A Probable 166

I realize I haven't mentioned what I've been working on for quite some time. I've been taking classes and there hasn't been a lot of time to talk about it, much less actually write. But I've been working steadily and slowly on a story called "Out of Breath in a Sharp Red Suit," which is probably going to end up being story 166 of The One-Thousand. I've recently begun finding nooks and crannies of time to fit the writing in, and this may be that best way to do it for me. I once read another writer saying that you'll never find a block of hours of time to get the work down. You find five minutes here and five minutes there. Of course, that's not true for some, but it's true for me at the moment.

A Bit Of Fun With Christoph Niemann

I love this guy's work. You should too.

So Many

There are so many things I don't want to do right now!

Alien Virus Love Disaster

Abbey Mei Otis has a collection out today! Blood, Blood absolutely rocked me the first time I read it. She deserves your money for that story alone.

Read the review by Brit Mandelo: https://www.tor.com/2018/08/13/book-reviews-alien-virus-love-disaster-by-abbey-mei-otis/

Or just go to the source and buy it! http://smallbeerpress.com/forthcoming/2017/10/17/alien-virus-love-disaster/

5-Sided Square

Watch this cat's glee as he bends your fucking brain.

Nuts

Sometimes at my retail job, I'll buy a package of cashews and eat them throughout the day. Couple days ago, I remembered we sold walnuts. I like walnuts. I bought walnuts. And ate them throughout the day. After many mouthfuls, I considered that I had never eaten so many walnuts in one sitting. What if they were poisonous in more than a small quantity, like nutmeg is? Hmmm . . . I checked the bag for poison warnings and found none. But that should be common knowledge, right? If walnuts were killing people, you would have heard. I ate more walnuts.

Turns out walnuts are not poisonous. In fact, there are a surprising amount of health benefits associated with eating walnuts. From what I read, I'd go so far as to say they're one of those miracle foods you're always hearing about. In addition to all of that, they're also laxatives. I discovered this during a google search the third time I found myself sitting on the can that night. It was one of four times I sat there in the space of two hours. I was very happy it hit me only after I got home. But it really screwed up my night.

Food for thought. And other things.

Confession Time

For more years than I can count, and just ending in recent months, I thought Ray Kurzweil and Ray Manzarek were the same guy. Come on now, they're both named Ray, they both have a "z" in their last names, and keyboards were an important part of both their lives. You can see it, can't you? Please comment below if you though the same thing at some point, especially if this post was how you found out they were different guys.

The Musician Comes First

One of the great things about my job at the library is we get to spend one hour a week just participating in webinars or watching videos on all sorts of things. My boss' boss gives us a big list of links each month. He's an old punk rock fan and was happy to choose some music related stuff this month. Today I watched this great keynote speech by Dave Grohl at South by Southwest from 2013. The thrust of it is about making your own stuff and doing it your own way, but it's also a brief autobiography that fans of Grohl, or Nirvana, or the Foo Fighters will love too. It's a long one, but if you have the time, you'll be glad you watched it. It makes you want to run out and make something.

ALTERED IDS Salutes Action Comics #1

The photographically memoried among you will recall that I have a blog on Tumblr called ALTERED IDS (a play on both alter egos and transformed identifications) which curates new takes by artists on well known characters. For Superman's 80th birthday, each day in the month of June I posted a different take on the iconic cover of Action Comics #1. You can see the whole lot of them here:

https://alteredids.tumblr.com/tagged/action_comics_1

The Apex Interview

Well, this is two months late. Here's the interview that Andrea Johnson did with me for Apex Magazine in the May issue. We talk about my story in that issue, Stars so Sharp They Break the Skin, my writing process, coming up with ideas, Beware the Hairy Mango, podcasts in general, and Cerberus. Enjoy!

https://www.apex-magazine.com/interview-with-author-matthew-sanborn-smith/

Deeper Work, Bigger Thoughts

I've been off of social media for maybe three days now, inspired by Cal Newport's book, Deep Work. It's about cutting down on distraction to better handle the types of work that benefit from concentration. 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25744928-deep-work

Bigger thoughts have been filling my head this morning. New story ideas, long range plans, a sort of overview of my life. I think it's because I'm out of the news cycle at the moment. Something big happens and a news outlet grabs it. All the others join in with different angles,  then all your friends share it and put their two cents in, people fight and the whole thing goes round and round.

In that sort of atmosphere,  you're always reacting to everybody else. The subject of the day is always determined by someone else. Consider pulling out of that and finding out what your own thoughts are once they can get out from under the pile of everyone else's thoughts.

I'll Make A Note Of That

Once again, I, a person who lives in Florida, am being told by other people who live in Florida that it is hot in the summer . . . In Florida.

Stars so Sharp They Break the Skin

Oops! I was supposed to post this link two weeks ago. Sorry! Here's my latest story: https://www.apex-magazine.com/stars-so-sharp-they-break-the-skin/
If you like it, tell your friends. Thanks, folks!

Forty-Nine

Well, gang, we're down to the wire. I'm forty-nine years old today, and that means there's only one year left to achieve this blog's original goal: write one thousand stories meant for publication by the time I'm fifty years old.

Let's look at the tally, shall we? Right. So all I have to do is write eight-hundred and thirty-five more stories in the next year. Okay, so much for that goal.

But if you've been following this blog for a while, you know I gave up on that goal a couple of years ago, if not longer. My goal is still to write a thousand stories,time limit or no. At the pace I'm currently going, death will come before I hit three hundred stories.

My life is super busy right now. I've got two jobs and I'm taking classes to get a better job in the library system and say goodbye to retail forever. If everything goes well, I may have a lot more time in about twenty months. In the meantime let's enjoy what we can.

My story, Stars so Sharp They Break the Skin (number 164 of The One-Thousand), comes out next week in the May issue of Apex. I'll post a link when it's up. The issue will also feature an interview with me by Andrea Johnson.

Over at https://www.patreon.com/matthewsanbornsmith the mangoes are still coming out, slowly but steadily, as well as new stories, video and audio extras, and some terrible, terrible art by yours truly.

No matter what happens, I'm always moving forward. Even when I'm moving backward. Because I turn around.