Things to Do in Denver When Your Novel Has Been Submitted

Markhat fans, rejoice, for the new book is off to the good people at Samhain Publishing.

Which means I (and you, yes, both of you) get to wait for the verdict. Will Brown River Queen be accepted, and soon take its place as Book 7 of the Markhat series? Or will Brown River Queen be judged lacking, and consigned to the 'Thanks-but-no-thanks' pile?

In fact, did the email with the book attachments ever get there at all? Sure, I sent the email. That is, I think I did. But what if the attachments have already been corrupted? What if my outgoing email server ate the whole thing? What if I just think I sent it, when in reality there's an editor out there who just received a Word file containing nothing but the letters E, I, and M?

I kid, of course. And no, I did NOT just check my Sent Mail folder. I am far more evolved than that, and in any case, you can't see me.

So, while I await word on Markhat's new adventure, I'm already underway with the sequel to All the Paths of Shadow.  And with any luck I'll get my podcast up and running soon too.

Of course, that's along with replacing the clutch in my motorcycle and putting new brake pads on Karen's Suzuki and keeping the jungle from overtaking the house and fighting crime in the dead of night. Although frankly I may have to cut back on the crime-fighting bit -- I'm spending a fortune on capes and pain relievers, and I keep falling asleep at the wheel of the Tutmobile.

It's a never-ending whirlwind of excitement, is the writer's life.

I'd like to thank my brave and heroic beta reader Kellie Bagne, who has the eyes of an eagle and spectacular grasp of grammar. She found eight pages of typos and problem areas in the rough draft. I found one, mainly because the hood of my crime-fighting costume keeps falling down over my eyes.

So wish me luck! I'll keep you all posted as quickly as word comes in. Also wish me luck with the new book!

Thanks!

Breaking the Law

One of the rare delights of being a fantasy author is taking a good hard look at the immutable laws of physics and, after careful and studied consideration, thumbing one's nose at them.

With the exception of the Wistril stories, I'm not one to have a wizard wave a staff and lay waste to whole landscapes. No, I prefer for my magic to make some sort of sense -- after all, the kinetic energy required to lay the aforementioned waste had to come from somewhere, right? If not, well, there goes Conflict, right out the window, because if my wizard can flatten armies with a wave and a word, what problems does he really have?

I tried to base the magic in All the Paths of Shadow on a feature of our world with which I am familiar. Electricity. Electrical current. The 'holdstones' Meralda uses are magical batteries. In her universe, magic flows like electricity, using many of the same conductors, in fact. That's why she's always winding copper wires around things.

And it's also why she can't mutter a few mystical words and send enemies flying. Yes, she can build marvelous devices, but they have limits. She has to be smarter than the bad guys.

Since I just finished the new Markhat book, and I'm letting a talented and fearless Beta reader have a look, I've dived right into my next book, which will be the sequel to All the Paths of Shadow.


Entitled All The Turns of Light, this new book will chronicle the further adventures of Meralda and Mug, as they take to the skies in a truly massive airship I am now designing.

I'll post drawings when I draw some I'm not ashamed of.  But that's not what I'm here to crow about.

Here's the deal. I need my airship, the HMS Intrepid, to be capable of a non-stop one-way voyage of some twenty-five thousand miles.

As you might imagine, that presents a few engineering problems, even if the story takes place in a world where magic works.

Now, airships aren't anything new to Meralda's world. I mention them frequently in the first book. It's even stated they've been flying passengers and cargo about for fifty years. They use 'lifting gas' which is obviously hydrogen, and they move using 'fans,' which are obviously propellers. I didn't go much deeper than that because we never boarded one in All the Paths of Shadow.


But the airships were always on my mind. I established that Meralda was familiar with steam engines. Heck,  she invented the electric motor on her world, along with electric lights. So we have access to steam engines and electricity. Still, what drove the airships, I wondered?

The Realms don't have petroleum. I considered and rejected alcohol based combustion engines as too inefficient. Steam engines are also out -- heating that much water to those pressures requires lots and lots of onboard fuel, and when your choices are wood or coal, you're in trouble.

I was leaning toward electric motors running on straight-up batteries when a better idea popped into my head.

And here it is!

