March 2025 in Review
Hello Funny People,
Scoop of Cookie Dough Ice Cream
The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, performing Symphony No. 9 by Beethoven
Doug Stanhope performing at The Helium Comedy Club
Screenshot from the LibGen story provided by the Atlantic, showing that one of my stories got stolen.
For those of y'all indifferent to the plights of authors in this world of growing ubiquitous Very Advanced Autocorrects being labeled AI, I found out that Mark "Fuckface" Zuckerberg stole one of my stories. So, I guess that makes me a real writer now. A Billionaire asshole stole one of my stories. Which means, when America finally has its own Bastille Day, I will relish his March to the guillotine—because, this time, it's personal.
Maddy Matlock's continued struggle to find the person responsible has, also been a joy. Especially given how much fun all the actors involved clearly are having together on screen. But things are also growing complicated in the world of Matlock; the answers may be near-at-hand, but she's also grown fond of the people she's come to know through her mask. And the question is, when she finally finds the answers, regardless of what they are, what will win out? Will it be her need to avenge her daughter, or her new love for her new found family?
Will this happening have any long-term effects on Murderbot? I suppose I'll have to see in the next story, won't I?
Well...things started off well this month, only for a genuinely cruel twist to come out of nowhere in act three. I'll elaborate.
A Brief Recapitulation
March, my birthday month, tends to be a mixed-bag when it comes to positives and negatives. If I feel as though I'm on track with my goals or at least making progress on them, my birthday's typically a good day. Other years, when I feel as though I've wasted too much time, it's one of the worst days in my calendar years. This month though, was pretty good—at the start.
For one, I got to partake in my first ice cream of the year. A little shop on South Grand in St. Louis, which has changed hands and names a number of times over the year, but is presently known as Poké One (and rebranded itself as a brunch spot), served me the cone you see below. And it was unhealthily good.
I got to spend an evening with my best friend, Will. I hadn't seen him in a while, not since we went to three stand up shows back to back last year anyway. This time though, it wasn’t stand up we met up to see. It was a classical music concert with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. I was supposed to go see a SLSO performance back in January. The orchestra was performing the Dvořák New World Symphony (a personal favorite of mine) Sadly, the weekend of that performance happened to be the week we experienced that giant snow and ice dump here in STL. So, the concert ended up canceled. However, the SLSO was nice enough to give me a 50% discount on my next set of tickets, and as it happened, they were due to perform Beethoven Symphony No. 9 at the Stifle Theater. So, I jumped at it. Will and I met up two hours before the show at a small joint called Bob's Pizza up the street from his place, had a slice each and a couple of beers, went to the concert, and finished up at another hole-in-the-wall called The Attic afterwards for a few more drinks. Easily one of the bests nights out I've had in months. If only they were all so fun...
The actual week of my birthday, despite one big cave, had the best event. Will is a massive Doug Stanhope fan, and it just so happened that shortly after we hung out, I went scrolling through the schedule of our local Helium Comedy Club branch. Sure enough, Stanhope was doing a one-nighter the day before my birthday. I bought tickets immediately and texted him, "I already bought tickets. We're going," enclosing the above screen shot with the message. He was ecstatic. And despite how rowdy Stanhope's crowd usually is, we had a great time. So, consider that a birthday present to myself: a night of stand up with my best bud.
Also, I found out this 👇 happened.
For those of y'all indifferent to the plights of authors in this world of growing ubiquitous Very Advanced Autocorrects being labeled AI, I found out that Mark "Fuckface" Zuckerberg stole one of my stories. So, I guess that makes me a real writer now. A Billionaire asshole stole one of my stories. Which means, when America finally has its own Bastille Day, I will relish his March to the guillotine—because, this time, it's personal.
Unfortunately, that's where the fun ended. But I'll get to that later.
The Writing Life
Well, I finally got the response I expected from the zine I sent my little flash story to: a form no. But I wasn't really surprised at that. Ray Daley's wisdom, yet again, proved itself to be true. Hold notices usually don't turn into anything good. I also didn't let it get me down, as I sent the story to two more venues immediately after receiving that final no. One of them, I may have a chance at a yes, but the other, I'm doubtful; the venue has never taken anything I've sent them, so I filly expect that trend to continue. Still, I'm moving forward.
I also took time this month to polish off an old story to send into anthology open call as well. Though, I'm not so confident with this one. Though I've worked with this venue and it's editors before, the story I plan to submit for consideration is quite different compared to anything else I've published with them, and the prospect of moving away from an established mood or tone might be too much for them. Still, we'll see.
My two main accomplishments this month though have been more in the novelist arena.
