Tag Archives: Cheer Peppers

Day Six and the Book Title

It’s not just the working title of my next, and as I tell myself, last book. The phrase, almost, not quite, soon enough, could mean a lot of things, to me, to you, to just about anybody.  For today, for right this minute, as I write this post, what it means to me is, I’m very close to no longer giving a fuck. 

Almost.

The way it feels today, for right this minute, as I write this post, is, my skin is not quite thick enough to keep what’s tender inside of me, safe.

Not quite.

I love me some fiction.  The world-building kind.  But not the magnum opus, Stephen King, Black Tower kind.  Not the Bruce Wayne, Gotham TV show, binge all five seasons during the dark days of the spring of 2020 kind.  And not the I have an outline of some dystopian mega-novel that is burning a hole in my gut just trying to get out kind, either.  More like the Rod Serling kind.  More like the Richard Matheson kind.  Shit, more like the ten-page short-story that any kid in a twenty-dollar writing workshop could scribble out in the sixty-minute open writing portion of an afternoon, following the complimentary coffee and Danish, after a cold read of the syllabus, put together by someone with an A.A. degree in General Studies from an online community college.

Soon enough.

Almost, not quite, soon enough, I won’t have the nerve endings left to feel the sting of an opinion, different than my own.  About the world, about my work, about what others think about the way I write, hell, about who does or doesn’t wish me a happy birthday on Facebook, because who even uses Facebook, anymore.  I think that’s what I’ve been waiting for, before I begin doing what I’ve always had an idea was that ONE THING I was forever supposed to do, for which I have been waiting, until.

No more teases for now.  I’ll let everyone know when the book drops, sometime next year.  And, should that ONE THING happen like I want, I will be very loud about that, too.

Talk to you tomorrow.

Day Four and the Reminder Notice

Last week, got called a

Nazi for endorsing peace

by means other than genocide.

–

Yep, that’s the poem. 

Closer to home, in case you forgot, just 365 days from tomorrow, there’s a damn good chance that an election will be won by a candidate who actually hates Jews, Muslims, women, queer folk, Black folk, Asians, Spanish speakers, Democrats, all news outlets that call candidates out on their bullshit, defense attorneys, prosecuting attorneys, incarcerated people, the list goes on. 

I mean, the only people the candidate doesn’t hate are people stupid enough to vote for him.

So, while our limited attention is elsewhere, consider this a reminder notice. I’m not going to tell you who to vote for.

Just don’t vote for a Nazi.

Talk to you tomorrow.

Day Three and the Love Poem

Love Poem

Is a love poem always about love? Yes always,
although sometimes, a love poem is about
baseball, or a dog, or where you were raised,
even if you couldn’t wait to get out of
where you were raised, before you knew the
first thing about love, which you probably only
learned from baseball, or a dog.

I learned that love can make you angry when things
don’t go your way, like when the Dodgers lose
to the Yankees, from something as out of your
control as Reggie Jackson’s right hip.

I learned that love can make you cry when the
best friend you’ve had since you were six
looks you in the eyes at the vet’s office,
right before you go home without him.

And all of this, somehow, SOMEHOW prepares you for
a moment when you finally, FINALLY meet the love of
your life, who understands all of this, and does not
let you go while your child self, that loves
baseball and dogs, is working out all the things
that will lead you, one day, to them. Until you are home.
Home with your memories, and home with each other.

And you understand that yes, a love poem is always
about love.

Day Two and the Cartoon Bomb

CARTOON BOMB

–

A world dies by its own hand.

Never sees it coming. Pushing

the plunger on a cartoon bomb.

A coyote, can’t feel the dynamite under

its own ass. Clutching an Acme anvil,

with nowhere to go but off the cliff.

Beep-beep.

Day One and the Meme Above all Memes

Day One.

I journal every day. And because a journal is for getting things out before things overflow, or maybe even overwhelm, when the day’s journal is done, sometimes there’s just nothing left to say when it’s time to sit down and write for sharing with the public. That happens a lot, by the way. You can’t just turn it on and off like Stephen King, at least I can’t. Unless something you journal about becomes the something you write for sharing with the public.

