I'm considering stepping away from Word to something....else.

Would you share your favorite writing app/word processing software?

Thanks!

I am almost finished and am really enjoying all the references, such as some reference to the Kick book and the dark man in that fire, which I assume is Rasalom. Oh and of course the torture doctor. Brilliant! Unfortunately it got me thinking of the awful IV.
I was thinking it would be interesting if Rasalom visited Reggie in the hospital or wherever he wound up, talk about soaking up misery.

Anyhow about 50 pages left, hopefully I can finish up tonight after work.

Today saw the 154th mass-shooting of the year in America. In June. This is not a political post. It is a medical one. “First, do no harm.”

I may be one of your most devout fans. Just finished re-re-re-reading the Cycle, searched out and bought used versions of Dydeetown, Enemy, LaNague, etc. I may own the last intact paperback version of “The Tery” in existence.

You took an oath. First, do no harm.

Thank you for allowing me to post this announcement. While reading your novels, I would catch a few references to the pulps like Doc Savage and the Shadow so I thought that this would be appropriate.

http://www.pulpfest.com/

PulpFest is a convention for readers and collectors of the old adventure, westerns, detective, weird tales and SF magazines from the 1930s through the 1950s. The pulps are part of the foundation that gaming was created on. These magazines started the stories of the Shadow, Doc Savage, Conan and featured the Cthulhu Mythos stories by H. P. Lovecraft along with a the works of mystery writers like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.

The convention will take place from Thursday evening, July 26th, through Sunday afternoon, July 29th, in the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry, Mars, PA.

There are a number of current authors reading their works and panels on different literary themes along with other events such as an art show and auction. Also, there is a great dealers’ room featuring tens of thousands of pulp magazines, vintage paperbacks, digests, genre fiction, men’s adventure and true crime magazines, original art, first edition hardcovers, series books, reference books, dime novels and story papers, Big Little Books, B-Movies, serials and related paper collectibles, old-time radio shows, and Golden and Silver Age comic books, as well as newspaper adventure strips.

I have been there for the last few years and have had a great time. It is a lot smaller than Gen Con and Origins but like many small local cons, it has an atmosphere all its own. If you are looking for a literary themed/collection convention, this is a good one.

The convention’s guest of honor will be award-winning author Joe Lansdale. The author of over forty novels and many short stories, Lansdale has also written for comics, television, film, Internet sites, and more. His novella “Bubba Ho-Tep” was adapted to film by Don Coscarelli, starring Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis. The film adaptation of his novel COLD IN JULY was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, while the Sundance Channel has adapted his Hap & Leonard novels to television. Joe will be talking with Tony Davis on Saturday evening, July 28 and be available at select times during the convention.

What follows is a true story told to me by a former coworker:

There was this guy who worked for a three-letter agency (which shall remain nameless) posted TDY to Amsterdam. He had a penchant for the ladies, so he cruised the areas where ladies-of-the-evening displayed their wares in windows. He became a frequent customer of one particular lady, so much so, that they began dating and she didn't even charge him!

(Now, here I would have become suspicious, but this guy imagined he was God's gift to women and was flattered.)

She even arranged for and paid for their hotel room in advance. This went on for over a week, then one night, she asked if she could tie him to the bed. Nothing loath, he agreed, looking forward to a kinky encounter. However, what he got was not what he wanted!

After he was bound and helpless, she put on her clothes and left, despite his entreaties. As soon as she closed the door, a closet burst open and a naked man, wearing only a Batman mask jumped out. "Batman" proceeded to have his way with the hapless victim repeatedly and at length, leaving him bound and helpless (and sore) the next morning.

Our victim, naturally, never was able to find his erstwhile girlfriend again, as she was probably enjoying a vacation thanks to "Batman," and he realized who had been paying for their hotel trysts all along, and observing the action from the closet.

Unfortunately, our victim made the mistake of confiding the occurrence to a "friend" at this same, nameless three-letter agency, who, though sworn to secrecy, found it to be too good a tale to keep. So, often when the victim walked down the halls, he had the old Batman theme from TV as background.
NYj

What's happened to the RJ Forum? It looks as if hardly anyone visits and posts any more? I realize there were some flaming arguments and a few ad hominem attacks in the past, but at least it was lively and not boring. Ever since the new Draconian rules were instituted, it's like a morgue! I lost interest and stopped visiting after I was banned for a couple weeks for making a political comment. Any chance the rules can be relaxed and breathe some life into the forum?

