Ectoplasm Stew

My fearless Writing Team at the ready.

First of all, as promised, a word count!

The new Mug and Meralda book stands at 9,001 words. Assuming a finished length of 80,000 words, that would indicate I am currently 11.25% done with the first draft of ALL THE TURNS OF LIGHT.

Eleven percent done. When I write it out like that my right eye starts twitching.

Only 89 percent to go.

Pardon me while I go outside and scream incoherently for a bit.

MARKHAT NEWS

No news yet on THE FIVE FACES, not that I expected any so soon. Will post as soon as I know, though, so watch this space!

GHOSTLY GOINGS-ON

I've left the departed pretty much alone this week. It's been so hot I imagine even the most determined spectres, haints, haunts, and free-floating vapors took cover in deep shade anyway. I was planning a run to a cemetery this afternoon for some EVP work, but the heat brought on thunderstorms, so that will have to wait. Walking through rainswept cemeteries holding metal gear while lightning flashes about sounds like a good way to experience the afterlife first-hand, and I'm not quite ready to extend my research in that direction.

I did read that long before Konstantine Raudive accidentally recorded his first EVP voices, other people were actively trying to record ghost voices. In 1941 a photographer named Attila von Szalay tried to catch ghost voices using 78 RPM records as a recording medium.

That didn't work, but Attila kept trying. He switched to reel-to-reel tape and in 1956 finally had some success. My favorite bit is the "Hot dog, Art!" snippet, which he captured from a microphone which was housed in a sound-proofed box.

Someone asked me if I ever tried using a Ouija or spirit board in the course of my investigations.

The answer is no, I do not. Mainly because unless the planchette is able to move itself about, I figure any motion is due to the ideomotor response, or one of the participants fooling about. Dark room, candle-light, spooky mood -- is it any wonder that the planchette 'mysteriously' moves?

Show me one that scoots around by itself, and I'll take note. And look for magnets, but that's because I'm a suspicious sort myself.

There's another less scientific reason I won't use a spirit board, and it is this -- the things creep me out. Irrational, I know, but there you have it.

Yeah, this is me. Been working out.

IN WHICH I REVEAL MY SECRET IDENTITY AS .... THE NIGHTCRAWLER!

I get a lot spam email, including more than my fair share of dim-wit con-artists out to sucker me into an advance fee fraud scam.

You've seen the emails too, I'm sure. Some yo-yo claims to have a huge sum of money, and they want you to help them move it. you are promised a generous cut of 70 million dollars, or some similar nonsense.

Of course, there is no sum of money. The people dumb enough to fall for the scam wind up sending the scammer hundreds or thousands of dollars in 'lawyer's fees' or 'storage fees' or 'international steel-plated demurrage fund stacking charges' or whatever made-up gibberish is en vogue at the moment. The money is sent Western Union, of course, so there's no tracing it, and no chance of recovering it.

Well, I'm no dummy, but sometimes it amuses me to play with these morons. So when I got the email below, I couldn't resist. Here's the first email:

Date: Thu, 08 Aug 2013 22:11:05 +0300 [08/08/2013 03:11:05 PM EDT]
From: Xingwu Wang <wang.xingwu15@gmail.com>Add wang.xingwu15@gmail.com to my Address Book
To: Undisclosed Recipients
Reply-To: wxingwu@yahoo.cnAdd wxingwu@yahoo.cn to my Address Book
Subject: GREETINGS TO YOU
-- 
Dear Intending Partner
would like to discuss a project with you. Please email me back.
via: xingwu.wang@yahoo.cn
(1) Can you handle this project?
(2) Can I give you this trust?
I expect your urgent response if you can handle this project.
Best Regard's,
Thank You
Wang Xingwu

Wang, Wang, Wang. Mass-mailing strangers in hopes of finding a dunce among them is no way to go through life.

Here's the email I sent back:

Date: Thu, 08 Aug 2013 15:38:16 -0400 [08/08/2013 03:38:16 PM EDT]
From: franktuttle@franktuttle.comAdd franktuttle@franktuttle.com to my Address Book
To: wxingwu@yahoo.cnAdd wxingwu@yahoo.cn to my Address Book
Subject: Re: GREETINGS TO YOU

Dear Exalted Significant Xingwu Wang,

I can handle this project. I can be given this trust. Let not your underpants pout, my friend, for together we shall amass and/or acquire vast sums of currency, see also moola, loot, cabbage, cash, greenbacks, Benjamins, coin. I see us as lifelong friends, Wang, lifelong friends who shall not want for fancy cars, new ice trays, and all of those little wax bottles of sugary candy water we can ever desire!

Yes. It was Fate that brought us together, to conduct this spiny, quartz-encased business. You see, Wang, who is called Wang, I have made a decision -- I shall put my trust, my whole trust, all eighteen English pounds of it, in you. I shall see this business through, come Hell, high water, surly waiters, or inclement humidity! Nothing shall stop us from achieving the achievement of having achieved that to which we aspire to achieve!

Trust me to handle this important project, which requires much trust. Trust is a weighty word, my friend, but it is a word I know how to spell. T - R - U - S - T. Trust. Not truste or truust or trooste or even terust, but trust, plain and simple.

Let us discuss details so that we might work for our mutual linear fully clothed gain.

Frank F. Frank, Director
Frank Global Industries

Now, you might think most scammers would be put off by the tone and content of my reply. But not friend Wang, who is only to eager to get things started! 

Here is his reply to email. I'm deeply hurt, because it's obvious he didn't even read my reply. But decide for yourself:

Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2013 18:09:00 +0800 [08/10/2013 06:09:00 AM EDT]

From: Xingwu. Wang <xingwu.wang@yahoo.cn>Add xingwu.wang@yahoo.cn to my Address Book China

To: Undisclosed Recipients

Reply-To: Xingwu. Wang <xingwu.wang@yahoo.cn>Add xingwu.wang@yahoo.cn to my Address Book

Subject: GREETING FROM WANG XINGWU

Dear Friend,

Thank you for your reply to my first email. I needed to be very sure of you before I disclose my identity for confidentiality purpose. I would also like you know that this transaction is 100% risk free and legal.

I could not give you my true details in my first contact because I felt it would be huge surprise for you to receive such email from a serving customs controller of the People Republic of China Customs. Now that you have replied the correspondence with interest I will give you more information about myself and the business.

My name is Wang Xingwu (customs controller of the Peoples Republic of China Customs).

<BLAH BLAH BLAH I cut a page of scammer-speak nonsense here >>

Thank you Once again and I look forward to a good business relationship with you which would be of much benefit to both parties. 

Looking Forward to your Response

Sincerely,

Wang Xingwu

Wow. What a sweet deal. I get thirty percent of forty million dollars. I could use an extra 12 million bucks -- I have expensive tastes where socks are concerned -- so here's my heartfelt reply:

Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2013 16:26:21 -0400 [08/10/2013 04:26:21 PM EDT]

From: franktuttle@franktuttle.comAdd franktuttle@franktuttle.com to my Address Book

To: Xingwu. Wang <xingwu.wang@yahoo.cn>Add xingwu.wang@yahoo.cn to my Address Book

Subject: Re: GREETING FROM WANG XINGWU

Dear Trusted Sequential Combine Wang,

I was so excited to receive your email. And I understand your need for a trusted and reliable partner in this business.

I believe I am the very person you seek.

Can I be trusted? Yes. Yes I can. You see, although the world knows me as Frank F. Frank, wealthy philanthropist and corporate giant, my secret identity is that of....

....the Nightcrawler.

Yes. That's right. By day, I run a successful multinational conglomerate specializing in the manufacture of volatile chemicals and flimsy lingerie. Or maybe its flimsy chemicals and volatile lingerie. I'm so busy rolling in enormous heaps of cash I seldom get down to the manufacturing floor these days. 

By night, I don the black body-armor of the Nightcrawler, and I venture forth from my secret lair to fight crime. Perhaps you have heard of my heroic exploits against the Gang of Elderly Pensioners, or my mighty triumph over Mrs. Baker's Second Grade Art Class?

I thought so. My defeat of the Surly Parking Lot Attendant on Fifth and Holmes street was particularly impressive. He will never again insist on exact change while I have a rubber mallet and a stingray in my utility belt, I can tell you!

So I have already shared with you a secret. I did so because I trust you. I am the Nightcrawler, champion of Justice, defender of the weak, part-time library assistant (paid). 

Do you trust me now?

I ask that you keep my secret identity safe. My life is in your hands now, friend Wang. If the evil crime-lords of the Dark Brotherhood were to learn the Nightcrawler's secret identity, I would be dead before sunset.

Now, as to this business.  How do we proceed? I have the resources of Frank Industries at my disposal.

I await further instructions.

Be safe, my friend.

The Nightcrawler

Will I hear from Wang? Will we proceed with this 100% legal and totally non-criminal enterprise unmolested by the evil forces of Cub Scout Troop 66A, or the staff of Larson's Big Star Grocery Store?

I'll keep you all posted!

Now I should get back to work. I suppose I'll have to keep my day job until Wang comes through with my twelve million...

Things That Go Bump, Mad Science Edition #2

Yes, that's cardboard and aluminum foil. Can I please get a research grant?

As you may recall from last week's blog, we were delving into what serious paranormal researchers call 'spooky stuff.'

Because A) it's cheap fun, and B) even I get tired of listening to me rattle on about writing.

So this week, we'll continue with the spooky stuff. First of all, I promised you a video of my experiment with ITC (Instrumental Trans Communications), and I'll (finally) post the link below. But first, a brief introduction, for any newcomers.

ITC is the practice of aiming a video camera at a video monitor and then feeding the camera's output right into the monitor. You get video feedback, which looks weird. Some people claim you can also capture images from the Great Beyond. 

Below is a photo of the setup I used:

Oops, no, that's what the neighbors do when they hear I've been messing with ghosts again. Wait, here's the ITC rig:

Simple, right? A humble video camera aimed at an old CRT television (with no antenna or other inputs).

Now, the question you're probably asking is this -- did you capture any ghostly faces? Apparitions? Free-form non-terminating repeating spectral vapors? Gozer the Gozerian?

Nah. Feel free to watch the video, but if you see any faces in that mess you've got better eyes than me. 

Here it is, in all its barely-edited glory:

http://www.franktuttle.com/ITC1.mp4

And here are a couple of typical screen-shots.

The Afterlife is NOT in HD.

Green is the new ectoplasm.

Meet Mister Screamy Face.

I do see why people believe they can see images in the visual noise. Heck, sitting down here alone in the middle of the night, I thought I saw things too.

But they vanished on playback. 

I certainly didn't capture anything like the image captured by the Scole Group, which I call Bubble Man.

But I'll keep trying.

Which brings us to the EVP portion of our program. I built two brand new toys to play with, both designed to capture EVPs. 

One is a Raudive microphone in a box with a built in audio amp. That's the first image I used, and yes, it is a box covered in aluminum foil. Because I didn't have a metal box handy, and the foil will act as an RF shield.

It works, too. I recorded a long session with it today, and got nothing but static. 

Now, if you'll look below the foil-covered box, you'll see an odd-looking dingus with a coil on one end.

What is that, you ask?

This is a germanium EMF mic. You need not Google it, because I made that up. 

I took a metal shaft and ran a length of copper wire through it. Insulation keeps the copper away from the steel. The business end of the copper wire sticks out, and is soldered to a 1N34A Germanium diode. The other end of the diode is soldered to the copper coil thingy, which returns to the steel casing and winds up soldered to that.

At the other end, a pair of wire leads connect to the steel shaft and the back end of the copper wire. The leads connect to a mono mic jack. That gets plugged into my voice recorder, or into the small battery-powered 200 milliwatt audio amp (the white box in one of the pics above).

Why the tube and the copper wire and the coil and so forth?

I wish I could say the design came to me in a mystical dream, but honestly those were the first things I grabbed in my junk drawer.

Look, that would be a Bad Idea if I was trying to build a working FM radio. But when one is building a microphone suited for use by ghosts or extradimensional entities, there is no design book. I figure random junk has as much chance to work as carefully-designed circuitry, because nobody has any idea how we might communicate with ghosts anyway, if they even exist.

Also, I thought it looked cool in an old-school B movie sort of way.

Why germanium? Why a 1N34A diode? Why not a Zener or a switching diode?

I don't have any of those.

I wasn't expecting much out of this, um, device. 

I waved it around at Karen. It picked up our cells phones buzzing and clicking.

I plugged it into my recorder, and then went to help feed Max and Fletcher. Fletcher is our diabetic dog, and he likes it when we both feed him. 

So the EMF mic and the recorder were out here in an empty room. 

I got two pretty good EVPs. The first says, at least to me, 'It's a trick.'

It sounds best with headphones, but here it is, looped so you can hear it better. Foljks, please, max out your volume on this one. Not joking, and I promise this isn't a prank!

http://www.franktuttle.com/podcast1/itsatrick.mp3

And here's the second one. I cannot make out the words, but I hear what sounds like a male voice mumble, and a female voice respond.

