Monday's revelation that the Supreme Court will overturn abortion rights is the result of conservatives who have (once again) played the long game. Since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, curtailing or overturning abortion rights has been a focus for conservatives who view a woman's right to choose as antithetical to the conservative agenda of control. "Letting women choose? Hell no!"

But Abortion rights are not the only target for conservatives. Civil rights, marriage equality, equal pay, gun control, environmental protections, education, access to health care, and even veteran's rights--specifically disability payments--are all things liberals have championed for decades. Not surprisingly, each of these are also rights that Republicans and conservative Democrats in Congress are hellbent on repealing, mainly by buoying the filibuster, thus eliminating the ability by Democrats to even bring issues to debate. (It is worth noting, Justice Alito, that the filibuster is not in the Constitution, either. Remember that when it comes before the Court.) It cannot be more clear: conservatives are at war with liberals.

But what are liberals to do? How can Democrats and liberals (to include Libertarians, btw) do to strengthen laws that protect equality and protection for minorities? Republicans are far too well-organized. They speak as one, vote as one, and act as one. They formulate their agendas and adhere to the small steps necessary to see those agendas through to completion. Democrats, on the other hand, seemingly cannot agree that the sky is blue. Leaders like Schumer and Pelosi are tasked with herding many disparate viewpoints and agendas in an effort to pursue the liberal agenda.

Wait. Liberal agenda? That would imply that liberals are unified on anything. Liberals cannot even agree on an economic stimulus package necessary to kick-start the nation's economy or who to vote for in a presidential election. The disagreement within is almost as hyperbolic and vitriolic as the attacks conservatives use on liberals. Want an example? "Bernie or nobody!" Supporters of Bernie Sanders, at least in conversations I had, stated flatly that if Sanders was not the democratic nominee they would refuse to vote. Look also at the progressive caucus in the House that threatened to kill President Biden's COVID economic response bill because it wasn't liberal enough. Where conservatives are in lockstep, liberals are the very definition of herding cats.

But I digress. What can liberals do to combat the assault on human rights?

Seriously, what can we do? I have my own ideas, but like anything proposed by and for liberals, I will surely draw lines of division as well as personal attacks. Despite that, here's what I believe liberals need to do:

1. Unify. Progressive liberals need to understand that political progress happens in inches, not miles. We cannot completely eliminate college debt and guarantee universal health care and guarantee a basic minimum income for all Americans. What we can do is chip away at college debt, regulate drug prices, and limit the amount doctors and hospitals can charge for medical procedures.

2. Be willing to take a punch. Democrats in name only (DINOs) gotta go. The DNC should be willing to cut loose senators like Manchin and Sinema, who consistently vote against their own party. Yes, dems will be in the minority for a while, but minority is a position the party has held for decades. It made us scrappy where being in the majority has made us lazy, arrogant, and unwilling to compromise.

3. Appeal to the average American. Democrats have earned the mantle of "intellectual elite." We tend to be well-educated, we tend to be urban, we tend to be white collar workers and professionals. Oregon and Colorado would be deep red if not for the major cities like Portland and Denver, as well as small cities like Eugene and Boulder.The rest of these two states are firmly conservative, rural, and blue collar. Dems need to take the diplomas off the wall. We need to appeal to Joe Average. We need to understand the hopes and dreams of rural America and explain how it is liberals who actually have their best interests at heart. Farm subsidies vs oil subsidies, anyone?

4. Go small. Focus on small races. School boards, city councils, mayoral races. If dog catcher is on the ballot, we need to run a candidate with a D after their name. Obama had it right with his massively-successful grassroots efforts that targeted neighbors and communities rather than populations. How did Trump win? He convinced rural America that he was just like them. He shouted the things that civilized people keep to themselves, and made it okay to be racist, misogynistic homophobes willing to resort to violence to push their beliefs. I am *not* advocating that liberals should resort to violence to achieve our goals but we do need that same fervor, and that can only come from locals in communities showing how the liberal agenda is all-inclusive.

5. Be loud and proud. Remember the mobs that attended Trump rallies? They left emboldened. Look around and count how many Trump flags and stickers you see, how many "the election was stolen" signs and stickers you see. Here in conservative Douglas County, Colorado, I see that stuff several times a day. How many Biden stickers do I see? None. We need to be just as loud, just as proud, and just as bold. We need to have liberal flotillas, we need to have people willing to wave blue flags and sport masks supporting democratic ideals and wear hats reminding people that America has always been great. Veterans especially should sport liberal gear. We served in the most conservative organizations the country has to offer, and we see how liberal ideals are better. "Vets for (insert democratic candidate name here)" signs should pop up on lawns and stickers. Shirts. Hats. Banners. Tattoos, whether temporary or permanent. Everywhere it can be displayed, we need to display it.

