Grading The Rebooted Resolutions Machine

"You know what? Go ahead and jump." photo by Joe

Friends! Remember a little over a year ago, when I attempted to Reboot the ol' Resolutions Machine? Yeah, neither did I until a few minutes ago, when I reread it. Feels like half a lifetime (and three-quarters of a democratic republic) ago, doth it not?

It doth, Joe. It SO doth.

Okay, as all four of you dear readers surely know by now, I just adore doing self-evaluations (I don't) - almost as much as I LOVE making New Year's resolutions (I don't. Why do you think it routinely takes me until many weeks past January 1st to make them?). Yeah. So let's make haste, and grade the results of last year's to-do list, and then jot down a few goals for the remaining 318 days of 2025. Shouldn't take long...

First, last year's list:

• Take the Christmas tree down (DONE!)
• Make mac & cheese (DONE!)
• Shovel snow twice (DONE - Oh, I remember, now. This is a bunch of stuff I had either already done when I made this list, or things that are so easy and routine as to not even remotely count as "resolutions." Pet a dog? Come on, man!)

So, I scored like 110% (which at many of our employers means MET EXPECTATIONS). Let's make things a bit more challenging for 2025, shall we? Shush - we shall, and it's not up for debate. Yes, even though I said "shall we," as if putting it up for debate. There will be no debating that we shall. You love it when I do this, as do I.

I resolve to:

• SURVIVE.
• Deposit 145 checks from my Beloved Donors within 24 hours at Beloved Employer (HA!! The year-end flood is only just now subsiding; I've already completed this resolution several times. Not sure what I was trying to pull off, there. Just showing off, I guess.)
• Remember to say "white rabbits, white rabbits, white rabbits" upon waking up on the 1st of each month. I'm told that doing so will result in good luck for the entire month, and I'm all about superstitions, yeah?
• 'Spread awarene's's of approaching 's's, by way of overu'se of apo'strophe's.
• Use, fewer, commas,
• Get to the National Zoo to visit our new giant pandas. Given the new regime's onslaught of massive, cruel, ill-informed and blundering destruction, I'd better hurry.

Baby Tai Shan in early 2006. photo by Joe

• Memorize John Mulaney's "Horse Loose In A Hospital" routine, update it a little for 2025, and randomly recite it as my own, at work and with family and friends - almost none of whom will know it's stolen. (oh, I'm kind of excited about this one!)
• Purchase all of Kendrick Lamar's music catalogue. If fragile white male racists hate him, he must be good people.
• Get someone to spontaneously play THIS GAME with me.
• Not rest until the Potomac River is officially renamed the Max Headroom Crayfish And Minnows Express Waterway And Food Court, Sponsored By Nordstrom Rack.
• Be someone's lava lamp.
• Learn a dead language. Deader than Latin. Deader than Disco! Then, I'll hold lively conversations with myself on the Red Line, so no one wants to sit next to me (no one wants to sit next to me now, but a little insurance couldn't hurt
• Be doomed. (HAHAHAHAHA - done!)
• Two words.
• Seriously, something's gotta be done (attempted) to get one or two of my little novels to see the light of day. I keep telling them that the light of day is totally where it's at, but they are shy.
• SURVIVE.
• Atone for my race and gender. This might take a minute.
• See Simple Minds, Soft Cell, and Modern English in concert, preferably on the same night.
• Finally read all the "Harry Potter" books. Don't judge me!
• Watch cartoons.
• Repeat.

Let's stop there. You guys are TROOPERs, but we all know I'm not going to do half of that stuff, let alone any real resolutions like find my Ebn-Ozn t-shirt (ha), drink more water (as if), be more positive (barf), read more, write more, reach my target weight, blah blah blah...

But I can dream, can't I? Of course I can. It's basically all I do.

My Self-Assessment Of My 2022 "Resolutions!" It's SO Late! Hang On...

 

Hap-py New Year! Photo by Joe

By now, both of you dear, dear readers probably know that I'm not a huge fan of New Year's Resolutions, but I actually made a few of them back in 2022, and I totally forgot to revisit them and see how successful I was in achieving them. This shouldn't take long, and I can't help but think that it will go a long way toward preventing me from publicizing (or even making, for that matter) resolutions, ever again. Then again, there's a reason I don't have a reputation as a lesson-learner.

