In years past, my curmudgeonly sadness was such that I refused to decorate my home for Christmas. In recent years, however, this year included, I have been quite in the spirit. And much as this is not really a personal blog, I'd still like to share my usual Christmas decor. 

My home is rather spartan; my decor likewise. Here is my mantle. You can see some figurines, a stocking, and some Christmas postcards. The postcards are real and actually mailed, but are not from my own family history. I bought them in an antique shop. They are evocative. The newest is dated 1925; the oldest 1913.

This figurine I also bought in an antique shop. It is pretty and offers a lovely flavor of the early 1960s.*

These figurines are antique, too, and also from the 1960s, but are from my family.

This manger was built by my dad for me, I think before 2005. Isn't it great? And my mother bought me the figurines, one or two a year, slowly fleshing out the crowd around Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. (You can't quite see it, but the place for Jesus is empty. I don't put him out until Christmas Eve.)

Here is my tree. A proper bachelor's tree; a gift from my mother. I've had to restring the lights once. The original lights died.

The angel at the top I inherited after my dad died and my mother faded. My mother bought it for their first Christmas as man and wife, in 1962. It cost $1.25. That was apparently a lot in 1962, especially since my parents, middle class or not, were poor at the time. This angel was at the top of every one of my family's Christmas trees. Here it is in 2017. It is truly an article of family history.

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* Later it seemed to me that the figurine might be a tad older than the 1960s. The polka-dot outfit, the feet that aren't feet, and just the general look more evoked the 1950s.

Well, I inspected it, and saw that its bottom was marked JAPAN. So it was made in Japan. Now, from my slight forays into the antique world, I knew that during the occupation of Japan by America after WWII, exports had to be marked OCCUPIED JAPAN. I knew that the Occupation ended in the early 1950s — 1952, as I recently confirmed. So this figurine, which lacks the mandated OCCUPIED, is at least post-1952, and the 1950s saw a lot of figurines exported from Japan.

So, "late 1950s" might be the better guess for this pretty little elf. You know: back before everything got ugly.

Back in August, the folks at PulpRev put out a call for stories. They wanted stories no longer than fifteen hundred words, and we aspirants were given one week to submit. Obviously, had I a suitable story lying around, I could have simply polished it a bit and leisurely submitted it; but I entered the spirit of the call and wrote a fresh tale.

I took a very old, tiny idea that had never become the novel I imagined — "A king on the run refuses to abdicate" — and combined that with a little pulpy weirdness, and created The King's Portion.

You can get the sampler by buying it directly for all of 99 cents at Amazon or by signing up for the PulpRev mailing list (details here).

Go, now! Become enjoyified!

P.S. As with StoryHack, it was nice working with the PulpRev folks. If nothing else, the Pulp Revolution does not treat little-known authors with disdain!

StoryHack is the magazine that accepted my story this past summer. Bryce Beattie, the editor, was a refreshingly responsive and professional contact. He did a fine job editing me, too, making things better without undoing my voice. (Cirsova rejected the same story, but its editor P. Alexander was another wonderfully responsive contact.)

Anyhow, StoryHack #1 is out. Buy it on Amazon (to give the publisher money). Review it on Amazon (to increase its rank). Read my story Some Things Missing From Her Profile and be amazed by my superlativiosity. Go, now!

P.S. It's awesome to be in the inaugural issue. Yes, there was a proof-of-concept issue #0, but being in #1 feels nice.

So I spent May and a little of early June writing two stories for two magazines, each of which would be reading submissions in June. This blog, which has always been neglected, was thus especially neglected. My daily portion of words went into the fiction.

So I submitted the stories. Both were rejected.

One came close to acceptance and for that I'm grateful. Both magazines were outstanding in their responsiveness. They acknowledged receipt of my stories, kept me posted, and rejected me in a timely fashion. Now, that's not snark. I have spent my life waiting and waiting and waiting for magazines and publishers to get back with me. You put a work on hold while you wait. And it's months and months and months and finally you have to nag... But not this time. It was damn nice to be treated with courtesy.

While I was waiting I did some reading and vidya and a fair amount of real life. I hope to create a better balance and keep this blog alive, somehow. I actually have a couple of ideas for posts, one about the Wizard of Oz and one about Warhammer 40K.

See you in a bit.

My book The Giant's Walk has been added to the library at Speculative Faith. Click here. For the time being, at least, my book is also showing up (with others) on their front page. I invited myself to their library, but they have been kind enough to let me in. Thank you, Speculative Faith.

You've got your dislikes, yes? For certain sorts of people, yes? Such people appear in a store or at an intersection and, despite every well-remembered admonition to be charitable, you all but fume at their repulsive stupidity. And, as always, you remember that God loves them; that, in fact, He died for them; and, looking upon them again and feeling an ill-natured disgust, you apprehend the greatest truth: Not that God loves sinners per se; but that He loves complete and utter morons. Such a love must be infinite indeed.