You know you have a good life partner when the two of you can write books together without killing one another. So, going forward, understand that I appreciate the man who shares my house. Not that he is without flaw. For one thing, he’s a sucker for the “World’s Best” ... anything. If he passes a roadside sign that reads, World’s Best Pancakes, he wants us to try them. Immediately. Because what if that particular corner gas station just happens to actually serve out-of-the-world hotcakes? He has to know.
 
Food-wise, Glynn’s tried the World’s Best pancakes, hot dogs, burgers, salads, tacos, and fudge. He’s yet to find the best of anything. Each time, he’s vowed never to make that mistake again – and he hasn’t, not at the same location. He’ll make that mistake again at the convenience store with the broken plate glass window … because what if that particular convenience store with the broken plate glass window has the most amazing flapjacks? He can’t chance missing out.
 
Glynn’s also hard on socks. (Stay with me. This will all come together at one point.) During this COVID-19 year, staying at home and possibly more aware of little things than usual, I noticed how often those big box store socks ended up with holes in their heels. I mentioned it, more than once. What I should have said was: nothing. Those socks cost maybe $12 for six pairs. Each pair lasts a few weeks. In hindsight, not a terrible deal.
 
As unlikely as it seems, these two bits of oddness – my guy’s fascination with all things “Best” and the destruction of his hosiery somehow became intertwined and it ended up running us $71.52 for two pair of socks. Yes, you read that sum correctly. I was astonished when I saw the receipt.
 
It happened like this: I complained about the latest sock casualty and, this time, Glynn heard me. Going online, he typed in “Socks that last a lifetime” and up popped an ad for Darn Tough Socks of Vermont: Socks Guaranteed for Life. He read the reviews, then placed his order. Afterwards, he shared with me that he’d soon be receiving the World’s Best Socks.
 
They have to be. They last a lifetime – guaranteed!
 
If the Boston Globe is to be believed, Cabot Hosiery Mills was on its last financial legs twelve years ago when most of their big retail customers shifted production to overseas factories. Focusing on a high-quality product, creating their own brand, and giving away their socks to runners at the Vermont City marathon, they somehow hoped to stave off bankruptcy. And it worked. It more than worked; their revenue has soared. (If you follow the link to the Globe, know that one part of the article isn’t to be believed. Should your pet put holes in your Darn Tough socks, too bad for you. Cabot Hosiery Mills isn’t going to replace that footwear.)     
 
 
As far as I know, Cabot Hosiery Mills have never referred to their product as the best in the world. They do offer to replace their socks if and when they wear out, but how many people are going to go through the hassle of doing that, really? Glynn will, that’s my lifetime guarantee, because he paid seventy-one dollars and fifty-two cents for two (2) pairs of over-the-calf black men’s socks.
 
The day the Darn Tough box arrived, Glynn put the first pair of socks on. I was watching as he looked down at his feet and wiggled his toes.
 
They didn’t look all that different from the big box assortment. I asked, “How do they feel?”
 
“Like socks.”
 
“Like amazing socks?”
 
“No,” he said, and a little doubt crept into his voice. “Just regular socks.”
 
Darn Tough of Vermont, you’d better not disappoint my guy.

​​If the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is to be believed, the opposite of bragging is to be uncomplacent, which is “not feeling or showing satisfaction with oneself or one's position or achievements.” Uncomplacently (spellcheck claims this isn’t a word, but spellcheck can be such a brat), let me share with you that our latest novel, One Bride for Seven Brothers: The Last Brothers is available on Amazon as a preorder.
 
The preorder has been up for a while, to tell the truth, but I forgot to share the news here. Or anywhere, actually, because I am lacking in marketing skills. The book will be out of preorder and published on April 4th, 2021, which is less than a week away.
 
Because I’m lacking in calendar-reading skills as well, I was unaware that Easter also happens to fall on April 4th this year. I discovered this today. So, we have our first full-length novel in four years coming out on a national holiday. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing (see: lacking in marketing skills), but I guess I’ll see. I’d like the novel to do well because I really like what we wrote. Also, it’s the conclusion to our long-running One Bride series. There were a lot of storylines to be resolved and I think (I hope) they were resolved in a satisfactory fashion.
 
