We enter every new year as if the calendar changing carries with it some sort of magic. Like the new January 1 is really any different than December 31. We celebrate it, sure, and I guess we can attribute some meaning to it.
In the United States, it means we’re that much closer to our presidential elections. Whether that’s good or bad is not debatable: political silly season will start in earnest today, and I dread that.
It’s also a Leap Year, so that’s fun. That extra day in February that I will try to remember to commemorate by watching the 30 Rock episode, “Leap Day.” Maybe, if I remember that, I’ll also remember to watch the Modern Family episode where they celebrate Leap Day in a much less nutty, but still silly, way. As far as I’m aware, those are the only celebrations of Leap Day. (Is there a movie?)
Last year was going fine, till late June. And then the wheels came rolling off the bus. The bus is righting itself, now. Her treatments concluded in November, and while her surgery was due to be done before the holidays, the (annual, we should begin to presume) Covid uptick ran through our house, including my cancer wife, so she will have some surgery in a few weeks. Once recovery from that is over, my role will change dramatically again.
No longer will I be the groceries guy and the dinner dad. I will always be the chauffeur, but this week I’ll begin teaching my middle kid to drive, so by the end of March or so, I won’t have to be the only driver when kids need to be somewhere and my wife’s working or napping or otherwise occupied.
Having had the treatments off the table for December was fantastic. I was no longer drained from driving to and from the hospital. I was no longer spending terrific amounts of time commuting, so I could write.
And boy did I write! I completed a novella that I’m going through final edits on and will publish via KDP mid-month. I’m working on another novella that I hope to see to publishing via KDP by the end of the month, or early next month.
These novellas are, in the grand scheme of things, deeply trashy. I feel like they aren’t poorly written, though, and while I’m not super proud of the content (it’s kind of male-oriented light BDSM erotica), I am proud of the easy way I was able to construct semi-plots and almost-emotional relations between the characters. I have a half-dozen or so similar novellas (or shorter) baking in a Craft document somewhere, waiting to have just a tiny bit more time each day to shove a few items into the oven and see them become edible bits in Scrivener.
In the meantime, I’ve also been working on my NaNoWriMo project for 2022, and expect to finish the final real rewrite this month. It’s not going to change deeply after this rewrite. And then, we’ll see: publication/no-publish/self-publish? Who knows right now.
While away for the holiday last week, I was bidden by a weird formation in a neighborhood lawn to begin developing something. In its current form, it’s a Craft document that has two people’s names attached to it. What began as a weirdly-formatted meet cute became something very different in the days I’ve written in it since. Except, it’s still formatted pretty frigging unusually. I don’t think it can stay the way it is, and I’m not sure exactly what’s brewing. Maybe just a short story (which can maybe retain the peculiar lack of proper paragraphing), but too much longer than it is, and maybe it becomes an epic, sweeping political thriller thing that was absolutely not in my original thought process. And from a weird mound in some random lawn in Harborcreek, PA!
So. I have intentions to write, now that my days as a cancer caregiver are coming to a close. I envision publishing a lot of wild and wacky erotica, actually, but more on that when the time comes.
It’s January 1. I’m willing myself to be positive, but the fact of the matter is: stuff didn’t stop being stuff at midnight. I still have concerns about my wife, about my weight, about getting this kid to that, and paying for this trip and then that trip, etc., etc. But, there is something hopeful, if you want to view it as such, about a new year. I don’t intend on a new me. I think I’m too old for that shit.