Coming Attractions

Christmas already? Yep, next week this time it’ll be here. Hope you’ve got all your shopping done. I mailed my cards out the other week. Let’s see who responds. So far I’ve only gotten return cards from the people I was going to drop from my list. Next year I’ll mail out my cards on the 22nd so everybody has to scramble. Ain’t I a stinker?

I probably won’t be here next Thursday. For starters, it’s Christmas. Nobody goes on the Internet on Christmas. For another, almost everything’s closed, and since I still don’t have home WiFi I doubt if I’ll be able to find a place to set up and post. Lancaster County’s libraries are shutting down for both Wednesday and Thursday, in addition to the Ephrata Library being closed on Fridays. That’s three days I have to hunt for someplace to check my email. Therefore, screw it, says I. I’ll just find a funny picture on Google Images and schedule the blog to self-post Thursday morning. I myself probably won’t even leave the house. I’ve got gift books to read and eggnog to drink. If I’m lucky, some channel will run Die Hard, my favorite Christmas movie. Or maybe the library has the DVD. I’ll have to check before they close.

And why don’t I have home Internet yet? Because I had to use the money to buy mandated health insurance for 2015, or pay the massive penalties. Thanks for nothing, Affordable Health Care Act. I think I’ll get sick next year, just to spite the government. I wonder if hospitals have free Internet access?

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That’s Christmas. The library’s following the same shutdown schedule for New Year’s, but somehow that doesn’t seem quite as bad. For one thing, McDonald’s is open on New Year’s Day, so I can post my blog and enjoy my first Sausage McMuffin of the year. A friend of mine down in Valley Forge used to hold a New Year’s party, but she stopped around a decade ago. Since then I’ve been able to get a full night’s sleep (no more long drives home at 2 in the morning) so I’m no longer a zombie on New Year’s Day. I don’t even think I can stay up that late any more. Once you turn the corner of 40, all those new years start to pile up.

If I knew I’d be awake, I’d drive up to Falmouth (it’s near Three Mile Island. Get out your maps.) and watch them lower the goat from the flagpole. Stop your outraged protests. The goat’s fake. Here in my corner of Pennsylvania they drop all sorts of stuff, like red roses and white roses and Lebanon bolognas and giant M&Ms and a Hershey Kiss and a wrench (Mechanicsburg) and strawberries and fun things like that. Falmouth is known for its annual goat races, so they drop a goat. About the only place that doesn’t drop anything is Ephrata, so I have to go out of town. Looks like I’ll have to go out of town for Internet. Maybe it’s time to move?

Again, I’m not sure if anyone bothers to go on the Net or read blogs on a holiday, so I’ll have to decide whether I want to bother posting or not. Let me see if I can come up with a topic. I can always postpone it until Friday, when the Lititz Library will be open and people’s eyes will be properly focusing again. I could write about the perils of sleep deprivation. Sound good to you?

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New Year’s is when I usually make resolutions that I break within a week. This year I’m going to make an effort and attempt to send out at least one sub a month. Because I’m not that fast of a writer, I’m going to cheat and finish some manuscripts I already have started. I’m including self-publishing in this, so if I end up self-pubbing twelve porn stories that’ll satisfy conditions. Only things I might get paid for count. No more free reads from me in 2015.

First up will either be the porn story I never got a cover for, or The Mountain Lion King. Somehow I screwed up and actually worked on it, and now the first draft’s almost done. How’d that happen? One to two pages a day every day, that’s how. Slow and steady, people. That’s how it’s done. Once I edit, polish and type it up I’ll be sending it out to the group to make sure I have all the facts in our “universe” straight, and then it’s wrestle with formatting. If I can pick up the pace, it may be out by the end of January. I want to get a Talbot’s Peak story on the market fast—well, fast for me—to take advantage of any good press generated by Love to the Rescue. We’re starting to build a fan base. We’d better produce.

Right now it looks like the book after that will be a M/M shapeshifter story for Siren. Or vampire cowboys. Or porn. The year hasn’t even started yet. These things are still subject to change.

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Finally, Stray Kitty’s got company. My neighbors across the street have an indoor/outdoor cat who’s started coming around. Peanut’s friendly as all get out when you’re in his yard and his people are there. Once he steps off his turf he might as well be feral. But that was before. Recently he’s started coming up to me in my yard. That’s probably my fault. I made the mistake of giving him some dry food once. Now I’m his bestest buddy. Stray Kitty is not at all happy. The other morning I heard noise on the porch and there was Stray Kitty scrunched up by the door and Peanut prowling around the steps. I had to feed both of them, with separate dishes at opposite ends of the porch while making sure each cat had a clear escape route, just in case. At least Peanut lets me pet him. I don’t even have pets of my own. I should get a dog. And how is your holiday going?

Jumping the Gun

It’s not the end of the old year yet—we’ve still got a week until Christmas—and I’m already looking ahead to 2014. While I’ve resolved not to make any more resolutions, since they never last beyond the first week of January, I do have a few nascent plans.

For one thing, I’d like to get more manuscripts out on the market. I didn’t have a release this year for a number of reasons, the foremost being that I didn’t finish a story or send one anywhere. That is not how writers have a career. I’ve theorized that it’s mathematically possible to write a book in a month. Now I have to prove it. There goes all the TV watching, but watch my backlist expand!

