#Weeknotes S04 E03: Livin’ In Sin with a Safety Pin

This week’s episode is being broadcast from an undisclosed location. I’ll talk more about that next week.

IN THE WILD
Even at the undisclosed location, I find once again that where I’m from tends to sneak itself into wherever you are.

A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Margaret Hamilton (December 9, 1902 – May 16, 1985) was a schoolteacher turned actress, best known for her portrayal of the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 film THE WIZARD OF OZ.

This comes on top of a couple of other Cleveland-related things that have come across my transom this week.

ALL THIS ENERGY CALLING ME…
The name Dick Goddard probably doesn’t mean much to anyone not of a certain age who came up in the 216 a couple of decades after the river caught fire. But, behold the ancient wisdom of a legendary Clevelander!

In addition to its winter forecast, Farmers’ Almanac also shared “20 Signs of a Hard Winter Ahead,” which was curated by famed late Cleveland weatherman Dick Goddard. The list was first featured in the 1978 Farmers’ Almanac, “and it is still relevant today,” according to the almanac.

–via cleveland.com

It’s that fuzzy Midwestern feeling of when a local boy does good. And speaking of local boys who done good, there’s a fall event being organized, in part, by Ursuline College’s Rust Belt Humanities Lab — okay, wait, let’s back up. First off, there’s a Rust Belt Humanities Lab!!

Anyway, Superman’s Cleveland: Lineage and Legacy will be celebrated in the place where the Neverending Battle began.

Superman’s Cleveland is a city-wide celebration of the heritage of Superman, the world’s first comic book superhero invented in 1938 in Glenville by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, two Jewish high school students.

This Fall, scholars and comic book lovers will join interested Clevelanders in book discussions, comics-making workshops, live interviews with creators, and a rich lineup of programs exploring the lineage and legacy of Superman and Cleveland.

READING
Finished Christine Schutt’s collection A DAY, A NIGHT, ANOTHER DAY, SUMMER. I’m still plowing away at THE COMPLETE GARY LUTZ, with only moderately less mental and emotional distress than I experienced when reading Lutz and Eric Bogosian at the same time.

I’ve always enjoyed so-called Minimalist fiction. I’ve read who (I think) most would think of as “the big names,” like Carver, Hempel, Hannah, Beattie, Robison. But there’s another strata that I’m only now getting to: Sam Lipsyte (whose story collections I read before I came back to blogging), Gary Lutz, Christine Schutt, Noy Holland (her stuff is next on tap), etc. These writers’ work is definitely different. The language is playful, which seems to make their stories (in my opinion) more brutal.

THIS IS ONLY A TEST
Since I’m back on my bullshit here, I thought I’d dick around with some of the other ancient tools from yesteryear, what with everyone retreating into newsletters, blogs, or other older platforms. I was never really much of a LiveJournal guy, but there was a time when I Tumblr’d 4 ya quite a lot.

Anyway, don’t mind me…

https://donfoolery.tumblr.com/post/726137225048473600/first-look-at-the-new-toxic-avenger-movie-peter

#Weeknotes S04 E02: Cognitive Salubrity

READING
I’ve finished Eric Bogosian’s 100 MONOLOGUES. I’ve flipped back and forth between monologues, kind of like how your average Catholic flips around the Bible randomly, but I took the time to read these 100, cover to cover from start to finish. I took two things away from this experience:

  1. Some of these pieces go back 30 or 35 years, and it’s scary how some of the reactionary characters depicted must’ve somehow time-traveled forward to 2023.
  2. Reading 100 MONOLOGUES while concurrently reading THE COMPLETE GARY LUTZ might not have been good for my mental and emotional health. I mean, the collection includes a book titled, PARTIAL LIST OF PEOPLE TO BLEACH, so I’m sure you can imagine.

I’ve still got a ways to go before finishing Lutz’s stuff, while still picking away at Christine Schutt’s A DAY, A NIGHT, ANOTHER DAY, SUMMER. But I’ve got a huge to-read pile, so I’ve moved QUANTUM CRIMINALS: RAMBLERS, WILD CAMBLERS, AND OTHER SOLE SURVIVORS FROM THE SONGS OF STEELY DAN by Alex Pappademas and Joan LeMay up the queue.

