The short answer – “Great! Fun! I’m grateful to have reassurance that this is indeed what I am most passionate about.  Things are forever changing.  I’m learning so much, exploring everything freely, and dissolving all limitation.  I’m doing it.”

The long answer -

Things are going fantastic!

At first my intention was to sit in the wings and observe.  I’d watch the blogs of J.C. Hutchins, Scott Sigler, Mur Lafferty and all the other influential authors in the podcast novel space.  All the while I’d work on my masterpiece and blow them all out of the water when it was ready.  After a very short while I figured out this was not going to work.  I was sitting in my hobbit hole scribbling but no one was reading it and I wasn’t learning anything about the craft like I wanted.  So I started searching for low-risk ways of exposure.  This is where the 100 word stories podcast came in and GreatHites.  Weekly contests where people voted for fun on the stories and your story was syndicated in a podcast.  It was simple: if people didn’t like your story they didn’t vote for you, done.  No one screamed at you and no one told you it sucked, it was bliss but also not enough to move forward.

I did that for a while and I started to educate myself more about the writing industry.  I subscribed to Writer’s Digest and every podcast I could find about getting better at this writing thing.

So that is where it started and things evolved way faster than I thought from there.

So, where are we now?

I think an itemized list will be more effective than a long hunk of wordy prose.

• I write for the 100 word stories podcast every week.  Those are the 100 word stories you see posted here all the time.

• I write for GreatHites as much as I can.

• I have two stories being published in the GreatHites Podiobooks Anthology.  The Reconstruction and Children of the Garden Wars. (still need to edit those for you Jeff, sorry for the delay.)

• I got into my first REAL writing group that Justin Lowmaster (SpaceTurtle) got me into.  They are a wonderful group of folks and I love interacting with people who nerd out about this stuff as much as I do.

• Give Blood and Thanks is officially a podcast now and is in itunes and all that.  It will hit 17,000 words very soon and be in official novella territory.

• I plunged headfirst into the social media space to rub shoulders and learn from these people I thought I would covet forever.  They are all supportive and great.  I have Twitter and Facebook for now.

• I have a ton of ideas I’m working on and new ones crop up constantly.  I have enough material right now to be locked in a room for about four years and write a few books.

• I’m learning the value of 100% transparency.  What I do that a lot of authors (can I say that yet?) don’t is, I post everything!  I post the ugly draft that I read from with all the typos, crumby syntax, constant switching of tenses, and even spelling errors.  If things get pointed out to me I go back and fix it, but I don’t ever dwell too long.  I’m not submitting to magazines, I’m not agent hunting, I’m not submitting to publishers, I’m just learning and sharing with all of you.  I don’t want to be on this journey alone.  I want my friends to know what is going on and the world to watch me grow up.

• I’m confident that I will be a novelist when the time is right.  Actually, the time will be right in November.  I will be participating in my first official NanoWriMo this year.  I’m extremely excited about it and there is a lot of planning I have yet to do if I am going to reach the 50,000 word finish line in just one month.

I think that covers all the bases for now but things are forever changing in this world so who knows what the next day, week, or month will bring.

Thank you all for your constant supportive words and encouragement.  That stuff really means a lot, truly.

That is how the writing thing is going. – Danny

Give Blood and Thanks: Chapter 10 and 11 – Download PDF

Chapter 10: Coffee and steak make Arthur Martian’s gears turn.

“Refill sir?” the waitress asked.

“Sure,” Arthur scooted his cup toward the edge of the table.  She filled it and spilled a few drops on the packet of Snoogin’s utility records.

“Hey, watch it,” he said.

“Sorry.”

Her sharp features turned a shade of pink.  The girl couldn’t be more than nineteen years old.  She looked at the ground, paused, then turned to walk away.  Short cropped black hair bounced in rhythm with her slim hips.  He recognized that type of behavior.  Pausing like that, it indicated she was waiting to be dismissed by him, the man.  Arthur could only guess what sort of asshole broke her.  If he had a dollar for the head of every stepfather he slammed into a door or a wall he would probably have close to a hundred.  His eye’s stayed locked on her as she gracefully floated back behind the counter.

Arthur had always been a bachelor type of guy.  Never married and no kids to speak of, never saw much reason for it.  The way he figured it, he would die early from smoking and eating red meat.  ‘Could also get shot on the job,’ he thought.  Why put anyone through that?  He picked up the summary of Emily’s last couple months of bills.

He skimmed through February’s phone records, then March, and finally April.  The numbers all checked out as indicated by John’s numerous high-lighted calls and notes in the margin.  Little brother was thorough and successful in impressing Arthur, just like he intended.

You can tell a lot about a person from their payment history.  Emily for instance, never paid a bill on time in the last year.  Coincidently she started falling behind right when her husband’s pension was taken from her.  Another elderly victim of the running joke that is the federal government’s financial aid, Social Security.

