Hospital Stay

I spent some time in the hospital Tuesday and Wednesday. Had some persistent chest pains but, after many tests, it seems my heart is in good shape, so nothing to worry about there except the ridiculous medical bills that will be coming my way.

My Short List Of Ridiculous Goals For 2022

Happy New Year! Here are my brief but ridiculous goals for 2022:

1. Write 365,000 words. That, of course, is 1,000 words a day. Thank Christ (or, more appropriately, Pope Gregory XIII) it’s not a leap year. I’d never make that goal! So, this is over three times what I wrote in 2021, but I will have more time in 2022. I only have one class this year, as opposed to three last year, and I won’t be working a part-time job, which I did for nine months of 2021.

2. Finish Hive Five. That's my novel, by the way. It would be about damned time. If I’m writing all those words, this goal will work nicely with my first goal. However, at some point, there’s going to be more editing than writing, meaning working on the book will be in addition to the writing.

3. Read 104 books. The more I read, the better I’ll write. And since I’m focusing on novel writing, I should be reading books rather than short stories. Not that I’m forsaking shorts, but the novel is the priority. However, I’m pretty sure I’ve never read 104 books in a year in my life. If I have, it was when I was a wee lad, and the books were much thinner with many more pictures. I think I usually average between 40 and 50 books a year. Soooo... yeah. There are also some specific books I want to read, but I won’t bog you down in details here.

4. Have 50 patrons (at the same time). I have 22 as of this writing. Here’s a goal you can help me with. I absolutely suck at getting folks to join my Patreon at patreon.com/matthewsanbornsmith. Hint, hint. This year I’m going to try YouTube, doing very short videos of myself reading Mango stories, with the Patreon link for all to see, and a quick pitch at the end. I wanted to start this a month ago, but projects and people in the house tripped me up. I plan to get the first one out on Monday. The one that’s two days from now. I’ll post it for you and ask you to share.

5. Weigh 225 pounds (and don’t get heavier after I do). I’ve gained weight over the holidays and I’m currently at 237. (I’m 6' 2" if anyone cares.) Weight is harder to keep down since my full-time retail days when I was walking constantly (Once, on a double shift, I walked eleven miles in a day just inside the store. I got depressed and put aside my pedometer after that.) So, exercise a little more. Try to restrain my eating habits a little more (one of the biggest challenges of my life).

6. Write 52 blog posts on The One-Thousand. I’m already on my way with this post! I’ve severely neglected my blog, and I need to spend less time on social media, so this will be good for me, even if no one reads it. But you’ll read it, won’t you? Won’t you?!?

7. Get my A.A. in English. Of all my goals, this is the easiest. I only have one class to go and it starts in a few days (damn it!). The bad part is, until I’m done in the end of April, it’s going to take time away from my other time-needy goals. Man, I hate school! That’s why it’s taken me so long to get here.

That’s it. I have little faith in myself to accomplish even two of these goals, so that’s a great place to start. Here’s hoping I surprise the shit out of myself. As I said yesterday, you don’t win or lose in a year. You win or lose moment to moment, with each decision you make. Too often, I cave to my animal wants (eating, sleeping, legal naked stuff) instead of doing the necessary work. All I need to do to make some progress is to overcome the animal a little more of the time. So, good luck to me.

If you’re a yearly goal or resolution person, I wish you luck too. Some people don’t even bother setting themselves up like that because they know they’ll fail, but I can’t imagine not wanting to improve things. Even if I fail, my attempts at succeeding put me farther ahead than I otherwise would have been.

Let’s all have a great year!

This Year And The Next

I went into 2018 with the knowledge that I wanted a more chaotic life than I had, because I finally realized that I thrive in a less controlled situation. I declared 2018 “the year of biting off more than I can chew,” and made a ridiculous list of goals. It’s not a surprise to me that I didn’t nail them all, but I did achieve some cool things and felt more alive than I had in a long time. Here are some good things about 2018:

* While working two jobs, I went back to school and picked up 27 college credits toward my AA. I made the dean’s list over the summer.

* I finished three short stories that I’m quite proud of.

* I sold one story, “Stars so Sharp They Break the Skin,” to Apex which was published in May in Apex 108. You can read it here: https://www.apex-magazine.com/stars-so-sharp-they-break-the-skin/

* I read my story, "The Wardrobe," at ICFA, which went over well. I met, and received praise from, Geoff Ryman, and that made my year (as you can see).

