Day 35 (a future history)

Friday, February 23, 2018

Nothing is getting better. And so much stuff is happening that I can’t keep up with it or figure out what’s going on. I’m going to spend the weekend trying to figure out how to get out of here. Maybe I can take the train, but the train station is all the way downtown, and that’s a long way to walk.

The other thing I didn’t say about Tuesday is that it wasn’t just my school that had all the vandalism. It was all the schools. I didn’t find that out until later though. We were the only school that the soldiers came to, all because of Caleb, and we were the only school with an incident. An “incident.”

The only school with an incident on Tuesday.

Because then Wednesday happened.

Wednesday morning, one of the Nazi bastards came to school early to see if he could catch anyone putting graffiti on lockers. Evidently, Caleb and all of them had been talking big about staking out the school and catching people in the act, but Trevor was the only one of them to actually show up to do it. And he did do it. He caught a group of the basketball players vandalizing Caleb’s locker and burning his stuff.

But he was alone, and they beat him up. Bad.

That’s all we know, and we don’t even know that, because Trevor said it was guys from the basketball team, but they all say they didn’t do it. It didn’t matter, because the soldiers came and took away almost the whole team. All of the black boys on the team. Until they can “sort it out.” None of them have been back to school.

Things like that happened at a lot of the schools. Like gang fights. Gang fights with Nazis.

Parents are protesting.

There was a riot Wednesday night that was supposed to just be a protest, but soldiers went to it and there was fighting and a bunch of people got shot and some of them were killed. Mostly black people.

It’s really scary because I wanted to go to the protest, but mom wouldn’t let me. We had a big fight, and I tried to march out the door anyway, but dad got involved and threatened to lock me in my room except for school if I went out the front door and, like a dummy, I said I would just go out the window, so, now, he’s going to buy bars for my window. That’s what he says, anyway, and I kind of believe him. All I know is that I don’t want to end up locked in my room all the time like some kind of Rapunzel but without all the long hair.

But, then, I was glad I didn’t go because mom was listening to the stuff about it on the radio, and I was listening but trying to pretend not to be listening, and all of the gunfire started happening and there was screaming and all kinds of chaos and mom turned the radio off because she was crying and didn’t want to hear any more of it and all dad could say was how they all deserved it.

And I don’t even know what he meant by that. Black people deserve it? People who protest deserve it? People who don’t like what’s going on deserve it?

I hate my dad.

And that makes me sad when I think about it, because I didn’t used to hate him, but it’s like Trump being president has made him into the worst person he can be. I never knew he was all racist and stuff before Trump started running for president. And I know he used to play football in high school, so now I wonder if he was one of those horrible kind of jock guys that bully people and use girls.

And it makes me wonder what my mom ever saw in him because she spends a lot of her time crying, now, and they hardly ever talk to each other anymore. So I don’t know what’s going on at home anymore either, but I don’t know if I care because I’m leaving. I’m going to. I can’t stand being here, and I’m going to go to California.

As soon as I figure out how to get there.

Day 15

Saturday, February 3, 2018

Soldiers came to the door today and took our TV. They gave us money for it, but it wasn’t enough not to make my dad mad. He loved that TV. It was a huge flat screen thing that my dad said made it so that he never had to go out to the movie theater again. And made him feel like he was right in his football games. He’s been spewing about the super bowl all day and how was he going to watch it now. Not that he could have watched it even with the TV since the TV isn’t good for more than watching static.

After the thing with the Statue of Liberty message on the TV channels – lots of them, evidently – Trump decided it was better for “people” not to have TVs. They are, according to the soldiers, too much of a risk for receiving Chinese propaganda. Or anti-Trump propaganda. Something. He doesn’t want us to see anything he doesn’t want us to see. So only certain places will have TVs, and people are urged to go to these gathering places for his daily messages.

Thankfully, I’ll be in school. Thank God for the little things, right?

Not that I think I believe in God, not anymore. Not the God they talk about at church, anyway. Any god that was any amount of good would not have let someone like Trump be president. The fact that so many people at church like Trump because he’s getting rid of “the gays” and “putting the niggers in their place” just proves that that god, if he exists, is not a good god.

