The Thursday! Newsletter 1-12: Yay for Us!
Volume 1, Issue 12
Let's do something a little different this week.
To be honest, I'm not feeling all that inspirational. Normally, I'd get good and cranked up, like a high school football coach at halftime right after he's learned his starting quarterback has broken his leg and the plucky backup who, just a week before, was bullied horribly because he wears glasses, but secretly he's been throwing footballs through a tire hung by his now-deceased father who, before he succumbed to his fatal illness, told him he'd be a true sports hero one day if he just kept on going, and did I also mention that he has been lifting weights in his basement on the sly so he's all hunky too and not at all a glasses-wearing nerd like we all through at the beginning of the movie, and--
--wait, where was I going with this? Let me read back a bit to find...the coach. Right. I'm not going to get all cranked up like the aforementioned high school football coach in an ABC Afterschool Special rooting his team to a stunning and inspirational comeback. Nope. I just don't think we need that this week. I know I definitely don't need it. I'm too tired to yell!
Besides that, I'm feeling pretty good right now. My last week was a flurry of creativity and of shipping that creativity. In addition to last week's newsletter and the fiction prompt I post at the I Am A Writer group, I wrote and published three stories to my web site ("Onyx", "Foggy Morning Getaway", and "The Ghost Watch"). I'm editing the three poems that will appear in the next collaboration between Cedar and I plus we've gotten a solid theme for a third. On top of all that, I did my first gaming livestream on Twitch where I showed a very small audience that I am indeed amazing at cultivating parsnips in Stardew Valley. On top of that, I handled by day job, which is mostly slow routine until, occasionally, it's not. I had one of those "it's not" kind of moments last week, but I handled it with a minimum of ruckus. I did my job as a creative and useful human being. I wrote some things that made people happy. I was a good friend and a pretty solid husband, too. I even managed to win a few good Eldest Son Points with my parents as well.
In short, I got a good amount of stuff done and I feel good about myself and where I am right at this moment. Yay me!
On the other hand, I did have one thing happen which really tossed me head over tin cups and made me feel like this week wasn't all that good. I had a friend dump me in an angry text message in which that person accused me of being a horrible and manipulative person who only wanted their friendship because of what I could get out of it from them.
I'm not going to dive into the details but that one thing made me feeling like absolute crap for three or four days. I woke up in the middle of that night with my stomach in an anxious knot and couldn't get back to sleep for a good hour. I thought about it the next day as well, when I got another text message that amounted to "Oh no you don't get off with just one angry text! Here's another one!". I spent more time than I should have crafting the perfect rejoinder in my head and even more time wondering if I really was as terrible as that person said I was.
I'm not. I know I'm not. But stuff like that makes you wonder, doesn't it? It makes you doubt all the good stuff you accomplished for days before and days after. It makes you not want to be part of the coolness that is your life.
Notice I said "your life" there? Ah ha ha ha! This is where I turn things around to, hopefully, make my week useful. You may lightly applaud my cleverness now. I'll wait.
...
Thank you. Thank you all. I did say we'd do something a little different this week and I wouldn't get all...you know. Here's what I'll say. Bad always looks bigger than good. One bad thing can feel as heavy as ten or twenty good things. You can look at the world and think that evil always wins, that stupid overrides smart, that foolish triumphs over wise, and that you are simply never going to be as good or as clever or as accomplished as you want.
But you will. You are. In fact, my guess is you've already pulled off a few pretty cool things already. Look at them. Look at what you've done. Look how cool that all is. You may think those things are small and that they don't matter, but they do. I bet if your friend did all those things you'd be pretty impressed. They didn't, though. You did a bunch of cool things. So did I. And we'll do more cool things, no matter what bad thing might have jumped up in the middle of it all. We'll handle that and keep on doing cool things. Yay you! Yay me!
Yay us! I'm serious. Yay for us!
Book Update: It's nearly go time, people! You can order your print copy of One Hungry Werewolf and Other Monstrous Rhymes this weekend -- Sunday, January 31. I've gotten a proof copy and I don't mind saying I am as proud as I can be. Cedar and I made something you can read with your kids or nieces and nephews, can give as gifts, or can simply keep for yourself to enjoy and giggle at (because Cedar drew a few very funny little monsters).
I've had a few requests for autographed copies. Here's how I'll handle those. I will have some copies on the way to me, but the author's copies don't ship the same way retail stuff does. No Prime Shipping, so it'll take a bit of time. If you do want an autographed copy, the cost is $15 through PayPal, which will include media mail shipping. I'll add an inscription if you like or you can trust me to make up my own (Muahahahaha!).
That is about the easiest way I can figure to get autographed copies sent out in a reasonable fashion without losing a munch of money on my end. Make sense? Eeeeeeexcellent. More updates to come!
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Here Are the Arts and/or Letters I Promised...
I learned to read thanks to trippy psychedelic art like 1968's Letter People and the television shows Sesame Street and The Electric Company, both of which added trippy music to the art to make learning fun. And weird. Seriously, seriously weird.
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Here Are Links, either Useful or Fun!
Some days you eat the chicken nuggets; some days the chicken nuggets mount a counter-attack.
Speaking of chickens, if you have an Instant Pot, maybe you want to put some chicken into it with parmesan cheese and other delicious ingredients!
The legendary Corpse Flower may be dying out and part of the reason appears to be because it doesn't take well to preservation methods. Oops.
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One Last Thing.
To paraphrase another smart author, though Thursday! is free, it is not cheap. To show your support, forward it to someone who'd like it or order my book. Is this your first time seeing my newsletter? You can read previous issues and subscribe right here.
If you'd like to talk back to me, encourage me, suggest something you'd like to see or you'd like me to write about, you can always hit the reply button! I can't promise I'll always answer back, because I'm quite forgetful, but I'll read everything you send.