QE Results for June: Backslidin'

My best selfie ever? Snapped on accident after checking a weather app

In January I wrote a blog post entitled Queer Eye, My Daughter, and I where I related some of the experience and pleasure I had binge-watching the two season of the show with my daughter over the holiday break, and in doing so basically laid out a self-improvement (or self assessment, at least) plan for the year.  The plan involves taking an honest inventory of where am in life with regards to five categories, as I see them, as exemplified by the men on the Netflix show Queer Eye.  And so, an honest assessment on my performance for May in the five QE categories:

KARAMO: "Culture, Confidence, Put yourself out there". I'm knocking myself down a whole point to a 3.5 because I've detected a certain amount of fraudulence/self deception in my game plan. I'm not going to go into it in depth here, but suffice to say I'm working hard to make some changes here in July.

Thank you, Columbia

I didn't crack the two hundred page count for the first time this year (although that is not why I'm shaving a point), finishing with 173.5 pages. Respectable. Not enough of it was fiction, though.

I Still See You, the film based on my novel Break My Heart 1,000 Times that I never shut up about, is now available on Hulu and Amazon Prime. Watch it!

I had a business trip to Chicago and extended it so that Kim could join me to explore the city and attend a wedding. We went on a ghost tour which culminated in a trip to the Congress Hotel. Spooky.

Various ghosts and Slendermen visible in windows

In June I also began to fill my mostly neglected Twitter feed with articles on the for-profit concentration camps we are running in America. Articles like This and This and This  and This. I realize the overall issue is a complex one, but one piece of it seems very simple to me: we are systemically abusing children, and we need to stop.

TAN: "Make an effort with your personal appearance". I'll stay at a three. Kim has been helping and bought me some summer clothes that actually fit.

Add caption

BOBBY: "Create and maintain a physical environment that promotes productivity, creativity and inner harmony". I'll stay at 3.5, as I kept busy doing yard work and wrestling with vast jungles of bittersweet the horrific week that Kim was away. The top photo is at the start of one such campaign.

Toddlin' Town

ANTONI: "Make nutrition healthy and enjoyable, cook for others". A half point raise to a three. I made myself some great meals when Kim was away; I didn't really have the chance to cook for anyone else which is too bad because I was on my game. Maybe because the only person who could have died eating my cooking was me, so the pressure was off?

JONATHAN: "Take care of yourself physically" Staying at a 4.  I ran 109 miles, making June my fifth consecutive +100 month. I'm about fifty miles away from my yearly Personal Best (or PB) of 800.8 miles, achieved the first year I started keeping statistics, way back in 2011. If you squint you can actually see some abdominal definition...50 likes/reposts/comments and I'll post a photo of my Herculean, hyper-jacked #DadBod (any other number, and I won't).

So June is my first month of the year where I'm downgrading my QE score.

Speaking of hyper-jacked, you can find all of my thrilling novels HERE, Check out the beautiful covers below.

QE Results for May and the Three Energies of Creative Production Theory

Feet firmly planted on Beale St.

In January I wrote a blog post entitled Queer Eye, My Daughter, and I where I related some of the experience and pleasure I had binge-watching the two season of the show with my daughter over the holiday break, and in doing so basically laid out a self-improvement (or self assessment, at least) plan for the year.  The plan involves taking an honest inventory of where am in life with regards to five categories, as I see them, as exemplified by the men on the Netflix show Queer Eye.  And so, an honest assessment on my performance for May in the five QE categories:

KARAMO: "Culture, Confidence, Put yourself out there". 4.5 stars. I wrote 200 pages, with more of a day to day, week to week balance than I had with April's photo finish. I did not write enough fiction, I am afraid, and blaming it on my two lengthy business trips would be a little disingenuous, although I have this "Three Energies" theory when it comes to creative production. In short, I believe there are three different types of energy you need to have to be able to successfully perform your chosen art:

Activation Energy: This is the energy required to generate a new idea and actually get started on bringing it to life--writing the first page, getting the first notes recorded, making some marks on the canvass. I have this in spades; I've got dozens of story ideas supported by outlines, notes, and the first twenty or so manuscript pages. They are stacked up in my mind and my hard drive like airplanes awaiting clearance for takeoff

