Happy Damned New Year!

"They were all whooping it up, the optimism and booze flowing freely, awaiting the new year. I was nursing a beer, my back to the wall. I just wanted to make sure the old one left."

That's the opening (maybe) from a story I'm writing, featuring my Montreal barfly/P.I. Thomas St. Cyr. I think it's going to be called "A World in White," and it's part of my nefarious master plan for 2011 to get some fiction published.

So, okay, you caught me.

You've all been had.

In the tradition of egomaniacs everywhere, The Thrilling Detective Web Site is actually just a hollow shill; all this time it's been a blast of blatant self-promotion disguised as a reference site, a bogus marketing scam to plug my so-far unpublished (and possibly unpublishable) stories featuring Montreal barfly and off-the-books private eye Thomas St. Cyr...

Given that the site's been around since 1998 or so and this is the first time I think I've ever mentioned St. Cyr in these pages, I figure I oughtta get some sort of long con award.

But the plan is that, in 2011, I will get a few stories, including a few featuring St. Cyr, published. It's been too fucking long since I've had any fiction published. And publicly outting myself like this -- something I'm still queasy about -- may be the only way to get myself off my ass and finally do it.

Some of the stories are in progress; a depressingly large number of stuff just need final tweaking. And self-confidence.

So here I am, out of the closet and hanging in the breeze, just another wannabe writer throwing himself over the falls. Sigh...

What's on tap tonight?

The in-laws in Palmdale, California, and a few bottles of Maudite from a brewery in my hometown 3000 miles away in Quebec. Maudite is French for "damned," more or less.

Tomorrow?

The world.

Bonne année.