Author: Scott William Carter

“The Seduction of Doctor Dimension” in Ellery Queen, the 400th comic of Run of the House, and a Little Update

My short story, “The Seduction of Doctor Dimension,” just appeared in the November/December issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.

This one features a young, aspiring actress seeking revenge on an established, if fading, star of a hit SF TV show, a man who once took advantage of her in the worst way. While I don’t always know where my stories and novels come from—sometimes it’s no more than an interesting title that makes me want to write a story that goes along with it—I know this one was motivated partly by my deep disappointment in the behavior of a certain beloved bestselling writer. I won’t name the person, because I do believe in the principle of innocent until proven guilty, but there was enough preponderance of evidence that it makes it difficult for me to even pick up the author’s work again, much less read it with an unbiased eye.

Maybe in time. We’ll see. This has happened to me before, and sometimes there’s no recovering from it. There was another writer I enjoyed as a teenager whose views on the gay community—he once compared it to bestiality—were so odious that I swore never to read him again. And I haven’t. On the other hand, there are other works of literature or art that are so good, so transcendent, that I can appreciate them (enjoy might be too strong a word) despite knowing what a terrible person created them. Like so many things in life, it depends.

However, if we control anything at all, even in the slightest way, we can at least somewhat control how we spend our time and where we put our attention. Most of us have experienced our own share of disappointment and disillusionment, whether that’s personal, professional, or political. In recent years, I’ve had my share of all three. I won’t enumerate them here, because I also respect your time and attention, and you didn’t come here for a diatribe, now did you? I mention this only because many of these disappointments have weighed on me this year, dragging down my creative output and forcing me to revaluate a few things. The good news is that the gears of my productivity have been powering back up to full speed. If nothing else, taking Rolf Dobelli’s advice to actively avoid the daily news (and read, as much as possible, only longform journalism) has dramatically improve my state of mind.

I recently finished a new mystery novel, featuring a new cast of characters, a book which will be going to the editor in the next week or so before it enters the publishing process. (More on that soon.) I’ve written a couple short stories I’m pretty happy with. I’m a couple chapters into the next Garrison Gage book. And I’ve also published my 400th Run of the House cartoon strip:

If you enjoy the strip, please consider taking out a subscription, which will get you a second comic every week emailed straight to your inbox. Your support is much appreciated.

We had a nice holiday season here with family and friends. It was a wet one, which is frequently the case here in Oregon, but I don’t mind so much. It’s the price we pay for this lush, green paradise where we live. Just like how you can’t live a rich, full life without some measure of disappointment, you can’t have anything good without trade-offs. Like having pets, for example. They may bring you great joy , but they also won’t always be with you. That was certainly the case with Paisley, my thirteen-year-old cat, who recently passed away. She had a big purr for such a little kitty, and she will be missed.

“Strays” in Asimov’s, A Run of the House Sale, and a Summer Update

That’s a photo of Rosie, my intrepid Irish Setter, and my daughter playing on Beverly Beach on the Oregon coast a few months back. You can just barely make them out on the beach if you squint. We spent a lovely few days at Otter Rock, a moody, somewhat isolated headland tucked off Highway 101 that’s great if you want to get away from the crowds but not so great if you want what the crowds are often looking for: restaurants, shops, attractions, and the like. Fortunately, Newport is only a ten-minute drive to the south, which offers all of that and more, so staying at Otter Rock is a little like having the best of both worlds.

A little news: My short story, “Strays,” just appeared in the September/October 2025 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine. This one—which involves a husband and wife team sent to track down stray missiles in space from a long-settled galactic war—is one of my favorites. That doesn’t always mean much, I’ve found, because what an author thinks is good and what a reader thinks is good aren’t always the same thing, but it is one of those stories that when I finished it I thought, hmm, there’s something here, something that resonates, something that sticks with you. If you want to take out a subscription, you can do so here; if you want to buy this particular issue electronically, you can do it here. I believe Kindle Unlimited readers can also read it right now.

Second, I’m running a End of Summer 45% Off Sale for my comic strip, Run of the House, which brings the monthly cost down to only $1.65/month. Published twice a week, that’s 104 cartoons a year delivered straight to your inbox! While I probably split my time between writing and cartooning 70/30, I do really enjoy creating the strip, feel I’m slowly getting better at it, and I’d love your support. You can sign up today at www.runofthehouse.net. The deal expires the first day of fall: September 22, 2025. Here’s a recent strip, one that only paying subscribers received:

Our summer’s been a mix of trips to the Oregon coast and the Sunriver area up near Bend, kind of the usual, but the biggest trip of the year so far was to southeast Florida. Back in April, Heidi and I flew to Miami, rented a convertible, and spent a wonderful ten days ranging everywhere from Palm Beach to Key West. Neither of us had ever been to the Miami area, and it certainly lived up to its reputation as a world class city. Since it has very little public transportation other than busses, the maze of Interstates, highways, and other roads is constantly clogged with nerve-wracking traffic, which was really my only complaint. Weather was in mid-seventies, with low humidity and almost no rain. We drove all the way down to the southern most point in the United States, visited the Hemmingway Museum, and enjoyed margaritas on a rooftop bar over looking the Atlantic Ocean.

While we’re on the subject of famous authors, most of you know my love for John D. Macdonald’s Travis McGee series, so I couldn’t resist visiting the Bahia Mar marina. In the books, this is where McGee’s houseboat, The Busted Flush, was anchored in slip F-18. After MacDonald died, the marina even allowed a plaque to be placed at the supposed location in memory of author and his beloved series. After a remodel back in the 90s, however, slip F-18 no longer exists, so the marina moved the plaque indoors. There are too many photos of our trip to drop on one page, and nobody but us would want to see them anyway, but here’s a gallery of just a few for those who want a taste of our trip. Great fun.

