Month: November 2023

A day of living

This could be the last day of your life.
Or it could be the first of thousands.
Faced with that uncertainty, the only thing
to do is to make it a day of living.

Open the boxes of Christmas decorations —
smiley snowmen and baby Jesus.
Tannenbaum goes up this weekend
because it is a day of living.

Find a song to sing, find a reason to smile,
find a reason to give, call a long lost old friend,
or go for a long walk and kick piles of leaves,
just make it a day a living.

I have known days with laughter a constant companion
and days when the tears would not stop.
We never know how many days we have left,
all the more reason to make each a day of living.

“Get a life!” mockers cry, but what do they know?
This life seems just fine when I look at it clearly.
Of course, my past is much longer than my future these days,
so I relish every new day of living.

Yep, this could be the last day of my life,
though I’d rather look forward to thousands,
but the one thing I know that I can control
is to make it a day of living. 

May you always have reasons to be thankful,
may you always thank those who need thanking,
may your life be filled with strivings worth striving,
and countless grand days of living.

Tidings of Comfort & Joy

“God rest ye, merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay,” I hummed to myself Sunday night. “Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day to save us all from Satan’s power when we were gone astray — Oh! Tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy …”

I don’t have any problem with Christmas carols before Thanksgiving. Heck, like Scrooge I wish we all would keep Christmas in our hearts year-round.

But my mind took a different turn while my mind was on the phrase — Comfort & Joy is the name of the detective agency I stumbled across while trying to conceive a novel a few years back. In fact the first chapter was one of the more well-received bits of fiction I’ve splashed onto the blog pages in recent years.

I made a go at doing a Comfort & Joy novel during my one serious attempt at NaNoWriMo back then, but the train crashed about seven chapters in. But I still think now and then about Adam Comfort, underachieving son of the famous detective team of Adam and Inara Comfort, and Adam’s partner, Joy Emerson, a six-and-a-half-foot-tall pookha in the form of a skunk.

My mind drifted back to the story Steven Pressfield tells of finishing his first novel, running excitedly to his mentor to proclaim his victory, and having the mentor grunt and say, “Good job, kid. Now start on the next one.”

And my mind’s turn completed the connection with a new resolve — Not only will I finish my long-delayed novel Jeep Thompson and the Lost Prince of Venus by the end of this year, but I’m going to start in on the next one. And as long as I’m seven chapters into it already, I may as well make the next one that Comfort & Joy murder mystery.

Jeep by New Year’s Eve and Comfort & Joy by the first day of spring? I’ve heard crazier goals.

– – –

P.S. Did I mention that you can now pre-order Ebenezer: A sequel of sorts to A Christmas Carol as an ebook, paperback or hardcover? No? Well, I should have. Click here for details.

Ebenezer T-minus five days

My thin little novelette will be available in print-on-demand Friday after all. I was a tad worried because of some formatting issues, but they’re worked out now. All’s well, so you’ll be able to purchase Ebenezer in at least three forms:

Ebook

Paperback

And hardcover

I’m still working on the audiobook – toying with the idea of introducing it here over five weeks, like Mr. Dickens did with his own Christmas fable. Check here on Friday to see if I went through with that idea.