Saturday Night Message: Week of June 1 to 7

Days Till Novel Launch: 147

Sunday, June 1, 2025
8:33 p.m.

The day started on a high note. I went with the family to an estate sale and scored some postcards and notecards. Nice few hours of family time.

Returned home, and the kids ran off to another sale…in her car.

Not long later, received a call. The car had turned into a smoke machine, so much so that the kids pulled over and got out of the car.

So, Les and I jumped in the car and headed out. I used my auto insurance roadside assistance feature and had a tow truck meet us there. Had the thing towed to the front yard. I’ll fill my lunch hour dealing with that issue.

Next, we have tonight’s issue:

I recommend home appliance insurance. I just threw them a hundred bucks for a service call.

On the literary front, I suppose I’ve made my decision for the next major writing project.

My evil plan is to write a braided memoir of my time living in London when I was, essentially, my son’s age, and my efforts to get my kids to travel to a foreign country and see the world from a global point of view.

I think the book’s journey is gonna be long and interesting. But there must a first step, so here I go.

Monday, June 2
8:39 p.m.

Discovered online this evening that the Spring 2025 (TRL 96) of The Louisville Review is released officially. I’ll be watching the mailbox for my copy! Click here if you’d like to order a copy and support this literary journal. :-)

In home/life maintenance news…

The toilet repair dude is scheduled to be here Wednesday. Also on Wednesday, the car is towed to a local garage that I use. After speaking with him over the phone, he cautioned my not to expect good news, but he’d be happy to look at it…again. He’s worked on this car several times over the years. Last year when he “saved” the motor, he told me that the car could last FIVE miles or five thousand miles. Hard to tell. I suspect we have figured it out. :-(

Eryn interviewed for a local job today, and it went well. She did a Zoom interview in our kitchen! ;-) I put Eryn on alert that she may need to work out a ride share program this summer with Master Seth. Luckily, both of their jobs would be close together.

Tuesday, June 3
11:02 p.m.

Long, but good day. Nice writing milestones at the technical writing day gig. Lots of nice comments from folks about the short story appearing in The Louisville Review. And I posted another essay on this Substack tonight. Errands and household chores, and now I’m ready to find my trusty stead and watch a tiny bit of television before surrendering to the night.

Almost forgot: It’s Tuesday, for at least another 51 minutes. Here yah go:

Wednesday, June 4
9:15 p.m.

It’s already after 9 p.m. Crazy day. Plumber arrived, fixed toilet, left. Roadside assistance arrived and took the car to the garage, perhaps for the last time. :-( I did prep work for the pool dude’s arrival tomorrow; he’s gonna take all my extra money and open the pool. I “closed” and “opened” it myself one year to save money. We ended up with frogs. I know when to call the professionals.

Sometimes…sometimes, I’m shocked that I’m even able to get a single line, one sentence down on paper each day with all-things life giving me the stink eye.

Drafting a letter/reply on my write machine. Not a bad way to spend the evening. :)

10:55 p.m.

Cleaning out my email in-box, I ran across a reminder the the latest issue of Well Read magazine is out now. Click here to access it! :-)

Friday, June 6
8:01 p.m.

Yesterday was like most every day the last couple of days: busy on all fronts. But some good news.

The car lives to break down another day. Mechanic said that it smoked a little, but it was normal for its age. And apparently, KIAs are known for bad motors. He’s gonna change the oil, using the cheap stuff because the good oil tends to burn easily. Go figure. I’m gonna pick it up Monday. If we are lucky enough for it to last a couple more months, we’re to talk about new brakes.

So, Eryn had a smile on her face because of that. She registered for fall college classes yesterday, as well. And the pool dude arrived to take all my money and prepare the pool for another season. Here’s an image of Eryn, surrounded by all sorts of happiness, being heavily supervised by Freckles, of course! ;-)

Oh, and yesterday was a great mail day:

My copy of The Louisville Review arrived. They sent me two copies! :-)

10:44 p.m.

Paused for some immediate-action family time. Sometimes, it’s good to laugh.

So…yeah, a good mail day. It was fun and satisfying to see all of the hard work pay off with seventeen published pages. And it’s not just the pages, but it’s the message one hopes to communicate through the settings and characters and circumstances and themes. I received the following text from a reader in Louisville today, which is a good sign:

Late last night, I made the below video to help promote the issue and the journal and threw it all over social media. I could go all year without seeing or hearing myself on video, but we writers are expected to do so many other things…besides write. Might as well surrender to that reality. Still, I’d rather spend my time reading and writing.

Oh, in addition to receiving the published pages, I received a self-addressed stamped postcard for the story when it had another name. I know I emailed them when The Louisville Review accepted the story. This paper reply is a rare bird in the wild. Even with the fuzzy stamp, it’s a fun read.

Saturday, June 7
3:05 p.m.

Back from errands: a big box store for some ink and a nice, local farmer’s market for fresh veggies and fruit.

Another week comes to a close, Gentle Reader, and I appreciate you playing along with this literary experiment of mine. Gonna spend the rest of the day knee deep in chores, galore. And if you watched any of the video, you know that my office is a HOT MESS. I’m tinkering with the idea of tearing this place apart for a military field day and reorg.

Of course, Freckles is in mid-snack, and she sends her regards! :-)