One Away, One on the Launch Pad

Fig. 1, the gun my Muse keeps pointed at my head.

I'll say this much for the year 2014 -- despite the usual (and a few unusual) external pressures, I've been able to get some writing done.

The new Markhat novel, The Darker Carnival, is in the hands of Samhain Publishing. I'll probably have a yes (yay!) or a no (no!) in about eight weeks. That's the first book I wrote this year.

The second book, All the Turns of Light, is now undergoing the brutal process of first-draft revision. So far, it's been a relatively painless process, but I'm only about ten percent into the book, so anything could happen.

All the Turns of Light is the second book I've written this year. It's only May. If I can maintain this 2000 word a day pace, I might manage another pair of books before 2014 closes.

I don't say this to brag. But if you're out there, like I was last year and all the years before that, thinking 'I'll never be one of those writers who can turn out ten pages a day,' please think again. You can do it.

Look. I'm inherently lazy. There are sea sponges with more vim, vigor, and get-up-and-go than me. I believe hard work is best performed by other people, preferably at a location so far away the sounds of their determined industry don't interfere with my napping. If work truly builds character, thanks, I've got enough character already and anyway it's time for Supernatural.

So how did I defeat my powerful inner sloth, and actually get a respectable amount of work done?

I trumped my inner sloth with my inner OCD freak. Every morning, I make a list on a little card of the things I need to do that day. On that list is the entry 'Write 2K words.'

I cross things off the list as they get done. Now, my sloth would gleefully eat the list, or wander away from it to find a nice patch of cool shade, but my inner OCD guy cannot abide the sight of an incomplete item.

Yeah. It really was that simple.

I am using my own mental defects against myself. There's probably a clinical term for that, but if you know it don't tell me.

Motorcycle Update

My mighty Honda is back! Putting everything back together took several hours, but when I turned the key and hit the starter, she cranked. 

Honestly, I couldn't believe it. I was fully prepared to hear the engine sputter and fail. I wasn't even going to employ bad language at the realization I'd have to start all over. I nearly fell off the bike when she started, as though nothing had ever been wrong.

I got the book below, and followed the instructions, and avoided a trip to the shop. Books rule!

Final Words 

Like I said, the new Mug and Meralda is only about 10 percent done with the first editing pass, so I'd better get back to work. Have a good week people!

And don't forget -- the new Markhat The Five Faces goes on sale June 17! But you can pre-order now, wink wink nudge nudge...

Knee Deep in the Alligators of Editing

We hear you're editing, and we came to help.

As I mentioned last week, I'm making a deep editing pass through the new Markhat book, The Darker Carnival.

Writing a book is one thing. I've found that my best way to write is to just dive in and keep going, letting nothing (except snakes or large hail) slow me down. Can't remember what I named the doorman in Chapter 3, when we see him again briefly in Chapter 6? I type  **** and keep moving, knowing that I'll come back later and look up the name and fix that.

Which brings us to the edit phase, when all those **** entries have to be fleshed out and made whole.

That's the first and easiest part of editing, at least for me. I took care of all that in an hour. The next pass saw me searching for grammar mistakes, omitted words, or transposed letters. Those are quick fixes too, as long as you spot them. 

Now I'm reading through the corrected manuscript as I imagine a reader will, and my main mission is to spot passages that invite the reader to close the book. Those are the passages that must be re-written, and that can take a lot of work, depending on the nature of the text.

The author, upon confronting the horror that is Chapter Nine.

So far I've used the scalpel, but not the machete, and that's great news. Snipping a paragraph here and there requires the literary equivalent of a few stitches, and no more. But when that awful realization that an entire chapter or subplot just isn't working engulfs you, you know you've got a mountain of work to do just to get things back on track.

With any luck I'll get The Darker Carnival submitted this week. Then I'll return to the Meralda and Mug book and give it the very same series of re-reads.

Isn't the writing life glamorous?

Below, for no apparent reason, is a short sample of the new book.

Excerpt from The Darker Carnival:

(Not taken from the beginning of the book. Markhat is posing as a newspaper man to poke around Dark's Diverse Delights, a traveling carnival encamped outside Rannit).

I learned a lot about circus folk, that day.

First of all, they drink, and drink hard. Especially the side-show wonders. I met the Man of Bones when he stumbled out of his tent, went down on all fours at my feet, and vomited between my boots. I was amazed at the volume of liquid he expelled, given the emaciated state of his spindly frame.

The circus master kicked the Man of Bones unceremoniously in his gut. "And here we find the Man of Bones, who has terrified audiences from the Sea to the Wastes," said Thorkel, as he sent the scuttling wretch away with a kick to his backside. "A living skeleton, whose grinning skull will haunt your dreams forever."

I nodded and scribbled in my notebook. It didn't seem polite to point out that the Man of Bones was entirely covered in skin.

We met the Queen of the Elves next. She wore a moth-eaten flannel gown she hadn't bothered to fasten with a belt. A pair of mis-matched work boots adorned her dainty feet. She puffed on an enormous cigar between swigs of dark brown liquid gulped from a dirty jar.

"Say hello to Mr. Bustman," said Thorkel, to her.

"Go to Hell," she opined, before sprawling lengthwise on a bench. 

"Men have traveled the world to pay homage to the Queen of the Elves," said Thorkel. The Queen responded with a raised middle finger. "Her beauty and charm are unmatched in all the mortal world."

"She wears flannel as only an Elf could," I added. Thorkel's brow furrowed beneath his immaculate top-hat. 

"That is to say, her ethereal beauty blinds, so dazzling is she to gaze upon," I said, quickly. Thorkel rewarded me with a  jackal's quick grin.

I love the book so much I suspect someone with more talent than me is sneaking out here at night, erasing what I've written, and replacing it with tight, colorful prose. 

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

I don't have that book. One day soon I should get a copy, because I do a lot of motorcycle maintenance lately.

My faithful Honda, after hibernating all winter, can't quite wake up even though spring has sprung. She tries to crank, but doesn't, which led to a choice -- either take her to the nearest bike repair shop (in Batesville, a forty-mile round trip) or take up my wrenches and attempt the repair myself.

The 83 dollar-per-hour shop rate made that decision for me. So I bought a book detailing the viscera of my model of bike and started taking her apart.

The carburetor, between the warp core and the shield emitter array.

The problem lies with the carburetor, which is a twisty metal thing composed of floats, urchin barometers, and hemorrhoids. It mixes fuel with air or air with better air or, possibly, does nothing at all except keep the gas tank and the air cleaner from banging together. I wouldn't really know. What I do know is that my carburetor didn't look like the ones featured in the book so I took it all apart and scrubbed the pieces with gasoline until they gleamed. 

Who knew gasoline has such potent cleaning properties? But it only works on metal things. My dress shirts didn't fare too well, and my black dress socks simply dissolved. I wish I hadn't been wearing them at the time, but I'm told toenails grow back.

Fig. 1, a carburetor. Or maybe that's a pasta maker. Frankly, we're not sure, but if the bike emits perfect angel hair pasta instead of exhaust we'll know why.

The book I bought is a Kindle book, and at first I was apprehensive about using it around oil, gas, and tools. But now that I've done it, I find that having good clear photos I can enlarge and clickable hyperlinks and a working TOC makes repairs much easier than trying to leaf through a dog-eared printed manual. 

I wasn't able to clean my idle jet (see how I toss around mechanical terms as though I've been doing this for years), so I ordered a new one. Total cost of repairs: $23. I haven't put the bike back together yet, but if she cranks I'll have spent about six hours repairing it and less than twenty-five dollars in parts. Not bad, as opposed to the $300 or $400 bucks a shop would have charged.

Obligatory Plea for Reviews

Hey, not to be a pest (okay, I'm being a pest, might as well own it), but if you've read any of my books and liked them but haven't had a chance to leave a review on Amazon, now would be a great time!

Brown River Queen could use a few more reviews.

The new Markhat book, The Five Faces, goes on sale in a few weeks, on June 17. 

Okay, the alligators are getting restless, so it's back to work for me. Take care all, and see you next week!

Bugs, Poems, and Waxings, Though Not In That Order.

Fig. 1: The author's new haircut. Does it make my thorax look fat?

First things first -- the new Mug and Meralda book, All the Turns of Light, is done. No more pronouncements of 'nearly done' or 'almost finished' or 'surely this week, it will wind up.' The first draft is in the can. The new book weighs in at eighty thousand words, which is a perfect length for a novel as long as most of those 80,000 words are the right words. But only time, a couple of editors, and readers can determine that.

Now that All the The Turns of Light is done, I've picked up the new Markhat book I finished a few months ago. I'll give The Darker Carnival another long hard look, and when it's ready to strike out on its own I'll send it on the good folks at Samhain Publishing, who will then decide whether A) it's a worthy addition to the series or B) Frank has finally jumped the shark and needs to take up knitting. 

I hope to have The Darker Carnival out in a couple of weeks. Then I'll give All the Turns of Light its turn under the harsh, unforgiving light of editorial scrutiny, and then it'll be shipped off to my beta readers, who will return their own judgment regarding sharks, jumping of, or going on to the next step.

Then, it will be time to start a new book -- either the next Markhat, or a new Wistril the Wizard, I haven't decided which yet. Those are my next two books. Just not sure of the order at the moment.

The image at the top of the page is a bug. I took it through my new microscope a few minutes ago, because who among us doesn't love magnified views of big bug heads? Oh? Really? That many?

Sorry. You'll be happy to know he's a nice bug, and that I put him under some bark after I made his portraits. 

I wasn't the least bit surprised to find him coated in pollen. Everything is coated in pollen around here. Most particularly my nostrils, but don't worry, I will not be posting any images of those.

Below is a thistle, which blew away before I completed half a dozen photos. Even the flying thistle-bits have pollen all over them.

Nature is, if I'm any judge, far too amused with pollen.

In Which I Wax Poetic

Someone asked me recently if I wrote poetry.

Nay, quoth I, for poetry is the language of the soul, filled with, er, what are those things called? Feels? You know, the source of tearful eyes and quivering lips -- emotions, yes, feelings, those sorts of things, and I don't have any, so there.

But it later occurred to me that I have in fact written the odd bit of doggerel, strictly in the service of a story. 

For instance, here are the opening lines from The Harper's Lament, sung by Jere the castaway harper at the opening of my short story The Harper at Sea.