The Intrepid's fans are powered by steam engines. But instead of boilers and heaps of coal, they're using what we would call quantum entanglement, which works like this:

Cast a hollow steel block with very thick walls, an inlet, and a steam escape valve. Call it Boiler A.

Using magic, pair this with an second block, which is identical in design and dimensions. We'll call this Boiler B.

The magical pairing is an expensive and meticulous undertaking, and it's why the Steam Guild is so wealthy.

Now, the fun part. Fill Engine B with water and heat it, burning coal or wood or the angry emails I'll get from environmentalists about burning coal. In our universe, Boiler B would boil, while boiler A sat there and looked confused.

But in Meralda's world of magic, if you build a fire under Boiler B, it's Boiler A that actually heats up.


So yes, something must be burned to generate the heat. And yes, there are losses involved in the transference from B to A.

But the airship Intrepid can take to the skies without having to haul a few hundred tons of coal around. And I feel like this 'works,' because I'm only cheating a little bit.

It's entirely possible that only a hardcore geek could get excited about applying the Law of Similarity to a fictional airship engine. But I'm a geek and proud, baby!

So be on the lookout for a new Markhat novel and a new Meralda and Mug! And by the way, if you haven't read All the Paths of Shadow yet, it's only $3.99 at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Okay, back to work for me!

The Zen of Editing

If you've been wondering what Frank is doing these days and you guessed 'a brief stay in the Lafayette County Detention Facility,' well, you'd be wrong.

I've been editing. As I mentioned in my last blog post, I finished the first draft of the new Markhat novel, BROWN RIVER QUEEN.

Sure, there was wild celebration. About eight minutes of it. Because finishing a first draft gets writing the first draft out of the way, true, but it also ushers in the next phase of the process, which is the edit and re-write stage. Or, as I call it, the 'Flaying off my own skin with a rusty butter knife' stage.

First drafts are, for me anyway, limping, misshapen things. Let's say I forget the name of a street I mentioned 34 pages ago. I don't stop and go back and look -- I just type ****, which is my code for 'Go back and look this up, doofus.'

Same for the names of minor characters. The wine steward from Chapter 4? ****.  The date, if I've lost track of it? ****.

All those **** entries have to be cleaned up. Spell-check has to run.  I do my own searches on the words I habitually screw up -- discrete and discreet, I'm looking at you two. I also run searches on the characters I tend to transpose.

Then comes the re-read. Here I'm looking for repetition. Bad alliteration. Dialog tags that repeat or don't fit or are missing altogether. Plot holes. Subplots I may have started and then dropped. Notes I wrote to myself and stuck in the manuscript and forgot about. The last thing you want to do is leave an editor scratching her head over entries such as 'Make RT kr.ull w/o 9 of the thing.' You don't want to bring undue attention to the fact that you're making this stuff up as you go.

So yeah. It gets messy.

All this before I ever consider sending the manuscript out. In fact, I like to do all this more than once, because it's so easy to miss things. I know what I meant to write, and my traitorous lazy brain sees those words, and not the ones my fingers actually typed.

This time around, though, I've added a new practice to my usual round or re-reads and edits. For the frist time, I'm having my PC read the whole book, from start to end, aloud to me, while I turn away from the screen and jot down notes by hand on a notepad.

Word 2010 has a built-in speech function. I wish I had Word 2010. Word 2010 runs about one hundred and twenty bucks. Instead, I have Word 2007, which is 2010's mute sire. So I found a free text-to-speech program on CNET called Hal Text-to-Speech Reader, and I'm using that.

I pull up the actual Word file and copy an entire chapter. Then I paste that into Hal and grab my notepad. It's slow, even after setting the read rate to just below AUCTIONEER INSANE, but wow is it effective.

I've already read through the whole thing twice, and was feeling pretty good about the state of the manuscript-- until Hal started reading to me, in her robotic flat voice. Mistakes that sailed right past my eyes leaped out screaming in my ears.

Here are a few examples, taken straight my my notepad:

twenty of more (should have been twenty or more)
isn't hat right (should have been isn't that right)
is a good as (should have been is as good as)
to and from (should have been to and fro)

Those are hard to catch, when they're hiding in several hundred pages of text. But my ears caught them with no trouble at all.

