I was on vacation last week. I worked on projects around the house. I read a lot. I took some naps. I walked in the woods. It was a good, quiet time.
Reading
I picked up Jack Hirschman’s Front Lines and Frank O’Hara’s Lunch Poems from The Book Nook in Montague. They are my current porch-sitting reads, and they are most excellent.
Writing
I didn’t accomplish much other than a single poem to close out my most recently-filled journal. It has promise.
[A closeup of a small morel mushroom among blades of grass in an unkempt lawn.]
Oh, what a month it has been. Last week was the first week since early March in which I did not have to work at least one 10, 11, 12, 14, etc. – hour day. This week I am on vacation, working through my vast backlog of tasks, chores, and errands. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
April was National Poetry Month, and I made a better showing that in the past few years, with about a dozen first-drafts of poems added to my journal. One or two of them even show promise, which is statistically pretty good.
The Insecure Writer’s Support Group question for May 2025 is:
Some common fears writers share are rejection, failure, success, and lack of talent or ability. What are your greatest fears as a writer? How do you manage them?
My greatest fear is a writer is that, despite all the drafts of books, short stories, essays, and poems which fill my hard drive and countless old journals, I will never actually complete any of them to the point where they can be considered for publication.
While it is true that if I have time to write a new story I have time to edit an existing story, I easily and repeatedly fall into the trap of believing that I need a guaranteed minimum of X consecutive, uninterrupted hours to even attempt an edit of even the shortest of short stories. I can mull over new work in my head when I am e.g. walking to work or driving to the store for groceries. The new stuff doesn’t need to be written down write away, and much of the creative process is subconscious.
But editing is not the same. To edit requires singular focus.
I am aware that there is no such thing as a perfect moment for specific work; or at least such moments are rare enough that they might as well be snipe hunts. Adequate time is good enough. I understand that in my head, but I don’t yet understand it in my heart.
So there it is: For want of an hour, the manuscript was lost.
One of my goals for my vacation is to print out a large pile of first-drafts which I can carry around and edit by hand in my spare moments at work or sitting around the house. While not ideal, it is much better than staring at the television with a vague feeling of unease as the days turn into seasons and the pile of possibilities turns into compost.
[The Sixth Street Dam in Grand Rapids, Michigan, viewed from the east bank, just south of the dam.]
This past week was the first in several months in which I worked less than 45 hours. But I had many other tasks outside of work, which kept me quite busy. I have the next week off from work, and have no plans, other than the plan to not plan anything for the week.
Subject: Aliens, Language
Setting: Border Town
Genre: Solarpunk
Listening
Billy Idol‘s “The Dead Next Door,” from his superb 1983 album Rebel Yell. I have had a snippet of an earworm stuck in my head for a few days, and while it is not this song, “The Dead Next Door” came up while I was searching.
April was a good month for acquiring books from independent publishers.
April was an okay month for reading. My work-life balance was, yet again, significantly tipped toward the work side of things, which took from me much of my reading time, and left me unable to focus for what little time remained.
I suspect in the coming months I will be acquiring fewer books, due to supply-chain disruption and the inevitable recession and increased inflation.
In the first of eight lectures from the workshop, Kyger talks extensively of Jack Spicer, of whom I recently became aware when reading the Evergreen Review Reader, 1957-1966 earlier this year. Spicer had significant interaction with Richard Brautigan, and now I think I need to seek out more of his work.
Reading
I finished my Brautigan book, which included Trout Fishing In America, The Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster, and In Watermelon Sugar. My brain is now wonderfully twisted.
Writing
I managed another poem or two this week, but most of my creative energy went to writing code.
[A bumblebee sunning itself on one of our steps, after presumably being drenched in a recent thunderstorm.]
The particular insanity has sublimated into my life and become indistinguishable from the general insanity which permeates society like background radiation or herpes.
The first poem in The Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster is “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace”. I think we can safely say at this point that the machines watching over us are doing so with neither love nor grace.
