Writing again…

This year started off more with submitting things I’ve already written, but there was that little voice in the back of my head saying: “Hey, you there calling yourself a writer, better get your butt in the chair and your fingers on the keyboard.” That little voice only ever calls to my writer self; I think the lack of a voice calling to my musician self, my muay thai self, my language self, etc., is why I do consider myself a writer and not much more than a hobbyist in those other areas.

Anyway, I was sitting here listening to that voice and wondering what to work on. I opened up the manuscript for Steel-Toed Blues, but couldn’t get into it. So I was farting around wasting time on Facebook when I came across a particularly interesting Humans of New York picture and quote. It gave me a bit to think about and, unbeknownst to me, lodged itself somewhere in the crevices of my subconscious only to come to the fore when I, scrolling down my Page Feed, caught this article. Actually, I scrolled by it, tried to come back, couldn’t find it, but the phrase “inconvenient hero” stuck in my subconscious, right next to the HONY picture, until I finally did a Google search and was able to find the piece.

At the same time, I had been surfing those submission opportunities and found one that has a deadline of 31 January. It is looking for “near future” stories about “space exploration.” And somehow, the description of this venue also crawled up next to “imperfect idol” and “inconvenient hero” and poked and melded until the first two or three pages somehow ended up on my computer.

I’m not sure if this is going to be one of those stories that I like enough to send out to the world. But it’s possible. And now, I need to go and finish it.