So. Let's see how I did...

First one's easy, because it's measurable! Employers love it when you come up with goals that are measurable, and we should, too. I resolved that I would produce 52 blog posts in 2022. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I did FOUR!! A record low. I knew I wouldn't get 52, but daaaaaaaaamn...

I said I would finally take some action on my poor neglected 2013 novel - or at least find a beta reader or two. *sigh* Maybe next year...

I vowed to beat my all-time high score on "Yar's Revenge." FAIL. Funnily enough, I actually have a working copy of that old game - on one of those multi-game throwback Atari consoles - but it's almost as neglected as that novel.

I resolved to finish writing back stories for all 700 of John Hodgman's HOBOES, but that's just crazy. Even counting the ones with 2-line stories in my three "88 Lines About 44 Hoboes" posts, and those who only made cameo appearances in other hoboes' tales, or in Rumpshaker Phil's Orchestra, I'm just over halfway done. Unless I counted wrong, just now. My eyes were glazing over as I scrolled through my highlighted list. Maybe someday, though...

"I will reach my target weight." Oh, that's just sad. Another one for 2024, perhaps. Or for never. Maybe if I plump up enough, I'll become jolly and people will like me.

I vowed to toast marshmallows over the fire that is our nation and world at large. Obviously, that was metaphorical, but I'm working on it. I can't do much about the end of our empire, or our species, but I can choose to live on in spite of it all. To walk on, like my hoboes. 

I did not take holophonor lessons, but in my defense, there is no such thing as a holophonor.

I resolved to find out in 2022 whether or not my friend Godfrey Ozzenbarq III (not his real name) was alive. SUCCESS! I found out, and he was, and still is!

I did not, however, use my 20% off Bed Bath & Beyond coupon, and now that store is no more. Gone into the Beyond, I assume. Oh well. It was going to be one of those purchases one makes only because one has a coupon, and I'm NOT falling into that trap again. Although I *DO* have a coupon thingy for Tommy Bahama...

I also resolved to go figure, and I'm proud to report that I totally did! Score another for Joe!

I resolved (resolutely, in fact) to NOT find out what "Wordle" is. Fail. It was bound to happen. I've still never touched it, though!

Finally, I foolishly resolved for the who-knows-how-manyth time to find my Ebn-Ozn t-shirt. I'm starting to think I never will. It's gone the way of my original Max Headroom cup.

Not the original, but it gets the job done - Photo by Joe

Will I make resolutions for 2024? Don't bet on it, but yeah, I probably will.

Night!

A Dozen Times None, Or How Will I Choose?

 

Oops, I did it again.

The year was 2009. I was SUPER-UNEMPLOYED, and had been so for a year, at that point. I was encouraged by some sadistic friends to try NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. The premise is simple: writers are challenged to write a 50,000-word novel (that's a novella, really, but let's not quibble) in one month. I was successful, and for better or worse, I was hooked. Soon, there was a summer version of the traditional November event: Camp NaNoWriMo. A little over a month ago, I stopped writing my twelfth first draft. It's not done, but if we're being honest, are any of them?

So. I have self-imposed a rule on myself. No more new projects (National Blog Posting Month notwithstanding) until I make an honest effort to get one of my twelve babies to see the light of day. But Which one gets the call? 

November 2009. Working title: "Tiny Scars." It's a semi-autobiographical tale of a sixth-grader with a genius friend, and a cool teacher who produces plays that turn out a lot better than they have any right to turn out. There's also weeklong trip to a  camp that's oddly religious, for a public school trip, but whatever. Here's an excerpt.

November 2010 - the month I started working at Beloved Employer. Working title: "Worcestershire In The Embalming Fluid." If you're a fan of "South Park's" first season, you know from the title that this is a zombie story. We follow a lottery-winning slacker and his dog on their new boat, as they gradually learn what's happened and try to work their way home from the Caribbean. The dog is probably the best part. I just reread an excerpt, and meh.

August 2011. Working title: "Sand In The Worcestershire In The Embalming Fluid." Same zombie apocalypse, but told through the lens of a budding semi-comedic romance in off-season Rehoboth Beach. Here's a bit. So to speak.

