Daily Journal 3/4/26

Looks like a good time was had by all at the 2026 Audie Awards on Monday night. Chris and I were invited, but neither one of us could make it. I guess technically i could have made it, but that would have involved a 4 hour drive home from Virginia and then a three and a half hour drive to New York City, which means I would have showed up on the red carpet looking like some bizarre cross between a bedraggled hillbilly and an aging Pict in jeans and a black hoodie.

We did not win, but that’s okay. It really is nice just to be nominated.

Here’s a picture from the awards, taken (and copyright) by Patricia Santomasso

Back to writing today, after a full week away from it. (Technically, that’s not true. I did, in fact, finish “Forty Miles West of Sidewinder, Right Next Door To Hell” while at the hotel last Wednesday, but the last half of the story is a rough mess, and I need to revise and polish it this week. I turned it in with that caveat. “Here. I made the deadline. But let me polish it?”)

Plan is to finish revisions on that today, and then turn my attention back to FALLING ANGELS: THE LABYRINTH Book 4, which I will work on daily and should finish within a month-ish, just in time for Laurel to turn our collaboration back over to me for my next turn. I also intend to start banging out this final batch of commissioned LOST LEVEL stories — one or two per week — and get them finished. At some point this month or next I have to travel for another A.I. deposition, which will probably involve taking a train, so that will be okay, because I actually tend to write pretty well in Amtrak business class. I can’t, however, write for shit on a plane.

Back on set for DEAD FORMAT this weekend. This may — may — be the last of it. Not sure yet. Will know by weekend’s end.

Have a great day!