NYj

Sad news. Here's a piece I did on him for the 2010 World Horror Convention’s program book. It's about Dallas the writer, of course, but also Dallas the friend, the good guy.

Dallas Mayr: An Appreciation

“Good news, Paul. Dallas Mayr is going to be on our quad.”

So said Doug Winter as we threaded the underpasses along the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut. This was sometime in the early-mid nineties as we headed for Rhode Island and NECon.

(For those unfamiliar with Camp NECon, it’s a summer con for horror folk; over the years it has rotated through a number of college campuses, but in every case we campers stay in the dorms.)

I remember saying, “Dallas Mayr? Who the hell is Dallas Mayr? And why is that good news?”

“He writes as Jack Ketchum.”

I said, “The Girl Next Door Jack Ketchum?”

Doug nodded.

My first thought was – and I wasn’t the first to think it – why someone would switch a cool, stand-out name like Dallas Mayr for the pedestrian Jack Ketchum.

My second was that I wasn’t so sure I wanted to sleep next door to the author of one of the most disturbing books I’d ever read.

I forget who recommended The Girl Next Door. Doug, maybe. Even so, when I saw that cheesy cover, I almost moved on. I mean, if a short-skirted, bobby-socked, saddle-shoed, ponytailed, pompom-waving cheerleader with a skull face captured the essence of the novel within, I wanted no part of it. Gimme a break.

But the recommendation had been strong enough to push me past the cheesy wrappings and plunk down my money.

Right now you’re expecting me to say something like, And boy am I glad I did.

Well, I’m not so sure. That I’m glad, I mean. Of course it’s always a treat to find a well-written book with solid characters and an engrossing plot – a description that fits perfectly The Girl Next Door. And if it’s a horror novel, so much the better.

But The Girl Next Door was more than I’d bargained for. No comfortable supernatural forces here. (I say “comfortable” because in most cases your conscious and/or subconscious finds it easy to distance itself from the supernatural because it’s, well, not real.) The Girl Next Door turned out to be an unflinching stare into the abyss of human evil. It doesn’t take place in a neverland, and it has no ghosts and goblins and things that go bump in the night. It happens next door, to real people. For all I knew, similar appalling events could have been going on in my neighborhood while I was reading the book and I wouldn’t have had a clue.

Plus, The Girl Next Door offers no redemption.

I can’t remember a more disturbing book. Ever. I guess that was why it stayed with me – is still with me.

And that was why I wasn’t ready to start tossing confetti and donning funny hats because this fellow, Ketchum or Mayr or whoever he was, was staying in the same quad. I mean, NECon is all about fun, and how much fun can you expect from a guy with that bleak a view of humanity?

What can I say? When I’m wrong, I’m really wrong.

Dallas Mayr the man bears no resemblance to Jack Ketchum the author. Dallas is well read, erudite, witty, articulate, sophisticated, quick to laugh, and a great raconteur. He’s written – under various pseudonyms – just about everything a freelancer can write. In the early seventies he wrote ad copy. His fiction career began in 1976 (as Jerzy Livingston) with a short story titled “The Hang Up.” For the next half-dozen years Jerzy paid Dallas’s bills by writing fiction, non-fiction, book and record reviews for the likes of Swank, Stag, Genesis, Penthouse, Creem, High Society, the Franklin Library, and on and on.

Really, how many authors can say they’ve sold to everything from Porn Stars to Classic Decorating and Home Crafts Magazine?

In 1981, after Ballantine published Dallas’s first novel, Off Season, Jerzy began to wither, his precious bodily fluids transferred to Jack Ketchum,

Some people say Off Season is more disturbing than The Girl Next Door. In fact the Village Voice damned it as violent pornography – and that was the expurgated version! I came to Off Season later and, no question, it is disturbing. But it didn’t get under my skin like The Girl Next Door. (For which I am thankful.)

Three years later he did Hide and Seek. And three years after that came Cover, and then he began hitting his stride: She Wakes, The Girl Next Door, Offspring, and so on. You know them.

But do you know the man?

