Making serious progress on the historical mystery, just by plowing through it and not bothering to check through the MS for continuity, but I did tonight and I’m glad: I have our introduction to the suspects (soon-to-be-suspects) slipped in by having one character point them out to our narrator. But I earlier establish that they have all been together for several days! Phew! Tweaked it, fixed it! I figure I will have the first draft done by the end of this week (it’s Sunday right now!)

Also, I have been reading through two L. Frank Baum collections: “Animal Fairy Tales” and “American Fairy Tales.” I have a couple of things in the pipe influenced by these. “American Fairy Tales” was not well-received by the critics 110 years ago; probably because the stories that work play more like stuff for Unknown Magazine than little kids’ fantasies. “The Glass Dog” and “The Magic Bon Bons” are well worthy of being reprinted, and they have! (Baum probably drew on his stage experience for “Bon Bons,” he had been an actor as well as a writer.) “The Laughing Hippopotamus” was fun, but the original illustration shows a caricature of an African native which would not fly today. “Animal Fairy Tales” was assembled by Baum about 1918 and published posthumously. I mean, way posthumously: in the 1960s! “The Enchanted Buffalo” may be his best short-story, and I’ll give a nod to “The Stuffed Alligator” which I read in an anthology back in the 90s when I was trying to learn how to write short stories.

That’s it for now!