Normally, I’d do a happy dance to celebrate this achievement. I still might but, at the moment, there are a couple of other things that are bothering me right now.
  
What bothers me the most is that some readers are going to be unhappy that we’ve priced the new book at $2.99. Every other One Bride story was listed at $0.99, so this probably feels like a cash grab. Easter or not, *ugh*, the reviews we'll see. All I can say in our defense is, The Last Brothers is three times longer than any of the earlier stories and took five times longer to write. In regards to blood, sweat, tears, effort and word count, the price is fair.
 
The other thing that itches at me is that it’s been forever since we published the first story in the series. We always knew we’d complete the run, if life didn’t interfere and finish one of us first, but it’s taken a ridiculously long time to go from, “Placing her master’s cup in its place, Flora carried the silver serving tray into the study” to finally typing, “The End.”
 
I told Glynn, we must never take so long to finish a writing project again. He agreed. Then I told him there were two more stories I thought we should write set in the same world. He did not do his happy dance. I’ve yet to tell him The Last Brothers is coming out on Easter. Until we turn the leaf on that calendar, he'll have no idea.
 
What’s the opposite of “happy collaborator”?

Please note that nothing I write here should be accepted as medical advice. I'm not an MD and I have no medical training. I'm relating what happened to me, not what you should do for you. With that disclaimer in place, let's go on.
​ 
​Last week, I talked about what happened when I suddenly and unexpectedly developed benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. Here’s the short version: the dizziness came out of nowhere, I thought I’d had a stroke, the local ER doc had no idea how to treat it and, at home, Glynn found a procedure that made the BPPV less terrible. Still, even after using the Epley Maneuver, this overwhelming sensation of vertigo was a fresh dose of miserable that would strike me every two to three months. I lived in dread of when it would happen again.
 
To prevent it, I began making lifestyle changes. I stood more slowly, turned my head more cautiously, and tried to avoid anything that might cause the calcium crystals in my middle ear to shift and send the world spinning. I gave up dancing, either with Glynn or just joyously alone, and I used to love to dance. I was doing whatever it would take to continue to feel normal.
 
In my downtime, I was on the internet, trying to see what I could learn about BPPV. I discovered that women get it more often than men; that the middle-aged and old are more likely to suffer from it than the young. There’s a possible genetic component, too; I found out later that one of my female cousins has it. At one time or another, BPPV will strike about 8% of the population. For most people, it’s over and done in less than two months. For others, about 2.5% of the total, it can continue to recur for their entire lifetime.
 
Without surgical treatment, I was looking like a lifer. Surgical treatment is available, but rarely recommended; the failure rate was too high for my comfort. On top of that, when it doesn’t work, surgery can make things worse. I started haunting BPPV forums, where people spoke about what they’d done to try and improve their situation. One woman said she’d increased the amount of water she drank and it had helped. Another said she’d stopped ingesting caffeine, and that had helped. I didn’t see how either of these approaches would keep those damnable ear crystals in place, but both suggestions were benign approaches to the problem.
 
I could do those things. Maybe.
 
As much as I feared vertigo, you need to understand, I’ve had a long-term love affair with my morning cup of coffee. I’ve worn t-shirts that say as much, and my refrigerator has magnets that celebrate our tight-knit relationship (I HAVEN’T HAD MY COFFEE YET. DON’T MAKE ME KILL YOU.) If I was told I had to decide between waking up with Glynn or being greeted by a hot cup of Joe… but that wasn’t the decision, was it? The choice was between nausea, vomiting, and being incapacitated, or losing the daily jolt and suffering from a headache while mourning my caffeine high.
 
Very reluctantly, I switched to decaf. I abandoned chocolate, started checking labels for caffeine content, and increased my water intake. In short order, my inner ear quit misbehaving. The benign paroxysmal positional vertigo became less frequent, then it seemed to go away.
 
It didn’t return until I visited my regular doctor and her assistant flushed away some inner ear wax. Almost immediately, the world started spinning again. I begged the assistant to stop, she did, and my MD recommended I go to see one of our town’s Ear, Nose and Throat experts. Since my regular MD is wonderful, I did as she asked.
 
