February Sweeps - Day 7

So, it's been a week since I started this.  I don't know if I'm particularly proud of myself or not.  Last week, before I had committed to writing every day, I feel like I wrote more (there's no way to know because I texted my word count to Big, and all those texts are gone), and probably better.  But I can't get that week back, so I can look at this one, and move on to the next.

Lots of wandering around feeling floopzy,* singing and listening to music, writing and editing audio, and trying to force a positive attitude on myself.  I think I finished a story ("Fisher & Florence"), worked on two others ("Never Let Him Go" and "The Last Friday In December"), worked on polishing the Lara & the Witch story so I could record it, and started a new one today ("Troubled Child").

"Troubled Child" is a title Marshal Latham assigned me for the contest he's doing over on the Journey Into... podcast.  It was actually a clever idea: he'd give everybody the title of a song by the band Journey, and they had to write a story about it.  It had to be between 2000 and 7000 words long, and couldn't include the words *$#!*, %*@(#!, nubbin, or !$%^)#! in it.  I'm sure there were other rules (I think you have to take a line or two from the song and incorporate it somewhere), but it was really the challenge of it I was excited by.

Well, this week Marshal assigned me the song, one I didn't know, off the album Frontiers.

I've listened through a few times, and it hasn't really helped me.  I've sat down on three different occasions, trying to determine why the child is troubled, and if the story should be about him, or about a parent or teacher.

Today, I decided it would be about the mother, and that it would be a daughter.  I sat down and just started writing, not really sure where it was going to go.  It may be the first story in three months not about (or featuring) that particular girl that is responsible for me doing all this mid-life stuff.

Even so, I wrote most of it, and I'm not sure it was bad.  We'll see when I finish it and/or lose the contest.  Cool beans, as my cousin would say.

At one point during my writing, I glanced out the window, and someone had painted the sky with orange and red.  I thought, "If I were in a better mood, I'd go outside and look at the sunset."

But I am trying, as you know, to have a positive attitude this month, so I went ahead and went down the stairs and out the door of the library.**  It was kind of awesome, the way the sky looked, and there were a couple of other people out there also looking.  I took this fine picture:

And my guess is, only two days ago, when I still had my phone (and all the data that was stored in it), it wouldn't have taken such a great photo.

I went back up and wrote for a little more (making today the day with the most words).

A week from now is Valentine's Day, and I pray I don't feel miserable then.  But even if I do, I can't give in to that despair . . . or they win.

Words Today: 2,063
Words Total: 9,242

*Oh, I'm sorry, do you not have the word floopzy in your language?  How sad for you.

**I had to go past a big group of dressed-up teens that were getting their pictures taken for prom.  It seems like just yesterday, when people were going to prom all around me--people my own age, I mean.  I always envy young people today, the way they can connect with social media, and take a million pictures of themselves and their friends, and make vine videos, and make out with their cousins (only the girls, mind you, I didn't mean male cousins make out with each other . . . that would not be cool beans at all, I imagine).

February Sweeps - Day 6

You know, I probably could have written more last night, but I didn't.  Today, I SHOULD do better.

But it snowed during the night, and it's still coming down, and the roads seem a total mess, and the mailman I just spoke to (he had snow tires on his vehicle) said that the plows are out but it'll be awhile before anything is accessable.

I sent a photo to Big (who'd been up for four hours and was surely already complaining about the heat) and he said, "You should take your AT-AT out there* and take a picture."

So I did.  But dang, that Walker is so big and unwieldy, I feel like I already had my exercise for the morning.  I may have actually harmed myself, leaning over my chair and trying to pick the thing up while pressing my ribs into the armrest.  It's the exact same place where I came down on the handlebars last year while trying to be young and ride my nephew's scooter (jeez, of course I would be too big for one intended for an eight year old.  Duh).  Maybe I actually cracked a rib that afternoon, and I recracked it today.

Regardless, it would bother me for the rest of the day (ooh, and the next).

Great.

Shoot, Valentine's Day is nearly upon us.  I had vowed to do a special episode of my show for it.  I need to get to work on that, or this crappiest-day-of-the-year will have beaten me once again.

