rlfj: Blog

The first chapter seems to have been well received. I am curious what people will think about the second chapter and what it portends for the future.

I received a couple of interesting comments that I thought I would pass along. First, one reader commented that longhorns are in Montana. In 1866 a fellow named Nelson Story drove 1,000 longhorns from Texas up the Bozeman Trail to Montana, to feed gold miners. This made Story, already a rich man, fantastically wealthy. He was just the start. As could be expected, more than a few got loose and populated the area and neighboring states. However, these were cattle that were imported, so to speak. The original range of the longhorn is Texas, Oklahoma, and northern Mexico. (Longhorns were also imported, sort of, brought by the conquistadores from Spain and Portugal, and then evolved.) Fascinating things I learn doing this, and I sure don't mind finding this stuff out. Let's call this one a draw.

Second, a reader pointed out that a printer could fit into the trunk or passenger seat of a Honda Civic, so they didn't need to take Jake's pickup truck. Maybe. Not in my trunk, which is loaded with all sorts of crap. And if the printer box is in the front passenger seat of the Civic, where is Jake sitting? In the back? Or maybe Janice is smart and accepts Jake's offer of free transport and carrying services. I don't think I am rewriting this one.

In any case, many thanks to those who have written so many positive comments. I hope you enjoy the rest of it!

Special thanks to my many helpers and editors. I'm not an assassin. I needed some technical info and my online editors kindly stepped in. I have to thank jjmcdonald7911, N12614, Old Rotorhead, grynslvr2, and pdkrause - I could never have done this without their assistance. As always, any fuckups are mine, not theirs.

It's time for a new story. As I mentioned before, this one will be considerably different than my others. The hero isn't all that heroic.

"Do you really think James Bond was born James Bond? Or was he actually born Joey Numbnuts and then changed it after he became Double-Oh-Seven? How do you get to be James Bond? Where do you start? And how do you leave? How does James Bond retire? What happens when he runs out of spies to catch? Does he go back to being Joey Numbnuts?"

As always, I plan to publish a chapter every Tuesday and Friday. I hope you like it. There's not a lot of hot and heavy sex in this one, so if that's what you are looking for, sorry. I'll turn on voting halfway through the story.

Good news for my loyal readers. The new story is finished. Now I simply need to go through the editing process. I have had a huge amount of help from my technical and editing team of jjmcdonald7911, N12614, Old Rotorhead, grynslvr2, and pdkrause. I couldn't do this without their assistance. Right now I am in the final stages, which basically consists of reading the story over and over, looking for typos, technical errors, bad grammar, and continuity errors. I should be able to begin posting the first week of January. At that time, I would expect to post on my normal schedule, a chapter every Tuesday and Friday.

Keep an eye out for a quickie submission. Not my next story. That will be in January.

For those curious, I am still writing. My current project is tentatively titled The Contractor and will probably be published early 2021. This story is going to be considerably different than my last big project. For one thing, the protagonist is not so much a hero as he is an antihero. This is a complex fellow. The sex is minimal, being about the same level as the Grim Reaper series; it is definitely not a stroke story. In addition, this is unlike anything I have written before, and I am not at all sure how it will work out. I am about two-thirds of the way through; also, it's not going to be as long as some of my other stories.

For those curious as to the content, here's snippet from the middle of the story:

"Do you really think James Bond was born James Bond? Or was he actually born Joey Numbnuts and then changed it after he became Double-Oh-Seven? How do you get to be James Bond? Where do you start? And how do you leave? How does James Bond retire? What happens when he runs out of spies to catch? Does he go back to being Joey Numbnuts?"

Anyway, that's the latest. I hope you enjoy it when I finish.