I am a luckless vagabond,

bereft of land or country,

Unchained, unbound by love or law,

unhomed till death does take me.

Jere was a recurring character back in my early short-story days. I think my favorite story of his was The Truth About Arphon and The Apple Farmer's Daughter. Without giving too much away, Jere finds himself trapped in a shadow world, with only a numberless horde of ravenous ghosts for company. He remembers a tale told by the legendary harper Arphon, who claims he held a mob of ghosts at bay with wholesome, cheerful songs of summer and daylight. Naturally, Jere tries this approach, beginning with a merry dance tune, Vival's Dance. 

I wander fields, I wander woods,

I wander sky and sea,

I wander lone beneath the stars

Come wander, lass, with me.

The ghosts are not impressed. Neither do they appear amused by any of the other songs Jere plays. Despairing, and nearly frozen solid by the press of the ghosts and their frosty exhalations, Jere's magical harp moves its own strings, and Jere sings along, not realizing at first just what song it is he's beginning to sing...

The apple farmer's daughter

was all alone one day,

When Og the mighty hunter happened by the way...

As the song progresses, Jere sings along, horrified but unable to silence his harp. 

Mighty Og spied lovely daughter,

and his blood did right quick boil...

I'm not going to post the whole thing here, because Jere and I share a similar respect for decorum.

The daughter grinned and fanned her skirts, 

and mighty Og did shout....

At this point, Jere begins to suspect the legendary Arphon lied about a thing or two concerning his encounter with ghosts.

Mighty Og began to weep, and lovely daughter laughed,

I'll not be shamed, the hunter roared, one boot upon one foot...

As the last note of the infamous Apple Farmer's Daughter song dies, his harp selects even worse songs, including Queen Mavan Tames the Dragon, The Happy Donkey Song, and, worst of all, Lords Love Ladies. 

I won't tell you how the story ends. If you're curious, it's here in my The Far Corners anthology.

I believe there's a single nursery rhyme in All the Paths of Shadow, a rhyme that sticks in heroine Meralda's head as she winds her way up the Tower's long, dark stairs. It went like this:

The old, old wizard goes round and round the stair,

The old, old wizard goes sneaking everywhere,

The old, old wizard goes where you cannot see,

The old, old wizard is sneaking up on me!

The Markhat books also feature songs, now and then. Brown River Queen is set aboard a lavish gambling riverboat, and part of the floor show includes a black blues singer named Miss Rondalee. Miss Rondalee, like Mama Hog, commands a magic uniquely her own, in that Miss Rondalee's songs are touched with power. For instance, no two people will hear them quite the same way, because no two people need to hear the very same song. Here's an excerpt from Brown River Queen, in which Miss Rondalee's lyrics foreshadow things to come...

From Brown River Queen:

The music faded away, and the spotlight flared to life, and a tall black woman in a long white gown took the stage as the musicians tapped out a rhythm and began to play. 

The Queen lurched—just a bit, but enough to cause the remaining pair of formal dancers to stumble and lose their place. The lights even flickered.

And then it was over. The sounds of dice clattering and wheels spinning and gamblers shouting and cheering never faltered, not even for an instant.

“Did you see that?”

“I did.” I felt Darla’s heart beat faster. “Trouble?”

“Don’t know.” We kept dancing. The black lady introduced herself as Lady Rondalee of Bel Loit and dedicated her first song to ‘all the lovers out there.’

“Trouble,” she sang. “Trouble, bad trouble, been dogging me all my days...”

“Well that’s comforting,” whispered Darla. 

“Ain’t no comfort, ain’t no comfort, no comfort ever comin’ my ways...”

“I think she can hear you,” I said. 

“I hear you, I hear you sayin’, sayin’ I needs to be changin’ my ways...”

Darla stopped swaying. “You don’t think—”

“I don’t. Coincidence. We’re on edge, that’s all. It’s just a song.”

A waiter pushed his way through the crowd. His starched white shirt was stretched to near bursting by his muscular physique. A scar ran all the way down the right side of his face. Something under his black dinner jacket bulged, and I didn't think it was a salt shaker.

He bore down on us, mindful to keep his hands visible and open, palms toward me.

He stopped a few paces short of us, and waited until I gently disengaged from Darla and moved to stand in front of her.

He nodded, reached slowly in his jacket, and came out with a note. He held it up and I took it from him, and he vanished into the crowd—doubtlessly to employ those muscles in the precise pouring of any one of Rannit's finer wines.

I unfolded the note, just halfway, to make sure it didn't bear hex signs. Instead, I recognized Gertriss's tall plain hand, and I opened it all the way.

BOSS, it read. BY THE PORT STAIR. COME QUICK. IT’S BAD.

Darla gasped, reading over my shoulder.

“Don’t suppose I could convince you to wait here?” I said.

“Waste of time trying, dear.” 

And we were off, weaving through the dancers, plowing through the drunks and the gamblers and their noisy entourages.

I caught one more stanza of Lady Rondalee’s song, before the din drowned her out.

“One day soon, one day soon, trouble gonna be the death of me...”

“Not tonight, I hope,” I muttered. Darla didn't hear.

I put my shoulder to the mob and charged toward the stairs.

Brown River Queen, available now!

Is Miss Rondalee due to make a second appearance in the Markhat series?

Yes she is, because she's a powerful lady with a fascinating talent. I suspect Miss Rondalee and Mama Hog will be up to shenanigans, at the very least. Oh, and by the way -- Markhat's hometown of Rannit is based (loosely) on Memphis, Tennessee. Just south of Rannit, down the Brown River, lies Bel Loit, Miss Rondalee's home. Bel Loit is my version of New Orleans.

Final Words: Did Something Actually Go Bump?

I lack a clever segue for this segment of the post, so I'll just be blunt -- for the first time ever, I got absolutely spooked at a graveyard yesterday as I attempted to capture another EVP sample.

Eerie headstone pic of gentleman who is an ancestor of mine. Note epic 'stache.

Yesterday, I returned to Midway Cemetery, where I've actually collected a few good EVP recordings.

It was a bright, warm day. Hardly a cloud in the sky. Seventy-nine degrees. In short, the day couldn't have been less conducive to spookiness had it been accompanied by a brass band and a parade.

I've been to Midway Cemetery dozens of times. Half of the plots are occupied by relatives. I have no fear of the place, or its denizens.

But when I pulled up to the cemetery gates yesterday, for an instant I was sure a man was standing at the very back, at the edge of the trees.

Let me set the scene. Midway lies at the dead (ha) end of a gravel road traveled only by cemetery workers digging the once-a-decade grave, family members going to lay out flowers and pay their respects, and mildly-deranged ghost hunters intent of waving mics about in the hopes of recording a spectral word or two.

On the way there, I saw no tell-tell traces of recent traffic ahead of me. There is no parking lot. The road simply ends at the gate. No other vehicles were in sight.

But for a split second, I was sure I saw an upright figure, featureless and dark, standing at the very rear of the cemetery. I blinked, and it was gone.

Below is a picture noting the approximate location of the figure I probably didn't see:

Part of me was suddenly reminded of pressing appointments elsewhere, and moved to table the EVP session, citing an urgent need to watch re-runs of 'Stargate SG1' at a location many miles from the cemetery.

But I made of sterner stuff (mostly sausage, cakes, and steak) so I entered the cemetery and conducted my EVP session as planned.

I wish I could report I captured half a dozen ghostly voices imparting mystical wisdom, but the truth is that I got nothing. Not a faint whisper, not a muttered monosyllable, not s single anomalous exhalation.

I walked through the headstones and stood in the very spot I didn't see whatever it was that wasn't there. Again, no EVP hits.

I took about 60 photos while I was there. Two of them show what I'm pretty sure is blurring caused by wind-induced leaf motion. It is odd that only two photos were thus affected, and both of them were taken in the spot my dark figure (aka Mr. Trick of the Light) made his brief and undoubtedly imaginary appearance.

But here are the photos, for your amusement.

The blur effect is hard to see in reduced-sized images. It's plain when I inspect the full-sized pics on my big monitor. 

In the first image, start at the lower left corner of the pic and travel about a third of the way to the right. Then look up, about three-quarters of the way to the top. Subtle but weird blur. Wind? Yeah, probably.

In the second picture, just find the tallest grave marker (can't miss it, right side, little bell-shaped thing on top) and look left of the bell-shaped ornament. 

Like I said, probably wind. I spooked myself so naturally I'm seeing things that aren't really there.

Back to Work!

Okay, it's time to get editing. Have a good week people!

Mad Science, Creepy Crawly Edition!

Today, we journey not into the realm of the supernatural or the paranormal, but of the very small.

Earlier this week, I was helping my Dad look for some papers at his house when I came across a set of 60 prepared microscope slides I got as a kid. Because, yes, I was that big of a nerd, even back in 1973. The box of slides is pictured below.

The slide set appeared to be in good shape. My old microscope, though, was nowhere to be found.

Having the slides but no microscope presented something of an annoyance to me. True, I have neither seen nor thought about this set of microscope slides in 40 years, but now that I've found the slides, I feel the urgent and entirely unreasonable urge to view them, because how often do you get a chance to see a perfectly preserved specimen of Rhizobium Radicicola, or Mycrobacterium Ranae, whatever the heck they might be?

Now, at this point I really should have just started trying to find a decent old microscope on eBay, or even a modest new one from Edmunds or Amazon. But why do the reasonable thing when you can dive into your surplus parts pile and spend an hour or two building your own gadget?

Aha, quoth I. I will build my very own scanning electron microscope. It will be huge and imposing. Sparks will fly. Thunder will crash. The lights in four adjoining counties will dim, and I'll finally get to wear my snazzy new safety goggles and my 1930s-style side-buttoning lab coat.

But a quick check of the bank account revealed the lack of 80 million dollars in discretionary funds, so I was forced back into the realm of the merely optical, and with only such parts as I might already have lying around at my disposal. I did wear my side-buttoning lab coat when I finally did start construction, but without the sparks and the strong sudden smell of freshly-minted ozone it's just not the same.

But I did build a microscope, for about $14, and it actually works, and below is the proof!

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the rear leg of the common honey bee, photographed with the new microscope. The bee leg was part of the old Sears prepared slide set. Not too bad for 14 bucks!