Which, if you’ll recall, is where I left off at the end of my last blog. During my consult with the Otolaryngologist – they get paid by the vowel –I told him I was much improved from how I’d been. I told him, I thought I knew why, too. When I shared the more water/no caffeine regimen, he said, flatly, “There’s nothing about that in the literature.”
 
I knew this. I’d seen the literature. “Still,” I said, “there’s no harm in telling someone what worked for me. If you have a patient who’s at her wits’ end, you might mention it to her.”
 
He didn’t respond, but his expression said, There’s nothing about that in the literature. No matter the situation, he wasn’t sharing what I’d said. Not with anyone.
 
Then he suggested that the two of us do a little experiment together. If I truly had BPPV, this procedure would throw me into full-blown vertigo. Within minutes, maybe seconds, I’d get dizzy and feel like vomiting.
 
“And this will help you fix it so that it doesn’t happen again?” I asked.
 
“Oh, no, there’s no cure,” said the sadist solemnly. “But your reaction will allow me to make an official diagnosis. Then I can put that in your chart.”
 
Either he loved his charts or he hated me. I decided not to do this. Instead, I went home and poured myself a cup of decaf. Later this year, I’ll be attending a wedding.
 
​I intend to dance during every song the DJ plays.

​Several years ago, waking up in the middle of the night, I knew something was wrong. Although it was very dark, I could tell my bedroom was swirling around me. I’d never experienced anything like it before. And I was terrified.
 
“Glynn, wake up,” I said. “I think I’m having a stroke.”
 
I was too young to have a stroke (not true, by the way. Ten percent of all strokes occur to people under the age of 45), but nothing else made sense. I could barely stand upright, walking was a challenge, and nausea was coming at me in waves. We should have called an ambulance – and you should, too, if this ever happens to you – but we lived so close to the local hospital that we never thought of it. Minutes later, Glynn had collected a wheelchair from the Emergency Room entrance and was wheeling me inside.
 
It was 3:00 AM-ish, and the place was empty. Vitals were taken, questions were asked, I was gowned, I.V.’ed, and presented to the ER doctor. Other than my loss of balance, I didn’t exhibit any of the early warning signs of a stroke. I was medicated for my nausea and fell asleep for a couple of hours. When I woke up, I felt better, but not well. Any motion made me sick, which ruled out getting an MRI. Whatever was happening to me, the ER doc didn’t think it was something awful. Which is how I knew he’d never experienced that level of dizziness.
 
I was sent home and told to return to bed. If I didn’t get better in a few days, I could return to the ER. For what, they couldn’t exactly tell me, but Glynn wheelchaired me out and to bed I went. With the room twirling, twirling all around, I fell asleep again.
 
While I dozed, Glynn went on the computer. The internet is an easy place to misdiagnose symptoms, but he generally remembers this and treads cautiously. Within minutes, he had a name for what I was experiencing: benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. The condition is benign, which meant it wasn’t going to kill me; paroxysmal, which meant it came on fast; it’s positional, which meant the calcium crystals in one of my middle ears had gone rogue, escaping into the semicircular canals; and those shifting crystals were sending the wrong signals to my brain, giving me vertigo.
 
According to the online experts, BPPV can be over in a minute. Or it can last for days. WebMD advised, “If you have dizziness on and off for more than a week, you should make an appointment with your doctor.” You think? Just don’t use the ER doc in my town, I’m telling you. He’ll have no idea on what to do.
 
The good news was, the internet offered multiple ways to treat this condition. Glynn printed out the Epley Maneuver. (Thank you, Dr. John Epley.) It’s easy to do, cost nothing, and only took a few minutes to complete. If you’re curious, there are multiple YouTube videos on how to do it properly. For some people, the Epley Maneuver resolves the problem immediately. For the cursed – like me 😊 – the process has to be repeated over a period of time to shift those inner ear crystals back to the utricle, where they belong.
 
The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad news was that BPPV can return. And, when it does, as it did frequently with me, it’s as miserable as ever. Each time it happened, the dizziness and nausea would knock me down for a day. There was no way around it.
 
But, but, BUT… after making a couple of lifestyle changes, I haven’t had a BPPV attack in years. When I told my local Otolaryngologist (Ear, Nose, Throat MD) what I thought had helped, he looked at me as if I was crazy.
 
