Category Archives: Personal Observation

A Hole

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There’s a hole in my blog. We’re going to call that hole August and September.

Most people have the overwhelming urge to apologize for not posting. There will be excuses and statements declaring passion and a list of things that are going to show how the blog has not faded and will be moving forward at a great pace!

That’s not me.

Yes, I probably could have been on here and working at keeping this up. Probably. Maybe not. Sometimes other things get in the way. Life happens. The day job stomps in and grabs up all your time like it was lunch money and you were the kid on the wrong end of the deal.

Sometimes depression sneaks in and strangles your creativity. It uses stress to open the door and before you know what’s happened you’re sitting and staring at reruns because they don’t challenge you and it’s nice to laugh sometimes… right?

I have never actually been diagnosed with depression or anything so official. It certainly felt that way. I didn’t read. I didn’t write. I didn’t paint or draw or create in any way. It was rotten and miserable. I really was busy and the day job was crushing. Lots of things to adjust to in my life added up to me just not having the drive or motivation to do anything but sit and stare. More than once my declared intention was to get home and stare at the wall.

The good news is that seems to be getting better. I’m still crazy busy but certain aspects of things seem to be getting better. Sometimes hanging in there is all you can do. I was hanging and not falling – and that’s the part that really counts.

So – no apologies or grand plans. The hole in the blog remains. I’m starting to work again and we’ll see how that turns out on here together.

Musical

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Music plays a significant role in getting me through my days. I am fascinated by it, but it is something that is opaque to me. I am terrible at musical things. I can’t keep a beat. I can’t hear all the parts I’m supposed to and I tend to like things that others tell me sound terrible. I have talents (admittedly small) in myriad other areas, but when it comes to music there’s only one way to put it. I suck. I can’t sing, I can’t play any instrument, nor can I dance to any of it.

I’m still hooked. I won’t say all kinds of music because that’s not true. There are some types of music that simply do not appeal to me. That’s OK because it gives the things I do like a frame of reference. The second blog post I ever made had a link to two different musical bits. I’ve been listening to what makes me happy for a long time.

I have a pair of wireless headphones that I use every day in the office. I have an almost constant stream of music rolling. While the music has changed and grown over the years it is something that has been constant for me. Don’t get me wrong – I’m no Henry Rollins, traveling the globe to hunt down music festivals in Timbuktu – but I listen. I prefer recorded stuff these days. I don’t want to go to music festivals or stadium shows anymore.

I’ve been told that I should listen to music for the sake of listening to music. I can and have, but on a day to day basis I *use* it. Music becomes the thing that keeps me focused while I’m struggling with something OR conversely it becomes the escape when I hit some problem that makes me need to let my mind wander.

Internet streaming services have made this infinitely more interesting and viable. It’s fantastic for finding new stuff or reviving old stuff I haven’t heard in an age.

When I started writing this I’m certain I had a link in mind for sharing the musical bit that inspired this… and now I’ve cycled through a bunch of other stuff and appear to have lost it.

What sort of things do you listen to?

OVERWERK

49

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Yes, it’s my birthday. Yes, I am totally cheating and setting this up to post when it is NOT actually my birthday (computers and schedules and technology helping me out on this one).

I’m not going with the posts you see from so many about how birthdays don’t feel all that different, etc. but instead will say this one DOES in fact feel different. This year is a weird one. It’s close to a big birthday, but not quite there. I’ve started to feel like I’m just getting started on so many things and that certain aspects of my life are really starting to take off. Other parts of my life I wonder what the hell I;m doing and why things I truly enjoy are floundering and waiting and taking so much time with no clear results.

The world clearly doesn’t particularly care that it’s my birthday. It’s Monday and I’ll be at the office as usual. I don’t tell folks there when my birthday is nor do I expect them to celebrate in any fashion. A quiet and productive day would be enough.

I look forward to seeing some close friends and having a good dinner for my birthday. I’ve gotten a couple of fantastic gifts so far – and I’m very thankful for them. I haven’t asked for anything – it’s all from people who thought it would be nice to give me something. I have fantastic family and friends. That makes any day better, but birthdays in particular.

