Writers and other creative people struggle with various aspects of the process, but as I watch them interact online and in my real world, I find that many flounder because they fail to master the most important skill: Showing up.

I’ve had this problem, including periods when I didn’t write at all, even though I claimed to want to. In all the years I wanted to make writer friends and build my little community, there were plenty of meetups I missed, conferences I skipped, opportunities blown. I had my excuses, but what mattered is that I didn’t show up.

Last year, I showed up – on my weekly Zoom sessions with my writer friends, at Jane Friedman’s workshop and AI talk, at the picnic table where a bunch of writers gathered to eat and chat, at Balticon where I met a few other writers and invited one to join the networking group, and at the monthly networking meetings. That sounds like a lot of steps, but all I did was say yes.

I almost bailed on every one of those choices, but I’m glad I stayed at the picnic table to pass around the yellow pad. A small thing, passing around a yellow pad, but it made a big difference in my world.

This year, I commit to saying yes more often. I say yes to making incremental progress on my WIP, to sharing info with my writer friends, to going places where other writers hang out, to talking about writing and creativity, and putting myself and my work out into the world. I commit to saying yes to improving my craft, by reading good craft advice, rewriting even when it’s a struggle, and asking for critiques.

The ride will not be perfect and I don’t know what I’ll find at the end, but I say yes to the possibility that I can be more. Life will get in the way, but I say yes to getting back on track as quickly as possible. I say yes to changing what doesn’t work for me so I can focus on what’s important to my creative health and fulfillment.

If you’re reading this, chances are that you are already showing up. Is there something else you’d like to accomplish? Are you holding back from showing up someplace new?

What are you saying yes to this year? Where will you show up?

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A few weeks ago, I gave myself a report card for my 2025 writing year, which means it’s time for new goals for 2026. I don’t always hit every goal, but posting them publicly keeps me accountable. Saying it out loud ensures that I do something to move the ball forward, even if I don’t reach the pitcher’s mound. Did I say that right?

Goals

Finish my WIP. This is a spillover goal from last year. As I wrote in my performance eval a few weeks ago, I was on track to finish a ready-to-share draft of the novel until I got bogged down in the muddy middle. I cut, consolidated, replaced, and reshuffled, and now feel optimistic that my plot can carry me through the most difficult part. If not, I have a year to fix it, plus I already fixed it once, so I have a decent grasp on what it might take to pull the wagon out of the ditch, should we run off the road again. I have a daily word count goal, but the important task is finishing, not merely adding up words.

Maintain my blog and newsletter. I closed out 2025 with about 70 blog posts and that sounds about right for this year. I’ve already drafted out topics for a good portion of them, which is half the battle. I may mix in some creative nonfiction along with the craft and creativity posts, but don’t hold me to that. We’ll file that under stretch goals.

Networking and social. I will continue my weekly writing meetups and see about adding an in-person social time, if I have any takers. My monthly networking meetup is going great and I fully expect us to continue meeting. I would like have more social time but here is where time starts to crunch. In a perfect world, I would like to have a small dedicated critique group and I should (I hate that word) spend more time interacting on my social accounts. Let’s call the first 2 solid and achievable goals and the latter 2 optimistic stretch goals.

Reading. Reading isn’t exactly a writing goal, but as the man says – if you don’t have time to read, you don’t have time to write. I have 80 books on the TBR list for next year, ranging from the highbrow – Sartre’s Being and Nothingness, a collection of seven of Joan Didion’s books, the complete poems of Robert Lowell, and a translation of the Nag Hammadi (Gnostic) scriptures – to the slightly breezier Complete Stories of Kurt Vonnegut and Patricia Highsmith’s Diaries, with some murder mysteries, graphic novels, and craft books to break up the heavy lifting. I’m very much looking forward to re-reading Ethan Mordden’s Buddies series and John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. I could probably guess which books on the list won’t get read in 2026, but since I choose the books, that would be cheating. I should get through most of them.

Stretch goals

As the name implies, these are projects I’d like to work on, but won’t prioritize unless I blast through the more achievable goals. Ideally, these will be at the top to the list next year.

Draft book 2. I have a good outline for my next book, a follow-on novel to the WIP, set in the same world but with an entirely different cast. I don’t anticipate writing both books this year, but if I finish the first by the end of summer – eminently doable – then I could finish an ugly NANO-ish draft by the end of the year.

Stage book 3. I know what my next-next book will be, an expansion of a novella that I wrote a few years ago that needs more room to breath. If I need a break from – or between – book 1 and 2, I can work on what I call my Rationale document – a big picture review of the protagonist and the antagonism, what I’m writing and why, what I want to say, and what I want my readers to feel while and after reading the novel. It’s not quite an outline, though much of the document will find its way into an outline. Think of it as a vision board in a Word doc.

Art time. Every year I write down art time and every year I don’t set aside time to do any art. However, as you may recall, I spent a good chunk of September painting and setting up my craft room, so I have a drafting table, an easel, a kitchen table, and a writing desk glaring at me every time I pass by. I have paper. I have pencils. I’ve had some of my inks and paints so long they’ve probably gone crusty, but that’s ok. I like doodling and maybe I’ll get some time this year.

That’s a lot

And that’s ok. I know my priorities: the Top 3 are the WIP, my blog, and the networking group. The stretch goals are just that – fun things to pick at if I need a break or win the lottery. Compared to the Top 3, they aren’t vital to a successful year. I’ll report back next December.

What are your creative goals for 2025?

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The holiday season is also a good time for indulging traditions, and here’s one of mine.

