Today I Did Nothing

I have a hard time when things are slow, work-wise. I get antsy. I roam around the room. I smoke way way too much. 

It's never with my writing my books; I do fine there. I've been blessed by God to have never suffered from writer's block. Okay, okay...don't get mad at me for saying that. It's just true.

Some days are slow. Maybe a paragraph. But I never go a day without writing, even if it's only one terrible paragraph I know I'll be deleting tomorrow, or ever later in the day.

It's the work I do for a living. Unlike most authors I know, I don't teach. I taught for four years at a community college back in the mid-2000s, but that was 090, 100, and 101 classes, with some GED and Literacy classes thrown in to fill out the day. 

It wasn't mind-numbing like people say, not for me, anyways; probably because I strayed off the curriculum, would take a day I intended to be about the actual use for the semi-colon and instead talk about Stephen King's daily writing habits. I did that. I did.

Later - from about 2019 to 2023 - I taught online in a Master's of Fine Arts degree program. It was COVID time and those jobs were easier to land. 

But the remote work was never a living. It was extra money and generally took up more of my time than I had anticipated. 

Point is, I'm working now as the sports director of a media tv and broadcast company. Sports are big here in Kentucky, and so during basketball season and football season there's plenty to do. But baseball, softball, volleyball, and other "off-season" seasons can become a dry time for coverage.

And here I sit trying to think of feature stories to keep content flowing. Some recent segments have been about a statistics keeper, a score keeper, who has been doing this for one school for 47 years. Another was about a young man who is the tenth ranked archer in the state but has never been bow hunting, an odd sort of detail for someone that good with a bow and arrow. The one I'm trying to nail down now is a feature on a sort of "small town, big pride" kind of thing. Think the movie Hoosiers and you'll get the idea.

It's all slow. I've drank five cups of coffee (it's 1:02 p.m. here at the job). I've smoked six or seven cigarettes since getting to work. I've left my desk more than a dozen times and walked outside and stared at the sky, felt some cool breezes, and returned to my desk. I've talked five or so times with my reporter, trying to job loose some ideas. 

It's slow, and I'm not used to that. Most of my life I've made a living as a news reporter, and news is rarely very slow. There are dry periods, but nothing lasting as long as an entire high school baseball season.

It's how I ended up here, writing at Bent Country this afternoon. And so now it's time to get back to pacing the floor and smoking and drinking coffee.

My injured heart hates me. 

The 1985 Chicago Bears

Here I am watching the Bears / Packers wild card game thinking, "Why can't we get a good quarterback?" That's foolish of me to think; Caleb Williams is as good a quarterback as we'll likely see for another fifty years. 

(Now we're down two scores, which means, well...we're screwed already, several minutes before halftime, even.)

I've been a fan since 1985 - the Super Bowl Shuffle Bears with Walter Payton, Mike Singletary, Ditka at coach, Fridge Perry with the goal line TD, all those guys. It was the last time we won a Super Bowl. I was nine-years-old. I got a Payton football kids uniform from the Sears catalogue for Christmas that year, complete with helmet and pads.

(Green Bay Peckers just scored another touchdown, by the way).

Really trying to keep going with this blogpost, but I'm feeling pretty down with a full six minutes left before halftime. And don't tell me Williams is the comeback kid; if you're good in a playoff game that means you know enough to pile up points before the half. If you're constantly having to come back only to win by only a few points. It's too stressful for a newly old man.

I'm out. I'll see ya'll again soon. My apologies.

Exciting Publication Announcement

I've written here several updates on upcoming books I'm working on or may soon have published, but following up on one from a month or so ago, I have some new news.

A new short story collection of mine called Fallujah Boy was slated for publication with Cowboy Jamboree Press in May, but after talking with Adam Van Winkle, CJ's ultra-talented top dawg, yesterday and today, that has now changed in a wonderful flip.

Shortly after I submitted Fallujah Boy, I then sent Adam a manuscript of a novel I had just finished called The Old Invisible, which I've talked about here before at various stages. I wanted to know what he thought, and asked only one thing: is it any good?

The book came quick, which is unusual for me, and I felt unsure in some ways; I genuinely needed Adam's eyes on it to give me the insight he's so often provided time and again over the past decade.

I was ecstatic yesterday when he emailed saying the novel was great, even saying then and there he'd like to publish it. 

So we chatted a bit about this and decided on a different publishing schedule that includes both the novel and the collection. Instead of releasing the collection in May, Adam is going to publish the The Old Invisible in May. The collection, Fallujah Boy, will then be released sometime in 2027.

Let me tell you, my relationship with Adam and Cowboy Jamboree Press began in 2016 with the publication of my second novel, Dysphoria: An Appalachian Gothic, and things have only improved since. I know folks may get tired of me touting Adam and his press, but, honestly, I've not done so nearly as much as both deserve.

Just know this: if you have the good fortune of landing a book with Adam at CJ then you have a guy in your corner with a towel on his shoulder, a bottle of water in hand, and more than willing to step in the ring in your place at the drop of a dime.

Autumn Years: A Prose Poem

Fifty in April and haven't taken great care of myself over the past three decades. This quickly adds up to losing a step, wrinkles crawling their way across my face, skin hanging from my neck, pictures from last year are time capsules opened 20 years later just today.