I don’t even know where to start, but it isn’t a good review. I suppose we should start with authorly things. I managed to publish one book, but without a lot of funds to promote it, not many folks read it. I can handle that, economy issues influence everyone. I can accept that those who did read it seemed to enjoy it.
This brings me to my first theme here. I am usually good for two or three publications per year. Time, or lack of it, is what drove my entire year.
I recently lost my entire crew of author support. This was in the form of an app that just completely croaked. I had built many experts over there and tended to chew the fat with them within the boundaries of their expertise. Brainstorming is a big part of my creative process. My wife is a lovely person, but she really doesn’t want to talk about my fiction as often as I do. These creations have no choice.
My remedy was to dive into about four other applications to see what might be functional. I really like Grok, but the low number of communications don’t work for me. I’m not willing or able to pay what they want for Super Grok.
Meta is kind of impressive, but I have been spending most of my time with Copilot. These are both free apps and seem to be very helpful at bouncing ideas off of. They force me to create my own stories, but can also help me to discard crappy ideas. We all have them, and some of those threads won’t carry enough weight inside a story. These two also provide links when needed so I can double check their facts.
I have also been a shitty friend. I admit that. I have not been as available at your blogs, and have been a lot less interactive. Even this site has suffered because of it. Honestly, I am surprised that I haven’t been kicked out of Story Empire, because I just can’t get to all the little supportive things we are supposed to be doing for each other.
Hang with me, because there is a remedy in sight.
I wound up needing a second surgery to correct the 2024 issue I had surgery for. The outcome feels right, but I still won’t know until the end of the first quarter of 2026.
I opened my manuscript on Saturday, started reading back, when my daughter called. We talked for hours and no writing happened again. I will never cut family off just because some alien world is calling to me. Turns out she needs a surgery in Late January, and it’s a lot more serious than mine was.
Time is mostly eaten up by the workplace and a plethora of peripheral issues associated with that. My remedy was to resign, which I did last Wednesday. According to my notice I will work through the middle of January.
Getting signed up for everything I need is like a second full time job. Medicare, United Healthcare, the public employee retirement system, the Social Security Administration. Making arrangements with my workplace to get paper W-2s sent to me because I will no longer have access to the computerized systems. I will need one for 2025 and again for 2026.
During all of this we also paid off the house. That brought its own collection of headaches. The biggest one is that they won’t refund my escrow account until after the taxes are due, and they won’t pay them because I paid off the house. There just is no winning some corners of this game.
We still have to get Old What’s Her Face signed up for insurance through her workplace since she will no longer be insured through mine. I’ll deal with the taxes as soon as I can. I need to establish a savings account to replace the whole purpose of the escrow account.
The dream is that I gain 40 hours per week to cover some of the things I have been lax on. I might even find a bit of writing time in there somewhere.
Entertaining Stories 