The first was this: 👇
Screenshot of the Space Opera's new current word count
I went through the finished draft of the Space Opera and gave it its first good polish...and in the process, I cut about 8000 words. Mostly stuff that deserved to get cut, but I also trimmed down a fair amount of the word count simply by rewriting sentences to convey my intended meaning more concisely. Honestly, this size of a cut is nothing for me, not after cutting 50k from a 172k manuscript a few years ago. I may go back through it again once more just to make sure I can take out as many typos as I possibly can. I did this edit/polish pass largely without using my primary tool: Word's Read Aloud Function. So, going through it again, just to see how the words sound will be important...and of course, good for finding all those foul typos that somehow made their way in.
The second was sending out my long-suffering fantasy manuscript one more time to a Small Press open call. My utter lack of success finding an agent for this book last year has left me decided that Big 5 publishing is simply not the way to go with it. It's simply not what editors are looking for or what agents are asking for right now. But I want this story out there. So, even though the very act of submitting one more query to one more publisher has me trembling and anxious, I did it. Now, I can only wait to hear back.
Miscellaneous
As I alluded to above, my birthday month is usually a mixed bag in terms of positives and negatives. In this case, as fun as spending time with my best friend was, everything soon came crashing down afterwards.
The weekend leading into my birthday, my boss at my dayjob passed away. Here's the story in miniature.
She'd walked with a friend, as she did 3 times a week in the mornings, in a major site here in STL called the Missouri Botanical Gardens. After the walk though, she suffered a sudden cardiac arrest, which left her in a comatose state. For the next three days, her family, my colleagues, and I hadn't a clue whether she'd emerge from it. The first day, we carried on as usual; the second, we canceled all appointments; the third, we started informing folks there was a slim possibility we wouldn't be able to complete the tax season.
Only that Saturday did we have our worst fears confirmed. The doctors were finally able to run an MRI on her and concluded that the brain damaged caused by lack of oxygen from the cardiac arrest was too extensive; the likelihood of her emerging from it were close to zero, and if she did, she'd be stuck in a vegetative state. So, her family carried out her wishes, took her office life support, and qué será, será. She passed Saturday the 22nd, at 10PM.
The next week was pure surrealism. I came into that office every day, to inform clients of what had happened. One by one, we made appointments for them to come by and retrieve their documents to take to other preparers we'd vetted and researched. And all the while, I still expected her to walk into the office. Even at the wake and the funeral, which were only a week later after her passing, nothing felt real. Even going to lunch with my sister, mother, and two aunt couldn't make it feel real. But it was.
A long chapter of my life had come to an end.
For at least the next few weeks, I'll be helping her family wind down the firm's operations. Finalizing the few things she'd finished, closing out the books, sending in the payroll quarter return for quarter 1 of 2025. After that, I'll be job hunting in this fucked up version of the US.
To give you an idea of how big this change was, I've worked for my boss in various capacities for 16 years, through most of high school, all my college days, and the ten years since I earned my undergrad degree. I literally got my 40 social security quarters in from this job. And I'm still adjusting to this change. Some part of me always knew this was likely to happen eventually, but I just didn't expect it to happen now.
I will miss her. I'll miss our crazy menagerie of clients. I'll miss this time in my life.
My comforts through this have, of course, been TV and Books.
The Pitt has been the most constant through this time. Dr. Robby's ragtag team of young doctors and student doctors having to go through what they've most recently experienced, especially, has been strangely cathartic for me. Even though every last one of them had undoubtedly been experiencing serious mental anguish seeing so much carnage as a result of the PittFest shooting, that they kept going because people needed them to do so, in spite of the pain, has been heartening. Yet, they never forget their humanity. Leaving for others and for a purpose can be the biggest help for people, and we don't learn this until we have to.
Maddy Matlock's continued struggle to find the person responsible has, also been a joy. Especially given how much fun all the actors involved clearly are having together on screen. But things are also growing complicated in the world of Matlock; the answers may be near-at-hand, but she's also grown fond of the people she's come to know through her mask. And the question is, when she finally finds the answers, regardless of what they are, what will win out? Will it be her need to avenge her daughter, or her new love for her new found family?
The most recent addition to my show rotation has been the second series of Wolf Hall, airing at last on Masterpiece on PBS. This book takes its plot entirely from Hilary Mantel's third Cromwell novel, which she completed and published, after ten years of hard creative labor, before passing away only two years later. And christ has his show been intense.
