Ever wonder what “25 or 6 to 4” meant?

You almost certainly know the song, but in case you don’t, here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLiuMkGCOC4

The title refers to that time in the morning when you’re staring at the ceiling, wondering when your brain will stop stop STOP RUNNING AT SUPER SPEED because you have to get up to work early because the freeway is under construction and you have to take local roads and you have to pick up donuts in the morning for that big meeting and you can’t remember if Susan likes jelly donuts or if you just remember her talking about jelly one day and you’re wondering if she was talking about prOH GOD WHY AM I NOT ASLEEP???

3:35 in the morning. Twenty-five (or six) to four.

There aren’t many feelings worse than that, at that time of the night. You can literally hear your hair growing as you lie there, wondering how other people can possibly be sleeping happily when you can feel every piece of dust on your skin.

And sooner or later, you start thinking about death.

You wonder if your entire death is going to be like this, aware but unmoving, thoughts flitting past that you can’t hold on to but can’t really let go, thoughts that you can’t do anything about but you can’t stop.

And then you make the big mistake… you look at the clock.

It’s not moving.

That’s the biggest problem with digital clocks, you can’t tell if they’re moving, just by looking at them. They just glow at you. Glow and cover everything with the barest hint of sickly light that you can now see half the room with.

And you swear the clock isn’t working… so you stare at it. Stare stare stare.

Maybe a bit longer.

Dammit, the thing is broken, how did I get stuck with such a piece of AHH, the time changed.

Great. Another minute gone. What time is it now? 3:33? Either time is moving backwards or I’m halfway to hell.

Aaaaaagh.

(This is usually the point where I try to make a mental note to myself to finally call the doctor back about scheduling that sleep study. I’d call him now but he’s probably asleep, the bastard. Maybe I should call him anyway, give him a chance to really empathize with his patients who can’t sleep.)

I’d like to claim I’m up late typing because of jet lag, but sadly I’m often up at these %$#@! hours. On the other hand, this is one of the few times that typing like this has actually been on topic. The awful truth is that we all have nights like this. The causes vary– medical, environmental, or good old-fashioned paranoia– but we’ve all been there, and will probably be there again sooner than we’d like.

No, no. Don’t stay up for me. You go back to bed. I’m going to be up a bit longer, searching for something to say… waiting for the break of day.

We keep getting asked this question over and over again: “Why do you call yourself Crazy 8 Press when there are only seven of you?”

There’s a reason. And we’re actually kind of surprised a smart person like you hasn’t figured it out.

It’s you, silly.

You’re the eighth person. You, yes little ol’ you, are the reason we do all of this.

Yes, we enjoy writing and telling stories, but what good is a storyteller without an audience? We can make stories that span galaxies, bridge eons, but it’s nothing if we don’t touch someone’s heart with it.

You make it all possible. You give us feedback. You laugh. You cry. You argue. You get angry. And you give us money for what we do.

As authors, we are very lucky people. We have found that there’s someone out there who likes the way we think, who enjoys hearing what we have to say. All you ask from us is a simple request: Entertain me. Make me happy to spend time with you.

And we love you for it.

Yes, it’s not always the smoothest of romances. How could it be? Sometimes we get moody, sometimes we think you’ve forgotten us, sometimes you get abusive when you think we aren’t paying attention to what you want. But still we keep coming back for more. If it sounds a little co-dependent, well, maybe it is. But we do depend on you. Trust us, we’ve been around, the list of exes who’ve just used us and paid us to do quickie little– well, best not to dwell. We’re talking about you.

Sure, we’ll lie to you on occasion, but we’ll be mostly honest. We may trick you, but it’s only to delight you. And although there may be other readers who find us and fall hard for us, you’ll still be in our hearts.

So from the bottom of our hearts, thank you for everything.

But we still can’t meet your parents next weekend. We told you we have to work. We’re on deadline, dammit.

But seriously, folks.

My New’s Years resolution is to stop procrastinating and finish what I

So the question of the day, “Hey, Glenn, who inspires your writing?”