I’ve gone into the background on this meditation in previous blog posts, so if you’ve read this before, feel free to skip to the end. If you’ve joined me in the last year, this will be new.

I adopted this creative exercise from the writings of psychologist Gay Hendricks, fittingly from his book Five Wishes. The process is intended to help one focus on the emotional development and success stories that would be most vital for your long-term happiness, and turn them into lifelong goals. Hendricks learned this exercise from Ed Steinbrecher, an astrologer (I know; bear with me), teacher, and metaphysician. The exercise is a simple, but not necessarily easy, four-step process.

Step 1: Imagine today is your last day of life, and someone asks you if your life was a complete success. How would you respond? We have all heard the cliché deathbed laments: I wish I’d worked less. I wish I’d forgiven more. We may also have happy thoughts. I climbed a mountain, metaphorical or physical. My kids turned out ok. Maybe your answer is a resounding yes! If – like me – you feel that your life, if it ended right now, would not have been a complete success, continue to step 2.

Step 2: Now, still imagining yourself on your last day, consider why you might say your life was not a complete success. What did or didn’t you do? Express that idea as a wish. I wish I’d had a better relationship with my parents. I wish I’d spent less time at work and more time with my kids. I wish I’d gone to college. I wish I’d learned to swim or play guitar or had travelled more. I wish I’d been more spiritual. I wish I’d had the confidence to pursue my dreams.

The specific answer doesn’t matter, because it’s personal and unique for each of us. The only restriction is that your answer should be something within your control to accomplish. I wish I’d been taller doesn’t count. It may also be helpful to focus on spiritual or emotional success, rather than something like “I wish I’d had written a bestselling book and made 10 million dollars.” We’re looking inward here, people.

For the exercise, it’s important that you be honest about the accomplishments that would have made your life a complete success, whatever that means to you. Take time to consider why this accomplishment would be important to you and why you would feel fulfilled if you achieved it.

Repeat this step until you have identified five things you wish you’d done. Five regrets and five wishes. If you have more than five, that’s fine. If you don’t have five, that’s ok too. Actually, that’s pretty good, right? We should all have so few regrets. But you probably have at least five.

Step 3: Next, reframe those regrets and wishes as positive present-tense statements. Consider what you might regret not doing today and turn it around. Here’s a paraphrased example from Hendrick’s own attempt at this exercise:

• Wish: “My life was not a complete success because I did not follow through on significant communications with people who are important to me. I wish I’d gotten around to saying all the things I wanted to say to my family and close friends.”
• Present-tense statement: “My life is a complete success because I say and do all the important things I need to say and do. I leave nothing significant unsaid or undone.”

For Hendricks, this meant taking responsibility for any lack of integrity, making amends, expressing appreciations, and fully committing to loving, honest communication. If something is on his mind and he thinks someone else needs to know it, he’ll say it. If you read any of his books, you’ll find he is committed to a level of honesty that may feel off-putting if you aren’t prepared for it. Fortunately, his wife is playing from the same game plan.

Consider your regrets and celebrate that today is probably not your last day. You have time to take action. Write down your five wishes as if they are already happening. Write your success story.

Step 4: You’ve now identified the accomplishments that would make your life a complete success, and you are ready for the hard part: putting them into action. Take some time to set goals for how you will turn those present-tense aspirations into a real state of being.

Some of your goals may require time, planning, or resources you don’t have right now, but others can be acted upon immediately. Some may have concrete actions and some may require discipline and practice to develop a good habit. You probably can’t leave today to spend six months backpacking across Europe but you can start writing poetry again. You can’t heal a broken relationship overnight, but you can make a phone call or write an email. You can do something as simple as express appreciation to the people in your life who lift you up.

How is this about writing?

I’ve completed this exercise for the past few years, always around the New Year. I focus on spirituality, relationships, integrity, self-acceptance, and creativity. I then go through the meditation a second time, focusing on my creative work and goals. There’s quite a bit of overlap, but the creativity exercise concludes with more concrete steps around my writing. I’m not always successful, but I make progress. I might even forget about some practices, but then the New Year comes round again and there’s a chance for renewal.

My wishes

Last year, I was coming off a rather trying 2024, and I happy to report that 2025, while not perfect, was relatively smoother. I hadn’t set any new expectations for 2024, which turned out to be a good thing, but at the beginning of 2025 my Five Wishes were:

• My writing life is a complete success because I work on projects that are personally meaningful and allow me to explore my big questions about life. I write fearlessly, dig deep for emotional truth, and share my observations, without worrying about anyone’s judgment. I carve my own path.
• My writing life is a complete success because I’m committed to continuous learning and development, I’m unafraid to challenge myself, and I’m excited about trying new forms, genre, strategies, and other elements of writing.
• My writing life is a complete success because I finish the projects I start and share my work with others.
• My writing life is a complete success because I’m not competitive with other writers. I share my knowledge, offer encouragement, and celebrate their successes.
• My writing life is a complete success because I engage with other writers, foster community, and seek out creative collaborations.

How did I do? I’m happy. I’m not a complete success, because I haven’t typed “the end” to my novel yet, but I’m committed to finishing. I’m ok being a slow writer, and if you count my blog – I do – then yes, I’m completing projects and putting them into the world.

Wish Five has long been my stumbling block. Every year I express my wish for community, and every year I come up empty. There are reasons – not ready, not good enough, not a good fit – but let’s roll them all up under a general category of self-doubt and fear. But every year, I express this wish again and keep my heart and eyes open for the possibilities.

