Finally, an opportunity to write! I apologize to my blogging readers, but that’s what I’m here for, after all. I’ve been able to put in full days on the Houdini/Margery play-within-a-book. At the moment I’m on chapter 9 of Part 1. Part 2 is the finished play itself, which I more or less completed a year ago. More on that as it develops.
Still, I do take time off from typing to enjoy the sunsets, like this one:

Observations: Only one post this week, but I thought it would prove thought-provoking as well as bright. I was right. Several people commented on the shoes-on-or-shoes-off question. That reminded me to try to ask questions to elicit responses at the end of a post. I back-edited some previous ones as a result.
Interaction: That interaction was entirely on my Facebook page, so you won’t see it here. One Friend commented that she can be protective about newly cleaned carpets. Eventually she reaches a certain level of ennui, or perhaps wee-wee, as bladder urgency takes precedence over ditching the shoes. Another enjoys the freedom of bare-footin’ at home. A third opts for slippers. (I’m not sure whether he, like Sherlock Holmes, went for the whole slippers-and-pipe thing.) Our daughter-in-law from India says that her family dons flip-flops (called Hawaiian flip-flops over there) around the house. A sensible solution.
Professional development: I continued listening to the podcast about writing a novel, and picked up a number of useful tips among the general advice. And I’m pressing on with William Zinsser’s “Writing With a Word Processor” just for the fun of it, and a possible review.
This just in …

Oh, yes, and then there’s this new arrival as of noontime today. This is a 1956 Royal Quiet Deluxe manual portable typewriter, the same model Ian Fleming used when writing his James Bond books at “Goldeneye.” Appropriately, his typewriter was also golden.
What color is mine? I’ll let you know when I spill the whole story in a few days.
Next week: More work on “Harry Houdini and the Witch of Beacon Hill,” plus a post on why I’m following in Fleming’s fingertips. Stay tuned!
In case you missed it …
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Journeyman Journalist, 1979: A little gossip
Reading Time: 2 minutes Opportunity knocked once, then knocked a little harder. And then it just shrugged and walked away. Was it more than just gossip?
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Journeyman Journalist, 1979: A pain in the a**
Reading Time: 2 minutes Procrastination is seldom fatal, but that’s not a certainty. A heart condition, cancer, a serious infection — can be deadly.
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Journeyman Journalist, 1979: Giving thanks
Reading Time: 2 minutes One thing that’s still unchanged: My worries are really blessings. That’s good advice from a 24-year-old to himself a half-century later.
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Journeyman Journalist, 1979: Breathing easier
Reading Time: 2 minutes Smoke-free workplaces are far more common, even public policy, thanks to 50 years of the American Cancer Society’s Great American Smokeout.
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Journeyman Journalist, 1979: A little self-serving
Reading Time: 2 minutes Often blunders you make in one issue will be forgotten when the next comes out. Then again, they may resurface in a diary 44 years later.
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