What a lousy winter, despite all the ways it was wonderful. Well, should have been. I’ve heard that global climate change is supposed to basically turn Columbus into Seattle, and it’s well on the way as far as I can tell. Three months of stupid cold and almost constant precipitation, so that it’s gloomy even when the sun is out, and it still absolutely refuses to truly end. It’s yet another “last cold, rainy day of the season.” If the forecast is any way to judge, by the time we see the end it will be the point in Spring that is actually temporally closer to Summer than Winter.

Someone on facebook “invited [me] to try Who has crush [sic] on you” just now.

Anyway, you can tell someone is stagnating when they incessantly complain about things they can’t change (e.g. the weather) with not one word about things they can, so I’d better fucking stop it.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that I didn’t do a whole hell of a lot this winter–sold a single short story to Niteblade, watched my publisher drop the ball on any kind of marketing efforts for my book, and worked a day job in a shitty suburb–but I’ve been dragging my hilarious ass out of the pit where it’s been nestled to do some creating. Which is funny, because that’s more or less what I was doing all winter anyway with the Ooh-La-Las, so I guess now I’m stepping it up double-time. Life can’t be all rainbows and robot shit.

Well, it can be mostly rainbows and robot shit sometimes if you’re lucky.

I’m writing things to bring people closer together. I’m writing things that make me heavily frustrated with literally all conventional knowledge about how to be a writer. I’m writing things that cannot possibly serve any practical purpose. I’m writing things intended for purposes that can best be described as “shitting where I eat.” I want to show them to you soon.

I cannot construct a science fictional dystopia bleak and angsty enough to reflect the heartbreak I feel watching everyone around me disappear for silly reasons. Into a job. Into older relatives who demand care. Into nowhere for the sake of nowhere, just to get away from people. Shit was finally starting to get good, god damn it. I can only push back the cold so much by myself. People flake out on me, and suddenly winter is 5 months long.

But the good thing about that is that I won’t be writing any bleak and angsty science fictional dystopias anytime soon. In reality, I mostly write about talking animals.

I don’t know, man. Go find someone who is still in your life and tell them you love them. Even if you don’t actually love them. Because maybe you should.