6. And finally, we need to activate the liberal base. America consistently has some of the lowest voter turnout of any nation in the world. Maybe we're too busy volunteering at the local farm co-op, or our candidate isn't on the ballot, or it's finals week. (Kidding.) What do republicans do? They appeal to the basic ideals of God, Guns, and Liberty, hiding the fact that deficits and the size of government balloon every time they're in power. What can liberals cling to? Freedom, equality, and unity. Republicans refuse to acknowledge the value of non-Christian voters, even those that vote republican. Democrats should appeal to the overlooked voters and expose the divisions fomented by the GOP. Republicans work to denigrate the "other," whether that be skin color, gender, or ideals. Dems need to show that everyone is welcome, everyone is important, everyone is equal. Finally, the image of dems being unable to rally around a cause must end. A candidate might not espouse the same wants and desires that you do, but that doesn't mean that candidate is worthless. A bill might not have the big leap forward that you want. It may have baby steps. Support it anyway. A little is better than nothing.

Ask any group of people about searching for a job, and the one thing you’ll hear more than all other answers combined is that it’s a numbers game. Apply for everything and eventually you’ll have your day in the sun. Optimistic; keep at it and you’ll find a job.

What never gets factored into this optimistic outlook is the dependence on the part of human resources departments on keywords. You might possess the skills an employer wants, but if you don’t use one of their specific words in your resume, cover letter, or application then Gandalf steps in, shouting, “you shall not pass!” What’s worse, hiding keywords in your resume, say by using the smallest font size possible and changing the color of the text, is a frowned-upon practice. In other words, success depends on using a specific word.

I suppose technically it’s still a numbers game. But now, the number you need to hit is exponentially higher depending on how many keywords they use and how many you use.

What’s a job seeker to do? Is it acceptable to submit multiple resumes using different keywords? Or is it better to submit a resume that might be 3-4 pages long, filled with every possible keyword one can think of? And should job seekers even bother with a cover letter?

I’m not asking for a friend. I’m asking for me.

I have a resume that showcases the different styles and audiences I have written for. I have freelancing on my resume, photography, and videography. I have social media experience. I show adaptation and the ability to respond to critical situations. I have years of experience. I have volunteer experience. I am highly educated, with two master’s degrees. To boot, I identify as one or more types of protected veteran and I do a killer interview. I’m a generalist, so I write whatever someone needs written.

What do I lack? Am I too old? Am I too expensive? Should I take off my advanced degrees? What, exactly, is the number I need to hit before I’m given a chance?

Somebody, anybody, help me out here. I’m getting to the point that I’m seriously considering signing on with Shopify or some other gig economy job just to bring in any amount of income.

Ugh. This is killing me.

I guess I have always been a wordie. Grams, my maternal grandma, often told me how when I was two, she flew up to Seattle to visit. On the drive home from the airport I constantly would grab her head, turning it so she could see the billboards and signs I was reading aloud. In junior high, I read Sir Thomas Mallory’s Le Morte d’Arthur from covers to covers (two volumes). Dune was also on my junior high reading list. Shogun was my deployment read in Operation Desert Storm, as was literally anything else I could find. For all my childhood, the library was my favorite place to be. I loved conquering books, and I always have.

As for writing, that maybe took until I was in grade school before I started dabbling. A short story here, an essay there, most of which was done for school, but I still enjoyed it. It wasn’t until I was in the Army that I really started writing for myself. Letters, mostly, but I tried to be creative in my descriptions. Not much, and nothing I would even want to look back on with shame and embarrassment.

Then came college. As a freshman at Pasadena City College, I had an English professor who introduced me to reading for meaning, for detail, things that I had just skimmed over when I read for pleasure. Suddenly, books took on a whole new meaning. This was in the nascent days of the internet, so reading things online was limited to crappy websites and AOL message boards. Books continued to dominate my reading—newspapers and magazines cost money, something that was in short supply. It was also during this time I was introduced to broadcasting through a program called the Kaleidoscope Radio Magazine, a “pay to play” radio studio with a small network of stations. They started people off with a weekly 15-minute show, prerecorded, which was then played at random times and on random stations. The likelihood of ever hearing my own show was next to none. But it was fun, and within weeks, I was hooked.