I wonder if next year will be better or weirder or just different? Guess I’ll just have to forge ahead and see what this year brings!

Breakfast of Champions?

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I frequently joke that I eat stress for breakfast.

There is some truth to me living with what most people would call extremely stressful conditions on and off over the past 15 years or so. Well, lately ‘breakfast’ has not been agreeing with me. I have had a lot of stress over the past couple of weeks (a lot even for me) and it has impacted a lot of things. It’s taking a physical toll as well as killing my creativity and my ability to work on other projects.

The literally 7 things that broke or broke down around my house (needed to get a new dryer, you know, little things like that) are now in hand (so’s the door handle to the back door, but that’s going to be fixed soon too). The building project at my house is six weeks behind schedule, but my contractor has assured me they’ve got things worked out with the township regarding our building permit and that we’ll get back underway this week. Hopefully they’ll be able to work around the pool the weather has created for us.

Mud is getting deep…

I am slowly getting back on track, but I almost feel like I’ve got a hangover ~ without all the fun parts leading up to that. Creativity for me does require some amount of “mood” and inspiration. I think I’m going to have to work out a new story where stress becomes a literal monster… maybe I’ll be back on track sooner than I thought?

The ever present “I’m Back” post…

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It happens to bloggers all the time. “Hey, I’m back!” because real life has a way of stamping down on free writing and laying out words with no real return. I have no doubt that I’ll be back here for a bit and then real life will come crashing in again and make a hash of things. It’s happened an awful lot over the years. I don’t apologize for it anymore. It happens.

I’ve got a lot of catching up to do. I’ve posted before about the slump I hit at the end of last year. It’s been a struggle to get past that. I think I’m doing it. I’ve got 2 stories out for consideration right now and a third, based on an invitation I received, is due in this week. The writing is moving along.

Reading is making a comeback too. It has been more of a struggle to stay invested in the work of others than ever before, but I’ve found a couple of things worth reading.

I’ve also picked up a few shows and taken the time to watch them. I have to say that Netflix has figured out the formula. I can watch when my schedule permits and otherwise just ignore the TV. It’s not easy to just ignore an addiction. Breaking the habit is hard to do. To that end I have dropped all but the most basic television connection. I keep the most basic just to allow better reception of local channels (PBS in particular) and have watched maybe one show in the past month via scheduled broadcast. The funny thing is – I don’t even have to do that. The show I watch has all their episodes posted on line. It’s just something of a routine when a lazy Saturday morning happens to come about.

In generally getting things back in order and attempting to catch up with everything I’ve gone slack on I’m also going to attempt to get things around the old Pretend Blog into better shape. I know the six of you that read here will be thrilled.

Next up – catching up on my book reviews and Goodreads posts. After that – I should really update the part where I promote myself better!

On Fandom

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This was originally published in Watch The Skies for the January 2019 issue.

Fandom is a wide ranging place. There are folks from across the spectrum of humanity and all around the globe… or at least that’s how it’s supposed to be. Somehow that’s not how it’s working out.

There have been a number of actresses that have recently departed from social media after being harassed to the point that they felt interacting with fans was not worth the effort anymore, or worse it was actively dangerous to them. An actress, long out as gay, was the target of huge amounts of harassment for being picked to play a gay character. Let that sink in for a moment.

A gay actor is not right to play the part of a gay character. Cue Rage Spew and foulness from the dim glow of a screen in a basement.

It almost sounds like this is something new. Social media has been around for more than a decade now, but it has become ubiquitous. Say Facebook and everyone knows what you mean (and likely has an opinion on it). There are other platforms and many methods to be more connected to the people that help to create the things we all know an love.

This harassment is not new and that is what makes it more shameful to me. I listened to an actor talk about how he almost killed himself because of how he was treated after the role he played was deemed unworthy of the franchise he was part of. This was twenty years ago. Yes, twenty (20). This young man thought that his life was done, was not worth moving forward with because of the extraordinary backlash to his role. People hated what he had been part of creating and it almost killed him.

