I've added a new story to my port...another bit of cotton candy inspired by an Alfred Hitchcock episode. I changed the circumstances around quite a bit, but left the double-twist the same as in the episode.
I've added a new item to my portfolio. Another story with little depth, but--I hope--a more or less satisfying ending. It's a gangster story, so there's violence. Be warned.
Wrote a short story today...it's pure cotton candy, no depth to it at all, and is based on an old Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode from the 50s. It's rated 18+ for language, so beware if that kind of thing bothers you. Otherwise, it's pretty run-of-the-mill. At least it's got a kind of HEA ending, after a fashion.
I made browned butter chocolate chip cookies this morning. More info, including a link to the recipe and tips, is at "Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies"
I also wasted yesterday making yet another variation on the Arlo
WDC doesn't give a very high resolution copy of the image. Here's a close-up of the crew pod, which is marginally better.
I made a variation on beef stew yesterday, based on a recipe in my mother's 1950s Presto Pressure Cookier cookbook called "Swedish Pot Roast." As nearly as I can tell, the recipe has exactly nothing to do with Swedish cuisine, but it does have an interesting flavor profile. I used this excellent recipe for a base recipe, and then tweaked it with the flavors from the old Presto cookbook. The resulting recipe is on my blog. in case anyone is interested. It's easy and pretty tasty.
Today's version of the Arlo. This one combines ideas from all of the prior versions.
(1) cylindrical pressurized crew area with a shuttle bay
(2) reaction drives for maneuvering in normal space
(3) ring that contains the hyperdrive shunt for FTL travel
(4) lots of tacky things added on for carrying cargo--appropriate for a tramp trader
(5) I added spherical fuel tanks, also pressurized
I love "lots of tacky things added on for carrying cargo--appropriate for a tramp trader." That's fabulous!
This thing wouldn't fly in atmosphere with all that wind resistance and I suspect it catches a lot of tiny meteors and other trashy bits floating around in space. But the design also makes sense as you describe it. And since there's no atmosphere in space, I think it's fine.
You put so much effort into everything and it really shows!
I have a high school friend/classmate Tim Earls, who does set design for movies. He's also and architect and does a lot of 3d drawing and technical manuals for Starfleet, etc. He'd have a field day with something like this.
Made chicken chowder tonight...chicken, mirepoix, red pepper, jalopeno, yukon gold potatoes, bacon, sweet corn, chicken stock, and heavy cream. Topped with cilantro. It was good, but it made enough for six, so I'll be having leaved-overs all week.
If you wouldn't ind I would love to add thos recipe to my blog just post it I'm my forum or provide a link to it if it is in your portal and I will add it
Lizzie Basking in the Sun - Done. I also added my slight variation on the recipe and an amazon link to a useful tool for dusting flour into gravies and sauces.
Another Arlo doodle. It occured to me that it would have conventional rocket engines for moving in normal space, but the "ghost engines" that move it FTL might be a ring that generated a spherical bit of hyperspace surrounding the ship...which resulted in this sketch.
That is nice! It's unique, but it makes perfect sense. I think an envelope of hyperspace is the basic principle of Star Trek's warp engines. A sphere, generated by a circular engine, makes more sense to me.
I read somewhere of a RW theory that basically involves 'warping' space so that time collapses space to make vast distances 'shorter' so that, for instance, a ship could travel a lightyear in a few hours. I suspect, though, that when we reach the Milky Way Malt Shop we'd still be asked to "pull into Space 1 and we'll send your order out in a shuttle when it's ready."
One of the ways I didn't write anything this week was watching a telecourse on airplane design. It turns out airplanes are big tubes because that shape provides structural stability for the pressurized cabins that are required for high-elevation flight. That means that spacecraft should have cylindrical crew spaces for the same reason. The Apollo program LEM, for example, was a big tub on top of the propulsion system. Anyway, that meant that the passenger parts of the Arlo (remember the Arlo?) need to be cylindrical. So, the way I didn't write today was in drawing a new version of Arlo with cylindrical crew areas and tacked-on square cargo spaces.