This year, I’m happy to say I’m on my way to being a complete success because I am engaged with other writers and fostering community with my blog readers, my writing meetup, and my networking group. I sat on a panel discussion – two, in fact – for the first time since my mini-publisher days and got way more talk time. We’re early days still but I see a future and it’s good. This is the first year where I feel I haven’t let down the side.

My writing wishes don’t change much year to year. When I go out, I want to have a few books under my belt, written to the best of my ability, and without regard to what anyone else thinks I should be writing. I want to keep learning and freely share what I know, and I want to do all these things with a community of friends. And every year I get a little bit closer to being a complete success.

What are your five wishes for your creative life this year?

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One of my should-do-but-might-not-do goals this coming year is to interact more on my social media accounts. When I started my branding (loathsome word) project last summer, I cleared much of the detritus from my various public accounts and limited myself to following or friending folks actively engaged in their creative work. I deleted all my pop culture and political pages on Facebook and added a few writing groups that seemed both active and useful. When I log in, I want to see people doing. I want to be inspired, not mollified or enraged. This felt good for about five minutes, and then I went back to not caring too much about social media.

At its best, social media is a pathway to learning new information, discovering new hobbies or things to love, making friends, and doing whatever we call the relationship between followers and the followed. At worst, it’s a demoralizing horror show. Whether the account belongs to a friend or a social media presence, we may find ourselves scrolling through someone else’s life and comparing it to whatever drab nonsense we had to tolerate lately. Because humans tend to reveal only their best views, we are tricked into believing that everyone else is living a life of ease and fulfillment, while we are working ten hours a day, skipping the gym, watching movies alone, picking up dog poop, and planning our next staycation. Even the realization that most people are faking it helps only a little.

With this in mind, I was reminded of a blog post I shared a couple of years ago, from Tiffany Yates Martin: Measure Your Success by What You’re Doing, Not What You Want to Do. In the post, Martin touches on the above. “Realize that you’re only seeing the highlights, and as impressive as your life looks on your social media feeds, you know the interstices: the mundane, dull, difficult,” she writes. “Remind yourself that’s what other people’s posts—and lives—are too.”

Funnily enough, that is one reason why I share the occasional struggle. I’m excited to share news about my networking group or the invitation to speak at a writers’ workshop. But I also don’t mind confessing that I didn’t finish my novel this year because the middle sucked and I didn’t post for a couple of weeks because my car got totaled and I was stressed out about it. There’s a man behind the curtain and let me tell you – it’s a mess back here. There’s a reason I’ve hung curtains.

There is a converse side to social media. In her post, Martin writes about scrolling through her own social account and being pleasantly surprised by how much she’d accomplished over the past year.  Rather than focusing on what she’d missed out on, she experienced a moment of anti-FOMO.

Isn’t that a great idea? Looking back at your accomplishments is much healthier than doomscrolling someone else’s life and wishing you could have a bite of what’s on their plate. It’s certainly better than beating yourself up over what you didn’t do.

Even before social media, before we had a name for Fear of Missing Out, I experienced the self-shaming that comes from watching other people engage in cool activities, reach life milestones, and celebrate accomplishments. I don’t do that anymore. Partly because I’m older and wiser. Very few people live a life untroubled by drama and disappointment. But also, I’m doing my thing. I’m happy.

My 2025 turned out great. It wasn’t perfect and it didn’t go remotely as I planned, but when will it ever? I missed some blog deadlines, but I have more readers than I did last January, and when I scroll back through the year of posts, there are a number that I’m pretty proud of. My writing meetups didn’t quite take off the way I hoped, but I found my wonderful networking group. I didn’t finish my novel, but the partial novel I have is better than the novel I would have had if I’d forced myself to keep writing based on the weak outline.

I don’t have FOMO because I don’t feel like I missed out on anything.

Celebrate what you have. Look back on what you accomplished, without counting up what you didn’t. And don’t wait until next year to reflect on what you’re achieving today. Be proud of yourself now. Enjoy the moment and live in the memories you’re making.

There’s never a bad time to stop and reflect on life, but the end of a calendar year lends itself to both a sense of conclusion and new beginnings. And even though March feels like it happened about three weeks ago, we’ve arrived at the end of another December. If, like me, you are time challenged, I apologize for breaking this news so abruptly. It caught me offguard too.

So let’s talk about goals. I like goals. They remind me of what’s important, keep me on track, provide evidence of progress, and break down big picture projects into manageable segments. Despite what NaNoWriMo taught two generations of writers, novels are not written in 30 days.

I usually set too many goals – writing and personal – but I’m good about prioritizing, so whatever time I have in a given week goes to the project on top. Importantly, I’m also not bound to the calendar, for a goal is only as good as the service it provides you. Historically, my roadmaps last at least 7-8 months, and sometimes I get through an entire year without tossing one out, but I will start fresh when it suits me. If my needs or circumstances change, my plans evolve with them, whether that happens in January, April, or August. This is realistic and satisfies the committee.

As part of my end of year reflection, I give myself a performance appraisal, reviewing what I accomplished, which goals I missed, and how and why. Did something sound like fun but wasn’t? Did it take more time than I anticipated? When and how did life get in the way? Was a project worth the effort and should I keep going or cut my losses? Where did I win? When was I most productive? What habits, plans, and productivity tools did the best job keeping me on track? Should I perhaps stop overthinking and lighten up a bit?

Obviously this last question is rhetorical.

I don’t beat myself up for not hitting every mark. I tend to set a few meaningful and achievable goals, along with one or two stretch goals, ie: projects that would be fun to do, but may not be realistic with my time and other resources. Every year, in a fit of ridiculous optimism, I write down “podcast” and every year I reluctantly scratch it off, usually sometime in the second quarter. Podcasts are fun but time-consuming, and likely would be no better at building my community than my blog. A podcast would also be a great way to procrastinate on my novel while still allowing me to look busy. I know how I am.

