Ah the age-old questions I have of myself: Is this any good? Do I want to be writing this? Is there something else I would rather be working on?
Right now, I am on the ‘Zombie Fantasy’ book, I often wonder how I am going to get to the ending I desire. It is a complex book, I thought I had a lot of characters and plots with the Zombie Chronicles. Shiners? That is a tad easier as I am writing from the first person point of view, so the main character interacts with everyone and everything is seen from his point of view, even if things get dicey with time travel (adjacent) super powers. With the ZF I am juggling three main factions and then within each faction there are factions. There isn’t one good person and there are plenty of bad people on all sides. Sure the living faction is set up to be the ‘good folks’, but they have their rotten apples too. The necromancers, well they are predominantly bad people doing bad things…but not all of them. The fey are the third faction and have their own problems, of which the humans and the dead are in the top ten, if not the top five.
I did not intend to write the zombie fantasy as a series or as even a book; I was going to start typing and just keep typing, adding to it as I felt like it. I was going for a serial series or a never ending story. Amazon, at one time had a platform to support that sort of thing and I thought, “Why not? Put up a chapter or two a week, set it at ‘pa what you want’ and think about it….once or twice a week.” I’ve got no problem getting content out. Note, I didn’t say ‘good’ content, that’s a whole other range. These things are mulling about in my head right now as I navigate recent challenges.
No job yet, well, no paid gigs, I’m still typing and still getting some residuals from the books, but no insurance is a bitch. Who decided having access to medical care should only be for people who have jobs? Tax it, provide it. Yeah, socialized medicine, that makes me a liberal lefty, eh? Except we already have socialism in the country, the United States of American, for those of you just joining us. Do we have a highway system? Do we have a military to defend the country? What about a fire department or local police force? All socialism, that, for whatever reason, is palatable to the old guard, deep money. Education used to be on this list, but given the cuts to that in the last year, I don’t think we can count on any minimums there anymore either. No job for me, means no healthcare. There are state insurance exchanges, some are income driven, but politics have changed those too. Dang, bitch, bitch, moan, moan, what am I doing about it? Well, mostly thinking about it, I can’t punch my way out of this paper bag I’m afraid. I’ll continue to look for an IT position and plan what to do with my dwindling resources as the months drag on.
The caveat of this is that, well, death trumps all. With the passing of a couple of people I know this year, things are in perspective. I used to say, ‘In a hundred years, no one will care what happened to me.’ It was a mantra. I said it to get through whatever hardship I had at the time, I don’t recall saying it much in the good times, but it applied then too. I think more of a truism is that, right now, no one cares what happens to each other, I mean so long as we get ours, right? I have a circle of friends and family, all of whom are helping me out in unexpected and generous ways. I have to admit I don’t like it. I like showing up, laughing and going home, not having hard talks about ‘what are you going to do’ or ‘what are you planning’, those answers are never to everyone’s liking. I have the feeling the next few months a lot of people are going to be disappointed in me. In a hundred years, no one will care.