Anyway, today is Day One of National Blog Posting Month, or NaBloPoMo. And during NaBloPoMo, I hang with a small collective that calls itself Cheer Peppers, because of that one time, at the very beginning of our existence, when our leader called it “NanoPoblano”.

And it stuck.

Today’s post is just a hello to those who read, and maybe write, every year around this time. The picture at the top was my journal entry from the last day of October, when all the anticipation of writing for 30 straight days turned into the existential dread of writing for 30 straight days. The meme I quoted in the journal entry, also supplied by leader of Cheer Peppers, helps address my November dread in a whole world filled with a high-grade existential dread beyond just a writer’s bellyaching about, well, writing.

It’s good to be kind to yourself in those moments when the hard things get harder. Yet for me, sometimes, it’s also good to take a kindly boot to the ass and just start typing.

So this is today. I’m already mostly done with tomorrow’s post. The post that, if I finish, might just make everybody hate me, and that’s okay. Or maybe I’ll just post cute dog pictures. I haven’t decided yet. But you’ll find out right after I do. For now, remember that when you read, please like and share. And if you’re one of those bloggers who are about to spend this month fighting their way through another November of existential dread, seasonal affective disorder, unnatural hatred of daylight savings time and the requisite “fall back” that happens this coming Sunday, or any other godawful thing happening in our small and getting smaller everyday world, remember, you are not alone.

See you tomorrow.

Elevator Pitch

At least that’s what the final post of November was supposed to be called.  It was going to be flash fiction about an elevator pitch to a stranger, but also an allegory of sorts, for scary things that feel like an elevator pitch; a job interview, a first date, even pitching a story to a magazine.  In the story I was going to write, the person making the pitch is ultimately grateful for the opportunity, but is let down.  Not because there wasn’t any interest, but because the one making the pitch was overwhelmed by the moment.

And yeah, it sounded great in my head, too.

But here we are, on the last night of NanoPoblano 2022, and me with a great idea, not coming to fruition.  Or to quote Mickey (Joshua Jackson, Pacey from Dawson’s Creek) in the 1997 movie Scream 2, “It’s a perfect example of life, imitating art, imitating life”. 

My life.

But what am I so afraid of?  Well, for one thing, I hate rejection.  But recently, I’ve begun to get past that by intentionally submitting poetry to contests that unequivocally rejected me.  And something like that has its own way of getting you over the stigma of rejection, if not face-to-face, at least in writing.  So that’s really what the entire post was all about, Charlie Brown.  The way I have learned to talk myself out of failing, by talking myself out of trying, and learning how to try all over again.

And this November, full of words, but no rejections, was attempted intentionally for just one purpose; to get my writing muscles strong enough to write every day, for the purpose of being word-strong enough to endure the pain of rejection.  Maybe a lot of rejection.  But if the words are strong enough, and the elevator pitch is right, maybe strong enough for success.  So even though what I had planned to close out the month with didn’t happen, something honest and real DID happen. 

This post happened.

So with that, I’m about to log off of the blog for the next couple of weeks, but I won’t log off from writing, because I’ve got a lot of writing to do.  And here, on the blog, I will keep everyone who reads, in the loop.  The successes, AND the failures.  Because failures will come, but without the failures maybe the successes won’t.

Now, tell me what your elevator pitch is.

And tonight I won’t conclude as usual with, “Talk to you tomorrow”. 

But I will say, “Talk to you soon”.

Caffeine and Sugar is not for Amateurs

I take my inspiration where I can get it.

For example, @lennnie, on all your social media.  Lennnie is an inspirational blob who makes me feel better about EVERYthing.  Go find them wherever you find your online nutritional needs.

PlutoTV, available for FREE STREAMING just because I own a VIZIO TV!  If you are like me, and have a back-list of 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s… and even 10s… movies and television that you were just too busy living life to have seen in first-run, PlutoTV is 100 percent FREE HAPPINESS! 

