Day	Pen	Ink
9 May 10 May 11 May 12 May	Pilot Elite 95S Sheaffer Targa Pelikan M600 TWSBI Classic	Edelstein Olivine Herbin Bleu Myosotis Diamine Syrah Diamine Honey Burst

In addition to The Stupid Project, I started working on what can only be called a fan fiction, although I can’t say I’m a fan of the original work. If I persist in it, I may post it on the other front.

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Neither a Rock Nor an Island

I mentioned COVID yesterday. We should be free of it by now, but… well, nowhere near enough people were willing to do what it took to stamp on it*. We are, thanks to the economic and political events set in motion in the 1980s, in an era which does not lend itself to people putting aside their personal agenda to further the public interest. I’m pretty sure I was one of those who pointed out waaaaay back when this started that “If you are worried about getting sick, wear a mask; I’m not, so I won’t” enhances the likelihood of transmission, since masks are a lot better at keeping the sickness in a sickie than keeping it out of the uninfected.

This was a problem with the 1919 Influenza too, though, so I can’t (entirely) blame Reaganomics. Rugged individualism, on the other hand, has a lot to answer for.

*Vietnam did a pretty damn good job, with its emphasis on collective action. Just imagine where we’d be now if the rest of the world had shut down for long enough to do away with domestic transmission…

Today’s pen: Sheaffer Targa
Today’s ink: Herbin Bleu Myosotis

Day	Pen	Ink
25April 26 April 27 April 28 April	Pelikan M600 Hero 100 Parker Duofold AF Sheaffer Targa	Diamine Syrah Namiki Blue Pelikan blue-black Herbin Bleu Myosotis

I haven’t thought of anything clever to do with this progress report when progress is diffuse and mostly internal. There is progress of that sort, happily, although the fortress of United States tax requirements is not only unbreached but as yet unassaulted. I’ve realized that I can probably get some advice from the provincial Writers Guild and possibly even from the Horror Writers Association, as I’m a member of both.

I just have to… you know… do something that involves someone who isn’t me. After two years of glorious enforced stand-offishness, I’m rather out of practice with that stuff.

Did You Hear Something?

Today’s spookytacular video is a compilation of what is very probably pareidolias, clever fakes, and de-humanizings of homeless people with untreated mental diseases, but may include some authentic Things What Science Hain’t Grappled With Properly. There’s also some pleasant shudders generated, which is the point.

I hope that you, as I did, took an unpleasant shudder from the examples of commodification of some homeless people for the algorithms of YouTube. That’s not entertainment.

Today’s pen: Sheaffer Targa
Today’s ink: Herbin Lis de Thé

PS– I’m taking next week off work, so I don’t guarantee I’ll look in here. But I intend to.

Day	What	How Much	Pen	Ink
4 October 5 October 6 October 7 October	First draft of “Unintended Consequences” (working title).	915 typed words	Sheaffer Targa Cross Century II Medalist Pelikan Stola III Parker 50	Herbin Lis de Thé Herbin Violet Penseé Pelikan Royal Blue Edelstein Topaz

Day	What	How Much	Pen	Ink
18 January 19 January 20 January 21 January	Bugger all	All of it	PenBBS 487 Parker 180 Wing Sung 601 Sheaffer Targa	Herbin Lis de Thé Herbin Poussière de Lune Pelikan Violet Edelstein Topaz

I guess that makes it official– writer’s block. I’m going to try to shift it by reading a pile of good stories over the weekend.

Day	What	How Much	Pen	Ink
11 January 12 January 13 January 14 January	Errands The promised effort on my site	Why people gotta want stuff? An unsatisfying stub, a real page (the 487) and some behind the scenes stuff.	Pelikan 120 Sheaffer Targa PenBBS 487 Wing Sung 601	Monteverde Malibu Blue Edelstein Topaz Herbin Lis de Thé Pelikan Violet

There was also a little bit of glowing at the news that a story has been held for closer editorial consideration. That’s labour intensive, that is.