So what goals did I set last year and how did I do? In the interest of full disclosure:

Finish my novel in progress. This was my top goal for the year: to have a complete, ready for someone to read, draft of my work in progress. By the time July rolled around, I was somewhere between a quarter and a third of the way done, and had a clear outline of the rest of the book. A final manuscript was achievable. And then I started writing the middle of the book and the air went out of the tires. The main character floundered. Events pushed him hither and yon. Exciting things happened to and around him but the plot was being driven by circumstance, not desire. Important characters were about to disappear until the end of the story and I knew that wasn’t going to work. Rather than waste time writing more chapters that wouldn’t go anywhere, I went back to basics. I picked apart scenes, deleted and added, cut and consolidated characters, created a new inciting incident, and strengthened the cause and effect chain. I feel good about this new outline, but I won’t have a complete novel by the end of December. Fortunately, much of what I’ve already written is reusable or editable, so I will have a Frankendraft to work with come January.

Grade: B, because you should never feel bad about correcting course when you need to.

Outline my next novel-to-be. I lean into goal-setting and productivity tools because my mind tends to wander. I also have a hard time letting go of ideas when I get them, so I usually have a backup project going alongside my main work. The novel following this one is set in the same world, but with different characters, so plot ideas and storyworld elements will pop up as I’m working the main project, and this is a good place for some of them. Having a brainstorm document also gives me a break from the more intense WIP work when I need it (2000 words/hour is more satisfying than 200 words/per hour). The happy accident is that I’m applying the lessons learned from the above work while outlining this one. It was easier to spot developments that needed a bigger setup or better payoff, and places where the antagonism needed to hit harder. It’s not a pretty outline, but it’s a solid starting point.

Grade: A

Post regularly on my blog. I started the year with a goal of posting twice per week – Monday and Thursday – and I maintained that pace for as long as I could. After a few months, however, it was clear that while I loved blogging and connecting with my handful of readers, it was preventing me from working on my novel (see above re: procrastinating while looking busy). Part of my problem is that I can’t write short, so most of my posts run 800 – 2000 words. I also obsessively self-edit and proofread. So, I cut back to once per week. I did miss a few weeks, but I’m not a robot and this isn’t a full-time job. Or any kind of job. I don’t know about you, but my jobs pay money. Overall, though, I will end the year with 70+ blog articles, which ain’t hay.

Grade: B, because I don’t like missing deadlines, but eh – that’s life.

Expand my reach. WordPress and Substack auto-mail blog posts, but I also decided to start a newsletter, because for most people it’s easier to give me an email address than it is to remember to visit a site, sign up for yet another social account, and subscribe to a publication. I wisely decided to keep it simple, with an opening first-person message, a brief recap of what I posted on the blog, an occasional short book review, and a parting song. I set a reasonable goal of sending a new email on the first Sunday of each month and so far have published every month.

In June, based on advice from Jane Friedman, I moved my website blog to Substack as a way to increase my visibility. I don’t have a large readership, but it’s larger than what I had in January, so I’ll take that as a win. Substack also made it easier to post to social media, which I find tedious, and my follows are inching up. Go me!

Grade: A; extra credit for joining Substack

Find my tribe. Throughout my life, I’ve had intermittent success making friends with other writers. I had exactly one writer friend in college. I had a wonderful collective in California, which I stupidly traded for a start-up theater group, the less said about the better. I spent a number of years in the wilderness before finding some writer friends in western Maryland, but life eventually took us to different locales. More recently, I have tested out various critique groups, but never found one I fully vibed with. COVID ended a bunch of them. I embrace the DIY aesthetic, so when I failed to find what I needed, I knew in my heart I’d have to create it myself.

First, earlier this year I invited a bunch of my writer and wannabe writer friends to join me online for a weekly silent writing session. Show up, shut up, write. While many expressed initial enthusiasm, only a few actually managed to complete step one. We intrepid few continue to meet every Wednesday to keep each other company while we work. I’m not always in the mood, but I show up anyway, because I know the others are waiting.

In May, I attended Jane Friedman’s one-day intensive The Business of Being a Writer workshop. I don’t have grand designs on becoming a bestselling novelist or making a significant income from my writing, but it’s also important to me to have writing peers with whom I can share ideas, information, feedback, and encouragement. As I wrote to Jane before the event: I’m so excited to meet 12 other writers with the oomph to take this workshop!

My expectations were far exceeded. Jane gave each of us detailed, personalized feedback on our websites, blogs, and social media profiles, as well as tons of advice on how to align our writing, public personas, and online tools to create a brand. I went into the day planning to ask the other writers if they’d like to keep in touch but I chickened out.

Fortunately, the next week Jane gave a follow-on talk on how generative AI is affecting the creative community. After the presentation, while everyone was happily munching sandwiches and cookies, I set a yellow pad and pen on the table and asked if anyone would like to keep in touch.

Pro tip: Plan your networking around snacks.

I was not sure how or if anyone would respond, but everyone at the table added their name and email address to the list. Thanks to my RBF it probably didn’t show, but that was my first What the Fuck moment. I was prepared for disappointment, but now I was going to have to actually do this thing I’d proposed. The second WTF moment occurred during our first online meeting when 8 out of the 9 writers joined the Zoom session. As I wrote at the time in my monthly newsletter, I could invite 9 people to my funeral and not have 8 show up. This was actually happening.

