Not Writing

I wish I could make myself write more often. I know I should and yet I never get my dumbass up here to write. I guess this post is simply a chastisement of myself for not doing what I know I should be doing.

It would be easier if somebody actually wanted to read what I was writing. It's like I'm living in a vacuum. I write and when nobody is interested, I stop.

I actually did get a children's book done. It was a Christmas story that I tried to self publish on Amazon. com, but the crappy software would never work for me. I posted it on facebook and got quite a few nice words and some shares, but the picture I took of myself and Emily in front of the Christmas tree got five times as many likes.

A fucking picture. It takes absolutely no effort to take the damn picture and post it, but everybody throws a like on that stupid thing. I work hard on something that I care about, like the book, and very few people give a shit. Why is it so much easier to like a picture than it is to like an actual creative work?

A Long Lost Father

I was listening to the Nerdist Podcast this afternoon and there was something very interesting. The guest was the Amazing Randi who is a skeptic. As a skeptic, he has spent most of his life debunking fake mystics who claim they can tell the future or heal or speak to the deity of their choice. As he was speaking, he said he thinks that he is a free thinker because he did not have a close relationship with his father.

This was an interesting thought to me. I also consider myself a free thinker as well. I also did not have a relationship with my father. It was a bit different in that his father just wasn't close to him and mine died when I was very young, but the result seems to be the same. I'd never thought about it that way. I don't know if it is causal or just coincidence, but it definitely got my mind going.

As if that wasn't enough, Chris Hardwick, the host, asked the Amazing Randi if he would give up the way he thinks about things for the opportunity to have had a closer relationship with his father. It was the perfect follow up question. Randi said no. He was very comfortable with the way he thought and his outlook on life. Of course, I had to ask myself the same question as soon as I heard it.

Of course, this isn't the first time I'd asked that question of myself. There have definitely been times in my life when I have wondered about the enigma that is my father. When those times have come up, I have had to decide whether or not I wanted to delve into the past to find out more about him or just let the enigma live. I have always decided against.

I decided long ago that I don't want to know much about my father because of the few things that I actually do know about him and his family members. He was from a small town in Iowa, loved to hunt and fish, worked at John Deere with his high school diploma, and served in the National Guard after finishing his stint with the Air Force. If I were to be introduced to a person like this now, I would probably not have much in common or even want to know him that well. That person is not a bad person, he just doesn't interest me. I figure if I ever really looked into who he was and how he thought about things, I probably would not like him. Therefore, I have always decided to just let it be. But, that isn't the question, is it?

The question Hardwick asked was whether I would give up who I am now to have had my father for my whole life knowing full well that it would have completely changed my childhood and the person I was to become as an adult. That is a much harder question.

Initially, I want to say no. I would rather be who I am now because if my father had been alive to guide me, I probably would have become the conservative type of person that I assume he was. I don't like those types of people, so why would I want to become one of them? Makes sense, right? Well, it's not that easy when I think about it more.

If I were to regain my father, it is true that I would grow up very different than I did and become someone else. The thing is, I wouldn't remember the me that exists now because that liberal free thinker would have never existed. This means, I would also probably love the alternative me from that different reality in which I had my father. Plus, I would have a father, which is something I've wished for all my life. So would that not be better? Maybe it would be worth going back to 1980 and changing the past.

That's the thing with the "changing history" question. It can never be a clean cut answer because we can't know all the ramifications it could have. For all I know, my life would be 100 times better if my dad had lived. It could be worse too. Regardless I would never know because I would not have the personal knowledge of the alternate realities I am conjuring up inside my brain.

So, even though the question posed is initially a question of what would I personally like to have happen, the answer can not be personal to me at all. The only logical answer is to go back to the catalyst and decide on the answer with no regard at all to my own personal life. It comes down to one specific thing; should I decide to save my father or let him die. That only has one answer, which is to save him.

Not only does it save a young man, but it also saves his family the grief of losing him. My mother. My sister. How can I not spare them that grief? Does it really matter that I generally like who I am now? Not really. What matters is that if I choose myself now, I also choose to let a man die. I can't do that.

It would be horrible to lose my wife and boys whom I love more than anything else in this world. But, they would never know and neither would I. So, despite the logical conclusion, saving my father, it still batters my brain thinking about how the things I have enjoyed in my life would need to be given up in order to fix the thing that created it back in 1980.

Working on a Book

I have not written here for a few days because I have been working on a book. I am writing a novel about a kid that hooks up with Frankenstein's monster to search for the Stones of Eternal Evil and Dark Sciences. S.E.E.D.S. for short.

Each stone will be hidden somewhere on the planet and it will have a guardian. In order to find the stones, our heroes will need to find where they are hidden and then defeat the monster that protects them. The monsters are classic monsters like vampires, werewolves, mummies, swamp creatures etc. I'm looking at it being kind of a young adult book.

So far, I am at about 3500 words, so I'm really just getting started. I have been averaging a little over a thousand words a day. That takes a couple hours each time. I'm hoping I can up that production as I get better at writing. It's not always that easy. I am also thinking about starting another class at the Lighthouse Writers workshops in Denver.

