This is the updated version of that last post. I have written more books. I have published more books. And I have gotten more people to read and like my work since 2018.
Here is a better idea how things currently stand;
And of course, I left out the book I was using to copy the list from, The Wizard in his Keep.
So, now I stand revealed as the published author, hard-working writer, and total fool that I am.
And here’s a link to the book I forgot. Only a dollar if you’re interested.
Filed under announcement, autobiography, humor, Paffooney
I recently wrote a story that will be included in an upcoming story collection written by and for the reading pleasure of nudists. It is a story where the main character is naked for most of the story. It is a fantasy adventure collection.
And I have been asked to write a brief biography to accompany my story.
So, here goes…
Michael Beyer – a.k.a. Mickey – I was born during a November blizzard in Iowa during the Eisenhower Administration. I grew up in a small farming community.
My goal in life as a kid was to grow up to be a cowboy, an astronaut, or a comic book artist. Or maybe a clown. But I promised myself I would never be a teacher.
Well, God has a sense of humor. I would begin teaching in 1981 and would keep doing it for 31 years. I was introduced to nudism in the mid 1980s when my girlfriend’s sister lived in a clothing-optional apartment complex which we visited on weekends. But I was a teacher. There was a morals clause in my contract. So, I avoided actually becoming a nudist while I was teaching in Texas. But I got to be a cowboy. It was the school mascot at the school where I taught the longest.
But when I retired, I didn’t exactly get to draw comic books or be a clown. But I got to write funny stories. And draw lots of illustrations. And I joined the AANR SW (American Association for Nude Recreation, Southwest.) Some of my best novels have nudists in them, like Recipes for Gingerbread Children. You can find me on Amazon, and on my blog https://catchafallingstarbook.net/
Well, there it is. The most Mickeyness I can manage.
Filed under announcement
My blog on WordPress, Catch a Falling Star, now has 2,103 followers for the very first time. And I have posted 646 days in a row.
You may have noticed that my blog is about surrealist art, fantasy fiction for young adults, and a somewhat strange idea of what humor is all about.
Filed under announcement, artwork, blog posting, Paffooney
I am definitely getting older. And tomorrow is not guaranteed.
I have serious health problems, and I live in a land where Republicans and the corporate overlords get to tell us all that if we don’t have enough wealth to forfeit for it, even though they keep raising the prices to make higher profits, then I am welcome to die and make room for someone who works harder for less money.
I generally laugh it off and continue to work harder. I have avoided the expense of insulin, which is very expensive because Big Pharma knows that if my life is threatened I’m likely to pay every cent I own for what will save my life. I walk at least 7,000 steps a day, usually more, and I eat the best food I can manage in small quantities, just like the diabetes experts taught me in 2004, back when I could still afford health care from specialists. I will continue to fight to live and do it without paying all my money to rich Republicans and corporate overlords who are fat and need to walk more and eat better themselves.
I could easily be dead of heart failure or stroke by tomorrow. And I don’t fear death. A quick, surprise end would be better than lingering suffering that drains my family of resources and wealth, the way the Republicans and corporate overlords hope it does. But my 90-year-old aunt in Iowa recently pointed out that both of my parents were in their late eighties before they passed away, and two of my four grandparents lived well into their eighties. My Grandma Beyer lived to 95, and I had two great grandparents that fell short of 100 by two years or less. It is possible I have time to get more done.
I did already complete a career in teaching for 31 years which is my primary claim to a life well-lived. And I was a successful teacher, at least according to the many former students that told me I made a difference to them and they remembered my class fondly… they couldn’t all be lying, could they?
But with my retirement, I invested my time as a storyteller. I have already published 19 novels and two books of essays. My best work was in Snow Babies, Catch a Falling Star, Sing Sad Songs, Recipes for Gingerbread Children, and The Baby Werewolf. And my storytelling has produced some things beyond those 21 books that I hope to finish.
And I do not feel like I haven’t done enough good storytelling in my life. Teachers are professional storytellers after all. So, if I drop dead ten minutes from now, I have not been cheated in that category either.
But I am having trouble with wandering thoughts, diabetic depression, forgetfulness, and arthritic fingers that constantly make me go back and retype things endlessly. I have recently gone whole weeks without working on my various works in progress. And I have only kept my blog-posting string going by reposting old classic posts every now and then.
If I am going to make further progress, it will be slower. I have not given up. But I am slowing down.
Filed under announcement
I have now posted something on Catch a Falling Star for 600 days in a row. I have done this before, but maybe this time I can push on beyond two straight years of posting every day. Possibly three years? We’ll see. I’ve never done that before.
Filed under announcement
Yesterday I finally found and bought a used car to replace the dead one in the shop. I am thinking this is the last car I will ever buy. Of course, that’s what I thought about the last car I bought, the one now awaiting the coroner’s report about its death by cracked transmission. The Fiesta is dead. Now, I hope the new 2015 Focus will be the car I end my driving career in.