Do you know that he used to be an agent for the Scott Meredith Agency?

Do you know that he’s been an actor? (I remember watching TV a few years ago and on comes this commercial for some college, and there’s freakin’ Dallas playing a professor shilling the school.)

Do you know that he can sing – really sing – and his Anthony Newley impersonation is so dead on you’d think he was channeling the guy?

And do you know he has the worst, girly bat swing in the history of softball? (Trust me. I’ve seen it.)

Dallas is envied by his fellow writers for what we perceive as a rock-star lifestyle: drinking, women, drinking, smoking, drinking...

He tells me he’s quit smoking. Hope so. We want him around a while longer. I don’t think he’s quit women. How could he? They won’t leave the poor guy alone. And Dallas certainly likes the women – preferably alert and breathing, but he’s been known to make exceptions.

But that’s Dallas’s convention lifestyle. Is that the real Dallas Mayr? Deep inside is he a sad, lonely man crying out for a wife, a house, two kids, and a dog?

Nah.

The real Dallas’s life probably falls somewhere between the convention Dallas and his recurring character – my favorite – Stroup.

For me, one of the best things about NECon is knowing that Dallas will be there and we can hang out. One of the best things about this year’s World Horror Convention is that he’ll be here, walking among you.

Don’t be afraid to approach him. He’s a legend but genuinely friendly and truly accessible. Especially if you buy him a drink.

Just don’t ask him to demonstrate his softball swing. Please.

MONSTERS is streaming on Amazon Prime. For those who care, here’s the story behind my episode, “Glim-Glim.”

For years, Tom Allen was a phone friend. I had a number of them. People I saw only rarely – or, like Ed Gorman, never saw – but with whom I had regular conversations about writing, reading, politics, families, life in general. Tom and I started our phone friendship one Friday night in 1987 when I was working late at my office. Tom was a story editor with Laurel Entertainment, George Romero's company. My previous contacts with him had been brief conversations about the annual editor publisher receptions which I had been running for SFWA, when I'd invite the Laurel crew to stop by for a drink.

Tonight Tom was calling because he'd just read THE TOUCH and wanted to tell me how much he liked it. Here, obviously, was a man of great taste and discrimination.

During the ensuing months we had many late Friday phone conversations about books and authors we liked and didn't like (although Tom seemed to be able to find something of value in everyone), deciding who was overrated and who was under- appreciated. I was continually and increasingly amazed at the depth and breadth of his knowledge of the sf/fantasy/horror field, and his genuine affection for it. As story editor for Tales from the Darkside, part of his job was combing the old magazines and anthologies for stories with adaptation potential. But this man had read everything.

In the spring of 1988 he asked me to drop by the Laurel offices on Broadway for a meeting. There I finally met the voice on the phone and found that Tom Allen looked about as he sounded – a big, gentle fellow with an easy smile. The upshot of the meeting was that Tom and the others at Laurel wanted me to do something for Monsters, the new half hour syndicated show Laurel was preparing for the coming fall season. The guidelines were simple but strict: one or two lead characters, one to three supporting characters, one monster; one or two interior locations, no exteriors; three scenes with a 5-8-8 minute breakdown.

I told Tom I'd try. The challenge of all those restrictions intrigued me. I like to believe that I can write under any circumstances, that no set of preconditions can keep me from telling a story. Trouble was, none of my old stories had a monster in it except for "Faces," and that was much too strong for TV. So I'd have to come up with something new. For years I'd been kicking around an idea for a sci-fi/monster story but never had the impetus to put it down on paper. Now I did. I sat myself down on a Thursday night, wrote out just enough to fill one single spaced sheet, and sent the precis of "Glim-Glim" to Laurel on Friday morning.

Tom called a week later: they loved it. He had a few suggestions for some logistical and structural changes within the story to make it hew closer to the guidelines – nothing that changed the story itself, nothing I couldn't live with. But on March 7, before we could make the deal official, the Writers Guild of America went on strike.

I have decidedly mixed feelings about the WGA. It has all the inherent weaknesses and abuses of that most repressive form of union, the closed shop – if you don't belong to WGA, you can't sell a script. But to be fair, it put an end to many of the ugly abuses inflicted by the movie moguls and their underbosses upon writers in the bad old days. I'm a member now (I had to join if I wanted to see "Glim-Glim" produced) but what infuriated me then was that during the strike Tom could not discuss anything about "Glim-Glim" with me. Nothing. I wasn't a member of WGA but somehow I was on strike too. For five months.

