Category: Research

Writing, Publishing, Editing and Life in 2022

12/30/2021

If there's one thing I've learned about making these goal lists, and I've been doing more than one per year (I just haven't blogged them), is that they're tough to do...mainly because I always end up spreading myself thin, like Bilbo Baggins (like a thin slice of butter spread over too much bread). I can't keep going at the pace I have been going. I end up wearing myself out and accomplishing very little in the way of personal gain. I work way too hard to make money, for a self-professed socialist. I do it in order to try and retire before I die...and I hope I can make it.

There's some things I do for fun that I'm going to give up. Well, one thing, really. I've decided that if I ever have enough time to finish reading the submissions for the next two issues of The Were-Traveler, I'm going to stop publishing that. Now that my public media job has gone full time and I'm still editing part time and trying to write fiction (and do the heavy research that goes with writing fiction), and trying to self-publish my short story and poetry books... whew! There, you see? Time is of the essence, and I just don't have the time to read through a huge slush pile anymore. I wish I did. The magazine was getting good. Very good. But when I don't have the time to read the stories or respond to writers in a more timely fashion...that's not good. So, I'm putting the Traveler to bed. At least for the time being. Later on, I may decide to publish a twice a year short poetry thing, but that's going to be waaaayyy down the line.

So, I did succeed in fulfilling some of my 2021 goals. I've gotten myself out in nature, I've lost weight, and I've begun putting together some e-books of previously published and unpublished stories and poetry. What do I have planned for 2022?

More of the same...and some other goals as well.

Here's a list (flexible, I'm being very flexible with myself these days) of my goals and ambitions for the year of the Water Tiger:

Continue my research reading for the novels that I will begin working on in 2023:
1. So Lonesome I Could Cry
2. Zen & the Art of Alien Diplomacy
3. See the post titled: Reading Goals for 2022
Continue a little writing here on my back-burner novel (I'm almost done!):
1. The Strange Blue Days of Dr. Fountainbrew
Get the 2 e-books finished and up on Amazon for sale (Mamma needs to keep buying Apple stock on Stash!):
1. Four & Twenty Blackbirds: Short Stories & Poems
2. Little Paper Parasols: Haiku & Other Shortform Poetry
Start prep work on the Florida-based short form poetry e-book:
1. Tentative Title: Swamplillies: Haiku & Short Poetry on Florida Nature & Life
Begin prep for another e-book on my previously published and unpublished speculative fiction poetry. I don't have a title yet...well no...rather I have a couple of titles in mind but they don't really grab me
Keep getting out in nature, hiking and seeing the wild critters that inspire me to write more haiku, senryu, tanka, and other short form poems. My coworkers gave me a state park pass for Christmas, so there are lots of state parks on my "To-Do and To-See" list for 2022:
1. Cabin stay at Myakka River State Park...let's get squatchy... We are staying in the squatchiest cabin in the park. We better practice our whoops.
2. A weekend cabin stay at Fanning Springs State Park...a cool dip in the springs & a cabin with a screened, wrap-around porch! It's a long way for a weekend trip, but sometimes, with state park cabins you have to take what you can get. We will still have fun. Val may get to do some snorkeling. The park itself has a nature trail plus we will walk a little of the Nature Coast State Trail if we have time.
3. A trip back to Oscar Scherer State Park (in the hope of walking the Blue Trail and seeing some endangered Florida Scrub Jays)
4. New State Park visit goals include: Colt Creek State Park in the Green Swamp [UPDATE: DONE ON NEW YEARS EVE MORNING! Report soon on hiking blog], Charlotte Harbor Preserve State Park, and Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park (home of the endangered Florida Panther--not sure we'll get to that one this year, it's pretty far away) and Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park (need a tent for this one, as it is a dark sky paradise for astronomers and I want to see me some stars! So we'll need to camp out at this one. Sadly, they don't have cabins. I did registered to win an Airstream Interstate 24X. Sure would be nice to win that thing! Not sure we'll be able to do this one this year either).
5. Other wild areas I'd like to see this year:
  1. Goethe State Forest
  2. Myakka State Forest
  3. Ocala National Forest
  4. Some more of the Withlacoochee State Forest (just because I love calling it the 'Coochee. Plus we've hiked some of it and not actually seen the river it is named for...and that is just so...so...wrong). Also, it's a really cool, hilly area that's not far from home.
    1. For the above State Forests: ..walk a trail for the Trailwalker program!
  5. Mosaic Peace River Park or another nature park along the Peace River (but probably not Peace River State Forest, as it is one of the few that doesn't have a restroom. I mean, WTF?)
    1. NOTE TO SELF: I need to write something about all the rivers I've seen in Florida. It will likely be a poem...or perhaps several. Who the hell knows, maybe an essay! Nah...most likely a linked haiku.
  6. Dead River Park
    1. Right next door to Hillsborough River State Park and part of it is on the Hills River. Would be cool to see this park as some squatchy happenings have happened there in the past.
  7. John B. Sargeant Park
    1. Also down Hwy. 301 from Hillsborough River State Park. Has a cool boardwalk trail (at least as far as I can tell from the pictures of it online).
6. I need to finish the last two issues of The Were-Traveler and put it to sleep for a bit, maybe forever. Sad, but I just don't have the time it takes to devote to a story magazine. I'm only one person. This is actually higher up on my to-do list. I really need to get it off my plate.
7. I need to write a couple of new short pieces and get them submitted somewhere. I hope I am able to do that this year.
8. Take it easy...as much as possible. These last few years have been horrible for people, and I'm no exception.
9. Remember to breathe. And never stop dreaming.