Reduce your volume to normal for this one!

http://www.franktuttle.com/podcast1/cowsee.mp3

Again, there was no one here when those voices were recorded.

I can't wait to take my EMF mic to a couple of the places I've gotten EVPs before. Maybe this week I'll have time.

By the way, if you want to try the EMF mic trick yourself, 1N34A germanium diodes can be had from Amazon for a buck. The mono mic jack is a Radio Shack product, which will set you back $3.19. The shaft and the copper coil is more decorative than anything; the diode is the heart of the thing.

WRITING NEWS

The new Markhat novel, THE FIVE FACES, went off to Samhain for their consideration last week. 

Which is big news, to me at least. 

I'll be perfectly honest with you. Every time I finish a book, I'm surprised. 

I am the laziest person alive. I kid you not. There are slime molds with more influential work ethics than me. My base state of being is that of reclining, preferably on a bed, while True TV airs another episode of 'World's Dumbest' and I watch by snoring my way through it.

But another novel has appeared. It's a good one, too. Markhat doesn't just get lucky this time. He fights his way through, and --

-- well, you'll have to wait for the book.

If there is a book, of course. The publisher might say no. It's always possible I've written a stinker and just don't know it.

I can't entertain that line of thought. Instead, I've started the new Mug and Meralda book, which will be entitled ALL THE TURNS OF LIGHT.

And I have a surprise for all you Meralda and Mug fans out there -- THEY LEAVE TIRLIN!

That's right, no more puttering around in the Royal Laboratory with holdstones and calculus. Meralda is on the road, baby, and hating every minute of it....

My plan it to get this one done and out before Christmas. If my courage holds, next week I will start posting weekly word counts, so that you, my friends, can brow-beat and guilt me into actually doing some work.

TECH NEWS

If I counted up the hours of my day and what I do with them, pounding away at a keyboard would doubtlessly marshal the majority of my time. 

The PC at which I work was built in late 2010, which means it's beginning to show its age. I've been collecting parts to build a new rig for months now, and I'm nearly done acquiring components.

When I am done, I'm going to build the new machine, piece by piece, in front of a camera. Karen has graciously agreed to film the build, and we hope that watching me build a new PC from scratch might help anyone else out there who wants a solid machine at a bargain-basement price. I'll post parts lists, suppliers, and technical notes, of course.

Building a machine isn't as hard as you might think. And oh, the money you can save! 

I'll make sure everyone gets a heads-up before we post that.

Okay, it's almost time for FALLING SKIES. And I need to get in my word count. Enjoy the voices, people!

And check under your beds...bwahahahaha....

Things that Go Bump: Mad Science Edition

I always knew infinity was blue.

Put on your vortex goggles and hide the unstable isotopes, kids, because tonight we're going to rip away the very bed-sheets of Space and Time and peer right up the skirts of Infinity itself.

The image above? It's a screen-grab from a video I made last night. But more about that later.

Right now, let's take a brief detour back to 1993, and pay a quick visit to a little enterprise which has come to be known as the Scole Experiment.

What was the Scole Experiment? Let me use their own words to describe their efforts:

The Scole Experiment chronicles the extraordinary results of a five-year investigation into life after death. At the beginning of 1993 four psychic researchers embarked on a series of experiments in the Norfolk village of Scole. The subsequent events were so astounding that senior members of the 
prestigious Society for Psychical Research asked to observe, test and record what took place.

-- From the Scole Experiment website

Okay, by now you may be thinking to yourself 'Aha. Tuttle isn't normally very enthused about psychic researchers. He must be short of blog ideas.'

Nay, nay. It's true I'm not usually a big fan of so-called psychic researchers. But this bunch captured some truly extraordinary evidence, and they did so in the presence of a professional magician on the lookout for fakery.

You can peruse their website and decide for yourself. But I would like to call your attention to a few intriguing photographs they obtained.

Click here for a page containing video screen grabs from various ITC (Instrumental Trans Communication) sessions. Two in particular caught my eye. Here's the first one:

Man in the Bubble

Blue

As I understand it, these images were obtained using a 90s-issue VHSC video camera aimed at a television screen. This setup is the basis for ITC, or Instrumental Trans Communications.

The Scole group produced a volume of fascinating material. There are circuit diagrams. There are images. There are drawings. Copies of newspapers. Odd little scribbles. You name it, they got it.

They also had a long conversation with a being claiming to be an extra-dimensional entity. Not a ghost. Not a spirit. Just an energy creature hanging out in its crib, playing with the 33rd dimension's equivalent of a HAM radio.

Of course not everything they present is thrilling. I'm still puzzling over this screen-grab. They see a face in the image. I see -- stuff. Video noise.

Even so, I couldn't get that 'Man in the Bubble' image out of my head. It's either genuine evidence of the paranormal, or it's fake.

Bubble Man.

At this point, I came to the same decision I came to years ago, when I first became intrigued by EVP recordings.

I decided to try and gather ITC evidence on my own, so I'd know it wasn't faked.

Furthermore, I built a special ITC rig of my very own. But that's for later. Right now, let's look at a standard ITC setup, and see how it works.

Standard ITC setup

It's simple. You aim a video camera at a television screen. The camera's video output is connected to the television's video input. Thus, you wind up with the camera filming its own output.

That creates feedback. Hold a live microphone up to the loudspeaker. That awful shriek is also feedback.

Here, we have video feedback instead of the audio version.

The theory behind ITC video images is similar to what some people say about EVP voices. The random video noise created by the feedback loop somehow allows spirits or other entities to create images, which are then recorded and can be replayed at will.

Okay. Regardless of how far-fetched all that sounds, the purely physical setup is pretty easy. Here's how my own ITC experiment looked:

That's a Sony Handicam on a tripod aimed at an ancient Sanyo CRT TV. The camera lens is about two feet from the TV screen.

That TV is old, people. It's pre-digital, which means it can't even get broadcast signals anymore. I use it to watch the occasional concert on DVD, but I disconnected the DVD player for the session. My point is that the TV isn't going to just randomly display images of people, for instance, because it is essentially a brick without a video source.

Here are a couple of static images I took when I started the experiment:

Stay away from the light, Carol Ann...

One quick note here -- I tried this first during the day, and I immediately spotted several fairly obvious reflections in the glass of the TV screen. There was me, for instance. The window behind me. A few other objects, none ghostly or extra-dimensional as far as I could tell.

So I dumped all that video and waited for dark. 

When the feedback loop is established, you get a strobing effect that takes about two seconds to move from full black to bright white. In between the extremes, you'll see mobile, indistinct shapes blossom and shrink and darken and die. 

It's these shapes that seem to hide the faces and other images.

And these are also the places where our old friend pareidolia comes out to play.  Pareidolia is what lets you see faces in the wood grain of cabinets, or in the clouds. We are hard-wired to make out faces, and do so quickly.

So my criteria for what constitutes an actual face is pretty high. A pair of dark spots and a slit for a mouth isn't going to cut it. 

No, I want to see an image like that of Bubble Man.

Old dude with glasses. That image isn't pareidolia. It may well not be real, in that someone may have cut out a perfectly mundane photo of a man with glasses and stuck it to the TV screen for a single frame, but it jolly well isn't pareidolia.

"Come on, Tuttle, quit stalling! You said you held an ITC session. Did you get anything, or not?"

Well. Yes and no. Mainly no. 

See for yourself:

If that image is the result of an extra-dimensional communicator, he needs to try a little harder. Yeah, okay, two eyes and a mouth, but that's obviously just a random formation of lights and darks. Bzzzzt, better luck next time.

What about this next image, which is a lot more complicated?

I asked for an image of a dog, and that's not actually a bad image. I believe it's nothing but pareidolia, but I can see where some might not.

But we're a long way from photographic-quality images such as the Bubble Man, aren't we?

Yes we are.

The truth of the matter is this -- analyzing ITC data is a lot more laborious than doing the same for EVP recordings. You have to wade through the video files one frame at a time. Let's see, at 30 frames per second and 60 seconds per minute that's 1800 frames per minute, or over 21,000 frames for the single 12 minute video I shot last night.

I'm about four minutes in. And I've been at this for seven solid hours.

So a complete analysis will have to wait. Sorry about that; I know I promised a good blog entry today, but the sheer math of it has overwhelmed me.

We won't even talk about trying to use Windows Movie Maker to do a frame-by-frame analysis of a longish video clip. We won't talk about that because I don't like to use those kinds of words in public. Suffice it to say I will be on the lookout for a basic cheap video editing package.

Again, my apologies for not finishing all this today. I will finish analyzing the video. Until then, these screen grabs will have to suffice.

The image I opened this blog entry with doesn't look at all like the blobby grainy green images I've shown, does it?

That's because this image was generated using the same camera in a device I built myself Saturday afternoon, after seeing the first grainy strobing pictures produced by the old-school CRT tube.

Televisions work by refreshing the screen 60 times a second or so. I think that's part of what causes the strobing effect we saw earlier. So, I decided I'd eliminate that by using four mirrors placed at ninety degree angles to reflect the camera's unblinking little lens right into its own viewfinder.

That way, I'd create an optical feedback loop, without all that headache-inducing strobing.

Here's how my 'infinity mirror' array works:

And here's what it looks like, without the camera.

And with the camera:

The screw assembly on the right is there to make minute changes to the pitch of Mirror 1, to keep the image centered.

Running it is simple. Just hit record. It doesn't matter whether the room lights are on or not; I zoom in until the viewfinder fills the screen, and that's that.

Here are some screen grabs. Turns out infinity is blue, just like we all suspected.

A screen within a screen within a screen....

Everything seemed to rotate slowly, counterclockwise...

Then things would (literally) spin off into the distance.

The little screen icons on the camera viewfinder, repeated to infinity...

What I didn't see were any faces. No faces, no dogs, no big text messages reading HI WE ARE FROM THE AFTERLIFE.

Looks like the process needs the strobing and the noise to conjure up faces and so forth.

I have an idea for a modification of the mirror array which will add some noise without strobing. If I can, I'll add it for next week's blog.

Until then, I'd like to hear your comments on the matter.

Did the Scole group fake their results? Is the Bubble Man image paranormal, or the result of scissors and rubber cement? What do you think?

I'm on the fence. But I need to shoot a lot more video before I have a strong opinion either way.

EDITED TO ADD:

Got the mirror array video uploaded. Click below to view:

http://franktuttle.com/podcast1/ITCmir3.mp4

The Crow Word for Snake

Tastes just like Diet Coke.

It's been a very busy week, here in the Valley of Unfinished Manuscripts. 

I envy the writers of old, who enjoyed leisurely days of writing interrupted only by rare changes of tweed jacket, trips to town to purchase more pipe tobacco, and delivering the odd Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.

Which brings us to William Faulkner. Oxford is hosting the annual Faulkner Conference this week, which means the town is filled with Faulkner scholars eager to glean something new about the man and his writing.

There you go, Faulkner scholars. The secret ingredient to 'As I Lay Dying' revealed. Please leave a dollar in the tip jar on your way out.

Rowan Oak, Faulkner's legendary crib. See how I talk just like the young folks?

As a lifelong Oxonian, I've been to Faulker's Rowan Oak. It's a nice old house, and though it's close to Oxford's bustling Square it's so quiet and heavily wooded you'd think you stepped back in time.

Here's Faulkner's writing desk:

I took the pic. I still haven't figured out where he plugged his LED flatscreen monitor in, or what version of Word that old Underwood runs. I was glad to see Faulkner, like all burly he-men, eschewed use of the Mac.

Surprisingly, the elephants were life-sized.

I'm pretty sure that if Faulkner came back from the Great Beyond and saw my writing rig, he'd spit whiskey bottles and dangle participles in sheer unholy envy. The man typed everything, first draft to final, and he did all that before Liquid Paper was even invented. 

Not that ol' Bill couldn't think outside the box. You've probably heard that he was prone to write plot outlines on his walls -- well, he did, and here are the pictures I took of them:

That's the outline for 'A Fable.' The lore claims Faulkner's wife painted over the outline and Faulkner wrote the outline again over the fresh paint and then shellaced it to make sure new paint wouldn't stick.

I suspect the wall wasn't the only thing partaking of shellac during all this, but I wasn't there.

There is a story that Rowan Oak is haunted. The tale hits on most of the haunted house tropes -- star-crossed lovers, a stern father who refuses to grant his daughter's hand to a Yankee, broken hearts, suicide, anguish, all-around bad times. From that, it is said, a ghost arose, to walk the grounds at night.

It's hogwash, all of it. Faulkner himself made the story up just to watch it spread and grow. And, like his other stories, people have enjoyed it so much it persists to this day.

I myself have never written an outline on my walls. That's what Word is for, to preserve carefully-constructed outlines that you ignore in the end. 

THE CROW WORD FOR SNAKE

I like crows. They're smart, they're brave, and they have a certain dramatic fashion sense. I watch them, and listen to them, and over the years I've been able to make out what I believe are a few words of basic Crow.

Seriously, their calls are different. You've got the bored, half-hearted caw they croak out every five minutes or so in the heat of the day. You've got the strident, brief Caw! that I think says 'I see you, other crow.'

