What's goin' on

I have been a little negligent in posting here. So what has been happening lately?

I have written three short stories for the Pink Elephant shoot-out and scored three rounds. My first story (for the bloody carnival theme) was about a possessed carnival ride, my second (for the aliens on earth theme) was a story of a group of super-heroes after the aliens have taken over the earth.

I am still waiting for the scores on round 3 before I can post about my story but eight now my average score is 14.67 which puts me in second place, first place has a score of 15.53 and there are two others who have more than 14 points. The last prompt is spell-casters which is right up my alley, but I need to come up with a story that has wide spread appeal.

My story from Pandora’s Nightmare was accept as a reprint online at Mirror Dance. This continues my goal of getting my print stories online, so that more people can read them.

Other things going on?

Well are house, for the most part, is back together. The windows are all bordered up, the glass is cleaned up and new windows are scheduled to go in. Jessy and I are planning a week long vacation so that we don’t have to be there when they are working on the house. We found a pet friendly cabin near Deadwood South Dakota, about an hour and half from home. This will be the first time we have ever taken our dogs with us on vacation, and it should eliminate a lot of the worries.

Plus, Deadwood is just a fun place. A couple dozen casinos, museums, little shops, all in a town of about 10,000 people. Our cabin also has a hot tub, playstation, tv, etc. So even if we stay in, we should have a good time.

Last week we went to see a Bob Dylan concert. My wife and my father in law LOVE Dylan so this is the the third concert I have been to. Bob Dylan's music is good so I don't mind and concerts are fun anyway. The difference with this one is that it was during the Sturgis Biker Rally.

It was standing room only and there were just too many people for me to feel comfortable. There were people touching me on all sides. People who were drinking and needed a shower.

And there were too many half dressed women for me to feel comfortable having my wife there. No matter which direction I looked there were topless women, so I spent the whole time trying not to look in any one direction too long. I knew that if I did I would hear about it later.

Jessy and I wandered off from the crowd and found a little hill we could sit on by ourselves and still see the stage. So we both ended up having fun. In the end, the music was good, but I don't want to go back to Sturgis during the biker rally.

Zero Gravity Available!

The sci-fi anthology I edited is now available: Here

This thrilling collection features thirteen fantastic adventures set in the cold vacuum of space. Read about rogues, scoundrels, aliens, robots, heroes, junkers and priests as you explore the rich and creative diversity of the following stories:

Junker’s Fancy By Rosemary Jones, Leech Run By Scott W. Baker, A Space Romance By Paul A. Freeman, Hawking’s Caution By Mark Rivett, Parhelion By David Schembri, To Stand Among Kings By Kenneth Mark Hoover, The Unicorn Tree By Alethea Kontis, The Beacon of Hope By Gregory L Norris, Tangwen’s Last Heist By C.B. Calsing, The Stand-Ins By Gef Fox, Glacier Castle By Will Morton, Rescue By Margaret Karmazin, At One Stride Comes the Dark By Murray Leeder

Some of the more well known writers include:

Rosemary Jones author of City of the Dead (Forgotten Realms), Murray Leeder author of Sons of Thunder (Forgotten Realms), Alethea Kontis New York Times bestselling children’s book author, Gregory L Norris author of The Q Guide to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and episodes of Star Trek Voyager, Paul A. Freeman author of Robin Hood and Friar Tuck: Zombie Killers(Coscom Entertainment), Kenneth Mark Hoover author of Fereblau(Five Star), Margaret Karmazin author of the novel Replacing Fiona(etreasures) and David Schembri a respected member of the Australian Horror Writers Association.

The Aftermath

Not a whole lot of writig getting done. I did edit my story for the pink elephant shoot out. But mostly I've been working on the house, but that is over for awhile. The windows are boarded up, we got as much glass as we could out of the carpets, and the insurance appraisers been here. We have to wait for the insurance company to get back to us. Which means soon we will start getting bids from contractors, and then the work will start. I bet it is October before it is all said and done. Here are a couple of storm pictures. These were posted on chadrad.com the local radio station's website. I might post some pics of the damage to our house but it is mostly windows and one broken window looks a lot like another.

