I'm back!
Before I dive, or more precisely slide carefully into, the blog, let me invite you all to tune into a special live talk show tonight, where I'll the guest of host Renee on her weekly radio show, 'Renee LIVE!'
Renee is a great host, and a fascinating person, and as long as I keep my trap shut and let her talk it'll be a great show! That's 9 PM Eastern or 8 PM Central, tonight, June 5th. I'll slap some links below:
Listen live via the internet by clicking me at 9 PM EST / 8 PM CST from TVM Cafe Radio!
Listen live via the internet by clicking me at 9 PM EST / 8 PM CST from Diversity Broadcasting!
(Quick aside -- to read this in the large print edition, click here...)
Just browse to either place, then click the 'listen now' or 'play' buttons, and you're there. No fees, so signups.
What will we be talking about? The usual plugs for my books, which I will keep to a minimum, and lots of paranormal / unusual stuff. It ought to be lots of fun.
So tune in! I've showered, had coffee, shaved my legs. See you there!
WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN, FRANK?
Good question. For years, I've been a fanatic about weekly blog postings. But last month, I only made two entries.
My reasons are twofold.
First, I pulled back from the net for a while. Look, I try to keep things positive and upbeat here. There's enough negativity out there for any five planets, and to be perfectly honest, I got got overwhelmed.
I don't have to tell you, especially if you live in the US, how downright mean it's gotten online. Nothing and no one is safe, even people and topics well removed from politics.
New Ghostbusters movie? Misogyny firestorm. I got actual hate mail for posting something enthusiastic on the Ghostbusters movie Facebook page. Which means a stranger was so incensed by my comment 'Looks great, I can hardly wait to see it' that they took the time to describe, in detail, what a terrible stupid person I am.
Which, by the way, made me chuckle as I hit delete. I'm a writer. My skin is rhinoceros hide covered in Kevlar and topped with a fashionable adamantium sweater vest. I've been savaged by editors, people. Lesser beings don't even leave dents.
But not everyone is so well armored. I got so sick of seeing the vicious back-and-forth exchanges online I just said 'enough' and spent more time with books and music, which are always good company.
It's not just online. You can't watch the news without being smacked in the face with nastiness either. Once upon a time, the phrase 'if it bleeds, it leads' was a joke among journalists.
Now, it's a business model.
That's Reason One for my temporary social media pullback.
Reason Two is a lot more down-to-earth. Karen and I have been involved in a massive home improvement project. A project of such scope and measure that a crew of four to six really should have been involved, but since there's just us and our band of loyal but thumbless dogs, we've done all the work.
It's nearly killed us both.
The last three Saturdays have been intense 12-hour slugfests outdoors in the infamous Mississippi heat. My back isn't what it once was, which means Karen has done most of the heavy labor. We go out. We work until we simply can't move. We come back in, shower, and then spend Sundays communicating in moans and hand-gestures ('More painkillers, dear?' usually followed by 'Why are we doing this again?'). I tried to write a blog last Sunday, and got as far as 'T' and 'h' before my hands clenched back into fists and I was forced to lie on the floor and cuss for six straight hours.
Good times. But the project is winding down -- another Saturday, maybe two -- and we'll be done, at least until the next one.
I do miss the days when I could have done everything by myself and laughed about it without so much as a wince. But years of office work have rendered me, to put it kindly, pear-shaped, and also possessed of the pear's legendary strength and physical prowess.
But it's getting done, nevertheless. Even lowly fruits can dig 300 foot trenches and haul 100 pound panels long distances by hand, if they must, and in this case, they must.
In other news, the new Markhat book, Way Out West, is still looking at a summer release.
Oh, and I ran over my beloved laptop. We won't go into the details, since they involve a lot of absent-mindedness on my part, but I do have to give a shout-out to Lenovo. The laptop in question was run over by a Toyota RAV-4, and despite all expectations, it lives. The screen is wrecked, sure, but that's being replaced. The keyboard, hard drives, motherboard, and case all survived intact. Not too shabby, in my opinion.
Don't forget the radio show, and tune if if you can! Both hosts have chat rooms (TMV works best if you have IE), so you can talk along with us, if you want.
See you tonight, and again next week!
Now go hug a puppy or something. Life isn't as horribly vicious as the net might make it seem.