First off, I’m lucky to say that I’ve never been inspired by the writer of “Pay To The Order Of…”  I’ve never written for need of money, though I’ve certainly written for want of it. I’ve always found myself unable to write anything with any poetry in the words if I need funds, it saps a certain spark out of the language. Oh sure, I can craft words and make serviceable prose, but the magic isn’t there.

That said, who inspires me? Let me tell you a story…

I grew up, as so many of my contemporaries did, in a sort of Golden Age of science fiction– Star Trek was in reruns on channel 11, Star Wars was in the movie theaters, and new sf and near-sf shows were coming up all over the place like Space:1999 and Ark II and Star Blazers, and I could read the Legion of Super Heroes and Green Lantern and Guardians Of The Galaxy. And my father got me reading books early, reading the Foundation Trilogy when I was seven and back when it was still a trilogy.

But I was growing up in 70s suburbia. I couldn’t figure out how I could get from a Long Island bedroom into outer space, how to insert myself in all of these strange and wonderful worlds. Even New York City was a long way away for a kid, and it was a scary place then, filled with all the dangers the newspapers could tell us about. I felt like Luke on Tatooine, as far away from the action as possible.

Then I was introduced to Spider Robinson, and the most famous of his works, the stories centered around Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon– where all those strange and wonderful things were happening in a bar on Route 25A in Suffolk County.

Well, heck– I lived in Suffolk County, I lived on 25A! That place must have been just down the road from me! The advice given to writers is “write what you know”, Spider was writing what I knew.

And so I read the stories about the talking dogs and time travelers, and the aliens and the absurd puns, and the people and the community they built, all the while looking for clues as to where exactly the place was. Because that was accessible. I could make the leap from where I was to the fantastic, to the future. It was, quite literally, the gateway.

Through Spider I was introduced to Robert Heinlein’s works among many others, and through his own writings I was introduced to characters who I might have easily passed in the supermarket and just hadn’t been introduced to yet, real people with flaws and quirks and horrible cases of paronomasia. And many years later, I got to meet Spider and his lovely wife Jeanne, and we told each other stories and sang songs, and he was just about exactly like his writing had shown himself to be. His authorial voice was true to himself, and I was proud to publish an electronic version of Night Of Power back in the 90s.

Spider’s had a bit of a rough patch of late, including a heart attack about six weeks ago. So I’m glad to have a chance to put down in writing what I’ve mentioned to him before, to thank him for showing how to get from Kansas to Oz.

If you’ve never done so, go read some books from Spider Robinson right now.

As I lounge here in the Crazy 8 Press Secret Headquarters, located in an inactive volcano, I am moved to write on the minions who make our lives so much easier. The lackeys, hunchbacks, and flunkies. You know– the little people.

Yes, I know I’m 6’6 and that makes almost everybody a little person to me. Well, of course. You can’t sit in a high back leather chair, swirling a snifter of cognac, stroking my cat and laughing maniacally without a healthy dose of megalomania.

And so, I raise my glass to the toadies who make my existence bearable.

There’s Alyosha, who keeps the shark tank scrubbed and stocked with chum. Or former chums. (My cat is meowing loudly again. Perhaps I should drop him in the shark tank. It might be the only way to get a decent night’s sleep around here.)

There’s Serena… ah, lovely Serena. She keeps the paperwork going. Actually, she doesn’t do much more than sharpen pencils and pick up paper clips, but she looks so fetching when she bends over to do it.

And then there’s Roquefort, who claims to be very important because he says he makes sure the volcano stays dormant, but I haven’t heard a single rumble all the time I’ve been here. I think he’s goldbricking. I also think he’s next into the tank. We can always find new henchmen to serve in our plans to take over the world– or at least get the place cleaned up here for the monthly game of Risk we play with real armies.

But that’s my point. People claim it’s always tough to find decent help, but that simply hasn’t been true in my experience. There’s always a certain class of people who want to be ruled, and there are others who want to be run roughshod over, and there are… hmm. The volcano warning is going off.

But that’s impossible! Roquefort is supposed to be taking care of these– damn. His voicemail just told me he’s taking his first vacation in ten years. And he’s taking the asbestos suits with him.

Ah well. Perhaps we need a better class of stooge around here. I’ll have to look into that after I get out of the burn ward.