So, yesterday, I was going to introduce a new character into my "Dead & Breakfast" series.  She's someone that I alluded to in both "The Old Man & Me" and "Three-Time Visitor" (when the characters refused to do what I had wanted them to), and because she's significant (to me), I wanted to come up with a name I really like.

So I went on Facebook and asked people to suggest names.  It was interesting which folks put their wives' names and which just pulled a name out of a hat, and which people put their own name.  While I've never liked my own name, I do have a handful of favorite names that I would've branded some poor child with if I had had some, but I've never used one of them in a story (I still don't think this is the right time for that one, though).  This girl has to be really damaged, yet kind of wonderful beneath it all (like the one I based the wife, Marin, on in "Journey Into Another Dimension"), and Mason will (hopefully) discover that along the way.

Gosh, I love writing sometimes.  I have so little actual power in life, and yet in these stories, people can want and think and speak and feel whatever I breathe into them.  I only wish I could do it better, and that anybody cared.

But I can't get melancholy . . . that way leads to madness.

Instead, I'm going to go out and take those pictures (I put the Imperial Walker and two of it's little nephews out in the yard, and waited for some snow to coat them before taking a photo), see if they look good.

There's really not much snow on the ground.  The flakes are tiny, dandruff-sized bits, and that doesn't pile up so much.  I'll leave these out there all day, though, and we'll see what happens.

I like this one a lot, because I got down close to the ground, and they look much, much bigger, like I'm one of those crazy Star Wars fans that built a large replica in his backyard.**

I was asked (surely, for the last time) to do a reading for a popular fiction podcast the other day.  I recorded the story, edited it, and sent the file to the editor.  To my mortification, he sent it back, saying it was riddled with errors.  Somehow, I had sent him the unedited version (which is absolutely NOT possible, seriously), which includes multiple retakes, and the moment when I fall asleep right before the end.

To say I was embarrassed is an understatement.  But what's worse is, when I went to send him the correct file . . . the edited version of the story is no longer edited.  All the mistakes, relines, and profanity is back.

I've said before that doing a project a second time is pure agony, even if it was fun the first go-round, but this one is particularly enpissening.  I just finished it again, and boy, I don't know if I even want to listen to it now, just to double-check to see if there are still mistakes.  Maybe it's better this way, to not ever be asked again.  Ahh, glass half-full.

I don't feel like I did much useful with my day.  I didn't have work or have to take my nephews to their practices, but I was feeling really down on myself and worthless, despite vowing that I would try to face February with a positive attitude.  And unfortunately, I put on an Adele song ("Don't You Remember") just now, and I cried again.

But instead of going down to Wallaceville to hit the nearest liquor store, I forced myself to get in the car, brave the snow, and head to the library.

Before I got there, though, I stopped at the bank, to deposit an embarrassingly-small paycheck, and as I was at the ATM, I looked over just in time to see a big, heavyset dude slip on the icy sidewalk and fall flat on his back.  He was walking with (I presume) his wife, and I felt sorry for him as I saw the wife try to help him back up, but nothin' doin'--the guy was just too big.

I am not proud to admit that I immediately thought, "Well, if I go help him, one of the cars behind me in line (for the ATM) will get upset with me."

It was a small person's thought, and after I had it, I drove forward (so somebody else could use the machine), put my car in Park, and took off my seatbelt to go help the dude.  At that moment, a waiter came running out of the restaurant next to the bank, and he came up alongside the big man and his wife and helped the guy stand up.  It seemed clear the fallen man was hurt, and the waiter--who didn't even have a coat on--helped him walk over to a place where he could sit down, the wife on the other side of him.

Now, a normal person would (probably) witness this and think, "See, there is good in the world, somebody who will drop whatever they're doing to help somebody in need."  That's probably what you would've thought.  But me, I thought, "Goddamn you, Rish.  You just sat there, when you could've helped that poor fat guy.  No wonder nobody loves you.  Now go find a bridge."

I won't continue to tell you what the voice said (it can be kind of brusque), but it did really bum me out.  And I wish I had been faster and more selfless, since I was closer to this unfortunate man than the waiter was.  And I had a coat on.

But I'm still here.  And next time, I'll move quicker.