July 2012. Working title: "Falling Off The Universe." I like this one. It's an ensemble thing - a group of friends gathering after years apart to scatter the ashes of their gone-too-soon former ringleader. They encounter a alien with a busted spaceship, and interstellar shenanigans ensue. The ending needs a complete rework (the whole story needs a lot of work), but the elements are there, and I love some of these characters so much, they keep appearing here in the blog, sharing their ALTERNATE MEMORIES. One of them is also dangerously addicted to COFFEE.

June 2013. Working title: "Buck Mope Catches The Westbound." Not-so-young, freshly laid-off new couple befriends a hundred-year old hobo, creates a viral sensation telling his far-fetched stories online, and tries to help him take a final ride into the sunset, so to speak. The old man has an unexplained endangered black-footed ferret you may have seen on this very blog, this very month. This is the little novel that my ever-lovin' editor and fake alternate elector [Maris] thinks could make it, so it's the clear front-runner for my first publishing attempt. Still needs work, but I loved these characters, too, so I guess I kind of owe it to them.

November 2013. Working title: "Bane's Existence." What was I thinking, starting a new novel just weeks after stopping work on "Buck Mope?" This one's about a guy who questions his own existence, and accumulates a lifetime of evidence to support his theory that he's actually a ghost or something. Also, he dates a ghost. I think. It's been about ten years since I've looked at this one. I faintly remember that it had moments, but probably needs more work that most of my other drafts.

July 2014. Working title: "Undead Drunk." Another zombie thing, but this one set in Baltimore, as another group of friends gathers with their classmates for a high school reunion. Pretty sure I kept this gross horror show as funny as possible. I think I have a whole chapter (or more) with two or three of my protagonists "treed," and just watching the apocalypse and doing play-by-play. Yeah, I hear you. meh.

July 2016. Working title: "Party At Ground Zero." Stolen premise from the hugely-underrated 80s movie "Miracle Mile." A bunch of 80s high schoolers are partying their little 80s butts off, when credible news of a full nuclear exchange crashes their shindig and kills everyone's buzz. So, I love the idea. BUT... I used most of the characters from "Falling Off The Universe," and [spoiler alert]: PREQUELS ARE HARD AND THIS ONE IS DEEPLY UNSATISFYING. Might rewrite this one using new characters.

July 2017. Working title: "Plan Nine From Inner Space." An admittedly half-assed ripoff of the "Futurama" episode where Leela's in a coma and has a series of coma-dreams that turn out to have been triggered by Fry's incessant talking at her, trying to bring her back. It has moments, but yeah - a bit on the meh side.

July 2018. Working title: "Milo And The Art Of Nodus Tollens." This is more like it. Inspired by a list shared by my late cousin Mary M.. Nodus Tollens refers to the realization that the plot of one's life doesn't make sense anymore - that your "writer" might not know what the hell he or she is doing. I came up with another cute and fun couple for this one, and because side characters always steal the show, we invented Deejay Atmospheric Skip. A global wild goose chase ensues, as Milo tries to fix his story himself. This one is near the top of my list, with "Buck Mope" and "Falling Off The Universe."

July 2019. Working title: "Back To Somewhere Else." Based on my never-ending quest with [Maris], in search of the elusive portal back to the world we obviously came from that is somewhere else. I like this one, too. Portals are wily and capricious.

[Long, long pause...]

July 2023. Working title: "Songs From Later." Another rom-y, com-y one. Young "friends with benefits" arrangement turns real (I know - shocker), but one of the lovers has visions of the future. These visions are often vague and annoyingly cryptic, but over time they begin proving true - or at least semi-true (because me) - culminating with September Eleventh, or possibly January Sixth. I wrote through August and September and into October, eventually passing 80,000 words, BUT this one needs a ton of work to make it work, and I'm just not ready to tear it all down and start over, so I'm spending November doing a blog post a day, instead. 

So. When this month's over, which little book gets the nod? Oh, wait - my busy season at Beloved Employer is just beginning. 

Maybe in February, then...

Black-Footed Ferrets: It's Their World; We're Just Living In It

 

"We're not *quite* extinct. In fact, we're *quite* not extinct."

