The week started with Spring Break finishing up. Nothing special happened there besides typing in 5 chapters worth of edits to Darwin & the Halfling Hunt. It wasn’t as much as I had hoped before I got my son for a day. Almost got a 6th chapter done, but life got crazy without warning.
Mostly, it’s work. School ends on June 26th, which means we’re in the last push towards summer break. Subject units are being wrapped up. Finals and regents are being prepared for. Concerts are set for those in music programs. Field trips are happening for a few others. Extra help is going on after school most days. That’s just what my son is dealing with and I haven’t had time with him since I dropped him off at school on Wednesday morning.
From the teacher side, it’s just keeping the kids motivated and focused. Being in a life skills program, we don’t have tests coming. We do have field trips and trying to get our students to continue making progress while the school energy changes. The air is thicker with restlessness as everyone is thinking to summer. It’s really strong this year since we had a long spring break. A taste of the future and a delicious one at that. I’ll be working for most of the summer though, so not much will change for me.
Sticking with the school stuff, our students had their first Unified Basketball game. This is a league where teams are composed of special and general education students. It’s for kids who want to play, but can’t get on the general teams. The gen-ed students are there to guide the special-ed students, so they’re not scoring or controlling the ball. It was a lot of fun and our team won. Just really wish they didn’t make it such a nail-biter. I won’t be at 2 of the 3 games next week due to my son having stuff, but I’ll get to the one and then the final game the week after. All of the support and excitement definitely drained me of what little energy I had left.
The rest of my time was composed of small victories. Finished all of the posts for June and am going to try to finish July before the end of the month. I like getting all of the summer posts set up to make the off time easier, but I’m definitely running out of topics. Starting to question why I’m even here any more . . . Oh, there was also the Facebook post I made that some people just fucking missed the point of. This is the post itself:
“So, being in Oswego did get my brain thinking about the whole author thing. I’ve been mulling over the thoughts for a few days now too.
Anyway, I’m going to jump back into typing in the edits for ‘Darwin & the Halfling Hunt’. 2024 is an editing year since I want to make sure the 5 books I finished in this series are consistent before I dive into the second half. To anyone who bothered to read this whole rant, thanks for listening.”
A bunch of people did respond saying they understood and gave sympathy towards certain parts. Others did the usual ‘you can do this!’ responses, which annoyed me because I was explaining why I can’t do the author thing like I used to. People seem to think that having no money, time, energy, or solid support system towards being a career author means you can’t get anywhere. It’s a rich/popular person’s game these days. Finally, some people responded solely by talking about themselves, which made me want to pull back from the writing world even more.
What did the rant mean? I’m not 100% certain. All I know is that I still love writing, but I’m not in a position to do more than write my stories with no major push towards publishing unless the money and time come into play. So, I’ll be publishing slower than ever with no real expectation of selling anything. The main goal is to get the core Windemere stories written. That means Ichabod Brooks, Phi Beta Files, Bedlam, Mylrixians, and all of the other side stories will be put in notebooks with only a hope that I can ever write them. I’m 44, so the chance of me writing over 100 books before I’m in the ground isn’t very high. Especially since retirement probably isn’t going to happen without a lottery win or a societal collapse. Not sure what this means for the blog either, but I think I have what little self-worth tied into this to miss a day.
So, goals of the week?
- Type on more Darwin & the Halfling Hunt edits.
- Get car inspected.
- Watch more ‘Great Teacher Onizuka’.
- Son’s concert.
- Play more Pokemon Go since I made an account to act as my son’s sidekick. I need to get myself to a high enough level and get better Pokemon to be of any use.
- Puzzle time when free.
- Laundry.
- Start buying groceries for the weeks I’m on my own for dinner. Got interested dishes set up.
- Bike on days I can’t do Pokemon Go walking.
- Try to get extra sleep.
Legends of Windemere 
I know a couple of authors who hung it up. I think it’s very sad. We must all have troubles to deal with. I think it’s in the master plan. Writing makes me happy, and I need more of that. We’ve known each other long enough that I think you do too. I’m not going to stop, but I will have to tone down my publishing schedule. I’m also tapped out on blog ideas, but I’ll cobble something together this weekend. I actually did Pokemon Go for a while when it first appeared. It was a fun game, but I got into a rut with it. I’m sure it’s evolved quite a bit since then. Keep plugging away.
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I fight too much for free time, so writing is usually done on fumes. Honestly, I can’t muster happiness anymore. Seems to always cause people to start fucking with me until I break again. If you mean God’s master plan then I hope not for his sake. If his plan for me was suffering and anguish with no reprieve then he better pray I never get my hands on him.
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If writing makes you happy, ignore all the jerks out there and keep at it. I think you have quite a load on your list, but if you are like me, lists keep you on track. I remember the days with my kids leading up toe summer vacation. We always planned a beach trip right after they got out so they could let off steam in a wide open environment!
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I’m working for most of the summer. The little time I get with my son has already been claimed by family events. My first real break will be at the end of December. As far as writing goes, the act made me happy, but the dream was to be a known author. The jerks fucking won because they stopped me and now I can’t pursue that dream. I can barely write now and it’s looking like I’ll never get the time I once had. Retirement won’t even help if it’s even possible because my body and mind will be broken like most of my brutalized generation.