Writing
I have so far this month written around seven poems and poem fragments, which is outstanding considering *gestures at the world*.
While it may be a stretch to say that warm weather has arrived, seasonably-appropriate weather has arrived, and compared to the recent cold snap, it feels warm. In other words, we are getting historically-average weather which, compared to the past years of excessive heat, feels unseasonably cold.
My partner and I just finished starting several dozen seeds. We were a couple of weeks late in this task, but given the extended growing season, thanks to the aforementioned global warming, it shouldn’t affect our yield.
Work landed on me with both feet this past week, and I ended up working some extremely long days, and as this post goes live late Saturday afternoon, I am still working. Thus my creative output was much diminished.
Reading
I am more than halfway through The City and the City, which I am still quite enjoying. I haven’t made much progress in Trout Fishing In America or The Wretched of the Earth, but I hope to change that in the upcoming week.
The new work project kicked off this week and so far, so good. I am rebuilding my ServiceNow skills which fell by the wayside since the end of my previous project using the platform. It’s good to be back in this particular saddle.
It is good that I am still gainfully employed, because this is shaping up to be quite an expensive year. The most recent money sink is part two of waterproofing the basement. Last September a crew came in and wrapped the uphill side of the house foundation in something a lot like swimming pool liner. In past years, and with increasing frequency, the basement walls on the uphill side of the house would show dampness, and sometimes actually leak water into the basement. Our neighborhood is built on an old brickyard, and the ground is basically a gigantic pile of sand.
The effects were immediately noticeable in the basement as a significant drop in the pervasive moist and humid feel. Since then we had not had any days with heavy precipitation by which we could put the waterproofing to the test.
That all came to an end a week ago, with a hard, drenching downpour which covered my basement floor with several gallons of sandy water. I found a place where the water seemed to be bubbling up through a crack in the floor, so I called the crew who had waterproofed the exterior wall and said that the thing that they had predicted – water finding its way in UNDER the house – had come to pass, and it was time to implement part 2 of the project: Dig a drainage trench around the interior perimeter of the foundation, and install a sump pump which would tie in with the previously-installed exterior drainage.
Then last weekend we had another deluge and I again had water in my basement. This time I found the exact place where it was coming in through the intersection of floor and basement wall. It was a small spot, barely an inch across. And water was coming in like the house was built on a natural spring.
When the company representative came over to assess the situation, I pointed out places where the basement floor had been heaving (upward buckling and occasional cracks) over the past five or so years. I was worried that this might crack the foundation, but the rep calmly pointed out that (1) in old houses, the basement floor sits INSIDE the foundation; the foundation doesn’t sit ON the basement floor. And (2) the floor, which I thought was at least six to eight inches of concrete, was actually somewhere between one and three inches thick. Old Michigan houses like mine (built in 1905) originally had dirt floors, and the current basement floor was simply a layer of concrete poured on the dirt and left to harden. Thus the floor cracking and heaving, while inconvenient, was far from catastrophic. And also reasonably easy to repair, should the need arise.
The other new money sink is a new stove. The old one, a thirty-year-old Magic Chef, finally gave up the ghost. The stovetop burners still worked, but the oven portion no longer heated anything.
I suppose it is a sign of my age that I am excited to have a new stove, and now I want to cook ALL THE THINGS! But I am also excited that a crew is going to jackhammer a big trench in my basement floor. Age ain’t nothing but a number.
Reading
Continuing on from last week, I have three books open – The Wretched of the Earth by Franz Fanon, Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan, and The City and The City by China Mieville. They should keep me occupied for the first couple of weeks of the month.
Writing
April is National Poetry Month, and so far I have managed to pump out a rough draft of a poem each day this week. I am also plugging away at the short story from last week. I expected to complete the draft this past weekend, but the mundane world intruded. I can’t complain – I am writing again.