And around here, they have a word for snake. 

Look, this is Mississippi in the summertime. Rural Mississippi. Snakes are like clouds -- everywhere, most of the time, and best left where they are and observed from a safe distance.

But crows hate snakes. Let a single crow spot one, and within moments all his crow pals are gathered about, mobbing the slithering fiend in a wheeling, noisy circle of black wings and sharp eyes.

I managed to record a mob of crows circling a rat snake this afternoon. It's a short audio file, less than a minute. Hear what the crows have to say!

http://franktuttle.com/podcast1/crowword.mp3

As long as I'm posting audio files, here's another one. I took this one during the fireworks show on the 4th of July, so it has explosions and crowd noise. I know there are people out there who collect audio clips of such things, and if you are such a person, you can have this one, if you want it. Or, if you're at work, crank up the speakers and watch people jump...

http://franktuttle.com/podcast1/fireworks.mp3

AND NOW, FOR THE FEMURS....

Never gets booked for birthdays parties...

The image above? From the movie, of course. Just one image, without explanation. I will say that is one decidedly un-funny clown. 

It's the big shoes. They make one grumpy, and by grumpy I mean homicidal and deranged. 

As they say in the movie biz, that's a wrap. Got to get back to work, which won't be on a 1912 Underwood typewriter, and for that I am grateful.

A Cast of Thousands!

This was a most unusual week.

As I mentioned earlier, my friend Matthew Graves is making a movie based on a screenplay I wrote. We shot the short film this past week, in a three-day marathon run of night-time shooting.

I've agreed not to post any pics or reveal too many details. I will let it slip that I had a small part in the movie, which meant I got to experience make-up and be on the set for the filming.

It was a blast. One day I will post pics, and you'll get a laugh. But for now, I'll just mention some of the people who worked on the movie.

Johnny McPhail did an amazing job playing  -- oh, wait I can't say. Same with Rhes Low, who truly brought the role of <redacted> to life.

Everyone on the set worked very hard to make the movie a delight. When it premiers on Halloween this year, I'll make sure to provide links. I truly believe you'll love it.

Watching Johnny and Rhes bring my characters to life was an experience I'll never forget. It's one thing to imagine the characters, to see them in your mind's eye. But it's another entirely to see an actor put on a costume and make-up and assume the role. When those first words come out, it's a genuine thrill.

My time on the set did teach me a few things about being an actor.

FRANK'S TIPS FOR BIG-TIME MOVIE STARS SUCH AS FRANK:

1) The other actors grow agitated if you try to claim the food on the craft table is yours and charge them two bucks a slice for the pizza.

2) Don't giggle and say the words 'the cheese' each time the director yells 'cut.'

3) If you try to make your own fake Screen Actor's Guild card, sharpen the black crayon first.

4) Shakespearean soliloquies are a staple of dramatic presentation, true, but impromptu renditions of the dagger scene from Macbeth are best performed within the actual play, and not during a coffee shop scene in a romantic comedy.

5) Prop toilets don't flush.

6) Keep up morale on the set by spiking the bottled water with LSD. When your finished film turns out to consist of one hundred and eighty minutes of lens cap with an audio track of slurred mumbling, sell it to the SyFy channel, because at least it's not about mutant sharks.

7) When you first arrive on the set, immediately begin shouting orders to the gaffer. The resulting limp, bruises, and swollen right eye will cut make-up prep time for your hospital scene in Act IV in half.

8) Break up tension buy secretly replacing a random page of every script with a page from a SpongeBob SquarePants script. Listen as classically-trained actors attempt to read Squidward as the suicidal failed heavyweight boxer.

And fear not, gentle readers -- my role is small, and non-speaking, so I had no chance to goof things up. I'll wager most of you won't even be able to pick me out.

I'd like to take a moment and thank Karen and Matthew and Melissa and Rhes and Johnny and Cookie Chris and Laura and Greg and Andy and Daniel and Ben and *inhale* everyone else who worked on the movie.

It was a pleasure, and I can't wait for everyone to see the fruits of our labor.

OTHER NEWS: REVIEWS IN THE WILD

Google Alerts let me know my book All the Paths of Shadow got another review! You can see the review by Olga Godim at Silk Screen Reviews. I was pleased, both with the review and the fact that Google Alerts wasn't showing me yet another torrent site where book pirates are stealing my books.

YET MORE OTHER NEWS: THIS YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE

All I can say about the following item is that it is in fact true. I kid around on this blog a lot, but this is no joke.

On Tuesday, I'll be giving a brief presentation at the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies (CISS) here on the University of Mississippi campus. I was asked to speak as an author of speculative and fantasy fiction, and give my take on the uses of surveillance and intelligence gathering in science fiction and fantasy.

Now, at first, you may think to yourself 'What? Surveillance and intelligence gathering in fantasy? Are you into the mushrooms again, Tuttle?'

No. I'm not. I think I'll post the text of my remarks here next week, so you can see what I mean.

FINAL BUT MOST IMPORTANT WORDS

You're a reader. I'm a reader. We're both readers.

And what do readers love?

In my case, whole bags of cheeseburgers, illegal moonshine whiskey, and yodeling. But I'm talking about books. Good books.

Good books for free?

That's enough to make me drop my cheeseburger and spill my whiskey and push the yodeler off the cliff. And you can get some great free books by clicking on the link to Maria Schneider's Bear Mountain books blog, where she is making Under Which Ghost (A Moon Shadow series short) free for you to enjoy!

Please check out the series. They're great -- you've got witches and vamps and werewolves and love, but without all the sappy soap opera filling that is choking Certain Other paranormal outings (I'm looking at you, True Blood on HBO).

Seriously, grab a free copy! Maria is a great writer.

And now I'm out. It's back to work for me, as soon as I get this make-up scrubbed off my face...

The No. 7 Fireworks Embalming Pump Mail-Order Skeleton, And Others!

Find a nice comfy chair, boys and girls, because tonight's blog is one of the long ones.

Fortunately for you, most of the length is composed of photographs. As long-time readers of the blog know, I am fascinated by fireworks, and tend to get excessively camera-happy around the 4th of July.

This year was no different. Indeed, I had three cameras trained on the sky. Two were digital, one was film. The only film processing shop in Oxford is closed until they get parts in for their developer, so you will spared the film photos, at least.

And for a treat, I'm featuring photos taken by a real photographer on a real camera as well as my own amateur offerings. Karen Tuttle, who many suspect may be my wife, took her Canon Rebel SLR to the fireworks show, and got some truly amazing shots.

But before we get to the exploding things, let's take a brief detour into the past. Our vehicle will be a comic book I unearthed while searching for an old solenoid. The comic's cover is gone, so I don't know the name of the series or even the year, but I suspect it to be from around 1969, because that is the year I learned that Life is fundamentally hostile and that no good can come of it.

SKELETONS ARE A BOY'S BEST FRIEND

Direct your gaze onto the advertisement below. Try to see it through the eyes of a bookish six year old who loves all things strange and eerie.

Oh yeah. This is the stuff dreams are made of...

Life-sized monsters. Seven feet tall. SEVEN FEET TALL. That's tall, people. With glowing eyes! Reaching hands! Imagine the terror, indeed.

For a dollar.

Did I absolutely have to have a seven-foot-tall glowing skeleton of my very own?

Why yes. Yes I did.

So I shoved a buck thirty-five into an envelope and checked 'Boney the Skeleton' and the clock on my frantic little life came to an abrupt and screeching halt the instant that envelope hit the bottom of the mailbox.

I'd never wanted anything so bad in all my life. I went to sleep dreaming of the fun Boney and I would have! We'd stroll around town, scaring Hell out of everyone. We'd sit out on the porch and wave to horrified passers-by. We'd be the terrible talk of my tame little town, and if any kid came around with some lame Frankenstein's monster we'd knock his block off.

That is what I dreamed. Such thoughts consumed my every waking moment. And oh, did the moments drag. The ad didn't include the traditional admonition to allow six to eight weeks for delivery. How many hours did I spend, pondering the significance of that mysterious omission? Did the fine creators of Boney the Skeleton rush their sinister creations to the happy owners in a matter of mere days, instead? Was there, even now, a dark, unmarked truck speeding through the night toward Oxford, an eager Boney at the wheel?

Hours dragged. Days crept. Weeks crawled.

Moment by agonizing moment, I waited for my skeleton friend's arrival, forsaking all lesser concerns.

One Week. Two weeks. Three weeks, four. I lost my appetite. Lost interest in all things unrelated to the subtle click of clever bones.

Five weeks. Six weeks. Seven weeks, more. My eyes developed dark circles beneath the lids. I walked with a slump. Dragged my feet. How long, I wondered, so often the very words left paths in my brain. How long must I endure this never-ending sojourn through darkness?

Then, on rainy Tuesday afternoon in September, my mother met me at the door, smiling the smile of a relieved but patient parent.

I knew. I knew without words that Boney had arrived!

He was home, home at last, all seven glorious glowing feet of him! All 206 intricately connected phalanges and metacarpals and femurs and mandibles!

I was alone no more.

I was....complete.

I raced into the kitchen, sure Boney would be seated at the table, waiting to give me a cold but friendly embrace.

Instead, atop the tiny Formica eating table, sat an envelope.

An envelope. Thick, yes, and larger than the usual bills that came to us.

But only an envelope. No more for more than a single toe-bone. If that.

Mom must have recognized my confusion.

"It's from the right place," she said. "Open it! You've waited so long."

My mind raced. All right, I thought, though I'm sure I didn't use those words. Boney's delivery has been delayed. Or maybe they send a letter ahead before the actual skeleton arrives. Yes, I decided, as I tore into the paper. That must be it. It's a warning, so people won't be frightened.

Mom moved to my side.

So she was right there, for that awful moment when I removed the contents of the envelope, watched them unfold in my hand, and realized that Boney, my magnificent life-sized seven-foot-tall skeleton friend, Boney of the glowing eyes and the reaching hands, was nothing more than a cheap piece of plastic with a crude rendering of a skeleton painted upon it.

I do remember quite clearly thinking this:

Life-sized. They said it was life-sized. That means sized like life, with height and width and thickness.

They lied. The lying liars lied.

I dropped Boney on the kitchen floor and started bawling.

The weight of every moment of the long agonizing wait fell over me like a tidal wave. I had to say goodbye to my skeleton pal Boney forever, because there really wasn't any magic at all in the world, not even for a dollar plus thirty-five cents shipping, not even from storied New York.

Mom is gone now. Boney, who I kept, flaked away into bits of dust decades ago. I turned quickly past all the ads in my comic books, because after that I knew darned well Sea Monkeys didn't wear festive outfits and build little cities in your fish-bowl, and X-Ray Specs were just cheap plastic frames with concentric circles drawn on the lenses. No. Those were merely more lies. The world is what you see, nothing more. Jobs and bills and tired Dads and worried Moms and pets that sometimes never came home.

And all that came rushing back when I lifted that old comic book out of a stack of cast-offs and saw that ad again.

I still miss ya, Boney my skeleton pal.  Maybe one day.

Maybe.

This is life before the Internet, kids. Count your blessings.

THE SUPERIOR EMBALMING PUMP No. 7 SPECIAL

As I've mentioned before, my friend Matthew Graves is making another movie. Entitled The Embalming,
it's a macabre little film which will debut during the Oxford Film Festival next February.

I got to build a couple of the props for the movie. An embalming pump will be featured in several shots, as well as the sign on the door of the mortuary at which all the action takes place.

Building weird movie props turned out to be a lot of fun. The pump is actually just an old electrical box joined with a clear dog food tub, some hoses, a few lights and switches, and the contents of my cast-off plumbing parts drawer. But it pumps goo, and it looks appropriately creepy, if I do say so myself. But you be the judge!

There are some stains even Formula 49 won't touch.

If your initial reaction was 'yuck,' I've done my job. Now imagine the fluid tank filled with a bubbling concoction of syrup, old coffee, soup, and maybe just a dash of clam bits. Add bubbles, and presto! Instant gag reflex.

The stains are actually a mixture of mineral spirits and hardened mahogany wood stain, with some splashes of melted black crayon and floor dirt rubbed in. Not sure if you can read the label in this pic, but it claims the pump was made by Superior Embalming Pumps of Arkham, Massachusetts, as a shout-out to H.P. Lovecraft.

The guts of the device. I know, real guts would have been more impressive, but Karen says they stink up the place.

That's the pump that makes the whole rig work. My cordless drill powers it, so even if my lines spring a leak mid-shoot no one gets electrocuted.

And here's the sign!

I'm proud of that sign. I did the text, the fonts, the graphics, and had them printed on a clear vinyl decal (thanks Vistaprint!). The frame is wood, and aged to look a bit weathered, but better maintained than the pump.

Sorry for the reflection in the image!

But now, let's see some THINGS EXPLODE IN THE FREAKING SKY!

THINGS WHAT EXPLODE IN THE FREAKING SKY!

First, Karen's pics, because she has a good eye and a good camera. I have a good eye too, but I keep it in a jar in a safe deposit box.

