The only rumblings we had that the year 2020 would be burned forever into the history of this nation and this world were mentions of a new flu in China, reports that were then unheeded. It had been one hell of a year looking back from the safety of more than two months past and I am thankful for every day which takes us further. As of this writing, I can say that I am fully vaccinated against the scourge that rides the breaths of the careless and foolish, and so are my parents though daughters still remain at risk. As for how this, which no one wants to discuss so near to that horrid year, affected me and what is of import to this blog, well, my schedule never really changed. I am what is known as an "essential worker" and every day of this damn pandemic has seen me right where I was every day before... in a little box giving people gas. My time was not freed by lack of gainful employment lost due to shutdowns but instead, it was encroached upon horrendously through on-line schooling and the added stress of working with and around a bunch of idiots who couldn't be bothered to care for their fellow citizens enough to take even the most basic safety procedures. Ugh...
Still, I am in the blessed position of having not even the faintest pretense of a life. My world being centered around a few different focal points... my daughter, writing these Tales of mine, and standing in that box telling fart jokes to little old ladies... the planning of my social calendar is always quite easy. Hell, my Lovecraft=reading, wine-selling, poetry-shouting buddy? Half the time he's in Prescott tending for his parents and the other half he's in Jerome where lives or Sedona selling wine to people with discretionary spending capabilities. While I've communicated with him often over this year, I've actually seen my friend only once in 13 months. That, by the way, was the most exciting day of my social life this year.
I set a goal to write a minimum of 12 stories this year and that I accomplished. It was in August when I turned my attentions to the novel which I am working on, the first which I have attempted. I had had at that point 11 stories written and I honestly do not know what it was that turned me to this idea... actually, I do, but it just sounds more dramatic here if I say it like that. Okay, so knowing full well why I decided to turn my attentions to this massive project I am working on, one which even by the word count planned would be more than a normal year of writing, I did it still. It was a foolish move, like sticking your tongue to the hot end of a hair-dryer just because it looks inviting, but I did it. That meant, to get to that 12, I was going to have to follow through and hard.
Well, as we are here on March 8 with 16,000 words to go, I, uh, didn't follow through as hard as needed. Luckily, in September, I saw a submission call for flash fiction in five different categories and a weird inspiration took hold after I completed the first chapter of "A Sestina Writ in Darkness". In short order, I produced 5 flash fiction pieces, each between 936 words to 998, bringing my completed total to an acceptable 16 stories complete and, at the last moment of 2020, 40,000 words done on my first attempt at a novel.
In the collection that makes up the stories for 2020, I kind of went all over the place, No two stories follow each other as happened twice in 2019. No two stories even appear within the same decade as each other in concurrent writing until that quick series of flash piece. The breadth of range in these stories temporally also exceed any such that I suspect I shall ever be able to produce again and this is all because of one story and one damn hippy who ate mushrooms growing on the Bajazid. Let this be a lesson to all you hippies... always know where your 'shrooms come from.
The back half of this year has been dominated by "A Sestina Writ in Darkness", but the front half proves quite fulfilling. Notable of that which appeared this year would be "Sestina of the Sultans", something which I will attest to as being a literary first, and "The Portraitist", the story I was musing over before the water trickling behind me caused my thoughts to turn one night to that which became "Puddle of Mud". Both of these two Tales I believe are exemplary and stand amongst my best. As well, I took a whack at an historical local, a grave lying lonely in the Arizona desert, and gave it a history which was, with the exception of the outré elements, oddly true in its telling.
While 2020 sucked as a year in ways we all know, I was able to use what little time I had to produce a product for that year which I am proud of. We shall begin this year with a trip around the world and back, to find ourselves in the comfort of cottonwood branches.
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