Coming up in the next Angel of... story:

Aaron was standing at a window, the lower portion of which was open. As was the screen beyond. Melody needed a moment to see who - or, rather, what - he was talking to: A small, nondescript grey bird standing on the window sill.

"You need to stop teasing that cat," said Aaron, sternly.

The bird gave an irate chirp.

"Did you ever pause to wonder," said Mannequin, leaning in, with the air of someone about to reveal a great secret, "why the cheese stands alone?"

Not the Night Master and the Dragon's Hand (a bit risqué):

https://tinyurl.com/yyshyyaa

(Part of large set of photos I took at NolaCon, the 1988 World Science Fiction Convention.)

Not sure why it took two attempts for the Tiny URL to go through. :-(

I had hoped to post the first installment of the next Masks serial today. However, "things happened" over the holidays (nothing majorly bad and a few things good, including some nice presents) and I'm only about halfway to the planned final length. I only just got my main villain of the piece completely fleshed out this morning! (He has connections to Rasputin, with some of my inspiration from Doc Savage and a bunch of other sources.)

No-one knows how Devil's Hollow (which I can see part of from my front porch) got its name. I even asked at the Kentucky History Museum*. Here's one explanation:

http://www.dcr.net/~stickmak/Transformation/Catamount/devils...

*Their best guess was that it still looks like the kind of place where you might encounter the Devil.

I have for decades been writing a column titled The Joy of High Tech, which has appeared in print and digital fanzines. I have recently begun rewriting some of the older ones and posting them to DreamWidth, at:

https://stickmaker.dreamwidth.org/

Folks who enjoy technology, science and the history of both might find these interesting.

The next Masks story is coming along slowly, recently reaching 23k words out of an estimated 40k - 50k.

Stickmaker

I've been fighting an irritable bowel attack for over a week. Thought I was about it over last night. Then I ate some sunflower seeds before bed.

Pretty sick all night, and taking a lot of medicines. Which meant that by the time I got soundly asleep I was *really* asleep. Woke this morning with neck and lower back hurting so bad I was barely able to feed the cats.

Gonna to use my neck traction, now. If you folks haven't heard from me in a couple of days, send someone to cut me down. :-)

I have a terrible memory, especially for names. There's a sort of hereditary aphasia in my Mother's family which I seem to have a double dose of. Using "Denver" for "Detroit" in a recent story is one symptom of this. That I am having nerve problems with my hands which affect my touch typing isn't helping.

I recently discovered I had accidentally referred to Vic's wife Michelle as Melissa a few times in a few stories. I believe I have corrected all such instances. However, if anyone finds future incidents of this sort of name problem, please let me know.

I am about a fifth of the way through the actual writing of the next Masks story. (10k words out of an estimated 50k.) The first part is a flashback to shortly after the demon invasion. Then the story jumps forward to mid-2019.

As I was writing the second - and by far the largest - part of the new story I realized there were things which happened between Masks XXII and this one which might be of interest to readers. Such as Vic and Energia graduating with their Masters' degrees, and Gadgetive getting her Doctor's. Then there's the wedding of Vic and Michelle...

There's a scene I'd like to write, but with full awareness that it uses some Copyrighted material. So, I'll just describe it here.

The location of my flicker Album page:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/116299515@N07/albums

One of my post-retirement projects is to scan all my old negatives (or, where there are no negatives, the prints). I'm posting these on Flickr in addition to my modern, digital photos.

I am particularly proud of the latest (as of this posting) album, which was taken entirely at night of the Christmas decorations for 1999, plus shots of the Moon and the Capital building:

Well, that's it for Angel of Haven. I already have some notes on Angel of Earth, but my next story will be Masks 22.

Tomorrow, though, I fly out to the NASFiC.

ConGlomeration 2019 images posted on Flickr:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/116299515@N07/albums/72157706764547891

I am about a third to a half finished with my next story, which will be _The Angel of Haven_. Here are a couple of excerpts:

"I don't like the fact that Mannequin keeps hanging around here," said Blackpool, scowling through his mask.

"When Mannequin stares into the Abyss," said Aaron, sagely, "the Abyss quickly looks away, mumbling excuses about how it has something important to do elsewhere."

And:

"Why is she even here?" said CornFed, obviously not happy about the empowered woman's presence.