And I heard him exclaim

Thanks for dropping by Christmas morning.

I usually don't do much, by way of decorations; my children and grandchild are two thousand miles away. But I thought I'd do it up big this year.

They make the place a bummer to heat but the high ceilings turned out to be a blessing, after all. How else could I have gotten a twelve-foot tree in here?

The ornaments are an exact match for the bubble lights, glass globes and tinsel my folks used when I was a kid. In fact, I think some of the tinsel are actual strands from the tree they put up when I was seven. Rachael tells me that I'm something of a pack rat.

The angel is new, though. I hope you'll ignore the expression on her face. I don't think she thought I could figure out how to get her situated up there.

And please don't step on the train. Mind that it doesn't smash your ankles, either; that cowcatcher on the locomotive is razor sharp. The express runs through the bathroom every hour, on the quarter hour, by the way, so watch yourself in there.

What? I can't hear you over the stereo. That five-thousand -watt amp really brings out every last nuisance of Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas, doesn't it? The six-foot speakers outside really give it a nice echo. Burl has never sounded better.

I heard that this time. I cut tunnels through all the walls, so that the train can run from room to room without slowing, but that was the easy part. Getting it up to the second floor was a major piece of engineering. I still haven't figured out braking coming back down, so mind your footing on the stairs, too.

If the power should go out while you're here, there are candles and matches on the mantle over the fire. It's happened twice so far; I suppose with that big a sound system, I shouldn't have put up so many lights outside. One thousand, seven hundred and forty-six bulbs, just on the roof, but I think the real power hog is the thousand-watt spotlight I have set up as the star over Bethlehem. Last night, one of the wise men walked because I wouldn't let him wear sunglasses.

What I'm particularly pleased with, though, is the forty-foot snowman in the front yard. He's got a fifty-five-gallon drum for the top hat and a wicker wastebasket on a piece of PVC tubing as his corncob pipe. All painted black, of course. I used the bottoms of two-liter soda bottles for his eyes and buttons. I call him the Frostinator.

I'm in a bit of a tussle with the city, what with the sound system and the lights and the snowman; they claim so many people are driving by to look and listen that it's created a public nuisance.

But hey, it's Christmas.

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Ho, ho, ho

I have remembered why I left Ohio for Florida.

The skies opened Thursday morning and we were visited by another four to six inches of snow and overnight temperatures well below freezing. The city owns twenty-seven trucks with snow plows and almost 1,600 miles of roadway to tend. It's not difficult to do the math.

Most streets turned into ice rinks and the neighborhood around Lincoln Park and the Fauntleroy ferry landing (where we live) was hard hit. Buses have not been running there because they cannot negotiate the hill that climbs to the 35th Street ridge, so my transportation options has been curtailed.

And, of course, the tires that served us so well in Florida gave out when faced with ice-slicked streets, so we were stuck numerous times, while out and about, until we offered up five hundred bucks for a set of traction tires to be mounted on the back of the X-Terra.

Newscasters estimated that almost seventy percent of all employees called off work Thursday. Friday morning, Metro Transit had "lost" seven buses. They were somewhere, of course, but abandoned by drivers who had not yet reported to work, and so dispatchers had no idea where the vehicles were.

And Friday afternoon, two tour buses, filled with teenagers, attempted to descend an ice-slicked street on Capitol Hill and wound up bumped together at the bottom of the slope with the front five feet of one bus hanging over over a retaining wall above the northbound lanes of Interstate Five. You can find a photo of it on the internet.

I asked Rachael if she wanted to move back to the Keys. She laughed. I guess she thought I was joking.

At Residential Aliens

My micro-flash, Anastasia, went on-line today at Lyn Perry's Residential Aliens. It's only two hundred words, so anything I might say about it could be longer than the story, so I'll just mention that I'm pleased with it and happy Lyn liked it, too. Thanks bunches, Lyn!

Living in a winter wonderland

It snowed last night!

For most folks, that may not be such a big deal, but it's the first significant snowfall I have encountered in almost six years.

After four plus years in the Florida Keys, and an almost snowless winter in Seattle last year (at least where Rachael and I live and work), it was fun, sitting in the living room, watching the flakes fall. And a late walk through Lincoln Park was hush, chill and lovely.

I am certain that by Monday, if this continues, I will remember why I left Ohio (for the Florida sun) in the first place, but for now, I'll enjoy the greeting card images and savor a good book and a mug of cocoa in front of the fireplace.

At Static Movement

If you're looking for something to read, A Bannockburn Night, my take on a Lake Superior legend, is on-line now at Static Movement.

It's a ghost story, of a sort, and an experiment for me in character voice. It's told first person and the narrator is a retired boat captain, a fellow in his eighties who is down-to-the-ground genuine; the sort who may lack imagination, but makes up for it in intelligence and integrity. I would be interested to hear what you think.

