Complex Numbers

Writing It Off

"Blog Week Birthday Bastion 2024"   [13+] by WakeUpAndLive~doingNaNo'24

Prompt 5. Sept 5.

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go. Dr. Seuss
Tell us more about the writer in you. Plans/Aspirations/Fears/Status etc?

Plans: None. As a writer, anyway. Apart from continuing to do what I'm doing now. Other than writing, I plan to travel more. I may write about it, but the travel writing field is crowded with young influenzas who can't write for shit, but look good in selfies.

Aspirations: None. Used to be, I wanted to get published. I abandoned that goal, I don't know, maybe about when I turned 50? No one wants to publish old, unestablished writers. Well, almost no one. You can probably find a counterexample if you look for one, because it made the news. It made the news for the same reason lottery wins and lightning strikes do: it's rare. Plus, I'd have to be an exceptional writer. I may be a decent writer, but I'm not exceptional in any way.

And don't say "self-publishing" at me. While it's absolutely a legitimate route, it involves way more work than I'm willing to do, including marketing. I hate marketing, not to mention it would be hypocritical of me to push ads on people while hating all the ads being pushed on me.

Not that I'm above being hypocritical, of course. That just seems a step too far.

Fears: Tornadoes, picking up dog shit, anything touching my eyeballs, and success.

The tornado thing is probably understandable. Not that I live in an especially twister-prone area; it's just that they are, to me, natural disasters worse than earthquakes, floods, fires, or volcanoes.

Picking up dog shit is just something that grosses me out. Thus, I don't have a dog. Every once in a while I'll owe a favor to someone, and sometimes that favor means walking their dog while they're on vacation. Just because I can work through my fears doesn't mean I want to. (Before you ask, cat shit doesn't bother me as much, though it's still not my favorite chore to clean up.)

I also dealt with the eyeball thing a few years ago, because I had to. That doesn't mean I'm eager to have eye surgery again.

The "success" one does relate to writing. Let's say a miracle happens and I get one of my novels published. Suddenly, I'm expected to write more. You know what happens to me when I'm expected to do something? It becomes work, and I'm violently allergic to work.

Status: Another English word with more than one meaning. From context, I'm guessing this is the "how are things going" definition, as in "status report." Answer: cruising along. As for the other definition, where I fit in the social hierarchy, well, I reject the concept of a social hierarchy. But that's really irrelevant; I just like to play with words.

In any case, there is one writing-related thing that's been on my mind lately. As I've mentioned a few times, I've done a blog entry every day for nearly 5 years. Whether it's prompted like this one, or a spontaneous personal update, or commenting on some article, I've managed to find something to say every day since December 14, 2019. This wasn't planned; I just blogged every day for a few months, and the plan after that was to go to Scotland for a couple of weeks for the Islay Festival. Then, well, you know what happened in early 2020. I didn't go anywhere. I kept blogging. When I finally was able to go somewhere, I stayed in the US, and still managed to get an entry in every day.

This will end.

It may end during my upcoming Europe trip, now only 2 weeks away. That's not the plan, but it could happen. My shit gets stolen or broken, or I can't connect to the internet, or I just get too busy and/or too drunk, or I fuck up the time zone difference. I don't know.

Ideally, though, I continue on this track until at least December 13, completing a 5-year daily blogging streak. That's as close to a "plan" as I get with writing, these days.

In either case, though, blogs here are limited to 3000 entries, and this is entry number 2812. Less than 200 to go. Enough to take me to early next year if I continue at this rate, but then... bam! Brick wall.

Other people here have dealt with the limit by deleting old entries. I won't do that. Most never have to worry about the limit, and that's perfectly okay. But I've been considering what to do next. Quit? Start a new blog? Concentrate on fiction and poetry for a while? If I started a new blog, I'd have to think of a title that's somehow works as well as, or better than, Complex Numbers, and on that front, I'm stumped.

Oh well, at least it wouldn't be work.

Heading into the last days of Birthday week, now. We get to give out a free Merit Badge every day this week. Want one? Anyone who comments here before 11:30 pm WDC time today could get today's. (I'll need that extra half-hour to pick a winner and send the badge before midnight.)

To clarify:

When I say "comment," I mean comment. Not review. Though reviews are always welcome.
I also mean "here," not on the newsfeed post.
MB recipient will be chosen at random.
Maximum of one MB per commenter for the week.
If I don't get comments, I'll pick a previous commenter, and maybe not at random.
The MB will be the one I commissioned two years ago, "Complexity," which is a publicly available MB.
I appreciate all comments; this is just a little incentive.