That Canon Rebel never ceases to amaze me. Look at the detail it captured, without a hint of blur. Go on, blow it up -- incredible.

Same here, and here. The optics can capture so much so quickly.

Karen really needs her own webpage of pics. I think she said she shot 800 during that single fireworks show.  I'm just not that fast. Speaking of which....

AMATEUR HOUR

I took my cameras, too. I've got a Fujifilm S1000that I put on a tripod and set for long exposures. I've tried this before, with no success, but this time I captured a couple of images I liked.

Here's the first one:

Boom.

The smoke, the flash, the colors -- okay, it's not National Geographic worthy, but it's pretty cool.

Below is another one from the S1000:

Neat, huh? Not everything is in perfect focus, but I like it anyway.

I had friends on that Death Star!

My other camera is a much older 5 megapixel box I've had for years. But it takes great pics. Here are a few it captured.

Boom. Hope you enjoyed the fireworks, sorry about the skeleton, and wash your hands thoroughly after each use of the Superior Embalming Pump No. 7 Special featuring High Pressure Cavity Inject.

Shooting for the movie starts this week, so expect some pics from the set next weekend!

Until then, don't pin your hopes on mail-order skeletons, son, because they'll burn you every time...

Markhat is Grinning Tonight!

Fig. A: Inside the author's mind, which is almost always in a tree.

I have some very good news!

My fearless beta reader, the tireless and eagle-eyed Kellie, has read the first draft of the new Markhat novel.

Her verdict: It's a good book. The word 'loved' was used.

You may have heard my sigh of relief all the way from Mississippi.

I was terrified the series was going the way of so many others and getting stale. She said The Five Faces  avoids that entirely, which is exactly what I intended to avoid. She saw what I doing, even though I didn't tell her beforehand, and that makes me very happy indeed.

So. I'll make another thorough pass while reviewing her comments. If I feel another passes (or ten more) are required, I'll make them too. But hopefully The Five Faces will be off to the publisher for their consideration very soon.

I won't lie to you. Every time I finish a story or a book a mean little voice starts whispering from the cluttered corners in the back of my mind. "Oh, they'll all see what a fraud you are this time, they will," it says, in Gollum's voice, of course. "Know you for the poser and the no-talent hack you are, they will!"

"Why do you sound like Yoda?" I ask. That usually shuts it up for a few minutes, but by then the damage is done.

I'm not alone in harboring persistent doubts. Every writer I know endures that same little voice, from time to time.

I keel you! I keel your career!

After all, what we do is so very subjective. It is entirely possible -- heck, it's inevitable -- that one will find intelligent, educated, tasteful people who will love Book X, and persons with the very same qualities who will loathe Book X.

Which doesn't mean Book X is bad, necessarily. Or that it's good, for that matter. It simply proves the old adage 'you can't please everyone.'

There are plenty of good books which are despised by many. Any Harry Potter title, for instance. And plenty of bad books which are much beloved -- I'm looking at you, Fifty Shades of Grey, and by the way put some pants on.

I understand that. I know not everyone is going to love my books. And that's fine. I don't rail and shout and argue when I get bad reviews.

If the reviewer has a valid point, I try to remember it, and do things better the next time around.  TEACHING MOMENT, for my writing class students: Don't EVER argue with a reviewer, particularly online. Don't even respond, not even to say thanks, because (in my opinion) the review area is for readers, not writers.

Your baby, your book, is on its own. Let it stand on its own two metaphorical feet. Let it fight its own mighty battles of analogy.

You, the writer, should be so consumed by work on your next project you're barely aware of reviews anyway.

Isn't that right, writing class peeps?

But I digress. The little nattering whispers of negativity I'm talking about tonight come from inside.

Those, you must absolutely ignore.

Writing is a lot like walking a high wire, except of course most writing is not done with one's feet. Once you're out there on the line, you've got nothing to keep you going but your wits, your balance, and most of all your nerve. If you start focusing on the whispers that tell you your next step is your last, you are going to fall.

Sure, you're not on a wire stretched hundreds of feet in the air, and the worst thing that will happen physically is a dropped participle, but your act comes to a screeching halt in both instances.

I've learned to all but silence that nasty little voice while I'm working on a project. But once I'm done, here's how my mental processes usually proceed:

Stage One: Euphoria. The book is done. Done, and I love it. I am clearly a genius. A prodigy. Future generations will praise my name and sell Frank Tuttle bobbleheads in the Tuttle Writing Museum Gift Shoppe. Another novel complete. Parades, confetti, and the really expensive Ramen noodles with the added flavor packets all around!

Stage Two: Evaluation. Sure, the book is done, but is it any good? Frantic re-reads. Edits. Re-writes. Repeat of Step One, if the book is deemed worthy. Adoption of air of quiet confidence.

BOOK SUBMITTED HERE

Stage Three: Night of the Panics. OMG what was I thinking? Did I really send that manuscript off? Is it too late to recall the email CANIDESTROYTHEENTIREINTERNETTOPREVENTITSRECEPTION where are my PILLS where are my PILLS AAAAAAGH.

Stage Three usually only lasts about half an hour, but it always occurs at 3:33 AM and is accompanied by an inexplicable apparition of Isaac Asimov shaking his head at me in profound disappointment

Maybe I should stop picking my own mushrooms.

Anyway, I am now firmly in the midst of Stage Two with The Five Faces. I am bolstered by Kellie's appraisal of the book; while my cruel little voice freely questions my judgment, it cannot dismiss hers.

So ha ha, little voice. Maybe the Markhat series will someday jump the shark and lurch to an unseemly end, but that day is not today.

WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGERY AHEAD

Well, sort of.

I'm building a prop for a friend of mine, the talented and lovely Mr. Matthew Graves, who makes documentaries as well as movies. Matthew needs an embalming pump for use in his upcoming film The Embalming, so I'm whipping one up from bits of this and chunks of that.

Now, when you see the picture you'll probably think 'Yuck what a disgusting object. It's filthy. I hates it, I do, nasty Hobbitsess with their thieving little handses..."

And I'll point out that we're both far too familiar with Gollum-speak.

But yes, the pump is dirty. It's supposed to be. There's an art to making things look dirty, by the way. I use a thin film of Elmer's Glue, spread by hand, followed quickly by a liberal dumping of a just-filled dustpan on the housing. Blow off the big stuff, let the dust stick, and viola, instant dirt (the glue dries clear).

Soon, the pump will be bubbling with a disgusting fluid, which shall be a viscous mixture of water, clam chowder, black coffee, syrup, and tomato juice. The soggy grey bits of clam -- oh, they add so much delightful texture, as they whirl past in the clear tank...

I plan to use hand-pumps to make the mixture flow and bubble. Matthew said he could add a mechanical whir in post-production.

So, without further adieu, the prototype pump, still under construction:

Not UL Approved.

Finally, and on a wildly unrelated note, let me share with you a comment made by one of my writing class students, who yawned as I expounded on the merits of showing, not telling, and then explained herself thusly:

"Sorry, Mr. Tuttle, but I stop listening when you start monologuing."

So let that be a lesson to me. No more monologuing! Instead, I shall speak from the heart, and also carry a small but powerful taser, because no one likes absolute honesty.

That's all for this week. Take care, people, and remember -- if you can't get real congealed blood from a rotting corpse, syrup and black coffee will suffice.

Walk Like an Egyptian

First of all, gentle readers, allow me to introduce a new member of the Tuttle writing team.

Bear Kingsley, seated center, says hello.

Now, long-time fans already know Mr Bones (seated, skeleton right) and Mr. Skull (resting left). Please say hello to new bear Kingsley, who came to me all the way from the UK courtesy of my friend Sue Sadler.

Sue, please know that Kingsley is quite happy in his new home. Mr. Skull and Mr. Bones are thrilled to have someone new to talk to, and it turns out even British stuffed bears have remarkably melodious accents. So thanks! I need all the inspiration I can get!

Speaking of Egypt (yeah, we weren't, but clever transitions are the first to go when I've got a headache), there is disturbing news out about the place. No, I don't mean political unrest -- I mean the old gods awake from slumber, plagues of locusts, a hundred days of darkness kind of disturbing. 

I refer to this news item, which reports that a 4,000 year old Egyptian statue has been observed turning in circles inside its sealed glass case.

That's right, people. The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb is awake! It will not rest until it has VENGEANCE!

Or until they slip some rubber vibration dampers under the case. Or VENGEANCE! You've got to admit that's more dramatic than simple motion transfer. I suppose if one wanted one could combine the two, and assert that the angered statue is seeking vengeance by turning in slow circles inside its case when heavy traffic passes by, but that lacks a certain Old Testament flair.

Anyway, here's a link to the story of the moving statue, and since the source is The Sun, you know it's the unvarnished truth.... 

NEW FEATURE: NAME THAT HAIRY BUG!

Many claim Nature is filled with multitudinous wonders.

I say Nature is full of bugs.

Think I'm wrong? Turn over a rock. Look under a log. Leave a pristine fried egg sandwich out on a clean white plate for 30 seconds. I don't care if your plate rests on a table inside a sealed nuclear confinement chamber deep inside a super-secret Shadow Government Doomsday project, a fly will land on that sandwich even if it has to crawl through sixteen miles of hot glowing magma to get there.

Because that's what bugs do.

I was out with my camera earlier when I spied a white fuzzy crawling thing making its way up the trunk of the massive silver birch tree in the backyard. I watched the white fuzzy crawling thing for a moment, because MY LIFE IS TRULY THAT BORING, and maybe some bug sixth sense warned the caterpillar it was being observed because it ducked beneath a piece of bark.

I set my trusty Fuji for near-field and took the following shots:

Bloody paparazzi, can't crawl anywhere these days...

It seems Mr. White Hairy Bug has friends! They watched me watching them, waving their antenna in what I can only assume was a friendly greeting.

Despite my expert wilderness tracking skills (I once found an open Wendy's burger joint without using a GPS, in a light misting rain), I couldn't name these creepy-crawlies. So I went to the net, and found that we are viewing a cluster of common caterpillars called F. Horriblis Terriblis, which will spend 120 days in the caterpillar stage before entering a cocoon and ultimately emerging as:

Yeah, a can of Raid isn't going to work here...

On the upside of having a monster gestating in the backyard, that really should end our mole problem once and for all.

BEHOLD, THE SUPERMOON!

Nature isn't all about deadly bugs who seek to consume our tender, tasty flesh.

It's also filled with enormous celestial bodies careening towards our fair planet, intent on smashing it into molten, lifeless bits.

Even the Moon gets in on the act, now and then. You see, the Lunar orbit is, despite what you've been told, wildly variable. Sometimes the Moon comes within sixteen miles of the Earth's surface. Sometimes it veers off course and threatens to hurl us screaming into the sun. It has even been known to hit your eye like a big pizza pie (what astronomers call 'an amore').

That's all according to the History Channel, at least. Which should be re-named the 'Aliens Are Here to Kill Us All' Channel, and should be put next to 'Dim-Witted Rednecks With Too Many Regressive Genes' channel (formerly TLC) in the lineup.

The truth is that this weekend's so-called 'supermoon' was basically indistinguishable from your run-of-the-mill Joe Six-pack workaday moon. Yes, it was at its orbital near point to us, but we're talking a truly small measure of near.

But hey, it was a clear night, so I stepped outside with 35 billion biting, stinging, gnawing bugs and had a look.

I even took photos, as seen below, in the stunning image NASA DOESN'T WANT YOU TO SEE!

Bonus points to anyone who can correctly explain the significance of this genuine, un-retouched image! Heck I'll send a signed copy of THE BROKEN BELL to the first one to email me with the name of the pipe-smoking man in the image. 

Maybe the next supermoon, I'll remember to adjust for the Moon's inherent brightness, so I won't wind up with 62 pics of a featureless white disc. Nice going there, Frank!

MYSTERY SOLVED!

A few of you may recall mention of a local 'best of' contest here in my hometown of Oxford, last week.

Here's a link back to the blog entry concerning that.

But that's not the end of the story! It seems that a number of Oxonians, upon reading my name in the local paper as winning the Best Local Writer title, called and emailed the local paper's editor asking just who the heck this Frank Tuttle character is.

There was, it seems, suspicion that I am not even real.

Face it, there's something fishy about this Tuttle character...

That suspicion stems from an old episode of the TV show MASH. In that episode, Hawkeye and Trapper created a fictitious captain named Frank Tuttle and diverted all his pay to the local orphanage. 

All was well until the Army press caught wind of the selfless and heroic Captain Tuttle. Hawkeye and crew then faked the Captain's death to get out of the mess they created.

So naturally, forty years after that episode aired, a few of my fellow citizens decided I was nothing more than the long-planned realization of that TV trope.

The editor of the paper (The Oxford Eagle) called me and we had a good laugh verifying my existence. You can see the start of the story that ran last week here.

So that mystery, at least, is solved. I am me, and I have the paperwork to prove it. 

Unless I forged all that too....bwahahahahaha.

