Just Me

  It’s that time again! Time to list all of the books I have read this year. Just like last year, this year, I wrote down all the books I read this year in a spiral notebook. That ended up presenting a problem when I typed up the list this evening; in some cases, I couldn’t read my own handwriting! I had to look up book titles and author names to get them right.   At the beginning of the year, my reading goal was to read one book published by a certain publishing company each month, along with a new book. That reading goal was shot down after that publishing company closed its doors. So I just decided to wing it and just read whatever books this year. But as the year drew to a close, I noticed I was almost at 150 books read this year! So in December, my new reading goal for 2024 was to read 150 books. And I was able to meet that goal! Yay!   But, as it happens every year that I do this list, I discovered there were two books which I forgot to include on this lis...

I often take time to review all of the people I am connected with through Facebook and can’t help but smile. There is so much diversity there. I’m connected with family and friends, but also friends from high school, friends from different stages in my life, people I have worked with through writing gigs, people I knew through a writing website, people I knew at various publishing companies and people I worked with through different jobs I have had. There are also people I connect with through writing projects as well as for the purpose of my newsletter. And now I am connecting with people in my capacity as Executive Editor at Twisted Dreams Press. All of those connections tell different stories about various chapters of my life. It is really something.   I should also note that I am connected with others on other social media platforms. I don’t just connect with people on Facebook, because not everybody I know is on Facebook. Some of them mostly use Instagram or TikTok or Blue...

“Every time I try to DO something, things go wrong!” This is a common complaint I make when once again, my attempts to accomplish a goal go horribly wrong. I have been saying this for years because, yes, my plans get thwarted! Sometimes I chalk it up to my chronic case of having bad luck or because of a huge misunderstanding that ruins EVERYTHING (like a friendship I had for years that a “friend” ended over one such misunderstanding). Or I just chalk it up to life knocking me down all the damn time.   Well, I may get knocked down, but I’m still going to get back up!   But now I am saying that very thing again, because, once again, my plans were shot down!   As part of creating this “new life” for myself after getting sober, I wanted to start being more physically active. In the past, I spent HOURS sitting down to write and read. And I’m doing it again! This damaged my health and made me neglect taking care of myself. I soon realized that I was going back to th...