Goal Post: Home and Healing

Posted on December 6, 2025 by Charles Yallowitz

I came home on Wednesday and it’s been healing ever since.  The plus side is that I now have access to my laptop again.  So, I can try my best to explain what happened and make an actual post.

A little more than two weeks ago, I started feeling fatigued and feverish.  Got myself tested and everything came back negative, so it was assumed to be a simple virus.  Overnight, I ended up dealing with extreme swelling to the point where I was having trouble walking around.  It was a bacterial infection, so I got ultrasounds and medication to get it under control.  Things were looking good over the weekend even though the pain and swelling wasn’t going away that quickly.  Figured it was just a slow recovery.

Then came the night of Thanksgiving.  I felt that things were going wrong with the pain growing.  By the time I went to bed, the swelling had come back full force.  In the morning, I couldn’t move without nearly collapsing in agony.  Hospital was my only choice and that’s where I ended up for about 5 days.  Turns out the infection was worse than believed and the meds weren’t doing a dent.  It became a full staph infection with abscesses appearing in the infected area.  By the end of day one, I was cut into and the wound was packed to allow for draining.  My time in the hospital was spent with packing changes and various I.V.’s such as saline, antibiotics and the like.  Needless to say, it was difficult to focus on much there.

It was nice to come home, especially since the pain was gone.  Just some discomfort and fatigue.  I’m still getting wound care though, which means I either go to a place or someone comes to me.  The packing gets replaced because they want the wound to heal from the inside out.  If it heals on the outside and the abscess remains, I could get infected again.  My bed has been set up to protect the sheets, showers are a challenge, and my appetite comes and goes.  It’s still better than last week, but I’ve got a long way before I’m back to normal.  Can’t even drive myself anywhere, which also means Pokemon Go in the park or mall is out.  Might go with my parents and son tomorrow to sit and play.  Just to get some fresh air.

I can’t say my time was entirely fruitless.  Got a little of ‘Phi Beta Files’ completed.  Did a lot of thinking of how to work the last two books, which would have been a great victory if I wasn’t on painkillers at the time.  Glimmers of the ideas remain, but I’m going to have figure it all out again.  I also managed to get all of the January posts completed, which clears up some time.  Not sure if I’ll tackle February yet, but I might do a few when my son is around.  Still have a while before I return to work, so I can get some things done.

My hope for Darwin & the Joy Path is that I can get a chapter section done every now and then.  I might be able to do one today since I’m just sitting around the house by myself.  Come the later weekdays, I hope to do a little morning Pokemon Go at the mall just to start getting my stamina back.  Then, I aim to do writing in the afternoon and evening.  It’s going to be a challenge only because I can only remain on my desk chair for about 30 minutes at a time before it’s too uncomfortable.  Might try to write in the bed, but I can’t use a lap desk.  I’ll be happy if I can get the rest of chapter 8 done by the weekend, which might see more completed.  Chapter 9 is a bigger one, but I have the following week as well.

That’s really it for now.  Clearly, my time and energy is directed more at healing.  So, what are my goals?

  1. Heal.
  2. Help son study for tests.
  3. Get some writing done.
  4. Sleep.
  5. Work on ‘Phi Beta Files’ when I can’t stay at the desk.
  6. Short walks for stamina.
  7. Puzzle time for screen break.
  8. Get Burger King at some point.
Posted in Goal Posts | Tagged , , , , , , , | 17 Comments

Secret Abuse and Public Outbursts

Posted on December 5, 2025 by Charles Yallowitz

So, this isn’t really a writing post.  Clearly, but I feel like I should point out that this is more about mental health and abuse.  I’ve been dancing around posting about this for a few years now.  I was scared that it would be too triggering or cause a fight in the comments.  Didn’t want people to take things the wrong way either.  Now, I feel like I should bring this up because it is a sensitive situation that more people are going through than one would realize.

This situation is when one person is abusing someone else when other people aren’t around.  It can be physical, but that causes bruises.  It tends to be emotional, verbal, or mental abuse.  For example, always making the person feel like a failure regardless of what they are doing.  It isn’t in a kind way, but cutting and sometimes even yelling.   This keeps their self-esteem low and their tension high, which is what the abuser wants.  That is because the pain they are inflicting isn’t the main goal.  It’s to get their victim to a point where they are on edge and about to blow.  This is why it’s commonly done to people who suffer from anxiety and other mental illnesses that can lead to short tempers.  It all leads up to a single prod in public when the person is at the brink.  Then:

BOOM!

The victim explodes in rage and screams at the abuser with people only seeing this reaction to what they see as a mild irritation.  The audience doesn’t know what has happened behind closed doors.  They don’t know that the person losing their temper has been keeping it under control for days, weeks, or even months while they are mentally eroded.  The abuser becomes the victim in the eyes of everyone, which is the real goal of the abuse.  Now, nobody will believe the true victim if they try to say what happened beforehand because they were the ones seen as the ‘monster’.  It doesn’t matter if they were routinely broken down and belittled.  It doesn’t matter if they were cornered in a room and scolded until they yelled back to make the torture stop.  Nobody saw what was going on and the victim wasn’t in a position to document things.  It becomes the world of a person who lost their temper vs the one who was cowering and acting it up to make sure they were seen as a victim.