“There’s nothing about that in the literature,” he told me, completely dismissing what I had to say. Then he asked if I’d let him do something to me that sounded completely crazy.
 
That story, however, will have to wait until next week.

Now that our latest novella has officially published on Amazon, Glynn and I are hoping the story will find an audience, that those readers will think it’s a satisfying addition to the overarching tale but a corker of a read in and of itself, and that some of our buyers will feel motivated to leave a review on what we’ve written. I don’t care what kind of review as long as it’s honest, but Glynn is a sensitive sort. If any of our work gets less than 5-stars, he feels like we’ve let those readers down.
 
Consequently, he feels like we’ve let people down all of the time.
 
The other day, he wondered out loud how our kitchen sink’s sponge holder could receive 400 five-star testimonials on Amazon while our novel, The Runaway Mail-Order Bride, has thirteen. I told him his question was easily answered. More people bought the sponge holder, more people reviewed the sponge holder, and the company that produces the sponge holder offered their Amazon buyers… well, bribe is a harsh word. They offered those fortunate souls a $10 gift card if they’d leave a positive review on the site. And by “positive”, they were demanding 5 glowing stars of admiration. Otherwise, no ten-spot.
 
The sponge holder cost us less than thirteen bucks. (Checking Amazon at this minute: yep, still cheap.) To be fair, it probably cost less than three bucks to make the gizmo.
 
Since when did buying reviews become a thing? On principle, I refused to write anything about the stainless-steel sink caddy, even though it does a fine job of holding sponges. It would be almost amazing if it didn’t. Later, I started to wonder if the company really did send those reviewers the promised gift card. Seems kind of shady to me.
 
It turns out, the Sink Caddy Consortium aren’t the only ones who pull these kinds of shenanigans. (I write mail-order bride novels. Of course, I’m going to use a word like “shenanigans.”) On Valentine’s Day, Glynn gave me a rechargeable hand warmer. No chocolates or flowers for this girl; the boy knows what I like. When the hand warmer arrived, it included a card offering a $15 Amazon gift card for every buyer who gave the warmer a 5-star review. A hefty reward for something that only cost 17 dollars.
 
After two weeks of use, I decided I loved my portable little warmer. I left a very happy review because (a) it was as good as advertised; and (b) I had an insatiable need to know if these outfits actually made good on their offers. Hand Warmer, Inc., did, and promptly. Then… two days after I received my digital payment, the hand warmer quit working. I edited my review to reflect this, then used the gift card they’d sent to buy a different rechargeable hand warmer.
 
Wouldn’t you know, that $18 replacement hand warmer arrived this week with its own offer of a $20 gift card, provided I told Amazon buyers that I held five stars of admiration for their teal-colored wonder. Not this time, fellows. I’m out of the reviews-for-hire game.
 
If you’re wondering how the company makes a profit, paying $20 for every $18 purchase, the answer is simple: volume. (Old SNL gag.)
​ 
I’ve drifted a bit from the main point here. One Bride for Seven Brothers: The Fifth Brother is on sale! Although we offer no gift cards in exchange for reviews, Glynn will likely curl his lips in an icy smile if you say nice things about the story.
 
Also, the new hand warmer? So far, it’s great.

​For the last few weeks, Glynn and I have been polishing/tweaking our published One Bride for Seven Brothers novellas in anticipation of finishing the series. Sunday, the polishing was completed and Glynn loaded the revised manuscripts onto Amazon Kindle. At my request, he returned the series to the way we’d originally numbered it. The original One Bride is, as it has always been, the first story in the series. The Second Brother is, once again, Book Two. Third Brother, Book Three, Fourth Brother, Book Four. As you would expect.
 
For now, the Bride stories exist only on Amazon. That will change in about four months when we go “wide” with the series, placing it with Draft2Digital, Google, Apple and the like. We’re a little uneasy about leaving the Kindle Unlimited nest – every month, the Amazon tribe sends us a little something in royalties – but this feels like a good year to try new things.
 
While Glynn was doing his digital magic to upload the manuscripts – which I happily leave to him. I love magic, I struggle with digital – he discovered how to set-up an Amazon pre-order for our new novella, One Bride for Seven Brothers: The Fifth Brother. It’s the penultimate story in the series, paving the way for the very last tale to be told. He tells me the step-by-step process is very easy and I’ll trust him on this. I have no intention of learning how to do it on my own.
  