Even if you’re someone who’s inclined to shit on Steely Dan you might still enjoy the snark that’s so cleverly (and at some points, lovingly) laid down on Donald and Walter.

In the ’70s, Donald [Fagan] favors a preshow Valium and two immediately preshow tequila shots before taking the stage. But the Cuervo Gold and the fine anxiolytics can only go so far in terms of making the night a tolerable thing.

COGNITIVE SALUBRITY
This is the type of local history that always fascinated me. I’ve always said that the first time I visited this zone of “10 square miles surrounded by reality” almost two decades ago, I knew I’d found my place. Stuff like this is why…

The Witch on Horseback Institute for Cognitive Salubrity was a short-lived new age education center and performance space founded in Trumansburg, New York in the nineteen-seventies by former employees of the Moog synthesizer company. These forgotten recordings with disgraced Ithaca experimental psychologist Noving Jumand were discovered at a library sale in Ithaca, New York in the early 2020s, and have been restored from the original LPs by the musical entity known as Witch on Horseback, named in the Institute’s honor.

“AY, OH, WAY TO GO, OHIO”
My home state, much like a broken clock, can be right twice a day…

“Ohio voters reject Issue 1, scoring win for abortion-rights supporters ahead of November” from The Columbus Dispatch.

IN THE WILD
There’s this coffee shop at my (dying) local mall that’s been around for a few years. It’s all right. It’s small, it’s local. The food and drinks are decent and the folks who run it are nice. The furnishings came from the Borders that left the mall when it closed down. They gathered dust in the closed storefront for years, before being moved to a new space to be re-used.

I spent hours at the old Borders cafe doing a lot of writing. I’ve likely sat on every chair and at every table (including the couches you don’t see) at one point, so it’s kind of like visiting old friends and seeing if I can recreate the old writing magic we once had.

#Weeknotes S04 E01: Back on My Bullshit

I come up here and I do the best I can. I give you the best I can. I can’t do better than this. I can’t.

–Eric Bogosian, “I’m Here. I’m Here Every Night”
from TALK RADIO

I used to be one of those people who would come back to their blogs after a prolonged absence, all self-conscious about it, wanting to explain, to pledge to post more regularly, to get on a schedule. I’m over that.

So, the only question is what to write about after so long? I cast an eye inward, but then decided to just let the Story Cubes put my thoughts together.

I’ve been on a huge reading binge lately. I’ve got about 5 or 6 books going on right now, but the top 3 this past week:

The thing that’s helped me do all this reading is the Nook Glowlight 4e that I decided to splurge on a couple of weeks ago. Maybe it’s my aging eyes, but my laptop, tablet, and phone screens just weren’t cutting it anymore. Between that and the fact that reading at night no longer keeps me up and is thus improving the quality of my sleep, Nook is the first single-use media device I’ve had in my EDC kit for a very long time.

All this reading has definitely unlocked something. It’s filling me up on the old magic, helping me rediscover things that make me smile. Things like Nathasha Lyonne doing an Eric Bogosian monologue…

#Weeknotes S03 E33

It’s been awhile, folks. But I explained it all last time–life transition in progress! But the only place I have to go from last month with respect to writing is up. Heck, if put in two more days of writing, I’ll have beaten September. I’ll aim higher of course; it’s just going to take a bit to get there.

WRITING

  • This week’s writing chain: 2 days
  • Total writing days this week: 3 days
  • Pieces out on submission: 1

I remember complaining incessantly about having to reinvent the wheel every time there’s a break in my writing flow. This time I’m taking a different approach by considering the possibility that reinventing the wheel is an inevitability, just like the occassional break, and running a little experiment to see what happens if I just lean into it instead of fighting it.

I’ll let you know how all that goes next week. Until then, I’m doing something I haven’t done in years and am planning to participate in NaNoWriMo :gasp: ahead of time! I’ve even decided on a strategy, which will probably involve extensive use of The Story Engine deck.

If you’re doing NaNo too, let’s connect!