Sustaining Energy: This is the energy required to just put your head down and keep working toward the finish line even when every page is more like slogging through a dismal swamp than it is like skipping through a lush garden as it often is during the activation energy phase. This is the form of creative energy, for myself, anyway, that is most likely to be drained away like your cellphone's charge when you are out of network and surfing the web by the vagaries of life. The bad day at work, the routine broken, the unpleasant news, the glance at a finished project so much better than your WIP--all can suck that spirit right out of you. My sustaining energy does take a hit when the non-writing work and travel amp up, but I've been at the game long enough to figure out ways to compensate for this.

Finishing Energy: This is the energy--some would say the moral fortitude--to actually finish off a project and pronounce it done (which isn't at all the same thing as being fully satisfied with the project; frankly that never happens). Getting through those last twenty pages, writing your last line, completing the draft, etc. I've got this one in spades, too--and I'm thankful for that, because I actually think this is the energy many creative people struggle with the most.

One of my trips brought me to Memphis, and I was overjoyed to have a night to myself which almost never happens for work trips. I made the most of it with a sunny stroll down Beale Street and visited a couple of my favorite haunts there.

Despite my dearth of sustaining energy writing-wise, I did get out quite a bit this month--I joined my friend and HWA Mentor award-winning JG Faherty in a beautiful part of New York on a torrentially rainy night for the Rockland Teen Library Association's book launch party for Scrawl, a student anthology that Greg and I helped edit. I got to give a speech and I gave every one of the students that had a story in Scrawl a free copy of Generation Dead. It was a fun night.

Two smooth guys. JG Faherty and I

Kim and I went to an opera at the Garde Arts Centre--Verdi's Don Carlo, our first. I loved the music; we were seated in the first row so I could see every draw of the bow on the strings. 

I also started going out to the movies weekly with my father...more on that in the upcoming What I Watched: May blog. I've eaten more popcorn in the past month than I have in the previous year, easily. And I like popcorn.

This came out. Translation: The Curse. There's no curses in the movie or the book...talk about a red herring! 

TAN: "Make an effort with your personal appearance". A raise to 3. I've been going out more and have gotten better at dressing accordingly; the concert t-shirts are now relegated mostly for lounge-around-the-house wear. I'm putting all of my new slimmer fitting clothes to actual use.

Me making an effort with my personal appearance at Tater Red's. I'm well aware I'm cenobite-esque, thank you very much

BOBBY: "Create and maintain a physical environment that promotes productivity, creativity and inner harmony". I'm keeping it at 3.5, mostly because of more work on the yard and a quick tidying of my home office. I also got the pool opened up--and the pool is huge in promoting "productivity, creativity, and inner harmony" but I'm having a little trouble getting the chemistry of it just right, which has never happened before.

ANTONI: "Make nutrition healthy and enjoyable, cook for others". 2.5 still. Kim and I hosted the family for a Memorial Day cookout and I made potato salad and manned the grill--rather pedestrian, just burgers and dogs but I will say they were cooked perfectly and according to taste. Stuck to my diet but wasn't irrationally rigid about it either.

JONATHAN: "Take care of yourself physically" Staying at a 4.  I ran 118.6 miles, making May my fifth consecutive +100 month, a feat I'm certain I've never done before in my life. In five months, I've eclipsed my totals for the entire years of 2018, 2016, 2015, 2013, and 2012. I started keeping track of such things in 2011, the year I set my personal best, and now only that and 2017 (I beat 2014 on the first day of June!) stand in my way for a new yearly record. 

Some lifting, but not as consistent as I'd like to be. But the results are starting to show...

 17.5 my high but with only one bump in one category. Progress is progress, though.

Reading/watching/listening posts will soon follow.

I combine reading and listening, and writing, in my novel Aural History, which you can find HERE, along with my other ghost/zombie/human/punk/metal/sporto novels below...