Below is the rig itself:

Okay. I'm cheating a bit by using my iPhone as the primary optical device -- put the phone on the rig, placing the phone's lens carefully over the rig's primary lens. All that is contained in the top layer of cheap clear acrylic sheet, which is held up and steady by the bolts. The base is a scrap piece of oak, and I countersunk the bolt heads on the bottom so it would sit flat.

Below the top layer and the phone and the lens is the staging layer. See the wing nut in the photo above? There are two of them, and by spinning them you bring the staging layer up or down. And since you sit the specimen on the staging layer, it moves up or down until it is in focus.

Here it is with the phone removed. The lens is between the two bolts on the top. It is held in place by a steel washer.

There's nothing special about the lens. Okay, it is glass, and not plastic, because plastic lenses are worthless. Seriously. I spit on them. I cast aspersions on them. Bah! Plastic lenses are an abomination and I have no truck with them!

I got a dozen cheap glass lenses from American Science and Surplus for a couple of bucks years ago when I was messing with telescopes. I selected one at random, cleaned it, made sure the raised rounded side faced up, and glued it in place. Why select at random?

Because when you have that many buttons to fasten on your starched white lab coat, you don't have TIME for complex calculations of focal length and diopter! This is MAD SCIENCE! If you don't finish quickly the villagers will reach the castle gates, and we all know how that ends. Honestly, it's a wonder I ever a single monstrous body fully reanimated.

Yes, it's a quick and dirty rig that costs almost nothing, but the results are actually impressive. Below are a few photos I took right after completing the device.

Close-up of dandelion bloom (smaller than my thumb). Look at the stamen and the pistils, and all that lovely pollen. I didn't even notice the two ants aboard when I picked it. By the way, they were released into the wild when I was done.

Even more pollen.

Next up, a penny. Here's the whole penny:

And here's a close-up of Abe:

Salt crystals? You betcha!

Below is a burned-out tail light from my father's Toyota. Note the defective filament!

Below is a close-up of the author's skin. Note to self: Inquire about various lotions and healing balms soon.

Nah, that's not really my skin, that'ts tree bark. Here's me:

I took a fingertip image, and then I thought 'Hey idiot, do you REALLY want to post a hi-res magnified image of your fingerprint on the internet? Is that a good idea? Really?' so this is below the first knuckle.

Here's a common NPN transistor, which I'm sure you've all been dying to see magnified:

And below is rust on an iron band.

Ever wondered what dog food looks like magnified 100X? Well wonder no more...

Yeah, I wasn't exactly thrilled either.

For next week, if you can think of something you'd like to see magnified, email me (franktuttle at franktuttle dot com) or post your request in the comments below! If I can make it fit on the rig, I'll give it a shot.

Mama Hog Revealed?

I've made mention several times in this blog that Mama Hog, a recurring character in my Markhat series, is based on my grandmother on my father's side.

Her real name was Beatrice, but we called her Grammaw Bee. Not 'grandmother' or even 'grandmaw,' because I grew up in rural Mississippi, and thus she was Grammaw Bee.

Mama's Hog's speech patterns and even some of her appearance were inspired by Grammaw Bee. For a while now, I've tried to find a photo of my grandparents, and I finally located one.

It's a tiny 3 by 4 photo, and it's in terrible shape. I scanned it, enlarged it, and did all I could to enhance the focus and remove the worst of the scratches and pits. It's still not very good, but it's all I've got.

On the left is Grammaw Bee; on the right, my grandfather Henry and his ever-present cigar. Also note the presence of the commanding Tuttle nose, which I inherited. Small children often take refuge in its shade.

Picture the lady with her hair all wild. Remove her glasses. Hand her a stir-stick and a black iron pot, boiling in the yard, and that's Mama Hog.

She was a nice lady. She cooked for an army and knew all kinds of natural cures and neither of my grandparents ever knew an idle day, but they were happy, and I suppose that's all that really counts.

Mug and Meralda News - Is the new book done?

Well, is it?

By the time you read this, yes. I'm posting this early so I can settle into what will be the final writing session for the first draft of All the Turns of Light.

Length? A little over 80 thousand words. Do Mug and Meralda ever leave the Laboratory, this time around?

Oh yes. Whereas the first book in the series (All the Paths of Shadow, available from Amazon) was a sort of anti-quest novel in that Meralda never went more than a few blocks from home, this one takes the gang on a long journey across the Great Sea. There are airships and sea monsters and storms and magical menaces. I believe people will like this book even better than the first one!

By the way, there will be two more Mug and Meralda books after All the Paths of Shadow and All the Turns of Light. When all four books are put together on a shelf in the proper order, the titles will form a poem. And no, I'm not telling what the next two titles are.

So, on that note, I will take my leave, and get back to work. 

But I will leave you with a final image, which I discovered when I downloaded the pics from my iphone. It's not a good picture. It's out of focus and it's dark. But that really doesn't matter.

Below are our dogs Max and Fletcher. Fletcher on on the right. He's old and blind and diabetic, but he still takes care of Max. Some would say dogs are incapable of love; I heave asparagus at such people, and then mock them for their silliness, because dogs do indeed love.

Okay, off to finish the book, wish me luck!

Bonus Wednesday Blog: Tax Tips for Writers!

Certain eldritch signs portend various significant turnings of the year. Birds fly south. Or maybe north. Frankly I don't spend much time outdoors with a compass charting the movements of waterfowl.

But even a dedicated indoorsman such as myself can observe the anguished faces on the street, and hear the plaintive cries of agony borne on the night wind (and no, I don't know from which direction the bloody wind is blowing, let's leave that to the meteorologists, shall we?).

Even I can see the chalk outlines left by those poor unfortunates who at last cried 'No more, enough!' before shuffling off their mortal coils by way of extreme over-tanning or a full-on single-sitting read of Snooki's 'A Shore Thing.'

And even I know what these grim signs portend -- tax time.

That's right, gentle readers, if you are a citizen of the US, it's that time of year when Uncle Sam takes you fondly by your ankles and shakes you until every last cent you've seen in the last year falls out of your pockets, because let's face it, war ain't cheap.

Now, if you've made any money off your writing in the last year, I'm here to help. Because if there's anything the US government holds dear, it's the idea that every American is free to earn a profit by the sweat of his brow and the set of his jaw. Equally sacred to the American governing psyche is the ideal that they get a slice of that sweet free enterprise pie.

The first thing writers need to know about filing their writing income is this -- FILE IT. That story you sold to Ominous Bathroom Squeaks and Eldritch Attic Squeals Monthly for 15 bucks? That pair of flash-fiction entries you pawned off on Public Transit Funnies, a Bus Station Free Magazine for three bucks and a coupon for $2.00 off any foot-long club at Subway?

Maybe you're thinking 'Hey, why bother reporting that, nobody knows about those!'

How wrong you are, Grasshopper.

They know. Maybe it's the Carnivore communication surveillance system. Maybe the CIA has an Obscure Small Press Reporting Division. Maybe that mean-eyed old lady down the street is on the phone with the IRS every day, after she goes through your mail and steams open all the envelopes -- it doesn't matter how, but believe me, they know.

So, the first thing?

Report it.

Now if you've made any serious coin you've been sent a 1099-MISC from the publisher(s). You should keep up with these things. I used to put them in a folder and then lose the folder and then move to Mississippi and assume a new identity as Frank Tuttle when I realized I'd lost them all, but then I got married and she keeps important papers in a brilliant thing called a drawer. I'll bet you have some of these drawers  in your place too. Open them up and put stuff in them, it's an amazing time-saver compared to identity theft.

At the end of the year, you take all these 1099 forms, wipe the tears from your face, and enter them in the boxes according to the helpful prompts on the TurboTax software. When the crying diminishes to a bearable level, proceed.

Next, let's consider deductions. The word deductions comes from the Latin dede, which means 'not for,' and uction, which means 'you.' In tax parlance, deductions are money amounts which everyone but you can subtract from the taxes they owe.

For instance, I write on a PC. I built this PC myself, from components I purchased separately, for the sole purpose of writing.  Now, if I were anyone else, I could deduct the total cost of the machine from my taxes owed, since it's a business expense -- but since I am demonstrably me, this deduction does not apply, and, notes TurboTax, 'ha ha ha.'

See how that works? It truly simplifies filing.

Let's look at some other deductions which you, as a writer, cannot claim:

•  Home Office Deductions. Oh, you have an office, in which you write? Well, let's have a look. It can't be attached to your house. It can't house a TV or other casual entertainment device. It can't possibly, under any circumstances, be even remotely suited for any purpose other than writing, and it can't be very good at that. So you have a detached office which contains nothing but a chair, a desk, and a PC running nothing but Word? But it has a roof?  'Ha ha ha,' intones TurboTax. 'Trying to pull a fast one, are you? DENIED.'
• Office Expense Deductions.  You're a writer, and even the IRS grudgingly concedes that the act of writing might in some way involves putting down words on some medium, be it electronic or paper. Okay, this looks promising. You bought a printer to print out manuscripts. You pay for internet service because 1950 was 65 years ago. These seem to be legitimate deductions, so let's investigate further BUZZ HA HA HA NOT SO FAST, TAXPAYER! Those deductions are only valid in years  where acceptable total solar eclipses occur in northern Peru (see Schedule 117863-E, 'Solar Interruptions, South American Totality Table 167-75E, lines 46 through 78), and guess what pal, this ain't it.
• Other Deductions. Mitt Romney has a 376 page embossed-leather-bound acid-free paper book with gold-gilt edges filled with 'Other Deductions.' Are you Mitt Romney? Didn't think so. Move along.

Sadly, that about covers it. You've toiled over every word, you've poured over ever sentence, you've labored long into that good night trying to illuminate a single tiny facet of the flawed jewel that is the human condition.

Or, in other words, you've earned slightly more than minimum wage. 

Bon appetite, my friends!

And for the love of all that is holy, don't miss the filing deadline. 

All the Turns of Light update!

That's Meralda, from All the Paths of Shadow. But Frank, you ask -- why does she look so smug?

Possibly because her new book, All the Turns of Light, is darned near finished. That's right -- I am this close (insert graphic here of fingertips almost coming together) to wrapping this book up.

Of course, that's only the first part of the book's journey -- but it is the most important part, because until the first draft gets written, there's no book.

So, on behalf of Mug and Meralda and the crew of the airship Intrepid, thanks for waiting so patiently, and rest assured the sequel to All the Turns of Light won't be so long in the making.