But I was talking about the soldiers…

They had to restrain my dad while they were stealing the TV. He screamed and cursed at them the whole time. At one point, when they were taking the TV off the wall, he pulled one of his arms loose and tried to go for the guys taking the TV down. Two of the soldiers tackled him to the floor, and one of them punched him in the face and told him if he was smart he would stay down.

Mom cried.

As they walked out the door, they gave my dad $200. He threw the money back at them, yelling, “I don’t want your fucking money! I don’t want your fucking money!” When they just threw the TV in the back of their truck with all of the others, like a piece of junk, my dad ran out in the yard at them, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Do you know how much that cost me?”

One of them pulled a gun and my dad stopped so fast he fell down. I might have laughed if I hadn’t been so scared. I don’t like my dad very much, right now, but I don’t want someone to shoot him.

Two more soldiers came up with another TV and threw it in on top of all the others, then they pulled the truck down the street a few houses, and I saw soldiers all over the street coming with TVs and throwing them in the truck. My dad stood there watching them for a long time even after they were gone. He stood in the yard and stared at the corner where the truck had turned off on when they left.

He left the money on the porch when he came back inside. He doesn’t know I picked it up. I don’t think anyone saw me get it, and it hasn’t been mentioned again. It’s in my hiding box now. For California.

My dad spent the rest of today fuming about football and the super bowl. He’s already been complaining about football since we lost the internet. huh That’s probably why he’s been so desperate for an antenna for the TV. I guess that won’t be a problem anymore.

I don’t even know if football is still going on. Not that I care. I hate football and how stupid everyone acts about it, like it’s the most important thing in the world. I can’t even talk to Dad when football is on. I think the house could burn down and he wouldn’t even notice until he was on fire.

So maybe that will be a good thing, not to have football in the house, even if I do miss being able to watch TV. Not as much as I did right at first, though. I’ve found some other things to do, even reading. I got Fahrenheit 451 from school, and it’s pretty good. I wanted The Hunger Games, but all the copies are gone, so my teacher said I should Bradbury, instead, because that was more real. I don’t know what she meant, exactly, but I saw the movies of Hunger Games, and I guess I would say Fahrenheit is more real than that. I mean, they did come take our TV which is kind of like burning the books in 451.

That’s a scary thought.

Exploring Personality: Part Five -- "I'm the best there is at what I do." (an IWM post)

"Recognition is the greatest motivator."

The Achiever

Last post (in this series) we were talking about those people that get involved in everything because they want to help. Now, we move on to those people that get involved in everything because they want to be in charge. Not that being in charge is goal; they just want to be as successful as possible, which usually ends with them being in charge. This is that person you knew in high school who was student council president... and president of the honor society... probably captain of the sportsball team... and, maybe, even captain of the debate team. All of that and a 4.0 GPA to boot. None of these things is because the person is more talented than other people or smarter than other people but because the person is more driven to succeed. The classic example of the overachiever.

Meet Type Three: the Achiever.

Oh, wait. You wanted to know about The Achiever? Well, you'll have to do that thing where you hop over to Indie Writers Monthly to find out about them. Threes... you either love them or hate them. Go find out why.

Forget-Me-Not (an IWSG post)

Photo by  Sedum and used under the linked license.

When I was a kid, my best friend was from a rather large, blended family. He was the youngest of, like, seven or eight kids (I can't actually remember now). His oldest brother was about 20 years older than him, and he was my favorite of Cory's brothers. Billy, the older brother, would do things like play football with us in the backyard. It would be Cory and me against Billy. At some point during any game (multiple points, actually), we'd end up on each of Billy's legs trying to tackle him while he dragged us through the yard toward the goal line. He was a lot of fun.

Somewhere in there, Billy developed some mental instability. I don't remember or know everything about what happened -- I was only eight or so -- but I know there was an aneurysm involved and a subsequent stay in a mental ward. And an escape.

Yeah, one night, he escaped, and he came to my house. I'm really not sure why he came to my house other than that sometimes he and my dad would play guitar together or, maybe, we were just closer? Whatever the reason, we let him in, because, well, he didn't know he'd escaped; we just thought he was dropping by. Or something. Even if it was kind of late.

