I’m in the midst of the deadline crunch on the next issue of SCI FI magazine at the moment, so I was only able to spare a few minutes outside wandering our property today. I’m lucky that I managed to get out there, or else I would have missed one of my favorite moments of the year.

Thanks to the high temperatures, the first daffodil of the season popped open this afternoon, a tiny Tete-a-Tete. I’ve always found something hopeful about daffodils, which is why I spend much of my October and November each year digging them in. Looking forward to them always makes Winter zip by.

By the end of the month, we’ll have hundreds of daffodils in bloom, and by the middle of April, perhaps thousands. But the first is always special.

In addition to my previously announced panels at this year’s World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City, I just learned that I’ll also be doing a reading on Saturday, March 29, at 11:30 a.m.

I’ll probably read my Stoker-nominated story, “Almost the Last Story by Almost the Last Man”—or as much of it as I can squeeze into 30 minutes. I managed to pull off a condensed version back at the World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs, so I think I’ll try it again.

I see that my old pal Gene O’Neill, with whom I attended Clarion back in 1979, will be reading immediately before me at 11:00 a.m. We just can’t seem to escape each other!

Yesterday, these iris were closed up tight, with just the slightest bit of purple showing at the tips of their buds. Today, they’ve burst forth in all their glory. They join the snow drops and crocuses which have already been coloring the landscape for a week or so.

Just one more welcome sign that Spring is hurtling toward us.

Though the daffodils have begun to peek out from the soil, none of them have yet popped, not even the earliest ones, which puts them behind their debut dates from the past two seasons.

We planted an additional 1,100 bulbs last year in addition to the thousands we’d already planted in our first few years here, and I’m looking forward to the explosion.

Can you tell that I can’t wait for Winter to be over?

Over at Salon, Cary Tennis replies in his advice column to a woman who recently graduated from a writing program but can’t seem to face up to getting any writing done.

“How can I give myself the kick in the ass that I so desperately need?” she asks.

Personally, I’d be glad to give her that kick, for I had little sympathy for her plight—I feel that if she actually wanted to be writing, she’d be writing, which tells me that perhaps she’s better suited to her job as “a personal trainer at an upscale health club” and should just stop whining about it—but then, she wasn’t asking me.

After giving the woman advice on how to climb out of her existential rut, here’s the final part of what Tennis had to say, which hit home:

Doing it for others sucks us dry. We have to do it for ourselves, for the love of it, for it. We have to give ourselves over to it like giving ourselves over to a lover or to the water, like giving ourselves over to the waves and sinking under. We just give ourselves to it. We surrender to it. We don’t worry about who will publish it. We do it because we need to.

Writers write because they can’t not write.

I never thought I’d come face to face with Robert Heinlein again—after all, SFWA’s first Grand Master passed away in 1988—but thanks to an old liquor ad and another envelope collage from , I did.

I don’t know what the U.S. Postal Service thought about it, but I loved it. (However, I’m not the one who had to decipher the address.)

Click on the image at right to see more clearly what Paul felt I felt about the encounter.

Maybe if I start hitting that Kinsey Blended Whiskey, I’ll get a chance to see Heinlein a little more often …

The Horror Writers Association has just sent me this nifty certificate to prove that I haven’t been fantasizing and “Almost the Last Story by Almost the Last Man” actually is a finalist in the Long Fiction category.

It’s my third such certificate, as I was also nominated for my previous stories “A Plague on Both Your Houses” and “The Last Supper,” but making it this far is just as exciting as ever.

As to whether I’ll be the one lucky enough to end up with the trophy, that will be determined on March 29 at the World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City.

I hope to see you there!

After five seasons, The Wire has just come to a stunning end, and the only way that seems proper to say farewell is with the Baltimore version of Good Night, Moon, as spoken to and with a child at the end of a recent episode by Sonja Sohn’s character, Detective Shakima “Kima” Greggs:

Good night, moon. Good night, popos. Good night, fiends. Good night, hoppers. Good night, hustlers. Good night, scammers. Good night to everybody. Good night to one and all.

It’s too early for spoilers, so let me just say that the final episode was a tense ride, and I did get teary at times. But that’s all I’ll put out there for now.

Let the mourning begin.

I just received my schedule for this year’s World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City. Here’s a list of where and when you’ll be able to find me pontificating. I’ll probably also be doing a reading, but that track won’t be announced for awhile.

Thursday, March 27
10:00-10:50 pm
Why editors reject a story
What basic things does a writer need to know to keep from being rejected on the first page?
(with R. J. Cavender, Don D’Auria, Norman Prentiss, Larry Roberts, and Scott Standridg)

Friday, March 28
1:00-1:50 pm
The art of writing poetry
(with Linda Addison, Stephen M. Wilson, JoSelle Vanderhooft, Marge Simon, and Michael R. Collings)

Sunday, March 30
10:00-10:50 am
Censorship of Horror
Should writers care about what others think about their work beyond their publisher and fans? How can you address concerns of schools and libraries and still keep your personal integrity?
(with Rocky Wood, David Bell, and Michael Shea)

You’ll also be able to track me down at Saturday night’s Stoker Awards banquet, at which I’ll learn whether I’m a three-time loser or a one-time winner!

For our last look at Dr. J. Berg Esenwein’s 1908 book Writing the Short-Story: A Practical Handbook on the Rise, Structure, Writing and Sale of the Modern Short-Story, let’s see what he has to say about how it all should begin.

This is what he advised a century ago:

In opening your story:

Don’t be pert.

Don’t be lengthy.

Don’t be general.

Don’t be garrulous.

Don’t be roundabout.

Don’t describe when you can suggest.

Don’t be heavy, pompous, or too serious.

Don’t tell the reader what he can imagine.

Don’t be content with a commonplace opening.

Don’t think that sincere simplicity is commonplace.

Don’t let the introduction weight down or overshadow the story.

Don’t strike one note in the introduction and another in the body of the story.

Don’t touch anything which is not a live wire leading direct to the real centre of the story.

Thanks to ¡Journalista! The Comics Journal Weblog, I’ve been clued into Hey Oscar Wilde! It’s Clobberin’ Time!!!, a site that’s been around since 1998. I don’t know how I’ve missed it. It’s a gallery of various artists’ interpretations of their favorite literary figures, authors, and characters.

There are many Draculas here, as well as many characters from the works of Jules Verne, which is to be expected, but some of the more interesting and unexpected images are Bill Sienkiewicz on Dr. Seuss, Howard Chaykin on Philip Roth’s Nathan Zuckerman, and John Snyder’s take on Robert Heinlein. But there are many more, and this site is well worth checking out.

One of my favorite images is this portrait of Samuel R. Delany by Mark Badger.