The Fifth Brother is written, but will officially be published on March 7th, a couple of weeks from now. If you've read the other stories in the series, thank you. If you're interested in doing the preorder thing on this story, go here and we’ll all find out if Glynn did this properly. Or not.
 
The last of the series, One Bride for Seven Brothers: The Last Brothers, isn’t yet available for pre-order. It’s much longer than the stories that came before it and Glynn needed a little more time to work on its formatting. We’ll have it on preorder by next week, too, with a publication date of April 4th.
 
Finally, if you’d rather wait to read the entire collection at once, One Bride for Seven Brothers: The Complete Saga, will be released on May 2nd. That’s coming out as both an eBook and a paperback, so Glynn has his work cut out for him. Our Saga is rather massive for one of our romances, wrapping at almost 200,000 words. In word count, it’s a little longer than Moby Dick.
 
Writing the words, “longer than Moby Dick,” I can only think of inappropriate things to say. I can be such a child.

​​Although I’m spending a lot more time in the house these days, this doesn’t mean I’ve spent those hours cleaning every nook and cranny. It’s not as if I don’t have the basic skills. Years ago, I worked as a housekeeper at a historic hotel not so far from here and the experience changed me. Following that period of employment, whenever I’m a guest at a motel, hotel, or inn, I tidy up after myself. Each day of our stay, Glynn leaves a warm note of thanks to the staff (my handwriting is terrible) and we always, always, tip the housekeepers for the work they do.
 
If you’d seen what I saw, you’d do this, too.
 
Tired of all of the nooks and crannies, I was pleased when Glynn came home with two cartons of Clorox Bleach & Blue. According to the instructions on the box, if I dropped a tablet of B&B in the corner of my toilet tank every few weeks, the tablet would clean, deodorize, and prevent toilet bowl stains for months. Months, I tell you. Where we live, the water is so hard, it’s practically a solid. As a result, everything the water touches gets stained. If the Clorox Company’s little round wonders would keep me from having to scrub the porcelain thrones on a semi-regular basis, I was all in favor of using them.
 
For the first few weeks, that’s more or less what happened… and, then, my toilets stopped flushing. Lifting a tank cover to investigate what had happened, I discovered the Bleach & Blue tablets had dissolved into an ungodly blue goo nesting at the bottom of toilet tank. That cerulean ooze was so thick that it held its form beneath the water. It appeared the ooze had stretched its tendrils into each of the toilet’s inner workings and poisoned them. They were too gummed up to work.
 
With a pandemic happening, I don’t allow visitors into our house. Not even visitors with babies, which are my favorite kind of guests. Glynn suggested we might make an exception for a plumber. I didn’t love the idea, although a plumber carrying a baby would have been exceptionally tempting.
 
With a sigh, my co-writer and partner in crime told me he thought he could get things in working. He also pointed out how much he hated working with water. Then he asked if I’d make him homemade chicken pot pie once the toilets were working again.
 
Which, in a very small way, opened my eyes to the plight of Mrs. Hiền. I found her story on Kiva.org, the nonprofit crowdfunding group that lends money to the world’s disadvantaged. According to the company’s website, the lovely Mrs. Hiền lives in the province of Thanh Hoa in Vietnam, a very poor area, and her home lacks a hygienic toilet. Seeing her story, I felt a certain kinship with her. Listening to Glynn in the background, cursing Clorox Bleach & Blue as he struggled to replace flush valves and fill valves, flappers and floats, I sent my Kiva our first donation in a while.
 
Oh, and he noticed an orange stick in each of our toilet tanks, something we’d overlooked for the past twelve years. That sticker reads, Warning: Larks’ Vomit. No, the sticker actually reads, Warning. Do not use in-tank cleaners.
 
Live and learn, eh, Clorox Company? I’m just glad we can flush again and I hope Mrs. Hiền can soon do the same.

​Two or three years ago, whenever it was that I pulled my blankets over my head and decided to spend my time creating gourd art and reading manga instead of writing fiction, Glynn contacted a young artist to create an image of the two of us as if we were characters in the Soul Eater anime. This was the result and, although it isn’t very Soul Eater-ish, it does capture Glynn’s image alarmingly well. Right down to his arthritic fingers.
 
