Hey, Your Nose is on Fire!

     I mean, there'll hopefully be more short stories from me yet to come, but here's one more for this month.      It's another fantasy story, and of course it's got talking animals in it. "The Ring of Destiny," it's called, and it's in issue #146 of Space & Time magazine. They asked me to record a one-minute video in which I talked about myself and the story and then read a little from it. That seemed like a lot to do in a minute, but I managed to put something together even though I go the issue number wrong at the beginning of my spiel. I wasn't willing to subject anyone to a minute focused on my gruesome visage, though, so I—      Well, you can take the link in the previous paragraph and look at it if you want to. It's a Facebook video, but I think folks can view it without having to log in.      I recorded it with my little flip phone, so the audio's a little quiet a...

The Daily Grind Table of Contents      A crown of sonnets, if I'm remembering right—and please, go look it up on Wikipedia and check me—is a collection of sonnets where the 2nd sonnet starts with the last line of the 1st, the 3rd starts with the last line of the 2nd, the 4th starts with the last line of the 3rd, and so on until the last sonnet ends with the first line of the 1st. If you wanna get extra fancy, you write 14 sonnets in this way, then take the 14 repeating lines from the whole sequence and stack them into a 15th sonnet. That, then, is what they call a heroic crown of sonnets.      We're not doing any of that here. Howlett has little use for crowns, a subject that I'm sure'll come up during the next 15 weeks. So it's iambic pentameter ahoy!

The Terebinth Story Archive      I'd recommend that folks go back and reread the previous 1,774 pages to get the backstory on Esther and Sammy, but maybe starting with page 423 and moving forward five or six pages will be enough to get the gist of it...

The Daily Grind Table of Contents      Which ends this, our 128th storyline. Next, #129 will be full of sonnets. Because nothing says webcomics like sonnets! "Crown Moldering" begins here Monday!

The Daily Grind Table of Contents      Thinking about it more, I've decided the name of the next story will actually be "Crown Moldering." 'Cause we need more puns around here!

The Daily Grind Table of Contents      As late as this last Saturday morning, I was determined: once I wrapped up this storyline next Friday, I'd take the whole month of May off from doing Daily Grind comics.      But by Saturday afternoon, I'd decided that instead of nothing, I'd do something short. And what's shorter than a sonnet? I mean, they average out about 100 words each, and I could crank out 45 of those over the next 15 weeks to have Howlett explore the world and his place in it. So we'll call it "Crownless," and it'll start next Monday.

The Terebinth Story Archive      Hidden agendas? I'm shocked! Shocked!

This is the week, apparently:      When all my stuff is coming out. Or at least the week when I'm noticing that all my stuff is coming out...      The poem and one of the short stories mentioned in the title of this blog post can be found in vol.3, no.1 of the magazine Journ-E: The Journal of Imaginative Literature . Clicking on the big image of the cover there will take you over to the page on Amazon where the thing's for sale.      This is the latest issue of the same magazine I blogged about last year when they published my story called "The Queen of the Mushrooms." The current story, called "Lion Eyes," is more or a traditional sword and sorcery sort of a thing with a warrior woman and a talking crow trying to track down a mad wizard. I wrote it at least thirty years ago, I think, and haven't been able to sell it to anyone this whole time.      Well, no, that's not exact...

The Daily Grind Table of Contents      It's always nice to see everyone taking part in the conversation.

The California Poet Laureate:      Announced a program last year in which folks here in the Golden State could "write a poem about their city, town, or state, exploring what they love about it, what joy they find in it, what they would change about it, or what they hope for."      So I went and did that, writing about the city of Newport Beach using one of my favorite weird forms, the rondeau redoublé . I submitted the thing, called "Beach Seen," through their website —which seems to still be open if anyone else wants to pitch something at them—and I just got an e-mail from them today saying it was up for everyone to read.      If you go to the main site and scroll down a bit, you'll find links to all the counties they got submission from: 25 of the state's 58 counties, it looks like. Mine's in the Orange County section , the second one down on the left-hand side.       ...

The Daily Grind Table of Contents      I really think I'll be taking some time off after this storyline. I'll decide on that next week, probably.

I post the playlists:      From my weekly radio show here and there every Sunday evening for those who, unable to listen to the program live from 4PM to 6PM Pacific time at KUCI, 88.9FM in Irvine, CA , want to recreate the experience in the comfort and convenience of their own homes.      OK, maybe that's not why I do it...      Still, the radio station's one of those "public service" operations, run mostly by the students at the University of California at Irvine, a category I first fell into 40 years ago. I no longer qualify under that particular rubric, but the station allows a certain number of "community members" to participate, and I've been doing the show on that basis since I snuck off with my M.A. back in 1989.      And if today was still April 16th, 2024, you could've clicked on the big picture of the record albums along the top of this post. That would've shunted y...

The Daily Grind Table of Contents      Well, you've got two more weeks to figure it out, Doc.

The Terebinth Story Archive      Time to dive into history!      We first learned about the coyote cities during Sammy's Solo Adventure back in 2008: it ran from page 636 to page 693 . I have a feeling we'll be learning more about them in the coming weeks, too.

The Daily Grind Table of Contents      Sounds to me like Doc lost a few sanity points here...

The Daily Grind Table of Contents      Sorry, Doc: it's what happens when you're a character in wunna my stories, I'm afraid...

The Daily Grind Table of Contents      Ha! Got the title in!

The Terebinth Story Archive      With Esther being in this story, I think we can count on buckets of triolets...

The Daily Grind Table of Contents      Yeah, most plans around these parts don't survive more than a few pages...

The Daily Grind Table of Contents      The Nulla Lucis first started seeping into things around here near the beginning of our 18th storyline, " Administrative Oversight ," finally made her actual appearance in the middle of the story, and got herself pitched out of the physical universe just before the end of it .      Like all good villains, though, she returned a couple times before being dealt with in what was supposed to be a most fatal fashion. Just between you and me, though, she hasta be dead 'cause the pens I used to use to color her brown and red have long since dried up...

The Daily Grind Table of Contents      According to my atomic clock, we've got four more weeks of the story to go. So no need to return your tray to the upright and locked position just yet.

The Terebinth Story Archive      No, it's not an April Fools' prank. For the first time in just over twelve years, we're starting a new actual storyline around here. "The Ballad of Shurra & Blatt" will follow Esther and Lamont as she seeks adventure and he seeks to prove that adventure doesn't actually exist. No doubt it'll be a laugh riot!