Meanwhile, back at Christmas … I might be wrong, but it looks like they ran all the good TV specials early in the month and now they’re just showing crap. I’ve seen all my favorites: SpongeBob, Heat Miser and Snow Miser, and Shrek the Halls. I tried to watch the Grinch (the real Grinch, the 1960s cartoon, not that abomination with Jim Carrey) but it was so chopped up I had to turn it off. TV shows were more show and less commercials 40-odd years ago.

For years my traditional view-on-Christmas movie was Die Hard. Yes, that is a Christmas movie, more or less. And who wouldn’t want to spend the holidays with Alan Rickman? All I need now is a radio station that will play Cheech and Chong’s “Santa Claus and His Old Lady” and I’m set for another year.

Okay, I’m making one resolution: no more buying Christmas cards. I have a couple boxes of generic cards I picked up at the dollar store, but my brother and some special friends get funny cards from the Kmart. Or they did, until I saw what American Greetings are going for these days. Are you kidding me? So, starting next year, I’m renewing a Cunningham family tradition. For years my cost-conscious mom made her own cards with typing paper, colored pens and stickers. They were chintzy looking and funny as hell. Hey, I’ve got paper and pens, and I can draw a stick figure just as well as anybody. Look out, family members, the El Cheapo Card Company is back in business!

As for New Year’s Eve, that’s still up in the air. I’d go out somewhere and watch something drop, but it’s too damn cold. There’s also the question of whether or not I can stay awake until midnight. I used to be a night owl—I’d write from 10 at night until 3 or 4 in the morning, and I used to work second shift so I could sleep in—but over the years my sleep patterns have changed. Now I find myself fading out around 9-9:30 at night, probably because I get up around 6-6:30 in the morning, even though I don’t have to be anywhere. That just means the stray cat gets fed early. Hope he appreciates it.

My trick to stay up late used to be carb loading. A cheesesteak and Coke for dinner would keep me running for hours. These days, I dunno. Any more I just go to bed, and if I’m still up at midnight I’ll watch the ball drop in New York. The trouble with this plan is that I can’t get back to sleep afterwards.

I miss my one friend’s annual bash in Valley Forge, but I don’t miss the long drive home, or feeling like a zombie on New Year’s Day. Maybe I’ll drive the mile or so up the road to Akron and watch them drop the giant sneaker or whatever it is from wherever they lower it from. Ephrata doesn’t drop anything. I’d love to drive over to Falmouth, where they drop a straw goat from a flagpole. Let’s see what the temperature is, and how many Cokes I can ingest.

And then, starting New Year’s Day, I start producing manuscripts to inflict on innocent publishers. Unless I stay up late and wake up a zombie. Better drink a lot of Cokes. That’s pretty much my plans for the holidays. Nothing spectacular, just trying to stay awake. Bring ‘em on!

Unwinding after the unwrapping

A Happy Boxing Day shout-out to our friends in the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia!


I love Christmas. The weeks of preparation, the slow build of excitement, the black moments (no Nintendo Wii’s to be found anywhere!), the happily-ever-afters (Best Buy just got a shipment of them in!)…the season plays out like the plot arc of a good novel. All my favorite story elements are there: Romance - mistletoe hanging in doorways…Adventure – the search for the Lost Ark is nothing to the search for the last minute gift… Magic – elves, Santa Claus, flying reindeer …and Love - family and friends gathered together.

So maybe that’s why the days after Christmas give me the same feeling as writing “the end” on a manuscript. I’ve been so focused on the holiday that now I can finally look around, stretch, and see what else is happening in life. As much as I enjoyed it all, I feel like I can finally unwind and relax for awhile.

Today I might finally go see the movie Enchanted, if I can talk one of the four males in my family into going with me (ha!), or I might read one of the books I got for Christmas - I’ve just discovered Loretta Chase, and I also received Sharon Shinn’s Archangel - or maybe I’ll hit the stores and see if there’s any good sales.

What are you up to in these days after Christmas? Are you still celebrating with family, back to work, enjoying some time off? And those of you who don’t celebrate Christmas, do you have any special plans this time of year?

Merry Christmas!

If you’re reading this on December 25th, that probably means you have the same type of Christmas evening I usually have: a boring one. We spend weeks, sometimes months scrambling through stores looking for the perfect gifts, decorations, and trees, planning menus, sending cards. When the big day comes, there’s a lot of hoopla in the morning with the presents, the family has a big dinner, and soon the event we’ve been working on for so long is over. Listless and full of pie, we might wander to the computer while the kids sift through their new toys.

If you’re reading this later, you probably have a completely different way to celebrate. But no matter how we observe the winter holidays, it’s almost guaranteed that every year’s experiences and memories, treasured or not, change us. They help shape us into the person we will be by this time next year, and for Christmases to come.

I know this to be true in my case, anyway. I learned the meaning of tradition from my father the first time he read the Christmas Story to us from the family bible the year after Great Grandpa passed away. I studied the art of diplomacy as Mom worked out the holiday schedule with grandparents, aunts, and uncles on both sides of the family. Even the occasional gift had a profound meaning. Like the plastic toy typewriter I used to pound out my grade school stories. Or the small book of recipe cards my grandmother gave to me, filled with handwritten instructions on how to make the dishes she served at her table. I’ve never managed to get any of them quite right, but I treasure that book more than any other in my library.

All of us here at Title Magic wish you a very happy holiday. And whether you’re listless and full of pie, or you’re briefly escaping the hoopla for a moment of peace and quiet, we’d love it if you’d share a memory or two with us. Merry Christmas!