In 2013, I wrote a little novel about a young-- sorry, a *new* couple who befriend a 100-year old hobo. For reasons I can no longer remember, the hobo kept an unexplained endangered black-footed ferret named Bingo as a pet. Bingo steals several scenes in that story, and yes that's the one I should be working on publishing right now, instead of trying to do a blog post every night for a month. 

A couple of years later, I succumbed to the relentless direct mail fundraising campaign of the World Wildlife Fund when I saw black-footed ferrets in their catalog of "adoptable" critters. I threw money at the WWF, and a few weeks later I was the proud adoptive dad to my very own Bingo, and her brother Yahtzee. When they found out that I work for the Humane Society of the United States, and that we have a program focused on saving prairie dogs (their primary food source in the wild), they insisted on accompanying me to work. There, they...

...mooned everyone...

...ate all the candy...

...calculated things...

...listened to old-timey iPods...

...hogged the fan...

...demonstrated a bad attitude...

...engaged in shenanigans...

...and more shenanigans...

...got into the Christmas spirit...

...kept watch...

...embraced our brand...

...waited for Santa...

...inspected the new drop safe...

...and helped process donations.

 They also enjoy a bit of drink (or pretend drink)...

"This is a tin mug of lies!"

"Bombay Sapphire, straight-up, twist, very cold for Opening Day."

"Who says martinis can't have paper umbrellas?"

"What?"

They also like sports...

In 2019, they predicted we'd need a bigger schedule, and they were right.

2020 - "You call that a schedule? Why bother playing at all?"

Now, they are endangered black-footed cityferrets. They relocated from our unfashionable suburb to the moderately-fashionable "West End," in DC, where they are plotting to become the life of the office. They also keep me off the ledge, with their relentless and optimistic encouragement and support. It's mostly non-verbal.

"Is that the White House?"

Solid First Draft Patton Taylor, For The 394th Time...

Solid First Draft. One of TWELVE. Photo by Joe

I'm often asked by no one whether any of John Hodgman's 700 Hoboes had aspirations beyond mere survival. Of course they did! They may be fictitious, ridiculously-monikered caricatures, but they're only human. They had hopes and dreams, just like everyone else. For example, the Apron brothers - Leather, Lead, and Foil - were on the verge of striking it rich, licensing their three lines of aprons to Macy's of New York in 1928, when their own attorney stole their design specs and business plan, and presented the whole scheme to Macy's as his own. This kind of thing happens every day - to this day. Humans are apex predators.

Patton Taylor's future was not stolen by predation. His future was euthanized by the Great Depression and his own abject neglect. 

His life began in miraculous, tragic fashion, in a humble two-bedroom ranch-style house in Gary, Indiana. His father, a longshoreman, helped deliver him and his stillborn twin on New Year's Eve, 1900. He was different from the start - smart, but sensitive, insecure and oddly angry at the world. By the time he graduated high school in 1917, he had developed a way with words. He could write. He found it simultaneously impossibly challenging and the easiest, most natural activity, and he was never without one of his notebooks, which he filled with observations, character sketches, and all manner of stories. His father, his few friends, and virtually all of his classmates derided his hobby as pointless, self-serving, impractical, and somehow unmasculine. It would never make him a good factory worker, longshoreman, or businessman, so it was utter folly. Over time, he developed callouses on his psyche. 

This protective layer of hardness was just enough to enable him to, over the span of the next decade, produce a dozen first drafts of novels. He and a couple of trusted friends thought two or three of them might have even had potential. Life, as it often does, got in the way of any fledgling plans for publication of these stories, and they lived as a heavy, handwritten family of untapped potential, in a canvas bag that Patton carried everywhere. In November of 1929, he lost his job as a stableman at the Gary Trolley Company, and joined the ranks of America's unemployed, spending his days queued up for scarce day jobs, queued up for cups of soup and crusts of jagged bread, and queued in the long, long line awaiting death and/or salvation. 

His parents died within two months of each other, in early 1930. His mother, a waitress in a speakeasy, was crushed by an illegal barrel of hooch. Patton's father, profoundly distraught, but stalwartly standing in line for work on the docks, was struck in the head by a homemade baseball, a wayward foul off the bat of a thirteen-year old playing stickball on the street. He died less than instantly. These were, as such events often are, the final straws, for Patton. He packed up his novels and all his portable worldly possessions and hit the road, searching for work and belonging and a way forward. Within months, he was a card-carrying (which here means stick-and-bindle-carrying) citizen of Hobo Nation. 

