10/02/25 — HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, CHARLIE BROWN!
Today marks the 75th anniversary of the debut of Charles Schulz’s comic strip, PEANUTS. Charlie Brown and the gang didn’t spring fully-formed from Schulz’s head; though Chuck figures in the first-ever strip, he wouldn’t become central for a little while; Snoopy followed soon after, beginning as a more typical dog and morphing into one who played many imaginary roles, not the least of which was a World War I flying ace. The cast would develop a core over the years, though it would fluctuate over time with the addition of siblings, the quiet exit of regulars, and dozens of bit players. Shermy, an original strip character included in A Charlie Brown Christmas, vanished forever in 1969; Peppermint Patty first appeared in 1966 and never left; and does anyone really remember Charlotte Braun’s four-month run in late 1954?
I'm not entirely certain where or when my first intersection with PEANUTS was. One supposes it happened as a result of the TV specials, which for many years were broadcast on their appropriate holidays or, in the case of things like Charlie Brown's All-Stars, where CBS wanted a filler special. I'm struck by an early memory of the opening to All-Stars, a virtually wordless minute in which Charlie Brown winds up, pitches, and then takes off to almost-successfully run down the batter’s fly ball, a vibrant exercise set to the Vince Guaraldi music cue “Charlie’s Run”. One could be forgiven for wondering if the scene might have inspired Ferris Bueller’s mad run home many years later in the climax of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
Where I really dug in was with the paperback collections of strips that Fawcett published in the 1970s, themselves pared-down from Henry Holt collections I never saw except as references on those Fawcett covers. ('Selected cartoons from Ha-Ha Herman, Charlie Brown'? What?!) I committed entire storylines to memory, and never stopped following along or returning to the gang. Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Snoopy and the rest of them became a part of me. I once argued for an hour with someone in college who was dead-certain Charlie Brown's favorite baseball player was Joe Garagiola (nope, sorry - please see the gag from 1964, in which Charlie Brown spends $5 in an effort to get a Joe Shlabotnik bubble gum card and fails, only for Lucy to buy a penny's worth and score Charlie Brown's idol). My first edition of It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown bears a whimsical inscription to the previous owner from the titular Great Pumpkin, a departure from my ‘minimal inscription’ rule for used books. My Facebook confection Catney And Laney even took a side-trip to the PEANUTS universe (with a big toe slipped into my other comic strip love, BLOOM COUNTY.) Homage is a love language.
PEANUTS has paid dividends in other ways. Guaraldi’s scores were my first exposure to jazz (the genre didn’t get played in our house) and proved a gateway drug to the broader world of pianists (Ellington and Monk) and then horns. It also birthed a persistent appreciation of the endurance of the underdog. For a long time, I associated with Charlie Brown and his frustrations with the sharp edges of a kid's life. As I got older, I became more of a Linus—guardedly optimistic with my certain fixed certainties of how the world worked. I suppose now I see the the layers of existential horror and subtext a kid doesn't notice. The Halloween ‘I got a rock’ gag is funny when you're five. When you're forty-five, you begin to wonder what sort of horrible trombone-voiced bastards conspire to keep rocks on-hand for the sole purpose of denying candy to a single child across an entire neighborhood.
In the late 1990s, I was struck by the writerly notion of exploring how the gang might have grown up, and wrote “Linus On The Savanna”, a story in the form of a series of letters home from Linus—serving in the Peace Corps—to Lucy, slowly revealing the fates of key characters and dropping more than a few Easter eggs. Later, exploring Schulz’s other cartooning work, I stumbled on a panel from his series YOUNG PILLARS (above) drawn for Youth magazine, a publication of the Church of God, that suggested maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t too far afield from Schulz’s mind where the theological leanings of Linus could have led (the character isn’t Linus, but you can still kinda see him.) Being what it was, the story was never going to find an independent publisher, but I included it in the bonus section of the limited version of my collection SHADY ACRES in 2018, the only time it’s seen print (with some judicious CYA by using nicknames and code-speak.) Now, for the 75th anniversary of one of my formative loves, I’ve decided to offer it up on the TALES page for a little while in its original name-dropping glory, my love letter to Schulz for his characters, their lives and times, and the kinship I’ve felt with them.
from Charles Schulz’s YOUNG PILLARS
09/19/25 — “MAN OUT OF TIME”, EMBER SINS UPDATES AND POTPOURRI FOR $600, ALEX!
New Story Note: My short story, “Man Out Of Time” recently debuted at Freedom Fiction Journal, which selected it as an Editor’s Choice. As my sales pitch to them put it:
Step right up, don't be shy. No, no - don't waste your time and two-bits on that fake wolf boy or the unknown lumps in jars. Feast your eyes on a bona fide mystery of the cosmos, unseen in any sideshow but ours. Slip me a dime, step inside the flap, and see... the time traveler.
Free to read online - just click this link. Will you like it? Clearly, I’M biased, so don’t take my word for it. Instead, take this glowing Facebook share wraparound from my long-time friend Barney Dannelke, who admittedly might ALSO be biased, but who is a) also an avid reader and b) wouldn’t put his reputation on the line to peddle wares he didn’t believe in. Also? He tells me to my face when he thinks I’m punching below my weight class. Of the story, Barney says:
I should first confess this is the first time I ever read a Doug Lane story through twice, back to back, just to make sure I understood it. And I still checked with him. So, if you need to double back for a detail, it isn't you. The story is a bit sneaky. It is ALL there. Just not hold-your-hand obvious on every level. Fine by me.
But I am digging a whole bunch of stuff nested within, that is just so very Doug. SO VERY much a product of the two guys that formed us. Harlan Ellison and Ray Bradbury. In Doug's case with this story you can also fold in Tom Reamy and the first few issues of Gaiman's SANDMAN - and a dash of Mickey Spillane and, I kid you not, Steven Soderbergh. That's a lot to cram into a short story for a market that pays in wooden nickels. I want to say more but run the risk of running longer than the story. I expect to say more over the course of two or three Breakfast with Barney posts featuring Ray Bradbury.
Meanwhile, here is brand new fiction by Doug Lane - You Lucky Bastards.
I mean, how do you follow that, except to say I hope you read and enjoy it as much as Barney has!
EMBER UPDATE: The hardcover print run is in-hand; only five copies remain unclaimed at this point, which is about where the SHADY ACRES AND DARKER PLACES limited hardcover began to slow down; to be fair, the reading marketplace is stuffed to bursting with people who want your nickels, so I appreciate everyone who’s taken an interest and rolled the bones on this new enterprise. Trade paperbacks are incoming, as is packaging so I can start the signing, packing, and shipping process. And there *will* be a little extra in the box for hardcover preorders, but these things never quite go as planned, so… we’ll see what it is when it happens. Meanwhile, there are also contemplations/explorations of a possible audio version, but absolutely no promises there. (Time may be money, but so is product, talent, and technology, and this is ALLLLLL happening against the backdrop of needing about 450 linear feet of new fence installed for the yard. Priorities.) I’m also contemplating taking all the various proof copies generated in the quest for final hardcover and softcover versions and dropping them into little free libraries in the area (or other areas) to seed Robillard (and maybe CATNEY AND LANEY) near and far. Because if I’m being honest? STUFF takes up space, and I’m probably years away from a production proof interesting to anyone outside the immediate circle.
STILL ON THE EMBER SINS FENCE?: I’m a giver if it’ll close the deal. Click over to the TALES page for the opening of the book, because the world we live in is chock full of previews. Also? If you’re a Barnes & Noble member, you can grab a trade paperback on preorder for 25% off with the code PREORDER25.
MEANWHILE: I’ve been noodling what to do with a closet and two shelves two-rows deep of STUFF - books, postcards, ephemera, toys, a miscellany of things I’ve dragged behind myself my entire life like Marley on Christmas Eve. The current plan is to place them on the website for a time, and then perhaps list them to eBay, so the four people who visit here (the counter tells me you stop by) get first crack at stuff. More on this as it develops. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t. Watch this website for possible treasure!
Coming soon: Defacing with the signing pen…
08/28/25 — THE EMBER SINS PREORDER IS LIVE
Ten-thousand glittering facets to Houston, and I was cashing out next to the ship channel…
So begins EMBER SINS, my first novel and the first book in a proposed series following the exploits of Houston private investigator C.T. Robillard. It’s a mystery blended with the splash of mild science fiction that sets things a little in the future (think flying cars, nanobots, body-modifying technology) but not so far as to be weirdly alien. The series follows Robillard, a seasoned PI whose biggest unsolved case is also his most personal, and his ex-military associate Kristie Barrett, who’s as comfortable with her gun as she is cracking passwords as they dive into cases both large and small, mundane and strange.
The book is available to pre-order right now on the STORE page (linked back there and at the top of the page) in two formats:
+ A signed trade paperback for $17 plus postage.
+ A signed, limited hardcover (26 lettered copies) for $26, which gets you the right of first refusal for your matching letter for the series going forward. (There will be future books. The next two already exist as complete drafts, and three more are in the pipe behind them. Be an over-achiever.) Limit one per household.
THINGS TO KNOW:
+ Books are expected to ship on or around October 22 and will ship directly from here at Midnight-to-Three Publishing.
+ Books can be personalized - there’s a spot when you buy to add it. (I reserve the right to refuse or sanitize personalizations. You know who you are.)
+ Sadly, I am not currently set up for orders outside the US; thank the Wizard of Tariffs for that spanner. The trade paperback is available through Amazon across much of the globe (along with a Kindle edition), though it won’t come signed from Team Bezos. Apologies.
I hope you roll the bones on Robillard. I’ve been hanging around him for a decade to get to this point, and he may not have his ducks in a row, but I haven’t gotten tired of him yet, and I’ve heard this first story a lot.
ONE OTHER UNRELATED BIT: I have a new short story arriving, well, shortly - the SF story “Man Out of Time” will show up online in about a week at Freedom Fiction Online. More details coming on the socials when it drops. Follow DougLaneWrites on Facebook, finderdoug on Instagram/Threads, and finderdoug.bsky.social on Bluesky. (X does NOT mark the spot.)
08/15/25 — THE FIRST C.T. ROBILLARD INVESTIGATION
Way, way back on January 1, 2013, I knocked out a seven-page outline for a mystery novel. Granted, I knock out a lot of things seven pages long that wind up in a file folder, if they even get printed out, never to be seen again. But on this one, I fiddled with it as characters began to take root and story beats began to reveal themselves, or are indicated by the players. Sometimes, you drive the bus. Others? Your characters do.
I hunkered down. Hacked away on the novel in my head while I worked on the house renovations in Houston, and C.T. Robillard began to emerge. Completed a draft, let it sit, repeated. Sent a draft to alpha readers. Revised. Sent it to beta readers. Took in their comments. Buffed, polished, let it sit. Wrote the second Robillard mystery, then the third, then went back to the first, read it again, killed some darlings. And now, a stupidly long time later, Robillard and EMBER SINS are as ready as they’ll ever be for their debut.
Set an indeterminate number of years from now, but still in a near-future, Robillard—Thib to his friends—takes on investigations that interest him, while stonewalling himself on the one that daunts him: the seven-year-old murder of his wife. He could be forgiven for that, given a then up-and-coming police investigator named Koi tried to pin her murder on him.
EMBER SINS finds Robillard's late-night supper following his take-down of a child trafficker interrupted by Koi, who drags the private investigator to the scene of a deadly arson. It seems someone made a call to Robillard's office from the building right after the blaze was set. The message seems to be a fire-induced glitch, so much white noise—and to Robillard, one more of Koi's ongoing hassles—until a trio of gunmen break in to Robillard's office, trying to destroy all traces of the call.
But how do the message, the gunmen, a dead engineer, a missing schoolteacher, and a case of industrial espionage all fit together? For that, you’re going to have to buy the book and see how Robillard, his associate Kristie Barrett, his police liaison officer Byron Spenser, Inspector Koi, and the rest get to the secrets at the heart of the fire.
EMBER SINS arrives on October 21. It will be available for pre-order beginning August 28, sold and fulfilled directly by Midnight-to-Three Publishing through my website STORE, in two editions:
+ a signed trade paperback edition ($17)
+ a signed, limited (26 lettered copies) hardcover edition ($26); If you buy a lettered hardcover, you’ll have first right to your
matching letter for future books in the series (for as long as Midnight-to-Three publishes them, anyway.)
Around the same time, the trade paperback and a Kindle version will also be available for pre-order through Amazon.com, for people who love Jeff Bezos more than me. Price is the same whether you buy the book from me or Jeff; but I make more than Jeff if you buy it from me, AND it comes with free graffiti.
I’m still up in the air over a freebie to thank people for rolling the dice on a work site unseen. I enjoy doing them, and I think they’re fun, but they do cut in to writing time, and frankly, I don’t have a good lagniappe idea at the moment.
So if you want to get in on the ground floor of this endeavor, if you want to see if the guy who does 2,000 word shorts can go long, or if you’re just curious, the queue begins to form August 28; and before the book arrives, you may even want me to shut up about it already. But I hope you’ll join me on the journey. I think it’s a fun, breezy read with some interesting turns. Of course, I’m incredibly biased.
MEANWHILE: And it’s not like other things aren’t going on. Four short stories (a shade over 13,000 words total) are out to various publications, though I have to tell you: the number of paying markets has severely contracted in the last couple of years. In a couple more, I might be able to do an entire year of Free Fiction Fridays. And put out a tip jar.
AND FINALLY: And there are also free things to be found in the blog, like today’s offering: a look back at that time I earned my only IMDB acting credit, along with the script for what became my blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment on the big screen. Drop into TALES to better comprehend “The Benefits of Being the ‘Friend of the Devil’”.
Cover Shot
05/21/25 — ’THINGS THAT TAKE FOREVER’ FOR $100
I set out in December, armed with a Black Friday sale that allowed me to upgrade the website builder I use (which — shock and awe! — allowed me to re-integrate the blog), to do some upgrades and cleanup during the holiday season to go along with the web store, drop an updated site for the new year, and make a more regular go of updating goings-on.
The universe had other plans, and the holiday season went by in a flash as we worked through a death in the family, which resulted in all manner of adjustments to schedules, travel, and things that needed to be done. As things slowed on that front, work was made more lively by the entire country’s trip to crazytown beginning on inauguration day. As someone who works government-adjacent, each day begins with wondering if I’m going to still be employed — moreso than when the feds play with not funding the government. And then, our dear Buster took his trip over the Rainbow Bridge at the end of March. All in all, pretty glum on and off the past six months. (Say goodbye with me over in TALES, with “Requiem For a Feline Overlord”.)
But as Professor Speyser one opined (paraphrasing here), stuff happens, and in the end you need to pull yourself up and get the work done. So here’s the long-delayed website revamp, probably still a work-in-progress, but who and what among us isn’t? The blog has come home, with most of the external blog’s short run recompiled here with other new material in the freshly-titled TALES page. TALES will take over the twin-turbines of the remote blog and the former Story Stash. Some older entries have been re-added (for example, story notes for “Daddy, Play That Babalú” have been restored) and others will reappear in the future, owing to revisions or expansions (such as an ending to the story of the Lost Diaries of Florence Baumrucker.)
ITEM: I did manage to get two stories out the door in the fourth quarter and two more in the first, which (even if they don’t sell) feels like a victory, especially since I’m trying to get the last five yards on…
ITEM: The first C.T. Robillard novel — my FIRST novel. We’re at the press-proof stage. I’m waiting on one more test copy before I decide on a printer. Final title is EMBER SINS. I’m eyeballing an October hardcover release, unless I blink and it’s August tomorrow. There’s more to share waiting in the wings, including a preorder, so watch this space…
Our dear, sweet boy.
8/15/24 — AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT…
In lieu of Free Fiction Friday, I present instead True Story Thursday, with a longer examination of this week’s revocation by the IRS of the 501(c)(3) status of The Harlan and Susan Ellison Foundation, the charitable organization founded in their names in 2021 to support Ellison’s legacy, and how it unspooled from organization to this week’s sea change.It’s a long read, and not a story I especially wanted to tell, but one people should hear, if nothing else as an object lesson in how easy it is to catch a ground ball in the face if you don’t — as Harlan often admonished — pay attention.
Head over to TALES to read “For Want of a Form, or How To Set Your Charitable Foundation Back Three Years”.
