The journal

February 11, 2017 · 116 words

Fly, My Little Ebooks! Fly!

May I just stand in croggle-eyed amazement and point out that the 99-cent sale on The Rift is the best ever? The sale was supposed to last one week, but it was extended into the second, and now the third, because the book just kept selling! Shows you what might have happened twenty years ago, if the […]

February 7, 2017 · 659 words

Unto the Breach

So I’m pleased to announce that I have signed the contract for three more Praxis books. Now I announced the offer in September of 2015, but it took until now to negotiate the contract. What with publishers becoming more monolithic— only five left standing, after all— and feeling threatened by Amazon and new

February 5, 2017 · 261 words

Five Beats per Second

An excerpt from the surreal Helzapoppin‘, starring the comedy duo Olsen and Johnson. (Not to mention Slim & Slam, Shemp Howard, and Elisha Cook, Jr., as “the writer.”) A film which, with its dreamlike action and constant breaking of the fourth wall, would nowadays would be considered metafictional, except the word didn

February 2, 2017 · 96 words

An Actual Conversation

HIM: I don’t know, it’s so hard. I used to have all these friends, and we talked all the time, but now I can’t keep track of them all. ME: I think I may have a solution. HIM: ?? ME: You know that device in your pocket? The one you use for texting and browsing […]

January 31, 2017 · 289 words

Award Season

This is the time of year in which hopeful authors post a list of their publications in the fond belief that their readers will nominate them for awards. It’s never worked for me, but then there’s always a first time. My list this time is short and simple: the only publication I had in 2016 was […]

January 29, 2017 · 472 words

Can’t Escape the Damn Eagles

So I went with my gracious hosts to the aptly-named Todos Santos over on the Pacific side of Baja, and I found myself visiting this hotel, which allegedly inspired the Eagles song. Which song I’ve been unable to get out of my head for days now, so thanks a lot. Jimmy Buffet was supposed to have […]

January 25, 2017 · 374 words

Spot The Fish In This Picture

Here amid the scattered wreckage of the lost German freighter Lunderberg lies a highly toxic fish. You don’t want to touch it or step on it lest it inject neurotoxin through its spines, which are designed like little pressure mines, the more the weight, the more the venom. Lunderberg went down in 1954, surrounded by th

January 25, 2017 · 127 words

Good Numbers

So my 99-cent sale on The Rift has generated good numbers, and it is now officially an Amazon bestseller, or as they call it, Best Seller. Its Amazon number was 28 this morning, and they’d probably declined overnight from an even better number. (For some reason these sales seem to generate their best numbers in the ear

January 23, 2017 · 224 words

I Am In Cabo

I have rather unexpectedly found myself in a Mexican resort. I’m sure this is the sort of thing that happens to you all the time, right? So over thirty years ago I visited Cabo San Lucas with some friends, and had a very pleasant time in a small seaside village with all of four hotels. A […]

January 20, 2017 · 405 words

Post-Apocalypse

In an apocalyptic mood for some reason? (I can’t imagine what that reason might be.) In that case you should take advantage of the 99-cent sale on my bestselling ebook, The Rift. The Rift was intended as a breakout book, in which a larger-than-usual audience would be exposed to my Walter-y goodness. In the event, the [

January 20, 2017 · 0 words

Burning It Down

January 18, 2017 · 32 words

Sulawesi

A little over two years ago, I was right at this spot, seeing these exact creatures. I set the climax of Impersonations here, thinking perhaps of camouflage and how to maintain it.