Monday Miscellanea, 7/19/21

What’s Going On?

Not much. Honestly, Eric and I took something of a Minecraft vacation last week. Every once in a while, we try out a new mod pack. Eric sets up a server and we play in the world together. Much cheaper than traveling! Currently we’re playing Better Minecraft, which seems to be a fairly balanced experience.

Faleigh’s house, in a cold biome—there’s always some snow!

As is probably stereotypical, Eric enjoys adventuring and I enjoy building, though we both do some of both. Our characters don’t do much together, but it’s just nice sharing the experience.

Let’s Talk About the Weather

Summer has been pretty normal this year. We had that super hot week in June, but otherwise highs are around normal and the monsoon storms are blowing through pretty regularly. I’m really trying to appreciate the normality since so much still isn’t.

Getting Back to It

I did send out the short story I wrote. I’m surprised that, in the years since I subbed stories last, some things (like manuscript form and cover letters) haven’t changed much, and some thing have. Most markets have electronic submission forms/services now. Also, the professional rate for genre stories is now 8–10¢ per word! If I sell this story to a pro market, I pay my rent for a month! (Because I have cheap rent…) I’m not getting my hopes up, really, but it’s fun to think about.

What Am I Promo-ing?

I’ve written two “One Ahead Mysteries.” These stories feature a fictional version of magician David P. Abbott, who was a congenial skeptic and debunker in early 20th century Omaha, NE.

Both The Case of the Sorrowful Seamstress and The Case of the Real Estate Revenant are available at Amazon, but if you’d like to read a short excerpt, those are found on my now correctly-working-again website.

I’ll probably write more of this series if I ever figure out another good mystery.