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I can hardly push a like button for this. I had NO time to write with two kids and a university career, but once I’d retired, the gates opened.,
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Not sure why people keep bringing up my son. He’s not a big distraction even when he is here. If I want to write, he works on his own stuff.
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You are very fortunate to have an independent kid, Charles. One of mine was ADHD and required a lot on attention and assistance from us. Plus both our kids played 2-3 sports a year – an excellent way to keep them out of trouble! But lots of driving for us!
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He’s not as independent as he could be. Only because he doesn’t get a lot of time with me, so he had clinging moments. Can’t blame him, which is why I never plan on writing full chapters while he’s home.
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A lot of authors have these moments where we have to decide. I few months ago I re-organized my author closet and disposed of a lot of old drafts and correspondence. It was sobering to see how hard I was trying to break through, but never connected. A lot of that was from 15 or 20 years ago, which was a sobering thought in itself.
But that can be true of any activity you are devoted to. One of my other friends was lamenting that he had to stop wood-working because they downsized and he had no space for his shop. Maybe we’re all having a mid-life crisis, literarily.
There are always times when we have to re-assess (including who we keep in our inner circle). I won’t tell you what to do or how to change your output. I just hope any changes will come from acceptance of the current circumstances rather than guilt or a feeling that you failed by some arbitrary standard.
I mean, you wrote and published how many books? Sixteen or seventeen? That isn’t failure.
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The thing is that I’m questioning the whole thing from age 15. I self-published books that never got off the ground. People are doing that with AI to find more success than I did as a human. My goal was to be a successful career author or at least be able to pay a few of the smaller bills with my books. Since neither of those were met, I’d say it was a failure. Creating silver linings to bullshit myself is how I failed to notice the knives being jammed into my back. So, I’m really not seeing how I can look at the last 29 years of my life as anything other than flailing in vain.
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I don’t blame you for that rant you posted on Facebook. I’ve felt similar things with creative pursuits like music, film production to a certain extent, and even fiction like yourself. It’s infuriating hearing that people you thought you could trust betray you or belittle you. Ever thought about calling them out or sabotaging them back? It is frustrating how people who want to do creative things full time have a much higher mountain to climb and some aspects make it even tougher like AI, the lockdown years, short attention spans, etc.
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Sabotaging them back is pointless. I lack the power and they’d just be seen as the victim. Revenge isn’t like in the movies where the audience cheers. The avenger is seen as the villain because they’re not as careful about their reasons as the person who wronged them. Calling them out is the same. Proof is needed and even that won’t do anything more than getting their support system to tear you apart. This is why manipulation works so well when done from the shadows. By the time the victim is hurt, they can’t do anything that won’t make it worse.
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That’s enraging how they are manipulating you. I was never able to manipulate anyone in my life. It makesme woner how those people are able to do that so well and get away with it. Whenever I stood up to those people, I would be demonized even if I brought proof. I also hate it when people expect me to bring proof while others only have to use their words as gospel whether it’s about a situation I’m in or when I prove a point about something. I’m aware life isn’t like the movies, so I’m not naive to that. I hope this doesn’t mean you quit writing.
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Manipulation requires not caring about the target. You don’t care if they get hurt as long as you get what you want. Most people learn this by being a previous victim. They go the route of becoming the abuser. Proof is typically needed. If a person believes without proof then they can easily be swayed in the other direction. That’s just a traitor waiting in the wings to me.
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I can see why it would take such a callous person to do something like that. I’ve never exploited someone to get what I want. Not saying I’m a saint of course, but I just don’t think about ruining someone who never hurt me in any way. It is scary when people believe without proof and assume the real victims are lying or when victims actually believe they did something wrong like they were railroaded, insidiously gaslighted, or coerced into confessing something they didn’t do just to be left alone. There have been cases where I brought legitimate proof and they either didn’t believe me or downplay what the other person did. I was more talking about the double standard of only certain people being burdened to show proof while others don’t have to in a situation.
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Sadly, I see the proof issue all the time. I think part of it is the fact that the Internet has made lies harder to distinguish. So, people are more likely to believe proof over social connections.
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Okay. I wondered if you noticed that, too. Some examples have insulted my intelligence of asking me to prove things when I’ve shown people or talked about my experiences. The internet hasn’t helped in certain regards. People also need to realize that just because people deny stuff doesn’t mean they’re always telling the truth or if a victim doesn’t have all the evidence that it’s false. Some people are insanely good at hiding their skeletons which is sad or they blow the other person’s stuff out of proportion to look like the worst thing ever.
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🙂
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Thanks.
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You’re welcome.
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I’m not o Facebook so I don’t see the rant. I did read it here and agree that to be a known author takes money. Without money there has to be another reason to write. Then when we settle on it we have to hope the reason is enough to keep at it. I think wanting to finish your stories is a good reason to write them. Let’s hope you can stay at it.
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Thanks. I’m hoping to stay at it. Does bring the blog’s existence into question though.
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I personally do not think blogs do anything for book sales and they are a lot of work
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It’s a shame that they’ve lost their usefulness. Not sure what works besides money these days.
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I agree.
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damn
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Yup.
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