READING
I was into NEVER SAY YOU CAN’T SURIVIVE by Charlie Jane Anders until the book IF DISNEY RAN YOUR HOSPITAL was recommended to me during my sojourn into other healthcare arenas. Wish I’d had this book a few years ago but it’ll serve me well where I’m going!

IDIOT BOXING
A lot of things to tie up my brain while stressing, starting out with TIDYING UP WITH MARIE KONDO. I do not understand how anyone can give her last show shit, causing her to change it up, but at least that didn’t stop her from coming back.

I’ve been catching up on the past 4-5 years of NCIS, partly because I got sick of relying on cable reruns to catch up to where I needed to be.

I didn’t think ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING was going to be my jam, to be honest.

IN THE WILD
Couple weeks old, but it just reminded me about how I used to wear suits all the time, even when I didn’t have to.

September Writing

Despite my best efforts, I have juuuust enough residual guilt and shame to feel the need to justify September’s writing performance. But I like to think my therapist would be proud of the progress this post represents. No self-flagellation here. Just facts.

https://twitter.com/DonP/status/1443593731886698499?s=20

Okay, so… ::deep breath::

  • Longest Chain in September: 1 days
  • Total August days: 5 days
  • Pieces out on submission: 1
  • Total 2021 Writing days: 180

As if I haven’t had enough of the stressors listed in the Holmes-Rahe Stress Inventory in my life, I got to stare down two top 20 items this past month, and getting past them took up a lot of mental, emotional, and creative energy. But after some interviewing, some stylin’ and profilin’, a dash of hurry-up-and-wait, and a lot of weighing of pros and cons, I’ll be leaving the place I’ve worked for 15 years and moving to another part of the organization. Somewhere I can use everything I learned helping to move my old unit to the next level, and do the same for another.

I actually interviewed for two jobs…and I was offered both. That was another major part of the stress I was under. I was so tempted by the offer I turned down. The prospect of what I’d be facing in the job I accepted scared me a little. Which is how I knew it was the better move–after days of wrestling with it, that is.

So as far as the writing, though? I did what I could do last month. Period. I’m not pleased with it, and that’s okay. I’ll simply move forward this month. But what I won’t do anymore is beat myself up over it. I’m over that shit.

#Weeknotes S03 E32

Really short this week because I’m not feeling it. Quick content warning for talk about depression.

I’m in an all-too-familiar depressive slump right now. It’s okay though–I’m okay! Because it’s different when I treat it as a period of time I can and will pass through. And I know I’ll pass through it (eventually) because of a continued regimen of medication and therapy, as well as a year’s worth of data points that tell me so.

Doesn’t mean I’m doing great, though. By which I mean I’m “not doing great” mentally and emotionally the same way I’d be “not doing great” if I’d had the flu or a sprained ankle, or anything physical keeping me from functioning 100%. That’s not to minimize my depression, either. YMMV but for me, comparisons like that help me remember that what feels like a black hole doesn’t have to be one, like it has in the past. In my case it’s something that, all things being equal, will likely pass once the chemicals in my brain right themselves.

When I remember that, I realize I don’t have to spend every waking moment trying to fight my way through it, fail, feel like a failure, fight my way through it, rinse and repeat until it’s been three months since I’ve written anything while I’ve been decompensating in other areas of my life. And I’ll get back on the horse the way I’ve always gotten back on the horse–even when all that stuff did happen.

WRITING

  • This week’s writing chain: 1 day
  • Total writing days this week: 2 days
  • Pieces out on submission: 1

Got a story rejection the other day and I need to figure out where to send it next. That, with the other numbers do not indicate a good writing week. But I’m not complaining. Nor am I apologizing or justifying. This week was what it was.

READING
Haven’t been reading much aside from picking away at NEVER SAY YOU CAN’T SURIVIVE by Charlie Jane Anders. I wish I could say I’m focused on this book because it’s apropos for this fallow period I’m in, but the truth is I started this while I was on a writing streak. Still a recommended read, though!

IN THE WILD
This is the ultraportable writing kit. Whenever I feel like I need to strip down to basics and get out into the world with the barest minimum writing gear, it’s just a few bits of gear all centered around using my Chromebook Duet to draft a project or just poke around my brain. And that’s about all I’m good for creatively at the moment. Thing is, it’s usually the start of the way back…

#Weeknotes S03 E31

It’s a holiday weekend and I really should’ve just bagged on weeknotes altogether, but it’s okay. I wouldn’t be doing this right now if I really didn’t want to.