Six months later, we have shared advice on book cover design, manuscripts, queries, networking, and blogging, and developed new friendships and community around our creative work. My presentations at the Manor Mill Writers Workshop were a direct result of the networking group, as the event founder Katie Ritter is also one of us. I have been so accustomed to going it alone that I wasn’t quite sure where we’d go together, but I’m deeply grateful, if slightly terrified, every time we meet. I named the group email list Masterminds, but don’t tell them. I’d hate for it to go to their heads.

Grade: A (Gold stars for everyone!)

Set aside time for drawing and painting. I like to draw and paint. I’m not good at either of these things. This is actually part of the attraction. I’m not a good artist, I have no designs on becoming a good artist, and I have no ego attached to the results. Unlike writing, I can enjoy the process of creating a crappy drawing while not caring too much about the outcome. I will proudly show off my off-kilter still life but I would rather die than show someone a piece of writing in early draft form. Also, drawing exercises an entirely different portion of my brain, the part that takes in shape, texture, and color without necessarily needing to name them. It’s quite relaxing.

I didn’t do any drawing last year.

Grade: 0, but it doesn’t matter.

So, three As, two Bs, and one zero that doesn’t matter. Not bad. As ever, there is room for improvement, but overall, this was a pretty great year, especially for finding my people. Everything else is gravy.

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In addition to my (usually) weekly blog, I have a monthly newsletter where I recap my writing month, discuss books I’ve read, and sometimes share news of a more personal nature. It’s my version of DVD bonus features: a bit of behind-the-scenes flavoring for the blog’s main courses. I conclude every newsletter with a parting song, generally something that reflects my mood in the moment I’m writing. I often have a song in mind during the month but pick something different before I hit send. Now that we’ve reached December, here are the songs that captured my interest over the last year.

JANUARY
I don’t know what January is like in your part of the world, but in Appalachia, it sucks. Maryland is cold enough, but life in the mountains rolls at a whole different level. Last year, we had a stretch of 2+ weeks where the temps stayed in the teens and low 20s and dipped into the single digits overnight, including a few nights below zero. My pipes froze and eventually burst, so I didn’t have running water for almost a month. I had never known cold like before, but fortunately, there was a song available to explain how I felt.

Cold Like This – The Rumjacks featuring Ken Casey of the Dropkick Murphys

FEBRUARY
Winters harsh my head for reasons other than cold. The short days do me in. In a fair world, I could sleep 14 hours a day from Thanksgiving til Easter, but sadly that is not realistic for a man with a day job. Winter is a time for retrospection and perhaps a bit of melancholy, but with luck there’s also the opportunity to prepare for the renewal of spring.

Counting the Days – The Hanseroth Twins

MARCH
Deceptively upbeat, this lament on a type of unrequited love may or may not be related to how I’ve felt about our country’s political and social environment for the past 45 years or so. Frankly, the entire album was great.

I Love America and She Hates Me – The Wombats

APRIL
By the end of April, the days were longer, the nights were warmer, and I was feeling more optimistic. I like this song because it expresses what we might hope to find in life, while acknowledging that our days won’t always unfold in the way we’d wish. If you can hold both thoughts in your hand simultaneously, you won’t be disappointed.

These Are the Moments – Jay Putty

MAY
Another dose of introspective melancholy, with lyrical questions about purpose, meaning, and feeling hollow. Little did I know how the coming weeks would fill that emptiness with grace and companionship.

Damocles – Sleep Token

JUNE
At the time, I described the temperature as comparable to the atmosphere in Do the Right Thing, and if someone had looked at me funny I might have put a garbage can through a pizza parlor window. Hot weather needed a hot tune, and this song from a twentysomething Brit channeling Elvis and Roy Orbison is perfect for peak hour dancing in a sweltering honky tonk with bad lighting and worse ventilation. Put on your best jeans and tightest tank top and dance like your mamas warned you not to.

Who Knew Dancing Was A Sin – Elliot James Reay

JULY
At a writers’ retreat last summer, I was politely informed that “Damaged Protagonists” is not a genre, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. My heroes aren’t all good people. In fact, most of them are downright ornery and a few stubbornly adhere to their code of living long past the days it works for them. And yet, I still find myself rooting for them, even when I know how their stories end.

Good People Do Bad Things – The Ting Tings

AUGUST
August passed quickly and left me little time for writing. My day job, family get-togethers, a house that needed attention, friends who’d like to see me from time to time, and the needs of daily living all took their toll. When demands intersect, there’s only so much a body can do. No matter how hard I try, I can’t be everywhere all the time…

Everywhere All the Time – Devin Kennedy

SEPTEMBER
September was supposed to be better for my writing, and it was until my car got totaled in a hit and run. Ironically, my previous newsletter expressed gratitude that – while my life is not perfect – I am luckier than many. Unexpectedly losing a car from which I needed to coax another year or two of life left me with the yips. Some days you just want to quit.

The Yips – Petey USA

OCTOBER
October brought a pretty shiny new car but also a not-so-pretty car payment. This timely advice eased the sting a bit.

Girl, Have Money When You’re Old – Alison Brown and Steve Martin, featuring the Indigo Girls

NOVEMBER
A solid R&B bop straight from the 70s, reminiscent of Bobby Caldwell’s “What You Won’t Do for Love.” At 21, Sekou’s sound is older than he is. Is this merely a song I like or is there a thematic connection to fall shenanigans? You decide!

Catching Bodies – Sekou

DECEMBER
It’s early to pick a song to sum up my whole month, but it’s always a good time to go with a classic. After listening to dozens of renditions, I still haven’t found what I would consider a favorite version. What singer has the voice to do justice to the song’s majesty, the humility to avoid unnecessary vocal acrobatics, and the faith necessary to sell this reassuring message of peace and hope? The jury is out, but you can’t go too wrong with Nat King Cole.