Things Going Bump in the Night

A news story caught my eye, about a very strange trail camera image captured near Jackson, Mississippi, in February of this year.

The deer is looking at -- what, exactly? Two light sources, suspended above the ground. And this wasn't the only image recorded that night. Here's a link to the full story -- http://m.wlox.com/#!/newsDetail/25156516.

What did the camera record? I have no idea. There really isn't enough detail to make anything out, at least as far as I can see. Could it be a night hunter wearing an illuminated cap? I suppose, but there's no way anyone is going to walk up on a deer that knows it's being stalked. 

More than one image of the lights was captured. I still have no idea what was captured.

We keep a trail cam active on our property, just in case Bigfoot ever decides to take a midnight stroll through Yocona. We have hundreds of images, none of which show anything overtly anomalous. Rest assured if we capture anything interesting I'll post the image!

Wolfie reminds you to lock your doors tight!

Okay, short entry this week, but I'm dying to get back to work. Take care all! See you next week -- until then, pleasant dreams!

Bonus Monday Blog: My Angry Body

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I'm nearing completion on the long-overdue sequel to All the Paths of Shadow.

Tonight, I had a genuine breakthrough. It was one of those rare moments when the story took hold and tore up my outline and Meralda stamped right off the page and bloody well told me what happens next.

I got it all down, too. Every word. I know where the story goes. I know why it goes there. It's good. Really good. I pushed sweet gentle Meralda too far, and she's had enough, and if she met Rick Grimes in a dark alley right now he'd be the one who turned and dived for cover.

Such moments are rare.

I hastily made four pages of careful notes. I saved that file, and then I turned back to the book file and plowed right in.

Achoo.

Bless you. I barely noticed the sneeze. My fingers hammered away, stabbing the keys of my long-suffering Saitek Eclipse II keyboard like fat, determined sausages.

Achoo.

Hah. I forged ahead, heedless of the growing pressure in my aquiline nostrils, or the tell-tale hints of burning and tearing in my bleary eyes.

ACHOO.

And then it began in earnest -- a full-blown, five-alarm, no-holds-barred Festival of Expelled Mucous which scared Hell out of my assembled Writing Dogs and necessitated an emergency cleaning of my monitors.

My eyes joined the fun, puffing up and streaming tears. I cried more than the front row at a Twilight screening. Tears ran down my cheeks and soaked my beard, and that's never happened before, although I will certainly use it in a book sometime, because having a beard soaked with salty tears is a unique visceral experience.

My nose, not to be outdone, redoubled its efforts. The Writing Dogs exited the study en masse, seeking shelter behind the toolshed and peeking out briefly to see if I'd exploded yet.

My sinuses are, I discovered, unbound by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that neither matter nor energy is ever created or destroyed. Because I created matter, buckets of the stuff, and physicists don't believe me fine, just stand right there.

Then things got really bad.

I sprayed a considerable quantity of something called Flonase up my nose. Look, I'm a writer. But I'm not a famous one, so I still have a day job. I don't have many hours in the day to write. I don't have time for all this sneezy/coughy/teary body function jazz. And this nasal spray seemed confident it could help, or at least provide me with numerous amusing side effect options (may cause uncontrollable hypothermia. Some users report being transformed into werewolves. Occasional hyperdimensionality or time travel may result).

It helped, if by 'help' we mean 'take a bad situation and elevate it to truly epic tragic status.' The dogs have abandoned the toolshed and have placed ads on Craigslist which read FREE TO A GOOD HOME HURRY WE THINK HE WILL SOON BLOW UP.

I've used an entire roll of Bounty paper towels. No, you don't want any details.

My nose, my nasal passages, my traitorous running eyes have turned on me, in the hour of my greatest need.

How? If you took a blood sample from me, my blood type would register as ALLEGRA. I'm careful to avoid the outdoors. I haven't even seen the sun, or natural ground, since briefly emerging from my lair last November to inspect my otter-drawn sleigh.

This is killing me. I shall now concoct a devil's brew of powerful anti-allergens and hope it provides sufficient relief to continue with the book.

In the meantime, here is a repeat post from 5/30, in which I opine about all maters bodily and physical. Please wish me luck in recovering. I do NOT need this now!

WHERE IS MY ROBOT BODY?

REPOST from 5/30

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 heart 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.

MidSouthCon 32 Photo Roundup, Herding Bees, and Sundry Other Diverse Ruminations

They're pretty nice guys, when they're not defending the evil Galactic Empire.

MidSouthCon32 pics!

As promised, I'll shortly post the best of my MidSouthCon photos. There were some great cosplayers in attendance this year, and just wandering the halls watching people was great fun.

Fans of the show Supernatural will recognize the tan raincoat immediately. Yes, that's Castiel! Which shows what power a simple prop can take on, when it becomes associated with a compelling fictional character. It didn't matter that Castiel is male -- when one dons the tan raincoat and the loose tie, one becomes Castiel, to anyone familiar with the show.

Fans of Archer will recognize the ISIS crew, including Pam with her trademark shark puppet! Archer wasn't with them this trip -- maybe next year.

The dauntless members of Expedition Unknown! This photograph is unusual in that the Stay Puft figure was not visible to the naked eye when the photo was taken. Or maybe it was, and what were my eyes doing running around naked anyway?

Not all the attendees were human. I could never get this fellow to talk, but he was rather deft at delivering small packages.

Just say 'Arrrr..."

Steampunk cosplay was popular this year!

Sir Coors of Light, defender of domestic beverages!

And not a single dwarf-tossing joke was made...

The image above is the lineup for next year! I'll get to rub elbows with the likes of Cory Doctorow and Melissa Gay, which means I've got all year to work myself into a mumbling star-struck tizzy.

MidSouthCons are truly a blast. You meet great people. I always come away energized and ready to plunge back into writing with recharged batteries and renewed zeal. Not renewed veal. I still have awful dreams about that particular incident.

More Pics 

I thought I'd close today with a few images of spring for my winter-weary northern readers.

Our pear trees are in full bloom. I took the camera outside and discovered the bees are already hard at work, and I managed to capture a few images of them. If you're still locked in by cold and snow, I hope this brightens your day.

Look closely at the sky, and you'll see bees in flight. No, I wasn't stung; they paid no attention to me at all.

Spring is here, and soon all the grey dark days and snowstorms will just be memories.

Meralda and Mug Update

The new Mug and Meralda book is still underway at a breakneck pace. I'm going to estimate its final word count at around 80 thousand words, which means I will be finishing it up in a couple of weeks. 

First draft, that is. My plan for the next month or two looks like this:

1) Finish All the Turns of Light.

2) Put it aside. Dive back into the new Markhat book I just finished, The Darker Carnival. Get it whipped into shape and submitted to Samhain. 

3) As soon as The Darker Carnival is submitted, pick up All the Turns of Light and get it ready for submission. I'm still not sure where I'll sub the new Mug and Meralda. Samhain doesn't do YA, so I'll be considering this question carefully in the next few weeks. 

4) As soon as Turns and Carnival are out, start on a new book. My goal for 2014 is to write and submit at least three full-blown novels. 

Will the third book be the long-delayed Wistril novel, entitled Wistril Ascendant? Or will it be something new entirely?

No idea yet. I'm sure something will occur to me when the time is right.

One last thing -- Brown River Queen could use a few more reviews. If you've read it and liked it, please consider visiting the book's Amazon page and dropping a few stars for me!

MidSouthCon 32!

MidSouthCon 32 has come and gone, and as a grinning survivor of the juggernaut that was the 32nd MidSouthCon, I am happy to report it was a rousing success.

The Memphis Hilton was packed with science fiction and fantasy fans of every sort. There were gamers, costumers, filkers, authors, artists, publishers, cosplayers, and lovers of the strange and unusual, all packed into the Hilton with one goal in mind -- to have a lot of fun.

Mission accomplished, because fun was had by the steaming, giggling metric ton. I met a lot of great people. Sat in on some writer's panels that were illuminating and entertaining. I saw truly stunning art, and listened to some great Celtic autoharp music.

And that was just sitting in my truck in the hotel parking lot. Things really got moving once I ventured inside the Con itself.

Did I take pictures? Of course I did. The one above shows three old Con friends who favor the universe of the Doctor. They don't say much, but they do freak out the people on the hotel elevators.

I haven't had time to go through all the photos I took, and that's not going to happen today. What the Con gives in entertainment it takes in strength, and I am beat right now. So I'll just post a few pics and some news this week, and post more later.

The crew from Expedition Unknown was of course on hand, to showcase their paranormal sleuthing skills in panels. In the image below, investigator Tanya Vandesteeg demonstrates a novel use for an infrared temperature gun.  

I was inducted into the Dal Coger Memorial Hall of Fame, and my book Brown River Queen was 1st runner-up for the Darrell Award for novel of the year. Not a bad haul!

I met and spoke with author Kellie Armstrong, who wrote Bitten, which is now a TV series. She was gracious and patient and I hope she returns to MidSouthCon soon. I also met Toni Weisskopf, publisher of Baen Books, and she is also a Jedi Master of Being Cool.

As I said, MidSouthCon was a blast. But it must also be noted I am no longer in my teens or my twenties or my thirties (we'll stop there, lest I discover I am a mummy and vanish in a cloud of dust), so I must now crawl toward the nearest couch in rapt anticipation of The Walking Dead. 

Take care, folks! Buy some books!

Link to The Five Faces on Amazon

Fried Convention Catfish and the Unwavering Stares of Dogs

The above is Primary Paranormal Research and Editorial Assistant Dog Lou Ann, who is giving me her patented 'Why aren't you writing?' look.

A bout of springtime hay fever reduced my word count by half last week. It's hard to simultaneously generate deathless prose and expel a continual stream of violent sneezes, and sadly the sneezing took precedence.

For any other writers out there struggling with allergies, I can recommend over-the-counter Allegra. It knocked the allergies nearly flat, and only reduced my IQ (via the 'antihistamine haze') by about 10 percent. Seriously, the other stuff I've taken leaves me barely able to babble and grasp soft objects. I don't know why, but old-school Benadryl and the like rendered me so groggy I had no choice but to go to bed and wait until October to roll around.

Now I can muddle along, slower but that's better than nothing.

Hopefully the allergies will fade, and I can get back to full word-slinging mode.