I am weary of the robotic voice and the complete lack of inflection, though. And the often hilarious pronunciation of words and names I made up myself.

But it's still a good system.

The edits on BROWN RIVER QUEEN are going quickly, all things considered.

In other news, if you wanted to grab a copy of my YA fantasy book ALL THE PATHS OF SHADOW but  also wanted to wait for the price to fall, you're in luck! You can get the e-book from either Amazon or Barnes & Noble or the publisher for only $3.99, which is six bucks off the former price.

Here are some links, so click away!

All the Paths of Shadow at Amazon for your Kindle

All the Paths of Shadow at Barnes & Noble for your Nook

All the Paths of Shadow at Cool Well Press in any format

Chalk Up Another One

It is done.

I speak of the new Markhat book, BROWN RIVER QUEEN. I just added the words THE END to the first draft.

Another novel. Seventy-odd thousand of what I believe to be the right words. Written at a time of my life when frankly I'm surprised I was able to write at all.

I love this book. Maybe I've hit my stride at last. Maybe I've gotten to know the characters and Markhat's world so well I'm finally able to show it with clarity to you, the reader.

Maybe I just got lucky.

Whatever the case, I love this book. It's got thrills and chills and surprises. Long-time Markhat fans, who've been along for the whole ride, are going to learn some new things, and understand some familiar faces a lot better.

Now keep in mind I've haven't sold BROWN RIVER QUEEN yet. In this business, there are no sure things. But a part of me is absolutely certain this new book will be accepted, because yeah, it's that good.

I spent yesterday re-reading big chunks of it, getting ready to write the epic dust-up at the end. I'll be honest with you -- more than once, I read a portion, and was honestly amazed that those words came from my rather addled and dysfunctional brain. Seriously, folks, it's a mess in here. Did I really write that?

Now the real work begins. A first draft is just the beginning. There will  be re-readings. There will be re-writes. A couple of people out there are going to be heartily sick of BROWN RIVER QUEEN before anything hits an editor's desk.

And, assuming the book sells, then will come more of the same. Re-reads. Re-writes. Line edits. Did I have the sun rise on page 134 and again on page 136, even though only six hours had passed? Was Markhat wearing a black hat on 98, and a grey one on 101? Did I spell grey gray or grey? Did I use stair or stairs consistently throughout?

But I'll do all that work, and I'll do it gladly, because that is the only way to put out a book worth its price.

I may never get rich at this game.

BROWN RIVER QUEEN may never sell a million copies. May never be made into a big-budget movie.

But by gum, it will be a good book. And people will read it, and say to themselves at the end "That was a darned good book."

And that's the highest praise I can conceive.

The End.

Twitter Versus Word

I've noticed an odd inverse relationship between my fiction writing output and my social media involvement.

When I'm really churning out fiction, my Tweets and blogs and FB updates dwindle to nothing, or nearly so. And when I'm writing at a crawl -- paragraphs a day, and not many of those -- I'm racking up tweets and FB posts and blog entries by the dozen.

Right now I'm on a writing roll, cranking out the last of the new Markhat novel in good solid bursts. I don't think I've been on Twitter since the middle of last week. I know I haven't blogged since last Sunday.

When I considered this just now, my first thought was 'Well, I was busy, with the real work.'

But was I?

I mean sure, I was busy. Busy writing, which is good, because if I don't get some new books out pretty quick people will forget who I am and I'll be starting from proverbial Square One when I do have a new title to sell.

But could it be I'm also harming myself as an author by neglecting the various social media?

I'm a bit envious of mid to late 20th century authors, who never had to ponder such questions. They wrote books. Maybe they did a few bookstore signings, and if they were lucky a few newspaper interviews.

Earnest Hemingway never had to look at a clock and decide whether to hit Twitter for an hour before supper or just keep on working on the new chapter.

No, I'm not comparing myself to Hemingway. For one thing, I don't have any cats. I also don't see any shotguns in my future. But my time to write is limited by unavoidable circumstance -- do I limit it even further just trying to maintain scant visibility in a sea of new titles and authors?

