046: Drawing His Finger's Light Across Our Blood
First, Tha NEWS.
Back on format today.
It's that week in the US, I've heard it called "Liminal Week," where everything seems a little off. Between Christmas and New Year's there's not much of anything going on for a lot of people simply because two federal holidays in a row is such a disturbance of routine. And it's only made worse by said holidays being smack dab in the middle of the week, with a weekend to disrupt the disruption.
I hope you're doing well. The last installment of this here newsletter here was dour. Since then we've spent both Thanksgiving and Christmas with friends, I've had my birthday, the weather's been acceptable, and they even (finally!) came by and trimmed the trees back on the street so we no longer have branches scraping our windows in the breeze--which has reduced the cat anxiety several levels.
One thing I hadn't mentioned, largely because it was very traumatic and painful for us, is that we lost our eldest cat this fall. She was our first family pet, and had been with us for 14 years after we met her as an adult at the shelter in Fort Wayne. An absolutely lovely creature who by then had already had quite a life, and had slowly been declining after a rat poisoning incident (people, do NOT use poisons for pest control! Aside from direct contact, pets can ingest vermin that are poisoned and receive debilitating or fatal amounts of poison themselves), and at this point it was, we think, just her time to go. We miss her terribly, especially during this, her favorite time of year--radiator season. The other two cats seem to have accepted that the colony is that much smaller, and there are far fewer "incidents" between them now, but the apartment is much less snuggly now. 'Tis the cycle we all must face.
Which is, of course, what this whole season is about. The death of the world around us, and the rebirth ahead, and spiting that which sees us harmed or worse. The joy and feasting and gorgeous lights and all that. In so many cultures, the sentiment is "We're still here, fuckers. Just try to stop us."
And I'm hoping we get to carry that tradition forward into the next four years. We're still here. We've always been here, and we always will be. And even if our packages aren't sent on time, they'll still get sent. (This is me saying I still have gifts to send out on this, the 27th of December, that likely won't be sent til New Year's Eve.)
Work-wise, not a lot to report at the moment. I've gotten one of my blurbs for THE FAILURE EXPERIMENT in, but I can't really get the publicity mill started til next month, as I can't yet get the release date I want until the month turns over. I keep poking away at 22 CARDS. I am tremendously bad at the "building a habit" part of the writing life (see the timing of these newsletters, for example), and so it often moves in fits and starts, but I also have the patience to know it will come when it comes. It's extremely disheartening to sit at a blank screen or page and write drivel. I know that so, so many writers talk about the struggle of writing, but the fact is that if I'm not enjoying what I'm writing, I'm simply not going to do it. I'll read wikipedia or sleep or daydream or play videogames chasing digital rewards or run the dishwasher. I don't have to be prolific to be good. I don't have to be everywhere. I don't need everyone to see how diligent I am. My product does not equal my worth, and the volume of my art does not equal its quality nor its value to me.
That's something I don't think a lot of writers acknowledge. It feels bad to write crap. (Note: there is a massive difference between improvable material and crap. The former moves in the direction of progress. The latter is verbal diarrhea, words that fall out without purpose or meaning. I'm mining and refining, not sifting through the runoff. I'm mixing metaphors, not eating at the combination KFC and Taco Bell.
Where was I? Writing and effort. Right.
Point is, it's okay to not feel it sometimes. It's okay to not feel it for months. Find something else to work on. You'll come back to it if it's worth coming back to. And, more importantly, you're gonna be working on it underneath all that other stuff. You're doing laundry and thinking about that scene. You're shooting aliens and listening for rhythms. You're looking at the frozen lake and feeling the way the wind rips over the pier and into your face. All that is part of The Work. The Work is living. The art is the byproduct.
Second, INTERLUDE.
Yet here are lessons from the final mile of pilgrim kings;
the mile still left when all have reached their tether’s end:
~ Laurie Lee, “Twelfth Night”
Third, CONSUMPTION.