After moving to Oregon and leaving my career in radio behind, I worked as a recording engineer while deciding what to do for school. I had wanted to go into psychology. I was always the one people came to when they had a problem they wanted to talk about. The University of Oregon had a great psych program, so that’s where I wanted to go. Meantime, knowing money would be an issue I decided to do some classes at the local community college. It was around this time that I took a job at KVAL, the local CBS affiliate and #1 station in the market, as part of the floor crew. Seems the broadcasting bug had not quite left, as I was taking classes in broadcasting, visual design, and production at Lane Community College. The main platform for the broadcasting program was a weekly campus-only newscast covering events in and around the campus.

News. Before I really realized it, I was working in news, studying the production of news, and getting involved in the process of newsgathering. It was like the red carpet was being rolled out for me to become a producer. I excelled at photography and video editing (ENG in newsspeak), writing came naturally for me, and the thrill (yes, thrill) of stacking a newscast had me firmly in its’ grasp. Fortunately, the U of O also had a top-ranked journalism program. So, as I studied, I worked my way up the ranks from production to the newsroom at KVAL. I started working full time shooting and editing video right around the time I finished at LCC and started full time as a pre-journalism major at Oregon. It was the combination of these two forces that showed me that journalism was my path, but that I wanted to remain behind the camera. Producing, then, was going to be my path. I kept a hand in photography and editing, but gradually I started producing newscasts both for the university and at KVAL. I entered a couple of contests for students to show off their video work, despite knowing I would be disqualified because technically I was a professional photographer, but what the hell.

Then I graduated. And for the next year, I filled in at KVAL for literally every newscast they had. I was assigned to the weekends but did a long stretch as the AM producer as well as a good amount of time as the late news producer. I learned from folks who had been at this game for years, propelling my ability to “write for the ear,” something I still do in most of my writing. I did two years at WISC, the CBS affiliate in Madison, Wisconsin (also the #1 station in the market). I left when my contract wasn’t renewed—I had a lot yet to learn, and making a leap from Eugene to Madison prevented me from learning it. I took a job in Savannah, Georgia at the lowest-rated ABC affiliate in the country. Literally 0.00 in the Nielsen ratings. It was two stations, WJCL and WTGS, the local Fox affiliate. Because I was coming from Madison, I was given the late news for both channels.

I mention this role specifically because the late newscast for any station is considered the “newscast of record” for the day. Where the morning news is light, airy, and fun, the late news is serious, no-nonsense journalism. Think Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, and Ted Koppel on their nightly national newscast, and you get the idea. Jab. Jab. Jab. Right cross, followed by an uppercut to the jaw. Body blow, body blow, cut to commercial. No matter the market, it was a cutthroat as you could get. And here I was, someone who had been doing weekend news for two years, now in charge of 90 minutes of news every night. Sure, the stories were basically the same, just rewritten for each station, but it was still a lot to handle. I both loved and hated it. I was spoiled. Being at #1 stations meant I had access to the latest equipment and a staff that spent years at one station. In Savannah, I had a largely transitional staff. Reporters came and went. Editors and photographers might have a spouse that was in the military, so they’d be leaving in a year or so. It was during this time that I got a taste of the responsibilities of news director. Michael Sullivan, the news director who hired me, was fired within a couple of weeks of my starting. He refused to accept that his “person on the street” style of journalism was not popular. “People love it,” he’d say. The ratings books said otherwise, and who do you think management listened to? Yeah. So, minus a news director, and with me running the newscasts of record, I shared the role of news director with the assignment manager who was at the station during the day. We had very different ideas. I wanted to go out and chase leads, do investigative journalism, kick some ass like I saw at KVAL and WISC. She wanted to fill 23 minutes of airtime and really didn’t give shit one about the quality of the material. She hated me and made no attempt to hide it. I expected my reporters to go out and report news, gather and follow leads, and build relationships with community and government leaders. If it were possible, she’d have been just find doing pet spay and neuter clinics and “person on the street” interviews at the gas station literally two blocks away. I lasted eight months before taking an early out from my contract and taking a position at KRQE/KASA in Albuquerque. I was back to doing weekends, but I was also at a #1 station again, and this time I was in a top-40 market. We even had our own news chopper and pilot! I was also back to cutthroat news gathering, dealing with fragile egos and a true attitude of “you know nothing, Jon Snow” towards anyone who hadn’t been in the ABQ for at least ten years. I loved and hated it. I loved most of the people I worked with, almost all of whom were not on camera. My weekend editor was an absolute gem, my other producers were (for the most part) great, and my production crew regularly bent over backwards to make whatever crazy shit I asked for happen. Our managing editor Paul was maybe the best of the bunch. He made me feel at home immediately, and always took care of anything I needed, that is when he wasn’t being pulled in 40 different directions or hanging out at the press club.

