Writing – Swift's Corner

01/25/2026: Book Reviewing, Writing, and a Thank You to Jim Butcher

“Hey Jake, did you get through Twelve Months yet?”

A buddy of mine, evidenced by the use of a childhood nickname, reminded me of a pre-order I’ve had sitting in my Audible account for a week:

Twelve Months. The latest Dresden Files novel by Jim Butcher.

Nearly 17 hours at x1 reading speed, narrated by the excellent James Marsters. If you haven’t discovered this series and are a fan of urban fantasy, I have to first ask how you haven’t heard of it (the series is old enough to rent a car, and saying that is making my knee and back hurt for some reason) and to recommend going to a bookstore and picking up Storm Front, the first book of the series.

When my buddy checked back in with me, two days later, I had just finished listening to the audiobook and was getting ready for the re-listen.

Mr. Butcher, I’d say I’d tip my hat to you, but that’d involve leaving the desk. You’re a master of the craft and I hope to, one day, evoke as much emotion from my stories as you did with this one.

I chuckled, felt introspective, and cried a couple of times (which confused my postal customers, seeing their mailman staring off into space with tear tracks on his face, let me tell you) during the listen. In this series, those usually only happen at key points in a couple of books, but this one was one steady therapy session.

From my experience in writing, evoking emotions is both key and difficult and are typically restricted to the emotions of the genre. Twelve Months, however, evoked emotions for which I know I don’t have the skill level: release. Without spoiling the story, I can tell you that if you’re holding yourself in check against some stress or trying to ‘keep a brave face’ going, you won’t be able to while following the plot… and that such isn’t as bad as you might think.

At one point, I realized that I wasn’t holding my shoulders so tightly, that there wasn’t a feeling of pressure from the corners of my eyes, that I was breathing deeply. For nearly two days, I wasn’t able to worry as much as I usually do. Granted, once I had finished the book and thought about what Butcher had done, the stress did return but didn’t have as firm a grip.

It did, however, throw me off my stride on my own writing. I’ve held to my daily writing, so it’s consistent in that manner, but I shifted over to essays on some background elements that have been just in my head. I don’t know if I’ll make the challenge’s deadline, but once this is posted and my weekly letter is written, I’ll be working on it…

… after I get the chicken in the oven. It’s going to be a rough week, weather-wise. I’ll be needing a lot of food.

Stay safe out there, folks.

-JB Swift

01/18/2026 Out of Desperation May Grow Creativity

I’ve not been too keen for the winter months for a number of years, but not because of the colder weather and that I am a walking beanpole. I actually like jacket weather, since I have an excuse for all the plaid and flannel that people assume (rightly) I like to wear.

But January is usually when I try to prepare something of a budget for the household and come to the same conclusion as I usually do: that I need more work, and I’m not likely to get it from the postal routes. When I was younger, I tried to supplement my income with a second job, something preferably in manual labor that was paid in cash. But that work is hard to come by.

And let’s face it: I’m getting old. I stepped outside this Sunday morning and immediately decided I’d rather clean the stove than yardwork. My joints agreed with me.

So, January is usually a stressful month for me, which in turn pushes me towards my preferred type of escapism: story-telling. Last year, I couldn’t write as much as I had liked, but this year I’m putting my foot down and making the time. But this does lead the question as to how can I find work while needing to write as a therapy against the stress of not making enough to (as much as I’d like) pay for the needs of my family and household?

Lo and behold, the Universe decides to mess with me by showing me a competition I can enter.

*I’ve heard good things about these folks, so writers, check them out.*

The challenge is to write out a short story with a max of 6,000 words and send it in before the 1st of February. At the time I had stumbled across this, it was 16 January. Do I send one of the short stories I’ve previously written and hope that by some miracle, the judge decides they’re worth publishing (all of them need work, in my honest opinion) or do I test myself and see how much I’ve improved with a new story?

If I write a new story, which world do I go to? Can I put this Legendarium I’ve been in for the past month down (I think I’m going to call it Tales of Eró, but not sure just yet) and dive into a different setting? Could that distract me from my current project? Or do I try sending something from Eró?

…did Professor Tolkien ever have this problem? I bet not. But I’m not at his level, for all that that is the goal.

Now, I do have several stories within this world that might fit the parameters of the challenge. This world has grown much larger than I really ever expected, and I’ve started filling up three different notebooks. The style of those stories, however, might not meet the criteria. They’d be analogous to historical essays, not real narratives. I have one in particular that is done as a narrative, but it reads like a report (because it is a report, but the character doing the reporting is a scribe and what scribe worth their salt would not include dialogue?) and that may not be ‘marketable’.

