NOW I get it!

The Bluegrass Blogger Bash!

This Friday, I am one of the invited guests at the Bluegrass Blogger Bash, which will take place in the University of Kentucky Student Center. The focus of the event is political blogging, so I was invited on the basis of my work on blogs like Bluegrass Roots and Focus on the 88th. It's not a fiction-oriented event, although there does seem to be plenty of fiction in politics. Come by, if you can!

Short Division

Only one of us will be attending Saturday's Sisters in Crime meeting: Gwen. I will be staying in Lexington to attend my Legislative District meeting and help elect party officials. This is one of my duties as a new precinct chair.

I realize that one seems hardly connected to the other, but there are some strong resemblances between mysteries and politics. They both involve alliances and secret cabals, the examination of motives, and, frequently, digging up the dirt. They used to both involve murder, too, but the politicians have been cutting back on that with the development of good forensic science.

Bilocation

Gwen and I have been presented with a conflicting schedule: the next meeting of our Sisters in Crime chapter, when we will finally get a critique of the story we wrote jointly, will be on April 12th. Unfortunately, the 12th is also the day for the KY Democratic Party Legislative District elections, a very important day for the party. County executive committees will be elected across the state.

It looks like Gwen and I will have to split up for the day: one will travel to Louisville to hear the critique, while the other stays in Lexington to participate in the elections. The one who stays will have to be the one running for the precinct committee this year. We haven't decided which one of us that will be yet. The position is very important, especially in our underrepresented area, but naturally we are both eager to learn what the group thinks of our story! It will be a difficult decision.

Due to circumstances beyond our control...

...we did not attend the ORV chapter meeting of Sisters in Crime yesterday. In fact, there was no meeting of the ORV chapter, because the place the chapter meets was closed due to the weather. Mother Nature saw fit to dump snow and copious amounts of freezing rain on Kentucky this weekend.

Some members of the group were kind enough to contact and compliment us on our first jointly written story. It'd be funny if the story we wrote together wound up in the anthology and not the ones we wrote individually.

While we were housebound, Gwen and I registered domains in our names at GoDaddy.com. Just thinking about the future, folks. I also spent some time tweaking my novel, but the majority of my Saturday was spent parked in front of crime television, watching the birds and squirrels swarm our feeder and viewing YouTube videos of baby sugar gliders.

Perhaps next month we will get further commentary on our story. Meanwhile, I really need to buckle down on other projects.

Productivity

February was a busy month for us. Gwen and I wrote a new story together from scratch for our SinC chapter's bourbon anthology, and I've spent the last few days making final revisions to my solo story for the anthology. It would be very nice if both our solo stories and the one we wrote as a team were published together.

As mentioned before, I have begun sending queries to agents about my novel. We will see if I get a nibble. Keep your fingers crossed!

Welcome...

...to all members of Sisters in Crime. This page was recently added to their list of member websites.

If you've just tuned in, let me introduce my work. I write weird stories. Some are mysteries, some concern the paranormal, and several stories combine these elements. I've written a few horror stories, but I am more comfortable with the term 'paranormal' because so many of them have humorous elements.

I finished my first novel last year, and am in the process of shipping it around to agents. I have already begun outlining its sequel, and I have a few short story projects going on as well. I am writing one of the latter in conjunction with my wife, Gwen Mayo.

Please feel free to check out a short sample of my writing on the left, plus my story in Low Down and Derby.

As I said before, welcome!