(I’m teasing. He doesn’t have arthritis in his fingers yet. He will, he tells me, because his many beloved and ancient relatives all suffer from that miserable inflammation. The weird thing is, he tells me this like he thinks I’ll find it sexy.)
 
Although my enjoyment of manga remains strong, the time came when I was ready to write again, and that’s what we’ve been doing the last many months. We’ve completed One Bride for Seven Brothers: The Fifth Brother, One Bride for Seven Brothers: The Last Brothers and One Bride for Seven Brothers: The Complete Saga. The Complete Saga is huge, over 900 e-pages, and the Good Witch thoughtfully reminded me that there are no romance fans willing to read anything that long. The Good Witch has been wrong before – remember when you told me I’d look good in low-rise jeans? – so I’m hoping she’s mistaken here, too.
 
We’ve also wrapped the first and second drafts of The Reluctant Mail-Order Bride, our first novel in a long time that didn’t involve anyone from the McCown family. All of these stories will come out this year.  In anticipation of this happening, Glynn proposed that we develop more of a social media presence.
 
A new blog each week for at least a year. Then we needed a home on Facebook. Instagram. Twitter. GoodReads. And how did I feel about doing a podcast on YouTube?
 
Currently, I don’t do any of those things, and this website is the only thing I enjoy doing. All of the others… well, talk about a Soul Eater. I asked him to fetch my blankets and bring me some manga.
 
Once I discovered that my blogs could be transported to Facebook at the touch of widget, we made an agreement. AnneGlynn.com is returning to life with a new blog every seven to ten days for the next year. I’ll post those blogs on Facebook, as long as the Weebly widget is working. I currently have a single FB friend. He’s a lovely writer who’s really Glynn’s pen pal, but felt sorry for such a friendless fellow author. Yes, he’s a pity friend.
 
In the course of the next 365 days, will anyone else care to see what I have to say on the world’s most popular social media platform? I’m curious to see. 

It’s been a while since we posted anything, but there was a long stretch in our lives when most of the interesting things that were happening to us weren’t the kinds of things we cared to share with others. Okay, some people might talk about such things, but not us. Well, okay, maybe one of us is a bit more open to unveiling all of life’s events, but the other one of us is all Mister Nobody Else’s Business and a compromise had to be reached.
 
If you haven’t heard the definition of a successful compromise, let me share it here. That’s when two people decide on something and neither party is entirely happy. In this case, we jointly decided not to do a new blog post until we had something nice to announce.
 
And, so, the years passed.
 
I’m kidding, I’m kidding. We had many good things happen in our lives, but I’d gotten out of the habit of posting notes about them. I’m hoping this post will encourage me to do this again and more quickly.
 
Today, though, I’m announcing a nice thing: Glynn’s second professional comic book story is being published in volume 46 of Aces Weekly. For those in the know, Aces is a marvelous, digital-only comic art publication out of the UK. David Lloyd and his team of magicians have worked for years to provide an intelligent, interesting electronic comic book anthology worthy of admiration. They deserve all of the awards they’ve won.
 
Since Glynn’s first professional comic book story was published *ahem* a little bit ago, how did he elbow his way into a respected web publication that accepts submissions on an invitation-only basis? Pure talent, baby. Also, he got lucky. He’d developed a friendship with Alex Sheikman, a gifted comic book artist with a slew of published stories to his credit. As with Aces, Alex has won awards for his art and stories. Some of his work landed on the New York Times Best Sellers List (Hardcover Graphic Books), where it hung out for weeks. He has chops.
 
Somewhere along the line, Alex drew a 4-page horror story and he asked Glynn to give it a look. Since there wasn’t any writing on the pages, Glynn guessed at the storyline. He guessed wrong, but Alex enjoyed the tale that Glynn believed was being told. He asked him if he’d care to create a script for this new version of the story. When the two of them were done with their collaboration, the 4-pager had become a 7-page story. A 7-page story that was in need of lettering.
 