It didn’t take long for the utility companies to disconnect their service’s once they found out she was dead.  Phone service was within a week, May first if you want to get specific, and Arthur did.  Cable and internet service was gone by May third.  Arthur put down the papers and picked up his steak knife.  He carved off another bite of the bloody eight ounce New York strip, now cold.  He reached for the steaming mug to wash the meat down and looked a the smeared drops of coffee on the power bill.

‘Disconnected: April 23rd, 2009,’ it read.

Arthur did a double take and choked on the steak.  He slowly took a sip of hot coffee with a trembling hand to remove the anxious obstruction in his throat.  After he was sure he wouldn’t turn blue and suffocate he picked up his cell phone.  His callused thumb (from pulling back the hammer on his pistol so much) held the number two.  The LCD glowed, calling ‘Jonathan Martian,’ it read.  He put the speaker end to his ear as it started ringing.

“Hello,” the sleepy voice said.

“John, did you check with the power company about Snoogin’s house?”

“Dude, it is two in the fucking morning, don’t you ever sleep?” John said.  Now alert and agitated.

“Did you?”

“Uhh yea, they said it was off.  I told them to turn it back on so we could resume our investigation.  That house is on precinct payroll for power as we speak, so hopefully you didn’t leave any lights on when you were playing animal control the other night.”

“Let’s play a game John.  It’s called don’t be a smart ass.  Now listen up.  Emily’s power bill says the service was disconnected on April twenty third.”

“So?” John just wanted to get back to sleep.

“According to the coroner Emily was killed on April the twenty-sixth.  From what we gather she was completely alone with her arm in a blender chewed to hell.  It might just be me, but I have never heard of an industrial strength battery powered blender.”  There was no response on the other end of the call.

“Still awake?” Arthur said.  He was pleased with himself.  They finally had an anomaly, something to work with, not quite a lead, but something that would finally enable them to remove the thumb from their ass.

“Yea, I’m still here.  How in the hell does a blender get powered on in a house that is off the grid? Generator or extension cord is the only way.”

“All of the neighbors statements indicate no one talked to her for at least two days before she died.  No generator was heard in quiet suburbia that night.  John, that blender was plugged in the wall when we got there.”

Chapter 11: And when he broke the seventh seal there was silence in Heaven.  For about half an hour.

Beep beep beep!

Smitty lived alone above his shop and heard the beeping coming from down stairs.  He reached in the small space between the wall and the fridge, guess snacks will have to wait.  Most people would keep a broom there but most people didn’t have ten thousand dollars of merchandise and a business right below them.  Smitty pulled out the twelve gauge and slowly put a cartridge in the breech.  He held the slide with his hand to muffle the snap and click.

Beep Beep Beep!

When he reached the bottom of the stairs he flipped the lights on.

“Alright mother fucker, get out,” he shouted and pointed the gun into the lobby of the store.

The alarm pad blinked red indicating it was still armed.  Smitty looked at the microwave Remy had brought in, it sat on the floor in front of the counter.  The inside light was on, and the display was indicating something had been cooked.  It was blinking between the words “Done and Open Door.”  Smitty didn’t smell anything.  Slowly he approached the microwave observing it through the bead at the end of the gun barrel.

Beep beep beep! ‘Done. Open door.’

He got down on his knees and laid the gun on the carpet.  Bending down, he put his hand on the door of the microwave and jerked it open.  A flash of white light and heat engulfed his face burning all the hair; eyebrows, eye lashes, and the beard all gone in an incendiary instant.  Smitty rolled  to his side and screamed from the pain.  His eyes, the pupils were being strained like someone was forcing him to stare at the sun.  Nothing but white light and burning pain, then he fell silent as his body prepared to salvage itself by shutting down.  The chubby fingers fell limp and uncovered his eyes.  There he laid seeing the faintest outline of the microwave.  A mechanical Angel of death engulfed in the white light of God.  The single door was still open to reveal the portal to heaven or hell, he wasn’t sure.  The pronged tail of the Angel was still zipped tied and bunched up next to it.

Smitty lost full consciousness within seconds.

Falling Bricks Hurt

     Justin wandered about in the shadows watching the fascinating people. He smelled the breads and listened to the pop of corks for hours before finally settling on the perfect sunny patch of grass to feast. Justin the turtle munched on the greenery of the city he loved, Paris.

     1,063 feet into the sky, Gaston Space Pierre ran back and forth on the observation platform of the Eiffel Tower, his parents not at all effective. A stray brick from a display for Gustave Eiffel found his palm. He tossed it over the rails.

     Justin looked up just in time to catch the impromptu solar eclipse to the head.

*panic! gasps for air! WHIZ! BANG! POP!*

Normally in a given day I have about 10,000 ideas that I can pull from thin air.  If I’m given a prompt to write from I can easily generate all sorts of ideas for the criteria.  However tonight I’m drawing blanks and just can’t seem to get past a couple sentences before I run out of gas.  I think maybe my brain is just fried.  Anyone who knows me or can read the top part of this website knows I have been hitting the words pretty hard lately (everyday for hours), and I just need a break.

I can’t think anymore and I’m struggling to even finish this post.  I’m taking the night off unless by some miracle that one great idea comes to me but I doubt it will.