After finishing Love & Loyalty I kind of took a break from writing in general including my blog.  This will not last long, writers have to write even if no one reads it.

I’ve started a short story called The Old and The Dead which is a zombie story set in a  retirement home. The initial 750 words seemed to go over well last night at the writer’s group.

My anthology Horseshoes & Hand Grenades: Tales of technology and terror has begun shipping to the major ebook retailers.  In about two weeks I’ll make the official announcement that it is ready and you’ll be able to purchase it from the major retailers for just 99 cents.

I still have not taken my post novel treat. I was very seriously leaning towards the Vegas trip, machine-guns and Manilow, but without a bird to keep her company I know my sweetie-wife would get very lonely, so I’ll defer that trip to the distant future. (like six or more months.) So now I am leaning towards the Universal Studios Trip. That would be just a day trip.

After a stint of short story writing I plan to return to the Nationalized Space setting for another Seth Jackson novel, m,ost likely Command And Control. (Wow, something about my titles lately run to the & format.)

Sorry for having been absent from my blog the last couple of days, however life has been sick and busy.
The cold I have is slowly, and that is the operative word, slowly, receding away. However I still end the day tired and without any get up and go.

Saturday in addition to dealing with the cold, I had the taxes to finalized and file. Yeah, I love writing checks to the government. Also on Saturday we finalized arrangements to replace all the windows in the condo. The windows we currently have were installed when the condo was built, 1977. They rattled in a breeze and barely muffle any sound at all from the quite busy streets and freeways near our home. Replacing the windows is, of course, expensive, but it is something we have wanted to do from the time we moved into this place. We’re getting dual paned, argon-filled, casement windows that should look handsome and stop heat and sound from traipsing back and forth like invited vampires.

I’ve also been working on the short story anthology, Horseshoes and Hand Grenades. I’ve done a light edit to the stories, just spelling and grammar, and now I am working on cover art and author’s notes. I hope to have it ready for sale via Barnes & Noble and Amazon soon (weeks not days).

I have also continued work on the newest version of Love & Loyalty. A whole new chapter has been written and now needs to be edited.

So you see, I have not been lazy.

So this week I got my yearly bonus from my Day job and that certainly felt good. My sweetie-wife has been laboring under a very slow desktop computer so it was time to do something about that.
Here computer needs are much simpler than my won, so I purchased a used iMac for myself and she will now use this machine. Luckily, the bonus covers it nicely.

I finished creating 3×5 cards for each chapter in Love and Loyalty and now I can start playing with the order of the chapters. I’ve read about writers use do this with card and I have never been one who has, but this is a novel situation for me. (Yes, that was an intended pun. I do not do that accidentally.)

The whole novel is now going to turn and be driven by the main character’s choices — so much stronger as a story that way — but that means I have to move something around and some cause and effect is changing. I am really quite excited by the re-write process.