MY FIRST STORY COLLECTION! OVER 40 YEARS IN THE MAKING!

Friday, June 30, 2023

CHICANONAUTICA WITNESSES QUETZALCOATL ATTACKS


Chicanonautica is all about Quetzalcoatl and a couple of old movies, over at La Bloga.


One’s from the Eighties:



And takes place in Nueva York:



The other is from the Forties:



Set in New Mexico:


Thursday, June 22, 2023

CATARACT INTERLUDE



We interrupt this . . . well, everything. Getting interrupted seems to be a way of life with me. It’s easy, just get a more than three-ring circus going in my busiest summer in years, and then KER-SPLAT! Time for that cataract surgery.



Being a moving target doesn’t seem to help. These things always find me. What I get for being so damned obvious. Not that I’m complaining. Those cataracts were humongous.



It wasn’t bad for the first one. An abstract dream of swirling colored lights. Drugs! No loss of consciousness. Just a tiny incision (nothing like Un Chien Andalou), removal of the messed-up lens, and the implanting of a new one.



I’m recovering fast. Seeing clearer than I have in years, and they tell me it’s going to get better. Better vision–could it mean better art, better writing? Meanwhile, there’s that other eye . . .


Friday, June 16, 2023

CHICANONAUTICA REPORTS ON PAPÍ SCI-FI’S ANCIENT CHICANO SCI-FI WISDOM



It’s a post-workshop show at Chicanonautica, in La Bloga.


That’s . . .


Ancient:



Chicano:



Wisdom:



And sci-fi:


Thursday, June 8, 2023

DISPATCH FROM THE CREATIVE FRONT



Wow. I made it. I’m a writer. I really am a writer. My dream—through a lifetime of hard work—has become true.



I can tell because my career has taken on a life of its own. It goes and does things without me. I get messages that result in me taking part in projects, writing, getting paid—and tends to pay better than the results of my own efforts to promote myself. 


I just hope, like the mad scientists who were my role models, my creation does not end up destroying me.



Right now I’m feeling overwhelmed. I have a lot of deadlines to meet. And getting a lot of ideas.


Having finished my novel, Zyx; Or, Bring Me the Brain of Victor Theremin, I find myself back in the short story mode. Speaking of which, I should email that agent again . . .



I just finished teaching “Papí Sci-Fi’s Ancient Chicano Sci-Fi Wisdom” at Palabras del Pueblo. Most of my students were teachers. Talking about turning the world upside down . . .



Then there’s that blogging that has become part of my life and business.


And I’ve been drawing. I wish I could have spent as much time on that as I have writing. But then there is only so much time.



Add the fact that I am trying to do all this and getting cataract surgery in June, and you see my situation.


I shouldn’t really complain. This is the life I wanted. My dreams are coming true.



I can’t help it. I’m a freak of nature. I have too much imagination. And I’m compelled to put it in forms that I can share with others, which results in disruption in the social order.


And that makes me happy. Maybe I am the monster.



I’m too old to change. And I don’t really want to.


Besides, it's really starting to get good.


Friday, June 2, 2023

CHICANONAUTICA GOES AMONG THE AZTECS ON AN ELECTRIC AIR YACHT



Chicanonautica reviews another Frank Reade Jr. dime novel, at La Bloga.


It’s got an airship:



Winchesters:



A lost city:



And Aztecs: