Retirement
I’ve been retired now for three months. What is life like? It’s slower, more spread out, quieter. Few things have to be done by the clock. Though I spend two hours a day up in the bedroom working on my writing, that’s not a job, and I
Latest
Oopsie!
I made a big boo-boo on my Fourth Wing post...making it sound like I finished ALL BUT ONE of the books I started, when it was just the opposite. Re-read the new opening paragraph on the site and you'll see what REALLY happened!
The Sixth Book of 2026: Fourth Wing, by Rebecca Yarros
Started sometime in the second week of February, 2026 Finished 2/22/26 The book blurbs have been silent this month because I failed to finish all but one of the books I’ve been reading. I decided to try a new reading strategy of pursuing multiple books instead of
The Fifth Book Of 2026: A Princess Of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Started 1/26/26, Finished 1/30/26 I tend to avoid writing earlier than mid-20th century. The changes wrought upon the world by the Second World War changed literature, and for me at least, made it more readable. So here I am, at 70, reading Edgar Rice Burroughs for
The Fourth Book of 2026: The Perfectionists, by Simon Winchester
Started 1/19/26 Ended 1/26/26 I eat this kind of book up. I call the category "popular history;" written for a general reader, concentrating on a single event of concept. I'd never come across Simon Winchester before, but now I'm certainly
The Third Book of 2026: Cibola Burns, by James S.A. Corey
Started 1/13/26, finished 1/18/26 I started reading The Expanse series last year, after several years knowing about it but ignoring it (because, you know, I have to prioritize somewhere). I’m not sorry that I waited, but I’m glad I gave in. It’s been
The Second Book of 2026: Blood and Treasure, by Ryan Pote
Finished reading 1/12/26 This was a hard mini-review to write, because I'm reluctant to say how much I disliked this book...while also giving it the same attention I've devoted to any Tom Clancy or Mick Herron novel. Maybe I wanted to like it.
The First Book of 2026: The Ten Thousand Doors Of January
Finished reading January 9, 2026 Please excuse the huge size of the book cover on the web version of this page. I can't figure out how to make the feature illustration smaller. Maybe next time... There are two cheats here: first of all, I started reading this in
The Books I Read In 2025
2025 wasn't a stellar year for reading, but I did read stuff! As usual, there were too many re-reads, but some very pleasing new (to me) stuff as well. Though I quit tracking my reading in 2023 and 2024, I gave it another try by trying to remember
Self-Publishing, Part 3
It’s Thursday, September 4, and yes, that’s me with a copy of my book in my hand. I received the author copy of my paperback from Amazon yesterday. This is an entirely new experience for me. For the first time ever, I’m holding a book I wrote
Self-Publishing, Part 2
As I start this, it is Monday, September 1, 2025, Labor Day in the US. I started my self-publishing adventure (and it is an adventure) last Friday, and I’ve been making progress. I’ve also gotten myself thoroughly entrenched in Animal Crossing: New Horizons on my Nintendo Switch 2,
Self-Publishing: The Adventure (Part 1)
I’m about to embark on an adventure, and if I don’t get too distracted or lazy, I will document a bit of it. The adventure is self-publishing. This is a journey I’ve already started, but it’s close to getting serious. It’s already cost serious money
On Sharing My Novel
A few months ago I shared my novel The Immortal Remains with a friend. The novel was in the midst of being serialized and was pretty much in final form, after starting it about 11 years ago. She was at first reluctant to read it, since she'd read
I’m still alive
This is just a message to let my readers (Hello? Anyone?) know that the blog is not dead, just quiet. I'm working on a couple of different things that are taking a lot of my attention, besides the normal life stuff (working, eating, sleeping). I intend to have
earworms
Earworm Of The Day: Fire Meets Gasoline
Hey, earworms are back! I’m not sure whether to celebrate or not. Today I woke up with Sia’s “Fire Meet Gasoline” running through my head. Seems like an appropriate choice, since things seem to be going up in flames all around us. As with so much else, I
Where to find my novel
It came to my attention that I didn’t include a link to the serialized The Immortal Remains in my last post. You can find all 63 episodes free at https://leehauser.substack.com or at Medium (paywalled) at https://lee-232.medium.com.
The Joy Of Serialization
I’ve finished the serial publication of my novel The Immortal Remains, and I’m not sure I’ll ever do that again. It’s not that I think there’s anything wrong with serial publication. In fact, I’m in the middle of serializing another novel, Pas De Deux,
What I think of AI: A hot take
My relationship with AI is complicated. First of all, generally speaking, I don’t like it. I think it is overhyped. I think AI companies have stolen copyrighted material for training their models without compensating the rights holders. I think AI companies are overvalued and are spending too much money
In My Absence...
Sorry, I've been silent for a while. I got caught by the creeping coughing crud, and both ear worms and a desire to do much of anything have been absent. I'm usually known at my workplace for never, ever taking sick days, but I took five
earworms
Earworm of the Day: Who Wants To Live Forever
There's nothing quite like waking up with a pure soprano in your head, as I did this morning with Sarah Brightman's Who Wants To Live Forever echoing like an angel's voice over the alarm. The song is from Sarah’s 1997 album Time To
earworms
Earworm Of The Day: Spring!
My earworms have finally broken out of their fixation on pop and jumped into the classical realm, with Vivaldi’s “Spring” concerto from The Four Seasons. When I think of this piece, Spring is always the one that comes to mind (or runs endlessly through my head). I’m very
earworms
Today’s Earworm: There She Goes
It’s been several days since I woke up with a recognizable earworm. I’m not going to write posts about the random bits of music that assault me in the mornings, droning chord progressions in my head that have no association with anything. So, waking up to Sixpence None
Book Review: Wanderers, Chuck Wendig, 2019
I was on the pre-orders train for Chuck Wendig’s Wanderers in 2019. I even still have the highway pin, shaped like an interstate highway sign (pictured above) awarded to some of us pre-order people. By that time I’d read several of Wendig’s novels, and followed his blog
earworms
Today's Earworm: Love and Marriage
The stuff our brains choose to surface...today, after a couple of earworm-free days, it's Sammy Kahn' s and Jimmy Van Heusen's Love And Marriage, as sung by Old Blue Eyes himself, Frank Sinatra. I had no clue about the history of this song. It