Welcome back to Blogmas 2025! For those just tuning in, Blogmas is my annual series of holiday-themed blog posts that runs every day from December 1st through Christmas Day. It's become a tradition here at The Confusing Middle, and this year I'm shaking things up by letting AI generate my daily writing prompts. Today's December … Continue reading The Elf Who Called in Sick to Christmas
Short Story
The Carpenter’s Heart: The Untold Story of Cleopatra’s Secret Lover
History remembers Cleopatra VII as the legendary queen who captivated Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, but what if the greatest love of her life was someone history never recorded? The autumn winds of 48 BC swept across Alexandria's harbor as Queen Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator stood on her palace balcony, watching Roman ships approach in … Continue reading The Carpenter’s Heart: The Untold Story of Cleopatra’s Secret Lover
The Night Shift at Pine & Needle: A Christmas Tree Lot After Dark
Welcome to Day 14 of Blogmas 2025, where I'm now two weeks into this self-imposed December writing marathon and starting to question my life choices. For those just discovering this festive endurance test, Blogmas is my annual tradition of posting holiday-themed content every single day through Christmas. This year's posts are guided by AI-generated prompts, … Continue reading The Night Shift at Pine & Needle: A Christmas Tree Lot After Dark
The Letter from Jessica Claus
Day 11 of Blogmas 2025 continues, because stopping now would be admitting defeat, and I'm nothing if not stubbornly committed to arbitrary goals. For those just discovering this December marathon, Blogmas is my annual tradition of posting holiday-themed content every single day through Christmas. This year's posts are guided by AI-generated prompts, which is how … Continue reading The Letter from Jessica Claus
The Last Wish of the Season
Welcome to Day 8 of Blogmas 2025, where I continue subjecting myself and you to daily holiday-themed content through December 25th. For those just joining us, Blogmas is my annual marathon of Christmas posts, and this year I'm letting AI generate the prompts because apparently, I need a digital overseer to keep me creative. Today's … Continue reading The Last Wish of the Season
The Weight of Paper and Time
The tremor started in my left hand on a Tuesday. I was hunched over a 1940s land survey map, magnifying glass poised above a water stain that might have been hiding a property boundary crucial to a decades-old inheritance dispute. The kind of painstaking work that had always felt like meditation to me—just me, the … Continue reading The Weight of Paper and Time
The Gift No One Gave
Welcome back to Blogmas 2025! If you're just joining us, Blogmas is my annual December tradition of posting holiday-themed content every single day from now through Christmas Day. It's ambitious, occasionally exhausting, and somehow I keep doing it year after year. This year, I've enlisted AI to provide daily writing prompts to keep things interesting. … Continue reading The Gift No One Gave
The Barometer of Hearts
The first thing Maya noticed about Millbrook wasn't the quaint Main Street or the way corn fields stretched endlessly in every direction. It was the weather app on her phone, which had been stuck on the same forecast for three days straight: Conditions variable. Check local atmospheric readings. "What kind of forecast is that?" she … Continue reading The Barometer of Hearts
The Deception of Margaret Blackwood: A Tale of Revenge on the High Seas
The salt spray kissed Margaret Blackwood's weathered face as she adjusted the worn tricorn hat shadowing her features. To her crew aboard the Crimson Dawn, she was simply "Black Matt"—a cunning quartermaster whose sharp mind for tactics had earned them more successful raids than any other pirate vessel prowling the waters between the Carolinas and … Continue reading The Deception of Margaret Blackwood: A Tale of Revenge on the High Seas
The Voice in the Machine
Wayne Taylor stared at the blinking cursor on his monitor, the quarterly reports swimming before his tired eyes. The Manhattan skyline glittered beyond his corner office window, but he might as well have been looking at a wall. Six months since the divorce papers were signed, and the world still felt muted, like someone had … Continue reading The Voice in the Machine
The Confusing Middle 