Random Eatery Review

I am currently overwhelmed by an unseemly desire -- no, not an unseemly desire, but an unholy craving -- for fried catfish.

And there is no better source of fried catfish in all the land than Old Taylor Grocery, pictured above a few hours before they open. After they open the place will be surrounded by vehicles.

It is an old grocery store, and yes, it looks it. That's part of the charm. You sit on the porch and wait until your party's name is called, and you watch life on Main Street in Taylor, Mississippi amble past.

Inside, the rough-hewn walls are covered with writing. It's a decades-old tradition that people sign their names on the walls (and the tables, and the ceilings) and leave a word or two of home-spun wisdom. Writer Willie Morris left his name there. Prince Charles left his as well, and we are told he found the fried catfish delicious.

Old Taylor has a website, and a menu is available online.  I suggest the Large Fillet Catfish plate, because LARGE + CATFISH.

Alas, I must needs console my aching hunger with, um, let's see -- half a Pop-Tart and what appears to be hummus. Let's hope it's hummus, anyway.

But one day soon, Old Taylor, one day soon...

MidSouthCon32!

If you plan to attend MidSouthCon this year, shoot me an email (franktuttle at franktuttle dot com). I'll be there, dressed as an unremarkable middle-aged human male. I'm taking my camera and will post lots of sweet con pics soon after.

This year, under the SCHEDULE tab on the Con website, you can create an account with a scheduling service, pick all the events you want to attend, and then consult your schedule from your phone or mobile device. No more lugging around dog-eared Con schedule books! No more trying to remember where events are held, or when! 

I suspect everyone but me has been using this feature all along. But if you're another poor Luddite, check it out -- it's free and quick and easy.

A Link for You to Love

One of my very favorite hangouts on the Web is a place called io9. 

Io9 features everything from cutting-edge science news to the latest in affairs of geekdom. You'll find short but brilliant indie films sandwiched between articles about gravitational waves, the latest on SF and fantasy books, and a host of other tidbits too numerous to name. As a source of story ideas, it simply can't be beat.

Do yourself a favor and add this one to your bookmarks. 

IO9 link

Last Words

First, the image I posted in last week's blog (along with the offer to send a free print copy of BROWN RIVER QUEEN to the first person to correctly identify the object) was a brick. A close up of a brick.

I meant to make it really easy, but in retrospect I was so enamored of my new camera's macro function I couldn't have identified the image either, even had I know it was an extreme close-up of something.

So, to make up for that, I'll send a free signed print copy of BROWN RIVER QUEEN to the first person who asks for one in the comment section of this blog. 

If you haven't read any Markhat, here's a good place to start!

Time for me to get back to work. Take care all, and remember -- oh. I forgot.

In Which I Fan the Flames of Controversy and Wax Rhapsodic About Weevils, Pt. 1

This is Petey, another of our rescue doggies. You've seldom seen photos of Petey because even after all these years he retains a stark terror of having anything pointed at him. But with my new telephoto camera, I can be a great distance away and still catch him being contemplative.

Petey has a habit I've not seen before. To amuse himself, he will scoop fallen leaves or soil into a mound. He does this by keeping his back legs planted, and turning in a circle while digging or scooping with his front paws.

Then, when he has built a mound of sufficient height and diameter (he is very particular about the exact dimensions), he circles it, barking and snapping, as though it were animated and moving.

The other dogs just watch, giving each other 'there's one in every pack' canine eye-rolls. Petey ignores that too, because he's made himself a tiny world of pure joy and he's happy in the moment.

There's a lesson in there for me. Sadly, I lack the delicate motor skills and balance required to shape debris into a properly sloped mound. But I'm working on it.

Pond EVP Session

I've mentioned here before that I can't offer any explanation regarding my experience with EVP captures and locations.

All the EVPs I've captured have been in cemeteries. Which doesn't make any sense to me, so I sometimes go to places at which I am relatively sure no corpses are buried, marked or otherwise.

Case in point: one of the small ponds behind our house.

I was there yesterday, accompanied of course by Supernatural Research Dog Lou Ann, and I brought my Zoom portable recorder and my camera.

It was a lovely day, as you can see. I was in short sleeves, a faux-diamond tiara, and my most elegant evening gown, which sadly was not revealed in the reflection of the water. 

I sat down, took the photo above, and held an EVP session while Lou Ann searched the water for poltergeists, selkies, or inexplicable falls of beef jerky.

This was the view directly above me. As I said, it was a beautiful day.

Oh, and one quick note to any paranormal researchers out there -- dogs CANNOT resist field microphones topped with a fur wind-screen. There's a moment of high drama in the recording in which Lou Ann sees the mic, which I placed on the ground beside me, and snatches it up because the furry wind-screen makes it look like a recently deceased rodent or other tasty treat. 

I got the mic back before she chomped down or dived into the pond with it. But it was close, so lesson learned.

I listened to the recording twice, and like all my other mundane locales, there's not the least hint of anything unusual on it. 

But it was fun watching Lou enjoy her swim while the wind sounded through the bare trees.

Writing Update

The new Mug and Meralda book now stands at slightly over 40 thousand words. I wish I could talk about it without adding spoilers, but there's no way to do that, so details will have to wait. I will say the single word romance. There, I said it. You may now speculate.

Markhat has news too -- I posted this last week, so if you already know The Five Faces is available for pre-order, or that Brown River Queen is now available in print, skip ahead. 

By the way, if you happen to be a book reviewer and you'd like a free print copy of Brown River Queen, email me! I'm franktuttle at franktuttle dot com, and I'll get you a book out pronto. 

Finally, a few words about maintaining a 2K a day writing habit.

I've developed a twitch in my right eye (that's not a joke). Not sure if it's related, but my left elbow appears to be coming apart like a cheap action figure's molded-plastic arm. And I'm going to need a new keyboard when this book is done. 

But the book is getting done, and it isn't taking years. So my arm can fall off and my eye can turn around backwards in my skull and it'll all be worth it if I can maintain this pace.

I want my new robot body NOW.

Thoughts on Anonymous Amazon Reader Reviews

There's a petition going around written with the intent of telling Amazon to remove the anonymous book review feature as it currently exists.

No, I won't link to the petition, and I won't mention the particular author who is the driving force behind it. Mainly because I suspect ulterior motives -- what a coincidence, you've got a new book coming out shortly, and it suddenly occurred to you to push a controversial public petition, using your press contacts to drive it. As SNL's Church Lady would say, "How convenient."

The petition cites the actions of troll reviewers as justification for insisting on real names to accompany reader reviews of books on Amazon.

I believe this is a bad idea on a number of levels. First of all, it's pointlessly intrusive. If you bought my book and read my book and didn't like my book, you have every right to say so without showing anyone your ID. I don't need to know your name. Nobody does.

Too, let's say you're a schoolteacher who enjoys bloody zombie horror, or you don't want your elderly granny to know you just gave 5 stars to Ride Me Cowboy, a Tale of Lust, Love, and Little People in the Wild Wild West. You shouldn't have to trumpet your private reading tastes to every search engine on the internet.

Finally, demanding real names on Amazon book reviews is rude. This is just my opinion, but it seems to me that someone got a couple of poor reviews and couldn't abide the mere idea that someone on the internet didn't venerate their each and every word and turn of phrase, and this is their way of making sure that never EVER happens again.

And that's all I have to say about that.

My Private Mars Mission, and a Background Image

It wasn't easy, building my own Mars probe in my shop using only material sold by Sneed's Hardware on University Avenue, but I did it, and the image above was obtained during my probe's touchdown.

Or was it? A free print copy of Brown River Queen goes to the first person to correctly identify the subject of this photograph. Respond in the blog comments section!

This is my current background image. It's a photo I took of the propane gauge on our tank, which resides under a steel hood but nevertheless manages to pick up a lot of dirt and debris. I like it because, um, I've received numerous sharp blows to the head over the course of my life. 

You can download the whole huge image by clicking  here.

Okay, back to work for me! Take care all, and remember -- there only has to be a snake in your hat once to make checking worth your while. 

Things That Go Bump 2014, #2: Vapor Interaction Observation Chamber (aka the Fogbox)

In keeping with my tradition of meddling with Things With Which Man Was Not Meant to Meddle, I've built a new ghost hunting tool. This new tool started out as the Vapor Interaction Observation Chamber, but from now on I'll be referring to it as the Fogbox.

Frank's neighbors express their approval of his paranormal endeavors.

That's exactly what a fogbox is -- a box full of fog. Why fog?

Because fog is a suspension of tiny water particles in air. Really tiny particles. Moving them around should be easy even if you're some sort of discorporeal energy entity (i.e., a ghost).

People I know and trust have told me they've been touched, had their hair pulled, felt cold little hands slip into theirs during paranormal investigations. Now, I've never experienced anything like that. A couple of years ago, I'd probably have dismissed their claims as imaginary or contrived. But then two things happened. One, I recorded my own EVP phenomena, which proved to me such events are neither always faked nor always imagined. Second, I got to know paranormal investigators who I trust. If they say they've had their hair pulled, they've had their hair pulled.

From their experiences, I can theorize that some agency (let's call it Agency X because I'm hesitant to use the g-word) is capable of infrequent, small-scale physical exertions on material objects. I don't know by what means Agency X exerts these forces, but let's assume they do.

My Fogbox is an effort to capture any small-scale physical effects photographically. Simply put, you fill the lighted chamber with fog. Then you wait for disturbances within the fog or upon the condensation on the inside pane of each of the chamber's sides.

Here's what the Fogbox looks like in action:

But let's back up a moment, and I'll describe its construction.

I took an 18 inch by 24 inch sheet of clear acrylic sheeting and cut it into two 12 by 18 sheets. I then separated these sheets with three-quarter inch pine stock. The top frame member is removable so the interior of each pane can be cleaned.

So what's all that tubing and the wires and the switch do?

The switch box controls two devices. One is the fan that sits atop the Fogbox. It draws artificial fog from the fog cylinder via the black hose and pumps the fog into the chamber.

The other powered item is the blue LED light strip that lines the sides and the bottom of the chamber. This serves two purposes -- one, to light the chamber, and make any motion or markings on the panes easily visible. Two, it looks really cool.