QE Results for April 2019

In January I wrote a blog post entitled Queer Eye, My Daughter, and I where I related some of the experience and pleasure I had binge-watching the two season of the show with my daughter over the holiday break, and in doing so basically laid out a self-improvement (or self assessment, at least) plan for the year.  The plan involves taking an honest inventory of where am in life with regards to five categories, as I see them, as exemplified by the men on the Netflix show Queer Eye.  And so, an honest assessment on my performance for April in the five QE categories:

KARAMO: "Culture, Confidence, Put yourself out there". 4.5 stars. I wrote 202 pages, and once again I had to grind it out in the stretch, managing to write 56 pages the last three days of the month--a Pyrrhic victory, really, because those pages are largely crap and few of them are usable fiction. But three cheers for determination.

I made considerable progress on one of the three projects I mentioned last month.

Kim and I had a short vacation in Florida, where I snapped the photo above. We went to the Florida Aquarium in Tampa, and dumb luck would have us there on the only day it poured. We met some old friends for dinner and generally had a nice time.

Also, Hachette sent me some copies of the French edition of Brak My Heart 1,000 Times aka I Still See You

Merci Beaucoup!

TAN: "Make an effort with your personal appearance". A raise to 2.5. I bought more clothes on vacation and am generally making an effort more to look presentable when Kim and I go out. I kind of have to though, because I have lost so much weight most of my normal clothes make me look like I am caught in the deflating shreds of a popped hot air balloon. My very sizable love handles have been reduced to love pull tabs, making most of my pants, even beloved blue jeans, into clown pants.

BOBBY: "Create and maintain a physical environment that promotes productivity, creativity and inner harmony". I'm giving myself a raise to 3.5  I did a fair amount of yard work in April--I have a fairly sizable yard. My grandfather Zepherin, and his family before him, was a farmer in the town I know live in--a few years ago I went with my uncle, father, brother and son to see the land where his farm once stood but no longer does. It's less than two miles from my house. In later life he went as far metaphorically from farming as he could by becoming a manager at the plastics plant (which also is no more). He was the most gentle, kind man I ever knew, and I think of him every time I "work the soil"--trimming, clearing, seeding, raking, planting, fertilizing, watering. Watching the birds.

I love yardwork. I phrase I'd never thought I would write or say. When I was a young homeowner I absolutely hated it because I foolishly thought that every minute I spent in the yard was a moment away from writing. Years of experience have taught me that every moment spent in the yard helps encourage growth in the mind as well as in the environment.

We revere corn here. My favorite headline ever...feel the horror!

ANTONI: "Make nutrition healthy and enjoyable, cook for others". I'll take back the half point I lost last month for a 2.5. I'll keep it here. Did a lot of the meal prep but the meals I prepped were fairly pedestrian. Also, I had considerably more adult beverages than in the first three months of the year, most of them on vacation. I started keeping track of how much I drank this year, and in keeping track, it has made me turn the corner from drinking "just because" totruly enjoying adult beverages--I didn't really realize it, but I was drinking quite a bit last year, and probably the couple years before that. Counting the drinks has been instrumental in keeping indulgence under control, and no doubt has facilitated the incredible boost in exercise ability and weight loss. I've never felt better, and now consciously check myself to ask if having a drink or a bag of chips or whatever will add or subtract to that general feeling.

 I'm still adhering to a slightly relaxed form of Austerity (see Secrets of Weight Loss, Revealed), which at this point might mean it is now a lifestyle habit as opposed to a time-bound change.

JONATHAN: "Take care of yourself physically" I'm going to 4.  I ran 143 miles, making April my fourth consecutive +100 month, a feat I'm certain I've never done before in my life. In four months, I've eclipsed my totals for the entire years 2018, 2012, and 2013. I started keeping track of such things in 2011, the year I set my personal best, and I'm on pace to decimate that. I'd say fifty is the new thirty, but I was a fat oaf at 30. 

I've been lifting more, too. I won't make the cut for anyone's powerlifting club, but I'm trying to be consistent and conscious of what I'm doing and I think the upper body stuff is contributing greatly to the overall.

Wow! 17, with gains in three categories in the shortened month. Can self-actualization be very far away???.

Reading/watching/listening posts will soon follow--crazily, especially as April contains Record Store Day, I had far more watching than listening for the month. Factors I'll mention later make me think this will be a continuing trend.