Link Jar Jar

My opening statement means you. Yes you. Fandom is not yours. It is communal property and you do not have a right to harass, threaten, demean or otherwise be shitty to the people that create it. The people creating this art are more open and accessible than any other time in history, and people that can’t behave any better than a four year old that missed snacks and nap time are driving them away. This is NOT acceptable. As a fan I love being able to connect with the folks that make some of the most amazing things. The more people are terrible to these creators (actors are not alone here) the more the creators pull away and become less available to us. All of us.

Fans love to disagree and then expand those discussions over far and wide ranging topics. Arguing about the latest film, book, play or adaptation to whatever form is right down at the core of fandom. Fans should discuss things. Fans absolutely have every right to dislike any media they consume. Fans do not have the right to abuse the people that helped to create it. Fans don’t own the things they love, the can only love or hate them from a distance. Our biggest responsibility as a community is to act with the future in mind. We must create a sense that all are welcome. More than welcoming, we must create an atmosphere and place where the children who see our actions will come to love and understand the same things. The best and only thing we can hope for is that our children see examples of the wonderful creations in fandom and the fantastic people involved and choose to continue making amazing things far into the future. We must show others how to have a good time so that good time will continue.

Fandom is not yours. It belongs to the future. Make that future the best it can be.

Failbook

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Facebook has become a known and common method of communicating with friends, family, associates and all manner of folks. It is a beast. It is huge… and it will do as it pleases.

Social media in general has come under fire for being a terrible thing that allows people to do and say rotten things to each other. It has become a storm of political hyperbole and equally outlandish backlash. I have grown to hate it. I joined Failbook almost a decade ago. It’s stunning to put it that way. Ten years of “like this post” and everything that goes with it, but now I am reconsidering.

The platform itself has privacy and security issues. To paraphrase some younger folks I know, “DUH!”. A socially connected computer program that reaches millions of people is going to have issues. That many people can’t be mixed together and have everything come out perfect. Just can’t happen. The biggest solution to that is I don’t put things out there that I don’t want others to know or that aren’t already public knowledge. I don’t connect it to my bank information or anything that I can’t drop or replace (yes, that includes my phone – it would be a pain in the ass, but I could do it).

It doesn’t connect my website posts automatically anymore. I will admit this is annoying. I prefer to work here when I can and link this site over. It used to be an automated thing, and now it doesn’t work. I have a series of developer messages that would require some amount of research and picking and pecking here on the site to get the connection to work again. I am not a web developer. I am not a programmer. I maintain this site on my own with my bare minimum amount of knowledge. Bluntly I don’t want to spend my time on a web site. Every bit of time I spend working on a web site problem or looking up programming connections or whatever other nonsense doesn’t work now is just more time away from the work I want to be doing. I don’t want to be a programmer, just an author.

Even if I could get it to work, there’s a fair chance nobody would see it anyway. The Failbook folks have decided that your small business links shouldn’t be seen in everyone’s feed… just the big companies that they work with. The site itself is worse than any needy significant other you have ever had. Constant messages about new posts, new friend suggestions, things YOU’VE MISSED! OH MY GOD WHY ARE YOU NOT ON THERE LOOKING AT THIS THING RIGHT NOW!?! They will do anything in a desperate attempt to capture your attention. They want you to scroll and click and like and all the other crap they’ve got going on. It has become intensely annoying. I have complained about it, out loud, frequently. This prompted my wife to yell at me, “Quit bitching! That’s how they make money. You react, you check, you click and they get paid. If you don’t like it, get off there and shut up about it!”

She’s not wrong. The purest distillation from that is a single fact. What you put up there IS NOT YOURS. I’m sure there’s a volume of legal mumbo-jumbo somewhere that declares what words are yours to use or not use and how they can collect it and catalog it and… whatever. It’s all bullshit and it’s not yours. They hold all the keys. They want to change something, they will. They want to deny you access, they will. You get the point. That is why I go through the trouble to maintain this site. It is mine (to the extent that any web based service is truly possessed). If I want to turn the whole thing purple I can. I will post as I please, when I please and all six of my readers will still see my words (after they check their news aggregators because this isn’t cross posting any more). I like the simplicity of it. It’s not going to win any awards, but it is mine. All the changes, all the anger, frustration and screaming into the void over what Failbook should or shouldn’t do amount to nothing. In the end it hasn’t dramatically changed my true friendships. It’s nice to be able to connect, but then I was also on Myspace and Livejournal. We see how those turned out.

