Human Condition

To a beloved writing sister of mine, Sherry McGuinn, I bestow the sincerest and most heartfelt gratitude for every damned word of this piece. It was one paragraph Sherry wrote. One tiny little well-written paragraph that kicked up a dust storm in my brain and compelled me to speak again. Now, it’s not like this paragraph was the only thing that caught my attention span. The whole damned piece is covered in that unique gold-plated McGuinn style that I love so much. Read it, and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

But the one paragraph that kickstarted my creative noggin again was this little gem. …

EMOTIONAL HEALTH

From dreams of glory to a cautionary tale

First a warning. I’m going to tag a shit load of writers at the end of this, but it’s not for the reason you’re probably thinking. I’m really not that interested in a multitude of folks reading this missive, but I do want to send this message to a few of my friends — yes, I said friends — on this platform and I really hope they’ll read it.

Hope the damn notification system still works around here.

This is the first thing I’ve laid down on Medium in over a month. There’s a reason for that and maybe to some, it’s not a good one, but hell, anyone who knows me (and so few really do) can tell you I don’t always make the best choices. …

How many different ways are there to make a statement about the benefits of hard work?

• You reap what you sow
• You only get out of it what you put into it
• Hard work pays off whatever you do
• A dream doesn’t become a reality through luck or magic; it takes hard work, sweat, and determination

And then there’s my favorite about luck and finally catching that ever-elusive break:

• If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all

It occurred to me a few days ago (I’ve been AWOL on this platform for a bit) that from my perspective we’re all busting our asses here working for that lucky break. …

It’s been eleven days since I’ve posted a single thing on Medium. I probably wouldn’t even be writing this story right now if I wasn’t between freelance assignments with a newly acquired client. Over the last two business weeks, I’ve been lucky enough to secure writing work outside my creative niche which has actually paid me 50 times more in two weeks than I’ve ever made here in an entire month.

So why even spend my time writing this? Because I can, that’s why. I can and I will.

Am I concerned nobody’s going to read what I write? Shit folks, before choosing to step back I went from an average of 2 to 3 hundred reads a day, to 20. Yeah, you read that right, 20 reads a day. …

LIFE

A lot of times in life we all get dealt some really shitty hands. You know, like when you get passed over for that promotion you really wanted, writing for a living, losing a job, a loved one, writing for a living, working three jobs to put food on the table, your car breaking down in the middle of rush hour traffic, or even writing for a living.

Subliminal messages, ain’t they a hoot?

All joking aside (at the moment) the single most ubiquitous statement many of us know by heart is that ya gotta pay to play. …

EMOTION|OLD AGE|WELL-BEING

Never let it be said (or accepted as a fact) an aging creative can’t stoically stumble through the rest of his or her life. Just by virtue of living as long as some of us have we’ve gained a lot of the traits that define stoicism.

Many of us have gained wisdom from the insanity we perpetrated when we were younger. We’ve learned discretion from the many times we spoke out of turn or slipped up and told someone an embarrassing secret either about ourselves or someone else.

We’ve gained piety and wisdom from years of self-reflection. We’ve become firmly entrenched in a passionate belief of equity and fairness after witnessing the degrading manner our fellow Humans have been treated. We want everyone to be treated with equanimity regardless of their sexual preferences, the color of their skin, or the deities they worship. …

A WRITER’S LIFE

Some of you more historically inclined may remember reading about the dance marathons of the twenties and thirties. Endurance contests where couples danced for hundreds of hours, sometimes sleeping in each other’s arms as their partner dragged them around the dance floor.

All dancing in hopes they would be the last couple standing (or even moving) and earn prize money.

They Shoot Horses Don’t They, a movie directed by Sydney Pollack, hit the box offices in 1969. It was a critically acclaimed period piece that highlighted the crazy antics of these dance marathons. …

A WRITER’S LIFE

It’s bizarre. This month three years ago, I started on a journey only to realize today I’ve managed to climb my way to the bottom of the staircase where I originally started.

It’s not for lack of trying, I assure you. Granted, when I first signed up and put my money down, I was pretty clueless about how to make things work. But I learned, just like we all did, and pretty soon was in the groove.

In the first seven months, I had no routine, no specified chart to guide my efforts, and no real work ethic. So I’m counting those as the learning months. But after spending those same months reading other writers and parsing through all the clickbait bullshit con-artists, I found my way. …