Howdy, howdy! It’s a blah day. Quite gloomy. And I have nothing to ramble or rant about. I’ve avoided the news for the most part, but I’ve already seen reports of anti-maskers threatening to call ICE at a Mexican restaurant that requires masks. It doesn’t matter that the mandate wasn’t even officially lifted until 10th. This is just how people behave. I, for one, think Biden chose the perfect word: Neanderthals. But I don’t want to be angry, so back to the subject at hand. What should I blog about? No idea. If there’s something you want me to ramble about next week, drop me a line. This week, I’m just going to make a quick list of the things I should be doing right now, then I’m going to do some of those things.

1. Writing. I haven’t written much besides blog posts and a couple of beginnings (nowhere near full stories) this year. I’m just lazy. I have no excuses. Everyone seems to be struggling with something or other right now, so it’s not really fair for me to blame the pandemic or the seasons changing or depression or anything. I’m just clinging to my laziness. I need to suck it up and write.

2. Recording myself reading a story out loud. My story “Poisoned Honey and Pickled Pigs’ Feet” is coming out in the May issue of Love Letters to Poe. On top of the magazine, they also have a podcast of the authors reading their work. I’ve been assured my phone should be fine for recording (it sounds better than my computer in the tests I did), but I hate my voice and dread having to listen to the recording for errors. I’ve been practicing and just have to bite the bullet and do the recording in the next day or two when I can find a quiet moment (it’s due the 18th). But yeah. Go subscribe to the newsletter and podcast so you can read/hear my story when it comes out!

3. Reading. I need to read at least one chapter a day in the book I’m going to review this month to be done on time, plus I got the ebook of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix from the library, so I have to read three chapters of that a day in order to finish before I have to return it. Yes, I can make Dad pull out my old hardcopy of HP5 if I don’t finish on time, but we’ve already established that I’m lazy. It doesn’t sound like a lot of reading, but it is when you read super slow. I miss the days when I was able to read a 1,000+ page book in a week. Getting old sucks.

I’m sure there are other things I should be doing, like writing letters and answering texts. I’ll do that stuff later. For now, I’m going to practice my story one more time, then read for a while. As always, feel free to share your thoughts or suggestions for blog post topics here or on my social media pages!