I finished polishing the new short story (final count: 4100 words) and delivered it to the person who solicited it this morning. When I say “finished” I mean: I forced myself to stop revising it, which is about the same thing when it comes to writing.
Seven years ago, Brian Freeman and I embarked on a project for Cemetery Dance called The Illustrated Stephen King Trivia Book. It’s really a cross between a trivia book and a quiz book. We asked members of the SKEMERs e-mail group to send us questions and answers, along with references so we could easily confirm the answers. Brian and I then wrote a bunch more questions on our own and I wrote hints for each question that usually aren’t terribly helpful and often contain more trivia instead of clues to the answers.
A unique aspect of the book was that it was profusely illustrated by Glenn Chadbourne, and the illustrations are themselves trivia quiz questions. The book was so successful that it was reviewed by Harriet Klausner. It also sold out. Are the two related? May-be.
Earlier this year, we decided to update the book to cover everything that had been released since 2005. So, here it is, the Revised & Updated second edition, with over a hundred new questions and ten new Chadbourne illustrations. Plus a new afterword by Kev Quigley. The standard edition is a $20 trade paperback, but for hardcover aficionados, there will be a signed/limited hardcover edition, but it’s only on sale for 30 days. You can see some of the new illustrations at the link. Click the “Artwork” tab.
The antepenultimate episode of The Closer last night was a shocker. The murder itself was bad enough, creating a rift between the police department and the church and inspiring more “Pope” jokes than absolutely necessary (if you’re not familiar with the show, the chief of police’s name is Pope), but then there was an unforeseen event in the final moments that will be sure to have significant repercussions next week. I say unforeseen, but I had a sense of dread when Brenda headed toward the room in question and I was pretty sure what had happened the moment she opened the door. The open question (other than “Who’s the Mole?”) is: Why will Brenda no longer be associated with Major Crimes? We know she won’t be, because there’s a spin-off with her team led by Captain Raydor. Will she be killed? Will she quit or be fired? Will she take Will’s advice and apply for a new job elsewhere, perhaps to look after her father? We shall soon see!
