It strikes me how that I spend so much time documenting things I’ve bought/read/watched/heard that I never bother to mention my personal life even in a rudimentary way. In fact, ever since I read Marilu Henner’s book about preserving memory, I have been keeping an ongoing log of personal life events. Indeed, I have gone back to various years of my past (including my early years) and tried to list events that can serve as memory milestones. My hope is that as I accumulate these milestones, it will be easier to locate other (hidden) memories.
So at least for the last 5 or 10 years, I have a pretty good log of what’s been going on in my life. These logs are not really a narrative, just a brief listing of big things going on in my life. Sure I could expand on it with opinion and feelings, but I really don’t want to. Maybe someday I will write some sort of autobiography, and these notes will certainly help, but most of these notes won’t make sense to anybody.
Honestly, though, my current life is dull even for a writer. This doesn’t bother me, but most of my life is consumed with finances, publishing ambitions, dealing with Mom and other family members and feelings of inadequacies for never writing as much as I want to. I more than anyone recognize that publishing is a long term game; it is rare to have moments of success or accomplishment, and whenever they happen, these moments belong to me alone. Most of the world doesn’t care and don’t pay attention. There are interesting things happening to people around me, and perhaps the general act of growing older is interesting, but not interesting enough to blog about for a blog that nobody reads.
A few years ago I set a goal that I would be publishing a book a year for the next 5-10 years. I have mostly lived up to that goal. Actually so far this goal isn’t that hard because I have just been packaging things I wrote a long while back. For example, this year’s book will be a collection of essays from this blog. (Update: That will have to wait until Summer 2026) Sure, I will need to do a lot of editing and planning, but for the most part everything is already written.
Next year’s book will be a little more challenging. I’m 80% finished with some humorous stories, and I want to add about 3-4 stories. I have spent all my waking time trying to come up with ideas for the 2026 collection. As it happens, many of my recent story ideas turn out to be too complex or philosophical for so light-hearted a volume. So I have been wasting my time on stories which won’t make it for the 2026 volume Yesterday I came up with some appropriate story ideas for this volume and can’t get to get them done. I am still in story-search mode though.
I am eager to get to my 2027 book, which is a humorous novel I have written about 60-70% of. Honestly, I can’t believe it has taken this long to finally return to. Frankly personal obligations and financial demands have been big obstacles to progress on that front. It will be my first “novel” and would be good practice for a longer forms. I am trying to make a transition to longer forms which I can publish under my own name.
This is a very weird time to be a publisher and writer, and it’s unclear which path to success should be pursued. About 20 years ago my goal was to be successful enough to score a teaching job at a university. First, all my publication efforts have been delayed for various reasons. Then it seems like academia is going to hell, and besides, the minimum credential for teaching writing seems to have increased. It now seems that a Phd is a de facto requirement for university jobs, making those kinds of jobs out of reach for me. That has led me to reconsider my goals and frankly to focus on selling and monetizing a lot more than I would have expected. I still have not come anywhere close to succeeding on that front (and in fact, the money chase may ultimately amount to nothing — who knows?) Also, there are larger social forces at work. AI and the decline of books in society have made the writing profession a lot more precarious. I remain committed to writing more than ever. But I still don’t have a clue what I should be doing. And frankly, filling up my blog with these uncertainties and doubts would not make for fun reading!
I want to talk about humor and comedy. I have written some very funny things in my life, and honestly I would have liked to write for a sitcom or something like that in another life. For the 2026 story collection I am grappling with the reality that I am not as funny a person as I used to and comic ideas don’t come as easily as they used to.
The biggest problem in my life now is lack of reading. I have always loved reading — I need it, especially at this stage of my life — and yet it seems that I am doing everything but read. Instead, I muck around with blogs and social media and long term writing projects and such. I don’t know how other writers manage to do it.
So much for this autobiographical snapshot for May 15 2025.
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