So we all sat around together, and he talked about what it was like to be in a mental institution and what it was like to be crazy. Because he could remember some of what it was like to be crazy. Sometimes, he only remembered the things he did but, other times, he remembered the emotions and urges driving him to do the things he did, and he talked about all of it. Some of which I'm sure was quite inappropriate for me to hear. The thing that stayed with me, though, is how he'd no control over himself during those episodes. Like he was outside watching his body do things that he couldn't keep it from doing.

Somewhere in that conversation, and he was there for hours, he started talking about how he'd escaped...

But the rest isn't really important. The important thing is that I developed a "fear" of mental breakdown, and that, I think, was the beginning of it. The actual is more inclusive of a failure of mental capacity, which includes forgetting things. I used to keep all kids of little notes to myself about things when I was in high school and college so that I wouldn't forget those things. I never, later, needed the notes, but that was probably because I made the notes in the first place.

And all of this is coming up now because, last month, I forgot my IWSG post. I mean, I completely forgot it. I forgot it so much that I didn't remember it until Alex said to me, "Is this [emphasis mine] your IWSG post?" about a post which was definitely not an IWSG post. Man, I HATE forgetting things.

Because of my fear of forgetting, I keep a lot of notes about stories and story ideas. I have a file for them and add to them as I think of things so that I can continue with whatever I'm working on. So far, it works pretty well. The file system I'm using now is important, though, in that before I was using it, back when I was writing "The Evil That Men Do," I made a lot of notes about the world that would be for Shadow Spinner and then... lost them. When I started on Spinner and couldn't find my notes, I panicked because I couldn't remember any of what I'd written down, so, well, I started over. Later, much later, when I was almost finished with Spinner, I found my original notes and, amazingly enough, what I'd done held to what I'd originally had down almost 100%. But, still, I don't trust that, especially when I do things like forget IWSG.

So I make notes.

However, I'm still not very good at making grocery lists. I can't even begin to tell you how many things I've forgotten just this week at the store. Maybe I need to make myself a note to make myself a list...

Anyway...
All of  that to say  that my greatest insecurity, both as a writer and as a person, is that I will become mentally deficient in some way, especially in a way that would mean I could just forget things. That I am smart has always been a defining characteristic for me and losing that as I age is a way worse thought than any physical deterioration. So it's about time someone develops that anti-aging serum. Or something.

This post has been brought to you in part by Alex Cavanaugh and the IWSG.

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Also, make sure you stop by Indie Writers Monthly today for information about the July issue and part six of my series "Lies Writers Tell... To Other Writers."

What Your Blog Says About You: Part Two -- Content

Closely related to the personality of your blog, is the content. One informs the other to a certain extent. I mean, if you want the personality of your blog to be humorous, you don't want your content to be about death or terminal illness or human trafficking or climate change or... I'm sure you get the idea. Although, now that I think about it, a humor blog about death could be, well, funny.
Don't eat the salmon mousse, right?

Your choice of content is the biggest factor in determining who's going to read your blog. In that respect, choosing a topic like "writing" is going to significantly decrease your potential audience. Sure, there may be lots of people out there that think they can write a book and many people with some scribblings, but most people don't want to spend a lot of time reading about how to write. And if your specific topic is grammar... well, good luck with that. No matter how funny you are [See, grammar is one of those topics that most people don't relate to humor, like history. Or quantum physics.], you are not likely to be attracting the masses.

So, then, it's important to look at whom you want your audience to be before you settle on what you want the content of your blog to be. When I started my blog, I knew I didn't want to just talk about writing, because I didn't want to just have other writers reading my blog. Again, as many people as there are out there writing, it's still a small audience, relatively speaking, especially since most people who are out there trying to be writers do it without bothering to really know anything about how to write. (The overall quality of self-published works wouldn't be so piss poor if that were not the case.) And, well, there are so many bloggers that will tell you in excruciating detail the way to be successful as a writer that I didn't want to get mired in all of that.

Which brings us to goals. You have to know the goal for your blog before you can figure out what the content should be. Who is it you want reading your blog? Do you just want other writers? Fine, focus your blog on writing related topics. Do you want your blog to be informational? Focus on the data and post links. Do you want to moms to read your blog? Talk about kids and how to make your house function more efficiently. [Yes, I know that that is somewhat sexist, but it's also mostly true. Hey, it is what it is.] Do you want Republicans? Or Democrats? Talk issues and bash the opposing party. As often as possible. Do you want the whole universe reading your blog? Post silly pictures of cats.
Oh, wait, look!

