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Pod of Horror Christmas Story

"O Come All Ye Unfaithful", the Pod of Horror group Christmas story, has begun over at the Justice and Wilbanks Message Board.

The story will be written by Mark Justice, David T. Wilbanks, Matt Cowan, Gregory Montague, Richard Ristow and Cesar Puch. As each section is finished it will be posted at the board, then the final version will be offered as an audio story on Pod of Horror 41 in December.

You can read the opening segment here.

Justice & Wilbanks in The Dead Earth Holiday Rag

Turn up your speakers and prepare to be amazed at the dancing prowess.

New PhattSideDown

PhattSideDown provides the music for Pod of Horror. Now you can check out their new single "War Machine" when you head over to PoH's MySpace page.

Happy Thanksgiving from Hopalong Justice

I’ve been on vacation this week. The plan was to help Norma with Thanksgiving preparations.

You know what they say about plans.

On Sunday I was getting ready for my annual pilgrimage to Cincinnati with my brother and friends to take in a Bengals game. Before I left, Norma and I went out to the barn to retrieve the Christmas decorations. When we started moving the boxes in the overcrowded barn I noticed some liquid on the wooden floor. It turned out that the bottom had broken on a plastic jug of kerosene which we kept for the Tiki torches. I picked up the bottle and tossed it into the yard. Norma called the fire department to ask the best way to clean kerosene from a wooden floor, stressing that this wasn’t an emergency. They said they’d send somebody over.

Sure enough, within five minutes the fire chief arrived, followed by a fire truck with the lights flashing. The five or six firemen (in full gear) unloaded the barn and spread oil dry on the floor. They told us the only thing to do was to let the barn air out all day.

So, to recap: the spill was contained, the firemen dug out the Christmas stuff for me and I could still go to the Bengals game. So far so good, right? This was around 8:30 A.M.

We went to the game. The team sucked. We had beer and chili. Got home around 8:00 P.M.

On the way home my right foot began to ache. I didn’t think much about it. I’m close to 50 and I’m diabetic. Occasionally my feet ache.

Monday I felt fine. The foot was good. I spent the day organizing massive mountains of books into more presentable piles and boxing up thing that could be moved back to the barn. The foot ached a little, but not enough to cause concern.

When I woke up Tuesday the foot really throbbed. It had that tight, hot feeling that comes with a sunburn. I went into the bathroom, turned on the light and examined my foot.

It looked like I had been tortured with a cheese grater.

I went to the emergency room, where the baffled doc was at a loss to explain the injury.

“It looks like a burn,” he said, “so that’s how we’ll treat it.”

They dressed the injury, loaded me up with bandages, antibiotics and pain medication, and told me to keep the foot elevated. I was just happy they sent me home. I had visions of a hospital-cooked Thanksgiving dinner.

When we got home, a friend e-mailed to say it sounded like a chemical burn. Did I spill any of the stuff on my shoe?

I checked. My shoe reeked of kerosene. As I was tossing away the jug a small amount must have dripped on my shoe.

Ladies and gentlemen, I spent all day Sunday slow-roasting my foot with petroleum.

Here’s how it looked yesterday:


Repeated viewings of my foot could be the cure to overeating this holiday season.

Tomorrow I go to the doctor for an update.

Combine the foot fun with last week’s long days at work (to prepare for this productive week at home; dig the irony?), and I haven’t accomplished much on the novel.

Am I deterred? Am I surrendering to fate? Am I slinking away to spend my life on message boards talking about writing instead of doing it?

I say thee nay.

Reaper Road remains very vital, and I hope to prop my foot up near the computer and crank out the words on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I’ll let you know how that goes.

I also have to get the group Christmas story going for the next Pod of Horror and get my notes to the other participants on the Justice-Wilbanks Message board.

Meantime, the family will be showing up soon. The turkey and desserts are done and Norma is working on the side dishes. I have potatoes to peel.

I hope you get to spend the day the way that makes you happy, with the people you most want to be with.

Try to take just a moment to count your blessings.

Me? I’m happy to be surrounded by a great family.

And to not be eating Thanksgiving dinner in the hospital.

A New Interview

Des Reddick interviewed me for the Dread Media podcast, so if you'd like to listen to me ramble on about my writing and Pod of Horror, you can tune in here.

I'll be back later to tell you about Reaper Road and why I went to the ER this morning.

