Thursday! Between the Zines: It's Raining; It's Drizzling. Something Something...Fizzling?

V3, I44

Dreary here. Dreary there. Dreary, dismal everywhere!

We had a tropical storm swing by for a brief visit over the weekend — a long rainy affair with surprisingly chilly winds that bounced branches off our roof and flung them across the yard and parking lot. Thank God¹ the storm, named Ophelia — because why shouldn’t we have some Shakespearean drama in late September — didn’t do much our way except break a flower pot on our front porch.

We did not appreciate the petulant tantrum. Thanks, Ophelia!

Now that the storm has passed, we’re dealing with a few days of dismal, drizzly, autumnal bleah. Mornings are dim affairs that poke at your waking mind with all the enthusiasm of a sloth on a double dose gabapentin. For the first time in months, I’ve had to turn on the bedside light to see well enough to find my glasses².

On the plus side, I turned off the air conditioner and don’t expect I’ll need it again for a few months. Honestly, I can’t wait for the first crisp, dry morning when the heat kicks on and, for a brief half-minute, the whole house smells like scorched dust and coziness. That’s down the road a couple few weeks, though. Right now is drizzle. Icky drizzle — chilly in the morning, dank and smothering in the evening. It is not the kind of weather in which anyone exults, not even Brits on the blustery side of the Isles or the Scots in their soggy and werewolf-infested moors³. We are in the dreary preparatory weeks before the pumpkin spice bursts forth upon us all like alien spores in the face of an unsuspecting Vulcan.

What does this have to do with creativity, writing, or any of the stories or poems in last week’s newsletter? Nothing at all. To be perfectly honest, I don’t have a lot to say about any of those things this week. As I hinted, with a sly and crafty look, I have a few plans that I’m still working out, but they’ll take time to sort. In the meantime, I’ve stepped in to teach my church’s adult Sunday School class the past three weeks⁴ and the Friday night Bible study⁵ this week. Those, also, takes a bit of time to prepare and even more energy to teach. I’m not very good at scheduling and advance planning, so there’s a bit more wasted time and effort than I’d like.

The reason for all this is to say that I’m improving the product — not just the poems and stories I share with you and those I’m writing with an eye toward submitting for publication elsewhere, but me. Jimmie the Product⁶. I have fairly grandiose (at least for me) visions for what I can do with the things I write and even one of those visions require that I be better: more brave, more organized, and more confident. I’m working on that now, like I’m working on a couple never-before-seen stories that you should see sooner rather than later. I also have a couple ideas I don’t quite know how to pull off that way I want, but I’ll figure those out too. It just takes time.

And maybe a little bit less autumnal bleah.

After the naked plea for help, you’ll find a tasty audio morsel or two you can enjoy in your car or your house or while walking through your favorite cemetery⁷. You can also share them with your friends and family or random passers-by or literary agents or…heck, you don’t even have to share them at all. But I’d appreciate it if you did. It’ll help.

Oh! Paid post should show up this week, sometime. Stay alert — more alert than a certain pair of criminals in a construction trailer, at least.

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My dream is to support my family with my art. Can such a thing be done? Yes! But I need your help. How? I’m glad you asked!

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• Read “The Paper Swans of Ellendell” in Postcards from Mars!

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Key to a Buffalo Skate Party

Dragonspotting

1. And a wonderful friend from church, who brought us a bunch of small sandbags we could use to head off any potential flooding issues.

2. What? Of course I need my glasses. I’m old, you whippersnapper! What are you doing in my room anyhow? Scram!

3. What? Everyone knows the largest concentration of werewolves lives deep in the soggiest and most impenetrable moors of Scotland.

4. II Corinthians 7. Lots of good stuff about repentance, reconciliation, and how Christians can call out each others’ sin and still remain close.

5. Compassion, especially as Jesus demonstrated it to his disciples and to us. I get to try to pronounce the word “splagchnizomai”. I don’t think I’ll get it right more than once.

6. Worst. Hip hop name. EVAR.

7. You do have a favorite cemetery, don’t you?