In writing news, well, I have plenty. The first draft of the new Markhat is out with my fearless beta-reader, who is even now probably trying to think of a gentle way to tell me I jumped the shark on Book Number Eight.

The new Meralda and Mug, which is entitled All the Turns of Light, is officially underway! So I beg just a little more patience from fans of that series. I promise it won't be long!

That's all for this week. Be sure to tune in next Sunday for more awe-inspiring pictures of things I find crawling around and inexcusably overexposed images of Earth's closet neighbor, the planet Krypton.

Not Bad For an Old Dude

Fig. 1: The author.

As you can see, I'm holding up quite well, despite just turning fifty. Could use a manicure, but Mrs. Chan just screams and runs when I enter the nail salon these days. Must be my new hairstyle.

A few weeks ago, the local paper (the venerable and always informative Oxford Eagle) ran a contest to name the 'best of' Oxford in various categories. One of the categories was writer.

Oxford is home to a number of renowned authors, both living and dead. William Faulkner lived, worked, and drank here, usually simultaneously. John Grisham was an Oxonian for a long time before moving away. Barry Hannah was a instructor on campus. Ace Adkins lives not far from me. These are big names with powerful followings, so I never expected to be mentioned.

But the votes were counted, and somehow I won the thing!

I'm not accustomed to seeing my name appear in a larger font than that of John Grisham. So, to all the locals who voted for me, THANK YOU! And I'd also like to point out that my status as a living author has been confirmed by the professional press. So put the mallets and the wooden stakes away. I'm just pale, people. And a lot of men wear capes nowadays. Fashions change.

The first edit of the new Markhat book continues. I hope to wrap it up this week. I'm eager to finish it and get started on the new Meralda and Mug book, All the Turns of Light.

ON THE TURNTABLE

But Frank you ask, in a stunning non sequitur of a transition, what music are you listening to right now?

Glad you asked, because I have a new album to rave about! See the cover below...

Yep, if you thought you recognized the name, you probably did -- Natalie Maines is/was the lead singer for the apparently dormant country group The Dixie Chicks.

I'm not a huge fan of country music. But some voices transcend genre, and Miss Maines is one of those rare talents.

Mother is a solo album, and of course my favorite track of the album (and I mean album as in vinyl, baby) is her version of Pink Floyd's legendary Mother.

But that's not to say the other songs are less worthy. Each is a tour de force. Maines can sing anything -- rock, folk, country, it doesn't matter. She sounds amazing just standing there silent. Yeah. That good.

The last time I was this happy with an album was when I first heard AA Bondy's brilliant When The Devil's Loose.

Look, I'm one of those hard-core nutjobs who believes vinyl recordings capture some magical essence of music that digital media simply misses. Mother is loaded with that special kind of musical magic. The songs soar. They march. They float effortlessly. They resound.

Gargoyle and Dragon approve!

The moods range from happy to melancholy to wistful to sad and back again. The quality of the recordings is top-notch. Listening to this record is akin to being hot and filthy and exhausted and being treated to a sudden cool rain. Or a sandwich and a beer. I'm trying to say it's a genuine journey, laid down with soulful sounds.

Do I recommend this album? Yes. Yes I do, in the strongest possible terms. If you have to crawl through swamps and bite snakes in half the whole way just so you can use the carcass to swat away giant leeches while fighting off mutant flaming crocodiles do so and get this album. It will be worth the effort, and anyway I for one could use the exercise.

I hope another album is in the works.

Natalie Maines, it's good to have you back.

I should get back to editing now. So all you crazy kids go listen to some good music while you read a good book, and I'll see you back here next Sunday!

A Post Five Decades in the Making

© packo michael | Dreamstime Stock Photos

I turn 50 tomorrow.

The rational part of me realizes any birthday is simply an arbitrary and entirely artificial milestone that has no relevance beyond the realm of cheesy birthday cards. My fiftieth birthday? It's just a number. I'll be no different tomorrow than I am today, on any meaningful level.

The irrational part of me (roughly 89% of my makeup) is running in panicked circles screaming bloody murder because I may no longer count myself among the young.

Sadly, I resemble both images.

Face it, man, when you start getting those AARP membership forms every couple of weeks, the needle on your YOUTHFUL TIME REMAINING METER just fell into the red, hit the zero, spat gears, and started smoking.

Too, I'm attracting a lot of interest from buzzards lately. I get the feeling they're eyeing me with regards to how much oregano they need to have handy.

© Odm | Dreamstime Stock Photos So what do weigh? 190? 200? Just asking, no reason...

Of course there are upsides to growing older. Really, there are. I'll list them all below:

• Yep. Ought to be something written here.
• Here too.
• This is a lot harder than it looks.
• I give up.

Now, if anyone wants to give me a birthday present, go to Amazon and review one of my books if you haven't already. Especially Brown River Queen. That would be so awesome of you I'd start rocking faster in my squeaky old rocking chair.

Grim reminders of impending mortality aside, I do have one bit of news for Markhat fans. Drumroll and fireworks please:

Boom.

The first draft of the new Markhat novel, currently entitled THE FIVE FACES, is finished!

Finished. Done. Complete. Yes, it's only a first draft, but it is done.

The village mob seems pleased.

Now, if anyone believes that a completed first draft is subjected to a cursory spell-check and then shipped straight to the printer, I have bad news. Because that's not at all how the process works. 

This first draft, beloved though it is, is flawed. Deeply flawed. It's full of typos and poorly-chosen words and scenes that don't work and plot holes I can nearly shove my old-man electric mobility scooter through. 

My work on it is far from done.  

I'll start by doing a cold read, beginning to end, making notes as I go. Then I'll address plot holes and big issues. Once that's done, I start again, this time looking for scenes that don't work. Again, to check dialog. 

Then again with spelling and word choice.  

By this time, I'll be so sick of the book I'll need to pass it off to my fearless beta reader Kellie, who will wade into the fray and no doubt laugh at my authorial shortcomings.

Only after that will the completed manuscript get anywhere near an editor, because A) I'd rather publishing industry professionals not realize the true depth of my incompetence and B) See A.

But, even with all the work that goes into editing and revising, completing that first draft is all-important. Without the first draft, without all its warts and faults, there can never be a final book.

So, as I look back on a half-century of life, I can at least say I wrote a few books. I hope people have enjoyed them. 

Well, I'm off to start the edits. Here's to another fifty years of avoiding prosecution!

Cheers, all. Have a good week!

Found Money and Lost Plots

First of all, a yellow-green ladybug perched on a flower!

I attempted to interview the ladybug, but it turns out they aren't fans of social media. Who knew insects could even make that gesture?

If you read last week's blog, you may remember the bird I couldn't quite identify. Well, I got a good close look at her this week, and she's a mockingbird, complete with distinctive wing-stripes.

The first draft of the new Markhat book is nearing its end. We're talking the last ten thousand words or less, which means it's time for the big dust-up and the aftermath.

I'll certainly finish up this month, and get a good running start on the next book, which will be the sequel to All the Paths of Shadow. I plan to finish it within the year as well.

I'm eager to wrap up the last few scenes of The Five Faces (the new Markhat book) and do a re-read from start to finish. I have a nagging suspicion this book is going to go down as the darkest in the series thus far. I'm not sure why it wound up that way, but it certainly has. All necessary, of course, because this book deals with some intense subject matter -- Markhat is forced to relive some of his experiences as a dog handler during the War, for instance. He and his dog Petey explored Troll tunnels, hunting owl-eyed giants down deep in the dark. There's absolutely no humor to be found there.

An exploration of free will versus pre-ordained fate also crept into the plot. I won't even give you a hint as to where I land on that.

Oh, and here's a hint for my writing class -- don't EVER write yourself into a corner that requires you to solve the 'Grandfather Paradox.' Talk about a headache! But I believe it was worth it, because it really lent the ending quite a punch.

A start-to-finish cold read of a newly-written novel is necessary for a number of reasons. My primary mission on my first read is to seek out and resolve instances of what my friend Denise Vitola calls pocket amnesia.

Denise describes pocket amnesia as it relates to writers in her blog Thomas Talks to Me. Her entry on pocket amnesia describes the phenomena as akin to unexpectedly finding a twenty dollar bill in a jacket pocket. Yes, you left the twenty there, and yes, it was important (because to all the writers I know, a twenty dollar bill is something that happens most often to other people), and yes, you completely forgot about it as soon as you took off that jacket and stored it away for the winter.

Think of chapters as jackets, and the twenty as a plot element, and then wipe that smile off your face because the literary form of pocket amnesia isn't nearly as much fun as the money-finding kind.

It's like this. Say I state in Chapter Five that my hero, Markhat, is allergic to shellfish, but in Chapter Ten, I sit him down to a lobster dinner.

That's a simple example of pocket amnesia. That one is easily fixed; either omit the allergy reference altogether, or serve beef in Chapter Ten.

The danger, of course, lies in not catching the problem in the first place, and winding up looking careless and inattentive to your editor. In extreme instances, you might also find yourself facing an insurmountable plot conflict -- what if I established, in Book Two, that vampires can always tell when a human is lying, but the pivotal scene in my current book, Book Eight, relies entirely on all-too-human Markhat successfully lying to a vampire?

You can't go back and re-write the previous book. Gutting your current book is tantamount to applying sandpaper to your own tongue. But despite the work and the pain involved, the problem has to be fixed.

Not that I suspect I've done anything quite that disastrous. But the fear is always lurking, a constant companion on that perilous first reading of a first draft.

What if I've neglected to address some fatal plot flaw? What if this entire intricate plot is about to collapse, flying apart like a house of cards in a whirlwind?

And people wonder why we writers are such a morose, glaring bunch. It's because we're always just a few words, a single turn of phrase, between fame and infamy.

Okay, that's a bit melodramatic, especially in light of the irrefutable fact that most of us are so far from actual Fame we'd have to buy time on the Hubble Space Telescope just to get a distant glimpse.

It's either Fame or Fomalhaut, either way, I can't make out much detail...

But we are always at risk of losing that precious unspent twenty-dollar bill.

And for the modern writer, that's a sum we can ill afford to gamble.

Wish me luck this week! I will of course post a bonus IT IS FINISHED WOOHOO post as soon as I type the last word.

The Big Green Birds of Spring

All too often I get wrapped up in my own little world of private jets and international espionage and I forget about the small dramas playing out all around me.

That's easy to do when you're, say, trying to open your secondary chute after leaping from a flaming 747 twenty thousand feet over the French Alps (that was Tuesday afternoon, I believe), but it's true.

Consider, for instance, the birds. They're everywhere, now that summer is near. Chirping, flapping, pecking at the ground, relaying messages to former KGB cells -- in short, going about the business of being birds.

Most of what I know about birds involves pounds of body weight and hours spent basting in an oven at 375 degrees. I can usually distinguish between a bluebird and a mockingbird, or a hawk and an incoming Exocet missile, but that's about the extent of my birding skills.

So when I noticed the chirping of baby birds coming from an old birdhouse I stuck in the crook of a Bradford pear tree last year, I naturally assumed they were bluebirds.

Now, I'll go ahead and say what most men fear to whisper, which is that all infants of all species are ugly. Sorry, but they are. Shriveled and wrinkled and usually an odd shade of blue, babies just aren't pretty, and these are no exception.

Still, I didn't see a mother bird, or a father bird, or even a social worker bird from PCS.

So I grabbed my camera and, after quickly dispatching a pair of Ninja assassins hiding in what they failed to realize was a bed of poison ivy, I waited for mama bird to appear.

The following pics are the fruits of my patient labor.

The birdhouse. One bedroom, one bath, priced to move at 120K.

You can see the little birds poking their heads out. Below is a close-up:

We demand bugs!

Here's another shot:

Look, maybe we're cute from a distance.

I waited for a long time, before I saw Mama bird, perched in the next tree over, giving me the eye. If anyone knows what species she is, let me know! I suppose she is a bit blue, in a greyish-green sort of way, but frankly she doesn't look much like a bluebird. Of course I'm colorblind so I'm not the best judge of these things.

I managed to grab a single image of Mama actually feeding the babies, and then I decided I was making them all nervous, so I left. But here it is!

Notice how even in the image above she's looking at me and saying, in Bird, "You want I should peck your eyes out? YOU WANT DAT MONKEY-BOY?"

This next pic is just a green leaf. But it's the green you get only in spring, and only for a few weeks of spring. Soon the rains will stop and things will turn desert-dry and blast-furnace hot and this shade of green will go brittle, touched with brown, and dry.

I like this next image because it captured green, blue, and white, all in the same frame. It was shot looking up beneath a young oak tree.

Next up are many shades of green, taken over a blackberry patch:

Finally, and this is just for anyone who occasionally collects weird images to use as samples or bits for webpages, this shot of weathered cedar:

Birds and random leaves aside, I've been working hard to push the new Markhat novel to a close. And I'm getting there, via the most complicated ending I've ever written. I do like the way what started as Markhat's most mundane case (finding a little dog named Cornbread) turns into a mess that, as Stitches warns, could result in the unraveling of the entire universe.

But some days are like that, aren't they?  