Lord, but I hate that kind of rejection notice. The last one killed my drive to write short stories for a long while.

But hey, there’s a chance it could be seen as an attempt to bring back older styles of narrative and story-telling. If it isn’t accepted, then at least I’ll have one more bit of world-building to add to Eró.

Stay safe out there, folks. Wish me luck.

-JB Swift

01/11/2026: An Evening of Doubt

Starting tomorrow, I’ll have eight weeks to train upwards of seventy-two people how to handle a Route Inspection, and the people coming in to evaluate them will determine whether or not they will have their mail routes adjusted. Or removed.

The projections are near ten routes in my territory. Ten jobs. Ten people’s livelihoods. Ten families that are dependent upon an income.

And it’s my responsibility to help them know how to do their jobs, then to defend them when my opposite numbers find discrepancies. Numbers, plural. Versus just me.

If I can be honest, I wish this was just some egomaniacal writing of an arrogant man. But no, that’s the reality of my next two months. I’m just thankful my carriers aren’t followers here or read my posts. I can’t have them knowing how scared I am for them, how worried. I am their Chief Steward, and I carry the name Swift, which means a lot in my area as a union man. Prior generations of my family were union representatives, and they had way more clout than I do.

They also had way more support from their coworkers than I do. For me, in my time? Everyone is either too scared to stand up for themselves or they were burned out by other reps that did not care about them.

It’s a very quiet moment, late at night, when my family is asleep and I can give voice to what goes on behind my eyes. I can admit to my own doubts, my own insecurities.

I am scared for my people. There is not enough mail coming in. It’s why I have been pushing for more lettered mail. It’s not about the postage, but rather the actual letters. We need the work, but there was so little in the past year that the higher-ups decided to evaluate all of us. They’ll determine where the work can go, and that’ll mean people will lose their jobs if I don’t fight for them.

And my people are tired. We all are. We’re always wired in and being bombarded with news, overwhelmed with situations, unable to process one thing before another thing is blaring through our phones or news feeds. I’ve frankly shut off most of my news outlets except for small windows of time each day, usually right around the morning or evening broadcasts used to be.

But I still have to motivate my people into learning things that they have not dealt with before, for the new people. For the older folks, I have to show them where they’ve been doing things wrong and help them correct their bad habits. And I won’t have anyone there standing with me while I do so, because no one else wants to do this work.

They’ll be calling for help, and it’ll be just me that stands. I won’t know if that means I’m heroic until at least May.

Granted, last time this happened, my local branch almost went defunct because no one was willing to step in and take the job of Chief Steward. It was just me back then, too. Maybe I can pull this off, too.

I honestly do not know. I’m scared, I’m worried, but I can’t have my people knowing that. So, I have to go to work tomorrow, looking confident and ready to teach, ready to make seventy-two of the most stubborn people I have ever met willing to listen to the quiet little nerd say, “you’ve been doing this wrong for years, let me show you how to properly sort the mail”.

Wish me luck?

Stay safe out there, folks.

-JB Swift

01/04/2026: A Letter a Week

When I told myself that I should start coming back here at least once a week, I forgot that I had set myself to a Sunday schedule. So, this will go up less than a week after I’ve set my ‘Resolution’.

I’m not sure if that means the Resolution has already failed, but here we go.

What’s more is that I have a different routine I’m going to start on Sunday morning for this year, but it’s not a Resolution for myself, per se. I’ve been mulling it over for the last three months, in fact.

Putting it simply: the Post Office is dying. Not just in terms of financial stability, but in terms of its institution. We need letters.

Firstly, and the thing that I have to remind people often is that the Postal Service is not built to be a company, but as a part of the US American community. We are servants of the People, but we need postage to sustain ourselves. I agreed with the fact that we are not funded through taxes; that can put our Service at risk of being beholden to politicians when we are supposed to be beholden to the People whom those politicians represent. For that to continue, however, we need the People to sustain us with postage.

Secondly, and a bit more metaphorical, but we, the Postmen, need to be proud of what we do again. I and many many other Postmen will tell you that we are, in fact, proud of what we do, but I’ve been here for 15 years, and I’ve watched that pride be worn down to exhausted disappointment.

