This is about the last picture of me that I like…

Hello and good morning!  It’s Thursday, as you no doubt already know, and thus it’s time for another of my staggeringly popular weekly blog posts.

I should let anyone who’s paying attention know that I did in fact write a post for Iterations of Zero last week, but while editing it, I decided that it was just too negative to share right now.  Maybe I’ll change my mind in the future, but I figured there’s enough material on IoZ dealing with depression and its fallout, and I thought people wouldn’t be too chuffed to read more of it.  Perhaps I’m wrong in this.  If so, please let me know.

I now hereby remind you all that my giveaway offer is still in place until the end of the year:  If you send me a request, either here or through my Facebook or Twitter accounts, I’ll happily send you the Kindle edition either of one of my novels or three of my short stories, whichever you prefer.  You can pick them, or—if you like—I can pick them for you.  In such a case, I’ll be inclined to send you works that I most want to promote, so fair warning.  Of course, I’m happy to try to match your preferences if you just tell me what you enjoy, but I can’t guarantee that I have works that match all possible tastes.  My short stories, in particular, tend to be rather dark.  Still, if it’s sci-fi, fantasy, and/or horror that you crave, I think I can find a shoe that fits.

I’m very near the end of this run-through of Unanimity, which is nice, though of course the ending is sad in many ways.  The fact that I’m making such progress—glacially slow though it often feels—leads me think that the book will be ready for release sometime relatively early next year, always assuming I live that long.  It will definitely be my magnum opus to date, at least as far as size goes.  I hope it’s worth the wait*.

Now, to indulge in a bit of a tangent:  when I searched online to confirm that I wasn’t misusing the term “magnum opus”**, one of the top results delivered was the Instagram page for what seems to be a hair salon or similar out in Portland, OR (they had some lovely pictures, by the way).  This led me to wonder, as I do from time to time, whether there would be any benefit from my starting an Instagram account.  I don’t currently have one (which was implied by what I just said, wasn’t it?), and I’ve never really followed or looked closely at any such account hitherto.  I’m not big on photo sharing in general.  I don’t like how I look, so I don’t tend to share pictures of myself***, and there are few enough external events in my life that merit pictorial representation to the masses.  Of course, in addition to my Facebook and Twitter accounts, I do have a YouTube channel, but that’s mainly used for sharing “videos” of my songs and recordings of some of my stories.  I’d be interesting to learn what your thoughts are on the benefits (or detriments) of Instagram for authors and other writers.  Do Stephen King and J. K. Rowling have Instagram accounts? I doubt that Shakespeare does.

That’s about all I have for now.  I’ll work on something new for IoZ for this week, and I’ll try to keep it as upbeat as I’m able, but I am grumpy by nature, it seems.

Again, please do contact me if you want some free stories to read for the holidays, even if they’re not exactly holiday-oriented tales.

In closing, in apparent contradiction to my grumpy nature and my dark imagination, I wish you all the very best in everything, even if you don’t necessarily know what that might be.  After all, does any of us really know what’s best for ourselves? But whatever it is, I wish it for you, my dearest readers, and for your families and friends…and what the heck, while we’re there, I’ll wish it for everyone.

Also, I want a pony.

TTFN

*Obviously, I think it’s terrific, but I’m biased.

**I did and do know what it means, but I wanted to make sure there weren’t misleading connotations in its common use.  It turns out I was both correct and fine, which happens sometimes.

***I used to be reasonably satisfied with my appearance, but chronic pain, depression, and prison will tend to take the glow out of one’s skin and the sparkle from one’s eyes, to say nothing of the gleam from one’s teeth.