I meant to have Mug's contribution to Sidekick Sunday ready for today, but alas, it was not to be. Instead, I'll leave you with a link to an MP3 sound file of me reading aloud 'The Knocking Man,' a scary short set in a cemetery where the dead are laid, but seldom rest....

The Knocking Man

Problematic Paranormal: Ghost VS Dynamite

Maybe you believe in ghosts. Maybe you don't.

I believe ghost hunting reality shows have truly jumped the shark.

I won't name the show, because the guys making it seemed like good guys doing what they believed was right, but when your ghost hunt culminates in blowing up a 'ghost trap' with very real dynamite it's time to re-examine your investigative protocols.

First of all, the ghost trap featured in the show. They constructed what has been called a 'devil's toybox,' which is simply a cube, about a foot on each face. The interior surfaces of the cube are lined with mirrors.

The premise is that the hapless ghost enters the cube only to find itself unable to exit, because the mirrors prevent this. How do mirrors prevent this?

Because, you know, they're mirrors. Reflective and, um, stuff. Partly magic. Magic, because apparently the ghost is forced to remain at the center of the cube and ponder its own reflection for all eternity, which is quite a trick considering their lack of optical surfaces or detectable reflection.

Curse you, moderately reflective surface!

Another problematic feature of the so-called ghost trap is this -- if a ghost passed freely through the mirror to get into the box, why can't it do the same to get out?

A mirror is nothing but a sheet of glass backed by a reflective substance. Silver was once commonly used, but the mirrors you get at Walmart use cheaper reflectors (probably aluminum), so there goes any kind of superstitious mumbo-jumbo about the mystical properties of silver. After all, you never see vampire hunters or the like cry 'Halt, vile spectre, for I wield the power of sacred aluminum!'

Side note: Telescope and other special optical instrument mirrors place the reflective surface on the front, to prevent refraction as light passes through the glass. They are called 'first surface' mirrors for this reason. That science moment brought to you by the letter I (for incredulous).

If you want to get really snippy with the whole ghost trap critique, wouldn't it be necessary for each and every interior seam to be perfectly reflective? Since that's impossible to achieve with flat mirrors cut and glued to plywood, wouldn't the 'ghost' (which hasn't been proven to exist anyway) simply slide out through any imperfect and therefore unreflective joining of walls?

Okay. Forget all that. I'll give them a pass -- let's say some mystical property of mirrored surfaces does act to block the movement of spirits. You've caught a ghost, huzzahs and Miller Lites all around.

That still doesn't explain what these ghost hunters did with the trap after confining their ghost.

They took the trap outdoors, put dynamite around it, and blew it up.

Eat C4, Casper.

Okay, that's a first for a TV ghost hunting show. Dynamite, things blowing up? Not the usual visuals.

But really?

Let's say the mirrored cube did somehow trap a disembodied spirit.

What possible good would blowing up the trap do?

Wouldn't the spirit simply be freed? One second it's pondering its lack of a reflection and wondering why it can traverse space and time but can't pass through an eighth of an inch of cheap mirror glass. Then some guy presses a button, and BOOM the mirrors are rapidly-expanding clouds of dust and the plywood cube is a million windborne splinters.

Wouldn't the ghost simply float away, possibly to return to its home and resume bedeviling the unfortunate homeowners?

Not according to some. Trap the ghost, detonate the trap, problem solved. Roll credits and previews for next week's show.

Sorry, I cannot complete the mental gyrations required for that to make sense. If a being is immaterial, neither mirrors nor dynamite can interact with it. If a being is NOT immaterial then it can be seen, photographed, and probably even heard screaming to be let out of the bloody box.

Now, I'll be the first to admit the mirrored ghost trap has a certain dramatic appeal. I plan to steal the concept and use it as soon as I can in a book or story, simply because A) it's cool and B) it has a certain intuitive logic about it. Mirrors creep people out, always have -- so naturally they would affect ghosts in some way as well. That's how our brains work. We're always making sense of out a nonsensical world.

But that doesn't make any of it real.

So I'm pretty much giving up on ghost hunting shows. Not ghost hunting, mind you -- just the TV depictions of it.

I do wonder what's next for that particular show. Will they go after pesky poltergeists with shoulder-launched missiles or hidden Claymore mines? Will viewers be treated to one-sided firefights between ghost hunters armed with shotguns and unseen ghosts returning fire with silenced ectoplasmic spook rifles?

If the network smells ratings, possibly so...

Work on the new Markhat book continues. Hey, I do have a favor to ask -- if you read the last Markhat book, BROWN RIVER QUEEN, and you liked it, how about giving me a quick review on Amazon? Reviews mean sales, and sales mean money, and money lets me buy dynamite to blow up ghosts. You do want to see ghosts blown up, right?

Right?

So please, a review, if you will! Thanks.

Speaking of reviews, check out this review of ALL THE PATHS OF SHADOW. Look, too often book reviews themselves aren't much fun to read, but this one is a hoot. And yes, Meralda does spend a lot of time in her laboratory doing math....

FANTASY REVIEW BARN

Finally, a record review. Record as in vinyl music LP, and review as in not a review because I can't play the album.

I didn't know I couldn't play the album at first. It's a standard-sized album, entitled Strange Cacti, by Angel Olsen.

I carefully put the record on my turntable and then scurried upstairs to get to work.

The first song started.

Now, I bought this album based on whim and caprice. I'd never heard of Miss Olsen, or her music. I have no idea what her style is. The earnest, bearded young man at the record store praised my choice, so I thought I'd stumbled on a hidden gem.

The sounds emanating from my homebuilt speakers were anything but precious, though. If ghosts in traps sang, this is what their songs would sound of -- discordant, growling, unintelligible.

Okay. I'm an open-minded dude. Pink Floyd has some weird intros too -- A Group of Small Furry Mammals in a Cave Grooving With A Pict, anyone?

So I kept listening.

It got worse. Growling, keening, muttering. The music, too, was strange -- slow, dragging, like a funeral procession gone inexplicably underwater.

Thor looked up at me, his head tilted in doggie confusion. He listened with me for a moment, and then he came to his feet and, for the first time in all my years with dogs, he began to howl at the record.

I went downstairs, sure I was experiencing some sort of turntable malfunction. I tried a different track with the same results.

Then I looked at the tiny print on the record label, which indicated the album might be a 45, rather than the usual 33 RPM record.

The jacket said nothing of the sort. Indeed, the jacket is so secretive it's hesitant to even reveal the album's name.

I switched to 45 RPM, and the sound quality improved, although the vocals do seem, to put it kindly, distant.

Anyway, I haven't made up my mind about Strange Cacti, since Thor won't let me play it without growling.

Okay, back to work for me! Have a good week, people. Be nice to strangers, kind to animals, and show cheese who is boss.

Weird News Roundup

Meet Nick and Nora, resident buzzards. They're now roosting in my backyard. I hope they weren't led here by anticipation of a good meal...

This image popped up as I snapping away trying to get a good shot of Nick and Nora in flight. Yes, it's blurred, and the exposure and shutter settings are all wrong -- but look at the tree trunk on the right side. Doesn't that look like a monstrous spectral eye, looking back at you?

It isn't, of course. That trunk belongs to the cherry tree not 30 feet from where I sit. It's not haunted, or hexed, or even spooky. It's just a bad photo, which produced a weird image.

Scouring Google Earth and the like for bizarre images is a hobby for many. Not for me, because I'm too lazy to sift through tens of thousands of entries hoping to find that one picture that is truly unusual, but thankfully not everyone is as slothful as I. Case in point -- the so-called 'Antarctic Nessie' video you can see for yourself below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkwwJ3QepiM&feature=youtu.be

I'm not saying it is a frozen sea creature. Without any indication of scale, it could be fifty feet long or five thousand; we just don't know. But it is interesting, in a 'hey look at that guy he's really too exhausted to blog today' way.

Next up, there's a sea serpent video you may or may not have seen. It's relatively clear, as these things go, and it honestly does look like the creature's head emerges ahead of the body. But see for yourself!

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/other-shows/videos/alaskan-monster-hunt-sea-monster-witness.htm

Here's some decent underwater video of a Swedish lake monster, with English translation, because without the translation most of us won't have any idea what the Swedish lake monster is saying (it's singing the old ABBA tune Waterloo,fiy).

http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/blobbogey-vide/

Sea monsters aside, this Bigfoot video answers the age-old question of whether Bigfoot prefers boots or sandals.  Watch the feet as they leave the water. Seriously, people, if you're going to fake a video TAKE OFF YOUR FREAKING GALOSHES.

http://www.cryptomundo.com/bigfoot-report/mount-beacon-bigfoot/

And now to UFOs. This story is out of Quincy, Massachusetts, and it's ongoing. An unidentified aircraft has been doing low-and-slow flyovers of the city for days now, and while the FAA admits it's there and they know it's there they won't say who is flying it or why. The FAA was quick to point out it wasn't a drone, though. Because having a spy plane filled with actual spies is a lot less scary than a robot drone?

Here's the full story:

http://www.realufos.net/

Ghosts? You bet! Here's a new ghost video that's caused some stir. Story with video...

http://metro.co.uk/2013/02/19/ghost-caught-on-cctv-at-haunted-community-centre-in-south-ruislip-3503584/

Scariest ghost images of 2013? Meh. Most seem to me to be explainable. Judge for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hfeRCEFchqo#!

Okay, this is a prank and it doesn't pretend to be real -- but it is funny. Done by a Brazilian TV show, about a little girl ghost in a malfunctioning elevator...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7N5OhNplEd4

Finally, the best sketch from SNL's Kristin Wiig host gig last night. Mom's a Korean Water Ghost!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_ssWzqc62g

Have a good week, people!

Our Stupid Bodies: Frank's Tips on Wellness and Healthy Living

It's been a bad week.

I sat in front of this bloody monitor for hours today, trying to be funny, to be informative, to be sarcastic or caustic or anything but angry or maudlin. But the empty spot on the floor where Thor ought to be isn't going away, and the only words I'm inclined to write are words best left unpublished.

So, tonight we're going to do a rerun. Here's my (in)famous blog on wellness and general good health. Enjoy. I'll be back soon with new material.

(From 05/2013)

Your body is either a wondrous living engine powered by a spark of the divine or a ludicrous assemblage of evolutionary short-cuts, depending on your point of view.

Having seen myself naked (police video enhancement techniques have shown a marked improvement in recent months), I know where I stand on the whole wondrous construction / meat-based Rube Goldberg contraption controversy.

An injury to my back last week left me thinking about the fleeting and fragile notion of health. Since the injury also left me in a crumpled heap on the floor, I had plenty of time to ponder my attitudes toward wellness in between bouts of cursing and attempts to raise myself by climbing a nearby window-frame.

So, with a renewed appreciation for the simple things I took for granted -- walking, standing, crouching to hide from store detectives, lifting liquor bottles or barrels filled with deep-fried hamburgers -- I'd like to offer a few thoughts on our bodies, and how to keep them healthy.

Your body is a biological machine, powered by food and air, which will give you many years of trouble-free use if you perform regular maintenance, especially routine oil changes. Wait. I got my body mixed up with my riding lawn mower. Let me start over.

Your body is a wildly inefficient hodge-podge of finicky, unreliable chemical processes and damage-prone tissue structures. Even with the best of luck, it's going to start failing faster than a Russian-built sports car after forty years, and probably well before that.

Let's take a look at the major structures and systems that make up the human body:

Might as well pick out a plot....

1) THE SKELETAL SYSTEM. Beneath your skin is an appalling volume of gooey wet stuff.  Hidden inside this gelatinous mass of goo are your bones. Each bone connects to another via muscles, tendons, ligaments, and cleverly-hidden wires. This complex arrangement of jointed bones and opposing muscles allows you to wave awkwardly at strangers who you thought waved to you, but were in fact waving at their friend behind you. Too, whereas the lowly ant can only lift a mass fifty times its own body weight, your skeletal system grants you the ability to beg for help opening a jar of mayonnaise. Maybe that stranger has a stronger grip than you do, from all that bloody waving.

The most common skeletal problem is that of having to endure a skeleton in the first place. Face it, used  skeletons wind up wired in humorous poses by bored medical students or spend decades popping out of doors in carnival spook-houses, and even then the things are prone to make a lot of clattering noises and require frequent repairs. Many commercial and medical establishments have switched to sturdy plastic skeletons these days, which is a move you should check into as well.

The human brain.

2) THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. Your nervous system conveys the brain's instructions to your muscles via a series of nerves. Given the poorly thought-out nature of most of your brain's instructions, this crude and error-prone delivery system is probably a blessing in disguise, since it gives you time to reconsider flipping off the burly, tattooed Neanderthal who just bumped you in a checkout line.

Humans share virtually all of their nervous system chemistry and neurobiology with the graceful soaring hawk and the surefooted mountain goat, but you'd never suspect that after watching the average person put on a drunken rendition of the 'Mashed Potato' dance at a karaoke bar. Honestly, half the population is likely to suffer minor injury just playing 'Rock, Paper, Scissors' and the other half couldn't walk across a foot-wide plank without falling if their lives depended on it.