If you're interested, I started a blog page on my reok_weirdworldview site to blog about the nature trips and hikes we do. I need to give that site a bit more love, I've been neglecting it.

That's it for 2022 plans, and I do believe that is enough. If I can accomplish half of it, I'll consider it a success.

What are your plans for the new year? I hope you don't spread yourself as thin as I do.

Happy New Year! May the Year of the Water Tiger enrich us All!

Me inside hollow Cypress tree (I believe it's a Cypress) at Hillsborough River State Park.

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Reading GOALS for 2022

12/29/2021

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The book I'm currently reading is Where the Footprints End: High Strangeness and the Bigfoot Phenomenon, Volume I: Folklore. I will immediately follow that up with the second volume, which is called Where the Footprints End: High Strangeness and the Bigfoot Phenomenon, Volume II: Evidence. These two books are probably waaayyy more WOO than most Bigfooters like. Woo makes serious Sasquatch researchers nervous and fearful of not being taken scientifically seriously. However, one can't ignore that sometimes...with bigfoots, woo fucking happens. It just does. Other phenomena that gets put under the woo umbrella, no matter how many serious and professional, intellectual people have reported witnessing that stuff too. like UFOs and ghostly paranormal activity, is often associated with bigfoot sightings. And woo is going to work just fine for my novel. So be it. I have, for many years now, embraced all the woo. Experience has taught me that woo is a thing. I have not seen a bigfoot or other cryptid, but I've experienced some weird-ass and daunting stuff in my 56 years on this haunted planet of ours, and have talked to others who have as well. Enough to know...woo happens.

I don't know whether there will be much woo in it, but I'm betting there might be, but I'm going to read the Bigfoot book of the Into the Fray podcast's host Shannon LeGro. I first saw Shannon on her TV show on Amazon Prime called "On the Trail of UFOs" and then later listening to the Into the Fray podcast and through the production group Small Town Monsters, whose Amazon and YouTube documentaries on cryptids like Momo (Missouri's Bigfoot) and the Minerva Monster (a Bigfoot that visited an Ohio family's property) and Mothman (those who know me well, know I love the Mothman cryptid stories even more than Bigfoot!) I've been consuming these stories like a kid consumes Halloween candy the day after trick or treating. Shannon's book is called Beyond the Fray: Bigfoot. I will read it next.

Books by one of the all-time woo authorities on weird shit, John Keel, are on my to read list: The Mothman Prophesies, Our Haunted Planet, and The Eighth Tower: On Ultraterrestrials and the Superspectrum. I'm not sure I'll be able to get to all of these, but for research purposes, I need to read the first and the third, at least. Why Mothman for a bigfoot book? He kind of figures into it somehow, but I don't know how just yet. I have a feel, way down deep in my little woo soul, that all cryptid creatures (if real) are somewhat connected.

