Some random thoughts...

Yesterday Jean and I spent some time at my mother’s house rearranging her kitchen cabinets. It’s a very small house and, while it is ideal for her needs, I cannot see working my entire life to attain a level of relative material comfort only to spend my last decades living in what would be claustrophobic to me.

Yesterday I finished reading Jack McDevitt’s far-future mystery Polaris, and it was wonderful reading. While it lacked deep characterization and thought-provoking ideas, it was steeped in future historical details and development, and McDevitt is one of science fiction’s purest storytellers. I am anxious to read more novels of his.

Jean and I enjoy hiking, although we do not really have time to do it much. Whenever we go camping, which is never more than once or twice a summer, we always hike a bit. This morning we are going on a hike through Schooley Mountain Park near the trail which Jean and Kathy volunteer to maintain. Hopefully it will be enjoyable.

I do not write nearly as much fiction as I did in the 70s and 80s, primarily because I write so much nonfiction nowadays, both my magazine and three consecutive books. However, I have finished four novelettes the past three years that I think are the best stories I have ever written. But I have not submitted them to editors more than a token one or two times each. Partly that is because the short fiction market is geared largely towards short stories less than 9,000 words, while all of my stories range between 10,000 and 20,000 words. One of them is a historical fantasy, another is a near-future fantasy, and the other two are sf stories that are part of my future history. I think I should try submitting all four of them to sf markets.