It’s a situation like this that makes me wish life was kind of like books.  We can see everything happening to the characters.  Readers know the abuse that happened beforehand and understand why the public explosion occurred. Even if it wasn’t revealed until afterwards, the readers will believe the abused because the author is making it clear that this is the truth.  We don’t have an omnipotent being who steps in to say ‘Hey, that person is lashing out in pain caused by the one you’re defending!’  Instead, the one who got manipulated and couldn’t hold it together gets a taste of public justice since nobody is going to investigate.  Only their real friends and those who happened to see what really occurred will be believed, but the narcissist will have already pushed them away from the majority of the audience.

This reality makes me try to pause when I see a public outburst and wonder if the one screaming is actually the aggressor.  Are they working off a short-fuse or have they been secretly pushed to the point where one prod at the wrong time will cause a scene?  I see it only social media for views a lot as well as in the real world.  Part of it is that the surge of anger puts everyone in the area on edge, which means most aren’t thinking straight.  You might not even realize that it’s going on in your own head.  It gets really bad if someone decides to physically interject and confront the person who has lost it, which makes things worse.  The whole situation becomes a mess with the real abuser sitting in the middle absorbing all of the sympathy and attention aimed at them.

Well, I think I’m starting to just ramble, but I wanted to get this off my chest.  Even taking breaks while writing this didn’t help keep me entirely calm.  What do other people think of this situation?

Posted in Thoughts | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

Poetry Day: Surviving in the Rut

Posted on December 4, 2025 by Charles Yallowitz

Boromir telling the truth

(This was a fun one to write.  Clearly I was having a sense of boredom and wondering about how life could be more interesting.  The broken souls part certainly rings true even today.  Stability helps when you’re hurting, but it can turn into a rut.  Hard to get out of that comfort zone.)

The Rut

Is a necessity

To those with broken souls

Beaten down by life

Lost to all ambition

Hoping to survive

And make it through the day

They forge a simple cycle

Waking with the dawn

Preparing for the day

Entering the flood of traffic

That oozes them to work

Where they go through motions

Dreading all excitement

That brings a touch of chaos

To their standard realm

They avoid the ticking clock

A sign of life’s depart

Until the time to leave

And join the trickle home

A few hours of free time

Before its time to sleep

And reset the dreaded cycle

Until the weekend comes

Leaving the Rut behind

But never out of mind

Posted in Poems | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

The Lovable Grouch

Posted on December 3, 2025 by Charles Yallowitz

Oscar

I don’t remember exactly what made me notice this character type recently.  It just popped into my head and I noticed how often the lovable grouch appears.  Oscar, Al Bundy, Dr. House, Carl Frederickson (Up), and more fall into this category, which can cross several genres.  Why do we enjoy the lovable grouches?

For one thing, I think many of us are raised on shows that have this archetype somewhere in the cast.  I mentioned Oscar who is on ‘Sesame Street’, but you also have those like Grumpy from ‘Snow White’ and Squidward from ‘Spongebob’.  They do exist in contrast to the happier cast, but they aren’t noted as evil or bad.  In fact, many times they will turn out to be as empathic and nurturing as the others.  It’s just that they don’t like being bothered and maybe prefer to do things on their terms.  So, we grow up with a sense of the lovable grouch being part of the community and not being someone to ostracize even if they’re demanding to be left alone.

In more adult stories, they may get used for comedic moments and are placed in the supporting cast.  Things simply happen to them to increase their bad mood and cause them to explode in anger.  This is meaner than how they are portrayed for children, which could depend on adults knowing that this isn’t how you act in real life.  Sadly, I know many who don’t follow that advice.  The lovable grouch definitely gets used differently though because they’re no longer about showing how someone who is antisocial can still be caring and helpful.  It targets them in a way.

Thankfully, there are many examples of the opposite where the grouch turns out to be the most helpful during the story climax.  In ‘Home Alone’, the neighbor was depicted as a grouch and Kevin was scared of him.  He turned out to be a friend by helping him against the Wet Bandits.  We’re still looking at a comedy here, but it humanizes the grouch and shows one can’t judge them solely by their outward appearance.

The social commentary might be the most important aspect of the ‘lovable grouch’ even if they aren’t lovable at first.  Most stories have your positive heroes and evil villains with very little in the middle.  This type brings in a character who may have the personality typically associated with villains, but their nature is that of a hero.  Grumpy, grouchy, pessimistic, introverted people are everywhere and they act this way for a variety of reasons.  It doesn’t make them less them human or wrong.  It’s just how they are and doesn’t take away from their ability to connect with others.  By seeing fictional versions depicted positively in stories, children and adults can see how their non-optimistic peers can still be good friends.