I almost forgot that I'm also currently reading Ghost Stories of St. Petersburg, Florida, by Tim Reeser. Speaking of the all-prevalent, dirty word WOO, my partner and I like to do some paranormal investigations sometimes, not strictly for fun, mind you, but to see what we feel. I'm particularly interesting in seeing how much I can feel from the other side of the veil since some of it lifted a lot for me after an encounter I had (and not a positive one) in a duplex I lived in here in Florida. So far, we've only visited the fort at Ft. DeSoto, reputed to be haunted by ghosts of soldiers and pirates. There was one bunker we felt a little uneasy in the day we went, but otherwise we didn't experience anything too ghostly there that day.

Other research books on my list are more scientific. The Oregon Bigfoot Highway has witness accounts for sure, but also pictures of scat samples (they call it the Mother of All Turds, I shit you not...no pun intended), locations, and other interesting data. Jeff Meldrum is featured on many a bigfoot show and he is a scientist and University professor who believes in something called the relict hominid theory. That bigfoots are an undiscovered missing link to humans, if you will. Could be. Why not? Doesn't take away from their woo-ness. May even add something to it. His book, Sasquatch; Legend Meets Science, is on my list.

I have a few books on the Florida Skunk Ape and one on the Ohio Minerva Monster bigfoot account. I'd like to try and read the skunk ape one before our 4-day trip to Myakka River State Park this year (we recently saw our own MofATs there, but it was most likely a human who had to go to bad to get to the restrooms at the park...it was hella big though, enough for us to crack jokes about us finding squatch crap in the woods...lol).

For fun and to get my fiction fix, I'd like to finish reading the latest Murderbot novel, Fugitive Telemetry. I'll be really absorbed in research and writing, but I need to get some reading-for-fun into my busy schedule in 2022.

And I'm ordering from Amazon soon the second and third volumes of Junko's romcom manga Kiss Him, Not Me. I'm hoping I can fit those into my busy reading schedule this coming year.

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The Books I Read in 2021

12/29/2021

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These are the books I read in 2021 according to my Goodreads challenge. I set the challenge low this year, knowing that I would be focusing my reading goals on lots of big research books. I'll probably set it low again in 2022 for the same reason...but that's a whole other post.

The Only Fiction I Read in 2021:

I read Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch series that takes place in a universe among a people where gender is totally not a thing and everyone is referred to in the feminine pronoun "she." Strange and intriguing plot once you get used to not trying to figure out who is male and who is female as this either does not matter with some characters, or if it does, it will get revealed through the plot eventually (maybe not in the book you happen to be reading at the moment, but the next book or the next). Maybe it never will, and you'll just have to live with that.

The story follows a soldier named Breq who is both a zombie solider and ship. Their technology is such that a consciousness can be spread throughout thousands of physical flesh and blood bodies brought back to a living state via some strange process that's not really explained to the reader after having been kept in frozen storage. These bodies are obtained via their many wars of invasion and domination on other planets and are the victims of these wars. After the artificial consciousness is installed, they become mercenary soldiers known as ancillaries, and even devices, such as ships and security computers. Even the leader of this universe has created multiple versions of herself and the story begins and progresses through a schism war when several of these bodies of the leader start a personal argument among themselves. Factions develop. You never really know who is on whose side (except for Breq and her crew and even that is dicey at times). The novels in this series are, in order: Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword, and Ancillary Mercy.

Research, research, and more research:

Pretty much everything else I read in 2021 is non-fiction (well,depending on whose opinion you ask about the subject matter) with the exception of Scrivener for Mac--Compiling for Export, which I read in order to get my e-books loaded to prepare for publishing.

The other three books I read were "Woo" books about UFOs, aliens, and cryptids. I read these because:

I have a keen interest (personal and otherwise) in these subjects...
I am going to be writing fiction projects related to these subjects...
I fecking like these subjects and owe anyone else zero explanations why I do. It's enough to say, like my Twitter profile says, "I've seen some weird shit too, Alice".