Then there were the egos. My news director apparently took great offense at the “whoa” of surprise I uttered when she completely changed her hairstyle—it wasn’t bad at all, but it was a complete 180 from how she looked the day before. One of the anchors wouldn’t even lower himself to speak to me unless it was to berate me to tell me to get out of his way. (Not even John “Karch” Karcher in Madison was this bad, and he strutted as though he had won seven silver stars in combat and taught Edward R. Murrow how to write!) The assignment manager had an ego almost as big as the anchors had despite being a buck-oh-five soaking wet with ears that could pick up satellite and a face so pinched he needed support beams to keep his eyes open.

To top it all off, about a year into my contract the news director brought on an assistant news director. I’ve blocked his name and face out of my mind to help preserve my sanity. This guy spent his days watching golf on television, playing golf on his computer, and making a single edit to a story so it showed that he worked on it last. I mean, he would take my stuff, change one word or add a space at the end of a paragraph, then take credit for my work while accusing me of not doing my job. He also had the ND’s ear, meaning she bought into the idea that I was the one fucking off while he slaved away writing the stories I was assigned. It got to the point that I had to print out everything I wrote and hand it over to the ND as a record of what I did. Other producers chimed in to support me, saying they had watched his “work” habits and made notes on his amazing online golf scores, but he could do no wrong. Despite overwhelming evidence and much testimonial support, my contract was cut short. I was okay with this, for a couple of reasons. One, I was extraordinarily unhappy in my given situation. Two, a multi-part sweeps week piece on a horrific child abuse case in Las Cruces made me realize news was no longer my calling. The idea of essentially profiting on the horrible abuse and death of a toddler made my discharge letter that much easier to take. This was in 2008.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Twenty-four years later, I still yell at the television when I see a mistake or notice stories that should be in a different order on the rundown. I’m hypercritical of reporters, grammatical errors are like spotlights, and crutch phrases like “it remains to be seen” make me want to throw a javelin through my television.

I do lament the mistakes of my past. I made a bad choice in career paths. Maybe I should’ve stayed a photographer. Or gone into newspaper reporting. Or magazine. Or, in a more realistic frame of mind, avoided anything that involved “hot house flower” egos like what I dealt with in journalism. I still love television news. I love the immediacy of it, the intimacy of it, the idea that I have 20 seconds to get across a message, I have one shot at it, and I better do it in a way that grabs your attention. I miss the ASMR wave that ran down my scalp every time I wrote a solid piece. I miss the chaos of the newsroom, the 15 minutes before air when everything goes to shit, and the feeling of relief when the newscast goes off without a hitch.

The best piece of advice I ever got as a writer was at KVAL when Jennifer Winters, a reporter/anchor at the station, advised me to start every story a though I’m talking to my mom over the dining table. “Hey, did you hear about this? The mayor just signed . . .” Omit the first sentence from the conversation, and there’s your lede. Another great piece of advice came in school when Michael Hopkinson taught a class on pronunciation and diction. He emphasized that no matter how a word is spelled, the pronunciation may be completely different. zun-EE’ vs. zun-EYE’, se-PUHL’-ve-dah vs. sepul-VEE’-dah, will-AH’-met vs. will-a-MET’. Karch taught me that a drinking fountain isn’t a drinking fountain, it’s a bubbler, and a stoplight is a stop-and-go light. Rich Edson showed me that it’s possible to jump from a 130 DMA to a national cable news channel, from Savannah city hall to Capitol Hill in one move. Brandi Smith taught me that no matter where you are and what role you do, you can always integrate your passion into your work.

I’ve been lucky to have been able to surround myself with some inspiring journalists. I wish I had taken a different road, but to be completely honest I don’t regret the choices I made. While my life might be a little easier now had I gone a different way, I wouldn’t have the memories of Audrey Seiler, the runaway bride, covering deployments, asking governors questions they really didn’t want to answer, and getting to watch firsthand as a missing child was found alive and well in a massive national forest.