I combine reading and listening, and writing, in my novel Aural History, which you can find HERE, along with my other ghost/zombie/human/punk/metal/sporto novels below...

Thanks fer yer bizness!

QE Results for March

No more hallucinogens 4 me

In January I wrote a blog post entitled Queer Eye, My Daughter, and I where I related some of the experience and pleasure I had binge-watching the two season of the show with my daughter over the holiday break, and in doing so basically laid out a self-improvement (or self assessment, at least) plan for the year.  The plan involves taking an honest inventory of where am in life with regards to five categories, as I see them, as exemplified by the men on the Netflix show Queer Eye.  And so, an honest assessment on my performance for March in the five QE categories:

KARAMO: "Culture, Confidence, Put yourself out there". I remain at 4.5 stars. I wrote 200 pages, displaying a little obsessive-compulsive grit by nailing the last eight of that number on March 31st late at night. For whatever reason, I've decided 200 page writing and a hundred miles running a month are the goals. As far as fiction goes, I worked on a new project, an old project, and a Generation Dead novella.

Business took me to Seattle for a week, and long hours and long travel made the attainment of those goals a challenge March is also a month filled with the birthdays of people I love, including myself (I turned a half century) and both of my children. Sadly, the bucket list concert I mentioned last month was postponed due to a band illness, but Kim and I still went to Boston for a day to celebrate our daughter's birthday with her, and we did an overnight in  Vermont to celebrate our son's birthday with him. It was Mardi Gras in Burlington, and so I took the photo above of a very entertaining joint performance of a band called Brass Balagan (who I swear played a Sun Ra song) and puppet theater group Big Nazo. I loved how interactive the performers with the audience, especially very small (and very fearless) children who wanted to dance with them 

Also, Break My Heart 1,000 Times/I Still See You came out in France:

Mémère and Pépère would have been proud

TAN: "Make an effort with your personal appearance". I remain a two. Wearing my new clothes outside the house and getting out more, generally, but as I write this I realize I'm wearing a t-shirt that is--no joke--twenty-seven years old, and was purchased to a fit me that was forty-five pounds heavier than the me of today.

It is really, really comfortable, though.

BOBBY: "Create and maintain a physical environment that promotes productivity, creativity and inner harmony". A 3, although we finally replaced the leaky shower head in the main bathroom and I somehow managed to repair a Bose speaker that had gone mysteriously silent. But March took me out of my home base physical environment a great deal, so it was hard to realize any actual improvements

ANTONI: "Make nutrition healthy and enjoyable, cook for others". I'll take back the half point I lost last month for a 2.5 as I did most of the meal prep this month, at least when I was home. I ate out a great deal this month--business trips and lots of birthday dinners--but still kept it pretty healthy. I'm still adhering to a slightly relaxed form of Austerity (see Secrets of Weight Loss, Revealed), which at this point might mean it is now a lifestyle habit as opposed to a time-bound change.

I also finally was able to have one of these, which has long been lauded to me by people who would known as one of the premier craft beers 

It hit me the same way as the hirsute guy on the can

After my battle with Oumuamua (detailed in this True Tale of Terror) I have cut back my drinking of alcohol to next to nothing, and so this beverage really did take the top of my head off as pictured on the can (and moments later I was watching the alien/robot invasion pictured above).

JONATHAN: "Take care of yourself physically" I'll remain at 3.5.  I ran 102 miles, which includes the three mile run I took to push myself over the top, a run taken while still under the effects of the beverage pictured above, which probably wasn't the smartest thing in the world. 

I'm fortunate to have been able to reach that mark, though, because I lost a whole week with some sort of chest/head cold (my massive head was fully clogged the day we were supposed to go to the bucket list show, so perhaps it was a blessing it was moved to September). I didn't run all week, and writing was a chore, but it could have been worse--last year around the same time, Oumuamua was making its way through my personal galaxy and I was wracked with such pain I could barely move. I did "take care of myself physically", though, because A. I did something I almost never do, which is take an actual sick day from work to rest and recover and B. I didn't try and run again until my cold symptoms moved out of my chest and became "neck-up", which according to Dr. Google (that quack) might actually be a very beneficial time to run because of antihistamines, etc. 