Oh Holy Night – Nat King Cole

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A bit quiet on the blog front this month as I needed to prep two presentations for the Manor Mill Writers Retreat. I meant to blog a bit after the event, but I needed a bit of downtime. I also ended the day feeling energized to work on my creative writing, which I did, and I set aside some time to beta read and provide feedback on a novel from one of the writers in my network. So that was my November.

The retreat was fantastic – excellent planning and attention to detail, lovely hosts, a great lineup of interesting and informative speakers, and most importantly, high quality snacks.

I took exactly two photos.

Susan Reslewic Keatley spoke on The Art of the Interview: How to Use a Conversation to Connect, Learn, and Shape a Story.

Rafael Alvarez spoke about his experience writing for the television shows HOMICIDE and THE WIRE, and how his passion for Baltimore shapes his work.

In fairness, I did speak on two panels in the afternoon. I have a healthy ego, but taking selfies during a presentation would have been a bit much even for me.

I was not expecting great attendance at either panel, and was a bit taken aback at the turnout for the Substack for Writers presentation. The room (seen in part above) was nearly full and attendees were engaged, asking questions straight out of the gate. I hope to see some of them online building their communities. Attendance for the discussion on how writers are using AI was a bit smaller, but still healthy. We had a good conversation about how we use AI – intentionally or unknowingly – and the ethical and creative quandaries that should be considered when engaging in generative AI.

I dread public speaking, but left the retreat feeling energized, connected, and deeply appreciative of the opportunity to share information. It’s gratifying to feel I have something to contribute. I’m looking forward to both participating and volunteering next year.

I’ll conclude here with a funny story that can now be told.

I have mentioned previously that I do not enjoy sitting for photographs. Even in elementary school photos, I smiled through clenched lips, flinching as though the click of the camera shutter would be accompanied by a hard knucklepunch on my upper arm. I have also noticed this tendency in photos of my siblings and the younger generation of my family. We’re happily ignorant until about 2nd grade and then photographs capture the moment reality starts to sink in. I haven’t gotten any more comfortable as an adult. When someone pulls out a camera, I tense up. My posture stiffens. I get a pinched look on my face. I do have a few photos of myself that I don’t hate and in every one of them, I’d been drinking. If you want me to act naturally, you need to provide alcohol.

This is why I commissioned artist friends to create portraits for my website and Substack. I don’t have to look at my actual face, but the images look enough like me that you’d probably recognize me if you see me in person. When the retreat organizers asked for a photo for the event website, I pointed them to my favorite of the drawings.

They weren’t thrilled with the idea – presumably because the drawing wouldn’t match the other writers’ headshots (If you’ve ever seen photos of Serious Authors, you know the type of glamour shot I mean. I would rather die.) They asked instead if I could provide a photo. Now, I’m an agreeable sort, so I dutifully sent a professional photo, taken at work a few years ago. I’m not a fan of the photos that came from that shoot, but I had cleaned up real nice and wore a tie and everything. These weren’t simple employee badge photos but actual studio-quality professional headshots for our website, and they were recent enough that I looked basically how I look. I had even smiled. Mission accomplished.

And they used the illustration instead.

I tried to warn them.

Over the summer, I wrote about the new Superman movie and wondered whether we were shifting into a cultural phase wherein audiences would crave the concept of heroism – actual heart-on-the-sleeve, morally upright, sacrificing for the greater good heroism – rather than the cynical, manipulative, trust no one, ends-justify-the-means type of protagonist that has been much more prevalent these past years.

Interestingly, I’ve noticed an uptick in craft bloggers addressing anti-heroism. Topics tend to cycle – and occasionally bunch up together so tightly one might assume the writers are following each other and swiping ideas – so we were probably due for another round of articles on the antihero.

If only so many bloggers didn’t get it completely wrong.

Over and over, I see craft writers conflate anti-heroism with character flaws and likeability, which are irrelevant to the question. Yes, an antihero may, in fact, be quite unlikeable, but he may also be charming, and neither is germane to the role. Rather, other elements govern the antihero. Let’s explore.

What is likeable anyway?

The first problem with using likeability as your threshold for anti-heroism is that everyone has their own definition. The traits you admire may grate on someone else’s nerves, and vice versa. I love Gwenyth Paltrow and Hilary Clinton. I think Prince Harry and Meghan are the only two sane, relatable members of the Royal Family. I am probably very lonely in these assessments. The list of people I find insufferable is lengthy, but I won’t name names. Two in particular would get me run out of Substack on a rail.

Likeability also changes with the times. Katherine Hepburn was box office poison for years, and Bette Davis a demanding bitch. Now you will more commonly hear them described as self-assured, iconoclastic, and feminist icons. Was Jay Gatsby a romantic dreamer or a deluded social climber with a toxic obsession for Daisy? Was Don Draper stylishly cool or an emotionally repressed misogynist? Is Scarlett O’Hara a strong-willed survivor or a spoiled shrew complicit with slave culture? It depends on who you ask, but also when.

Flawed protagonists are not antiheroes

I have also read articles aligning the flawed protagonist into the antihero camp. If having flaws is the sign of an antihero, then no one is heroic. In more censorious times, a flawed character would be considered less than ideal, because heroes were not allowed to have weaknesses, other than the “cares too much, works too hard” variety of non-flaws. However, these days we are more enlightened and understand the value of well-rounded characters. Nobody likes a Pollyanna.