Yakkin' It Up

I had a great time last night on Lair of the Yak. Nick was a great host and I enjoyed the questions (and I was amazed that I got the web cam installed properly).

We ended up doing two 40 minute shows. I almost fell asleep near the end. I had been up since 4:00 a.m. and was starting to feel the effects of a long week and very little sleep. So If I sounded like I'd been drinking, that's why.

The actual drinking will take place today when my brother and I got to the Bengals-Arizona game in Cincinnati.

If you'd like to check out the Yak-tacular show, part one is here. And Part two can be found here.

Pod of Horror #40

Grab your giblets, ‘cause Pod of Horror #40 is here! Here’s what we’ve stuffed the show with this time:

* Brian Hodge shines a light on his dark fiction.

* Thriller writer Robert Liparulo tells us why we should be watching the skies.

* PoH co-founder David T. Wilbanks returns to reveal the real story behind DEAD EARTH: THE GREEN DAWN.

* No news escapes the nose of Nanci in The Call of Kalanta.

* And a bunch of free stuff! We’re thankful you’re listening.

Pod of Horror is produced and hosted by Mark Justice. Download it at I-Tunes or direct to your desktop.

Get Pod of Horror merchandise .

Visit our MySpace page.

And be sure to drop by the Justice & Wilbanks message board

Look For Me on Internet TV

I'll be a guest on Lair of the Yak, an Internet TV show hosted by Nick Cato, the publisher of Deadneck Hootenanny and a fine author in his own right.

You can check it out tomorrow night at 10:00 p.m. eastern right here.

Speaking of Deadneck Hootenanny, another copy is up on E-bay.

A Little Lost

ABC has created new "webisodes" of Lost starring the cast members. They will debut a new one each Monday on their site. The first one was less than riveting, although it's always good to see the fine actor who plays Jack's dad.

Hopefully they'll get better and more meaningful as they go along.

Meanwhile, here's today's word count on Reaper Road:

15,111/80,000

Reaper Road

The last few days haven't been the most productive I've ever had, but the novel continues.

14,101/80,000

Wednesday

Not a lot of writing time today, and when I finally sat down at the computer it was like rolling spaghetti up the side of the Empire State Building. What's the tote board say, Ed?

11,456/80,000

Tuesday Word Count

Not much writing time today, but at least I hit five figures:

10,282/80,000

Monday Update

After reading a message board war that raged over her, I picked up The Keeper by Sarah Langan. it may be the best first novel I've ever read. At least so far. Highly recommended.

Here's today's word count for Reaper Road:

9201/80,000

Sunday

Two brief items for you today.

1) The Bengals suck.

2) Today's Reaper Road word count:

7041/80,000

Saturday

I don't get many Saturdays off, so when I do I like to take advantage of it.

I got in a long walk this morning in the fog (and I should have worn gloves -- it was frakkin' cold), then spent a bit of time reading and answering email.

We went to a retirement party for Norma's uncle who just completed 31 years as an educator. This month marks my 31st year in radio, but does it look like I get to retire anytime soon? Nooooo.

Later I submitted a short story to a fairly new market.

And I had a fairly good day on Reaper Road. Here's today's count:

5174/80,000

The Biggest Loser

Is it Larry King or Jerry Seinfeld?

King looks like a clueless old man just going through the motions. Seinfeld looks like a dick who, despite his fame and incredible wealth, takes things way too seriously.

You decide.

Tonight's Word Count

Day 2 of Reaper Road saw a little progress. Not as much as I wanted, but I got to envision a Richter Scale for farts. That made it all worthwhile. Total:

3146/80,000

NaNoWriMo

That's National Novel Writing Month to you and me.

It started today. I'm not officially signed up, but I'm committed to doing it anyway. Kind of like being a believer without going to church, I suppose.

For the moment we're going to pretend like I haven't started several novels and abandoned them. I consider them my WMDs. And like the President, I ain't talkin' about 'em.

Instead, I've girded my loins (kids, don't try this at home) and set fingers to keyboard. Despite my crazy schedule I'm going to try to find the time to write a novel this month. And I'll be honest with you: weekends and the week of Thanksgiving are going to have to be massively productive.

Just to crank up the pressure and chance of abject humiliation I'll try to post a word count here every day.

The novel is called Reaper Road. Here's how today went:

2071/80,000