Here’s #9 of 52…more or less. Those of you who are familiar with the What Happens in September… collection will note that it’s not exactly a new story. You’ll get moderately irate. I’ll back away slowly. It may not end well.
So okay. We started the trek to Alaska a couple of days earlier than we’d planned, which ate into my writing time somethin’ fierce. We ran into RV trouble. We had a cat get lost in the woods for hours (from our POV…she probably knew where she was, relative to those of us who were searching for her anyway). I did lots of necessary but frustrating back-and-forth driving. What else? Oh, before we left some guys showed up two hours late to pack a bunch of our stuff, and then they took two hours longer than their estimate to get it done.
Basically…well, you know the rest. I ran out of time. Hell, I don’t even have a cover up for this thing yet, though I hope I’ll get to that by tomorrow sometime. [UPDATE: Duh. Cover is now present, though I’m not totally sold on it.] I always planned to hold the September stories in reserve for emergencies. I just didn’t think I’d have to use one so soon, or just ’cause of a bunch of frickin’ piddlin’ details. But I did.
And yes, I could have pushed through and finished the thing. But I’d have had trouble doing that while maintaining friendly relations with my family. And we’re going to have fun on this trip…if it kills us. GOT THAT?? {8′>
That said? I hope you enjoy the story, especially if you’ve read it before. Or you could write really angry comments, maybe. Either one of those might be fun. Right?
Saints Alive!
I’m not going to tell you much about this story. I mean, you’re probably already tired of all the preamble given that it’s not a new one, right? So…I stayed up all night writing this (but not recently, alas!) and passed semi-done bits to a friend as I went, drinking beer and incorporating his goofy suggestions. We had a lot of fun. That is all.
[REDACTED 8/28/2014]
I’m making many of my stories Amazon-only for a while. Their “Kindle Unlimited” deal is very nice for short fiction. I hate to leave people out if they prefer buying stuff at non-Amazon sites, but…(1) nearly all sales and downloads, for me, have always come from Amazon, (2) while I’ve had issues with Amazon, they’ve been very responsive in dealing with them, (3) I can’t say that for any other online distributor (well, Smashwords is actually pretty nice), and (4) this may boost visibility at Amazon…kind of the core of my business. If you really really hate the idea, please let me know.
David,
Oh what a fun way to start my weekend! Your “mini” tale of your adventures with moving was interesting to read (was going to say fun but then I remembered the angst I felt for you). This was my third reading of Saints Alive and it gets better with time, just like a fine whine
I have so many favorite parts of this story especially with all the word play. Races and off-track betting, racist humor, he tried really hard to let it lie, they were all so much fun! Being a Browns fan (long suffering but that’s another whine) I was extremely happy it was a Steelers player’s photo on defense.
Hope everything is going better on your travels. Thank you for a fun read!
Well, we’re definitely having fun on the trip! But it can be awfully difficult to get simple things done…
Anyway, I’m glad you liked the story–again–and I’ll get a new one up next week for sure!