So, I did end up going to the library, and while I did not want to write long, I did start, then spend a while typing something up from a notebook.  I found some notes from the story I'm trying to produce in audio next, did a search for it in the master document, and when I didn't find it, I thought, "Okay, this is a scene I can write."  So, I wrote on it for a thousand words or so . . . and felt fine about it.

And then, when I tried to paste it into the manuscript where it belonged . . . I found that I had already written that scene, a year ago, just with different words and a different tone.  Ah, what a waste.  But I'm still going to count the words.  Wouldn't you?

I also wrote a bit more right before I went to bed.  I don't know if anybody wants to read these stories, but I sure want to write them.

And with that, I'm feeling a little bit better about today.

Words Today: 1,536
Words Total: 7,179

*Rhymes with Ratbat, by the way, not with Katie-Katie.

**As opposed to a crazy Star Wars fan that would spend an ungodly amount for a two-foot tall AT-AT toy.  At least it was used.

Storage Unit Serenade

So, today, Big Anklevich posted a video I made last week on Facebook.  I was mortified.  It was a video (like the one I recorded yesterday, before my phone died) intended to (hopefully) inspire and/or cheer up somebody who needed it.  But I was sure that, out of context, it would be sure to make me look like a rhino's pooper.

I called Big to ask him to take it down, and he--somehow--convinced me that he had been right to put it up.  He said that he thought that it was cool, and that nobody would make fun of it.  So, still it rides.

But that reminds me of what I mentioned a couple of days ago, that I should try to record myself singing a song every time I go to the storage unit (which is usually weekly), and more importantly, post it online (for people to mock, if they so desire).  It might go a ways toward making me a bit better at putting myself out there, and at least pretend to be confident.

You don't HAVE to watch it, but here goes . . .

February Sweeps - Day 5

Well, today may turn out to be my worst one.

First off, I got a big pink pimple on my forehead.  It's a drag being a teenager, believe me.

Then, I got almost nothing done today, unless you call exercise, editing, and podcasting getting stuff done.

I went to the library, even though I only had an hour, and as soon as I got logged into a computer, I got a phone call.  I didn't recognize the number, but it was a local (in town) number, so I left the second floor (you're not supposed to talk on your phone there, and I'd hate to become what I most despise [again]), and picked up before it went to Voicemail.  Well, it seems I had dropped something by the entrance and somebody had found it and taken it to the front desk.  They had my telephone number from my library card, and were able to get it back to me.  Nice that people are honest and decent (though, in Bossk's defense, nobody could have benefitted from it but me*).

I had meant to a) go through my notebook from a couple of years ago, and make sure I had everything typed up from this story I'm trying to reconstruct, and b) introduce the love interest in the story I started on just yesterday.  Well, I don't know where that hour went, because I didn't manage to do either one.

I only got about three hundred words in in the time I had.  I don't know, maybe I fell asleep or something.

Later in the day, I recorded a podcast with Marshal Latham, and then my phone just seemed to die (it had been acting up all day, though).  I tried restarting it, but it wouldn't turn on again.  I tried it several times, even took the battery out, but nope.  I had recorded a "motivational" video on it today, and it will turn out to be the last thing I recorded on it (and I luckily uploaded it to the Dropbox before the phone died).  So, I'd bought another cheap phone the last time this gave me a hard time, and I switched over to it, and tried to transfer my stuff onto the new old phone.  Apparently, some apps will not work on it, since it is too old a phone and the apps are too new.

That probably means that I'll have to buy a new new phone, and I can't afford to do that, so, well, I don't know what I'll do.  Suffer, I guess.

Regardless, I'm going to have Big tell me the exact number I texted him of my word count (I lost all my texts, even the very nice one you once sent me).  I will do better tomorrow.

Words Today: 301
Words Total: 5,643

P.S.  Hey, I went another day without crying, so I guess I'm doing a little bet--

Oh no, I just saw this picture of something called The Grand Staircase National Monument.  It was so beautiful that, yeah, I cried a little bit.  Wanna go with me?

*Guess they could have just thrown it away or left it there, knowing that some stranger would suffer for it.  So, there's that.

