The Party’s Over

We got the camper all cleaned and put away. Some equipment is still at the house being recharged. We can put it away later, or hang onto it until the next camping weekend.

Like all Sunday's, I spent part of the morning talking to my parents. We went to the Oregon Coast together a few times, and we had plenty to talk about.

I answered a mountain of email that I let lapse, and checked on all my social media stuff.

This vacation yielded some fun short story ideas, and I wrote one out today. This one is short enough to make it as a blog post, and fits the theme of Macabre Macaroni. I will use some pictures inside this story to try something new. I think it's pretty cool, and hate waiting until October to share it. It gave me a chance to use my Apple Pencil. You know me, I always like trying new stuff.

Macabre Macaroni needs one more story, and I have some decent competing ideas. One of them is going to be too long to work as a blog post, but the other one should fit well. Having things done ahead of time is becoming a habit for me, and one that seems to work well. I can go over them during quiet times and might make them better to a degree. I won't have to stress about getting them written the night before.

Speaking of meeting deadlines, I sent off the second Experimental Notebook to the formatter. If you still have a beta copy, you don't have to finish it because it's too late to make changes. I hope you'll want to read it, and I appreciate your volunteering, but I published the deadline when I sought volunteers.

I'll try to peck away at short stories when I have a moment, my baseball stories are keeping me entertained. When I get the rare quiet Friday or Saturday, the Yak Guy is still waiting for me.

Sometime before the end of August, I need to pre-write some promotional posts. Most of these I write upon request, but it's nice to frame out a few ideas and have them “close.” It depends on whether the host wants to hear from me, or from Lisa, my assistant.

Speaking of Lisa, I don't know what to do with Lisa Burton Radio. I made it twenty-four weeks in a row, and the last post got a ton of action. Next week, Lisa doesn't have a guest again. It's kind of cheesy to keep interviewing my own characters. I may have to accept the fact that Lisa's interviews will be more sporadic. The spot has been uber popular, and I'm not retiring it. I'll just say that if you would like a character interview, drop me a note and we'll set something up. In fact, after this posts, I'm going to tweet out a half dozen of the old posts or thereabouts.

In the real world, my paycheck job beckons tomorrow. I'm sure all my mailboxes are overflowing, but I have a good staff and I'm sure they covered whatever they could.

It wasn't great that we came home a day early, but that extra day came in handy. I guess the party's over. Back to writing and back to the job that pays the bills around here.