Filed under announcement, autobiography
Today was a near disaster. The heat, at least 104 degrees Fahrenheit that I can personally verify, was so bad that everybody went indoors and logged on to their devices. I could not get enough bandwidth to even save the writing I was trying to do on WordPress, W alone actually publish anything. The internet Kept cutting outpublishing streak was going to end at the 505 straight days I achieved yesterday. So, the Princess and I gave up on online things and went to the movies. Thor, Love and Thunder at the Music City Mall in Lewisville. Gawd dang! It was a great movie. But this post is not a movie review.
What I am writing about was how I beat the deadline to save my posting streak. I got out of the theater before the day’s posting deadline, checked my phone, and found that I could post something. Two lines of; prose in a post to make 506 straight posts before the rest of today officially becomes tomorrow. If you saw my “desperation post,” then you now know what that was all about.
When we got home again, to a house where the air conditioner is losing its battle with the weather, I shed my clothes (not at the mall, mind you, but in my private bedroom, because naked is cooler than clothed) and started a writing frenzy. I may have gotten one more in before the deadline at 7:00 p.m.
So, now I can take it a bit easier. The problem is overcome. The streak continues… in more ways than one.
Filed under announcement, blog posting
This post is on the 502nd consecutive day in a row that I have posted at least one thing. It is a streak worth continuing.
But what’ve I really done since arriving in Iowa for my yearly visit? Well, I was haunted by the spirits of grandparents long gone as well as the more recently departed spirits of my parents. The old farmhouse and town are saturated with memories, dreams, and… worst of all, regrets.
But I did visit Ames, where I attended college for the first four years. I bought a good book there. I watched movie musicals with my sister.
Maybe it is enough. I invested my time and money in pursuing memories. And there are worse ways to invest those things.
Filed under announcement, autobiography
Mickey has actually done this once before. An entire years’ worth of consecutive days of posting on WordPress, plus 35 more days, now for the second time. A lot of writing. A lot of blathering about this and that. A lot of fishing for ideas… and catching an occasional shark… and an occasional angelfish. And drawing stuff.
What exactly is all this nonsense for?
Well, several important things.
My blog is definitely a place for self-reflection, a space for thinking about who I am, what I am doing, and… most importantly, why. After all, I am now on Medicare, and probably in the last handful of years of my life. I am in poor health. I paid off five years worth of Chapter 13 bankruptcy. It is good to be out of debt. But that is temporary if I accidentally survive a heart attack or stroke.
I have to come to terms with where I am in life. Every new day is precious, a gift I am not taking lightly.
I have a blog also simply for the practice of being a writer and writing every day. You can’t get better at a skill you don’t practice. And as I am now retired from the vocation I was born to do, I don’t use my writing skill to teach children in middle school or high school English classes anymore. I can, however, write stories about all the things children taught me over the years, and end up with some books that will, hopefully, provide future reading teachers something to use in junior high and high school to teach reading skills.
And because I also have an interest in philosophy, I am fully accepting of the idea that life has no meaning unless we give it meaning ourselves. As a Christian Existentialist, I endeavor to create what I believe is the true meaning of my existence. And I am constantly reevaluating that meaning on a daily basis in this blog, and also in my stupid head.
Of course, now that I am retired and no longer risking getting fired for expressing myself online as someone who likes nudity and doesn’t find naked people morally offensive, I can write about being a nudist. Even when I am not joking about believing nudism is a good thing.
And when I am joking, as a writer fond of writing humor, I don’t have to worry about offending anybody or alienating anybody. Countless conservatives, prudes, Trump-lovers, and evil bank executives have already blocked me, unfollowed me, shunned me in public, and sued me into bankruptcy (evil bankers did that last one.) So, I am free to exercise my right of free speech and my offbeat sense of humor. In this blog, I mean. If you do it on street corners, they throw things at you. And bankers might sue you.
And so, I have achieved 400-straight days of posting in this blog. For the second time. And that is a good thing. And if you don’t agree with that statement, feel free to unfollow me, block me, shun me…. but please don’t sue me. And, bankers, I already paid you off. So, don’t do it again.
Filed under announcement, autobiography, humor, Liberal ideas, Paffooney
I have been searching for a way to continue my Tuesday novel-writing posts with a novel different from my main work in progress. It sort-of solved the problem with a sudden realization that since fairies bewitched my novel-writing process in the making of The Necromancer’s Apprentice, I might as well pick up a thread from that novel.
PoppenSparkle is the character rescued from the dungeon in the previous book. She had absolutely no chance to shine in that book. Released from captivity by evil fairies, she is the sister of Derfentwinkle, a butterfly child, and gifted with wizard ability.
Every student wizard has to be assigned to a master wizard to learn the truth about magic. And Poppy was assigned to a real sour potato of a master.
It will be a story about a teacher and a student, and how they work out a way to get everything that each one needs from the other. It will give me a chance to do more world-building on the Fairy Kingdom of Tellosia. And more chances to create some teacher-comedy in a setting where I can create a lot of crazy stuff and draw more cartoons.
I may not get started for another couple of weeks yet, but the idea is growing by the hour.
Filed under announcement, fairies, humor, novel, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney
Catch a Falling Star 