He walked the rails, hopped trains, got chased by man and dog alike, spent nights in jails, spent nights in churches, bartered with lint and whatever possessions he could carry, and survived. Both of you dear readers - and you, New Reader, can fill in the blanks. The hobo as we know him is not devoid of honor. He wanders homeless across the miles, always seeking whatever work he can find, but not too proud to accept the charity of strangers. He can tell a Mikado locomotive from a Pacific, by the sound of its whistle, two miles away. There's a hobo code, and he sticks to it as best as he can. It's not an easy life, but it is a life. And life is life.

This hobo, who quickly earned the moniker "Solid First Draft Patton Taylor," walked the rails of the Chicago and Northwestern, Illinois Central, and Baltimore and Ohio railroads throughout the 30's - his thirties - and came to be known as a capable and resourceful hobo. He helped his fellow 'bo, shared when he had enough to share (and even sometimes when he hadn't enough), embraced any work that he was offered, and kept walking - all the while carrying with him a dozen novels, his pride and joy and shame. 

One night, outside the Western Ohio Hobo Jamboree and Hootenanny in Eaton, in a weak, inebriated moment, he showed his work to Ol' Barb Stab-You-Quick. He figured that if, upon perusing his manuscripts, she failed to haul off and stab him quick[ly], then maybe - just maybe - his writing might have a smidgen of merit.

Ol' Barb had many gifts. Okay, she only had one that anyone knew of - her propensity for quickly up and stabbing people. Unbeknownst to her hobo brethren until this night was her gift for reading - speedreading, actually. She skimmed his earliest work, "Tiny Scars," about his childhood in the terrible Gary Indiana public school system, and his survival thereof. She plowed through "Worcestershire In The Embalming Fluid" and its sister novel, "Sand In The Worcestershire In The Embalming Fluid." Zombies - yuck. "Falling Off The Universe" had potential; she loved the characters and the outer space stuff, but it needed work. Then came "Buck Mope Catches The Westbound," about a pair of young lovers and their hundred-year old hobo friend. Again - potential. Ol' Barb would never, ever admit it, but she shed a little stabby tear over this one. 

Next, in rapid succession, she zipped through "Bane's Existence" - hmm... ghost romance is complicated - and "Undead Drunk" (zombies, but funny), and "Party At Ground Zero" - what the heck is "ground zero," Patton? She soldiered on through "Plan Nine From Inner Space," which felt like a fever dream. No one wants to read someone else's dream, let alone someone else's fever dream. Things picked up around 4:30am, as Ol' Barb dug into "Milo And The Art Of Nodus Tollens." She shook her head at Patton and declared that he was indeed not at all a hobo, but a writer. As dawn broke and her eyelids grew heavy, she speed-read "Back To Somewhere Else," and repeated her conclusion. "Why haven't you published these, you lunkhead?"

"I don't care for rejection letters," he deadpanned.

"Write one for me."

"What? Why?" he asked.

"Because you can, and I asked you to. Also if you don't, I'll stab you..."

"Quick?"

"SO quick," she affirmed

A month later, he showed her his newest creative effort, "Songs From Later," and she became slightly sad. "Okay, it's not great, but even this one can be polished up into a real gem. Listen to Ol Barb - if you hit .300 over a ten-year baseball career, you're going to be in the Hall Of Fame. You got a dozen of these things, and three or four of 'em got potential. That's around .300, You're the Hall Of Fame player who never tried out for the team..."

"I'm just a hobo who makes up stories, is all," Patton sighed. "It's okay if no one ever hears 'em."

She shook her head. "No siree. You are a goddamn writer. Don't make me tell you again."

"Big deal," he said, fully cognizant of the risk he was taking by talking back to the infamous Ol' Barb Stab-You-Quick. "I'm still just a hobo."

"You have a ticket out of this life, my friend. Use it. You've bought the ticket; take the ride. Maybe the ride goes nowhere, sure. But maybe - just perhaps - it takes you to better worlds. You wanna die trackside in the cold gravel, with an unused ticket your pocket?"

"No?" he said tentatively.