This puts me at a 15.5 overall for March, an odd month with a great deal of disruption, both positive and negative. A quick side note, Karamo was speaking at a theater near the restaurant where my daughter worked; she'd been hopeful that he'd dine there but no such luck. We have yet to watch season three.

I'm going to split my reading/watching/listening post for March into three posts as I somehow managed to do an impressive amount of each activity--probably because of the sicky week where I wasn't running or writing much and all the travel.

Speaking of reading, please consider purchasing one or several of my books at the link below. The fools at OMZ Press continue to offer the kindle edition of Generation Dead for $2.99, as though I didn't pour my very soul into that book.

Spend way too little for Generation Dead HERE

Thanks fer yer bizness!

February QE Results

In January I wrote a blog post entitled Queer Eye, My Daughter, and I where I related some of the experience and pleasure I had binge-watching the two season of the show with my daughter over the holiday break, and in doing so basically laid out a self-improvement (or self assessment, at least) plan for the year.  The plan involves taking an honest inventory of where am in life with regards to five categories, as I see them, as exemplified by the men on the Netflix show Queer Eye.  And so, an honest assessment on my performance for February in the five QE categories:

KARAMO: "Culture, Confidence, Put yourself out there". I remain at 4.5 stars. I wrote 229.5 pages, which actually eclipses the January pb of 241.5 in terms of per day average pay count (3 fewer days). I worked on the new novel, a Generation Dead novella, and I completed a short story, an event which happens maybe once a year. I wrote three blog posts, read sixteen books, and saw two concerts (Corrosion of Conformity and Cheap Trick). Next month Kim and I have front row center seats for a bucket list concert in Boston, her gift to celebrate me turning a half a century old!

I had a solo trip to Tampa that was half business and half personal business, but managed to fit in some writing, running, and even a few laps in the hotel pool. Midway through the trip I had wonderful paella meal at the Columbia restaurant in Ybor City while watching the flamenco show, and prior to the show took a walk around where I took the photo above of the local theater.

Also, Break My Heart 1,000 Times/I Still See You came out in Poland:

Not my hand...I found this on Instagram

Readers in Poland are very supportive...I've been amazed at the beautifully designed photos I've seen on Instagram. Dziękuję!

TAN: "Make an effort with your personal appearance". Up from 1.5 to 2 as I have acquired more new clothes and am actually wearing them outside the house--Kim and I have had dinner out several times and I'm generally making more of an effort than I have in say the past decade.

BOBBY: "Create and maintain a physical environment that promotes productivity, creativity and inner harmony". A three, no real change here, although Kim and I have been working in front of the fireplace more which is a nice change of pace.

ANTONI: "Make nutrition healthy and enjoyable, cook for others". Maybe slipped from a 2.5 to a 2 as I haven't done any meal prep for Kim other than salads which I eat three nights a week. I'm still adhering to Austerity (see Secrets of Weight Loss, Revealed) but have relaxed enough to consume several pizzas and go out with Kim on several occasions without my usually level of intolerance and anti-fun diligence. 

JONATHAN: "Take care of yourself physically" I'll give myself a half point here to elevate to 3.5 as I ran 122 miles and have achieved my "target weight", although I now feel I could drop a few more without harm, especially as I've relaxed a few of the dietary restrictions that make life a little less fun.

This puts me at a 15 overall for February, gaining a half star in two categories while backsliding in another. I'm not sure who among the QE men would signify as the avatar for "take care of yourself mentally" (Karamo? Jonathan?) but for the record I'd have to say I'm pleased with my results for February, which traditionally is a month where I'm at war with the blue fog and not always winning.

Next up, I'll blog about the sixteen books I read, the film I watched, and the new music I listened to. 

Speaking of books and music, if you enjoy my blog and/or my young adult novels, you might enjoy my exclusive kindle novel Aural History. A mere $4.99, or free if you are a kindleunlimited patron.

Check Aural History out HERE

Does the Song Really Remain the Same?