This morning, Patti suggested that I look down the road of freelancing again. I’ m not opposed to the idea, but I had a less-than-pleasant experience the last couple of times I’ve trodden that path.

The first time, I was hired on to ghost-write a book on sexual health, specifically dealing with erectile dysfunction. I was told to take given scenarios, some fictional and some anecdotal, and rewrite them to highlight certain methods to improve intimacy. So, I did. At first, everything I wrote was everything they’d ever wanted. I had struck a groove and worked to maintain it. But maybe the client got bored. Maybe they wanted more, I don’t know. Embellishment. More intimacy. More of a positive result (if you get my meaning). Suddenly, everything I wrote was crap. I had changed nothing, but the client had changed everything. I went back and looked at previous work, trying to find a place where I had shifted my style. I reworked my wordings to break up patterns that made things boring. But still, I could not make the client happy. I asked repeatedly for feedback, what they did and did not like, how they wanted me to change the style to suit their needs. Mostly what I got back was the critical version of static. “I don’t know, it just sucks.” “Maybe you could embellish it a bit?” Heat it up. Cool it down. It seemed everything I wrote to address the client’s new wants was not what the client wanted. Eventually, I gave up on the project, a mutual decision that resulted in me getting only a small portion of the money I had been promised. Back of the envelope math showed that, for the hours I spent working on the project, I had earned less than $5 a day for all the writing, revising, meeting, critiquing, and every other “ing” that took place. Since this was several years ago, I wonder if $5 is being generous, but I’ll stick to it for now.

My next attempt at freelancing had me essentially transcribing an interview or lecture into conversational material for a group that helps pharmacy owners expand their business. These interviews and lectures touched on marketing methods and community outreach, things like providing free vitamins for children and holding school supply drives for school-age children who might otherwise not have materials like backpacks, writing utensils, and calculators. Like before, things were great. The client loved my work, and I was enjoying the material I was given. Yeah, I actually enjoyed writing about how seemingly-altruistic actions would ultimately contribute to the pharmacy’s profit margin. I don’t see a problem with making a profit, as long as the actions taken to draw in customers (such as free vitamins for children) are done honestly and with genuine care for the community. And I don’t doubt that the actions presented were presented in that same spirit. I still have the lesson book for how to go over balance sheets, income and cash flow statements, and the like. I just read the “call to action” conclusion I wrote for it, and it is good. The client agreed, and this lesson book went over very well. The client group loved it. More projects came my way from this client, and my point of contact (POC) served not only as a valuable source of work, but as a person I could ask when something was not clear. You see, being neither a pharmacist, a pharmacy owner, nor even a business owner in the sense that their members were, I didn’t understand much of what I was dealing with when it came to more specific things like dealing with inventories, expanding product offerings beyond just the pharmacy counter, or franchising. Maybe the POC got tired of answering questions that may have been basic business 101 for her but were completely new concepts for me—and for many of the client’s members. The relationship soured somewhat, and finally the project came to an end. I as well-paid for my work, garnering advances for work done ahead of schedule and for providing material that went above and beyond their expectations, but when it came to getting a recommendation from the client to show on my profile, the comment was lackluster. Something along the line of, “7/10, good writer, might hire again.”

What I’ve gathered from these two experiences is, freelancing is hard. You have to constantly market yourself and expect rejection for 99 out of 100 proposals you submit. And, judging by the many posts on blogs designed to generate clicks and income (a major source of freelance work, from my recent perusal of the marketplace), it seems that actual writing ability is no longer a priority. Cruising through even the well-known blog sites like Buzzfeed and Raw Story, I see articles rife with grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, a lazy dependence on social media posts rather than actual writing, and a general lack of interest in a well-crafted sentence. And these are from “staff writers,” regular content providers who depend on what I like to call the, “but-Britney-shaved-her-head” level of journalism. (I should add that I went several rounds with a news director, her assistant news director, and her executive producer who all but demanded I put in stories about Britney shaving her head and bashing a car window with a baseball bat in lieu of stories about troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, some of whom came from the air force base literally within the Albuquerque city limits. That contract was terminated early, for that and other reasons that I won’t get into here.)

