I'M BACK!

 OR: ON BEING ANALOG IN A DIGITAL AGE.

Computers are wonderful things.

My old system, so to speak.

Until they break down and become nothing more than oversize, useless paperweights.

I was without a computer since December 26, 2023 until sometime the week before this was posted.

All I really had to work with was my cellphone📱, along with a few pens and a lot of paper.

Every word written during that time was in long hand.

Does anyone even still remember how to write in cursive beyond signing their name nowadays?

Anyway, I'm still trying to transcribe all my notes into a coherent manuscript. Thankfully between multiple flash cards/drives I was able to recreate all my files, but work on SOLITAIRE 2: THE AGENDA is on hold at the moment because—what I eluded to last time but didn't get the chance to reveal before now because of being involuntarily offline for so long—is that I have been asked to contribute a story to Robert J. Mendenhall's CODE NAME INTREPID series! 😀

CODE NAME INTREPID CONFIDENTIAL, VOLUME 1 came out last fall and is on the ballot for BEST PULP ANTHOLOGY in this year's Pulp Factory Awards! 😁

Volume 2 is scheduled for a Spring (March or April) 2024 release.

My story, along with everyone else contributing to Volume 3, is scheduled to be out sometime this fall.

I have a 7,500 minimum to 10,000 maximum word limit and, now that Mendenhall approved my plot, the story itself is due by June 1, 2024.

For those unfamiliar with the series, CODE NAME INTREPID is a team with representatives from every branch of the United States Military Services investigating "the unusual" while trying to stop the Sonderstaffel, whose mission is to gather every possible weapon and artifact of supernatural or unknown origin that could aid the Axis/Nazis in the days before World War 2 began; which would be September 1, 1939 for Europe and December 7, 1941 for the United States.

While obviously a work of fiction, everything has to be as historically accurate as possible, hence all the research I had to do via my cellphone and trust me. On that device, I don't set any texting speed records as it is so typing Google requests, let alone attempting to read the results on such a small screen was really "fun".

But now I have a working computer again and am trying to get back up to speed even as you read these words.

With that in mind I better get back to writing now.

Take care.

STAY SAFE! 😷 (I was gone for so long, Google changed the Blogger emoticons on me!)

And I'll see you around the Internet.

Lee Houston, Junior

18 February, 2024

I'M BACK!

I'm home from the hospital but it obviously will still be quite a while before I'm feeling anywhere back to "normal" again.

My chest hurts from being cut open and my ribs spread so that the cardiac surgeon could perform the operation.

While nowhere near as life threatening as the aortic aneurysm I experienced back in 2007, my recent artificial heart valve replacement surgery was a necessary procedure. Otherwise, the calcium build up on the old valve would have reached life threatening levels.

So where does all this lead?

One should listen to their Muse.

At this point everyone is still saying 4-6 weeks recovery time, and I'm in no position to debate otherwise.

I have follow up appointments with both my regular cardiologist and the heart surgeon in November.

In the meantime, I am sitting at my computer trying to accomplish what I can.

Once I was able to sit down and concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time, it took me a couple of days just to catch up with my e-mails and all the well wishers out there.

Now I am trying to get back to writing, but at the moment am not setting any speed records doing so.

Still have the unfinished SCIENCE FICTION PROJECT and the SHERLOCK HOLMES story I started before current events loomed on the horizon.

But right now the only thing my Muse is saying is "Take your time and heal first."

Good advice.

Lee Houston, Junior

24 October, 2021

I'M BACK!

It was a very rough, emotionally exhausting experience; but I have finally returned and am hoping to pick up where I left off both with life in general and writing wise before my mother left us.

Not sure how much, if any, actual progress I'll make this week as I attempt to get things back to "normal", but I'm certainly going to try.

For those interested, barring anything unforeseen, my role as Editor-In-Chief of The Free Choice E-zine will resume with that blog's regularly scheduled posts on October 21.

Thank you for all your friendship and support, but let's get on with life now, shall we?

Lee Houston, Junior

17 October, 2017