As If You Need More Things To Read...

For a long time now, I've had this idea about starting a blog. Not this blog, not blowing it up and starting all over again; I mean starting a different blog, something that had a different focus from my random musings about life, or what movie I just saw, etc. What I've been thinking about was a blog about sports, one where I dish out some brutal truth about the world of sports as I see it.

Well, I finally got around to getting that ball rolling. This past week I launched The Disgruntled Fan Report and posted the first essay, about the new college football playoff system. (For the record, I'm agin it!) Right now the site is in a most primitive state. I'm working on some banner art for the top of the page, to at least make things look distinctive. Right now it's a free site on WordPress's servers, but I'm expecting to eventually take it live on its own domain on its own hosting, which will help me gussy up the thing. For the moment, the chief focus is on grinding out copy.

I'm going to try to make this a weekly thing, a site where I issue at least one column per week on whatever seems to be the best topic out there at the moment. This will require a certain amount of discipline on my part--always a dicey prospect--and an ability to consistently come up with good ideas. I believe one idea a week is not too big a challenge; I've already written this coming week's piece, and the next week's work is now on the drawing board. I wrote commentaries on a similar schedule on my very first website back in the day, and that didn't run out of steam until well after a year, so I'm hopeful that the new project, with it's narrower focus (easier to stay current and relevant that way), will last at least that long. Hopefully, it will be a long-term thing--and maybe, just maybe, it will somehow grow into another career.

So if you've got a taste for some quality sports commentary, click on over to The Disgruntled Fan Report. I will greatly appreciate your patronage.

Accomplishment

Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Cat Did What?

Well, the day has finally arrived. August 19 marked the publication of the new book, Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Cat Did What? Normally, that would not particularly pique my interest, but this ain't normal. This new book includes my story, "The Marks of a Lasting Love" (pg. 172), and it represents my first paid writing effort. Hopefully the first of many to come. The check should arrive sometime in the next month or so; $200 big ones. I could get used to this whole writing thing.

The story tells the tale of the one and only time we tried to give our first cat, WT, a bath, and how that led to me winding up in the emergency room at the local hospital. A good story, if I may say so myself, and it is a sincere tribute to my dearly departed kitty and the legacy that she left in my life.

I had to wait a whole year from submission to today, when the book finally hit the stores. I did get 10 author's copies (all gone now, save one I kept for myself) for free, so that's another good thing about it. I haven't read any of the stories other than my own (so far I've been too busy) but I'm guessing that they're probably all quite entertaining and worth a read.

Better yet, this won't be the only thing I get published this year. Another story, "Giving Thanks for the Big Birds," is scheduled to appear in the November issue of the magazine Watching Backyard Birds. I get a year's subscription to that periodical, no money for publication, but it is another credit, and hopefully will help grease the skids towards more writings of mine gaining acceptance with paying publications. (I currently have drafts of two pieces written right now, with the concepts for two others worked out in my head and partially written up in notes.)

So things be movin'. Let's hope I can sustain the momentum for a while longer. Like, say, the rest of my life. Excelsior.

Authorship

Be it here announced that I have just published the third work of writing to go into my collection on Scribd. The latest piece, Bunts, Baseball, and the Virtue of Small Steps, is a study/rumination on baseball and life, and strategies thereupon for both. It's a brief little essay, and hopefully worth a few people's time. Check it out, if you feel like it (follow the link above).

Publication Note

malchats media

I have just this week posted a newly updated version of my essay "The Champs/Chumps Ratio," this time on my self-publishing feed malchats media at scribd.com. This new update covers events through this spring, including the Mavericks unlikely NBA championship, as well as provides expanded statistical evidence for the original essay's thesis (that the NBA is far and away the worst of the major professional sports leagues for competitive balance). Give it a look if you have a few.

Read All About It

I have started a new self-publishing venture, a sister project to this blog that goes by the name MalchatsMedia, utilizing the forum of the Scribd website. I have now posted the first of my efforts, the humorous essay My Visit To Lotteryville, to my documents feed. You can read the work yourself by visiting my corner of Scribd: go to www.scribd.com/malchatsmedia to see the piece. You can either read it online, or download the PDF to read it at your leisure. Give it a look if you get the chance.

Publication Sensation

My essay The Champs/Chumps Ratio has been published in the new edition of the online 'zine teemings. Throw me a bone and click on over to take a look. I thank you in advance.

Writings

I've posted a couple of diary entries over at Daily Kos recently. In the interest of full access, here's a couple of links to those pieces:

Baseball the size of hail

Streets Paved With Zinc

There will also be a link here to my piece, "The Champs-Chumps Ratio," which will be in the upcoming issue of the e-zine teemings. I'll post a link to that when it is up and available.

Further cross-reference links will show up in the blog whenever I write something for another outlet.