February Sweeps - Day 4

Listened only to Adele this morning. Didn't cry once. Progress!

I dunno if you have an inner voice that's constantly telling you how worthless you are. If not, then maybe God doesn't feel like talking to you. This is what my inner voice was saying today (courtesy of Obvious Plant):

But this is the month I'm writing every day, and doing my darndest to have a positive attitude, even though I sure am on a Coney Island coaster of emotions . . . and it's likely there are sections missing from the track.

Last week (it might have been Friday), I was at the library, working furiously to finish a story, when I actually ran out of time on the library computer. A part of me thought, "Why not go over and pay to get another hour, so you can finish this thing?" But I was worried that I'd lose my work if I did that (at this point, the computer was alerting me that I had three minutes left and I should save my work--ie, email it to myself). Now, it's not one of my great regrets--heck, not even from that day--but I wonder why I didn't just pay to sit there longer, and finish the piece*, since I was on a roll and in the Writing Zone ("you're traveling to another dimension... traveling alone, of course...").

Next time that happens, I'm going to go the extra mile, man up, take the road less traveled, and gird up my loins to keep writing.

I drove over to the library, without a plan as what to write (I've got a story I've been calling "Never Let Him Go," which I could finish, and two of my goals were to complete "Balms & Sears" and "Comes the Podcatcher"), but I sat down and started writing a new story.  This one shouldn't be too long, and it is entitled "The Last Friday In December."  I wish my muse (or hey, that person who posted the "You Are Enough" mural) could see me right now, at my most productive ever.

Do you love me, now that I can dance?

Words Today: 1,531
Words Total: 5,342

*I finished it the next day, so all was not for naught. Even so...

February Sweeps - Day 3

Hey, I think I went yesterday without crying!  Oh, wait.  There was the Adele song.

Ah well.

So, I had work today, and had to take my nephew to his basketball practice, but I still managed to get over to the library to see what I could write.  I spent a good stretch of time trying to piece together the sequel to "Like A Good Neighbor," because while I wrote most/all of it on the computer, it was during last year's daily writing sessions, so each day was its own file . . . and damned if some of it was out of order or made no sense.  This is going to be a challenge to make presentable.

After copying and pasting it all, though, I took a few minutes to write the Fisher and Florence story through to the end.  Can you believe it?  A week ago, I hadn't even thought of it, and today, I finished it.  It's a simple, harmless tale, that I believe I'll throw into the episode "I Feel . . . Young," whenever I get the cojones to put that out there.

I do need to come up with a title for it, though.  Right now, it's just called "Fisher & Florence file," which is rather alliterative, but isn't exactly what I'm looking for.  I wonder if I ought to unpublish "A Mark On The Sky" and stick the short story in as a bonus coda.  Probably not, but still, it's great that I can write a romantic scene (or quasi-romantic) with a septuagenarian and a sixty-something.

Well, not great for you, but for me, I feel like I'm growing.

Words Today: 1,335
Words Total: 3,811

P.S. I discovered the other day when I went to the storage unit where I keep hundreds of worthless toys, that the acoustics make it sound like I'm in the shower when I talk or sing.  So, I used my phone to record a clip of me singing to send to Big Anklevich.  I went again today, and I am SERIOUSLY tempted to record myself every time I go, and upload it here.  Mostly because it would go a ways toward making me more outgoing/fearless/like-a-millennial-that-has-to-document-everything-they-do-or-everywhere-they-go.

What do you think?

February Sweeps - Day 2

Today was Super Bowl Sunday, a fairly significant holiday in America.  I thought I might podcast instead.  Recently, I posted a photo of Admiral Kirk at the end of WRATH OF KHAN, where he says, "I feel . . . young."  Kirk was fifty in that movie, and I absolutely cannot stop thinking about it, about youth, about regrets, about things I might have done that could have put me on a different, better path.

I don't get to sleep at night, I keep wondering if should have made different life choices, and I find myself shockingly emotional at inopportune times.  I recorded a ninety minute confessional podcast on Tuesday to send to someone to post after I am dead.  I created an Instagram page in some misguided attempt to feel significant.  I've exercised, I drank Diet soda instead of the good stuff, and I've tried listening to new, modern (and mostly so, so bad) music.