I’m not opposed to freelancing. It provides a great way for writers to earn a little money working on small projects here and there. It even can provide a good writer with steady work to the point that they could quit their day job and spend their days at the keyboard, which is where any good writer should be and should want to be. But it requires perseverance, a 25/8 mentality, a relentless willingness to self-promote, and a borderline-masochistic tolerance for rejection.

But then, so does job hunting.

So, I’ve been in a creative rut. Maybe rut isn’t the right word. Ditch. Gully, Valley, Chasm. Trench, as in the Marianas Trench. Yeah, that’s it.

(Note to potential employers: I’m speaking strictly about my own creative writing projects—my book, short stories, and the like.)

If you know me, then you know I hate the idea of writing something that looks like what anyone else has done that I’m basically copying their styles or ideas. This seriously handicaps my efforts right off the bat, but I’ve usually been able to write in my own voice enough and develop enough ideas that I could write or days.

Not so much right now. I know there are methods of sparking creativity: writing prompts, deadlines (yes Virginia, deadlines do spark creativity), reading what you wrote yesterday, setting the “mood” for writing, yada, yada, yada. And I have been doing those things. Well, trying to.

Lately, I’ve been working on gaming adventures. I found a neat tool for coming up with situations for simple role-playing situations. “The party must (insert task) for a (insert person) who wants to (insert accomplishment).” And it’s fun. The options for each are limited to 20 choices for each, with some descriptors (shiny, old, evil, etc.) to help flesh things out. No worries about decision paralysis here. But what I think is really beneficial to me as a writer is that I’m given the skeleton—as chaotic as it may turn out—and I have to fill in the details to make it something that other people might like to play. I create the why, the how, and the where to turn this kernel of an idea into a story.

Now, I would never think to use a tool like this for writing a short story or a novel. To me, those ideas have to originate in my own head so I can build my relationship with each character and understand how each beat leads to the ultimate conclusion. What this tool is doing for me, though, is forcing me to think about what happens in the spaces between each beat.

It is nice to have something that get some creative juices flowing. I am (im)patiently waiting for the juice to flow, but until that happens, I‘ll make do with what I got.

One last thing before I go. I recently bought a nice, clear protective case for my laptop. It’s less than a year old and a Mac, so it’s a significant investment. Plus, there’s no way I could afford to replace it. Anyway, along with the case came a keyboard skin to protect from spills, crumbs, etc. I’m using the skin right now, in fact. It’s great insofar as my keyboard is slightly more protected with it than without. But, and there’s always a “but,” for some reason my fingers cannot seem to find the right keys. Every time I hit the C key, I end up with a space instead. S’s turn into Z’s. And the arrow keys? Forget it. I don’t blame the skin as much as I blame the fat that with the skin, by fingers don’t feel the keys like they should. So now I’m debating: keep using the skin because I often have a beverage nearby, or remove the skin when I’m writing. Thoughts?

So, I just looked and the last time I posted anything here was April 23, 2019. That’s 1,017 days ago. Or, 1,464,480 minutes. That’s a while, right?

Much has happened over the past 2 years, 9 months, and 11 days. I found a job. I lost a job. I learned to scuba dive. I took a real vacation. I moved. I sold my Jeep. I bought a scooter. I had a few laughs, a few tears, a few surgeries, a few days where I couldn’t wait to start the day, and a few days where I didn’t want to get out of bed.

Other than all of that, I’ve been writing. Nothing to show as far as samples or chapters, but that’s not for lack of trying. Why have I been so unproductive? During the pandemic, I sank into a very deep depression. So deep that it cost me my job as well as the motivation to find a new one. So deep that I had thoughts nobody should ever have. So deep that I thought I would never get out.

But I did. What helped me pull out of my funk? Patience, love, and a little bit of counseling. I started keeping a journal again. I accepted my reality and stopped forcing a false narrative. It’s taken a lot of work, and I still have a long way to go, but I’m putting in as much effort as I can, when and as I can. And it’s starting to work. I mean, I still have a looooong way to go before I’m truly “happy” again. I’m working towards just being content for now, accepting of my situation and the realization that I cannot control things that are outside of me (thanks, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus). I’m also taking serious stock of what I can do for myself, how I can work to change my thought patterns, and understanding what self-care really is. I think that last part might be the hardest. I’ve always been there for friends and family, but I don’t think I have ever been there for myself.

So, yeah. Be there for myself. I’m gonna go work on that. Make a cup of tea, pet my dog, and generally look at what I need in this moment.

