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Hello blog. I have missed you. After I went through all of that trouble to get you just right looking, I ran away. I didn’t just run away, I changed my name and dyed my hair and we to work in the acquisitions department at WalMart

No not really. I hate WalMart. But I did take an unconscious step back for a while. I just didn’t have much to say, and I really didn’t have a lot of time to say it. I had plans for a Beginning of the Year Post, but I realized that nothing really had changed from last year.

To-Do List:

1 – Write the books that make the money.

It’s a bit like making a to-do list and at the top it says “Make List” just so you can put a line through it. It seems silly and perfunctory and pointless, yet there is value in making a list just to have something to cross off. It’s still accomplishing something. Many, many years ago when my conversations were held via phone instead of text, I asked a male friend with complete exasperation why men put empty ice trays in the freezer. I dunno, maybe I was hoping for some deep insight into the male condition, except my friend was drunk and he said, “because the very act of putting the ice trays away is accomplishing something. That they’re empty, is a moot point.“

We don’t talk anymore.

However, I understand what he may have thought he was trying to say. In the Great Intangible, ice trays are where they belong, not sitting in a sink collecting dust, not in the dishwasher crammed between the pot roast pan and the cat dishes.  

I give up, I don’t know what he was trying to say.

This blog is like my To Do list and when I skipped my BOTY post, it was like forgetting to write “Make List”, and sadly, I’ve lain fallow ever since.  There are things I  need to write, and stories to tell and the rest of my life to start leading, and I can’t seem to do that without the silly, perfunctory, pointless beginning:

To Do List for 2011

1 – Make List

2 – Write the books that make the money

You can’t see me grinning, but I’m excited already.

Other brain flotsam:

GLAHW is signed up and ready to hit the local Convention Circuit, starting in April with Motor City Nightmares. I’ll be there all three days with fellow writing cohorts, so stop by the table and see how we like to liven up the vendor room.

In May, Motor City Comic Con brings its fancy self to the Suburban Showcase (Formerly the Rock Financial) in Novi. Again, GLAHW will be there and I can tell you Saturday and Sunday we’re planning something big (ego) and huge (guns). Oh, some other people will be there desperately vying for your attention, so nod politely to them before never leaving out table.

Last year, Venom Energy drinks had a booth, and I probably drank 4 of those a day for three days. My brain nearly clawed itself out through my eyes, my caffeine hangover was so intense on Monday. I hope they’ll be back again this year.

Pleased and happy to be interviewed by a fellow writer on defending one’s words.

Considering what I write, I long ago decided to not make excuses for my material. Explaining why I write what I write and the influences I draw upon only makes people give me the side-eye or makes them ask questions like – “why would you write something like that”, or “what’s wrong with you,” or “will you accept this partially chewed limb as a sign of my devotion”.  When a conversation “spontaneously” erupted on one of my social networks, I waded in with  my opinions, and thus I became part of an article.

Finally, Litopia has been one of my favorite writing communities on the Internet. I don’t always post there, but I always find something worth reading. This article surfaced this morning about why writers should bother blogging. I can tell you, I blog to maintain a place where I know I’m speaking my ideas and thoughts, instead of a squatter or fan page getting messages filtered through magazines and third-hand sources. I also blog because I do enjoy doing it – even when I’m not actively blogging.  I don’t blog to “build a platform” or a “brand” my name or my writing.  I’ve had a blog in one form or another since 1998, back when it was the Apartment, before moving to the Diner, the Backroom (still on LiveJournal), and now simply little black duck. 

Writing is what I do, whether it’s dead things or crowing about my back garden. I need to do more of it. As naïve as it sounds, my “brand” and “platform” will build itself with my small assistance through my stories. You won’t find the hard sell, here, because I would never invite you into my home to only sell you stuff.

Though I am having a Tupperware party in April or May, and someone in my home will be trying to sell you stuff (so that never didn’t last very long) but at least you’ve been warned.

I hope you visit me because you like what I have to say and I hope you’ll come back often whether or not I sell eleventy-billion books. I feel like I need to be chatty this year, and I like the idea of having an audience, even if I know you’re really only pretend, so pull up a chair and help yourself to the drink cart. I know everything on there says “Tea”, and maybe one of those containers actually contains Tea, but I prefer the harder stuff.

Like Venom.

(edited to add links)