Been listening to the spouse's band, Sparkling Urbana, and I'm looking forward to their NYE gig here in town.
Related, in cool music shit from cool people, friend of the show Mer Yayanos is doing another(!) repress of the vinyl edition of The Parlour Trick's first album A Blessed Unrest. I got my copy in 2017 and while the new edition features the same shade blood red vinyl, it also features a very spooky ghostly marbling that mine doesn't have. Truly an object d'art in all the ways. Getchoo one.
Christmas movies this year: Mickey's Christmas Carol, A Muppet Family Christmas, Will Vinton's Claymation Christmas Celebration, Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too, Gremlins, A Muppet Christmas Carol, and The Muppet Christmas Carol. I may still get The Nightmare Before Christmas in. I'm also tempted to squeeeeeeeze in Eyes Wide Shut. It's been a minute since I've seen it, and I'm a sucker for Nicole Kidman in evening wear.
I started volume 2 of Alan Moore's Jerusalem, but have only made it maybe a dozen pages. My brain just hasn't been in the reading mindset for a while. (It's likely that this and my lack of writing are related. (Honestly that's the biggest writer's advice I've ever gotten, by way of Stephen King's On Writing: writers read. A lot. One feeds the other, in both directions.))
Fourth, HUSTLE.
First and foremost is my most recent book, confessions from a drainage ditch, which was released on Sept 1st through Amazon, and is available in ebook and paperback formats. If you haven't picked it up, it's a great introduction to my more concrete and mainstream work.
If you're looking for something weirder, you can check out A Void and Cloudless Sky, a chapbook, which is also available from Amazon, as well as most other retailers. By being a subscriber to this newsletter, you're also entitled to a free PDF version, which you can get here.
If you're liking this whole project and want to support it directly, here is my Patreon. There are lots of little benefits you can get there, from poems written to your specifications to subscriber-only limited-edition chapbooks.
Finally, THE OUTRO.
One thing I'm not very fond of is New Year's Resolutions. It sets a person up for unintentional failure. That said, there are some things I'd like to do more of this year. I'd like to read and write more, ideally finishing writing this book this year (no bigs if not) and trying to beat my last books-read record of 8. (I usually average around 9-10 a year, but I was upwards of 30 during school.) I want to get back into my Bullet Journal habit. I want to make more music and maybe release it.
Standing in the way of most of this is, well, me. I have plenty of time that I simply don't use well. I've talked before about issues I have that present as ADHD symptoms and I think I finally have gotten a professional to listen to me, albeit not in a way I was expecting. I've been prescribed Wellbutrin, which I've been told has a side-label use for ADHD amotivational issues in people with depression (which I most definitely have and am medicated for.) So we're checking how that turns out. So far, a couple weeks in, I don't necessarily notice a huge difference, but I can definitely tell something(?) is happening. While I don't seem too much more focused, I do have a tendency to be more decisive in beginning things now, which has been the biggest problem for me. Just... starting. So yeah. I actually start things now. Maybe not what I plan on starting--cleaning instead of getting dressed, writing instead of doing dishes, etc--but I am starting. And that's a start.
I hope you get to spend this year starting things. Finishing things. Keeping your head up through all of it and making progress. Resting when you want to, rather than when you need to. Have a good year, folks. We all depend on it.
A Wild Post-Script Has Appeared!
The Fiero runs, drives, stops, and is now legal to drive on the streets! Well, mostly. I got an Extended-Use Antique license plate for it, which is a thing Illinois does to let people who own classic cars drive them on the roads most of the year, but requires that they are not out during the coldest months--December, January, February--except for car shows and service/repair. This comes with a massive reduction in registration fees. So while I can drive it now, I don't really. But what a huge, huge feeling of accomplishment, taking a car that was basically dead and bringing it back to mostly dead. There's of course still stuff to do (such is the life of the project car), but it moves and is insured and is currently parked down the block from me. It's a Festivus miracle!