It's not that I don't enjoy hanging out on Twitter, understand. I do. I could do it all day, much in the same way I could play 'Skyrim' all day. But my internal auditor frowns at such pursuits because, he notes, "I'm not that young to begin with and I'm certainly not getting any younger."

So I feel guilty if I don't write. That's a good thing, one it's taken me years to construct.

Now I feel guilty, or at least a ghostly facsimile thereof, If I'm not blogging and tweeting. I'm not so sure as to the efficacy of this feeling. For all I know, it's my perpetually lazy subconscious trying to trick me into getting on Twitter and out of work. Because that's just the kind of sneaky crap my innermost self would love to pull.

So I've compromised. I'm blogging. Whining, really, but that counts.

BROWN RIVER QUEEN is very nearly done.  We're down to the climatic final scene, where everything comes to a rather violent head.  I think fans will find that Markhat outsmarts all his foes deftly this time around, with very little help from any supernatural allies.

See? Just writing the above, I had an idea concerning the final dust-up. It's just a tiny detail, but it will add something genuinely creepy to the business at hand. I'm off to add it.

See you all later!

BROWN RIVER QUEEN Update

The new Markhat novel is nearing completion!

How near?

I just finished an outline for the last three scenes. True, I don't normally do outlines, but there are a lot of things happening fast and the order and flow is crucial. I have to make sure Event A happens to Person B while Person C suffers Fate D as Band F plays Song H. And so on. One slip-up here means a lot of editing later, so I've got a timeline I'll be following from here on out.

I don't like putting a number or a date on these things, but we're looking at another 10K words or so. Even a writer as glacially slow as myself will be able to whip that out in a matter of a week or two.

So, for all you Markhat fans who've been waiting patiently to see what happens next, your wait is nearly over!

I will of course keep you posted, here and on Twitter (I'm @Frank_Tuttle there) and on Facebook (Frank Tuttle).

The climax to this one is a lot of fun. If by 'lot of fun' you include a few severed heads, the walking dead, and Mama Hog doing things with her cleaver that you won't see on The Food Network. But I think fans of the series will really enjoy this latest outing.

If you're not already a fan of the series, might I suggest trying it? Here are the Markhat books, in the order I suggest you read them in, with handy links.

Dead Man's Rain

The Mister Trophy

The Cadaver Client

Hold the Dark

The Banshee's Walk

The Broken Bell

If print books are what you want, Amazon has those too -- The Markhat Files contains all three of the first Markhat adventures (Dead Man's Rain, The Mister Trophy, and The Cadaver Client).  Hold the Dark and The Banshee's Walk are also available in print, and The Broken Bell hits print this September.

If epic YA fantasy with hints of steampunk and humor is more your taste, check out the first entry in my new YA series, All the Paths of Shadow.

I keep a better list of all my books here.

Okay, back to work for me!

Friday Roundup

This has been one heck of a busy week.

Fletcher, our shall we say mature dog who was recently diagnosed with canine diabetes, is now on a new form of insulin. The old insulin simply stopped being very effective, and after a valiant attempt to find a dosage that worked, our vet suggested we try another type of insulin altogether.

Let me pause to give a shout-out to Dr. Ware Sullivan, of Oxford, Mississippi. He cares what happens to Fletcher. He and his staff don't just do their jobs, and stop there. No. They're genuinely and sincerely committed to treating their patients with everything they've got, and if Mr. Fletcher could say thanks out loud, he would. But I can, so I do. Thank you.

There is no canine-derived insulin. We're using human insulin to treat Mr. Fletcher, which makes the possibility of rejection by his doggy physiology a good possibility. It's common in these cases to switch insulins at least once, and that's what we're doing.

Fletcher endures the blood tests and vet visits and the days spent away from home with an easy, good-natured grace. I don't know how, but I believe he knows we're all working hard to help him, and he appreciates it and shows his appreciation by being a trooper.  Is it obvious my wife and I love dogs? Well, we do.

And there's been the usual hectic business of life. Today culminated in a long drive in a small pickup with no air conditioning, one large dog, a pizza, motorcycle gear, two backpacks, and two adult humans. But it was fun. We even made it there and back with the pizza intact.

Best of all, I've gotten some writing done! I'm really pleased with Brown River Queen, and I hope fans will be, too. Markhat's world gets deeper and older and more interesting every time I write about it, and I think that's a good sign.  I'm thinking I'll be sticking THE END on this one in the matter of a couple of weeks, at most.

