Friday Five: what’s ahead

My so-called writing and blogging plans for 2026

“Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.” So said Dwight D. Eisenhower, one of the military leaders who planned Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Normandy against Nazi German forces.

As a career military man, Eisenhower knew what he was talking about. It was in the military where the terms SNAFU and FUBAR originated.

I was thinking about Eisenhower’s words recently as I thought about my writing plans for 2026. I also went back to my first journal entry of last year, in which I laid out my plans to finish the first draft of my novel by the end of that January 2025.

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New holiday-themed flash fiction: ‘The Exchange’

I submitted the following flash fiction piece, “The Exchange,” to an online literary publication’s call for holiday-themed stories. Unfortunately, it didn’t make the cut due at least in part to some racial language that could be considered offensive. I understand and respect the editor’s concerns on that matter, but I thought the story was pretty good despite the potentially problematic language, so I’m sharing it here with the appropriate content warning.

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