Fog usually occurs when the air temperature equals that of the dew point, but I'm a busy guy and I don't have time to go chasing fog around with my box so I make my own. You take one part pure glycerin to three parts distilled water. Mix well. Put that in a metal container and heat it. Draw off the resulting fog. Yes, it's harmless to breathe. I originally planned to use dry ice, but you can't get dry ice here in Oxford, so I had to drop back to the old Halloween glycerin-and-water recipe.

Here's what the Fogbox looks like with the fog not heated yet. The metal cylinder on the left, which looks suspiciously like an old coffee can, is an old coffee can in which a frame holds a small metal cup above four burning candles. The candles heat the mixture of water and glycerin. The fan and the tube draws this fog into the chamber.

Here's a shot of the Fogbox getting filled.

This is after about 10 minutes:

And here we are full of fog, and glowing!

A close up of the Chamber:

An even closer shot:

Total cost was about 30 bucks. I used an metal watch box as a switch box and the whole thing is powered by an old 12 volt wall transformer. The fan is a 12 volt PC fan of the 'squirrel cage' blower variety.

I just used what I had lying around; nothing about the parts or dimensions is special.

I think the Fogbox would be best used in a location known for high activity.

My hope is that one day a face will appear in a Fogbox and stick out its tongue before writing 867-5309 on the pane.

Markhat Release News

Brown River Queen will be released in print on Tuesday, March 4! So if you've been waiting for a print copy, your wait is nearly over. Of course the ebook version is available now. 

I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention that a new Markhat book, The Five Faces, will be released in ebook format on June 17. You can pre-order now, unless you want to make me cry. You don't want that, do you? Of course not.

Meralda and Mug Update

The new Meralda and Mug book, All the Turns of Light, is proceeding quickly. Is it possible I'll be complete or nearly so with the rough draft by the end of the month?

Yes it is. I don't want to jinx it by saying too much, but it could happen. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

That's it for this edition of Mad Science. I would like to wish a final farewell to Harold Ramis, who brought Dr. Egon Spengler to life and inspired me to do inadvisable things to common household items in the name of Science. 

Don't cross the streams, buddy. See you around.

Taciturn Ghosts and Markhat Release news!

Midway Cemetery, 2014

After capturing a loud EVP incident last week (listen to it here if you missed that blog entry), I returned to the same tiny cemetery yesterday, to see if anyone still felt like talking.

Armor-All the fearless armadillo was there, happily scooting about for tasty grubs. He was a bit more wary than before, though, and he waddled into the woods before I could get a good photo of him.

I spent 22 minutes among the headstones. I also took over a hundred photos, in case any of the spooks felt frisky. Of all those photos, I saw one unusual effect, which is show below:

See that squashed rainbow object at the lower right corner?

I've seen similar images touted as evidence of the paranormal. Sadly, I'm sure this is nothing but sloppy camera work.

Look how the shadows of the headstones fall. It's obvious the sun is off to the left of the image. Which means a ray of bright sunlight entered my lens and caused the prismatic rainbow effect, putting it opposite the bright light source. Nothing paranormal about this.

I did capture a single very faint sound that might be a voice. I'm on the fence about this one, because it is so faint. But listen for yourself (I put a link a few paragraphs below).

In the rear of the cemetery is a tall marble marker for a Mrs. Mollie Boone. I put my Zoom mic atop her marker and left it there for a while. Here's the mic atop the marker. Oh, and that fuzzy bit atop the microphone is a windscreen. 

The maybe-voice occurs around the ten minute mark on the full recording. I remark that the cemetery is peaceful, retrieve the mic, and walk away. As I am walking, I recorded a single very faint sound which sounds like a male saying 'hey.'

It's so faint I've amplified and looped it below:

Hey looped.

Like I said, I'm on the fence with this one. Could be a voice, could be a lot of other things, I suppose.

If you want to slog through the entire 22 minute recording, be my guest. The link is below.

Entire cemetery visit.

I have most of the components for a new ghost-hunting tool I've never seen built before. Hopefully next week I'll have photos of the completed device, or at least the smoking ruin of the prototype. Should be fun either way.

Meralda and Mug Update

Have I made progress on the new Mug and Meralda novel?

Yes. Yes I have. Fans of the first book, All the Paths of Shadow, will be happy to know that (gasp) Meralda and Mug have left the Royal Laboratory and indeed all of Tirlin. 

All the Paths of Shadow was written to be a sort of anti-quest fantasy novel. Look, I don't have anything at all against quest books. Loved The Lord of the Rings. Heck, I even enjoyed the Shannara books, when I was a kid. There's something innately exciting about a band of misfit adventurers slogging across the landscape in an effort to save the world.

But I'd seen so many quest novels. What about writing a protagonist who likes to sleep in her own bed, likes her morning coffee just so, and has no desire to drive across town, much less sleep in the mud?

That's Meralda. She just wants to be left alone, so she can do her research from morning till night. Of course that's not how her life is turning out, but if I was nice to my protagonists the books would be too boring to bother reading.

I'm trying another new thing with this book by including excerpts from Mug's private journal between chapters. Since this is his private journal, he's even more outspoken in these excerpts than he is in public. I'm waiting until the book is complete to see if these journal entries add or detract from the overall reading experience. So far I think they add a good bit of humor, and yes Mug can write using his vines to hold the pen.

I would post an excerpt here but there's no way I can do that without including half a dozen spoilers. 

I will say this book is a much faster-paced entry than All the Paths of Shadow. Sea monsters may be involved. And storms. And we may finally learn why the Vonats are so dead set against -- well, everything.

The Five Faces

Love this cover!

Good news! The Five Faces is now up for pre-order on Amazon. If you have a Kindle (or the free Kindle app), you can order your copy now and have it delivered to your device on June 17.

Pre-order The Five Faces on Amazon

I'm really excited about this book. I believe you'll like it too.

In case I have any readers new to the series, there are 8 Markhat titles for you to choose from. I'm often asked what order they are best read in, so here's what I suggest:

1) Dead Man's Rain

2) The Cadaver Client

3) The Mister Trophy

Note that it really doesn't matter what order you read the first three tales in. Any order is fine, really.

Dead Man's Rain is set in a haunted mansion. Markhat doesn't believe in haints, haunts, and bumps in the night, but he does believe in greedy relatives and he's not one to turn down a hefty fee. But Markhat soon learns that the horrors lurking in House Merlat might just be all too real. As Mama Hog observes, 'sometimes good and dead ain't good enough.'

The Cadaver Client finds Markhat in the hire of a remorseful ghost, who communicates with him through a little old lady who claims to speak to the dead. The ghost wants his living wife to have a sum of money, but it seems even the dead have more lies to tell than truth.

The Mister Trophy sets Markhat against the deranged head of one of Rannit's Dark Houses. Three mighty Troll warriors hire Markhat to find their cousin's head, which went missing during the War that almost wiped out humanity. Markhat finds the Troll head, but bringing it home to his clients may be a war in itself.

Those are the first three Markhat adventures. They are available only in ebook form individually, but if you prefer print books you can get the print anthology The Markhat Files, which contains all three!

The Markhat Files print anthology

I suggest reading the rest of the books in the order below. Note that each of the following books is available as an ebook or a printed book.

4) Hold the Dark

5) The Banshee's Walk

6) The Broken Bell

7) Brown River Queen

8) The Five Faces (available June 17, 2014)

Hold the Dark introduces new characters and conflicts, and sets a story arc that continues through The Banshee's Walk, The Broken Bell, Brown River Queen, and The Five Faces. 

The tone of the Markhat series is a little bit Raymond Chandler and a little bit Nero Wolfe. Markhat lives and works in a city called Rannit, which houses some 600,000 souls. Rannit isn't on Earth; I created a new world for the series, which they call simply 'the world.' 

Think 1930s Chicago, with vampires called halfdead holding most of the money and Ogres doing the heavy lifting. Rannites have ironworks, gas lamps, cannon, and gunpowder. Markhat is an Army vet who earns a living as a 'finder,' which is what we would call a private eye. If you've lost someone, or something, Markhat will search it out for you. For a price, of course. A man has to eat.

What Markhat mainly finds is trouble, of course. Bad trouble, because the bigger the problem, the better the book.

If you'd like to check out all my books, click below. You'll see covers and links to various purchasing options, because I'm A) helpful and B) avaricious. 

Frank's Books

That's the cover for Brown River Queen, which is set aboard a lavish gambling riverboat. The Queen's maiden voyage doesn't go entirely as planned...

MidSouthCon!

It's nearly March, and that can mean only one thing -- MidSouthCon!

This year's Con will be MidSouthCon32.  I love MidSouthCon -- it's large enough to attract some fascinating folks, and small enough to meet them.

For instance, here's the gang from Expedition Unknown, the Mid-South's premiere paranormal investigators. They have a website, and a YouTube channel featuring some of their best paranormal evidence. You should check out the YouTube channel -- the EVPs are fascinating.

And of course there are the cosplayers!

This year, Brown River Queen is up for a Darrell Award for best novel. I'm up against some stiff competition, so wish Markhat good luck!

I'm also being inducted into the Coger Hall of Fame, which is based on a body of work and not any single title. The judges cited my short stories and short story anthologies Saving the Sammi, Wistril Compleat, On the Road, The Far Corners, and Passing the Narrows as the basis for my induction, and I'm honored and very proud of being included in the Hall of Fame. 

So, if you're planning on being at MidSouthCon this year, look for me -- I'll be the guy grinning like a fool!

Things That Go Bump 2014, Issue #1: Mad Science, Ganzfeld Edition

Can you spot the armored mammal in this photo?

Welcome, boys and girls, to another edition of Things That Go Bump. 

I hadn't actually planned to offer another installment of my amateur supernatural sleuthing today, but a chance visit to a local cemetery resulted in the capture of what I consider to be my best EVP recording yet. I'm really excited about this recording, for a couple of reasons.

First, the vocalization is unique in that it extends over my own soft laughter. Which means it wasn't some weird unintentional grunt or burp, because I'm not a ventriloquist.

Next, it's pretty clear. Clear that it's a voice, and a voice not my own, and clear in what it seems to be saying.

Finally, because it was fairly loud. I didn't hear a thing at the time of recording. Nothing. But my good Zoom H1 mic caught it, and now you can hear it too!

First, a bit of backstory.

Karen and I drove up to the old Midway Cemetery in Lafayette County, Mississippi, after visiting my dad today. It's a sunny day, and warm compared to the weather of late, so we thought we'd go kick around up there for a bit. I took my new SL1000 camera and my trusty Zoom mic with windscreen.