"No. Now - about this 'Songs From Later' one - is it my imagination, or is your protagonist suspiciously similar to me in several meaningful ways?"

"No. Maybe. Are you mad?"

The Storm

 

A storm...

"Life is a shitstorm, in which art is our only umbrella."

- Mario Vargas Llosa

 

I've been thinking about New Year's resolutions - my own, and those of my (which here means John Hodgman's) 700 hoboes. Lately, thinking has been a struggle - and creativity, normally one of my core strengths as a human, has become depressingly hard to summon. A few months ago, I scrolled back to the beginning of this blog and reread every post. I cringed at a few lingering typos, and at some clunky prose and even clunkier ideas, but I laughed a lot, and came away feeling pretty good about a lot of it. I also couldn't help but notice that all that fun and frolic and productivity has dropped off rather precipitously since sometime in 2015. Over the past five years, I've managed to peck out about seven little blog posts per year. In the five years before 2016, I averaged 31 (with that drop-off starting in 2015). You might see where I'm going with this.

Oh, tell me you're NOT going to attempt to blame five years of writer's block on the President!

Okay, firstly - it really is a shitstorm, out there. Look:

See? Stormy! Told you!

Secondly - I haven't truly had writer's block. Over those same five years, I did manage to crank out five more of my little Camp NaNoWriMo novels - and one or two of them may even have some potential. And the few blog posts I've emitted haven't been bad. It's just a challenge to create, lately. Joy is in short supply, and hope has been outlawed.

But, yeah. I kinda DO blame my personal creativity drought on the bloviating tangerine Mussolini currently stealing the silverware and setting fire to the White House and the nation, flipping the Monopoly board over as he tantrums his way toward the door. Okay - technically, I blame the storm, but we all know it is partly of his making. You've seen it. It's real. It's everywhere. It's bad. It's a shitstorm. No need to waste time describing it. It started in 2015, and has built and built and built its way to the Category Five monster that rages around all of us, today.

So. What to do? First, I'll find the horizon. Remember that all storms end. Eventually:

Yes, I know the horizon was visible in the first two pics. Shut up.

 

Second, if I can't be funny or creative, then dammit I'm gonna be twisted. Like, baby-hobo-in-a-blender twisted. Here:

America.

That picture will be old enough to rent a car, this year, and it still says more than most of my other photographs. I resolve to get the old Nikon out - and maybe the ancient 35mm Minoltas - and take some weird pictures. There! A resolution! I probably won't do it.

Ooh! Wait! Here come some more!

• If the country continues to burn, I'm gonna toast some marshmallows.
• I will become a better pickpocket, and not get caught all the time.
  
• I guess I'll try (harder) to avoid the plague like the plague.
• Once the smoke clears - and yes, there will be smoke - I'm going to go downtown and take a good, long sniff, just to prove to myself that even the foulest four-year stenches can dissipate.
• I will finally find an editor or agent or something, and try to get my 2013 novel published. You guys know anyone?
• I'm going to go through the building where I work, and take down all the calendars. They're all stuck on March 2020, and they make me sad sometimes.
• I will see the stars for what they are, and feel the cumulative age of their light.
  
• Two words: ferrett-juggling. I guess that's one hyphenated word. Whatever. Gonna need one more ferret for this.
• I resolve to get one more endangered black-footed ferret, for the ferret-juggling, if [Maris] says yes.
• [Maris] said no. It'll have to be 2 ferrets and a panda.
• This year, I will find a new place to hang the cute little lighthouse cross-stitch my sister gave [Maris] and me when we got married. The new towels in that bathroom don't quite go with the colors in the cross-stitch, and while it's not a problem at this time, I fear it could become one. UPDATE: [Maris] would rather just change the towels. Crisis averted!
  
• I'm going to get my grilled cedar-plank salmon to turn out as perfectly as my late father-in-law's always did.
• Gonna find my Ebn-Ozn t-shirt.
• Mirrored contacts. I've wanted them since I was fourteen.
• Who am I kidding? I will never get my grilled salmon to come out the way Dad-in-law's did. 
• I resolve to take the Christmas tree down.
• I will learn to like snow. HAHAHAHAHA just seeing if you're paying attention.
  
