Daily Journal 2/5/26
Yesterday, I FINALLY got back to a productive full day of writing after some… two… or three years of not having such.
Part of that was discovering the Focus feature on my iPhone and finally figuring out how to set it so that every single day of the week, between the hours of 8am and 5pm, nobody — other than my wife, my three kids, Mike Lombardo, my mother, my grandmother, my ex-wife, and one friend — can get through to me. If anybody else texxts or calls, I am not alerted. The calls go to voice mail. The text sits there until I check my phone.
I had Wile E. Young test it for me, by texting and then calling. Neither got through. But then I felt guilty so I added Wile to the Safe List, as well.
And then I worked all day — tackling first draft of “In The Dark” (which will be finished today) and first draft of “Forty Miles West of Sidewinder, Right Next Door To Hell”, and some stuff for OPERATION: LITTLE GOLDEN BOOK. But I forgot about the new phone settings, and when I reached out to Chet Williamson, Maurice Broaddus, and Rich Chizmar with work-related stuff, and they responded, I didn’t know it at first. It took me saying “What the fuck? Why hasn’t Maurice gotten back to me yet?”
Anyway… most productive day I’ve had in a long time. Looking forward to doing it again today.
And yes, I am aware that Focus has apparently existed for a while, but I am officially of the age where I don’t know about these things until someone teaches me.
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I added some new dates to this year’s Tour Schedule.
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How To Find Out If You Qualify For The Anthropic A.I. Settlement:
Step 1: Go here and search the list for your books.
Step 2: If your books are there, fill out this form.
If you have multiple books on the list, it might be helpful to open the form in a second window, so that you can toggle back and forth and not forget to claim one.
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A few news items of note:
Amazon will use AI to speed up TV and film production despite outcry.