Category: Nonfiction

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Coffee and Contemplation: A Change of Pace

I’ve made a few changes to my blog format to streamline my post scheduling and to, I hope, make things more interesting for you, my readers. By the way, if you’re a fan of mine, I will refer to you as Hellcats. Enjoy this new moniker. I’ve started the Snapshot Saturday posts to feature some of my photography. I have many photos to go through providing me with endless amounts of posts for Saturdays. I feel this is more interesting than discussing the different holidays each week. I will continue to talk about holidays on the Wacky Wednesday posts, but those will be the only posts featuring weird holidays.

Sundays will continue to feature posts like this one. The Coffee and Contemplation posts will have a more specific topic of discussion. Since the title came from the Netflix television show “Stranger Things,” it seemed appropriate to make these posts about supernatural storytelling. Starting on February 21, I will begin discussing the many books I’ve read in order to become better acquainted with the genre within which I wish to write. I’ve read many books. This is not intended to be book reviewing, but a discussion in what elements make for great supernatural storytelling. 

I may expand this to include films and television. But that is a lot of content to cover and I don’t want to put too much on my plate right now. There is also poetry, music, and video games to consider in supernatural storytelling and that is way too much to tackle. This endeavor may become more problematic than I’m expecting, but I will do my best regardless. Next week’s post will be a little more fun before I get into the serious dialogue of my reading adventures. That post was already planned for February 14, so I decided to put off my main goals a little while longer. I don’t think any of you will mind. I hope you’ll join me in these escapades into the supernatural. It’ll be spooky fun.

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What’s New Wednesday: February

I have several new things coming. Later this month, I’ll be announcing many things. I have set the date for the release of my next collection of poetry. Titled “Black Chaos,” will be published in eBook and paperback on April 13, 2021, during National Poetry Month. In the next couple weeks, I’ll post about the book and reveal the cover. I will also reveal a design for a bookmark to go along with the book release. I’ll be looking for feedback and opinions about the design of the bookmark before having hundreds of them printed. 

Speaking of bookmarks, I’m designing several different ones to have available for sale on my website. I have more ideas that I’m fleshing out, but soon I’ll have all kinds of bookmarks available. I also plan to have buttons made but this will be a little farther down the road when I have more money saved up. Coming later this year in the summer, to celebrate two years since the release of my short story collection “The Morbid Museum,” I’ll have a new hardcover edition available which will have a different variant cover.

There will be some slight changes to the paperback cover as well, but it will mostly look the same. I may even offer the eBook of “The Morbid Museum” on Nook, but I haven’t decided when I want to do that. The stories and content of the collection will remain the same. It’s only the covers that will be different. The cover of the eBook will remain the same. Those are the major new things. More details for all these things will be announced as we get closer to those dates. If you would like an ARC in digital form of my forthcoming collection of poetry, please contact me and we can work out the details.

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Wacky Wednesday: February 3

The first Wacky Wednesday of February is an interesting one. We are still trekking into the world of old English insults. Our first word of the day is Smell-feast. This refers to someone who turns up uninvited at a meal or party and expects to be fed. The next word is Smellfungus and it has a long backstory to how it came to be. It refers to someone who always finds fault in the places they visit. Below is the long backstory.

“When Laurence Sterne (author of “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy”) met the Scottish writer Tobias Smollett (author of “The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle”) in Italy in 1764, he was amazed by how critical Smollett was of all the places he had visited. Smollett returned home and published his “Travels Through France and Italy” in 1766, and in response Sterne published his “Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy” two years later. Part-novel, part-travelogue, Sterne’s book featured a grumblingly quarrelsome character called Smelfungus, who was modeled on Smollett. The name soon came to be used of any buzz-killing faultfinder.”

We have a few interesting holidays. Today is National Carrot Cake Day and this is my favorite kind of cake which makes this a win for me. It is also National Women Physicians Day, celebrated women in medicine and the birthday of Doctor Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States in 1849. Today is National Missing Persons Day. About 2,300 people are reported missing every day in the United States. And the saddest part of the day, it’s The Day the Music Died.

On February 3, 1959, there was an airplane accident near Clear Lake, Iowa taking the lives of pilot Roger Peterson, 22-year-old Buddy Holly, 17-year-old Richie Valens, and 28-year-old J.P. Richardson, aka: “The Big Bopper.” The phrase The Day the Music Died was first mentioned in Don McLean’s song “American Pie” in 1971.