Having just finished reading the submissions for the Spring 2026 issue of Tales from the Crosstimbers, here's a link to an article I wish the authors had read: https://www.sfwa.org/2005/01/04/mistakes-in-writing/
It's Roger MacBride Allen's essay The Standard Deviations of Writing in which he lists some basic and easily fixable errors that authors make. Error #6, nameless characters, and error #5, needless flashbacks, are the two that most particularly caught my attention for this particular set of submissions. His essay is a more detailed discussion of some of the things covered in my last newsletter, "For Authors Newsletter (January 14, 2026)" .
Raven - That's more or less the reaction I got from the author I mentioned--she said she'd deliberately chosen nameless characters and a nonlinear timeline and under no circumstances would she change it--despite the fact that it was confusing to read on both counts. She obviously didn't want to hear that.
Max Griffin 🏳️🌈 - There's ALSO a whole long post that could be written about "I want to do this Arty Art Art thing with my story, but readers don't get it! Who is wrong?"
(Answer: well Writer, uh, you. Sorry.)
In my opinion this kind of comes down to a failure of theory of mind. I as the writer feel like surely any good-hearted reader will be able to pick up what I'm laying down. I forget all the times when I'm the reader, when I quickly get frustrated with confusing prose or structure and give up. (And I am actually a fairly patient, close reader compared to most people in my cohort, I think.) Readers are mostly on the same team as the writer, but they're tired, man. The kids are yelling and the dog is being weird. They're just trying to read something while the pasta boils, you know?
It's possible to do very elegant, experimental story art without forgetting that the reader can't see into your mind, although it is, of course, more difficult. There are strategies to getting a reader to follow you into an unusual story structure, for example, that involve demonstrating to the reader that they can trust you. (I.e., if you want them to trust that you'll eventually answer a big question, like Who Shot The Mayor, you first answer a smaller question in the beginning of the story, like Why Is The Mayor's Shoe On The Roof?) Learning about and practicing these techniques is part of what lets you figure out how to pull off your Arty Art Art piece.
I've had a few non-linear (flashback heavy... sort of) and nameless character stories published, but I also worked with the editors in those cases to clarify things.
But I do think some writers get way too precious about their works and so refuse to change. I like to think I am easy to work with, but I also write what I like to read, so the stories are 95% of the time, pretty straight forward.
It is fine to write how you want; you are, after all, a writer. But it is also perfectly valid for others to "not get it" at the same time. Experimental writing has very few markets. I know I got lucky a couple of times. But I also know what editors and publishers like by now.
Maybe these submitters just need a few more rejections and reality checks before they get into the swing of what will be accepted and what won't. Experience can sometimes breed better habits...
I decided to configure Alexa so I could say, "Watch cable," and she would turn on the TV, turn on the amplifier, set the TV to HDMI2 and set the amplifier to CBL/SAT. Should be simple, right? A five minute task with my old Harmony remote. Alas, Harmony remotes are toast and they're not making them any more. WIth Alexa? Well, I started this at 7AM, it's now 3:30 and I just *now* finished.
At least it's done. But now I can't make a "Watch Roku" command work, even with it set up in *exactly* the same way.
This isn't good for my blood pressure.
I think I'll take a break...if anyone knows of a good reference on Alexa/home assistant interfaces, let me know.
Raven - We've got a 300 disk DVD changer and a 400 disk Bluray changer, both full of disks. We never watch them...they are painfully slow to load. I do like the extras that come with disks, though.
Max Griffin 🏳️🌈 - I suspect you would recoil in horror from our setup, which is "old school blu-ray player and a cabinet full of DVDs, yes, literal DVDs in plastic cases that we rifle through when we want to watch one". We also stream, at the moment, but for movies I really love I want to actually own physical copies. I've been burned too many times by Amazon or Neftlix deciding they just don't want to give me something I've paid for anymore.
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- Done. I also added my slight variation on the recipe and an amazon link to a useful tool for dusting flour into gravies and sauces. 
- There's ALSO a whole long post that could be written about "I want to do this Arty Art Art thing with my story, but readers don't get it! Who is wrong?" 
un: 
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