A character can be cowardly and still make sacrifices for others. Another might be crude but always willing to stand up for what’s right. A character can be pompous or self-centered, but have a strict code of honesty. We might not like these characters, but we cannot call them antiheroes.

Confusing this characterization can also lead to some amusing declarations, such as one by a recent blogger who described Holden Caulfield as both unlikeable and an antihero, because…he smokes cigarettes. And uses bad language.

No, seriously. That actually happened, in a magazine I assume pays good money for articles. In fact, that writer used “flawed protagonists” and “antihero” nearly synonymously, which should have warned me off, but it gave me a great example of “what not to do” so no harm done. Unless swearing does make a person unlikeable, in which case I’m in serious danger.

Likeability is not a sign of heroism or anti-heroism, and even if it were, your audience’s opinion of your protagonist is out of your control (see above re: Hilary Clinton). You can make an educated guess, but in the end, you have no idea what anyone considers positive.

A hero may be someone you’d want to know or not. A character may be well-liked but not a hero. Personality has little to do with behavior. Remember, people described Ted Bundy as charming and former co-worker Ann Rule found him “kind, solicitous, and empathetic.” Yet, his victims would not consider him the hero of the story.

Protagonists aren’t necessarily heroes

This is a good point to note the difference between protagonist and hero. While we can generally use these terms interchangeably, there are important distinctions. Your protagonist is simply the character who drives your story. Most often, we consider the protagonist a hero, but you may write from the POV of a villain, or your character might not be any kind of hero or villain at all.

As with Holden Caulfield or Leopold Bloom in James Joyce’s Ulysses, your protagonist – literally “the one who plays the first part” – may simply embark on a journey with no special moral conflict. Like Gregor Samsa, your central character may be a passive victim of misfortune, embodying no virtue or moral ideal. With such characters, there is no context against which to frame them as heroes or antiheroes, even if one is a filthy smoker.

Morality has entered the chat.

In order for there to be an antihero, we must first define the hero. As noted, a hero is more than simply the protagonist. The hero as archetype embodies an ideal, and so, rather than personality, the heart of any heroic character or journey is a deep moral belief, question, or dilemma. Naturally then, the role of the antihero also centers on morality, but in a different orbit.

As always, your mileage may vary, but my definition of an antihero is someone who:

• Does good things for a morally bad reason
• Does morally repellant things for a good reason

Good acts, bad reasons

In the first category, we might start with Han Solo, who begins Star Wars as simply a hired pilot but later agrees to continue the journey to the rebel base – something good – but only because there may be a reward attached. He becomes a hero only later, when he risks personal sacrifice to join the attack on the Deathstar. In later seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Spike fights vampires and demons not because he’s made a moral choice, but because a science experiment has rendered him unable to harm humans, and he likes fighting too much to quit. Later, his motivation evolves – he wants to help Buffy because he’s fallen in love with her – but his cause remains selfish. If the Slayer quit her mission, so would he.

In the real world, Jordan Belfort (the title character in The Wolf of Wall Street) began giving motivational speeches on corporate ethics after a stint in jail for financial fraud schemes. Similarly, Frank Abagnale (the central figure of Catch Me If You Can) became a security consultant, also after doing time for forgery and theft. Were their post-pokey efforts meant to compensate society for years of wrong-doing, or were they motivated by financial and reputational gain? I know what I’d guess.

Bad acts, good reasons

An easy example is Dexter Morgan, the killer of serial killers, meting out justice via morally repugnant deeds. Like Dexter, the protagonists of the Dirty Harry and Death Wish film series pursue a harsh form of justice, but use vigilante tactics and brutality.

In How to Get Away With Murder, Viola Davis’ Annalise Keating lies, covers up murder, frames innocent people, and twists the justice system, mostly in service of the moral goal of protecting her students and loved ones from harm (Let’s set aside the fact that the potential harm is due to their own actions and that the truth would have served them far better). Though Annalise is one of the few cast members who doesn’t kill anyone, she remains the most morally conflicted character, engaging in antiheroic behavior to serve her personal moral code.

Ambiguous choices

Sometimes, a clever writer can play the greyest of morality cards and leave the audience guessing as to motivation. In Game of Thrones, Jamie Lannister breaks his vow (a bad thing) and slays King Aeris II (also bad) but does so in order to prevent the Mad King from burning King’s Landing to the ground at the end of Robert’s Rebellion (positive motivation). Or…maybe he slayed the Mad King (a positive act long overdue) in order to save his own skin (enlightened self-interest) and further his family’s trek to the throne (cold ambition). Margaery Tyrell manipulates Joffrey’s emotions, taming his violent and capricious moods (a good thing) but does she act on behalf of the people, who need a kind, attentive king after Robert and Aerys II (positive motivation) or to seal their marriage and bring her family into the royal line (selfish motivation). Possibly both were in play, along with some please-don’t-shoot-me-with-the-crossbow self-preservation.

The show allows the audience to speculate, and perhaps even the characters themselves aren’t sure of what drives them from one moment to the next.

Likeability is irrelevant

Whether you strive to portray a character as likeable or not is a matter of personal preference, dependent on the story at hand and the mood you wish to evoke. However, personal charm is irrelevant to the creation of an antihero, who operates under his own code of moral conduct, outside the bounds of conventional behavior. Mix a few immoral acts, dedicated self-interest, and a hefty dose of one or several of the Seven Deadly Sins, and you’ll be well on your way to creating one of your own.

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I’ve been posting a bit less than usual the past few weeks. August was intentionally a skimp period, given my brief mid-month vacation, but I full anticipated getting back into a steady writing and posting rhythm in September.

That…didn’t happen.