Of course, I'll still need to edit it and then submit it. I wish I could say my fame had reached such lofty heights that a sale was not just certain but inevitable, but that isn't exactly he truth. Heck, it isn't even in the same building with the truth.

But it's a good book. I think it will sell.

I'm also writing a short how-to book, which I intend to use as a text when I teach a summer fiction writing course to a group of talented teenagers this June. That's been fun too. I'm going to give it away for free on my website during the course, so if you're at all interested, stay tuned. I'll provide links shortly.

And of course there's the upcoming podcast.  I've decided to name it BRACE FOR IMPACT. Because that sounds evocative and adventurous, and honestly, what could be more adventurous than a 48 year old fantasy author sitting behind a microphone and blathering for 20 minutes?

So I've been busy. Busy in a good way.

It's Friday night, and it's nearly eight o-clock, and that means only two things -- SUPERNATURAL, and FRINGE. Yeah, I dig the Winchesters. And Agent Dunham. Hey, even writers need to relax, right?

See you folks soon!

Live From the Dark Side of the Moon

I've also been fascinated by radio.

And gadgets. Radio and gadgets. And loudspeakers.

So that's radio, gadgets, and loudspeakers. Along with other things. But, for the sake of brevity, we'll stop there.

There's always been something inherently magical in the idea that a hairy man can sit in a tiny room somewhere and speak into a metallic contrivance and have his voice heard, if not all around the world, for hundreds of miles away. I can remember, as a kid and even as a young adult, listening to a lot of late-night radio. I spent most of the 80s working the graveyard shift, and in those ancient days of yore it was the radio, not the net, that kept us supplied with music and entertainment throughout the night.

And the DJs were the masters of the air. Rock 103 in Memphis was the closest genuine rock radio around, and many a night we busted a proverbial gut listening to the decidedly offbeat musings of the DJs. Ah, youth.

But this is the space-age a go-go 21st century, baby, and radio is something old folks talk about (see above). No, this is the Age of the Net. No more fiddling with antenna or tuners. Well, okay, some of us still do that, but we do it quietly, and in the privacy of our homes. At night. Wearing masks.

But I digress.

I still believe there's something unique about hearing another human voice. Too, to be perfectly honest, I've been told that podcasting (the new equivalent of a radio show) is a good way to promote one's books.

I have books. I like money.

It seems a natural fit.

And so, I have decided to embark upon a journey of creation. In addition to this blog, I will also soon begin publishing a twice-a-month audio-only podcast. Why audio only, you ask?

Have you seen me lately? Sure, back in the day, I was always being mistaken for George Clooney, so much so, in fact, that I actually starred in the sequel to 'Ocean's Eleven.' But time has not been kind, so it's an audio only podcast.

Now, when I decide to undertake a task, I do it right. I research the topic. I analyze other works in the field. I hurl abuse upon street mimes. Granted, that doesn't really help the process, but I hate those guys.

Researching and preparing for a podcast has been great fun because, as I mentioned, I love gadgets. Especially audio gadgets. I've got a bunch of loudspeakers that I designed and built, and they sound great, if I may say so.  And when my research immediately indicated that I'd need to get a decent microphone, I was ecstatic.

Sure, I could get by with a twenty-dollar WalMart special. It would allow me to record my voice.

And it would also sound like, to be blunt, crap. As do the microphones built into pretty much any piece of consumer electronics (and yes, that includes Macs, sorry).

That led to a bit of a problem, since I lost most of my fortune in the Great Dirigible Crash of 1911.  Happily, my research turned up a pro-grade mic I could actually afford.

I give you the Blue Snowball microphone!

It lists for a hundred bucks, which is a steal for the quality and specs. I got mine from Tiger Direct for a mere $69 plus shipping.

My Snowball arrived today, and here she is, in all her chrome-plated metal glory!

Yeah, I know, but I'm my own photographer too.

Now, was the Blue worth the money? Let's just see.

Click on the thingy below to hear an audio sample of my voice recorded by the mic in my Dell netbook. I'll wait right here.

Frank speaking into the built-in microphone.