We stayed at the graveyard for about 22 minutes. We weren't alone, though, as Karen, who had the camera, quickly discovered. This little fellow was there first.

Yes, that's an armadillo, and he got within about 3 inches of Karen's shoe before they became aware of each other.

Why is the image black and white? Because I'm going through my Ansel Adams phase and it was in B&W mode when I handed it to Karen. So that's my fault, not hers, but I love the pics anyway.

We watched the armadillo, whom Karen dubbed Armor-All, roam and root throughout the place, oblivious to our presence. I believe he might have been deaf.

They're actually cute, up close. I had no idea they had so much hair on their body armor.

We did switch to color, and here's what he looks like:

It was during our observations of the little guy that I captured the EVP.

The phenomena occurs at about 14:25 in on the full recording. I haven't said anything for several minutes. I'm standing alone, watching Karen take pics of Armor-All and chuckling aloud to myself because the critter was so cute and so unafraid. There was no conversation, no questions asked, no comments made by me.

I've isolated the EVP voice and my laugh in the short clip below. Please listen, and see what you think.

Midway EVP word

That sample has been amplified just a tad so you can listen without headphones. Here's the raw sample, unmodified:

Midway EVP Word, raw

Finally, here's the full 20-plus minute session, in case you care to listen. I didn't hear any other voices.

Full visit sound file

Let me reiterate -- I did not hear the voice until I listened to the recording. No one was close to me. I hear, quite clearly, a whispered or airy voice say the single word 'goodbye.' Which is apropos of nothing, as they say, since that doesn't fit into any conversational context at that time.

But it is a word, and it is a voice, and it came seemingly from thin air.

I have no explanation.

Weird Science: The Ganzfeld Effect

Way back in the 1930s, it was observed that placing goggles which presented a blank, uniform visual field to subjects resulted in hallucinations and changes to the brain's electrical activity. 

In the 1930s, this was considered rare good fun, so scientists ran with it. The phenomena came to be known as the Ganzfeld Effect (Ganzfeld is German for 'complete field'). After adding headphones playing white noise to the blank white visual field, test subjects reported seeing the kinds of things LSD enthusiasts would also report thirty years later.

The Ganzfeld Effect eventually came into play as a technique used by parapsychologists and ESP researchers. It was thought subjects undergoing a Ganzfeld environment showed increased psychic abilities. There are rumors the CIA tried using the Ganzfeld Effect in its own infamous remote-viewing experiments in the 1960s.

So. We have 30s-era mad scientists with their wild hair and side-buttoning lab coats in one corner. In the other, we have shadowy spy agency types glaring at grinning, tripping hippies.

Anything that attracts all these sorts has got to be fun, so count me in.

You can replicate the Ganzfeld Effect for yourself easily enough. Here's what you need:

1) A pack of ping-pong balls (two at least).

2) A razor knife.

3) 300 grit sandpaper.

4) Headphones, and a device to drive them.

5) A white noise source. I got a free white noise generator from iTunes, and played it on my phone.

6) A comfy chair.

7) A lamp.

Look at the picture below. Yes, I know it's painful, but look anyway. Covering my eyes are a pair of halved ping-pong balls. With a little work, you can trim them so that they fit over your eyes perfectly, rendering your entire visual field a blank white expanse.

That's where the razor knife and the sandpaper come in. Cut the balls to fit, then sand the edges smooth. The edges of the balls, not your eyes. Keep the sandpaper away from your eyes. 

Cut the ball in half. Trim each to fit your eye socket. Easy peasy. The CIA probably paid some government contractor half a million 1965 dollars just for that.

Load up your white noise, don your stylish and comfortable headphones, and put the Ganzfeld goggles over your eyes. Lay back. Face your lamp. Hit play.

And, according to the literature, prepare to be transported to an amazing new dimension of hallucinatory delight.

The Ganzfeld Effect is said to work because your brain, my brain, even the brain downstairs I keep alive in a jar is constantly looking for patterns in chaos. That's why we see faces in wood-grain doors, sometimes, or animals in clouds. 

So, by presenting your brain with a blank, uniform visual field via the eyes and random white noise via your ears, you set the stage for a kind of visual/auditory feedback loop, fueled by imagination and hallucinations. People report seeing loved ones, pastoral scenes, vivid colors, moving landscapes, you name it. The CIA even thought people might see inside naughty Russian missile bases, or sneaky submarines.

Look, if all it takes to hack my brain into being amusing for a change is a pair of ping-pong balls and a free white noise app, I say let's do this thing.

So do this thing I did, yesterday afternoon.

Below is the log of my experiences with the Ganzfeld Effect.

Ganzfeld Session 1
Saturday, February 15, 2014
1435 hours

White noise, 12 minutes. White light source.

Visual Hallucinations: None.
Auditory hallucinations: None.
General Impressions: Boring. The improvised 'goggles' worked well enough, in that they provided a uniform white visual field. The white noise generator paired with my good headphones was effective at blocking out all background noise. So I was presented with a blank white field of vision and my hearing was limited to pure white noise -- both of which were simply boring. At no point did I begin to 'see' anything but white. At no point did my surroundings fade or change. In a word, boring.
Mystical Impressions Received: I think this experiment would be a lot more fun if I replace the white noise with the Beatles and their Magical Mystery Tour album. But I won't, because this is Science.

Ganzfeld Session 2
Saturday, February 15, 2014
1517 hours

White noise, 12 minutes. White light source, rendered brighter than the source in Session 1 because I placed the lamp on my chest and aimed it at my face.

Visual Hallucinations: None.
Auditory hallucinations: None.
General Impressions: Seriously, were the people who reported visual hallucinations with this set-up enhancing their research with a little, shall we say, herb of the field? You know what I did gain a profound awareness of? I became profoundly aware that I was sitting in my chair with ping-pong balls over my eyes and a lamp on my chest. Now, this is hardly the strangest thing I've ever done, but in the other instances (yeah, especially the beach-balls and the ostrich) I could at least point towards an empty cooler and say 'beer.' This is just silly.
Mystical Impressions Received: After witnessing this display, my dogs are seriously considering appointing a new pack alpha.

Ganzfeld Session 3
Saturday, February 15, 2014
1601 hours

White noise, 12 minutes. White light source, rendered brighter than the source in Sessions 1 and 2 because I added an extra lamp to the rig.

Visual Hallucinations: None. What a shock.
Auditory Hallucinations: I believe I heard a voice from above spaketh the words 'Wow, what a wanker.'
General Impressions: See sessions 1 and 2. What a waste of time and white noise. I suppose it's possible that some people do experience visual hallucinations this way, but I'm obviously not one of them. I am annoyed, which probably isn't significant because I can achieve that mental state quite easily without sticking Mole Man goggles over my eyes.
Mystical Impressions Received: Ping-pong balls and loud static are NOT the gateway to another universe no matter what happened on that episode of Fringe.

Not a single Russian launch site did I view. I am very disappointed.

But at least I have some neat new goggles, suitable for Halloween or any formal occasion.

Mug and Meralda news

Work on the new book speeds along! I am now on page 59 of the new book. Not too shabby!

No, that's not the new book cover. It's the first book in the series, All the Paths of Shadow. Click the link! Leave a review! Buy a copy! Sorry. The brain in the jar downstairs needs a fresh supply of expensive nutrients.

Hey, how's this get in here? It's the cover for Brown River Queen.  A review? Please, guv'nor, it would mean ever so much to Tiny Tim...

And I'm out. 

Please, please comment on what you think the EVP voice said. I'm really stunned with this one.

By the way, not sure this is relevant, but I have a number of relatives buried there. People I knew well, and loved well. It's a peaceful place, with no spooky atmosphere that I can detect. 

Anyway, take care all!  See you next week!

White Skies at Night

It's full of stars...

Snows is akin to a teacher's pay raise, here in Mississippi, in that snows are few, far between, and tend to leave much to be desired in terms of actual measure. But when we left the Malco Theater late Friday night after seeing a block of films at the Oxford Film Festival, the sky was full of the stuff. The above is a photo I took, because yes, to Mississippi natives taking a picture of snow is deemed not only reasonable but mandatory.

The ground got a light covering too. I am pleased to report that the town didn't shut down, mainly because it happened at night and it would take a full-scale invasion by a foreign superpower to impede the Oxford Square bar traffic on a weekend. No, we Oxonians soldiered on, with nary a panicked run to the grocery store for milk and eggs. Although I suppose drink orders for White Russians may have seen a sudden uptick.

Markhat News

That's the new cover. Yeah, I know I did a reveal for it last weekend, but I like it, so here it is again.

I am pleased to report that the latest round of edits for the book above is complete. This round is known as the FLE, or First Line Edit. In this round, a sharp-eyed editor who has thus far not been involved in the back-and-forth edits between myself and the wise and all-seeing Editrix H reads the edited manuscript, looking for issues we may have missed. 

First Line Editors are chosen for their supernatural ability to spot continuity errors which may be separated by hundreds of pages, or even by books in a series. For instance, in the Markhat series, the phrase 'Angels and Devils' is a mild curse, usually spoken in anger or disgust. 

But did we use 'Angels and Devils' in Book 2, or did we drop the capitalization on Devils and use 'Angels and devils?'

The FLE knows, or knows to raise the question. That slipped right past me (the answer, by the way, is 'Angels and Devils.')

The good news is that the June publication date is firm now. The bulk (if not all) of the editing is done, the cover is set, and the book is ready to be converted into the various formats and distributed to booksellers around the world. Samhain handles all that. I just sit back and...I mean, I start immediately to work on the next book.

The Darker Carnival 

I am pleased to announce that the new Markhat adventure, The Darker Carnival, is done. First draft, that is. I'm pleased with it. So pleased that I've sent the book to my fearless beta reader for a round of first impressions.

Since you're a reader of my blog, I'll reveal a few things about the new book to you. As the title indicates, this entry is set in a carnival. 

What kind of carnival, you ask?

Well, on the surface, Markhat describes it thusly:

"Oh, it's wholesome, harmless diversion," I said. "A place where simple pleasures can be safely pursued by apple-cheeked children and their plain, homespun parents. Why, I wouldn't be surprised to learn the midway is manned by cherubs."

But of course that's Markhat being sarcastic, and while there might be winged things hiding along the midway of Dark's Diverse Delights they certainly aren't cherubs.