Personally, I like seeing these characters in action.  Mostly for their comedic reactions, but there is a heart-warming sensation when they turn out to be the most helpful character in the cast.  Even better when they come through in the clutch because this shows how a grouch won’t just watch people suffer.  We judge others by their outer mood and temperament all of the time without knowing what is going on inside.  Maybe they’ve been hurt so often that they can’t fake being nice.  They could suffer from anxiety or be neurodivergent in some way, which causes them to be standoffish.  Yet, they still have a desire to be part of the group if given a chance.  That opening allows them to be happier and maybe less of a grouch.  After all, a key aspect is them being lovable and it can’t all be down to their typical sarcastic remarks.

What do you think of the lovable grouch types?  How about the real world equivalents?

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Possible Promo Idea That I Need a Week to Set Up, So I’m Stalling

Posted on December 2, 2025 by Charles Yallowitz

Funny from Yahoo Image Search

I took all of November to try and think of promos to set up.  I might use the rest of December’s Tuesday to be silly or maybe do simple series promos.  There are 4 more after today, which will cover everything, except ‘Bedlam’.  Yeah, that should give me enough time to figure things out for 2026.

Anyway, here’s my idea and I wanted to get a little insight.  Promos don’t seem to work without tons of money, but I do want to keep Tuesday focused solely on my books.  It’s the only day of the week where I try to promote things.  I was looking back at old posts and found this subject:

Character Origins

So, I’m thinking of reposting all of the character origins and connecting a link to whatever series the character comes from.  This would start with Legends of Windemere and move on through the rest.  I might even combine this with ‘Ask-A-Character’ if people want to interact in the comments.  Been years since that garnered any response, but you never know.

Only real issue is that I did this in 2023 as well. Still, it could work to give the teasers more time to cool down. I’d do origins of characters from books I haven’t published, but I’m not sure if that’s a good idea.

This is the best idea I could come up with to keep the Tuesday focus on my books without recycling all of the teasers again and again.  Might even give me a full year before I go back to the teasers again.

Thoughts?

Posted in Thoughts | Tagged , , , , , | 15 Comments

Eat a Red Apple Day

Posted on December 1, 2025 by Charles Yallowitz

Art by Alison Hunt

Today is ‘Eat a Red Apple Day’.  I stumbled onto this odd holiday and then I couldn’t stop thinking about Fizzle who loves apples.

So, check out some more Fizzle pictures in:

Do I Need to Use a Dragon? (Fantasy Writing Tips)
Available on Amazon as a 99 cent eBook.

Posted in do I need to use a dragon | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 15 Comments

The Rare Arapawa Goat

Posted on November 30, 2025 by Charles Yallowitz

Found on Arapawa Island in New Zealand, this is one of the rarest goat breeds in the world.  I saw an Instagram video on that and got curious.  Here is their supposed origin:

In the 18th century, Captain James Cook released goats onto this island.  His plan was to use them as a food source when stopping by during a voyage.  DNA says that they originally came from South Africa, so he picked them up at some point.  The goats flourished and bred successfully to spread across the island.  It helped that they didn’t have any real predators aside from hunters who only killed enough to eat.

Fast forward to the 1970’s and the New Zealand government decided that the goats were destroying the natural environment.  They began a culling, but Betty and Walt Rowe created a sanctuary in 1987 to prevent their extinction.  This was accomplished by domesticating them.  The population has risen from 150 in 2011 to 700 today, which means they are still critically endangered.  It’s interesting how their near eradication was done in the name of nature conservation, but I guess nobody realized that they were a unique species.

I found two things that make the Arapawa goats unique:

  1. They are self-sufficient, which means they can thrive with minimal to no human interaction.  Babies are very independent and can get annoyed if you try to help them a lot.  Sounds like they’re born teenagers.
  2. They learned to eat seaweed and require iodine in their diet.

So, let’s look at some pics from Google and videos:

Posted in Animal Posts | Tagged , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

Goal Post: Hospital

Posted on November 29, 2025 by Charles Yallowitz

That pretty much sums it up. In the hospital because things took a bad turn. No writing. No blogging. No pokemon. Just pain.

Haven’t slept much either due to the setting. Had some surgery yesterday, which alleviated a lot of pain. Downside is that I’m now constantly bleeding until things close up. It’s all a mess.

I’ll try to make a better goal post next week. This can’t last forever, right?

Posted in Uncategorized | 28 Comments

Questions 3: Writing a Fight With Evenly Matched Opponents

Posted on November 28, 2025 by Charles Yallowitz

I realized I’m usually talking about fight scenes where one character has an advantage.  At least that’s what is in my head.  Yet, there are fights when they are evenly matched.  It is a constant jockeying for position until someone makes a mistake.  These can be fun with a lot of tension.  They are also harder to write due to the urge to choose a side or the fact we already know who wins.  I thought about making a longer post, but thought it would be more fun to do questions.  That and there’s a family thing going on, I wrote the post, I don’t know why it stayed in drafts, and I’m thankfully I noticed it last night.

  1. How would you show that characters are evenly matched in a fight?
  2. What advice would you give to an author in writing an evenly matched fight scene?
  3. Do you have a favorite battle between equals?
Posted in Questions 3 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted on November 27, 2025 by Charles Yallowitz

Yahoo Image Search

This is the only meme I want to post today, especially with how I’ve been seeing Christmas stuff around since September.  Enjoy the actual holiday!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 15 Comments