• Drink more water. I'm not going to do this. I'm telling YOU to drink more water. Please.
• Okay, I'll drink more water, too. There's water in gin, right?
• I will laugh at the typo on my 10 years of service certificate at work, every day - instead of rolling my eyes at it.
• I will demand a better future.
  
• I will stop making lists.
• I will stop making lists.
  
• I will stop repeating myself.
• See what I did there?
  
• And I will hold [Maris]'s hand more - especially when she's trying to type. [blogger's note: on my phone, I have a shortcut set up so that when I type two m's, I get the full [Maris]. I keep trying that on this laptop, and obviously it doesn't work, and it wasn't until about the third try that I realized why.]
• I resolve to be a little smarter, maybe.

Okay, that's all for now. If you're still here, you are a trooper, and I applaud your patience. Thanks for climbing inside my head for a few minutes. It's time for my martini. I will toast to the end of the storm - and to the art that protects us in the meantime...

Photo by mm - see? I did it again! Photo by [Maris]

 

Ten And Oh...

Someday, Buck. Someday...

Hi! I may or may not be back! I've been... well, I've been paying attention to the world, for a bit. This resulted in the abrupt and acute shutdown of Every Single Creative Atom In My Body. But then, in July, I started yet another novel, forcing myself to conjure words, as one might force a foot into an ill-fitting shoe. I had over 50,000 words by July's end, but apparently, there was still a lot more story to tell, at that point. 

So I kept writing.
  

Eleven times, I've taken on this challenge. Ten times, I've succeeded. I first attempted National Novel Writing Month in 2009, as an unemployed layabout, and I "won," which here means I managed to crank out a 50,000-word novel in the span of 30 days. I was immensely proud of that accomplishment, but I had a few more stories to tell - which is more impressive if you know me and my life, both of which are somewhat lacking in story fodder.

Fast-forward to late-November, 2018. Between the traditional November National Novel Writing Months and the summertime Camp NaNoWriMo sessions, I have now written *TEN* novels. More accurately, that's ten first drafts of novels. And two of them - maybe three, now - might have a smidgen of potential. But here's the thing: I've only ever bothered to reread one of them. I've done no real rewrites - only minor self-editing. My beta readers consist of [Maris] and one friend. I have no editor, no agent, no idea what I'm supposed to do next.

Okay, that's not entirely true. I have a vague understanding of what I should do next. I should get some beta readers' notes on my work, engage a professional editor, and find some sort of agent-like thing to move one or two of these stories from my laptop to the world, and metamorphose from writer to author. 

But that just sounds like work. I still have like six hundred hoboes to tell you about. As much as I would love to share some of these longer pieces with you and everyone else, I'd rather just keep writing. Apparently, creating another scene, another character, another happy ending, is more important to me at the moment than is sharing any of the previously-created scenes, characters, and happy endings.

So, we have a problem. Immovable object, I'd like to introduce you to irresistible force. Oh? You've met? That's wonderful. I'm sure you two totally hit it off, like, immediately...

Okay, so, I'm not allowed to write anything new until I've done something with these first drafts. There is work to be done. The fun part is over. It's time to tear down, to rewrite, to market, and to sell, sell, sell.

[sad face]

It only makes sense, right?

Um, nope. It is December of 2018. Look around. Have you seen the universe, lately? I need this - obviously. I will edit if I feel like editing. I'll do rewrites if and when I feel like doing rewrites. And I'll engage editors and agents and lawyers and the market when they all show up on my doorstep and engage ME! And that, as they say, will be that.

In the meantime, I will tell you what Irontrousers The Strong did to deserve his Wes Craven-esque fate. I'll explain why Manatee The Railyard Toreador was so afraid of leaves. I might even describe, in uncomfortably explicit detail, how Swing State Myron acquired his hobo name. And maybe I'll Get All Bloggy, once or twice.

I've been plodding through my story of Milo and Rachel and their "nodus tollens" since July 1st, and while I absolutely love them to bits, I have to re-learn how to tell a story in a thousand words. Or to vent and bitch and tell you what I've been doing or what I should be doing or what I wish I were doing. Or to simply blather on and on without saying anything.

It's my blog, and I'll ruin it as I see fit. What are you gonna do, *START* reading it? 

LOL

Join me for whatever comes next. Or don't. It's all the same to the universe...