Nerves are composed of neurons, glial cells, and quite a number of other microscopic structures which are wasting their time and effort on a species that still hasn't quite mastered the rhythmic finger-snap.

3) THE DIGESTIVE SYSTEM. Your body requires proper nutrition to function at its best. A quick appraisal of your body's so-called 'best' clearly explains the shelves lined with Cheetos and the presence of a McDonalds drive-thru every sixty feet in the developed West.

You can spend forty years nibbling on nothing but free-ranch kelp and gluten-free naturally-occurring whole-grain tofu and still wind up diagnosed with the exact same terminal diseases as the 400-pound trucker who has eaten nothing but tobacco-soaked gas station burritos since 1987.

Still, you might improve your odds a tiny bit if you maintain a body that conforms to the following simple formula:

Height > Maximum girth.

Thus, if your waist measurement is six feet, remember to maintain a height of AT LEAST six feet. Seven would be better. Eight is just showing off.

Choose a height and stick with it. Your digestive system will seek to undermine your efforts at every turn, but  if you can ignore the aching constant hunger and nearly-irresistible urges to consume the entire Sarah Lee display in a single sitting, you can at least maintain a healthy weight. This ensures your last words can be smug ones.

A healthy heart is a bloated misshapen heart!

4) THE CARDIOPULMONARY SYSTEM. Your heart and lungs comprise your cardiopulmonary system. The hearts pumps the blood, which passes through the lungs. In the lungs, the blood releases carbon dioxide, absorbs oxygen, and craves tobacco just like it's done day after tiresome day since Prince released his breakout '1999' album.

Much ado is made by physicians and the media concerning blood pressure and the importance of keeping one's blood pressure within certain clear limits.

Regardless of your age, general health, or activity level, doctors have determined that your blood pressure is well beyond both the upper and lower safe limits and you will soon expire unless you:

• Switch to a healthy diet by removing all food from your diet.
• Pester harried waiters with demands that your tablecloth and silverware be certified gluten-free.
• Lecture everyone you know about the benefits of a Vegan lifestyle.
• Reduce your body mass by no less than 67% between now and the next celebration of Earth Day.
• Stop using bacon as both dental floss and chewing gum.

By taking care of your heart, you will ensure that Cyborg Dick Cheney has a steady supply of cardiac tissue for at least the next half-century.

Fig. 3, the anterior brachiostatic excretory array. Eww.

5) THE BRACHIOSTATIC - ARTERIOPEDIOTIC SYSTEM. All the squishy things not covered by topics 1 through 4 above. Feet, nose hair follicles, ear wax glands, etc. Basically, all the squirming bits of this and ropy parts of that which ancient Egyptian mummy-makers hurriedly sealed up in jars. Because, yuck.

If something goes wrong here -- and it will -- odds are you'll first learn of it in that brief moment between floating above your motionless body and being pulled into The Light. Early symptoms of a sudden demise from brachiostatic complications include itching, sneezing, feelings of calm or well-being, anxiety, hunger, thirst, any sensations of fullness, sounds or vocalizations from the mouth, blinking, yawning, skin, or regular bouts with sleep.

There is a way to keep your complex brachiostatic system in perfect function by consuming a half teaspoon of a certain Greek plant pollen per day, but this same pollen causes rapid, irreversible heart failure. Who says Nature doesn't have a sense of humor?

Really, the best you can do is keep those toenails trimmed so the morgue attendants won't snicker and post awful pics on Instagram.

HEALTH CONCERNS: AGING

From the moment you are born, your body begins to renew itself.

Sadly, your body is no better at this renewal business than it is at regenerating limbs or developing acute night vision. Now, if you cut a starfish in two pieces, each piece will heal and become a really pissed-off starfish, and no one will ever leave you alone with their pets or small children.

But cut off the tip of your pinky finger, and aside from profuse bleeding all that happens is a rapid realization that your Blue Cross insurance coverage is woefully inadequate.

Aging is merely a slow-motion fatal car crash into a rather solid stone wall. You are placed in the doomed car at birth, the doors are locked tight, and the steering wheel and brakes don't work. But take heart; each year, advances in medical science bring us closer to a truly lifelike embalming process.

We really, REALLY mean it this year.

HEALTH CONCERNS: DISEASE PREVENTION

Not a flu season passes without dire warnings from the CDC that the current strain of bird flu will wipe all of humanity from the tortured face of the soon-to-be-barren Earth. We are bombarded with media instructions to get flu shots, wear breath masks, and refrain from huffing the missing CDC canisters of experimental bird flu viruses.

This year will be no different, and the outcome will be the same. The worldwide death toll from the latest incurable superflu will be dwarfed by the sum total of all Nerf-related injury deaths suffered while riding atop a rhinoceros at noon on Arbor Day. If this is pointed out, CDC spokesmen will mutter under their breath and hint that next year the Great Unwashed are really gonna get trashed.

The only way to prevent disease is by avoiding childbirth, especially your own. Once you're here, disease is both inevitable and a vital component of our thriving Health Care and Mortuary industries.

You've got to really *feel* the burn.

HEALTH CONCERNS: EXERCISE

Use it or lose it, they say. They also say five times five is thirty-six and London is the capital of China, so listening to them is a complete waste of time.

Another complete waste of time is exercise. You can run, you can lift weights, you can practice Yoga every hour of every day for your entire life, but your body will still direct its energies toward devising ways to undermine your efforts. If you run, you will ruin your knees. If you lift weights, you will tear things with cryptic names such as the 'ACLU' or the 'Isles of Langerhams.'

You may forestall this inevitable decay by injecting steroids directly into your muscles, which will make you  stronger, faster, and easily capable of swinging that blood-soaked claw hammer for hours on end while a SWAT team peppers you with rubber bullets.

An alternative to this is low impact aerobic exercise, which consists of rapid-fire channel surfing while seated at an athletic and unyielding 46 degree angle. Additional motion may be added to the workout session by incorporating the chip-dip arm action, or by walking briskly to the refrigerator at regular intervals for another Coors Lite.

Marathons, triathlons, paragons, pentagons, and the Running of the Bulls are best left to the obsessive-compulsive, the rabidly insane, and the Spanish.

Grab your ankles, sailor.

HEALTH CONCERNS: YOUR DOCTOR - PATIENT RELATIONSHIP

Finding a competent, caring physician is an important step in maintaining wellness and a healthy lifestyle. However, you could achieve the same results by engaging in a quest for solid physical evidence of Bigfoot. In fact, that's altogether the better idea.

The modern physician left medical school only to find him or her self buried under a veritable mountain of debt. The only way to ever hope to pay it off is to run patients through their practices at speeds normally reserved for slaughterhouse cattle-chutes. Pharmaceutical reps help out by pushing thousands of pills and saving the poor beleaguered doctor the time of actually listening to his patients, who are by nature a whiny complaining lot anyway.

The modern doctor-patient relationship works like this -- you, the patient, are presented with a bill. You pay the bill. If the bleeding resumes return for another rapid-fire office visit, receive another bill, and this time, a blue pill.

Repeat until wellness or a body temperature equaling that of the ambient air is achieved.

It's just not that hard, people.

The spiders tell me to dance!

HEALTH CONCERNS: MENTAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH

Many mental health care providers recommend quiet introspection and frequent self-examination as part of a health-conscious lifestyle. These health care providers recommend these practices because that BMW 328i with the 36 speaker Bose sound system and the heated leather seats isn't going to pay for itself, and the usual reaction to any interval of honest self-appraisal is panic followed by weekends in Vegas spent mainlining pure grain alcohol.

An important first step to achieving true mental health is learning to distinguish between the voices of friends and family, the voice of Grolog, Dark Lord of the Underworld, and the voice of Mark, who will be your server for this evening. Honestly, if you can refuse to loan your cousin Theo money, ignore Grolog's suggestions that you emulate the dietary practices of Hannibal Lecter, and convey to Mark your wishes for iced tea, the turkey club, and a side of spicy fries, then you're already in better shape than 75% of the other diners in Chili's.

Spiritual health is best achieved by waiting to become a disembodied spirit yourself, and if you keep ordering the spicy fries, you won't be waiting long, Mr. Unchecked Hypertension.

I intended to end this section on health and wellness with an audio recording of the noises my back now makes when I stand, but the FCC stepped in and I'll either have to skip that altogether or move to and post from Singapore, where the rules are more relaxed.

BIG NEWS

BIG NEWS

BIG NEWS

Aside from a brief mention by Robert Stack in a 1988 episode of Unsolved Mysteries, I don't get a lot of media attention. Writers usually don't, since we spend most of our time scowling at monitors or staring off into space until our tires skid off the pavement.

Nevertheless, the University of Mississippi Department of Media and Documentary Projects just released a short (18 minutes and change) film which chronicles my writing and my brief stint as a costumed crime-fighter. Most of the costumed crime-fighter bits were removed, because the FCC also had concerns about me appearing in Spandex after mass suicides among the first test audience, but the writing parts are pretty cool. You get to see my underground lair, my ferocious pack of mutant wolverines, and of course sharks with frickin' lasers in their heads.

The film is free, there are no logins or signons, and popcorn is provided by the ghost of Orville Redenbacher himself. Sure, it's ghost popcorn, but give it a try!

So settle back into your chair, click the link below, and prepare to mock my outrageous Southern accent.

I Have To Write

I'd like to offer a big thanks to Media and Documentary Projects, and of course to the film's creator, director, editor, and all-around architect, Karen Tuttle.

That's it for this week, folks. Take care of yourselves, eat a few vegetables, and remember not to age.

All the Paths of Shadow

In Which I Do Terrible Things to My Back

I suppose everyone has that one nook or hidden cranny (hey, get your mind out of the gutter, I'm talking about spaces within one's home) which they use as what I shall charitably call an unorganized free-form storage space.

I had one. Here in my study. The study is an A-frame cabin style structure, which my Dad and I built by hand back in the early 1990s. The loft area, which is sized for Hobbits, has three-foot knee walls, and in the southwest corner there is a tiny closet.

In this diminutive closet, chaos reigned. I must confess I simply stacked things in it, usually with my eyes closed and always before hurrying away. It was a mess.

But no longer! I went in today, armed with three stalwart Sherpas, a vintage 1944 Sherman tank, two flamethrowers, the USS Strident, and a towel.

We lost the Strident in a pitched battle with a stack of old Writer's Market books, and one of the Sherpas fled after witnessing a dust bunny achieve sentience, but at the end of the day, the space was cleared.

The bad news is that I did something awful to my lower back. There was a prehistoric Sony CRT, you see, and there were stairs. I won't go into the details any more than that. The CRT, which still works and occupies a volume slightly less than a Buick, is now at the end of our driveway bearing a sign which reads WORKS, FREE. I'm hoping someone out there takes it home because frankly I can't bend over anymore.

The good news is that I unearthed my valiant Smith-Corona PWP 5.

I'm not entirely sure when I bought this machine. I believe it was 1984. I do know that I bought it because PCs were, at that time, both enormously expensive and basically incapable of doing anything other that waiting for the late 1990s to arrive. Seriously, a computer capable of doing even rudimentary word processing in 1984 was the approximate size of a dorm refrigerator, and almost as effective as a dorm refrigerator at doing word processing. What? You want to <gasp> cut and paste? Move a sentence?

Wait a few years, future boy. In the meantime, dial into AOL and enjoy some 8-bit graphics.

I couldn't afford a PC anyway. So I went with the Smith Corona PWP-5 instead, and that's when I started writing in earnest.

Marvel at the PWP's awe-inspiring seven-line LCD display! It could do global word replace. It could print -- one sheet at a time, fed and removed by hand. It could store manuscripts on disc. One disc could hold nearly 100 pages of double-spaced text!

Man, I was in technological heaven.

I wrote a lot of stories on that tough old machine. Wrote them, printed them out one page at a time, and then mailed them via the United States Postal Service, because this 'e-mail' of which you speak hadn't even hit Star Trek yet.

There is an old homily which states that every writer has a million bad words they must write before they get to the good ones inside them.

If that is true, then this poor machine endured my million bad words.

Speaking of bad words, on top of the PWP-5 there was a box.

Inside this box, dwelt horror.

I speak of the last surviving manuscript of my first complete novel. I thought I'd burned all the copies, but this one survived.

DO NOT LOOK TOO CLOSELY UPON IT. You know that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark when the Nazis open the Ark? Remember that guy's face melting?

This manuscript was in the Ark. 

Yeah. It's that bad. All 314 unrelentingly bad pages of it. Each of which was printed out over the course of a weekend in 1985, page by appalling page.

Thinking back to that weekend, I realize now a small part of me knew just how bad this book (its title may not be spoken aloud, nor may its cover page be shown) was.

I was young. Young and inexperienced. I sent this thing out, thus exposing unsuspecting tens of slush readers to near-certain doom.

I apologize to any survivors.

I'm going to keep the PWP downstairs now, to remind me how easy I have it now with my monstrous 4-core dual-monitor rig and my snazzy Word 2010.