I’m planning on staying on Failbook for now, but I’m not jumping through the hoops to make posts from here connect. Their site really isn’t worth the effort.

The New Year

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Yes, It’s later than everyone else but I am finally acknowledging the new year. The end of 2018 was a busy time for me. It was a time for the holidays and family but also when I started to come back from a massive slump. 2018 was a miserable year for me creatively. I read next to nothing, I wrote next to nothing and I did a handful of art pieces that I don’t like much. Terrible. There were a lot of things to be thankful for over the year, but it was still a tough year. It’s easy to put a marker at the change of a calendar year and claim “new” but I had already started all that back before Christmas – now I just need to keep it rolling.

For anyone keeping track I haven’t changed my personal view on resolutions. Many years ago I made a New Year’s resolution to NEVER make a New Year’s resolution again. Guess what? Nailed it again. Still going strong on that one. IF you want or need change in your life, the calendar is convenient, but not required. Make the change to grow or get better when you make that choice. You can do it!

I’m going to apply some of that same enthusiasm to my own work. I’m still struggling along, but I’ll get there. So will you. Have a fantastic 2019 – I look forward to a lot of wonderful stuff.

Sharp Eyes and the End of the World

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One of the panels I was on at Philcon was titled “A Creative Apocalypse” and the description was, “What creative and original – but scientifically plausible – ways are left for storytellers to destroy the world?”

I kind of struggled with this question initially. Creative I can handle, it’s the scientifically plausible that I was worried about. Part of me really wanted to separate out destruction of all human life from actual destruction of the planet, but that line of discussion didn’t get far. Not much of a story without the people (still horribly narcissistic if you ask me).

Then I seemed to recall something about massive ant colonies that spanned across vast distances. I didn’t have a chance to do any research on it, but it was in the back of my mind that I had seen this so I presented it (when I could) at the panel. I find a plague of bugs to be a less than ideal concept for the end of the world (YUCK!).

I took a moment to see if I could find the information I remembered and found this fun little piece about floating colonies of fire ants in Texas.

Smacking into one of those would certainly ruin your day, but it wasn’t what I remembered. Hunting a little more brought me to the mega-colony. Yes, it was a huge colony and it actually reaches far further than I seemed to recall. Crossing continents. Almost all of them, and they don’t’ seem to fight each other. This could be very bad news for people should these bugs ever band together.

A sharp-eyed friend of mine then pointed me to a whole different point of view. What if all the bugs GO AWAY?

Turns out we need them. We need as many variations and weird combinations as we can keep. We need to learn as much as we can to preserve ourselves. The bug-pocalypse could just be that we don’t have any. A distressing thought indeed. Now to turn that into a world ending story…

The Solution?

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Maybe… just maybe a vacation was the answer.

It’s something that a lot of folks have said is a very American thing, feeling guilty for taking time off. I suspect they’re right.

I’ve been ‘on vacation’ now for a little over a week. Not a proper holiday – haven’t gone anyplace. Stayed at home. Got some things taken care of around the house. Had some time with friends with no schedule pressure. Went to a convention (there will be a report on that coming up too!) and generally enjoyed Thanksgiving.

Also in there I attended a book signing event. One of my stories is in the book Squeekie Celebrates 20 Years of the Cupboard Maker Books! I was very excited to hear that I made the cut and got my story in as a fan favorite. You should go and check out Squeekie’s page HERE. It was fun to sit with other authors and sign books for folks that were kind enough to buy them.

I sat back down here at the machine and started working again. I wrote, edited and fired off a story submission then went back and found an old story that I thought was really good. I took that story, edited it with a new eye, formatted it and fired that one off to another market.

I’ve picked up a book and plunged right through the first chapter.

I think I might just be back on track. We’ll see if this all survives heading back to work and diving into the holidays. Here’s hoping!