I really enjoyed writing The Darker Carnival. I will let it slip that this book brings major changes to the series, for all the characters, and while nothing will ever be quite the same again I hope the experience for you, the reader, will be improved.

But we'll have to wait and see. As usual, there's no guarantee The Darker Carnival will be picked up. Of course, if enough readers (wink wink) buy Markhat books, or drop the publisher quick little notes telling them how much you enjoy the series, that would certainly improve the odds.

Meralda and Mug news

Now that the The Five Faces is nearly ready for release and The Darker Carnival is a finished first draft, I'm turning my sights back to the sequel to All the Paths of Shadow. 

I have nearly fifteen thousand words of the new Mug and Meralda book down. It will be called All the Turns of Light, and I hope to have the first draft done before The Five Faces hits the stands in June. 

Phantoms or Foolery?

The Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles has a long history of macabre goings-on. It's linked to the Black Dahlia murder and just last year a missing tourist was found drowned in one of its rooftop water tanks. 

So if you took a shower or had a nice cool glass of refreshing water at the Cecil Hotel around that time, um, yeah. I wouldn't want to talk about it either.

On the plus side, it's slightly cheaper than the Bates Motel, and the snacks in the vending machines are usually fresh, or at least fresher than the corpses filling the water tanks. You can also probably drag a suspiciously lumpy roll of stained carpet out of the place without raising any eyebrows. That's just a tip from me to you.

A new photo has surfaced which shows what some call a ghostly image outside a fourth story window of the Cecil. Click below to read the story for yourself.

Window Ghost at the Cecil Hotel

I'm going to call this one a reflection phenomena, because it looks to me as if the photo was taken from inside a vehicle, and the 'ghost' is nothing more than a reflection of something on the dashboard. But that's just a guess.

Time for me to get back to work! Take care, all, and if you own a hotel please check your rooftop water tanks for corpses every now and then.

Still here? Quick, go read this!

Middle Earth as Seen From Space

Cover Reveal: The Five Faces

No more taunts, tricks, teases, or tortoises. The time has come to reveal the cover for The Five Faces, which will hit the shelves on June 16.

Here it is, Markhat revealed at last!

Artist Kanaxa gave us a masterpiece.

First, because it's beautiful. Beyond that, though, the cover is actually about the book. Once you've read it, you'll see what I mean. There are clues everywhere, but I'm not spilling any beans!

Of course any and all conjecture will be entertained, and I might divulge a few hints...

Hope you love the cover as much as I do. Thanks, Kanaxa!

I Ate What?

Today's post will be a smorgasbord, which is a polite way of saying 'a dog's breakfast.' Because I'm not feeling well. If my brain were a car engine, it would almost impossible to start, it would only run for a few minutes at a time, and it would quickly expire with a puff of exhaust and the shriek of wrenching metal.

My gastroenterologist rarely ever smiles.

But I haven't missed posting a Sunday blog since the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and I'm not about to let a minor flare-up of rigor mortis stop me now. So, if the gentleman in the hooded robe will lower his scythe for a moment and take a seat, we will proceed.

We'll wait.

Fantastic Reads blog hop 

First of all, my writer pal Elsye Salpeter is part of a week-long blog hop, along with a number of other talented fantasy authors. Elyse's book The Hunt for Xanadu is featured, and it's a book I've read and recommend. 

Please click here to check out all the books. Which, by the way, are each priced at $3.99 or less this week!

Markhat update

This has not been the best writing weekend ever. I didn't reach my goal to finish the new Markhat book. On the bright side, I'm two or three solid writing sessions away from a finish, which means this week, barring disaster, will see the end to the first draft of The Darker Carnival.

One of the joys (there are only four, so it's a big deal) of being a writer is finding a box full of sleek print books on your porch. Such was the case Thursday, when the complementary print copies of Brown River Queen arrived from Samhain Publishing.

The print edition of Brown River Queen goes on sale everywhere on March 4. You could pre-order a copy now, if you wanted, wink wink nudge nudge.

Each hardcopy book comes complete with consonants, vowels, punctuation, pages, and sturdy covers. Batteries not required. Occupies three-dimensional space. Can be read in a vacuum, or during hyperspatial transport. Enjoy!

Things That Blow Up Real Good

Kids, don't try this at home. 

My new camera will record video at 480 frames per second. That's creeping into high-speed slow-motion territory, so naturally I had to try it out.

And what better phenomena to record than a small explosion?

The setup is simple. I took my butane torch, which is handy for removing fingerprints from corpses -- er, crafts, I mean crafts -- and lit it using the standard scratch-lighter. The process takes a fraction of a second, and is unremarkable to the naked eye.

Here's what it looks like in amateur slo-mo. Yes, the image is a little dark, because I wanted the sparks and flames to show up.

For all you Apple device folks, here's a link just for you!

Apple video link

Holding Hands documentary

I don't make movies, and if you watched the clip above you know why.

But my wife Karen does, and her latest project Holding Hands is marvelous. 

You've probably heard the admonition "“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." The quote is usually attributed to Plato, although it appears a Scottish author named Ian Maclaren is probably the true author.

Who first wrote the words isn't important. The author captured a universal truth, in that all the strangers we pass by every day bear a burden of one sort or another. No one is immune to tragedy or heartache, at least not for very long. 

Most of us muddle along as best we can. Karen's film is about a woman who faced adversity with rare courage and unyielding resolve. The film is less than 9 minutes long; please give it a look, and maybe remember the old adage. A kind word or even a smile to a stranger could be more important than you'll ever realize.

Holding Hands on Vimeo

My Super Bowl Prediction

Sorry this is posting so late. I'm sure quite a few people have placed wagers on the outcome of the Super Bowl, and I'm about to announce the winner and the final score. To anyone who loses money because they weren't able to follow my advice, I'm really sorry.

And the winner is: The Atlanta Braves, by a final score of 24-love. The game was close, early on, but toward the bottom of the 4th inning, the Braves shot 4 under par on the tenth and 11th holes, and the Celtics couldn't catch up. Great game, though! Lots of, er, ball-running, dribbling, skating, and so forth.

At Last, A Book Cover For The Five Faces

I've had my fun, dragging out the cover reveal. But now it's Friday, which means it's time to get serious, and stop posting nonsense.

An actual book cover is posted below. No more Rick Astley videos, no more hands, no more close-ups of suspenders.

So here he is, Markhat, in the flesh....

No, wait, that's not it. But, note to self -- need more hand lotion.

I don't often pose with book covers, but when I do, I pose with this one.

Don't even ask.

Okay, enough procrastination. Drumroll, please!

Wait for it....

Wait for it...

ta-DAA!!

It's a masterpiece, is it not? Although frankly Markhat seems to have let himself go a bit...

I said *a* book cover, not *the* book cover...

Cover Mea Culpa.

Yesterday, I did a bad thing.

I described a beautiful the new book cover and taunted you with the news that Markhat's face would be revealed at last.

Then, where the full cover image should have gone, I posted a cropped version, which only showed Markhat's hand.

Exhibit A.

That wasn't very nice of me, and I apologize.

So now I come before you, humble and filled with a spirit of contrite repentance. Making people wait until Sunday to see Markhat's manly mug is mean.

My plan was to post a portion of the cover each day, right up until Sunday. Today, for instance, I planned on posting the image below:

The suspender of Markhat! Hey, even finders need to keep their pants up around their waist.

But I've seen the error of my ways. I admit I was wrong, and I hope this means we're friends again.

Click here for full image

Revealed at Last: The Face of Markhat

Back in the primordial mists of pre-history (June of 2008), a finder named Markhat made his debut on Amazon with the release of Dead Man's Rain.

I wasn't sure what readers would make of Markhat. I took the heart and soul of a 1940s private eye and plopped him down in Rannit, a bustling city of humans and Ogres by day and a hunting ground for thirsty halfdead by night. Magic works in Markhat's world. Banshees walk the empty streets.The dead don't always rest. As Markhat's friend Mama Hog observes, sometimes even good and dead isn't good enough.

The response to the first Markhat book was good, so along came two more Markhat adventures.

The Cadaver Client finds Markhat working for a guilt-ridden shade. As Markhat soon learns, the dead can be just as treacherous as the living.

In The Mister Trophy, Markhat is hired by a trio of Trolls. The Trolls want the head of their dead cousin back -- but a mad vampire keeps the stuffed Troll head as a trophy, and he'd rather die than part with his possessions.

All three of these titles were then combined in the print anthology The Markhat Files, shown below.

If you've kept an eye on the book covers, you noticed a running theme. We see Markhat, but his fedora always covers his eyes.

This theme continues for the next four books.

Hold the Dark

The Banshee's Walk

The Broken Bell

Still no face! We see Darla on the cover of Brown River Queen, and we almost see Markhat, but the clever devil maintains his air of mystery by stepping in front of a light source at the last moment, hiding his face once again in shadow.

A new Markhat book will be released in June of this year. Entitled The Five Faces, the latest Markhat book cover is done, and I've seen it, and it is gorgeous. Artist KaNaXa, who also created the stunning cover for Brown River Queen, has done two things -- first, she's made what I believe to be the best cover yet for the series. That's high praise, because all the Markhat covers have been amazing.

Second, KaNaXa shows us Markhat's face for the very first time.

No hiding behind the hat. No lurking inside convenient shadows. No peeking around a corner. You get Markhat, standing tall and plain, right there looking back at you.

Every detail is perfect, right down to his clothes. He's wearing the good coat Darla got him for Yule and the black hat he favors when he knows he's heading for trouble. And heading for trouble he is. The Five Faces is no lighthearted romp. 

This new book will mark the eighth title in the series. I've spent a lot of time in Markhat's head, a lot of time seeing out of his eyes. So I have a pretty good idea what the guy should look like.

KaNaXa nailed it. I'm so in love with this new cover it should probably file a restraining order. I believe you're going to love it too!

I'm looking at the new cover right this very moment. All I have to do is upload the image into Blogger so it will appear below. But gosh, all this technical stuff is so confusing! What does 'crop' mean? 'Select?' I hope I don't accidentally post mere portions of the new cover until I finally get it right in Sunday's blog post. That would be terrible.

Maybe it will work. So, without further adieu, I give you this -- Markhat, revealed at last!

Isn't this image supposed to be bigger?

Bwahahaha....

More later!

All of Frank's books, with links to booksellers