Subject: Spiritual Beings, Music
Setting: Urban
Genre: Literary Fiction
Listening
Dave Van Ronk singing “Luang Prabang”. Given the rise in imperialistic fervor instigated by Elon Musk, Musk’s catamite Donald Trump, and Trump’s MAGA brownshirts and bootlicks, now is a good time for some old protest songs. Empire is always bad, in all places, in all contexts, and there is nothing heroic about dying for oligarchs.
“Being Non-Transactional: Beyond ‘What’s in it for me?’” (Aurelien) – This is a very good essay on individual vs. collective ethics, and how the gap between the two, or an absence of the latter, makes collective action difficult.
I wasn’t sure what I would write about in this post, other than the usual recap of my lack of creative writing over the past month.
Then I saw this video, posted this past Monday (March 31). It is an update on the state of NaNoWriMo, both the event and the organization. To sum up – after several years of struggling, NaNoWriMo is shutting down. There are multiple reasons, but the core issue, even more than finances, is a lack of communication between the various staff and volunteers. Having had many jobs over the years and having worked with multiple organizations, I can say that without clear and open communication channels, no organization with more than one person in it will last long.
IWSG has talked about NaNoWriMo many times over the years, and I have written quite a lot on the event since I first attempted the Month of Writing back in 2013, so no need to recap the past decade of participation.
I am grateful for the good that NaNoWriMo brought into the world, and I am sad that it is shutting down under such unfortunate circumstances.
Anyway.
The Insecure Writer’s Support Group question for April 2025 is: What fantasy character would you like to fight, go on a quest with, or have a beer/glass of wine with?
This was a fun question! Picking characters from almost 50 years of reading fantasy was difficult, but here are my final choices. Which is to say, my choices this week, which are probably different from my choices next week.
The character I would like to have a drink with is Li Kao, from Barry Hughart‘s magnificent Bridge of Birds. I am sure Li Kao would be able to drink me under the table, but that seems to be how apprentice-ships work in Hughart’s books. I don’t think I have the intestinal fortitude to participate in what Li Kao would consider an adventure, and as for fighting him, he is far too much of a pragmatist and would likely assassinate me if events pointed toward us getting in a fight.
I think Gideon Nav from Tamsyn Muir‘s Gideon the Ninth would be an absolute blast on an adventure. She is smart, a superb fighter, and has a wicked sense of humor. She seems a bit mopey when drunk, so not so great as a drinking companion, and she would likely immediately kill me if we got in a fight.
The fantasy character I would most like to fight is Corwin of Amber, from Roger Zelazny‘s Chronicles of Amber. I have no doubt I would lose, but of all the other fantasy characters who are fighters, I believe Corwin is the one least likely to kill me once I start losing. Heck – we might even end up as drinking buddies or going on an adventure.
Have a wonderful April, everyone!
[NOTE: a partially-completed version of this post went live earlier today. This is the updated version. I was distracted in the middle by a sudden need to pump several-score gallons of water out of my basement.]
At long last, I feel like I am back into the reading groove. Work is, well, just as busy, but less chaotic, and therefore I have the mental energy necessary to focus on quiet things like reading. That is not to say that I am reading quiet books.
I am very happy with my book interactions this month. The five books which arrived are a mind-blowing mix. And the reading was a genuine delight.
Arrabel (James Hewitt, translator), “Picnic on the Battlefield”, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.03.02]
Robert Stromberg, “A Talk with Louis-Ferdinand Céline”, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.03.03]
Larry Rivers and Frank O’Hara, “How to Proceed in the Arts”, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.03.03]
William S. Burroughs, “from Naked Lunch“, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.03.03]
Friedrich Dürrenmatt (Carla Colter and Alison Scott, translators), “The Tunnel”, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.03.03]
Ahmed Yacoubi (Paul Bowles and Mohammed Larbi Djilali, translators), “The Night Before Thinking”, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.03.03]
Brendan Behan, “The Big House”, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.03.05]