It was a dark and stormy night...

Last night a major storm hit our little town. Thunderstorms are common through out the summer but this one was huge. Power poles were knocked down, trees were uprooted, and the police are advising no one enter the trail park. Apparently multiple trailers were knocked off thier foundation and one was actually picked up by the wind and dropped on top of another one.

The damage at our house seems minor in comparison to that. Our roof is leaking, some of the stucco was knocked off the outer walls, and nine windows were shattered by the baseball sized hail. We had a rough time sleeping last night, our bed was covered in broken glass and hail during the storm. We ended up pulling our old mattress out of the basement and sleeping in the living room (I knew there was a reason I didn't throw it away, I was not just being lazy, as Jessy keeps telling me)

We lost power, cable, and internet for most of the night. But all our services are back up and know I am starting to think about our reaction to the storm itself. I think remembering might help me when/if I ever write a disaster story. So I am going to write down what happened so that I can remember.

About 6:00pm I looked out the window to see the strangest rain storm I have ever seen in Nebraska. We get hard rain a lot, the kind that hurts you if it hits you, but this was different. There was the hard rain and a fine mist, like you see in the tropical storms on tv.

I called Jessy over to see it. She got to the door just as the first baseball sized hail stone smashed into our sidewalk. We both rushed to the living room, our house is old and to go into the basement you have to go outside and that wasn't an option. Jessy grabbed her cell phone off the table. Our living room only has one window and that one is fairly well protected by trees.

Her nurturing instinct took over and she started trying to calm our dogs down. I suddenly felt very protective. I yanked the couch away from the wall. And told Jessy and the dogs to get into the closet. It is a big closet and the only thing in it is our Christmas decorations.

I ushered them into the closet just as the first hail stone shattered the living room window. I closed the door behind us and began trying to calm our dogs. Tucker whimpered the whole time incredbly frightened. Snags our other dog, was fine. He has an incredible faith in me and is never scared of anything as long as I am around.

Jessy called her dad, who lives 30 miles away and told him a storm was coming. Then we sat in the dark(the power went out) until the storm passed.

We locked the dogs in the dinning room, so that they wouldn't step in glass, as we surveyd the damage. After we saw all the broken windows my guy genes kicked in and I had to fix it. I began cleaning up. Jessy called her dad (he lost power, but the had no damage, the hail was only pea sized by the time it made it his house) and then her mom in California, and the insurane company and her brother in Portland, then she called her parents back.

These very different male/female reactions are very interesting to me. When I have more time I am going to analyze the motivations a little more. But for now I have to go work.

Health Issues and Writing

I didn't get much writing done the last week and a half. I had a "flare up" of my lupus. What does that mean, I pretty much felt like I had the flu. I was tired, like really tired, I had joint pain, and felt "sick".

This time it was a little different, the joint pain from lupus is caused by arthritis, when you have a flare up it starts to develop in your joints. Before my knees ached and elbows hurt, but last week it was in my hands. My knuckles were swollen and it hurt to pick things up much less type. I am really hoping this is not common, I am just starting to figure out my voice when I am writing, I don't need problems typing.

I did get my story for the PHP Pink Elephant shoot out down. The theme was bloody carnival and I think my story is one of my better pieces of writing. I also finished the first chapter of Twilight of Worlds. When it rains it pours and I have ideas where both my other novels are going. I wish I could type three stories at once.

Seeker of Vengeance

My story, Seeker of Vengeance, was just published by Planet Magazine. As the title suggests, it is a fantasy story of a young man seeking vengeance. Read it Here

Twilight of Worlds

Okay I decided to shelve the two projects I have been having trouble with and I started on a new one. The working title is Twilight of Worlds, and I have actually made a rough outline instead of just flying by the seat of pants. We'll see if this works out better.