Buzzwords: July 2026

Howdy from North Carolina. We migrated here from Northern Virginia a little over a year ago, and the family is still settling in. The pace is slower, but the cadence isn't.

Looking back through Google Photos, it turns out that the last week of July is when we randomly chose to visit the Carolina coast; either to the Outer Banks for (preferred) Wilmington. That's where I finally saw pitcher plants and fly traps in their native environment. I tried to photo a wasp dancing on the rim of the plant below, but he disappeared when I snapped it. Did it fall in or fly away? I'm not sure. All I know it its gone. Included in the trip was a visit at a Western Sizzlin, a steak restaurant chain I remember as an Arkansas teen that shrank to a handful of stores in North Carolina.

Like many Americans, we celebrated the Fourth, though we learned that the nearby fireworks are easily seen from a Wal-Mart parking lot half a mile away. We watched the National Mall fireworks, which stunned us despite being on TV. I was here for the two-hundredth anniversary, and now the 250th. If I try real hard, I probably still won't make the 300th. But my kids should.

I made headway on the reader magnet now called "The Bargain." It describes a bit of Jake Marion's back story. Jake is the lead in my planned space opera series. I wanted to release it in July, but distractions were butterflies dancing around my head. The cover is being created now, and I should have it finished and released before August ends.

From the Desk:

• I only released one blog post this month. Traveller is one of the oldest role-playing games out there. It's a great resource for sci-fi world-building. And it inspired some of my world-building for Jake.
• I'll be going to The Muse conference in Norfolk in late August.