I think part of the problem is that we’ve, as a society, have geared ourselves to moving quickly to meet ever-shortening deadlines. While I know that the purpose of communication is to convey information in an efficient manner, it’s not until I force myself to stop, sit down, and either talk to a friend in person or (and here’s the kicker) write/read a letter from someone that communication becomes meaningful. In all the months of the last peak season, when I was running myself ragged along with the rest of the US Postmen in this country, the things I remember most clearly and contentedly are two occasions:

1: When I had my childhood friends nearby. We all had the same idea: “Can we please just enjoy each other’s time and company without a timer running?”

2: When I received simple letters from other friends who could not come into town for the holidays. I felt an obligation to push away that sense that I needed to be doing something else and enjoyed reading the conversation my friends sent to me.

Now, I just need that to happen more often, but on a national scale.

I’ll be the first to admit that that’s going to be a very tall order for a short glass. Not to mention that there’s irony inherent in that, for my goal to gain notoriety, I have to use social media to encourage others to write letters more often. There’s also a concern about the Code of Ethics to which I’m bound, but I and several other postal workers have determined that I can, in fact, ask that the People remember us and give us letters to deliver.

That project will start, as all grassroot projects do, very locally. I’ll be writing to customers in my hometown to ask that they start sending out letters at least once a week. I’ll be asking that they encourage pen-pals again. I’ll be asking that the People realize that we, the US Postmen, belong to them and want our service to be utilized so it does not disappear.

I know. I’ve been told before that there isn’t much hope in such a project. But even a little hope can go a long way, and I’ll be holding myself to the same standard: I’ll be writing a letter once a week to friends I can text right then and there. I can promise that I’ll remember the lettered conversations better than what’s stored in my phone.

Stay safe out there, folks. Write your friends.

-JB Swift

01/01/2026: Auld Lang Syne, lang may yer lum reek.

… it’s been a minute, hasn’t it, folks?

The past year turned out to be one where this old dog had to learn new tricks, find new talents, and rediscover old techniques. I ended up busier than I can rightly recall ever having been.

Not something I would’ve wished as I’ve left my thirties, but here we are.

It was my first year as a Union Branch President, and I had a trial-by-fire of learning the rules and methods of the Union Steward and Branch President roles. That means I’ve become a (thankfully very small-time) politician. My local branch had dwindled to basically insignificance, but I’ve found good people willing to help rebuild it, and we are, slowly but steadily, making our way back to relevance.

*My first time speaking to a crowd of 200 people. Yes, I was terrified.*

This means I was also tapped to go with the Louisiana team to up to D.C. and speak with members of Congress and the Senate. Now, those people have heard my name. Whether they actually know who I am, couldn’t tell me. I’m not sure how to feel about it.

In order to actually be competent in these roles, it does mean that I’ve had to go back to school, of sorts. There have been numerous seminars, classes, and week-long trainings I’ve had to attend; all it’s really done is show me just how much I don’t know, but I have to learn it all well enough to teach it, myself.

I’ve had my work cut out for me, folks.

That’s meant, unfortunately, that I’ve been too tired or busy for my usual escapes and stress-relief. I wasn’t able to keep the Star Wars campaign running on my regular schedule, and I admit that the quality of my plot-writing was beginning to suffer. It was a bitter disappointment to put that story on hiatus; it put me through a round of depression, in fact. But when 2025 was winding down to a close (and I was growing almost frantic with the stress), I decided I needed something.

For that something, I went a bit old-school.

Cracked open one of the many leatherbound journals I’ve been given over the years, found my old pen set, and started writing/drawing. It’s slower than what NaNoWrimo expects from me, and I’m writing it out without clear outlines, so sometimes I’ll put down details or choices I was not expecting. I’ve strangely enjoyed this more than I have when writing on the keyboard.

Also, my cursive is slowly becoming legible. I might even develop actual penmanship!

I haven’t left the Star Wars RPG Universe fully, just yet. I do still work on it, in quiet moments. Don’t fret, players; we’ll get back there some day.

2025 was not without its losses. We had to say goodbye to the last of the original pack, Indy.

Indiana had developed a cancer on his jaw, and it grew way too quickly for us to stay ahead of it. It came to a talk about chemotherapy for him, but we decided to not take away his quality of life at his age. He was the youngest of the Old Four, and the last to go. We like to say that he left to continue his psychotic rivalry with Jojo the Golden Retriever up in Valhalla. I still, for some reason, trip over empty air where he usually likes to suddenly stop in front of my feet. He was a good dog.

When December finally drew itself to a close, and I finally could put away my phone and not answer the myriad of calls and questions, I had to take a moment and review how I’ve done with this life, over the year. Much as I like being able to help and lead what have become my people in the Union, I have to remind myself to slow down a little, occasionally.

