My desire to begin 2017 with a bang fizzled into a whimper and a pathetic plea for more chicken soup. Just when I thought I was one of only a handful of people to survive 2016, that cursed year’s attempt to murder me lingered well into January. For the first time in years, I came down with a major cold—the same one that absolutely everybody seemed to get and might have put a new royal on the throne and all over our money had it been a touch more virulent.

My New Year’s Eve party amounted to sitting, sniffling, in front of the television, watching CNN implode in a live on-air drunken orgy of stupidity that’s only gotten worse since everyone sobered up and resumed reporting fake news with a straight face. Admittedly, that was way more fun than any party I might have attended, but is was still a sad showing. My illness only got worse from there, and all the ambitious plans I had for Eyestrain had to be put on hold while I recovered.

In the thick of it, I did manage to finish “The Adventure of the Cat’s Claws” for the next MX volume of Sherlock Holmes stories. Even then, I was such a mess, I only managed to cross the finish line five days past deadline, which is unheard of for me. Asking for an extension—even one happily offered well before the deadline—was a bitter pill to swallow. Back in my school days, I was the kid who always had the class projects and term papers ready on time. I used to resent the slackers who got extensions, but I resented the teachers who offered extensions even more. To this day, I consider it an awful lesson for any teacher to give to their students. Getting a zero on a term paper because it was handed in late would have taught tardy teens so much more about life and succeeding in the work place than anything they were studying or writing about at the time. It’s something they would remember. An essay on milling wheat, chosen by pulling a topic randomly out of a hat, not so much.

This is why I never became a teacher. Not because I’d be too much of a hard-ass with students. But because of all those obnoxious parent-teacher meetings with helicopter moms and dads who think their eighth grader’s pop-quiz D-minus will scuttle their chances of getting into Harvard.

I guess this is my roundabout way of thanking editor David Marcum for not being a hard-ass. I promise, I really was sick. And my dog really did eat my first draft.

♦

It’s the first promotion of the year.

Sex Tape is back down to $0.99 this weekend. It’s part of Renée Pawlish’s latest bundle of mysteries and thrillers on sale at Amazon. Check out the pile of bargain books for your Kindle device or software while supplies last.

Actually, they’re eBooks, so supplies can’t run out. But the sale price will be over come Monday morning, so peruse now while you have the chance, and let your fingers do a one-click purchase whenever your brain thinks “That might be fun.” Everything is only a buck.