The Lighthouse Writers workshops are great. It is a place where you can take classes on how to write creatively at a fraction of the cost of taking a class at a university. Plus, the classes are very hands-on type classes where you get to work on your own stuff. If you've ever taken a writing class at a university, you will understand that this is a bit different than what you will do there. In fact, most universities don't even offer creative writing. It's always geared towards the academic writing instead. I think it has a lot to do with it being almost impossible to grade someone writing creatively. Of course, there are no grades at Lighthouse. You simply do or do not as Yoda once said.

Anyway, that is what I am doing right now. I have taken the first step on a thousand mile journey. It is not easy to write a book, as I found out once upon a time, but I think I have a good foundation for getting this one going. Maybe I can sell it and write the rest of the books in the series too. Oh, did I forget to mention that? It is a five to seven book series total. Yep, nothing like jumping all the way into the deep end.

What? It's only been six days.

I know I said I was going to come right back to this, but clearly I didn't. That's okay. We all need hard to attain goals or we won't strive hard enough. (wow, really spun the narrative on that one to make me look good) After missing two years, six days is almost great. (said no one ever who has been waiting 5 extra days for something that was supposed to happen in 1 day)

That's not even the full depth of the crappiness of this post. I'm writing on this thing instead of starting my new book. I have a fully formed outline and direction and everything I need to go ahead and write my first novel, but instead, I am procrastinating by writing this. It makes my ridiculous justification of not writing earlier that much worse, huh?

Anyway, I was in the middle of letting you all (all? who are we kidding, nobody is reading this) know what I have been doing over the last two years.

There's really not much more to tell. I got a freelance job covering sports for a small newspaper in Niwot, Colorado. It is called the Left Hand Valley Courier and is a free weekly. I get paid per word to go to Niwot High School sporting events around the state and write about them. I probably get paid less than a dollar an hour based on how much time it requires to get a small article done. It is so little, I have flirted with just not even billing them because it is an annoyance. Of course, then I think about how ridiculous that is and send them a bill anyway.

I guess it is time to get to wrapping this thing up. I need to go pick the boys up from school soon. The biggest thing I've got going (if you can call it "going" after all this procrastination) is that I am writing a novel. It's not "Gatsby," but I'm really not going for that. I'm writing a tween novel about kids battling the classic horror monsters like vampires, swamp creatures, werewolves, zombies etc. I think I have finally cracked the code on how to get it started. It will be a series of books and if all goes well, I will sell it to a movie studio so they can hack the thing to pieces. As a freelance/technical writing background person, I'm not into it for the art. I just want to get paid. Look for my stories to hit the theaters in 2030, haha. Hopefully I'll write another blog post before then.

What? It's only been two years.

Yeah, it's ridiculous, I know. Almost two whole years between posts on this blog. Maybe I'll do better than that now.

Since I've been gone, I have been doing some writing. I wrote for a website called DMV.org for a little over a year. I was basically translating government websites into functional text so that normal people could understand what they are supposed to do when going to the DMV. It was a good gig while it lasted.

Unfortunately, the company changed directions in how they wanted to do the job three different times over the one year. I was the only off-site writer/editor that made it through all three changes. Of course, I knew that once the others had been canned, I was living on borrowed time regardless of how well I wrote. I worked directly for the boss, then I got moved to the second-in-command, and finally to some sort of underling who spent his time blowing sugar up my ass instead of giving me good feedback on my writing. To be fair, the first two people were good to work for, but you know what "They" say, "Third time's a charm." haha.

I spent a rough year not doing much writing in 2014. I did start teaching kids some Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and then I took over an exercise class at the gym too. Then, changes started. A new instructor took over the kids jiu jitsu classes and I don't mesh well with him. I'm sure he's a fine instructor, but I don't like his style, so I'm not doing that anymore. I'm still running the exercise class, which is good.

I tried to publish my children's book, "Santa's Gift" on Amazon. They made it seem so easy to do. It wasn't. Maybe if I didn't have pictures in the book, it would be easy, but that isn't the case. I failed miserably at that endeavor. I'm hoping to get it taken care of properly this year, so be on the lookout for Santa's Gift this coming holiday season.

I got some podcast equipment for Christmas this year. I have recently been working on learning how to record things. I'm hoping to have some sort of podcast going soon, but there is a bunch of stuff I have to learn first. Also, I don't know what I want to talk about. The Bears, Northern Exposure, or just Newsy stuff. I'd like to do them all, but I think I need to hold off and get one thing down at a time.

I also spent a couple weeks in Peru with www.v4peru.com (Voices4Peru), meeting the child I sponsored there and hanging out with Dan Klopp, the president. It was an eye opening experience. I wish I could do more, but I feel so disconnected here in Colorado.

Dan did get some traction in Pennsylvania this year at Westchester University. I met him there and we sold the idea of Criminal Justice major people going to Peru to study the area where our school and futbol team is located.

Both trips were great. I felt so much more connected to the experience by working with others. I think that is one of my major obstacles right now. I really want to work with other people, but I'm trapped in my home, alone, most of the time. I can write here, but not having human interaction is rough.

Okay, I'll ramble more tomorrow about what has been going on in the last couple years. Right now, I have to go get sweaty with some ladies.