I think I’ll try that for a Resolution. I don’t set much store in that tradition, but it’d probably be good for me to try it. Especially after my last doctor visit, on New Year’s Eve, where my physician told me to remember my heart. I’m about to be 40, after all. Now I’ve got to take care of myself as well as everyone else around me.

*Slightly older, slightly grayer, same Black Dog shirt.*

I’m going to try coming back here, at least on Sunday mornings before I go tramping off around the property looking for chores. That might make for longer posts, if I can hide myself well enough whittle away for an hour (and I’m not distracted by actually whittling a new smoking pipe), but I’ve missed this little corner of mine the past few months.

No matter what, however, I’ll keep watching my children grow into the wonderful people they’re becoming, praying I’ve taught them rightly, and I’ll keep writing, every chance I get.

Cheers, good people. Happy 2026. May it be a full year, with the good and bad, and hopefully you’ll see me here again. I’ll want to know all about how your year went.

Stay safe out there, folks.

-JB Swift

PS~ Han discovered the Lord of The Rings universe, and then she learned that my Catholic and Irish names can go into my “government name” and said I should make a signature symbol like Tolkien. It needs work, but she thought it looked cool as a draft.

Snow Day in Louisiana

While any readers in more Northern climates might be scoffing at the excitement, I will unashamedly talk a little about the consequences of an arctic blast reaching the Gulf of Mexico: snow on the ground, and it’s actually fluffy!

Six inches of snow is predicted for the next day. This being the South, and thus beyond the reckoning of most of its inhabitants, no one knew precisely what to do about the weather. Normally, this would not be a detractor for me and the Post Office. I’d be walking out in that and honestly wouldn’t mind (until Reynauds kicked in and my hands started to hurt and curl in on themselves), but schools have been closed for today and tomorrow.

Bundled up the children and chucked them outside for as long as they could stand the 24 degrees with 51% humidity. That’s a lot drier than they’re used to, but then again, they’re not used to snow being on the ground. While it’s not the first time they’ve had snow, it’s a rare enough event to cause psychotically happy moods and a need to go racing out the door.

They lasted twenty minutes before Han discovered that, like her father and grandmother, Reynaud’s disease is genetic and hurts even when you warm back up.

A for effort, kids. They made the most of the little snow they’ve had so far. By mid-afternoon, they’ll be wanting to go back outside, having forgotten the consequences of the weather and soon to be running back inside as the temperature plummets.

It was also a first for Cooper to see snow, and like the children, the puppy lost his goddamned mind.

That area was blanketed just a few minutes before I snapped the photo. I’ve never seen a Golden get the zoomies quite that hard before.

I, on the other hand, have had enough experience with the cold weather to know that my hands won’t let me enjoy it for too long. I did go out there and played a bit –because how often do I get to hurl snowballs at my children? -before heading inside and handling the indoor responsibilities. Prepping for winter meals such as stews, soups, and so on.

I’ve managed 30 minutes of writing time today, and another 30 minutes of studying for the certification exam, but due to listening to the Silmarillion again, I’ve started up on a small project for those late-night hours when I can’t sleep due to minding the fireplace but can’t get the brain to focus on the story: map-making.

I have no idea what it’ll be used for, but it’s something to keep up the creativity and thus ward off the insanity. I also came across one of WordPress’ ‘Writing Prompts’ that caught my interest, so there may be two posts today. I’ll get another writing sprint in while the children have their afternoon “it’s snowing, oh crap that means it’s cold and we’re not acclimated to that!” playtime.

Y’all bundle up out there and mind the cold.

-JB Swift

Short stories, novel progress, and notes for next project

It may just be an example of an ADD mind taking a creative twist, but I have been busying myself with short stories and writing notes on other novels instead of just writing the novel. Unfortunately, I had come across a major problem to the story and it forced me to remove a large chunk of the work.

Why, do you ask? Simply put, I had made a decision for the character that she would never make, and continued writing as if the decision were normal. It wasn’t until I had gone nearly two chapters ahead when I noticed that the story wasn’t progressing or fitting with the outline I had done for the book. After thinking about it, I went looking and sure enough, I had made a simple mistake that cost me 9,000 words and three weeks of work. Needless to say, I haven’t been terribly happy with this outcome.

(A polite way of saying I’ve been pissed off about it and trying to figure out how to use ANY of that work.)