I'm reading more Woo books now for research and will be reading even more in 2022 as I plan and research two projects ( one about the world's most famous cryptid and another on a reluctant alien contactee/abductee. The two stories are loosely related). I will write about those in a blog post titled Reading Goals for 2022.

I've read more articles and informational websites this year than any books, and those are also related to my tastes in unusual phenomenon and what I'm looking into for my research for writing projects.

If you share interests in any of these woo topics, I highly recommend reading Somewhere in the Skies, by Ryan Sprague and Chasing American Monsters, by Jason Offutt. Somewhere in the Skies is a book about UFO sightings that focuses on the witnesser's total perspective...what did they feel like, what was going through their minds when they saw it? Not too many books take this approach and, as a witnesser myself, it is refreshing. UFO sightings are human events...because there are human beings seeing these strange things in our skies. Ryan's book features one of the most interesting cases of a mass sighting in my home state. A massive black triangle UFO that was seen at a drive-in theater in Ohio, and whoever was aboard it wiped everyone's memories. To this date, as far as anyone knows, only two people have come forward to say they've gotten some of their memory of the event back.

American Monsters informs you about the different kinds of cryptids there are (some that may no longer be with us and some that may have been hoaxed) in every state in the U.S. It doesn't have all of them...indeed, new cryptids and weird creatures are being seen all over the U.S. (and world) every day, but Jason's book is a good place to start if you have an interest in illusive critters.

If you don't scare too easily or are not very prone to nightmares, give Rich Dolan's Alien Agendas a read. He is one of the more intellectual and scientific ufologists around. Take it with a grain a salt, though, like he asks you to, as he is only reporting what witnessers, abductees, contactees, and researchers have reported. Long story short, aliens have been coming here or have even been living in other dimensions on earth for a long damn time. Some of them take people, for better or for worse. We aren't really sure of some of their intentions. Some say it's for our own good, some say it's to help them by mixing our genes...and some ufologists have accused those behind the UFO and abduction phenomena of trickery and deceiving us all. Read with an open mind and a discerning critical mind as well. He does give a good run down and description of those types most reported by contactees and abductees. And yes, there are aliens who look like us out there. Strange, but true. And when you read his scientific theories for this, they kind of make some sense. Who knows what the real truth will end up being, if we ever learn it? Maybe John Keel was right and Earth really is the Disneyland of the Gods.

CURRENTLY READING

I recently watched the anime Kiss Him, Not Me, about an overweight high school fujoshi (a girl or woman who is a fan of manga or anime featuring gay male love stories) who becomes sick and loses a lot of weight, and when she goes back to high school, about four of her male classmates (and one female) develop crushes on her and compete to win her heart. It was so fun and silly, but there was only one season...and goddess knows when there will be more, so I started reading it. I'm almost done with the first book. I'll find out who wins her heart no matter what! I may finish Volume 1 before the year is over, so I will post it here. The mangaka, Junko, is actually a popular yaoi/BL manga artist in Japan. I've read a few of her works.

All my other books that I'm reading currently for research and whatnot I'll post in my 2022 Reading Goals post, coming soon!

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2021 Accomplishments: Life, Research, Writing, Self-Publishing, Etcetera...

12/20/2021

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Sometimes, it doesn't feel like I've done all that much this year. But then I started making a list of all the things that I have done, all the little ups that countered the downs and made 2021 a pretty dog gone good year for me, all in all.

Here's the best things that happened, or that I accomplished, this past year:

Put together an e-book of twenty-four short speculative fiction stories and poems that I've had published in magazines and anthologies. The book will be titled Four and Twenty Blackbirds, which has to do with one of the stories in the book, as well as the number of tales and rhymes.
Wrote an amazing number of short poems in February of 2021 for the short poetry challenge that I participate in every year, the Post-It Note Poetry Challenge. I wrote well over 100 haiku, senryu, and tanka in February as well as other types of short poems, and I'm still writing them, though not quite at that pace. 2021 has been my best year for writing poetry so far.
In November, I put together another e-book containing many of the haiku, senryu, and other short poems that I wrote in February 2021 (and before and after) titled after my online poetry website little paper parasols.
I began planning three other e-books (not sure if all of these will play out, but hoping some do):
1. one of speculative stories and
2. one of speculative fiction poetry (both published and unpublished) and
3. another of short poems only about Florida nature, tentatively titled "Florida Swamplillies: Haiku & Short Poetry About the Sunshine State" or "Lillies from the Swamp." Something like that. It will include some, but not all of the poems from the other previously mentioned short poetry e-book.
4. I've got an idea for a 4th poetry book on dark poetry, but as of now it's just an idea...no poems written for it yet.
I began planning my novel/novella about Sasquatch. Yes, I'm writing a book about Bigfoot. It's currently in the research/planning process. Parts of it will spill over into another fiction project I'm planning about aliens.
I've lost a lot of weight this year. Over 30 pounds. Part of it is from hiking in the Florida woods as part of my research for So Lonesome I Could Cry (see above). Another part of it is from a diet pills and diet my nurse has me on. But it's working.
I managed to sell another story and poem or two, but I also started a blog to write about weird stuff and anime but I haven't been writing in it much due to all the research and planning and creating e-books.
I started an account on Stash and am managing to invest a little. It's up one day, down the next. That's the market right now, but Stash lets you do it a little at a time. I have a personal and retirement account that I handle, and a smart account that I throw some money into and Stash's people invest for me. I try not to invest in crappy companies that are bad for the environment or are shitty to indigenous peoples or their employees.
I've been saving money for two years now in my banking accounts and have a bit stacked up. I'm going to invest a little of it in 2022, but I'm also going to keep saving. Ever seen those memes about saving money by taking some out of your pay and doubling it every week? Well, I created a couple of those tailored for people like me who get paid bi-weekly. It's worked, like I've said. With me investing in Stash, I may do a lower amount of bi-weekly deposits in 2022 than I did this year.
I've been taking real, honest to goodness vacations instead of stay-cations. Hiking and looking for the Big Guy, yes, and I've got two big trips planned with my partner in 2022. Myakka River State Park (squatching for three-four days) and Fanning Springs, the latter more for a weekend swimming getaway for Val and for us both to see the Suwannee River and a little bit of the Nature Coast State Trail. In 2021, we went to Lake Wales, saw some real Florida mountains (more like hills really, but pretty big ones!) and we went to Bok Tower. Someone saw some gnomes there in the fifties, but there doesn't seem to be any there now. (This is a real cryptid historical account of these gnomes in Eerie Florida by Mark Muncy).
A tiny flash story of mine was given an Honorable Mention award in a popular yearly fiction contest. I've been writing a 300-word story for Queer Sci-Fi's yearly anthology contest since I heard about it in 2018. In 2021 my story "To Have and to Hold and to Hold and to Hold" (a tiny tale that envisions the great great great grand-relative of Cthulhu--xe was strictly a female but got a male mating organ surgically implanted so xe could reproduce--going to a dating convention to find xemself some wives) was given the accolade of Honorable Mention, along with a handful of other great stories. Perhaps someday, I'll win one of the big prizes in the contest. It's always a worthy challenge trying to write a 300 word story that makes sense to readers.
My poem "Star Trip(tych)." was nominated for a Rhysling Award with the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association. It was originally published at the end of 2020 in Issue 2 of the magazine Speculative North. The poem was then reprinted in The 2021 Rhysling Award Anthology. Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association.

I haven't sold as many stories or poems this year. Mainly because I'm concentrating on planning and publishing longer works. I did sell a couple of small speculative poems in 2021 that will be published in 2022, in Scifaiku magazine, but that will be for me to write about in next year's post. I will probably make a goal of writing and submitting a few short stories and poems in 2022. Or not. I'm gonna play it as she lays, as they say. And 2022 will likely hold a crap ton of research for me. I'll be writing about that in my post on 2022 Reading Goals.

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M. X. Kelly

Writing, Publishing, Editing and Life in 2022

Reading GOALS for 2022

The Books I Read in 2021

2021 Accomplishments: Life, Research, Writing, Self-Publishing, Etcetera...

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