It's intelligible speech. It does sound distant, and lacks any kind of tonal character.

But now try listening to the Blue, and hear the difference...

Frank on the Blue Snowball

Now that is a microphone.

I did notice a slight pop when I pronounced the P (say that really fast ten times), so I rummaged through my junk drawer and came up with a pop filter, shown below.

Yes, it's a piece of scrap felt sandwiched between the metal grille elements of an old air filter, supported by a length of flexible aluminum wire, a hose clamp, and a heavy metal thing from who knows where. But it works, as you can hear below:

Pop Filter Test

See all the fun I've had? I got to play with a gadget, build something, record audio clips, move them from netbook to PC using the Cloud, and mess around with Audacity, the free sound editing software I'll be using.

Oh, and yes, I actually wrote, too. Brown River Queen is coming to a close, people! And it's been one heck of a ride. 

I'll leave you with one last image. I found this while clearing up free space on my website -- it's a genuine, unretouched screen shot from June of 2009. It doesn't need any explanation -- just look at the names and the rank numbers.

That was a very good day.

Top of the world, Ma!

Get you some!

Tax Tips for Writers, 156th Edition, With Illustrations Throughout

Certain eldritch signs portend various significant turnings of the year. Birds fly south. Or maybe north. Frankly I don't spend much time outdoors with a compass charting the movements of waterfowl.

But even a dedicated indoorsman such as myself can observe the anguished faces on the street, and hear the plaintive cries of agony borne on the night wind (and no, I don't know from which direction the bloody wind is blowing, let's leave that to the meteorologists, shall we?).

Even I can see the chalk outlines left by those poor unfortunates who at last cried 'No more, enough!' before shuffling off their mortal coils by way of extreme over-tanning or a full-on single-sitting read of Snooki's 'A Shore Thing.'

And even I know what these grim signs portend -- tax time.

That's right, gentle readers, if you are a citizen of the US, it's that time of year when Uncle Sam takes you fondly by your ankles and shakes you until every last cent you've seen in the last year falls out of your pockets, because let's face it, war ain't cheap.

Now, if you've made any money off your writing in the last year, I'm here to help. Because if there's anything the US government holds dear, it's the idea that every American is free to earn a profit by the sweat of his brow and the set of his jaw. Equally sacred to the American governing psyche is the ideal that they get a slice of that sweet free enterprise pie.

The first thing writers need to know about filing their writing income is this -- FILE IT. That story you sold to Ominous Bathroom Squeaks and Eldritch Attic Squeals Monthly for 15 bucks? That pair of flash-fiction entries you pawned off on Public Transit Funnies, a Bus Station Free Magazine for three bucks and a coupon for $2.00 off any foot-long club at Subway?

Maybe you're thinking 'Hey, why bother reporting that, nobody knows about those!'

And how wrong you are, Grasshopper.

They know. Maybe it's the Carnivore communication surveillance system. Maybe the CIA has an Obscure Small Press Reporting Division. Maybe that mean-eyed old lady down the street is on the phone with the IRS every day, after she goes through your mail and steams open all the envelopes -- it doesn't matter how, but believe me, they know.

So, the first thing?

Report it.

Now if you've made any serious coin you've been sent a 1099-MISC from the publisher(s). You should keep up with these things. I used to put them in a folder and them lose the folder and then move to Mississippi and assume a new identity as Frank Tuttle when I realized I'd lost them all, but then I got married and she keeps important papers in a brilliant thing called a drawer. I'll bet you have some of these drawers  in your place too. Open them up and put stuff in them, it's an amazing time-saver compared to identity theft.

At the end of the year, you take all these 1099 forms, wipe the tears from your face, and enter them in the boxes according to the helpful prompts on the TurboTax software. When the crying diminishes to a bearable level, proceed.

Next, let's consider deductions. The word deductions comes from the Latin dede, which means 'not for,' and uction, which means 'you.' In tax parlance, deductions are money amounts which everyone but you can subtract from the taxes they owe.

For instance, I write on a PC. I built this PC myself, from components I purchased separately, for the sole purpose of writing.  Now, if I were anyone else, I could deduct the total cost of the machine from my taxes owed, since it's a business expense -- but since I am demonstrably me, this deduction does not apply, and, notes TurboTax, 'ha ha ha.'

