Haiku #44 went up on Monday. Now you'll have to wait until next year for #45! I'm gonna go play around now.

Yesterday "The Escapist" was published to the Web site. This was a fun story for me, because I got to revisit one of my favorite characters from my first novel. As I said before, this isn't really a "story" so much as just a scene. I wrote several of these between '02 and '03. The idea was to make each onme of them read like chapter 2 of a novel. Why? Because I felt like it. It was an artistic whim. Perhaps I'll see fit to publish the others at some point as well. I'd especially like to release the rest of the ones involving Tom. The other reason I'm so happy about "The Escapist" is because it is the first episode to take the Nightfire timeline forward since The Great Debate two years ago.

So you may have noticed that a new short story hasn't gone up this quarter. Well, that's because I don't believe in forcing them. There are several that I will have written for next year, but there isn't time to do them before then. Nevertheless, there will be new short fiction before the end of the week, because I found some stuff I wrote about three years ago that isn't so bad. Remember when I was writing those "scenes" that weren't actually fully developed stories, but I felt I had to write them? Well, I read over the first one recently and decided to clean it up and use it for this quarter's short story. I had been calling it "The Village People," but now I've changed the title to "The Escapist." This scene will be fun for those of you who've read Cry, Wolf especially, because it catches up with one of the characters, Tom Don, about five years after the novel. It will probably be posted late tomorrow.

Haiku #43 went up today. Right on time. Still working on getting Nightfire #8 up. It's a crazy episode. In unrelated news, I have what I like to call lock-in hangover. This Saturday I spent the night at the church with the youth. We had a video scavenger hunt, but the vans wouldn't start, so we ran around the neighborhoods in the dead of the cold, cold night. It turned out being a blast. I slept not at all. Then I had to struggle to stay conscious throughout the church service, in which I was doing the A/V. Oh, and our lighting person was sick, so Jay and I had to cover that part too. After church, I wrote my agenda for the youth parents meeting that I was running and fought like mad not to pass out before it began. Only two parents actually showed up. Major contrast to the 30 youth I had at the lock-in. (Man, that was fun!) Still, the meeting went well enough that one of the two parents said to me, "We might not change churches after all." Whew! So that was good. That night, we had the youth Christmas party from 6 to 8:15. I told one of the sponsors that I wasn't driving when we went to look at Christmas lights. (The vans were fixed by then) When I finally got home, I slept hard for thirteen solid hours. It was good.
On yet another unrelated note, I want to send congratulations out to my cousin Matthew and his wife Angelina on the birth of their fourth child (second daughter) Emelie. I can hardly wait to meet her!

Haiku #42 went up today. I'm still working on Nightfire #8, and I'm still hiopefull that it will go up this week. So there you have it.

The print edition of The Chronicles of Nightfire, Texas #7 just went on sale though the Merchandise section. There was great drama involved, when the brilliant computer program that puts these things together tried to tell me the cover graphic was transparent, and refused to use it. Had to rebuild the graphic completely and make sure it was identical to the cover for the ebook. Thank God I'm a so brilliant.

The free ebook The Chronicles of Nightfire, Texas #7 "The Vampire's Dream" was published to the Web site today for download. This one was especially fun for me, because I got to delve into Valen's past. I'm also getting closer to letting you know what Ray found in his travels. The primary story right now, however, is still the haunting of Alexas mansion. In this issue we get to see Clarenda and Augustin when they were still among the living, and we get to see what their relationship with Valen was like before they died. Give it a read and let me know what you think. I'm going to try to have #s 8 through 10 posted as quickly as possible. If I can manage it, you won't even have to wait a whole month for the next installment this time.

Haiku #41 went up today. The Chronicles of Nightfire, Texas #7 "The Vampire's Dream" might go up later today. Otherwise, it will be early this week.

I did some work on Nightfire #7 today. The cover is already finished, and it looks great. Now I'm off to my Sunday school class' annual irreverent Christmas party. Yay for raunchy gag gifts!

The 2nd print edition of "The Ghost in the Olive Grove" was published yesterday. The reason for doing a second print edition was to bring this story into line with all the rest. The first print edition was bulkier, more expensive, and only available from outside the main Merchandise section of the site. This new edition is easier to locate, smaller, and more affordable. The first edition will remain in print for interested collectors, but it will remain solitary in its trim.