The tank just ran empty last week. Could be the time of year. The start of Fall semester is always rough at work, even without a pandemic. But between that, the holiday, some minor medical stuff I’m getting taken care of (see below)… well, yeah I only got as far as I got this week.

WRITING

  • This week’s writing chain: 4 days
  • Total writing days this week: 4 days
  • Pieces out on submission: 2

No word one way or the other about the pieces I have out at the moment. That’s okay. I got 4 days in and I actually got some things out of the 3 days I didn’t do anything. In fact, you could say I fucked around in order to find out if there was a better strategy for dealing with moments like this without letting it drag on for weeks and months on end, like I used to.

The first thing was finally recognizing certain cues about this mood I can fall into that makes writing feel impossible, and deciding to just sit and be with them.

There’s something else that I realized tends to happen at times like these: a huge amount random ideas that pop into my head that I write down and file away. I’m pretty sure you could correlate these non-writing times with the volume of stuff I file away in Evernote. Now, I know in my heart of hearts that at least 75% of that stuff is no good. But some of it like, “Okay, maybe… one day.” (Although I’m looking last week’s notes over and just spotted two separate entries that might have a common theme…)

Another thing is the random shit I tend to notice and document, things that could turn into a story of some kind. Like a theory about Gen X music, a random collection of words that made me stop what I was doing, or random scenes that just raise a lot of questions…

Basically, what I found out from fucking around is that maybe, just maybe I don’t have to always try to boostrap, GTD, Pomodoro, or power my way through an empty tank. That maybe I can just let it refill however it’s supposed to without trying to force it to happen, anymore than I can make myself get over a cold.

IN THE WILD
It was a week of non-invasive medical interventions involving steroids and narrow band UVB radiation. Which to a geek like me has all the makings of a superhero origin story! Or, maybe a super-villain story. Hey, either or….

That’s all I got for this week. See you next time!

August Writing

  • Longest Chain in August: 13 days
  • Total August days: 27 days
  • Pieces out on submission: 2
  • Total 2021 Writing days: 175

I will evangelize the use of data-driven decision-making because my gut tells me it’s the right thing to do.
—C.L. Mah, “The Middle Manager’s Oath”

I need to look at my progress from the macro level because otherwise my brain only sees the holes on the days I don’t write . It only sees how August’s numbers are lower than July’s. It knows that there were days in August where only the bare minimum was done, especially since I log what I do in each X calendar entry.

I need more data before I can draw too, too many conclusions about my writing process. But some things are clear…

  • I’m writing more consistently over 2021 (and the last two months of 2020) than I ever have. Ever.
  • By my back of the envelope calculations, I’m writing an average of 5 days a week so far.
  • It helps that I can identify reasons for most of the gaps. I might not consider them all good reasons, but still.

I’m very curious to see what a year or two of this data will show. What sorts of patterns might reveal themselves. I feel I’m on the right track, though. At least, that’s what my gut tells me.

#Weeknotes S03 E30

I got another “7 & 7” writing week! But every day only saw the bare minimum amount of work, achieved only by the skin of my teeth. I actually shocked myself a couple of those days that I was able to do anything.

It’s been that kind of week, so this one’s going to be short.

WRITING

  • This week’s writing chain: 7 days
  • Total writing days this week: 7 days
  • Pieces out on submission: 2

Still waiting to hear on one sub while the other sub is out to its 5th market. I just have to keep remembering that right now, I’m just building my “finishing and submitting” muscles. Finish stories, get them out, and keep them out there. Publication is just icing on the cake right now!

READING
Two things grabbed my attention just by virtue of who the pieces are on and their headlines…

One thing warranted a little more attention: Vincent D’Onofrio directing a film based on Howard Waldrop’s classic “Night of the Cooters”? HERE, TAKE MY MONEY!!!

IDIOT BOXING
Wow, I really slept on GRAVITY FALLS. But I’m all caught up now thanks to Hulu!