New Year’s Dissolutions

Day	What	How Much	Pen	Ink
4 January 5 January 6 January 7 January 8 January	Worrying	Probably more than I need to	PENBBS 487 (just a picture for now) Parker 180 Pelikan New Classic Sheaffer Targa Baoer 388	Herbin Lie de Thé Herbin Poussière de Lune Diamine Evergreen Edelstein Topaz Skrip Black

I am NOT getting enough sleep. I know this because I decided to pack it in at 10:30 New Year’s Eve, having had roughly 15ml of whisky, and rose at 9:00 the next morning. And then the same for the next two nights. Part of it is the effect of the season on melatonin production, I’m sure, but explaining it doesn’t fix it.

There’s also the regime change happening in the wild and lawless country across our southern border. If you’re reading this in the distant future, run a search for 6 January US Capitol Siege. I don’t imagine you’ll have to specify a year. Between that ongoing blitheration and my province’s thumbless handling of COVID, in both the pre-vaccine and vaccine-newly-made phases, it’s not surprising the slumber is shallow and evasive.

I’ve been mentioning over previous entries that I’m having a bit of trouble with the fiction output, and that’s almost certainly down to all of the above. Apart from going to bed shortly after 8:00 as a new habit (and, ideally, politics at all levels having a sudden, lasting undumbening), I don’t really have a good solution.

My not very good solution is to give next week’s writing periods over to updating my site, as I’ve got some new pens that should be given their place of prominence. My previous approach to updates no longer applies, as the idle time offered by The Regular Job has dwindled to nearly nothing, so this seems a good solution. It’s also going to involve scraping words out of my head, without having to (entirely) invent the world they describe, and hopefully that will prime my pump.

I should, since a year ago I was rattling on about depression, mention that the sleepiness is no more than than. The magic brain pills continue to do their work, and while I may do so with a yawn, I am taking joy from the world. I’m fairly anxious to share last Monday’s pen with the world, because its filling mechanism is ridiculous. I have a pen on the way that entirely ate the payment I got for “Palmer’s Folly” because until I’m getting more than a couple of piece published a year, that money is to allow frivolity in my life.

And that’s it for this week. Nothing spooled up in the film department, but I’m sure my pursuit of frivolity on a tight budget will return that feature to our programming line-up soon.

Day	What	How Much	Pen	Ink
21 December 22 December 23 – 28 December 29 – 31 December	Wrestling with submissions. Getting the decks cleared for… Time off at Christmas! Getting Regular Job crap done before the end of the year!	Another one! Sufficient. Authentic de-stressing.† Re-stressing.	Pilot Vanishing Point Parker 51 Parker Moderne Pelikan New Classic Baoer 388 Sheaffer Targa Parker 180	Namiki Blue Montblanc Racing Green Diamine Syrah Diamine Evergreen Skrip Black Edelstein Topaz Herbin Poussière de Lune

† I probably should have posted something during the time away, but the very concepts of time and duty lost all meaning in a bubble-fied nuclear family-only Christmas. The effect on my inward state was such that to apologize for the lapse would be to seem ungrateful.

 

Day	What	How Much	Pen	Ink
30 March 31 March 1 April 2 April	Second draft of “In Loco Parentis”. A nap Second draft of “In Loco Parentis”.	297 words typed. Sleave (sic) remains somewhat raveled. 446 more words.	Parker 180 Sheaffer Targa Pilot Short Faber-Castell e-motion	Noodler’s Walnut Edelstein Topaz Herbin Violet Penseé Diamine Evergreen

I hadn’t thought the COVID block which many writers are mentioning on Twitter was afflicting me, but it may be. It may also be the extra extra stress of being one of the few still at The Regular Job atop the previously-mentioned extra stress, the latter of which is even stressier at the transition from one month to the next. It’s almost certainly responsible for the torpor which overtook me on Tuesday, and yesterday it quite cut into my writing time.

Hopefully next week will see some lowering of pressure, and I certainly am aware that I’m neither as crushed as anyone in Healthcare, nor anything like as mentally burdened as those who find themselves out of work and weeks away from the various government assistance plans coming into effect… and who aren’t sure if those plans will actually include them.

On that last point– Canadians who are worried about such things should have a look at this chart, in which helpful people have translated from the various levels of government’s official mystical utterances into something which can be understood.