But they couldn't stop me from writing. I didn't have a contract but I knew Laurel wanted the script. To maximize the impact of the story's seasonal hook, "Glim-Glim" had to play in December, yet it was already July. I figured I'd better have it ready to go as soon as the strike was over.

I started it on a Thursday and had it finished by the following Sunday night. If scripting it today, I'd give far fewer camera directions, but back then I saw every shot in my head and put it on paper.

By early August the strike was over. Soon I had a contract and was duking it out with Laurel about a third set. I wanted the penultimate scene to play out on the front steps of the library during a gentle snowfall.

No exteriors, they told me.

I explained that all you needed was a brick wall, a pair of doors, a set of steps, and some guy shaking snowflakes from the rafters.

But that makes three sets, they said. You're only allotted two. The budget won't allow more.

I felt like I was butting my head against the brick wall I wanted them to build.

So I moved the scene inside the library.

But all in all my experience with Laurel was a good one. I might even say excellent. The producers there actually read books and have great respect for writers and the written word. The director checked with me every time he wanted to change a word or two of dialogue or to shift the focus of a scene – light years away from my experience with the filming of The Keep.

Due to the strike, "Glim-Glim" didn't run in December as originally planned. It first aired the week of January 30, 1989.

What do I think of the production? Well… Jenna von Oy and Mark Hofmaier are very good as Amy and her father, but Mark Fitzpatrick – wow. As Carl, he not only chews the scenery but digests and excretes it. And Glim-Glim is pathetic…looks like a skinned avocado. That said, while I admit it’s a maudlin story, my SF theme about finding ways to communicate with another species landed with the emotional punch I’d intended, so I’m not bitching.

My only real regret is that Tom Allen never saw "Glim-Glim." He died suddenly on September 30, 1988. I miss his warmth and wisdom and quiet intelligence. I miss talking to him on Friday nights.

Thanks to Amazon Prime "Glim-Glim" is available on demand. And "Glim-Glim" was, is, and always will be dedicated to the man who nudged me into writing it.

The summer after my first year in college, I had a part-time job walking dogs in my Manhattan neighborhood. At this one building, on York Ave., occupied by multi-millionaires (General Sarnoff, who owned NBC, had an entire floor as his apartment there), I met the superintendent. He was a big, white-haired Irishman and he told me this story:

"I was born on a British ship on the Irish Sea, between Ireland and England. Because I was born under the British flag, I was a British citizen, which angered my father, a staunch IRA supporter (When I wanted to get his goat, I would get a block or two away and yell "God save the king, then run like Helll!).

I became a captain of merchant ships and ran guns for the IRA during the fight against the British for independence. Eventually, I was caught and sent to prison on the Isle of Man. After a couple months, the armistice was signed and I was released, but I was told that I had lost my British citizenship and could never set foot on British soil again.

In 1940, my ship was docked in Liverpool, when the request was broadcast for volunteers to sail to Dunkirk and rescue the British troops trapped there (Operation Dynamo). When I volunteered to take my privately owned boat to Dunkirk, two Special Branch (Scotland Yard) detectives came to my ship and escorted me to my boat. I made six round trips and was given a certificate by the British government.

Many years later, a relative who had died in England left me a bequest and I visited the British embassy to obtain a visa. The visa official turned down my request, citing the terms of my prison release. I pleaded, "But, I have this certificate from the government for my service during the Dunkirk evacuation. Doesn't one hand wash the other?" He shook his head and said, "No, I'm afraid not." "You mean the lion never forgets, don't you?" And, at this he nodded and smiled."

NYj

I received my DNA results via email the other day, after waiting nearly two months (they are seriously backed up).

I was curious since I've never met my actual, biological father.

Results:

Great Britain: 33%
Ireland/Scotland/Wales: 25%
Scandinavia: 22%
Europe East: 13%
European Jewish: 3%

No German or Cherokee at all! Also, they tell me I have a first cousin who also had his DNA tested.

All this info from a small vial of spit!

NYj