Homemade EGGNOG LATTEs.  Easy AND delicious, November 1st is the start of my favorite overlapping season of the year, yep… EGGNOG SEASON (October 31—January 2).  If you live in what I call “civilization”, that means you live within a half-hour drive of a Trader Joe’s, that’s the store-bought eggnog I endorse without compensation.  If you’re more of the frontier eggnog type, there are multiple MULTIPLE nog recipes at your Google fingertips.  The latte part is easy if you have the tools, and sure, an espresso maker is a nifty tool, but not required.  The trick, besides the coffee part, is a 50/50 combo of eggnog and whole milk (or extra thick milk substitute) heated to steaming, then add the coffee.  Stir, or if you’re kitchen-friendly, get out your balloon whisk and, with the handle of the whisk between your palms and the whisk part in your cup, spin it like you’re trying to spark a campfire.  That’ll froth the eggnog right up.  Also remember to drink responsibly because all that caffeine and sugar is NOT for amateurs.

That’s my November Top 3 for National Blog Writing Month and keeping my shit together as I contemplate it almost being my first snowy winter up ahead.  So now it’s your turn. 

What is getting you through the 30 days of blog month?

Talk to you tomorrow.

What is there left to Write About?

Before you think I have the answer to that question, I don’t.  Writing this the way I am now is how I’ve decided to work this problem out, the way I work things out in the opening line, every day in my morning journal.  Each day, my entry begins with a “first thought topic sentence”, totally based on whatever notion pops into my head after I open the book and secure it on the clipboard that holds it still so my pen can fly through the lines at an average of 17 minutes a page.

Or, to quote Indiana Jones, “I’m making this up as I go”.

And if there WAS a plan for this November, that WAS the plan.

So here we are, on Day 29, caught between a plan and a hard place, and me looking to write 3 posts in the next 29 hours, to make it a true 30 for 30, while I ask myself, “What is there left to write about”. 

Usually, I wait till the end of the post to ask you a question, but here’s a question you can kick around before we get to the end, “Are you as burned out right now as I am”?  Because I gotta tell you, I am pan seared and oven roasted over writing for this almost 30 days.  I guess right now I’m thinking about writing the way most people who enjoy their job feel when they know they’re about to start their vacation, and just stare blankly at the cubicle walls, quiet quitting, so the boss doesn’t notice.  Except in November, I am the boss of me, and if I don’t do this, nobody will.

Tomorrow, I already know I will bang out 2 blog posts like the boss I am, and then happily go on a well-deserved BLOGCATION for the first week in December.  But, unlike most Decembers after NanoPoblano, I won’t close the blinds and draw the blackout curtains shut, like in the old days.  I already have fresh things to share with you in the coming month.  Fun things.

At least I hope they’ll be fun things.  So for the first few days after BLOGPOCALYPSE has come to a close, remember to keep your notifications on and your curiosity up. And also, read the hashtags.  Sooooo many hashtags.  The clues will all be there.

So like I asked way early, are you feeling like a “pan seared and oven roasted” blogger right about now?  It’s share time.

And I will talk to you, twice, tomorrow.

Bill’s Hand

It’s the final Monday of National Blog Posting Month, and after dropping hints about it off and on the whole time, I thought I should show you the basis for a lot of the thoughts that go into my posts… my JOURNAL.

Except for a stretch of months in 2019, I have written almost daily in an ordinary Composition Book that can be purchased at any store… stationary, department, grocery… as long as there is that one aisle, the aisle that I became addicted to sometime in the 1980s. You know the kind, the one with all the pens, index cards, and notebooks! 

Anyway, since there are a few folks in my life who love it when I post some “Bill’s Hand” (one day, there will be a font named that) in my Instagram Stories or on Facebook, I’m using up almost an entire post just for one of them. And with almost 2,000 journal entries since the summer of ’17, I had to go with the one entry that got the most positive feedback since I began posting fragments of them on Instagram, back then.

Okay, we’re almost done. So tell me something about your “off-blog” scribbles. Do you journal? Keep “notes to self” on your phone? Maybe just Post-it notes? Everything is legit. A lot like blogging… in November.

Talk to you tomorrow.