mxleader on 17/11/2025 at 02:21
I've started blogging on another site: Substack. I don't hate it as much as Google blogger, Medium and other sites. This time I've taken a different approach to my blog. It's fiction. I want to refine my fiction writing skills which have been long dormant and wanted an outlet. Substack seems to be okay and is one of the more current popular sites for writers. The competition for favorable algorithms is tough though. Maybe it's not the best avenue. I don't know. My blog is very regional so that does present some limitations to gaining an audience. I'm okay with that. Mostly I'm writing these stories because it's a fun and free hobby for me. Maybe you'll like some of it. Maybe you won't. It's centered mostly in the area code 253 (Tacoma, WA) and around beer, veteran perspectives, cycling and unhinged realities.
If you are interested in reading very short fictional blog entries follow the link below. It's free.
The Blog Roll
(
https://tiltonwestword.substack.com/)
DuatDweller on 18/11/2025 at 00:28
I knew a Baldwin once, back in 1990, he was an American and was a Mormon missionary from Provo Utah.
Loved the hike story. 253 Rainer.
DuatDweller on 18/11/2025 at 01:09
Goldfish story, pure gold.
Tocky on 18/11/2025 at 04:56
Oh you know I'm going to read them. The first sounded like a poem, which is good because you search for extra meaning in one. Not fond of having to join to make a comment though. Anyway, I'm chin deep in my life story just now so I may go at it slowly.
Also I can beat DuatDweller. My bloodline going forward is Baldwin as my daughter married one and my grandkids are.
Tocky on 19/11/2025 at 07:06
Old Town is great. Detailed terminology to hide a slow reveal.
mxleader on 20/11/2025 at 04:03
Quote Posted by Tocky
Oh you know I'm going to read them. The first sounded like a poem, which is good because you search for extra meaning in one. Not fond of having to join to make a comment though. Anyway, I'm chin deep in my life story just now so I may go at it slowly.
Also I can beat DuatDweller. My bloodline going forward is Baldwin as my daughter married one and my grandkids are.
They're all pretty short so it shouldn't interrupt your life too much. They're best read on the library throne. Also, if the Baldwin is from California I could be related... My grandfather and great grandparents lived in Alton, CA in Humbolt County. I have relatives around there still.
Quote Posted by Tocky
Old Town is great. Detailed terminology to hide a slow reveal.
That was one of the most fun ones to write but has not received as much attention as some of the others.
Tocky on 21/11/2025 at 20:27
Mississippi Baldwins for several generations. Though I'm sure if you go back to the Revolutionary war the paths cross.
I liked Spinning. You do that thing where you entwine two stories and you do it well. Larry Brown used to do that. He was a semi-celebrated southern author I would talk to on occasion because he lived close and we both went to Square Books in Oxford. It works particularly well with trauma. He even had a story (I think it was in the anthology "Dirty Work") about a girl who gets raped from her point of view. He wrote the story then cut each sentence out and put them in a hat and shook them up. Then he picked them out like a lottery number and put the story together that way.
It was great being able to talk to him because I could ask him questions about terrain and intent. I'm one of those who always pictures things in my mind and automatically line up north to work from. I'm not always right but my mind does that. I drove backroads for forty years so that may have something to do with it. He told me his book "Fay" started on my hundred acre wood. I asked was he talking about my aunt Hattie's Sunday dinners that everyone came to in one section but he said no. I had a hard time believing that because he had described Heartsfield Levy so well. I guess you have to lie about some stuff to keep from being sued.
Anyway, you see why I can never make up a story. I digress from one sentence to the next. You stay on target. You have a good aim. Even when you entwine stories they come back together in the end. You have the gift.
Oh, and I like knowing the terrain around Puget Sound now. It put me in the scene to have been there.
Edit: no damn it it was not Dirty Work it was Facing the Music. The thing I hate worst about aging is losing my memory. Dirty Work wasn't even one of his anthologies. It was a good one though.
Arch Fenster on 21/11/2025 at 20:47
As mentioned - Substack is where it's at.
Tocky on 22/11/2025 at 06:45
I wanted to climb Rainier. I had planned to. The Paradise trail to the top didn't look so difficult. Then when we woke up to 32 degrees I checked the forecast. Three feet of snow. We got the hell out of there. Plans don't' mean shit compared to three feet of snow.
mxleader on 26/11/2025 at 04:24
Quote Posted by Tocky
Mississippi Baldwins for several generations. Though I'm sure if you go back to the Revolutionary war the paths cross.
Maybe. I know the Baldwin side goes back to my great grandparents who had a farm in Alton, CA and my grandfather also operated a bulldozer on logging operations in that area. I dug pretty far back and that line goes back to the Revolutionary War. Not sure about the Mississippi Baldwins. My aunt lived there for a while but she was born in WA state.
Quote Posted by Arch Fenster
As mentioned - Substack is where it's at.
It seem better than Blogger, Medium and some of the others.
Quote Posted by Tocky
I wanted to climb Rainier. I had planned to. The Paradise trail to the top didn't look so difficult. Then when we woke up to 32 degrees I checked the forecast. Three feet of snow. We got the hell out of there. Plans don't' mean shit compared to three feet of snow.
I prefer Sunrise on the other side, especially the Emmons glacier trail. Paradise is nice but there's always too many inexperienced tourists. The water that runs from the Emmons glacier is a jade green and right where dirt turns to ice is a great place to stop for lunch.
