It’s been almost two years since I updated this blog. Woeful.
But, in my defense, it’s been a busy two years.
I finally finished and published my second novel, VISION. The end of 2024 and beginning of 2025 were all about writing and editing. I had a hard decision to make with the story and put it down for over a year. I knew what I had to do, but didn’t want to do it. Anyway, decision made, the story wrote itself and came together quickly.
That was last June. In August I had a stroke. It was apparently mild and very deep in the brain where emotions are processed. I had a little difficulty speaking for a while (S’s were particulary hard and I drooled some), but I think I’ve made a full recovery.
But in early October my mother passed away. She had been on hospice care for about a week after a fall, but when she came home, I honestly expected her to recover. She was feeding herself and talking. She hasn’t been understandable for a while, but I usually knew what she was saying, even though it wasn’t really words.
But between the pain meds and the “mood” drugs, she slept the entire time, lost the ability to eat or drink, and just slipped away.
The last six months or so have seen my wife, Krystal, and I kind of reclaiming our house and decompressing. Living with someone who requires round the clock care, no matter how much you love them, is taxing. And that tax is physical, mental, spiritual, financial…you name it. Our kids helped when they could, but mostly it fell on Krystal and me.
So, all of that to say, I’m working on my third novel. Will it be out soon? I don’t know, because I’m also working on me.
As a martial artist, one thing that’s frustrated my instructors over the years is that I haven’t really cared about progressing in rank. I like to train, love to teach, but I just don’t care about “performing” for tests. I don’t care.
But my top student is coming along behind me (again!) and I’ve got to push ahead. Covid hit my cardiovascular health hard, and I’m still trying to rebuild that, so it’s taking some time. I’m spending time meditating, walking, and practicing forms (hyung in Korean, similar to kata in Japanese). It’s coming along.
I am also sharing my basement workshop with the accumulated detritus of at least five other men’s lives. Most of it is junk. I’m trying to get rid of it so that my kids aren’t forced to handle it when my time comes.
Speaking of my workshop, that’s my other creative outlet. I like to build things. I’m still honing my hand tool skills, and they’re coming along. I’ve inherited a LOT of tools along with the junk, but most of them have been for basic household repairs and working on cars, not making furniture (or weapons) from wood. I’ve been spending time and money building a collection of antique and modern hand tools and learning to use them.
My favorite tool is a plane dating from roughly the year I was born. Which is just about when tool manufacturing went to crap. In general, I try to stick with tools that date before the second world war. The oldest tool I use is about 120 years old.
So, I’ll get around to the writing. I’m learning that I do my best when I can flit from one project to another depending on my mood. When I try to force myself to focus on the wrong thing, I don’t do my best work.
By the way, I have an idea for my next fiction project. I’ve written fifty or sixty thousand words on it already, but it will have some woodworking built into the story. What’s it about? Think marooned spacefaring Amish aliens. They trade technology for a colony of their own and get to work helping the planet recover from the effects of industrial pollution and climate change. That’s the setting. Humanity is colonizing the solar system, most humans are offworld. Then a catastrophe occurs that kills or endangers most of the colonies and stations in the system, and it’s the aliens’ fault.
I like the idea of reptilian-space-amish with three genders and six sexes.
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