I fear this may get mushy. If you’re not in that treehugging mood, look away.

The Holyoke ridge, looking west from Mount Tom.

This is maybe my favorite prospect in the valley, at my favorite time of year for prospects: when I’ve had six months to forget how beautiful the leaves are, and they come forth again as though for the first time in that pale, infant color and texture soft as skin. I think it has to do with contrasts. Over my shoulder to the right is Easthampton, with its towering old brick smokestacks haunted by nesting swallows. Over the mountain’s shoulder to the left, subsided metropoli full of factories similarly moldering and grey populate a long gradient into haze: Holyoke, Springfield, Hartford, New Haven. Behind me, the summit of Mount Tom, with its ruined Victorian hotel now surmounted by buzzing icicle cellular towers, satellite dishes and wry suicidal graffiti. But right here in front of me is this rippling swath of pastel-green, unpopulated nothing. What’s it doing there, looking like it just erupted from the fingertips of god? What right has it to go unlogged, undeveloped, undecayed?

Unlike pretty much every other place in this valley, I’ve never really had the chance to explore this particular nothing. Maybe that contributes to the mystery. Maybe I never will explore it, just so I can get this same feeling again every spring.

On the way back down across the sandy cut where the hotel’s telephone wires used to run, I ran into a Northern Oriole female–nothing special for most of you people maybe, but for some reason around here I rarely see them. I didn’t take a picture; there’s times when it just isn’t called for. But I crept up to within a few feet and we chirped back and forth at each other for awhile, heads cocked and frozen still. Then I thanked her and went on my way.

My newest centaur story, “The Circus of King Minos’ Masque”, went live last night at midnight in Beneath Ceaseless Skies issue #41–yes, those centaurs, the ones with the hallucinogens, the whiskey cellars and the lust for human flesh.

I read a little bit from this story at Boskone in February. It’s the second set in this world to feature Periphas, a human orphan raised by the lord of the centaurs. The third is purportedly to appear in Tales of Moreauvia #4 this fall.

It’s also the first time (at least that I’m aware of) that a story of mine has appeared for sale at the Kindle store–BCS has added a new feature where you can download individual issues to your fancy ereader thing from Amazon for a mere $0.99. Woo!

So many new and interesting ways for you to enjoy ye artfully airborne jewels of flying blood! How can you resist?

I’ll tell you one way you might resist–and that’s if you are not prepared to handle the goreporn and liberal guilt. These are still the same, bad old centaurs, and they are not for the squeamish.

This is Giambologna’s Hercules and Nessus.

Huzzah!

Wrote a dreamy prose poem about a guy juggling origami boulders in the rain while listening to Explosions in the Sky. Called it "Warning Bells" because of the notes in the beginning of the song sounded like an alarm of some kind.

And now, it's done. SEVEN DAYS OF FLASH is complete. Might have more to say on this experience in a bit, but right now I'm just really stoked that I set this goal and made it, even with big life stuff and novel stuff and all that jazz.

Time to get me a danish!

JSR

After a few false fumbles, I settled on cranking out a pulp adventure story involving a band of monkeys stealing a silver jet designed like a pterodactyl, and turning it old school with mad scientists and evil experiments. Twas fun!

Six down, one to go. Will I make it? Will I cheat, lie, and steal my way on the last day of the challenge? Will I pass out writing the greatest flash fiction story of all time, only to hit CTRL-ALT-DELETE with my faceplant?

Stay tuned, True Believers!

JSR

Today's adventure brings us to a mythical wild west, where an six gun shooter is making a name for himself creating art by shooting pain cans thrown before a blank canvass, only to find his bloody past has followed him into the world of art. A gritty little ditty, if I do say so myself.

Only two more to go and I get a hero cookie!

JSR

Ended up doing a steampunk thing today. Take a typical broken Ridler character, shove a rocket on his back, and have him fly through subway tunnels and what do you get? A noirish steampunk tale called "Rockets and Dames"!

And, yes, I am one of the pro steampunk faction. Not that I understand it much in terms of fiction (how much of modern steampunk owes anything to the Difference Engine? And how "punk" is the Victorian era?), but the aesthetic is pretty rocking, and I like to see its basic principals, whatever the hell they are, shoved into different times and venues (from Victorian England, to the wild west, to the 1930s, etc). Also, when you go to cons, those steampunk kids are usually the best dressed of the costume crowd (my apologize to all the overweight, butt cracked Boba Fetts out there).

Now, back to my regularly scheduled novel.

JSR

Day two went well, I think. A six hundred word fable, based on an image I've had in my head of a garden/forest inside a medieval castle that is filled with hanged people. Very sad little story, no doubt the result of watching the Last Unicorn this weekend. Damn, that Beagle is the master of melancholy enchantment, for sure, like a Bernard Malmud of fantasy.

On to the novel, where battle plans await.

JSR

So, some writing friends and I are beginning a challenge this week dubbed SEVEN DAYS OF FLASH. Every day, we will attempt to write a complete flash story or sketch or vignette or poem, etc. under 1000 words. One per day for a week. Why? Why the hell not?

Got up a little earlier to get mine done. So, my fable of Snowman knights and Butterfly Princess Exotic Dancers is in draft form. "Hell Waits for Snowman" is my first salvo on the Seven Days of Flash.

Now, back to my freaking novel before the madness of packing!

JSR

Remember last year when I was watching all those samurai/sword-fu/chanbara (in case you're a geek like that) movies?

The Directory of World Cinema: Japan is now available for pre-order at Amazon. Intellect editor John Berra really did a nice job on the book. It looks great and has lots of photos. For the curious, I contributed an essay and about two dozen film reviews.

Another volume is in the works, and the whole series looks like it'd be a welcome addition to any film-geek's library.