What a Long Strange Year It’s Been…

I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that this has been an unusual year. That’s probably an understatement, but I’m sure you all understand. It would be easy, and generic to just dog pile on 2020, but I think that would be oversimplifying it. Because yes there has been a certain global pandemic, as well as an election from hell, but this year has been far more complex than that. Yes there were hardships, but my wife and I have come out of this year with both of us in much better places mentally and literally than last year, and in much better physical shape. It hasn’t been easy, but the good stuff rarely is…

This year started with my wife, my dog Jack, and me packing up a moving truck, scraping the ice off the windshield and trading in the frigid Wichita winter for the decidedly milder, semi-tropical climate of Brownsville, Texas. It was our second cross country move and we were, of course, exceedingly nervous. Especially since our last foray into cross country moving had been mostly a nerve wracking disaster. But, the stars aligned for us and the second time was the charm. Our drive south was extremely pleasant, with the exception of crazy traffic in Waco and San Antonio, the weather improved as we went and when we pulled into Brownsville on a humid Sunday night, it was 68 degrees at 9:30pm. Coming from a place where the high the day you left was 23 degrees, we couldn’t complain. 

Of course, about a month and half into our stay here, we entered a state wide lockdown. I think I’ve covered all that before but, like most of the country we had to deal with working from home, close quarters and a lot of boredom. Thank goodness for the train wreck that was Tiger King. You do remember Tiger King don’t you? I know, it seems like it was five years ago… Anyway, we adapted and made it work. I was fascinated to watch a global pandemic play out before my eyes, and horrified to watch our nation’s response to it. It’s like our Government said “Who’s the best people to put in charge of this?” and then picked the Three Stooges. If you don’t know who they are Google it. Also watch a video or two, they are seriously funny. Ten months later, things don’t seem much better on the Pandemic front. The general public appears to have grown comfortable with the Pandemic, which is dangerous for many reasons I won’t get into here. I do have reasons for hope, but we’re not out of the woods yet. To those struggling with their mental health in all of this, hang on and try to find the bright side as much as possible. We’re all struggling but hopefully we’ll all make it out together. 

Earlier this year I reached a milestone. I finished writing my first novel. Despite calling myself a writer, I cannot adequately described the feelings of joy, accomplishment, and sheer terror I felt on that day. It was literally unbelievable. It’s like the feeling of finishing an album, but times one hundred. Despite having finished it, I still needed to edit it. Since then I’ve edited it three more times. I have one last round of edits that I’m finishing up and then I’m going to send it to the beta readers. If you want to be one of those lucky readers, drop me a line. At some point after that I’ll finalize plans to put the book out and hopefully some people will read it. I will admit, while the high of finishing it is more exhilarating than finishing an album, the fact that it’s almost time for people to read it is one hundred times more terrifying. To put this piece of work that I have slaved over and agonized over for so long out in public makes me feel very exposed. It’s going to be fun when it finally sees the light of day. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. It won’t be my last. 

Later on the year I had my first short story published on Mandatory Midnight. The story, titled “Sketch”, was written a few years ago and had been languishing on my computer. It got rave reviews from the people who have read it. That, in addition to the finishing of my novel prompted me to start a website / blog for my writing. Since then, there’s been a lot of trial and error, and I’ve been learning as I go. After getting a lot of attention for Sketch, I endeavored to investigate the writing social network, Wattpad. I even released another short story, “A Good Night’s Sleep” on it in October. So far, this one hasn’t gotten much traction. I’ve also noticed I haven’t received much in the way of cross over from my readers on social media or the blog crossing over to read my story. So, to put it mildly, I’m still on the fence about Wattpad. I’m not ruling out more stories appearing there, but I’m not exactly on fire about it. Let me know if you guys have any opinions on it. 

So when I was in Wichita I had a musical duo from 2018 – early 2019 called The McGinnis Project. We played a ton of shows and wrote a lot of good music together. When we split up in early 2019, my greatest regret was we never got to record “Rusty Blue Van”, a song that was a center piece of our live shows. I wrote the song about my old punk rock band, My So-Called Band, and the fun we had touring back in the day. Sometime late this past Summer I found an old practice recording that sounded pretty good. I started tinkering with it, just for my own amusement at first. The result of that was the release of my first recording in over two years. I released “Rusty Blue Van” on Bandcamp, and then later on all the streaming networks. It hasn’t set the world on fire admittedly, but I was just happy to give birth to the song and finally be able to share it with the world. It was good closure to my musical times in Wichita. Recording it and finally putting it out felt like such a release of so many feelings that I had pent up from that time. Prior to working on the song, I had a case of writer’s block in regards to music. Now that I’ve put that song out, I’m happy to say that new music is once again flowing. I should have some new music out in the next month or two and it feels great. 

In the month of October, my wife and I watched as many Horror movies as we could. It’s a regular tradition with us. This year, since I have a writing blog, I decided to do mini reviews of the movies we watched. You guys seemed to like the mini reviews so after Halloween, I decided to do Holiday movie reviews starting around Thanksgiving and running through Christmas. It seemed like a logical, fun holiday thing to do. I didn’t feel like I could keep up with my other writing ambitions since it’s the Holidays on top of it being the end of the year for my small business, SND Designs. Unfortunately the numbers are in and that was not a big hit. What can I say, I thought it would be some fun holiday magic. Instead, you guys didn’t really feel it. That’s okay, you live and you learn. Besides, the holidays are almost past, so normal content (what really is normal anyway?) comes back starting next week and I have some new music, some remastered music, and the start of at least one serial coming soon.

So it’s been a really, really strange year. It’s been a year of growth and a year of a massive amount of change. But at the end of it all I feel hope. I see the good in people. Sometimes it’s seems out numbered by the darkness, but it’s there. Maybe I’m a naive jackass… But that’s how I feel. I feel like things are going to get better, maybe some of our darker natures will get put away in a hole, never to see the light of day. Maybe we will remember that there is more that unites us than divides us. Hopefully we will all come out of this chaos a little wiser and with the knowledge that working together there is nothing we can’t accomplish. I appreciate all of you guys reading my blogs and stories. You make it worth it. As they say, stick around, the best is yet to come. Have a Happy and Safe New Year!