As soon as I read John Scalzi plans to spend the month of August away from his blog it occurred to me I should volunteer to fill in for him. That’s the least I could do.

John must have known I would respond in that neighborly kind of way because he stopped in the middle of his post and said —

Don’t ask to be a guest blogger. If I want you I will ask you. For serious, y’all.

Wasn’t it thoughtful of him to spare me from writing an unnecessary e-mail? Means I can go straight to working on my post for Whatever. Which, frankly, is a little bit intimidating.

Picture this as the equivalent of Captain Nemo asking you to sit and play something on his pipe organ. Yes, sure, what a privilege! Only I don’t want to end up seated at the console and find the only thing I know how to play on a keyboard is “Chopsticks.”

So I’ll be hard at work writing up the insights from my professional writing career. Like that big $20 sale I once made to Mike Resnick. And… And…