STORIES, STORIES

Jeff Goins’ post on New Year resolutions for writers inspired me to write my own (my favorite one is “Don’t take yourself so seriously.”). This year, I’m focusing on really (really for-real this time) honing my writing skills instead of just dicking around with it like I’ve always done. As with all resolutions, my writing goals can’t be too grand or I’ll end up just adding them to the list of things I failed to do. My achievable writer goals for 2017: Write about writing.  I’m big on tricking myself into accomplishing things, because it gets things done. My goal here is two-fold: get myself to write regularly, and also actively learn something about the craft. I’ll be posting a lot on this topic, both on my blog and on social media, as part of my learning and practice. Actually use my notebooks.  I’ve amassed a pretty big collection of notebooks, many of them blank because they are just “too pretty” to write on. Aside from that, though, I’ve gone almost completely ...

Ever feel left out? The kind of left-out that makes you feel like you’re way behind in a race, even though everyone else is within arm’s length? I get that a lot. I meet people my age and I don’t feel like I belong. I meet people younger and older, and I still don’t belong. I tell myself it’s that Loser Streak that I’ve had all these years that I’ve nursed for so long, the one that convinces me time and again that maybe, maybe losers were meant to exist to help the winners feel their win so much more, and that maybe this is my purpose. The Glorified Tech Support. And the proof is in the series of failures and bad decisions that make up most of what I call my adult life. The thing about feeling this way is that I don’t say it out of some desire to get sympathy from others, or to get advice on how to “fix it.” I don’t even feel that bad or sad about it, most times I just feel introspective and resigned. And a little exhausted from introspecting. These feelings are magnified when I wat...