There are several factors, but importantly, I was visited by the brilliant idea of painting my craft room over Labor Day weekend, which in my youthful days would have been an achievable task. In this era, priming and painting a 14×20 room, including trim, and patching, sanding, and painting the ceiling, and priming and painting the door because it look ratched in a newly-painted room, and rearranging furniture, and putting away art supplies and hanging artwork…was not a one-weekend project.

It was not a two- or three-weekend project. Four got me pretty close and I think five will do the trick.

I did learn an important lesson, however. My muscles don’t move as quickly or for as long as they did 20 years ago, and they need longer to recover. Working on the room during the week was totally out of the question. My next project will be painting and patching the ceiling in an upstairs bedroom and I’ve penciled in three times the work hours I originally planned, spread out over a significantly longer period.

These lessons are also applicable to writing, providing me a bridge back to my usually good writing and posting habits.

Writing lessons I learned painting my craft room

Pace yourself.

Three 8-hour days in a row is a lot of manual labor for someone not accustomed to that kind of work, and this applies to your creative brain, even if you are accustomed to regular writing sprints.

As tempted as I am to have a few marathon writing days to “catch up” on what I’ve neglected the past few weeks, that wouldn’t necessarily be a great idea. I’ve done that in the past, and creative hangovers are a real thing. If I go too deep into my writing for too long a period, it’s hard to pull back. Even when I try to shut down, my head feels overheated, like a car that’s been driven too far without stopping. It interferes with my sleep too, because my brain keeps working on the next scene or sentence or story problem.

Don’t wreck your most important muscle with overwork.

Break down your project into component pieces

I actually did break down the painting project into smaller projects; my mistake was trying to complete all the smaller parts over a few days. If I’d spread them out like any sensible person, I wouldn’t have spent the past few weeks hunched over like Bob Cratchet trying to absorb the heat from a single lump of coal in a potbelly stove.

This is a handy trick for creative work, too, especially if you feel stuck, overwhelmed, burned out, or simply too busy to write. Break your chapter or story down into scenes, your scenes into beats. If you can’t manage a full writing session, pick one component. Describe a setting or character, flesh out some dialogue, or work on scene transitions. Sentences become paragraphs and paragraphs become pages. No one needs to know how you got there.

Leave room for embellishment

I hadn’t planned on painting the trim or the door but they both looked like crap next to the freshly painted walls, so the project took a slight detour to completion.

Your writing might present similar challenges and opportunities. Even if you outline thoroughly, stay open to adding some color or flavor you didn’t anticipate. Let the work surprise you. If you have a better idea as you’re writing, follow your muse.

Stick to it.

Finish. Even if it takes you four times as long to get the job done, do it. The sense of satisfaction is fantastic, and you’ll have something to show for your effort.

Wait until the major work is done to make it pretty.

Always do your best work as you go, but don’t spend too time on set decoration until you’re finished with the foundational work. Hang artwork, shelve books, and put up knickknacks after you’ve done the heavy lifting.

I’m bad about this creatively – I tend to edit as I go and backtrack when I get a better idea. Sometimes it works to my benefit, but not always. I make an effort to avoid re-writing, ie: word choice, description, etc. But I can’t move forward if I know that an earlier chapter needs a structural fix.

Appreciate the flaws.

The ceiling could have used another sanding and I’m sure I missed a few dots of paint on the floor, but I’m satisfied with my efforts.

Your story will be the same. We should never be lazy about our flaws, but sometimes, they hide from us until the work is done. Don’t beat yourself up over it. You’ll get it next time.

PS – If 14×20 sounds luxuriously large for a craft room, that’s because it is. This used to be the dining room, but I live alone in a six room house, not including kitchen, pantry, and baths, so I get to purpose my rooms as I see fit. In 10 years, I neither ate dinner nor entertained in the dining room, so craft room it is. Until I change my mind.

PPS – You may have noticed an inordinate amount of ceiling patching. This house was built in 1885. When you are 140 years old, you will leak. You will leak everywhere.

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I’ve been beating myself up about the blog the last few weeks. I missed a deadline two weeks ago – my first this year – and have been dreading writing the next few posts.

By coincidence, I came across a post I wrote in 2023, which contained a timely message: It’s ok to take a break.

Take five. Take ten if you need it. Treat yourself well, whatever that means for you. Sit in meditation, take a hot shower, watch the sunset, or whatever feels good for you. Take a break from chores, goals, and expectations, and let yourself simply be. Maybe that’s a few minutes or a half hour in your day or maybe it’s a whole weekend. Perhaps you need to let one thing slide so that you can get put order to something else that’s also important.

Don’t forget to be kind to yourself. You won’t realize the full benefits of taking a break if you spend the spare time beating yourself up over it. If you feel a negative urge coming on, take a moment and turn it around. Reflect on what you’ve accomplished and remind yourself you’ve earned a break. Be good to yourself.

I wasn’t completely slothful this weekend. I finished two books: True Crime Story by Joseph Knox, a twisty murder mystery presented as true-crime interviews with the family members and friends of a missing college student; and Black Kiss, Howard Chaykin’s profane vampire porn meets heist film meets spree killer graphic novel.

I also started drafting out my writing and community goals for next year. They are ambitious, as usual, and I will certainly pare them back over the next few weeks as I reflect on what’s really important to me and what I can realistically accomplish. If I were retired, I could easily spend 40-45 hours a week writing, blogging, networking, and engaging in other creative fun, but alas, I must eat and for now that requires a day job. My creative writing comes first, blogging second, and then the chips must fall where they will.

And that’s ok. I don’t need to do everything, every day, all the time.

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