7/26/24 — EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN
Welcome to the rededication of the website. Is a website now an anachronism, given how the digital world has largely gone over to Tik-ing, X-ing, Reel-ing, and — despite its glaring issues — continued calling on the Book of the Face? Perhaps. And perhaps you’ve gone three sentences without someone cramming an ad, a sponsored post, or some complete stranger in front of your eyes for their own reasons. Sure, I’m pimping and such out there too, but maybe it’s nicer to meet someone in their home for a little talk than to shout above the din of the village square.
Anyway — rededication. There’s been some screw-turning and paint-scraping here in Casa del DLW after eight months of nothing going on. To be fair, a full-time job and the ten-thousand make-it-your-own bits that go with buying a new old home chew up a lot of time. The creative side of life has to find its own level. But life is a marathon, not a sprint, and time invested in the website has brought two changes beyond the cosmetic:
1) THE BLOG IS BACK — For a time, I attempted to make the (somewhat limited) features of my website builder work for a blog. The problem was it was all grossly manual in a world where just about every blog site out there was almost as plug-and-play as a toaster. Then my website builder finally added integrated plug-and-play blogging to the update of the software! Aaaaaand decided THAT was new license territory — an $80 one-time drop or a monthly software subscription. Maybe for something with integrated e-commerce, but for blog functionality everyone else had fifteen years ago standard? Big swipe left.
So I pulled a Mercury, turned retrograde, and blew the dust off Blogger, previous home of a couple of short-lived blogs, to establish the new iteration of the Doug Lane Writes blog, with a desire to push something out once-a-week to keep the wheels greased. The goal is fresh blog every Tuesday. Of course, I missed this Tuesday.But click the button in the right-hand column or the top banner navigation for BLOG to go there, and watch your socials for future update announcements!
2) THE SITE HAS AN ACTUAL STORE — If you bought SHADY ACRES or HUNDRED ACRE through the website’s BUY page, then you know how convoluted the process was. It took some time and investigation, but I’ve got an integration that plays nicely with my web host, my website builder, and my payment processor, which means you can shop, click, pay, and your humble book-packer will wrap your goods with care and send them on their way. As a special added feature, not only will I be selling books I’ve written, but I’ll also be selling books, ephemera, and miscellaneous things from my private collection that are ready to find new, loving homes, and probably for a little less than you’d pay in eBay. Certainly less than I’D pay eBay for the privilege. Some of those will be appearing in August. If you’re book-minded, drop in and take a look around.
Now maybe you’re wondering if the store refresh comes with a new product with which to break it in. It does! Check out STORIES on 7/30 for THE CATNEY AND LANEY COMPANION.
3) FREE FICTION FRIDAY — It’s baaaaack, because everyone should force a little discipline on themselves every now and then. Also because “AllYou Can Eat” has spent about nine months in a year in the wild, and it was time to call it home. Up now? A new visit with the Iron Vanguard that you’ll just have to read cold. Head to TALES for “Alternate Manscapes”.
There’s more moving through the pipe this year, but for right now expect a new, invigorated go at blogging, new stories in The Story Stash, new treasures in the shop, and less than 9 months between flares. Hopefully.
Shiny!
10/31/23 — MYSTERIOUS AND SPOOKY
Give yourself a geezer gold star if THE ADAMS FAMILY theme has earwormed its way inside. I’ve been away; over the summer, we embarked on the scariest thing you can do: buying a home. I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice to say, we’ve completed the process, the office is set up, the books are unpacked, the improvements have begun, and the feral apple tree, Newton, is getting a long-overdue haircut.
There isn’t much new or strange on the writing front at the moment, but I couldn’t let spooky season pull up on Lastday without a little shudder action; I’ve been tinkering with a story previously offered up on Facebook in a single, short Facebook burst four years ago, inspired by my friend Jay Francis and his annual tango with a Mexican restaurant he has long known and remains tied to, despite himself. It’s been tweaked since that first appearance, which the Al Gore Rhythm may not have allowed you to see, and have added it to the Story Stash as a meditation on consumption, toxic dietary relationships, earworms and accelerants. Hie thee over and give three minutes to “All You Can Eat” while you can. [NOTE: link no longer available]
And while I was busy elsewhere, Radon Journal nominated “To Sleep, Perchance” for the O. Henry Prize, which was a nice note in the summer of Which Old House.
