Saturday, May 2, 2020

Like a bird without a nest. Like a stranger in the night.

 EDIT: I completely forgot to add links to this week's News. I'm particularly fond of Monday's piece, since I got to write about UFO's instead of the epidemic. The Tumblr site was pretty quiet, so here we go.

Monday

Wednesday

Friday


Two days and two days into the coronavirus novel epidemic. A lot of states are "reopening", though Mississippi isn't, and we're all going to find out just how bad an idea that was or wasn't. Georgia and Texas have both seen spikes in cases, the very thing that caused our governor Tate Reeves to slow his roll.

 Well, life is an adventure, is it not? Maybe all those AstroTurf "protest" groups complaining they can't get haircuts or go to their favorite restaurants will take their gun nuttery and cheap Nazi cosplay somewhere else. People are wondering why gun-toting neckbeards screaming at cops don't get the same reaction as, say, Native tribes protesting unnecessary and dangerous oil pipelines across tribal lands. Simple. The "let us work" protesters aren't shaking any boats or upsetting the Natural Order.

 Ah, but I don't want to write about COVID-19. I've been writing about little else for the past six weeks. I'm making money writing about COVID-19 nowadays. We've become extremely stupid as a culture over this thing and refuse to act like adults. The same people who claim they're ready to take down a tyrannical government or the dissolution of society are losing their minds at having to be around their family for a couple of weeks.

 So stop writing about it, Matt, move on. After all, you'll have to come up with something interesting about all this hoo-hah all next week. I think I got too much sun on my afternoon constitutional with Otis and B.C. It's in the 80s and fairly warm. I've got me one of those "too much sun" headaches, I think. Probably need to look into getting some sunscreen if Otis intends to keep this up, and I've no doubt he will.

 Another problem is this isn't coming as easy this evening. I have been staying up too late playing XCOM the last couple of nights, as well as a couple other games. I picked up Robin Hood - The Legend of Sherwood on sale at Good Old Games for a sneeze yonks ago, and finally got around to playing it this week. It's pretty decent. Plays like Desperadoes or Shadow Tactics, strategy oriented but not turn based. Plus, I've always been keen on the Robin Hood legend. One of those days I should write about that, but today's not the day.

 Nothing is firing properly today. Maybe I should take a break, take a nap, and come back at it. Nah. Let's just get it done and if the Muse comes later, it's not like I'm getting paid for all this. I will say, just to get it down, that I've had an epiphany about my writing in the last couple of days. It's been driving my batty that I can't get any fiction going past world-building. I don't understand what other freelancers who don't do "straight journalism" are making their salt. I don't do Me Talk Pretty One Day-style gripping emotional journeys and neither do I want to. More power to 'em, but I'll probably never write that dark book of the soul about, say, my father.

 So instead of focusing on what I can't do, I decided to study on what I did do well. Two things came up. One, I'm good at making boring things that rarely change day after day interesting to read about. This is what saved my ass as a sports writer when I'm not really into sports, and the current iteration of Actual Paying Work is definitely that. The other thing I'm good at is explaining things to the common mind. That's where I was good as a music critic and when it works, that's what makes The News worth reading. I definitely need to find a better way to market the latter, because when I show it's out there, people do read it. They may not respond or react back, but what the hell.

 So, that's what I do and that's what I've always done. It's not that I need to embrace it, because I've never run from it and I do think there's a place for it. Whether there's a place for me to make money at it, well, we're still figuring that out. I'm not going to totally give up on my Weird Western or bank heist IN SPACE, but I won't sweat 'em anymore. Hopefully.

 Anyhow, that's the word count and then some, and I really am dragging. Maybe something will spring forth later or maybe I'll just take a nap and/or play more video games. Life in the fast line, indeed.

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