The Manuscript Which Cannot Be Named will be sealed in a lead box, encased in concrete, and put in a deep underground vault which is quickly filled with tons of molten lava. A stainless steel placard on the surface will warn the people of the far future away from the site with prominent displays of dangling participles and graphic examples of adverb overuse.

I'm still amazed my valiant PWP-5 didn't just run away about the time MTV first aired.

A few more random pics, and we'll dispense with history.

Meet Big Blue. Big Blue is my ten-inch Dobsonian reflector telescope. I mention her because she weights a combined 90 pounds (scope and stand) and it appears I will never lift that kind of weight again.

I built Big Blue six or eight years ago in a fit of telescope mania. It took months, because even a Dobs needs to be a precision instrument and that takes time.

Does she work?

Yep. The first thing we saw with her was the Orion Nebula, and it was beautiful.

That was years ago, and I haven't hauled her outside since. Why?

I'm lazy.

Last pic!

A couple of cool things unearthed in the Great Closet Assault of 2013 wound up on my shelf. Specifically, the dowsing rods around the central steampunk gun.

They're cool rods, solid copper, hand-made by an expert dowser. I myself have absolutely no talent for dowsing (if in fact there is even such a thing). But they're well-made and I'm glad they're down where they can be appreciated.

If you're like me, and let's hope you're not, the first thing you asked yourself this morning was 'Self, where can I obtain and/or purchase a Mug-themed coffee mug, or other items or apparel related to the book All the Paths of Shadow?'

If you did make that query, well, as usual I'm here to help.

Drumroll, please, as I announce the grand opening of.....

Meralda's Magical Merchandise!

Want a Mug mug? We can hook you up! Prefer a tee shirt? Got that too!

Mousepads, posters, nightshirts, adult tees -- check out the store. If there's something you want that isn't there, let me know, and I'll ask Meralda to whip something up.

That's all for this week! I'm going to go lie down flat and hope the stabbing pains subside.

Stay safe out there, people!

This Week in Pictures

Welcome back!

I thought after the horrors of this week you might enjoy seeing something pretty. So let's begin with some photos I just took, out on the porch, of the azalea bushes we planted around our porch several years ago.

These azalea bushes have proven to be utterly indestructible. We do water them through the hot dry months of August and September, but other than that, they require no care. They bloomed out Tuesday or Wednesday, mostly white, although there are a few red flowers.

Here's what the whole east end bed looks like. I guess the red plants decided to bloom white:

While I was taking the pics, I noticed a bumblebee busily buzzing (see what I did there?) about, and I managed to coax him into posing:

He's probably still out there, bumbling away. I've always liked bumblebees. They've never tried to sting me, and I admire their work ethic. I don't share it, but I do admire it.

Next up, my current steampunk gun project. This one isn't quite finished, but here's what I have so far.

And the other side:

This is actually a cheap water gun, some PVC water pipe, a few odds and ends of wire, a couple of springs, three washers, and a bit of old hose.

A lot of you have probably seen this next item. It's one of my wands. Specifically, it's from Meralda's Royal Laboratory, marked 'Wand 116, Type II Non-Linear Discharge, Do Not Store Next To Type IV or Type VII.'

The image immediately above isn't blurry because I was too lazy to unfold the camera tripod. No. It's just impossible to take a clear photograph of a charged Lysson module without an aether compositor filter, and I lost mine in Moria.

It's springtime here in Mississippi, which means the snakes are shuffling off their winter coats and the frogs are getting the band back together. I was struck with how early the critters have emerged from their winter quarters this year, so when I found myself out on the patio while Fletcher took a midnight bathroom break I made a recording of the night sounds here. My Zoom H1 mic did a marvelous job of capturing the midnight cacaphony, and I'm pleased to share the recording with you now. It's short -- only a minute -- and best heard if you crank up the volume a bit. No, I didn't stick any loud noises at the end to scare you, because that's an old tired trick by now.

Give it a listen, it sounds like the jungle!

Midnight on the Patio

One night I hope to capture the local coyote pack in full-on howl mode. It will lift the hairs on the back of your neck, I promise you!

In writing news, well, I've been writing. The Five Faces is galloping along without a hitch, and at this rate I'll be done with it and deep into the new Meralda and Mug book All the Turns of Light very soon. Well before that, you'll see a short story penned by Mug himself right here in the blog; he's already pestering me to get it posted, as he's convinced Hollywood will trip over itself in its haste to make a movie of his 'undiscovered genius.'

I warned Meralda about getting Mug a Netflix subscription, but...

By the way, anyone interested in communicating directly with Meralda or Mug can do so on Facebook. All the Paths of Shadow has its own FB page, and both Mug and Meralda post there. So drop by and say hello -- Mug is always happy to talk. And talk. And talk...

I'll leave you tonight with a brief excerpt from The Five Faces.


 Darla met me at our door. She had flour on the tip of her nose and a revolver in her right hand.

“Welcome home,” she said, smiling. “I’ve baked us a pie!”

“Did you shoot it before or after you rolled the crust?” I kissed her. It happens sometimes.

“Before, silly,” she said. She wrinkled her nose. “You’ve been somewhere unsavory.”

“Duty demanded that I carouse and cavort on the docks,” I said. We made our way to the kitchen, where supper lay waiting on the stove and a peach pie baked in the oven. “This is the earthy aroma of the noble working man.”

“I can’t picture you cavorting,” she said. “Do you start off with your left foot, or your right?”

Tiny feet scampered across our roof.

The neighbors have squirrels. We have a banshee.

Darla’s smile died. “She’s been up there since dark.” She opened the oven and pulled out a tray of cookies. “I’ve been trying to coax her inside, but she won’t come.”

Buttercup, our resident banshee, is the size and shape of a pre-teen girl who hasn’t enjoyed many good meals. Darla’s fresh-baked sugar cookies are her favorite, and the mere scent of them usually brings her inside in a hurry.

I hugged Darla. Having a banshee walk the roof when your spouse is out working a case can’t be the best way to pass an evening at home.

“She’s probably just playing with her head-bone,” I said. “Anyway, look, I’m here, and all in one piece.”

The scampering on the roof stopped. Tiny bare feet ran into the kitchen, and skinny arms hugged my waist.

Banshees don’t bother with doors.

“Hello, Buttercup,” I said, tousling her ragged mop of golden hair. “Darla made you cookies.”

Buttercup squealed and leaped. Cookies began vanishing in a veritable hail of crumbs.

“That’s hot, honey,” said Darla. Buttercup snatched up another one and crammed it in her already-full mouth, grinning.

There might be things out there capable of injuring Buttercup.  Old magics. Powerful sorcerers. Eldritch spells. Hot cookies, though, aren’t on the list.

Darla began uncovering pans. I helped by getting in the way and received a playful slap on my hand when I dared grab one of Buttercup’s cookies.

Finally, we sat and ate. Darla fries a mean pork chop. We had corn and green beans and a big fat potato each. Buttercup finished off the cookies and then amused herself by playing peek-a-boo with the whispering skull she carries.

“Gertriss came by earlier,” said Darla, as she put down her fork.

You live with a woman long enough, you learn to recognize the subtle difference between a casual conversation and a conversation that only sounds casual but can veer off into the significant at any word.

“Let me guess.”

Darla laced her fingers together and rested her chin on them. “She said you left this morning looking for an awful man named Hurry-up Pete and returned in the employ of a pair of street kids who’ve lost their dog.”

“I believe in maintaining a diverse range of clientele.”

“So this wasn’t some elaborate prank you played on Mama Hog?”

“Nope. A man in a wide-brimmed hat who spoke with a strange accent cut the leash a little blind girl named Saffy was holding. The man took her dog Cornbread, and Saffy’s brother is going to work off the debt working in our yard this summer.”

Darla smiled. “And Hurry-up Pete?”

“I’ll tell the clients what I know. Refund half their advance. They’ll either find Hurry-up, or they won’t, but I’ll not be a part of it. Not this time. Not anymore.”

Silence, save for Buttercup’s unintelligible murmurings and her skull’s equally cryptic whispered replies.

“That’s why I love you,” said Darla, at last. She rose and came and kissed me.

Later, we ate that pie. Best damned pie I ever had.

Sidekick Sunday

Greetings, gentle readers!

Today sees the start of a new feature here on the blog. I'm going to call it Sidekick Sunday, so when you see those words in the title you should know you'll be treated to a new, original short story told from the point-of-view of one of the  supporting characters in one of my two main series.

Today you get The Swindled Jenny, an original short (4000 words or so) told by none other than Mama Hog herself. Links to the story in various formats will follow; I've got a Web version, a plain Word document, a PDF file, and a Kindle ebook ready for download and sideload, at your convenience.

But first, a few other bits of news.

Anyone wanting a printed copy of All the Paths of Shadow is in luck, because the new print version is up for sale on Amazon! Click here for the new print version, or here for the Kindle edition.

All the Paths of Shadow has seen a sudden surge in popularity. It sold nearly 500 Kindle copies in a single night, last month. I mean sold, too. No freebie special, no free borrowing, we're talking straight-up sales here, in the wee hours, with no omens preceding. Which is a great event, and I'm thrilled -- I just wish I knew what triggered the surge, because I'd like to bottle it for later use.

Anyway, if you've been looking for a print copy, look no further! All the Paths of Shadow is once again available in print, and all you have to do is click.

Brown River Queen is also for sale, if you're looking for more Markhat. Not in print yet, but it's coming. I'll let you know when it hits the stands.

On a side note, I'm now trying to juggle work on the new Markhat, The Five Faces, with work on the new Meralda and Mug, called All the Turns of Light. Writing two books at once is something I've never tried, mainly because I'm not a conjoined set of twins, but it's going better than I expected. Sure I sometimes forget and put Mug on Markhat's desk and write Mama Hog into Meralda's laboratory, but that's what I get for staying up extra late to catch up on The Daily Show.

A couple of people have emailed asking about Fletcher, our diabetic doggie. I'm happy to report that he's doing fine, and is happy, and is coping with his loss of most of his vision quite well. His hair has grown back, and he's resumed all of his old habits, including 'talking' to us with grunts and marking the arrival of mealtimes with spirited barking and dancing.

Now, it's time for the first installment of Sidekick Sunday!

Tonight features The Swindled Jenny, a Mama Hog story which I hope you'll enjoy.

For anyone unfamiliar with the series, Mama Hog is the protagonist Markhat's neighbor. Mama claims to be a hundred and twenty five years old, and she makes her living telling fortunes and dispensing advice from her ramshackle card and potion shop in the heart of Rannit.

In this story, Mama does much more than merely dispense advice. No, her client has been wronged, and Mama takes offense, and -- well, choose your format, and see for yourself. Click the link, and you should see a list of files. The first is a mobi file, which can be downloaded and then put on your Kindle device. The next is a PDF version -- just click and download. The next is a plain Web file, which you should be able to read just by clicking. Finally, there is a Word document, which should download with a click.

I hope you enjoy it!

List of Story Formats for THE SWINDLED JENNY

That's all for today. Take care, people! See you all around the bookstore!

A Bad Case of Vietnamese Swamp Stomach

Ugh.

This week's blog entry will be brief. I'll spare you the details, but a lot of staring into the bottom of a toilet bowl is involved.

More you don't want to know.

I had planned to feature a new, never-before-published short story narrated by none other than Mama Hog herself today. But I don't trust my ability to arrange words competently. For instance, the preceding sentence originally read 'Mama hog story narrates colon, frees the threadbare geese', so finishing and editing anything more complicated than this blog entry that will have to wait until next week.

The Mama Hog story, which is nearly complete, is entitled "The Swindled Jenny," and I think you'll enjoy Mama's version of just desserts.

After that, Mug will have his turn, in a regular feature of the blog called 'Sidekick Sundays.'

But for now, I'm going to slink back downstairs and rest.

The only silver lining to all this, I suppose, is that I actually put on and zipped a leather jacket I bought around 1984. Yes, that's correct, 1984. The last time I tried it on, I couldn't bring the front within eight inches of closing, much less of zipping.

And now I'll be wearing it as my retro motorcycle jacket. It'll also come in handy if I turn into a zombie and need to take part in a Michael Jackson zombie 'Thriller' dance, because baby this jacket ROCKS the 80s.

Let me close with a shameless plea -- if you've had a chance to finish the new Markhat, Brown River Queen, and you liked it, please drop me a review on Amazon. I'd really appreciate it.

Bonus Tuesday Blog: New Release by Maria Schneider!

I don't often blog on Tuesday, but when I do, I blog about Maria Schneider's Witch Moon series.

And this particular Tuesday is special because the new Witch Moon book is out!



Entitled Under Witch Curse, this is the third book in the With Moon series. The first two books are:

Under Witch Moon

Under Witch Aura

I love these books. The heroine, Adriel, is well-drawn and engaging, the plots are snappy and fluid, and the writing is top-notch. Too, for a Mississippi boy, the modern-day Santa Fe setting is exotic enough to make the series truly memorable.

So check out the series, and if you already know it, the new one is out!