Jan 19 Cold Snap Thoughts
Sunday night. The Herkes House thermostat is set at 67F right now, a balmy 65 degree improvement over the current outside temp. There’s a shower planned before bed tonight, which will give the upstairs pipes a little extra warmth against the coldest night temps.
(It should be fine well into sub-zero, there’s only one small length of pipe on an outside wall and it’s super-well insulated, but “better safe than sorry” is a good saying to live by.)
ANYway. I will never stop marveling at/being thankful for the modern miracles of central heating & on-demand hot water. Nor will I ever take for granted the joys of wearing comfortable clothes, eating good food, and sleeping in a clean, safe, comfortable environment.
Tomorrow & Tuesday are predicted to be even colder than today. Warmup begins Wednesday morning. There’s some low-slow baking planned, and cookie baking.
And I am extra pleased with my new space heater for the office.
I picked up an extra shift at the ‘bar, this week too. Excellent timing on my part, right? Working a public service desk right next to the front doors is going to be an adventure in this weather. Gonna be bundling up with long underwear along with the usual lined workpants, base layer and fleece hoodie.
In Creative Life Ups & Downs
Someone left a nice review on Amazon for Rough Passages. Like, a REaLLy good review. It’s the kind I probably ought to share with the whole world, only I just can’t make my fingers type hype. (It isn’t humility, it’s a lack of energy n focus.)
A reader reached out to let me know how much they loved a story in Relics From A Traveling Show.
The universe thought that needed balancing out, I lost Patreon followers.
Media update.
I finished up Stargate Atlantis and decided it made sense to start right into Original Stargate from the beginning, because why not?
Weekend watching also included Deadpool & Wolverine and Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice. Both were entirely enjoyable, but I can’t recommend wither one. Deadpool was a fabulously refreshing mock-the-Marvel Cinematic Uniiverse romp with lots of in-universe jokes and a simple redemption/save-the-world plot…and egregious amounts of explicit violence. Beetlejuice had three too many main plots for one short movie, and as a result did justice to none of them, which was a shame because they were all perfectly good plots.
Anyhow. On the reading side, I’ve started my re-read of Iron Widow, preparing to chew straight into Heavenly Tyrant when that’s done.
Because when the real political world’s crashing to pieces all around, some fantasy warfare is a handy temporary escape.
And that’s it for now. Have a cat pic.
Pippin staying warm and cozy on the rocking chair.
What’s on your bookshelf?
This is the part where I talk about my books.
Relics From A Traveling Show
The newest of the new! A collection of all my short fictions in one handy volume, available now from your favorite booksite or local shop.
Or! OR! if you like your local library, you could request a purchase. Free for you, sale for me, everyone wins.
Most libraries need the following info for ordering print books:
Title: Relics From A Traveling Show
Author: K. M. Herkes
ISBN: 9781945745201 (paperback)
Every library system does things a little differently, but most want their collections to serve their communities, so most of them are very responsive to patron requests.
If you like novels more than short stories, I recommend my series The Rollover Files for hopepunk tales of about an alternate world where moms with midlife crisis superpowers have been saving the world and making the military nervous since 1943.
I also have a completed, quirky slow-burn science fiction thriller duology with a romance chaser: The Stories Of The Restoration.
All my titles are available from Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Hoopla, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, Overdrive and many other fine booksellers.
Support your favorite independent bookseller! Find a local shop via Indiebound
Be a potato.
" Fear is strange soil. Mainly it grows obedience like corn, which grows in rows and makes weeding easy. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourish underground."
Terry Pratchett (Small Gods)