Every day, I dwell on it and--

Oh, shit.  This is just my mid-life crisis, isn't it?

Of course!  How did I not realize that?  It all makes sense now.  Everybody goes through this at some point, don't they?  Well, I imagine Heath Ledger and James Dean and River Phoenix didn't experience it, but you know what I mean.

Hmmm.  My point was that I was thinking of doing an episode where I talk about Admiral Kirk feeling old and then feeling young again.  It just seemed too poignant and close to the surface to leave alone.

I still haven't done my Valentine's Day episode, despite constantly wondering how long it will take (and if it will even work), but I did consider sitting down and writing a V.D. follow-up to my book "A Mark On The Sky" with Fisher and Florence either going on a date or being together right at the end of his stretch of youthening influences (it wouldn't be related to the narrative, except as a farewell from me to those characters, and an attempt by me to write something sweet and romantic and sad at the same time).

Hey, I could even do both (after all, I'm not sleeping).

So, despite how overwhelmingly important the Super Bowl outcome was to me, I tried to be productive today, and went jogging, recorded that Kirk show, edited a podcast, and sat down to write on this new story.  I wish Fisher Palmer the best of luck.  I have to think that, if there's romantic hope for a seventy-something janitor . . . there's hope for me.

Words Today: 1,018
Total Words: 2,476

Yeah, I realize he's fictional, but still...

February Sweeps - Day 1

So, today marks/marked the first day of February, and the first day of writing every day and posting my progress.

I didn't quite get off to the best start (I had work, then my nephew had a basketball game [his team lost so badly they turned off the scoreboard before halftime, though he did make a few baskets], then there was a toy-related activity he wanted to go to which I took him too, but didn't have nearly the amount of fun there he did).  I had about fifteen minutes this afternoon before it was time to go, so I did sit down and write as best I could.  I only managed 213 words.*

Over the past few days, I've been working on another "Dead & Breakfast" story (it may seem like that's all I write anymore, but no, I actually finished an unrelated story just yesterday), trying to tie up a couple of loose plot threads while still being (fairly) true to the series' original premise.

Later tonight, I did take another half hour or so to continue the story, adding another thousand words or so to the story, until my head bobbed and Istrded typng senstenses like tihsss.  Okay, I'll sleep now.

Words Today: 1458
Words This Month: 1458

*Still, that's pretty good in fifteen minutes.  Big said it must be a story I'm really into to be able to just sit down and pound it out that way.  I told him I'm quite the expert on, shall we say, pounding things out.

February Sweeps Begins!

Well, kids, I'm going to write every single day in February, just to prove (to myself?) that I am alive and kicking.

You can watch the video I made, if you want.  I'll be writing either way.



Oh, and sorry about the Vertical Video Syndrome. I was just going to upload it here (and not to YouTube), but I was told the file was too large.

The Sunset Of My Youth

The sun was going down tonight, and I longed to have someone with me to watch it go.

But hey, I had a nephew handy and asked if he'd take a couple of pictures of the sunset with me.  He had no choice, but he agreed.

He took this rather excellent picture himself.

While I can't say I adore the subject matter (the human part, anyway), I think it's an astounding pic for a nine year old.

Here's a darker one, if you prefer.

Thanks, man.

Oh, and here's one I took.

You can't really see the sunset, but I like it anyway.

February's Up Next

So, February's not my favorite month (maybe twelfth-favorite?), but I usually try to get some writing done.  So, my goal is not only to Write Every Day In February, but keep track of my words, and let y'all know about it.

Wish me luck!

On a more somber note . . . if any of y'all hate February because of That Day and are feeling down, know that you are not alone.  You are a good person . . . or trying to be . . . or are a pretty crappy person but are aware of it (and that still makes you better than most).  Go back a couple of days and read that "You Are Enough" post.

Just today, I heard That Girl (the one I'm all dorky over . . . well, dorkier than usual, anyway) say to someone (else), "You are enough," and it warmed my heart.  My heart has been particularly warm these last few weeks.

Try just a little harder.  Smile one more time than you feel like doing.  You are enough.

Rish