selling stuff in person.  I far prefer sending works to existing publications, where the $5 or $10 or $50 per story or poem turns into pizza money and there is no in-person pressure.  Not to mention almost never being "in person" with any actual person anymore.

My mind keeps spinning with ideas.  Watching recent series like Foundation and the Expanse does make me want to write some much bigger sci-fi projects, but the insanity of begging for hits across every social site usually snuffs out that interest.  The writing is still a talent, worth battling the empty page to pull images out of the ether, but what I don't need is a third or fourth job/gig.  My whole life is prioritized by main job (most $$), stamp business (30+ years now, decent extra $$ per month), and creative projects are always going to be after those are done.  I wish I could see some other way to go about it.

Most of my creative output is in my blogs.  The gaming blog has passed 400 articles.  The sum of them all show about 300,000 hits over the years.  I can't have comments on, because then the site just gets inundated with assholes posting porn links and scams, and I'm expected to spend valuable hours every day deleting all the rubbish.  It would be nice to hear from real people occasionally, but the spammers have broken the models.

I have those other submissions out there, and hope to have another update soon...

Fiction Crossing Reality (Conspiracy edition)

I had a story jammed in my head for the last two weeks, and as we drove around town this weekend, the last two pieces of the puzzle dropped into place.  So I took three hours on Saturday to finally write the piece.  It showed how constant exposure to conspiracy theories will wear a person down, cause actual sanity loss and tragedy.  It was only 1900 words but it was grim and emotionally difficult to write, partly because the authenticity comes from the author pulling from his own struggles.  I had to recognize that I have some of those same faults.  The weakness for doosmscrolling.

One sticky point: I needed a wife or girlfriend in the story as his sounding board, the one he calls "my anchor".  But it couldn't be Anne.  Too personal.  Private.   Hands off.  I couldn't avoid pulling in a detail or two about our own lives.  Pick and choose.

As soon as story was done, I flipped down the laptop lid and hopped into bed.  I made the mistake of checking Facebook to see what some of my creative friends have been working on.  And there it was: the shooting at the White House Correspondents dinner, and EVERY talk channel was full of brand new conspiracies, embryonic bits of crazy, doubting everything, beating strawmen to death and accusing everyone before the dust had even settled.  The cognitive dissonance of seeing Jack Cochiarella wearing a tux was bad enough.  You know ... his face would fit my character well.  But not in a suit.

When did reality become a punching bag?  Every talking head trusted by thousands or millions of people just takes the ball and spins it to fit their own rules.  There is nothing left.

The story need a bit of polish, probably next weekend.  I just thought it worth mentioning that the obviously toxic stew of crazy talk shows no signs of slowing.  Tapping into it to build up to one fictional moment was painful enough.  Facing it every day just leaves me Uncomfortably Numb.

New book: Flights & Shadows

My latest book came out last week.  It's a collaboration that I put together with Terrie Leigh Relf over the course of 2024.  All kinds of poems and stories and flash fiction, plus art and doodles and a puzzle or two.  We've known each other for over thirty years, and after some years of not feeling very productive, it was a blast to send stacks of work back and forth, to pick our favorites to include, then to work together on expanding some oldies and adding brand new work to the mix. 

Ebook for $2.99 at the Hiraeth Publishing website.  Print version $11.95.