Well, here I am again, a little unsure of what I'm going to type, but it keeps it fresh, right?

Work continues on the new NEP track. I think I've got a handle on the lyrics and good 1/2-3/4 of the music done. Basically a matter of wrapping up, recording, fiddling around, and then shaking my head at how cheesy it is, then sleeping and upon waking re-listening and realizing that it's salvageable, but nowhere near done and the process more or less begins again. Whee.

Still no title for it, either, which is unusual for me. Usually I have a title about halfway through, but this one is kinda different--on a few levels. Hard to explain. Might make more sense to me when the stupid thing is actually done (hopefully).

This is not the token "boring" post, but I'd feel remiss to not mention the absofreakinlutely rocking interview with the boys from Spinsanity.org. It's a good interview from some guys who have really earned my respect from how they go about their work.

Of course, that's a theme for me. From Chris Null to Ray Mileur to Tess Wiley to Jamie Hyneman to storyteller extraordinaire Joe R Lansdale, it's been my pleasure to banter with briefly and then Q&A for Joe-Mammy.com with each one of them. To a person, I feel they truly show the value of a sense of humor, humility and working your ass off. I'm sure there are more on the way, but I still feel it's worth mentioning that I personally appreciate what they've contributed both to this website as well to world as a whole in their respective fields. Thanks guys.

I'm constantly working on getting new folks interested in doing a Feature and will continue to do so. At this point, however, I'm feeling stretched a little thin between trying to promote "All Things Right and Beautiful," continued work on "lilies of the field," pieces for the Birdhouse, the movie reviews, this lil' Blog thing as well as other minor writing projects. I ain't griping and I'm not canceling the Features section (lest you be paranoid) but it just may be a little longer between updates. But keep on checking back and send any requests or comments you may have. A little constructive feedback (for a lesson in how not to impress me, check the post and link previous...) is always appreciated.

On to the main topic. While I've been hyping the virtues of "All Things Right and Beautiful" I've been consistently putting off polishing my first novella, "Softer, Shallow." I think I've finally found a venue to make it worthwhile and plan to serialize it on the Fiction page. Read ol' Joe back when he was just a punk-ass kid trying to be all touchy feely. Ok, maybe not completely--it's been in serious need of editing and partial rewrites so I'll break it down one chapter/section at a time and fix it up and then post as the featured story. Call it an experiment in motivation.

I'm not going to tell you much about it, but I will give you the first line:
We still had a quarter tank of gas, or at least the gas gauge said we did.

-Joe