Three things before you go.

First, it's pronounced Ba-Nock-Burn, with emphasis on the second syllable; The boat in the story was a real vessel and it was named for a village in Scotland where a famous battle took place during the Scottish War for independence from Great Britain.

Next, I know about the commas. I have been working to rid my stories of adverbs and now I have to whittle away at all the commas.

Finally, those big ore freighters are called boats, not ships. It's a Great Lakes thing.

Playing the waiting game

The established authors that I talk to and read about all say that getting published is a combination of talent, luck and persistence, with the latter being perhaps the most important.

You've got to keep writing and you must keep submitting; like falling off a bicycle or being thrown from a horse, you have to get back up and back on. Got to send rejected stories right back out to other markets.

Dreaming about writing as a profession, that was always the part I worried over; I have never been very good at rejection. But now that I am persisting, now that I am working hard to accept rejection as a necessary thing, it appears that I am faced with another stumbling block and it begins with the letter P, as well.

Patience.

Like rejection, being patient is something for which I have never had much, well, patience. I have always favored that old cartoon of the two vultures, in which one says to the other, "I'm tired of waiting; I'd rather just go kill something."

Case in point. At the moment, I have five stories that have been accepted at four publications (one is an e-zine, and three are print publications) and all five are setting, twiddling figurative thumbs, waiting for spots in future issues that range from January to September 2009.

I am grateful to Jordan and Camille at Every Day Fiction, who were the first to accept my stories, but perhaps my success there (a story each month from July through November) has spoiled me.

It has come to me that a publication that presents a story every day consumes submitted fiction at a ferocious rate, resulting in a much shorter interval between submission and appearance. That realization gives me an ever greater respect for what the folks at EDF have accomplished (and continue to accomplish) and an admiration of their persistence.

So now I have to work on patience. Perhaps I will adopt the famous little prayer from Alcoholics Anonymous. You know the one.

God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
the courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference.

But I'd rather just go -- well, you know what I mean.

The bear facts

I have my daughter’s birthday gift ready to mail. She’s going to be twenty-eight soon and I’m sending her a teddy bear; there’s a story behind that.

When she was born, I bought her a cuddly bear, almost as big as she was, and she slept with it every night. When her first birthday came around, the natal bear was a bit tattered, so I bought her a replacement, and upon her second birthday another. By birthday three, she was talking and made it clear what she expected (she is and always has been a most insistent girl).

Over the years, it’s turned into a tradition. The one year I tried to send her enough extra birthday money to buy a bear, she told me in no uncertain terms what she thought of that idea.

So, every December she gets a teddy bear; some years, she gets more than one. I try to add a touch of whimsy, too.

When she was twenty, I sent Bat Bear and Robear, the Bruin Wonder, in full costume, of course; three years ago, I sent four bears wearing identical bowties. They were the BearBearshop Quartet, and arrived with an autographed fan photo and a CD of their latest hits.

Anyway, that’s the bears’ tale. I hope you have a happy birthday, Baby, and that your life is filled with ursine reveries and bruinish accord.

The Best of Every Day Fiction 2008

Here's a nice piece of good news. The 2008 Every Day Fiction anthology is out and I am in it.

To be accurate, my story, Hair of the Dog, is one of the one hundred pieces of flash fiction selected from the three-hundred and sixty-five stories to appear in EDF during it's first year of operation.

It's a lovely book filled with great stories. If you are interested in buying a copy, hardbound or paperback, here's the link: The Best of Every Day Fiction 2008.

A thoughtful no is still a no, but ..

E-mail last night from Scott Andrews, editor at Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

It was a rejection on Coward's Steel. I had had hopes for the story; The new on-line publication is a class act and I would be so chuffed (as my Brit friend Sarah likes to say) if I could be a part of it.

So, I was disappointed, but Scott included the sort of "here's why I said no" message a writer, trying to establish a reputation, hopes to receive from an editor.

Here's what he said, when he could have just said, "No."

The opening was vivid, and the situation between Tate and Sarah seemed interesting even though I didn't fully understand it. But the main problem for me was that I didn't feel a deep core yearning from Tate, a strong character goal driving her. Without such a goal, and the curiosity or worry it would generate in me as I wondered whether she would be able to achieve it, the physical plot of her entering the village didn't hold my interest.

Such critical feedback, from someone you hope to sell a story to, is so cool. It's just as cool that I understand what it is he is suggesting; my only worry is that I'm not quite sure I am far enough along as a writer to do it. But I'm going to try.

My father, who is something of a genius when it comes to fixing things mechanical, has always told me that the first step in fixing something is finding out what it is about the thing that's broken.

I think that's good advice for writing fiction, as well.

BTW: Thank you, Scott. You'll be hearing from me again.