While I’ve been going over those pages and comparing them to the outline, I’ve been trying my hand at different writings, if just to keep my brain working properly. On one end, I write with the clear intention of getting paid for my work. I do want to entertain but I also really want to keep putting food on my childrens’ plates. With that in mind, I’ve been coming up with short stories and submitting them. So far, I haven’t had any hits yet, but I’ve received a lot of good criticism on my submissions. Actual critiquing from the editors, not just being ignored or told ‘this doesn’t fit the market right now’.

(It might show my age when my complaint about submissions is being utterly ignored instead of being told ‘no’, but let’s move on)

Writing short stories is some hella-good writing exercise for me. While not published, I’ve mostly written novels. I’m used to thinking my stories at novel-length, so condensing a story to 10,000 words or less? That takes work. There’s so much I want to show in the worlds I create, but if it’s not relevant to the actual story, it has to either be put aside completely or told in such a way that the reader can accept it within their suspension of disbelief. If you’re a short-story professional and you’re reading this, know that I am in utter awe of your abilities.

(Sidenote: No, I will not put my old novels up anywhere for people to read. The last one I wrote was in my early 20s, and it was horrible. Please don’t ask; I can only cringe so much before my face starts hurting.)

On the other end, I’ve been putting my recent education via Deborah Chester’s “Fantasy Fiction Formula” while working on notes for the next projects. While I’d love to have a long-running series of the current project, “Post-World Postmen” could easily be a one-shot novel to be put on the shelves. The other projects could function between 5 and 10 books, if I wrote them well enough and they were picked up. One such project is my latest attempt at writing urban fantasy (one of my favorites because it is very-much-so a genre that I find difficulty writing) and another is a very basic superhero story taken with an odd angle. When Post-World Postmen is finished, I’ll be tackling these stories while begging agents to take my book to the publishers.

The Question of Monetizing

It has been brought to my attention that I can use this site to make a little money. I was told, by both people and ads, that I can design this place to be a spot where you, the reader, would pay for the content I put out into the world.

Now, let’s understand a few things.

I do want to make money from my writing. Becoming a successful (that is, funded) writer is both a dream and an ambition. I’d like to actually be home to see my kids grow up instead of the “two hours a day during a week, Sundays guaranteed” thing I have going on at the moment. I’ve been tempted to set up a Patreon, because if anything else, having people pay me the occasional dollar would force me to adhere to a writing schedule/routine.

But this place? I’m not so sure about that.

I’ve seen charities I’ve wanted to support, and in the future (that is, when I figure out how to set it up and it get attention) I will set up donations for people to give money to those charities, but beyond that I don’t want to turn this place into a money-grabbing cesspool. Yes, I want to make money for my words, but this is a place I can put my thoughts down for the simple joy of knowing someone would read it.

I’ll be adding a couple of new pages within this site soon, writing prompts and gaming notes. Maybe I’ll give Patreon another look.

Enjoy the Sunday, folks.

Stepping into a New World (RPG)

It’s one of my bragging points (in all honesty, should not be a bragging point but should make you feel sad) that I have been the main game-runner of RPGs for my group for nearly 20 years. From my first session of 16 people in Dungeons & Dragons (3rd Edition) way back when I was 15 years old to now, I’ve been the guy among my groups that would write up adventures and challenges. I actually have several files in the cabinet with “Campaign” marked on it, some with “Finished” and most just unresolved. That’s the way of it, unfortunately.

But one of my players, the guy I usually call “my buddy” because he’s the friend I talk to every day but likes his privacy on the Internet, reached out to me a week ago with a proposal: he wanted to get a group together for a game.

This is not new to me. I’m used to one player getting to me with a “I want to play this scenario!” idea, and I agree to it. I love writing up plots and challenges, seeing what the players would do in a given situation. Sometimes it gives me the opportunity to try out a new monster, trap, or puzzle. My favorite was a chess-style challenge that stumped the players for, I kid you not, over an hour. I was stupidly impressed by their willingness when I said “For this part of the game, I need all of you to turn in your phones and tablets so you cannot cheat” and six adults put their cell phones and computers into a basket in order to keep playing. That’s one hell of a compliment.

But this time, my buddy had something different. “I want to have a game based in WarHammer 40K, and I want to run it.”

Well. Holy shit.

WH40K is the only tabletop game I did not get into. I’ve delved into at least 20 different systems and games, up to and including GURPS and Call of Cthulhu. I did not get into WH40K because, to put it bluntly, I could not paint all of the miniatures. I’m not talented in that respect and I did not want to flaunt my lack of skill in the area. So, I left that world alone.

