I’ve been quiet over here at the little website, but that’s mostly because I was busy crushing a deadline like a champ. At ~56K words, my second short story collection is complete and it is looking rather gorgeous.

This manuscript hasn’t been picked up, yet, but it has been submitted. Now begins the great game of “Hurry Up & Wait,” which is mostly long periods of silence punctuated by an almost constant fear of rejection. Godspeed, lil’ book.

The title is up in the air, however, even though I’d previously been calling it After The Flesh. But like I stated in a previous post, the line-up at the table of contents was liable to change, and change it did! The short story “After The Flesh” didn’t even make final cut, so naming the collection after a story that wasn’t even going to show up seemed, well, kind of stupid. Not that there is anything wrong with that particular story, no, it just became apparent that the narrative was beginning to bloom beyond the lengths of a short and heading straight into novella territory. I decided to save it for another day.

Here’s the final tally:

***

Breathtaking

The Plume and The Glow

How Old Is A Shadow

Capistrano Boulevard

Constellations On The Face Of A Lover

A Storm Filled With Fire

Wake Up, Daddy

Philosophy Of Cheese

Shadows In The Old City

That Trick With The Salt

Pollyanna

Scavengers

Who Will Survive And What Will Be Left Of Them

The God Of Easy Money

Elephants

***

Each entry has an accompanying illustration, courtesy of Matt Andrew. Click his name and the link will take you to his site and you can check out more of his work. Great stuff!

Of course, finishing one project only means that it is time to start a new one. I’d pontificated about the direction I’d take in an earlier post, but sometimes life comes along and surprises you. While the projects I’d previously mentioned are still on the table, it looks like they’ll be taking a backseat to an opportunity that has only recently reared its proverbial head. Problem is, none of this has been announced in any official capacity, so I’m going to have to talk about this project in pretty broad terms: it’s a full-length book, the book will be part of a new indie publisher’s launch, and it is about killer donkeys in Southeast Oregon, during the 1950s.

For the next week or two, I’ll be doing some heavy reading, making notes, and sketching scenes. After that, the narrative will start coming together. Hopefully, the book will be finished by Christmas. I think it will be. We’re talking 50-60K, not some 100K+ monster of a doorstop. Completely doable as long as I don’t procrastinate too heavy on the front end.

And in the meantime, I’ll continue to take a break, when needed, to work on Big Damn Monster, Basilisk, and my translation of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. They’ll all be finished, sooner or later. They’ll all find a home, eventually.

And that brings me to the title of this entry, or at least the “bye-bye Facebook” portion of the title…

You see, I remember Myspace. I hated Myspace. And then Facebook came around and I didn’t like it any more than I liked Myspace. But then I started writing, again, and was encouraged to have a Facebook page, as that was expected of writers. To a degree, I understand this sentiment 100%, but here’s the rub:

I fucking loathe Facebook with a passion.

Yet, I kinda sorta need to be semi-active on the site. It is, after all, a kind of advertising hub. It’s just, you know, a complete shame that the site is terrible and filled to the brim with unhinged lunatics.

There are many, many swell individuals floating around the site, to be sure, but I have simply come to the end of the road insofar as suffering the shittier denizens of social media.

I’ve linked this site to my personal page, instead of my absolutely worthless author page. I may sign in, here and again, but I also may forget to sign in for months and months at a time. This is the best available option beyond abandoning the site completely, as it allows me to retain my sanity and to stave off the need for blood-pressure medication.

My best to you and to your endeavors.

Thanks for catching up!