Here, we see Cromwell's final stage in life. Having proven to Henry VIII that he can trust him to carry out his darkest wishes, Cromwell now begins to play his most dangerous game. No longer is he the boy from Putny, the son of a black Smith nobody he'd been before; now, he's the man everyone hates. The man who ousted Katherine of Aragon; the man who severed England's ties to Rome; the man who brought down Ann Boylen and replaced her with Jane Seymour. He's been on a good streak of success; however, the second he fails, he knows he's finished. So, he simply must not.
But we all know how this story ends...but what we don't know is how it comes about, and in that lies drama.
Book wise, this month's reading has been quite all over the place, though it was all fiction.
Mal Goes to War by Edward Ashton
The second of Mr Ashton's books that I've read, it definitely lives up to the magic of Micky 7. This go round though, we follow a Siloco-American (the in-world PC term for a Free AI), named Mal, which is short for Malware. Mal exist in a world where regular humans and uplifted, transhumans (ones with voluntary body modifications to integrate advanced technology into their anatomy), are at war. And the latest attack in that battle sees Mal's home, a version of the internet, attacked and Mal access cut off from it. So, along with a tiny band of normal and transhumans he picks up along the way, Mal sets off to find a new entry point. Along the way, we get to see just how truly deranged human warfare can be through the eyes of this non-human intelligence, and he in turn entertains us by being as wisecracking as most of us wish we could be. An excellent follow up read after Mickey and proof that Ashton can do science fiction from a perspective that isn't Mickey's.
The Black Company by Glen Cook
The novel that was grimdark before grimdark was cool.
I'd heard for a long time how good this book was, and I must say, I wasn't disappointed. We follow the eponymous Black Company, an army-for-hire, between jobs. As one patron dies, another new one, known only as The Lady, rises to take their place. And the Lady's first request for a first job is no small matter of putting down a rebellion or controlling an uprising. She wants them to put down some of the most dangerous magic users in the history of their world
Compared to some of the other grimdark books I've read in the past, my only grip about Cook's novel is the absence of humor. It truly leans into the Grim half of the subgenre it spawned. Still, it's a good book and definitely one that holds up years after it's initial publication.
Butcher's Crossing by John Williams
After finishing Stoner last year, I knew I'd eventually come around to reading Williams' other noted titles. And Butcher's Crossing ended up being the first of them.
A very good video essayist on YouTube described this novel as Blood Meridian meets Moby Dick. While I can't speak to the comparisons with the former (I've never read a book by McCarthy), I can speak to the Meville comparison.
We join a young Ivy League student named Will Andrews as he arrives at a small junction called Butcher's Crossing in order to "see more." In his pursuit of such a vague desire, he crosses paths with a Buffalo hunter named Miller, who agrees to take him on his next hunt to find and kill a herd of buffalo that will, supposedly, make them rich.
Much like Ishamael in Moby Dick, Andrews's passive character soon takes a back seat to this more dominant and obsessive personality. Miller, in his determination to find this herd and slaughter every beast in its number, become a Western Ahab-esque figure. His revelry in the gore and carnage of this animal massacre, this conqueror of nature itself, gives the novel its dark naturalistic edge.
Unlike the end of Meville's classic, which has one small shred of hope, thanks to Ishmael's survival, Williams doesn't give us that here. Yes, Andrews survives, but Butcher's Crossing itself is doomed. The "more" he'd come to see has vanished under the might of a madman, and now, he cannot unsee it. Is there still hope for this man? Williams, ever content to let readers draw their own conclusions, gives us no answer. And we have no choice but to live with thar, just as William Andrews must live with what he's witnessed.
Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells
We rejoin Murderbot as it continues to seek out evidence of its past. However, as the stories of its life tend to reveal, once again it must step in to prevent a group of dtupid humans from getting themselves killed.
This story, however, is the slightest bit different compared to its predecessors. This is the first time where Murderbot actually loses someone. Granted it was someone who annoyed it for the vast majority of the story, bit it's still significant. And it made me wonder how that loss will impact Murderbot going forward. Towards the end, with their evidence in hand, it did make one pivotal decision: it made the choice to go back to the doctor who'd bought it it's freedom all the way back in the first volume.
To conclude this mixed bag review of a month, I must ask a favor of those of you reading this. Also during this time, I found out, aling with many others that Todd Sanders, editor and proprietor of Air and Nothingness Press, who publish a two short stories of mine got some bad medical news.
As such, if possible, please consider purchasing a book from the press to help him get through this. I don't only say this as someone who's benefitted from his generosity as an editor, but as someone who's already experienced enough loss at present. I can't handle anymore right now. So please, purchase a volume. Buy one for a friend. Maybe even consider convincing your local library to buy a book or two. Time are rough, I know, but even just spreading the word to help out a guy who only wants to add to the beauty of the world helps.
Mayne next month will be more upbeat.
— IMC 🙃
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