I have published novel number 15, very probably the last book I will be able to finish before I die. Of course, I have said that about every novel since number seven. So, this is actually pleasant surprise number 8. That’s the benefit of always preparing for the worst.
So, let me list a few of my gloomy-doomy predictions that will hopefully also turn out better than planned.
- Governor Abbot is smart enough to know that opening up the the State of Texas to make the economy more profitable for rich white guys again will turn the State into a morgue full of plague victims. We have not reached the peak of the pandemic in this State yet. And our governor is smart enough to know that people will die. But he’s also evil enough not to care.
- I will probably die in the next two weeks. Maybe tomorrow, knowing how my luck usually plays out.
- Trump will get reelected in the fall since all the Democrats, including Joe Biden, have enough empathy to try help Republicans, sick because of Trump’s profits-before-people agenda, and then they will die from the virus, which Republican voters will not die from (because God protects idiots from the consequences of their own idiocy. Only the smart Republicans will die).
- The rest of the world after Trump’s reelection will all perish in about twelve years from climate change because even Republicans cannot live on surface temperatures of one thousand degrees Fahrenheit (except of course for the Republicans who don’t understand they can actually die from excessive heat, and so, will have to design fire-proof banjos to keep on pickin’ and grinnin’.)
- The universe will happily percolate onward for billions of years without human beings from planet Earth. (Or possibly human beans from planet Mirth).
- And the universe will end with some multiple of the number 42.
My book, seen in the link above, is still free today in Kindle e-book format. It is a story told by a ventriloquist’s dummy who has to try to stop a serial killer from killing his young friends. It is a comedy with some dark parts in it. And the book probably has nothing at all to do with the end of the universe and life as we know it… probably.
And that’s a look at all the bad things I fully expect to happen as life goes forward. So, statistically at least, there is a good chance that I will be pleasantly surprised about one or two of those things. Life can’t be all bad if you have a butterfly’s chance in Hell to have things turn out all right. That kind of irony can make even a pessimist grin.
Catch a Falling Star 
Self-Reflection
Every writer, whether he or she writes fiction or non-fiction, is really writing about themselves. The product originates within the self. So, that self has to gaze into the mirror from time to time.
So, the question for today is, who, or possibly what, is Mickey?
I have been posting stuff every day for a few years now, and in that time, I have been much-visited on WordPress. Maybe not much-read, but then, you cannot actually tell if somebody read it or not. Most probably look only at the pictures. And, since I am also an artist of sorts, that can also be a good thing. Though, just like most artists, my nude studies are more popular than the pieces I value the most. But unless the looker makes a comment or leaves a “like”, you really have no idea if they read or understood any of the words I wrote. And you have no idea what they feel about the art. Maybe they just happened to click on one of ;my nudes while surfing for porn.
I rarely get below 50 views of something in my blog every day. The last three days were 86 views, 124 views yesterday, and 88 views already today. My blog has definitely picked up pace over the length of the coronavirus quarantine. But no definable reason seems obvious. Some of my posts are polished work, but Robin is right when he says today’s post is merely fishing with the process, which is true almost every day.
As a person I am quirky and filled with flaws, pearls of wisdom that result from clam-like dealing with flaws, strange metaphors that shine the pearls, and obsessions like the one I have with nudism that leaves me properly dressed for diving for pearls.
I have demonstrated throughout my life that I have an interest in and experience with nudism, though not the boldness to parade my naked self before the world outside of the writing that I do. I also spent most of my bachelorhood dating reading teachers and teachers’ aides, finally settling down and marrying another English teacher. I completed a thirty-one year career as an English teacher, which means I spent a lot of time teaching writing and reading to kids who were ages 12 to 18. Twenty-four of those years were spent in the middle school monkey house. And all of that led to being so mentally damaged after all that I wasn’t good for much beyond becoming a writer of YA novels or possibly subbing for other mentally-damaged teachers in middle schools around our house.
A real telling feature of what I have become is the fact that most of the characters I write about in my fiction are somehow a reflection of me. Milt Morgan, seen to the left, is illustrated here with a picture of me as a ten-year-old wearing a purple derby. Yes, I was that kind of geeky nerd.
And most of the plots are based around things that happened to me as a child, a youth, or a young teacher. Many of the events in the stories actually happened to me, though the telling and retelling of them are largely twisted around and reshaped. And I am aware of all the fairies, aliens, werewolves, and clowns that inhabit my stories. Though I would argue that they were real too in an imaginative and metaphorical way.
So, here now is a finished post of Mickey staring into the metaphorical mirror and trying in vain to define the real Michael, an impossible, but not unworthy task.
Leave a comment
Filed under artwork, autobiography, commentary, humor, imagination, insight, inspiration, Paffooney, writing teacher