This morning I was part of a conversation about goals for the second half of the year. After I adjusted to thinking about 2020 as ever possibly ending, I semi-jokingly answered that my goal for the second half was the same as for the first: keeping my shit together.
I don’t have a big project that I’m working on. It happens. And when it does, I always feel untethered and slightly dissociative. The worst of it is I equate not working now with never having done anything of consequence ever.
I know that’s dumb and irrational. Have we met? Then I’ve told you I have bipolar. This particular cognitive glitch is just the tip of my irrational iceberg.
To prove to myself that I have done projects of value this year, I’ve decided: blog post.
Six months into this craptastic year I have, in no specific order:
- Prepared The Shelter for its release with Cabal Books
- Released Dog Doors to Outer Space: A Compilation of Bizarro Writing Prompts through Filthy Loot
- Curated Bizarronauts, a page for flash fiction inspired by Dog Doors, on the Filthy Loot website
- Written around 20 poems and short stories
- Placed two short stories in anthologies
- Edited a couple of short stories and one novella for friends
- Finished Jeff Vandermeer’s Wonderbook, which I’ve been trying to do since May 2018
- Made it to 250 on the 366 Weird Movies list, though I did start in mid-December
- Received a tentative date for the publication of Freak Night at the Slee-Z Motel from Thicke & Vaney and started rereading to see what needs to be fixed
- All while navigating the unknown territory of a work-at-home spouse, a teenager who can’t get out to be with his friends, and amped up manic-depressive cycles.
Not too shabby I guess. As for the next half of 2020, given that the world doesn’t go any further to shit, I’ll keep writing and reading and watching movies, waiting for the doldrums to pass and the next tidal wave to sweep me off my feet.
Is there anyone in the boat? (Unknown employee of HS Parsons, 1850 Public Domain)
Amy M. Vaughn 