* I was promoted to a full-time gig at the library, which is so much better than all the retail jobs I’ve had over the last thirty years, it doesn’t feel like I’m really working (except for all those hours I’m not doing other things).

* That comes with good health insurance, which my kids and I didn’t have for about three and a half years. I had my first check-up recently, got back on some meds I needed, and I’ll be getting more issues checked out soon. I’ve also lost eight pounds in the last couple of months and plan on losing more in the coming months. I’ve made exercise a regular part of life.

* My daughter got her BS in Forensic Science and got her first full-time job mere days ago.

In 2019 I’m focusing on writing. I’ll be shedding some of my less productive activities and I hope to finish twelve stories this year, as well as complete the first draft of a novel I’ve been fooling with for far too long. That’s on top of the usual stuff for my patrons, which includes short fiction and podcasts. I’m excited about whatever it is I’m about to create.

I look forward to bigger and better things in the coming year, some of which I can’t yet imagine. I hope all of you have a fantastic new year, too!

Some Good Health News

As you may have read in the post before this one, I had a little health scare over the weekend. A big scare to me, actually, as I thought I might be having a heart attack. But between the tests at the hospital and the stress test I did yesterday afternoon, the doctors determined that my heart and arteries are healthy (healthier than I would have guessed, given my eating habits). The only issue is blood pressure. I've already started eating better to lose weight and I'll make exercise a regular thing.

The medicine I was given on Sunday is an ACE inhibitor and, apparently, a small percentage of people get a persistent cough when using ACE inhibitors. I'm part of that percentage. The cough was bad enough that it ruined my sleep for a couple of days. Today I'm on new meds. Thought I'd get a better night of sleep tonight (The cough hangs on, but is a little less severe), but I ended up volunteering for a late night at work, because the carpets were being cleaned and I had stuff I could do. It ran a couple of hours later than I expected. Ah, well. If I'm lucky, I'll squeeze in six hours before the next shift.

With the medical stuff and the lack of sleep, not a lot of creative work got done this week. I hope to have things back to normal by Sunday at the latest.

Vitamin D!

Firstly, congratulations to this year's Hugo winners!

Secondly, I've been tired since I hit puberty and it took many years for me to start believing that I wasn't just a lazy bastard, but something was physically wrong with me. I never knew what, though. I asked a doctor about it a few years back and she ordered lots of blood tests. With the results, she thought it might have something to do with my low testosterone levels (sorry ladies). She prescribed a patch which made me even more tired than usual. I quit about a week and a half into it when I realized I was sleeping through my entire vacation.

As I've stated, being back on the diet means no caffeine, which in turn means I'm dragging ass, even yesterday afternoon after sleeping nearly ten hours. I was complaining about this to some folks at work when one of our assistant managers said she and her son had the same problem and their doctor said it was a vitamin D deficiency. A bit of vitamin D straightened them out. At this point, I'm willing to try anything, so at lunch time I shot across the street to the supplement place and got some D. The difference is pretty amazing. I'm awake and alert! Even today with only four hours of sleep (due to work and watching Hugos and helping daughter with essays that she had all summer to do) I felt sharp for most of the day.

This could be the answer to a lot of my problems. I hope it doesn't wear off! if it continues it is certainly life changing and, damn, I wish I'd known about it twenty-five years ago.

P.S. I do drink milk and get a bit of Florida sun, but apparently that doesn't cut it.

Let's Try This Again

Welcome, new follower, Snard! (and I've been calling him Mike all this time)

With the terrible news that science fiction author Colin Harvey died of a stroke yesterday and the scale telling me that I've regained twenty of the thirty-five pounds that I lost last year, I have decided to get healthier once more. I originally lost the weight to prevent my own stroke. My blood pressure, among other things, was way too high. After I lost the weight, I had the misfortune of having my doctor tell me that I was in good shape. That's when I began to slide.

Part of the slide was anticipated. I looked at my writing goals at the beginning of this year and realized I would lose ground if I was going to get things done. While I'm losing the weight, you see, I forgo caffeine, take in less calories and exercise and so I'm tired as hell. I have a different situation this year though. For one and two, I've discovered the power of freewriting and the kanban board. The other thing is last year I was taking care of my old and sick dog. She took a lot of time and woke me up multiple times each night. So, who knows, I may be able to get back into the slightly less lumpy shape I was in and also get some writing and podcasting done.

Sure hope so.