See how that works? It truly simplifies filing.

Let's look at some other deductions which you, as a writer, cannot claim:

•  Home Office Deductions. Oh, you have an office, in which you write? Well, let's have a look. It can't be attached to your house. It can't house a TV or other casual entertainment device. It can't possibly, under any circumstances, be even remotely suited for any purpose other than writing, and it can't be very good at that. So you have a detached office which contains nothing but a chair, a desk, and a PC running nothing but Word? But it has a roof?  'Ha ha ha,' intones TurboTax. 'Trying to pull a fast one, are you? DENIED.'
• Office Expense Deductions.  You're a writer, and even the IRS grudgingly concedes that the act of writing might in some way involves putting down words on some medium, be it electronic or paper. Okay, this looks promising. You bought a printer to print out manuscripts. You pay for internet service because 1950 was 73 years ago. These seem to be legitimate deductions, so let's investigate further BUZZ HA HA HA NOT SO FAST, TAXPAYER! Those deductions are only valid in years  where acceptable total solar eclipses occur in northern Peru (see Schedule 117863-E, 'Solar Interruptions, South American Totality Table 167-75E, lines 46 through 78), and guess what pal, this ain't it.
• Other Deductions. Mitt Romney has a 376 page embossed-leather-bound acid-free paper book with gold-gilt edges filled with 'Other Deductions.' Are you Mitt Romney? Didn't think so. Move along.

Sadly, that about covers it. You've toiled over every word, you've poured over ever sentence, you've labored long into that good night trying to illuminate a single tiny facet of the flawed jewel that is the human condition.

Or, in other words, you've earned slightly more than minimum wage. 

Bon appetite, my friends!

And for the love of all that is holy, don't miss the filing deadline. 

Mangled Monday Horoscopes

Curious as to what the stars have in store for you next week?


Me neither. Given the obvious ill-will the stars display towards all things Tuttle, I'd just as soon be kept in the dark until the last possible moment, i.e., until I see the muzzle flash. But if you are of a metaphysical bent, and if you do have excellent life insurance, read on.


Me, I'll be down in the bunker, adjusting my Kevlar vest and tightening my flak helmet.


ARIES (March 21-April 20)

Okay, so you don't manage to land the plane successfully. But, on the bright side, next Tuesday's fiery crash into the oil refinery will result in more stringent fire-suppression codes for future petrochemical facilities.

TAURUS (April 21 - May 20)

Seriously, no one has been killed by a falling piano since 1929. Until you step outside next Thursday.

CANCER (June 21 - July 22)

Yeah, you'd think X-ray machines had fuses, or some way to prevent accidental massive output surges. Maybe they will, after your estate gets done suing General Electric (Medical Division). 

LEO (July 23 - August 22)
All things considered, your brief outburst on Wednesday isn't the worst set of last words ever spoken, despite what the 52% of the commenters on YouTube say.

VIRGO (August 23 - September 23)

On the bright side, they'll never figure out how your frozen body wound up in the Atlanta Aquarium wearing nothing but Abraham Lincoln's famous stovepipe hat.

LIBRA (September 24 - October 23)

Before Monday, there will be no recorded instances of fatal parrot attacks on humans. Even the stars are curious about this one -- just what do you say to that bird, to make it so angry?

SCORPIO (October 24 - November 21)
See, what happens Friday at the petting zoo is why you should never tempt grumpy Fate by asking the (usually) rhetorical question 'At least it can't get any worse, right?' 

SAGITTARIUS (November 22 - December 21)

If it's any consolation, hardly anyone could improvise a working emergency breathing apparatus out of an ice machine and an office supply closet. At least you go down fighting.

CAPRICORN (December 22 - January 19)
Turns out they aren't kidding about that pufferfish eat-at-your-own-risk warning. 

AQUARIUS (January 20 - February 19)
Even the coroner will be aghast -- all that blood on the ceiling, from an exercise bike accident?

PISCES (February 20 - March 20)
Look at it this way -- how many people can claim it took two Hearses six hours to convey their remains to the cemetery? At least the radiation levels allowed mourners to watch the burial from a safe distance.