So, imagine my sheer terror when my buddy says “The game is based in the WH40K universe, all about a ship and crew, and I want you to be the captain of the ship”.

Just gonna sweat in my utter ignorance of the world I’m supposed to be knowledgeable about, especially when I gather a crew (players) among my local group to find out most of them are extremely avid WH40K players. I twitched when, in the group chat between the other players, I made a suggestion and they just responded “We put our faith in the captain. It’s your call.”

Y’all, I’m not used to that.

For once, I’m being given the responsibility of “Party Leader”. I’ve played in a few one-shots over the years, sure, but I always, always, made sure I was someone that did not make the crucial decisions. I am so used to making the “Big Decisions” as the GM (DM) and that was something I could simply do. To think I’d be making the decisions and then have to look at someone else who actually made the rules?

Holy Control-Issues, Batman.

I will say that I’m enjoying learning about the universe I’ll be stepping into, soon. The history-nerd in me is champing at the bit to explore all the nooks and crannies of this extremely rich world, though my buddy is putting restrictions on what I should read (which, as his usual GM, I understand) and I have to stop myself from digging too deep.

I might actually post write-ups of those adventures here, so if you’re curious as to how well the GameMaster-turned-Lead-Player does in a crisis, follow this site and I’ll set up a page for it.

Cheers, folks.

The Struggle of Writing With a Day Job

Today was my day off! I did not have to be up at the hour of “whatthefuckisthetime”, did not have to make the mad-dash out the door, did not have to mindlessly sort my letters, and did not have to walk 12-16 miles for my daily bread. As it’s a dream to finally finish the novel and send it off for editing/possible publication (and start work on the next one), you’d think I would have taken this opportunity to seclude myself at my desk and plunk away at the keyboard.
Alas, you’d be wrong.
The main reason I don’t use my day off to fully embrace my introversion and write for 8 hours is a reasonable one: I love my family and it kills me that I don’t get to see them that often. A couple weeks ago, my daughter, soon to be 4 years old, was up with me while I readied to head to the office.
“Will you be gone all day?” she asked. I was buttoning my shirt and looking for my satchel.
“I’ll be gone all day,” I said. “But I’ll be home in the evening, at least by dinner-time.”
This little girl stood by the door and gave me a blank stare. “I never see you,” she said. “I wish you were home.”
I’m not going to lie, people. Being told by your child that they miss you, and the reason that they miss you is because you’re gone for most of the day, between 8-12 hours, just fucking hurts. On top of that, when I get home, I’m too exhausted to really play or do anything except sit down and decompress. I’m on my feet all day for my bread, so I take full advantage of the couch when I get home. I have to wait until the late-night hours, when everyone is asleep and my mind is finally clear of the mail, for me to focus on the story. Until that moment, I try my best to be present around the family, which can get troublesome, as both kids are stubborn and don’t like being told things like “we don’t push” or “stop leaping off the couch into the pile of laundry” or, my favorite, “if you don’t stop running without looking, you’re going to hit a wall at full speed”.

But wait, that’s not the only reason I struggle to write.

One of the problems with being in a full-time job of old-school trappings is that it becomes a fight to be both an old-school husband and a modern day spouse. Yes, I work my long hours to provide for the family. But I also want/need to handle my share of the chores, and that has a higher priority than being useless in the house and smacking the keyboard with hopes of entertaining the masses. There’s dishes to do, animals to feed/care for, and the yard to maintain. If I was already a successful writer, and not gone for most of the day, I don’t think I’d notice these chores. They’d all be done before 10. But as I do work a ‘real job’, I have to have the mad-scramble of taking care of all of these things in the few hours I have between “I have clocked out!” and “I’m gonna pass out now!”, thanks to the sheer exhaustion of enduring the elements for the daily bread.

But wait, there’s STILL more.

This one is an honest trapping of the writer’s mind: it’s a bitch to want to write after work, and the day off is such a joy to have that I unknowingly embrace the entirety of a day off. I relax (as much as I’m capable of), I goof off, I play friggin’ video games. This is a discipline issue, but dammit man, I never get to do that and it’d drive me crazy to not.

I’m looking into a possible career change that wouldn’t take me away from home for so long. I’ll stay in the federal field if I can, as I’ve already invested almost 10 years into it. But I’m looking into something like programming or IT, so I’d be able to do more work remotely. That’d be something, right?

I did manage to get almost 800 words down today, in snippets throughout the day. I still need to attend to my lunches for the week, and then, then, I’m going to attempt to write more.

Cheers, folks.