News:

“Pick a Card” was selected as a finalist for this month’s Shallow Waters at the Crystal Lake Patreon. It’ll post near the end of the month, since it’s number 16 of 20.

Works in Progress:

I was on vacation last week and enjoyed these hundred-degree days much better than usual while at a water park at our resort. It was a great time, but also exhausting. I really wanted to relax as much as possible; hence, the break.

I only had a short story to edit down for the Shallow Waters theme last month, which I did, so I submitted it and didn’t do anymore writing work until I returned home. Got a lot of reading done, although I didn’t finish the book.

I’d planned to write the first half of the mini Hannibal essay on Wednesday, but a few submission opportunities for longer works popped up, so I submitted a novella, then curated and submitted a short story collection. That wasn’t part of the plan for the day, but it took up most of it—not least because I must have made a saving error and lost all my work after a few hours and had to start over again. Fortunately, most of it was formatting, and I could speed-walk my way through doing it again, since I’d already made my choices and could just remember what I’d done.

I don’t anticipate that either piece will be selected, but I figured I might as well give it a shot.

After those pieces were submitted, I sat down to work on the mini Hannibal essay and discovered that it is not, in fact, going to be mini. It won’t be as long as the other one, sure, but it won’t be short. So it’s a good thing it’s still fun.

I had errands to run this morning, which means I need a short rest, but then I’ll resume the essay work. Not sure if I’m going to finish today, but I’ll certainly try.

Books I’m Reading:

The Jackal Man by Russell C. Connor
The Devil in the White City by Eric Larson
The Grove by Eric Butler (finished)

Things I’m Listening To:

Fourth of July playlist
Hannibal soundtracks
Blacklist playlist

Things I’m Watching:

Viral
Cruella
Wake Up Dead Man
Watson series
America’s Got Talent series
Criminal Minds series
Hawaii Five-O series
The Rookie series

Poem of the Week: (throwback to August 2022)

Saltwater everywhere
Surrounding sea
But not a drop to drink
And still I swallow
The rising sound
With tastes of desperation
Until swollen round
To fill the endless hollow
And weigh my live corpse down