Jack-in-the-Box

No, I do not know what went down the drain.

And if you're trying to get readers? Well, one thing you shouldn't do is spend nearly every post you write badmouthing readers. Seriously, this one guy I follow (and, no, I don't know why I still follow him other than that it was a subscription thing and comes into my email and I haven't taken the time to make it stop (Make it stop!)) spends almost every post (and thank goodness he doesn't post frequently (which is another reason why I haven't gotten around to unsubscribing)) complaining about how readers are just bunch of cheapskates that can't even spend the price of a mocha to buy his books. Or, like in his latest post, he published an email from a reader (I'm assuming without permission, because I can not imagine anyone giving permission for this) and went on to "defend" himself against the allegations the writer of the email had put forth against him. I'm not thinking this is going to help win him any new readers.

So, yeah... What is your goal for your blog, and do you have content to match it?

For example, one of the things I believe (and from comments I've received from people, I'm pretty sure I'm correct) is that people that like Star Wars will like The House on the Corner, so I talk about Star Wars. A lot. Not posts and posts about Star Wars, but I make sure it comes up in conversation. So to speak. See what I just did there?

Once you've decided on your audience and your content, stick to it. People will come to your blog to deliver the type of content you've said you'll have. For instance, I tend to stay away from political stuff and religious stuff and sports stuff. Mostly, that type of content just causes controversy, and I carry enough controversy around with me to want to delve into topics already filled with the stuff. Which is not to say that you can't make the occasional exception, like I did back in this post, but, mostly, you need to keep your content pretty consistent. Do the kinds of posts you do and stay away from the kinds of posts you don't do.

Oh, let me just add that I don't stay away from any topic because I'm scared of controversy. Anyone that's been around here for any length of time ought to know that I have strong opinions, and I don't mind sharing them. However, I dislike getting involved in arguments that aren't (ever) going to go anywhere, and any time you start talking about politics or religion or, even, sports, people already have their minds made up and no amount of talking about it is going to change anyone's opinion, which I talked about back in this series. See, I'm a Cowboys fan--I have been since I was a kid--and no amount of arguing with me about it is going to get me to change my mind. Fortunately for you all, I don't really care about football, so saying that I'm a Cowboys fan really isn't saying much. But I'm still not changing my mind.

All of this talk about content has made me look up at my heading (you can look up at it, too). That's the stuff I decided I'd be talking about when I started up my blog. Yes, that hasn't changed since the blog started. That's still the stuff I talk about: writing, reading, movies, pop culture stuff. I've branched out just slightly from that in that I now talk about my pets and kids and whatever general kind of thing might come to mind, but the core of what I blog about is still that stuff at the top.

All of that to say, or to wrap up, or something: Your content is important. There are a lot of blogs that I have given up on because they never say anything. Wait, no, because the blog doesn't say what it says it's going to say. How many of you (those of you that do) would continue to follow Alex if he started talking about his guitar all the time. Every post. It was all about how great rehearsal was or how he'd learned some new song or whatever. He's established a particular type of content, and, if he morphed into only talking about guitar practice, people would quit stopping by. And what about Matthew? What if he quit doing his query letter thing and started talking about his love for ping pong? All the time. I'm guessing not many of you are that interested in a blog about ping pong.

Content may be more important than personality where blogging is concerned, and I almost used it as part one, but I'm gonna guess that most of you never thought specifically about the content of your blog and just let it develop from your personality, which is fine. As I said back at the beginning, the two things inform each other. I chose the topics I chose because I like those topics, so it makes it easy to have things to write about (as opposed to choosing grammar and trying to make gerunds funny (and I think there's a very in-poor-taste joke there about Richard Gere just waiting to happen, but I'm not going to try and figure out what it is)). So, if your content has flowed out of your personality, it may be worth giving it a think, figuring out what your goals are, who you want your target audience to be, and making some adjustments to your content. Or not. It's just one of those things you should at least think about.