Today is New Year’s Day, 2018. I churned out 13 newspaper ads, something I’ve done each quarter now for 30 years for Church Page Ministries. Bill Yambrick’s business is based in Siren, Wisconsin but his ads run in papers throughout the United States. Thirteen ads in a single day is real “seat-in-the-chair” stuff but I’ve done that before and when things flow well, it’s just a matter of how much pain one wants in the hindquarters, so I get up and walk around a bit every so often.
The genesis for my next short story is peeking its nose around my consciousness. We’ll see if it comes together in the next week or so. Thus far I have two new stories ready for the next collection.
Today I also rehearsed three of the stories I’ll read at Festival Theatre. One story is strictly theatre stuff and I thought I’d read it on Festival’s theatre turf, but I find it’s a bit long and too “talky” so it’s more interesting to read in silence than to read it aloud. What to do? I think I’ll opt for something different for Festival’s audience. I’ll probably read “Green Card” and “Little Red Hoodie”, followed after intermission by “Number Eleven Oakwood Lane” and “Jack and the Bean Sprouts”. At this writing, Festival’s website still has me advertised as a poet. What a way to insult poor LaMoine MacLaughlin!