Fall in New England is a sight to behold. This year is a particularly good one for leaf peeping, but I think that most every year. Everybody should experience the spectacle of the changing colors at least once. Pumpkins are popping up on porches, seemingly on every doorstep. Many changes are afoot, and October is the epicenter for this transformation. 

The past few days have been most productive ones for me. Content is pouring out of me. I've made three new posts to my Patreon Creator Page in as many days. I am halfway through another special post, a Dark News Post. It will be an interview with The Priest of LADY LUCK HAS LEFT THE BUILDING fame. Dark News Posts are about telling the rest of the story between the lines, and this next one will do that and so much more. The post will hit my Patreon page in the next two weeks. It's taking shape quite nicely, and I like it when a plan comes together. 

I've even had time to write more regarding my fantasy works in progress. I completed a couple more chapters of my Christmas fantasy tale, and the story about an astronaut who explores a black-hole phenomenon filled with a nest of Diluvians, an alien race of supernatural beings. All I can say is I've been a god of production this past week. The changing leaves has topped my accomplishments with a juicy cherry. 

I do listen to a wide variety of music. My mixes encompass everything from jazz like Louis Armstrong and Etta James to death metal such as Marduk and Deicide and all parts in between. For me, regarding music, variety is the spice of life. Now, Tammy Wynette is belting out, "Stand By Your Man." What can I say? The ups and downs of the tempos and genres trips my trigger and keeps my brain firing on all cylinders! 

What makes one week more productive than another? An interesting question for which I don't have a pat answer. I guess the short of it is life itself and how it affects me. I'm an adventurous soul at heart. When life plops a wondrous adventure at my feet, my creative juices respond in kind. These escapades don't have to be exotic or bizarre, but that certainly helps. Sometimes the simplest and smallest things amaze the most. I wake up every day(well, afternoon) and expect that day(more like evening and night) to be the best one of my life. Not every day can be the ultimate experience of a lifetime, but I find by demanding happiness, most days bring me a great measure of joy. I try not to miss opportunities for delight when they present themselves. Most days I find reasons for celebration, just some days are uniquely joyful. Those are the days where everything falls into place just right. I've had a few of those in a row. How lucky for me not to have let them pass into the daylight without taking them for a spin! 

Well, I guess, to quote one of my favorite radio commentators from my childhood, "Now, you know the rest of the story!" At least, all the news that's fit to print at the moment. There's pumpkins to gawk at and colorful leaves to drink into my senses. Be cool and don't miss out on the small things in your lives by only looking for big things!

It is the beginning of October, one of my favorite months. Before long, Halloween will pounce on us. To be sure, the month of Halloween is always a good one. Then Thanksgiving will ram into us, and the month of Christmas will follow. Where did the year go? 

This past weekend was a dandy. My friends descended from Vermont and the more rural parts of New Hampshire upon my home. My wife is a peach for not minding the invasion, or at least not showing any dismay, if indeed the five or six incursions each year do not bother her sensibilities. I'm sure my friends don't ruffle her feathers. Nobody, not even my sweet wife, could keep a happy-face going for thirty-one years if it wasn't a heartfelt happy-face. Let's give a loud, "Hip-hip-hurrah," for all those, including my sweetie-pie, who are feathered within!

As I believe I've already mentioned, or at least, I've written about somewhere if not on this blog itself, I run a role-playing game that has transformed over the course of forty-one years to become the inspiration and backbone for my DANCES OF DELIVERANCE saga. My four buds, and I, The Dungeon Master, or D.UM., as we refer to it. My late friend, bless his immortal soul, coined that term back in the early days. The players are now Gods and playing out the endgame of the forty-plus year, epic arc. 

Gaming was particularly cool this past weekend. A barrier of paradox sits in the middle, separating two Cosmik schemes or realities. One, controlled by The Nine Diluvian Gods, whose concept was introduced in my mid-length story, LADY LUCK HAS LEFT THE BUILDING, is on one side of The Paradoxical Barrier. The other, much newer and within which the player characters have formed a pantheon of ten Gods they call The Unity, is on the other side of Paradox. 