6/2/23 — HUNDRED ACRE ‘ROUND THE WORLD
First, thanks to everyone who made the drop of HUNDRED ACRE a success, and for the feedback received. Writers really do like to know they’re being read.
Always be selling, so they say. Given Ingram Spark decided to get rid of setup fees, I in turn decided to add another outlet for the sale of HUNDRED ACRE that would nose through the door at Jeff Bezos’ house and maybe nudge some ePub readers in my direction. (And scale back fulfillment — which takes a chunk out the writing time.) The long and short of it: HUNDRED ACRE is now available around the planet from Amazon in dead tree form (where it’s already found its way into the hands of a reader in… Germany! Which is also where my first two pieces of fan mail came from
waaaaay back during the MACHINE OF DEATH days) as well as Barnes & Noble, through Waterstones in the UK, Thalia in Germany, Booktopia in Australia — Winnie-the-Pooh and his pork pie hat have gone worldwide! (Same holds true for SHADY ACRES.)
I’ll still be selling signed copies through the website — I make the best coin dealing my own dope — but being available through a regional website solves some supply issues. I also fully support shopping locally, so you can order the book through your local brick and mortar. But direct order from me has one benefit: the book costs a dollar more from everyone else (grafting on distribution costs.)
Meanwhile…
Other projects are in the works (always), with a slew of edits to be keyed in and stories to be buffed to a high shine. And there may even be a Free Fiction Friday from the archives next week. But first, I’m going to take a weekend to turn 55, hunts some books, eat some ice cream, and begin Secret Life Project #73. IYKYK.
If you have the yen...
3/22/23 — HUNDRED ACRE PREORDER AND MORE
After much proofing, art-working, and engineering of the purchase system, I’m pleased to announce the chapbook HUNDRED ACRE is available for preorder.
Subtitled “three criminal elements”, HUNDRED ACRE features a trio of crime-related tales. In the title story, A.A. Milne collides with Black Mask magazine as a bear of very little brain goes hunting for his best friend’s killer; then a luckless old ex-con sets off to the wilds of Albany, NY to settle a long-time supernatural score in “Cutting”; and finally, our old friend the Iron Vanguard returns to fight a foe who’s three of a kind in “Triplicate Threat”. With a cover and spot illustrations remixed from the work of original Winnie-the-Pooh artist E.H. Shepard that pay homage to its inspirational roots.
It’s fifty pages of murder, mayhem, and heroics for $7 (plus $4 shipping in the US). Preorder is open NOW. Books are expected to ship beginning on
May 1, barring any printing delays. AND if you pre-order before April 5, you’ll get a special bonus ‘thank you’ for your support. “What’s in the box?” you shout. “WHAT’S IN THE BOX?” You have to order to find out. (Not a head.)
The full details and button to order your copy are on the STORE page (linked here and above.) We use PayPal for billing, which will let you use a PayPal or Venmo account, as well as a credit card (without needing a PayPal account), but if you need The Old Ways of Commerce, email Orders@douglasjlane.com and let’s talk. Also, this is a website EXCLUSIVE — not available through Lulu, Amazon, or anywhere else online yet. (#Dougopoly)
The STORE page also has a couple of new Oddball collectibles at the bottom of the page. In the near future, I’ll be branching out from one-off items with content from me to one-off items by others as I clear off some shelves, before I spin the wheel of eBay — and maybe I’ll just do an old-fashioned used book list this summer. As experiments go, I expect fully mixed results, but eBay loves their 15% take for books too much, and I’m not above trying to keep that in my pocket while I thin my shelves.
In Other News… The Saturday Evening Post’s ebook anthology of the 2022 Great American Fiction contest winners, including “Daddy, Play That Babalú” is available now. No dead trees edition on this one — just the ebook. Link can be found on the BUY page if you’re curious to read the winner, other runners-up, and the honorable mention stories. (Link goes to Amazon, as it’s a Kindle. I get no nickels, but you can read some of the other finalists not published on the website.) “Daddy, Play That Babalú” is still on the site to read for free. And new submission material is in the works. More information as it happens!
oh, bother…