Since a professional letterer would have expected payment, the pair turned to me, instead. That was my fault for having worked as a graphic designer. Alex offered me some tips along the way, Glynn altered a line here and there whenever I stomped my foot, and it came together rather sweetly. I found it to be quite the learning experience.
 
As this point in my life, I don’t need more learning experiences. Be forewarned, Glynn and Alex, I don’t ever plan to letter a comic book story again. Unless, of course, I’ve been properly bribed with a vintage Barbie.
 
Just an FYI.
 
If you’re wondering how the story ended up at Aces Weekly, well, Glynn got lucky again. He knocked on the right door at the right time. David was amenable to an EC-inspired horror story at the very moment that “Forever” sailed over his electronic transom. Still, he wanted some changes, Glynn and Alex were amenable to making many of those changes, I was… well, I was willing to make those changes… and the original 4-page story, which had become a 7-page story, became a 9-page story. I think we all agree it became a better story, too. Plus, we all got to work with the David Lloyd. (Look him up. He has chops, too.)
 
Wrapping up: Aces Weekly Volume 46, available for pennies a week, and out now. Look for “Forever” by Hal Turner (a/k/a Glynn) and Alex Sheikman, with 1RatStudio – me – credited for the lettering. (This may be your one and only chance to see my lettering handiwork. I’m not kidding about the Barbie doll.) The story comes in two parts, will appear in two of the volume’s seven issues, and, as you’d expect, there are several other comic book tales to be found in each issue, too. You’ll need a tablet, desktop, laptop or smart TV to view Aces; a cell phone screen won't satisfy. Besides, Alex’s artwork deserves more respect than a cell phone screen can provide. So does Glynn’s story.
 
But it’s the lettering that really rocks.
 
See you next time.
 
 

​That will teach me. I’ve had enough life experience to know I shouldn’t promise to meet a publishing deadline until my manuscripts are complete. On the last blog, though, I didn’t have any doubt we’d be able to cross the finish line ahead of schedule. With The 3rd Brother completed and The Last Brothers so near to done, I’d made my pronouncement without a twinge of fear.
 
The best laid plans of a somewhat scattered writer, eh?
 
We were having such fun with the last story that I wondered if we should extend it a little. I wanted us to introduce a love interest for one of the series least lovable characters. I’d rather not share her name for now. (Oh, if you must know, it was Grace Franecki.) Then, possibly because I didn’t want to leave the Wetherford world, I suggested we find a mate for one of the story’s most deplorable characters. That needs to remain a secret for the moment. (Jane Dixon.) When I wondered if the community might somehow find a girlfriend for the unpleasant Doctor Randolph Fleming, Glynn decided to speak up.
 
“What about Halloween?” he asked.
 
“One of my favorite holidays.” He knew this. Every year, I fully embrace the sights and silliness of October 31st.
 
“The series was supposed to be concluded by then.”
 
“We decided not to publish until everything was completely wrapped.”
 
“The way we’re going, The Brothers will never be done.” That’s what we call the series: The Brothers.  Glynn continued, “The last manuscript is the longest of any of them. It’s twice as long as the first story and we’re not close to done. Maybe we should take another look at the original outline.”
 
“But Grace –”
 
“In the outline, she doesn’t have her own romance. One day, we can write that story.”
 
“And Jane –!”
 
“She deserved everything she got. We can redeem her some other day.”
 
I hadn’t said anything, but I was aware that Flora and the McCown brothers were barely in these new adventures. I said, “It’s going to take a lot of editing.”
 
“You’re a good editor.” As if that was going to get him off the hook. If I had to suffer, he’d feel the pain, too.
 
So, we started editing. Then the computer – well, you can probably guess, if you’ve read the subject line on the blog. The machine didn’t actually explode, but the hard drive is no longer among us. When it went, it took the latest version of the last novella, but we had most of that saved. Not all, but most, and I now move our daily work into the cloud. Losing the hard drive also took the completed covers to Book Five and Six away. Those weren’t saved, not in a format I can access. It’s a bother, but not insurmountable.
 
As it stands, The Last Brothers is shorter than before but remains our longest story of the series. It isn’t complete, but oh so close. For anyone who’s peeking in to see what’s next (and thank you especially, Annabella), I apologize for missing my deadline and I appreciate your patience. Thank you.
 
And, since it is the season, may your holidays be happy!