The players' mission was to form a relationship with this barrier for the purpose of traveling back and forth between the two realities. The player characters decided to become one with the inner workings of the barrier. Their thought was to get Paradox to accept them by becoming a part of it. Ultimately, they need to find a way to cease the existence of The Diluvian Gods before those Divine Entities do just that to them and their Cosmik scheme. Their ultimate goal won't be a walk in the park because their enemy controls time, but that is a complicated story best left for another day. 

One thing led to another, and the player characters ended up self-actualizing the inner workings of the barrier. They found a pathway to befriending the data of the barrier, and to importing some of their own DNA, creating a new being with its own DNA and all that entails. This entity calls herself Paradox. She went back to the cradles of The Unity with her ten clones. The next gaming session in three weeks, the last one of the year, should prove to be most interesting. That weekend will be a worthy conclusion of a tremendous year of gaming. 

It just occurred to me, you might not be familiar with my term, "feathered within." Since my high school days, I've been enamored with chickens and created my own folklore around chickens. Since I thought of chickens as being the filthiest and most unruly of the animal kingdom, I carried a plunger with a rubber chicken impaled on it my friends called, The Sacred Plunger. I carried it wherever I went, including when I hiked up every mountain of The Green and Adirondack Mountains. On top of peaks, I would wave it at the sky and hex for rain. Much to the chagrin of my hiking pals, and much to my surprise, most of the time, it would actually rain. Yea, even when the day began without a cloud in the sky, the shit would eventually pour down upon our sorry asses! 

Some years into my journey as The Chicken Man, a buddy of mine and fellow Chicken Warrior, coined the term, "feathered within." I sat on my porch with him, discussing the issues of the day. Porches have always been places of inspired contemplation for me. Out of the blue, which how these things generally go, my bud declared himself to be such a chicken that he was "feathered within!" He felt, instead of blood, chicken feathers coursed through his veins. I liked the notion and immediately embraced it. Oh, so many years ago, and still it seems just like yesterday. My, how Time marches on!

Well, I guess that's all folks. I'll leave you with one last thought, embrace the rain because it's an inevitability you can't avoid. Besides, when it rains, the evil Sun can't shine its fetid light upon us!

This has been a week to beat the band. My productivity has been off the chain! This is my second blog post this week. I also posted two new Passing Thoughts to my Thought Train, The Power Of Conjuration and The Crazy Little Thing Called Sentience. Whether you're a gamer, reader, writer, or lover of fantasy, you should find those posts of interest. 

I also posted some new material on my Patreon Creator Page, which is developing quite nicely. If you're interested in checking it out, click the Contact/Patron Info button on the home page of this website. Then, scroll down to "Become A Patron," click the Patreon "P" symbol/button, and be transported into another aspect of my brand of dark fantasy. Becoming a Patron of mine has rewards beyond reading my stories and posts on this website and Twitter. If you want more of what I have to offer, be sure to check out my Patreon Creator Page!

My wife is a crafty sort and a woman of many talents. Not only does she paint the covers of my dark tales, she devises the coolest art projects. For our thirty-first wedding anniversary, she made me a decorative jar of purple lights. Now, my porch has a purple glow. How cool is that, writing by purple light! 

I've always been a fan of purple. The walls of our hobby shop, The Hobby Stop, were painted different shades of purple. Thanks for adding to the memories, Dear! 

The summer is just about over, and if you ask me, not a wit too soon. I'm not a fan of sunshine or heat, which only worsens the pain of my degenerative spinal condition. Fall is almost upon us and then winter, my favorite season. At least in regards to my chronic pain, against the tide of common thinking on the subject, it doesn't hurt worse in the cold. Cold has a numbing affect on my pain.  

I love everything about winter; the snow, lack of sunshine, and especially the holiday that kicks winter off with a bang, Christmas. I begin my preparations for that holiday of holidays in late October. You can never have too much Christmas! I'm in the process of writing a Christmas fantasy story. Its working title is "That Spirit Of Christmas." It won't be finished until sometime next year. So far, I like the tempo of the story and the way it is coming out. In the coming months, my Patrons will get to read snippets of the tale as I post completed chapters for them to peruse.  

There is so much to be enthusiastic about. The engines of my thought trains are firing on all cylinders, and things are progressing much faster than planned. In the weeks and months to come, my Fans, Followers, and Patrons will have a cornucopia of dark fantasy to sink their teeth into. For now, all I have to say is, "ROCK ON!" to the long, cool woman in a black dress.