08 July 2025

Get Away to Recharge


A view from the porch last year.

I am writing this one week before it posts, as Temple and I are preparing to visit Hot Springs, Arkansas, over the Independence Day weekend. We will be staying in a VRBO on the Ouachita River, our third Independence Day weekend visit to this location in four years. During the two previous visits, I spent much of my time sitting near the river with my laptop computer, working on various short stories. (“Working Vacation” [Tough, March 2, 2025] was inspired by the location and written during our first visit.)

We eat most of our meals at the house, but we found a German restaurant (Steinhaus Keller) that surpasses any we’ve come across elsewhere, so we plan at least one meal there. We also found a hole-in-the-wall burger joint (Bailey’s Dairy Treat) that we like to visit at least once during our stay.

There are two other locations we might visit this year, both new to us—Black Ribbon Books, located in the historic Arlington Hotel, and the Garven Gardens Trains, a garden with four separate scale-model train layouts running through it.

Even so, sightseeing and dining out aren’t why we make the six-hour drive. We go to get away from daily life, to relax in a way we cannot at home.

Temple and I take other trips throughout the year—we did a whirlwind weekend trip to Chicago in mid-June, often take one-day and two-day road trips around Texas, and attend various conferences and conventions (together when we can)—but as enjoyable as those trips are, I’d be hard-pressed to call them relaxing. The closest any of our other trips come to the relaxation level of Hot Springs is the annual fall trip when we rent a VRBO with Andrew and Dawn Hearn. Sometimes Andrew and I write or talk writing—“When Sin Stops” (Weren’t Another Other Way To Be) resulted from a discussion at one of these getaways—but mostly the four of us just hang out.

And that’s something I think writers need to do—take time to relax, chill out, do little or nothing away from the hustle and bustle of daily life, and recharge the batteries.

I know I return home refreshed after our Hot Springs trips and our fall weekend trips with Andrew and Dawn. Maybe it’s time to schedule more trips like this.

* * *

Another writing milestone crept up on me when I wasn’t paying attention. Sometime recently I sold my 1,300th short story. If yesterday’s count is correct, I’ve now sold 1,307 original stories and sold reprint or other subsidiary rights 205 times.

These numbers are always a bit spongy. I can verify publication of 1,029 original stories. The other 278 originals are either scheduled for future publication or were sold to publications that never provided contributor copies. Same for the reprint and other subsidiary rights sales: I can verify 181 of them; the other 24 are either scheduled for future publication or sold to publications that did not provide contributor copies.

* * *

“Renovated to Death,” co-authored with Sandra Murphy, appeared in Black Cat Weekly 198, June 15, 2025. This is our sixth collaboration.

“Penalty for Early Withdrawal” appears in the July/August issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.


3 comments:

  1. While going somewhere isn't really an option for me, for a variety of reasons, I continue to live vicariously through these posts from you here and on Facebook. Every single one always looks great.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UPDATE: We never made it to the bookstore, but the Garvin Gardens could have been an entire day trip by itself (the trains were fun!), and might be someday in the future. Temple and I were able to relax, and I roughed out two stories while sitting by the river. We're already discussing a return visit next Independence Day.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Impressive sales figures, Michael. I had to look up VRBO, but I had my own relaxing July 4th weekend, staying away from the crowded beach, overpriced restaurants, and designer shops of what most people think of as The Hamptons and staying at the unpretentious end, my own scrubby half acre and 800 square foot house, filled with peace and quiet, flowers on the deck, and birds at the feeders. This morning I conjured up a goldfinch with a simple honeydew spell: "Honey, do put a little nyger seed in with the black oil sunflower seed—the goldfinches love it." It's true: if you pour it, they will come.

    ReplyDelete

Welcome. Please feel free to comment.

Our corporate secretary is notoriously lax when it comes to comments trapped in the spam folder. It may take Velma a few days to notice, usually after digging in a bottom drawer for a packet of seamed hose, a .38, her flask, or a cigarette.

She’s also sarcastically flip-lipped, but where else can a P.I. find a gal who can wield a candlestick phone, a typewriter, and a gat all at the same time? So bear with us, we value your comment. Once she finishes her Fatima Long Gold.

You can format HTML codes of <b>bold</b>, <i>italics</i>, and links: <a href="https://about.me/SleuthSayers">SleuthSayers</a>