IN THE WILD
I haven’t seen it but mark my words–there’s a version of this shirt out there where the loaf of bread is something else. Either way, it’s an accurate representation of the week.

#Weeknotes S03 E29

It’s the start of the academic year in the college town I live in. This is one of two weekends where locals tend to hole up in their homes if at all possible as students arrive like a swarm of locusts, devouring everything from all the stores and restaurants. The other weekend is at the end of the year when they leave for the summer, but this time brings the influx of people just learning their way around town. It throws the local bus system out of whack for a couple of weeks. At least one out-of-towner will drive the wrong way down a one way street. And some alum dropping off a legacy student will try to relive their heyday in one of the local bars.

It only now occurs to me that it could be that energy that’s been screwing with my sleep cycle this past week. I’ve been tossing and turning most nights, sleeping either 3-4 hours or 9-10. Last night and the night before, there was just no point being in bed before 4:00 in the morning. But life goes on, with work and writing and such.

This week I’ve been doing some experimenting with how I do copyedits, since I didn’t have a lot of time to bust out the binder I usually carry of printed story MSS. I kinda like where this is going…


And that’s how I made most of my writing progress this week.

WRITING

  • This week’s writing chain: 4 days
  • Total writing days this week: 6 days
  • Pieces out on submission: 1

One piece out because I got a rejection yesterday and I haven’t sent it out to the next market yet. Will definitely do that before the end of the day.

But in the meantime, I’m going to sit with the feeling of not being torn up over missing a writing day and how nice it feels. Not just because it’s the start of the academic year, but because fuck it, that’s why. My therapist would be proud! I’ve got several months’ worth of data showing me that my writing life doesn’t have to fall apart after missing a day here and there. Sure, I love it when I’m on a streak. I’ll fight to maintain streaks!

Some days I’ll lose, or decide I don’t need to play that day, and that’s okay!

EAR CANDY
Over the past couple of months I’ve been researching the PNW writer Tom Spanbauer and his Dangerous Writing workshop which I heard about through his former student Chuck Palahniuk’s book CONSIDER THIS: MOMENTS IN MY WRITING LIFE AFTER WHICH EVERYTHING WAS DIFFERENT.

Palauhniuk goes into some of the workshop’s concepts in the book. While perusing some old interviews, I stumbled onto this old podcast episode with Spanbauer where he seems to summarize what I understand to be at the core of his concepts.

It’s your own heart. And it’s the fear that you have in your heart, or the sadness that you have in your heart that makes us human, and if you can go to that and look at that and talk about it, you got setting, you got character, you got motivation… you got it all. The story’s here.

EYE CANDY
I can’t remember exactly how I chanced upon this, but
it occurred to me that part of what I’ve been trying to do lately is figure out for myself What Nourishes Your Writing Ecosystem?

When considering your own ecosystem, dear writer, you need to be aware of the elements that make up your life as well as the elements you’d like to make up your life. While many ecosystems have similarities, there are just as many differences, and so these specific worlds we inhabit are incredibly personal. Remember that you need to be thinking about you at your best and your writing at its best. When you are calm and easefully connected and your creativity is flowing—when your head and heart are in harmony and your breath and body feel spacious and expansive—what else is happening in your life? When you feel like you’ve hit your stride and could go miles without even becoming winded, what is your internal state? Pay attention. Make a list of these details. These are the elements of your ecosystem.

This, on the other hand, is an interview with rock critic Jessica Hopper from a place you all know I read regularly, BELT MAGAZINE.

What does it mean to be a Midwestern critic? For Jessica Hopper, the answer is simple: there’s a lot less room for bullshit, and far more attention paid to just doing the work.

Basically, I have a new book in my TBR queue now, THE FIRST COLLECTION OF CRITICISM BY A LIVING FEMALE ROCK CRITIC.

IDIOT BOXING
Caught RUROUNI KENSHIN: THE FINAL and now I feel like I want to go back to the original anime series and OVAs.

IN THE WILD
Since I’ve been actually going out in the world, I haven’t had too many pictures up of the fur children lately, though Asher Mir got the spotlight a few weeks ago. And Mazikeen is definitely the jealous type; I have the scars to prove it.

She’s actually quite content in this picture. I think…