New story coming out, bird rescue drama, and more (Weekend Coffee Share #2)

Good morning and happy Saturday! Welcome to my second post for the Weekend Coffee Share. Grab the beverage of your choice, get comfortable, and let’s chat. It’s Saturday morning as I write this, so let’s pretend we’re sitting on the back patio, smelling the roses and watching the bees work the cinnamon basil flowers.

In last week’s post, I told you about our drive to Madera Canyon, but that was only half of our weekend adventures. I’ll tell you the other half in a minute, but first:

Big news: my story will be on a podcast!

I have a short story coming out as a radio play! It’s due out sometime this month on the Storyteller Series podcast. Here’s the podcast, embedded from Spotify (note that the embed below displays the most current episode, which is not my story, because my story isn’t up yet). You can find it on other podcast aggregators too.

It’ll have voice actors and everything. SQUEEEEE!!!!

Yes, I’m just a little bit excited.

The story is called, “Open House.” A very pregnant Portland woman and her husband are looking for their first home and visit an open house. He loves it. She doesn’t. She just wants to go home and get off her feet. The house has other ideas.

The episode is in production now. I’ll post a big announcement when it’s up–and probably squee so loudly, even readers in other hemispheres will hear me. Brace yourselves, Australians.

Did I mention I’m a little excited?

Weekend Rescue Mission

Now, back to the exciting weekend event: we rescued a baby bird!

So I’m sitting at the computer Sunday morning, working away at editing a short story (A sweet romance, so no sex or cussing. Quite a stretch for me.), when I hear the dog door flap–and a whole bunch of frantic tweeting. What the !@#$%?

The tweeting continues–all the way through the den and into the living room. My undercaffeinated brain finally makes the connection, and I dash into the living room. The bird goes silent. Maddie the Lunkheaded Greyhound is sniffing around her bed, focusing on the space between the loveseat and the couch. Oh, crap.

Here’s a gratuitous picture of Maddie the Lunkheaded Greyhound:

It was taken this morning, because I’m not the sort of person to stop in the middle of a rescue operation to take a picture. Give me a little credit.

Don’t let her lazy impersonation of a rug fool you. Maddie is a retired racing dog who was once clocked on a radar gun at 35 mph–after she retired. She once bit the head off a goose. I kid you not. I probably should have renamed her Ozzy.

Anyway. Back to the bird rescue.

We left off with Maddie sniffing around the back of the loveseat and your intrepid and undercaffeinated blogger making the brilliant deduction that the bird was behind that very same loveseat. Yes, I know, Sherlock Holmes has nothing on me.

So I yell for my husband, who controls Maddie while I pull the loveseat back to reveal a tiny nestling, huddled against the wall. Husband scoops it up and pops it into a paper shopping bag. I call the Tucson Wildlife Center. Maddie looks disappointed.

Here’s a pic of the pitiful little thing (the bird, not the disappointed greyhound), huddled in the corner of a Trader Joe’s bag:

Half an hour later, we’re handing off the bird to the Wildlife Center staff, who tell us it looks like a house sparrow. Our best guess is it fell out of the nest, and Maddie brought it in the house for a little unsanctioned snacking. Maddie always carries her treats to her bed, gently and lovingly, before chomping down on them. Quite the monster, that one.

But this little dude escaped the Murderous Greyhound Jaws of Death, because while Maddie may be a ferocious predator, she’s also too stupid to find anything that isn’t a) running in front of her, or b) literally under her nose. She must have tripped over the poor thing or else he probably would have become Purina Hawk Chow ™ in our backyard.

Good luck, little dude. May the odds be ever in your favor.

Other bits of news

I’m working on a short story to submit to the annual IWSG anthology (which is why I, the foulmouthed Outlander and Stephen King fangirl, am attempting to write sweet romance. The odds are not in my favor.) and my application for the Storyknife retreat for women writers. I also need to get back to editing my second novel and querying my first. Busy, busy, busy!

What I’m reading

Books

Crank It Out!: The Surefire Way to Become a Super-Productive Writer – by C. S. Lakin. Let’s hope the subtitle isn’t hype, because I need all the help I can get.

Dark Duets: All-New Tales of Horror and Dark Fantasy – edited by Christopher Golden. A collection of short stories written by pairs of writers, all collaborating for the first time. I’m about a third of the way through, and every story has been excellent.

Blogs

I’m having a fabulous time reading blogs from other people who do this Weekend Coffee Share thing. I’ve also been reading a good bit about author blogs (Am I doing this right? Am I? Gah! says the insecure writer). If you share my insecurities, check out:

• Is Blogging Worthwhile for Thriller and Mystery Writers? – by Garry Rodgers on the Kill Zone blog
• Your Author Blog: What Should an Author Blog About? – by the fabulous Anne R. Allen, who literally wrote the book on author blogs.

Laugh of the Week

And finally, because if you can’t leave ’em wanting more, at least leave ’em laughing, I bring you the funniest meme I’ve seen all week:

Any demon who possessed me would be begging for an exorcism, just to relieve the boredom.

How about y’all? Have any fun weekend plans? I’ll be writing, camera shopping, pulling weeds, and cleaning. See what I mean about the boredom? Please tell me you’re doing something more interesting than that.