My apologies to Stealer’s Wheel for that, but I cannot think of a song more apt to my writing life right now. I have a great beginning, I know how it ends, but it’s the crap in the middle that’s killing me! I know other writers out there have been here, and I know the most common piece of advice is, “just keep swimming.” I just feel like whatever lane I’m in, the story has become boring AF. So, if you’re a writer, and I hope some of you are, what do you do to get unstuck? Anything from “write something else,” to “go roll around in the grass with your dog,” anything you do to break up the log jam please share it.

I graduated from University of Denver in August, 2018. Since then, I have focused on two things: Writing my novel and getting something published. The novel is a slow work in progress. Not George RR Martin slow, but nowhere near as fast as I had hoped.

The same could be said of getting published, until today. You see, this morning I received notification that one of my short stories was accepted by a new, online magazine called The Conclusion. The short story, which you can also find here on my own site, will appear in Issue #4, and will be published online the week of February 11-15. What story did they accept, you ask? A Nice Cup of Tea.

I cannot describe how excited I am for this. I’m trying to keep it low-key, but inside my chest is pounding. Anyway, I invite all of you to go to The Conclusion’s website (link above), read my story (I guess you can read another one too), then please please please post links of it on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, hell, anywhere you can. The more eyes looking at my short story, the better.

Okay, I’m going to go celebrate with a … wait for it … a nice cup of tea!

You know, being a stay-at-home dad is pretty freakin’ awesome. Time to write, time to read, maybe even slip in an hour of video games. Leisurely (somewhat) coffee in the morning once the kids are off to school, cuppa tea in the afternoon. Yeah, it’s kinda sweet.

In theory.

In reality, I just dropped the youngun at school, just got home, blinked, and I have to go get that youngun from school. Seriously, where the hell did my day go? Zero words written, zero pages read, and it seems like the dishes mated overnight. Oh, and no new high score on the video game end, either. What’s a lonely boy to do?

One thing I’ve found, thanks to input from my lovely wife, is to set a timer for 25 minutes. During that time I work on one thing, like the kitchen or laundry. After 25 minutes is up, I stop and relax for five minutes. This is actually a time management technique called Pomodoro (link opens in a new window). When it works, it’s great! When I get interrupted, it can throw the whole thing out of whack. That said, I still try to stick to the schedule by pausing the timer to do whatever I am dragged off to. It doesn’t always work as I might forget to restart my timer, but at least I gave it the old college try!

What are your methods for keeping yourself on track? Do you do something similar, or do you have something specific that you do to get your day done? Please share your ideas in the comments below!

Okay, that’s it for now. Cheers!

Or, God from the Machine, is defined as an unsolvable situation or plot point resolved by the introduction of a previously-unknown character. It is a common feature in movies and (less so) in books. For those who’ve seen the movie, “The Girl in the Spider’s Web,” there is a fantastic example: where did NSA computer tech Ed Needham get that rifle? You know, the one he used to… I’ll leave it there. (If you haven’t seen the movie, don’t worry. There are many (way too many) other DeM’s in the film.)

Well, I happily discovered this week that sometimes a DeM happens in real life. Writing about how a person died from an unusual, and quite frankly impossible, injury, I pulled ideas from guesstimates offered up by some other people. The situation was, I had a character who died from an injury that would be impossible to happen. Wow, it’s hard not to just give this plot point away. Anyway, most everyone looked at the injury and decided that the injury would cause a specific type of death. Oh, crap, that explanation sucks, but trust me. It’s cool. Trust me.

So, I begin writing with the crowdsourced cause of death. The day before, I reached out to a doctor and author who offers his medical advice to writers puzzled about causes of death, autopsies, injuries, etc. His name is D.P. Lyle, MD. I have two of his books on murder and autopsy but neither covered my particular situation. So, I wrote an email to ask about my way of killing people. (Dear NSA, I’m talking about killing characters in a book. Love, Stephen) To my surprise, the very next day I had an answer. This was my personal DeM, as I was only three or four paragraphs in on my cause of death. Not only was the crowdsourced cause of death completely wrong, but Lyle offered up such a complete description that I was able to easily rewrite what I had already done. Additionally, the description set up so much to come in the story that I now have quite a bit of the plot surrounding causes of death sketched out.

So. Beautiful Deus ex Machina swoops in and saves my story and adds credibility and realism to a supernatural story. In short, D.P. Lyle rescued my novel.