  • Driving on US1 at sunset.
  • Hemmingway House in Key West.
  • Bahia Mar in Fort Lauderdale.
  • John D. MacDonald plague at Bahia Mar.
  • Hard to give a sense of how awesome US1 to Key West is unless you take a shot from off the road on one of the keys.
  • The Carlyle at Miami Beach. The Golden Girls spinoff, The Golden Palace, used this as an exterior shot.
  • The Holocaust Memorial in Miami Beach was one of the most moving exhibits I’ve ever experienced.
  • Pompano Beach, just north of Miami, where we stayed for the second part of our trip.

Speaking of fun, I’ve been enjoying writing the latest book, which, just as I eluded to above, doesn’t always amount to much when it comes to how readers might respond, but creating with joy is always more pleasant than creating with angst and frustration, even if I’ve come to accept that it is quite possible to love doing something even if it sometimes makes you miserable, maybe especially because it makes you miserable. I know that’s a strange thing to say, but I think one of the biggest misconceptions about taking a serious approach to something in the arts, whether that’s writing, painting, music, or some other pursuit, is that it should always make you happy.

Happiness is like the sunshine. It comes and goes. It can be very pleasant when it’s here, but it can be a very empty pursuit to seek it just for its own sake, and, strangely enough, often results in feeling unhappy more of the time if you do. One of the things I enjoy most about writing is that it’s often difficult. Not always. But if it was easy, I don’t think I’d enjoy it as much. Along these lines, I’d highly recommend Oliver Burkeman’s The Antidote: Happiness for People who Hate Positive Thinking. I read this wonderful book recently and was floored by how much Burkeman’s thinking mirrors my own, and how much the journey he takes in this book matches my own journey in recent years: first becoming disenchanted with an obsessive and ultimately self-defeating fixation on goals and rah-rah positive thinking that so took hold of me as a young man, to ultimately trying to fashion my own working philosophy by taking what I felt were the best (and often common) elements of Buddhism, Taoism, and Stoicism, with a generous helping of modern psychology thrown in for good measure. It may sound like a terribly negative book, but it’s really about how freeing it can be to embrace insecurity, as Alan Watts memorably put it, and stop trying to force things all the time.

Hopefully back before too long, but if not, well, I’ll try not to force things . . .

Back on Social Media — For Now, At Least (Find me on Bluesky)

Daffodils are blooming and the cherry blossom trees are just starting to pop, a good sign that’s spring here in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. That’s a shot of Rosie from last week on Saint Patrick’s Day.

I have a few creative projects I’ve had to set aside lately—I try not to think of it like giving up on them completely, because I often find myself returning to things even years later—but I’m feeling good about the current book. We’ll see how it goes. I have to say, it’s been tougher to stay in any sort of creative space the last few months, for what should be obvious reasons for anyone living in the United States, but that’s all I really want to say about that, at least here.  I’ll only add that I’ve never been more glad that the founding fathers of my country, as flawed as they were, had the prescience to design a system of government with the kinds of checks and balances that fears mob rule as much as a takeover by a would-be tyrant.

In a minor update, I’m back on social media, at least on one platform—Bluesky. You can find me at https://bsky.app/profile/scottwilliamcarter.com.  A couple years ago, I deleted all of my social media accounts—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, the whole deal. I did this partly for personal reasons (to cut down on the noise), and partly for reasons similar to what Cory Doctorow articulated in his viral essay on the inevitable “enshitification” of all Internet platforms beholden to shareholders.

It probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do for my creative career, but I’d finally had enough. Bluesky is trying to be different in all sorts of ways, but what I find most helpful is the control they give the user: muting, blocking, no ads, allowing me to see posts displayed chronologically, etc. I’m still pretty committed to being an Internet Minimalist—I have a hard enough time turning off the fire hose of information without constantly tempting myself—but it’s been fun to have a place again to post random thoughts on books, movies, creativity, and other things. Join me, if you like!

A Neat Milestone: 300 Published Run of the House Cartoons

I’m writing this on a rainy December day, which is frequently the case here in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, but I’m not complaining. Long rainy winters are the price we pay for living in this lush green part of the country. Both kids are home for the holidays, a fire is burning in the hearth, and my intrepid Irish Setter is sleeping at my feet. Life is not without its challenges (whose isn’t?), but it’s pretty good right now.

A neat milestone: I recently published my 300th Run of the House cartoon. The first one was published back in April 2019. While I did take a lengthy hiatus, I’ve been consistently publishing twice a week (one free, one for paying subscribers) for two years. Take a look a the difference between the first comic and the 300th:

#1:

#300:

It’s fun to see the growth, which, for me at least, is the whole point of creating art or entertainment. There is no end destination. You just keep striving to get better, produce the best work you can on a daily basis, and let that be enough. 

Which is a lesson I’m carrying into 2025. I’ve had both highs and lows in 2024 (as I’m sure most people did), but the joy of creating and getting better at creating is always there. It never ceases to amaze me how fast my worries disappear when I just sit down and start typing or drawing.

If you’d like to try out Run of the House, a comic strip about what a quirky group of pets do when their people aren’t around, you can do so at www.runofthehouse.net. Monday comics are always free, and there’s no obligation to upgrade to a paid account unless you’d like to get a second comic in your inboxes every Wednesday. I appreciate every subscriber!