Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Thoughts, photos, and videos of the decade just gone by

Wow, another decade is in the books. We're on to the Twenties.

My feelings on the Teens are rather mixed. Societally, worldwide and nationally, I think 2010-2019 represent at best a series of missed opportunities and at worst some serious regressions. But for me personally? The decade was pretty damned good, for the most part. I got ahead professionally at The Day Job, and my writing career continued to advance, even if it took routes that I didn't entirely expect when 2010 dawned. But this was the decade I got back to hard-core fiction writing after the emotional upheavals of the Aughts made writing deeply difficult.

In 2010 my attitude was, "I wonder if I can write that space opera book." As 2019 exits, I've published three of the books in that series with the fourth coming right along for release in 2020. I've published the first book in another series, and I currently have four other novels drafted and awaiting my push into the world. I was a lonely blogger, and now I'm kind-of still that...but I'm also a writer for The Geekiverse, where I get to geek out about things of my choosing.

I launched my official author site as well, ForgottenStars.net. I haven't been nearly as consistent as I should have been with that space, and even now I'm struggling to figure all that out. Hopefully in 2020 I'll start to "get my shit together" a bit on that score. I'm trying to add some structure to my creative life, because I'm finding as I get older that the scattershot approach isn't nearly as conducive to getting things done in a productive way as it was when I was younger.

As far as my "personal brand" goes, I guess it stayed pretty much the way it always was. Books, music, movies, food, drink, nature, occasional travel, and let's not forget the bib overalls and the pies in the face! I probably have to admit that at this point I am a collector of bib overalls (when you set up eBay email alerts for specific things, it's time to admit that you're collecting them), and I continue to find delight in getting hit in the face with a pie.

Anyway, I've been photographically documenting my adventures for years, first on Flickr and then more recently on Instagram. Here is a small selection of the goings-on of the last decade. Lots of nature, and overalls, and dogs and cats, and pies! These are not presented particularly chronologically.

OneWTC

Midway at Dusk

First step into the sea!

Nose to nose!

'Tis rather hard to write like this. #Lester #AmWriting

Casa Loma: Ceiling in the Solar

OPRR XI: Looking across the tracks

Cane is alert. Knox Farm State Park, East Aurora NY

Watching for something.... #Cane #DogsOfInstagram

IMG_20151027_212549

Overalls and R2D2 scarf

Reviewing notes. FORGOTTEN STARS III isn't gonna publish itself! #amwriting

Not gonna lie, folks: this adjustment is not going spectacularly well. However, there are moments. #DogsOfInstagram

Milady In Blue. #sterlingrenaissancefestival #renfest #renfaire

Our knight engages in pre-joust braggadocio. Alas, he did not win the day. #sterlingrenaissancefestival

Screwing #tools

Lakeside ruin #Buffalo #the716 #wny #LakeErie #greatlakes #outerharbor

The Dumas Bridge, green at last! #KnoxFarm #eastaurora #wny #spring #nature #hiking #trees

Library Cleaning Day means a new collection of faces staring at me from atop my desk! #tobyjug #antiques

Owl 1: Whilst hiking I heard a bird call very close by. I looked up and saw this beauty looking down at me. #owl #birds #ChestnutRidge #wny #orchardpark #summer #nature #hiking

No, I am NOT scheming an attack on my brother. Why do you ask? #Carla #dogsofinstagram #pitbullmix #pitbullsofinstagram

Water frolicking

My toy. I wants it. #Carla #dogsofinstagram #pitbullmix

Upper and Middle Falls, Genesee River, Letchworth Park #letchworthstatepark #wny #waterfall #river

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

This dee-oh-gee can give coolness lessons to The Fonz. #correctimundo #Cane #DogsOfInstagram #greyhound

The dee-oh-gee and me, Taughannock Falls.

The Earth plinth on the Sagan Planet Walk, with one of Earth's progeny. #ithaca #ithacaapplefest #saganplanetwalk #overalls #dungarees #biboveralls #hickorystripe #zacedenim #brandedzace

This is my "Holy shit this water is COLD" face. Ayup. #ChestnutRidge #wny #OrchardPark #summer #hiking #nature #stream #runningwater #pool #swimminghole #huzzah #overalls #dickiesworkwear #bluedenim #dungarees #denim #taketheplunge

Splat! The meeting of Pie and Face

Hair, bib, and whipped cream.

I pied myself today as part of the #porphyriapiechallenge. Why this challenge? Because a big part of these is raising awareness, and I had never heard of pprphyria, which is a pretty rare condition, apparently.

Happy Birthday to Me! VI: The pies go in my face, Huzzah!

Guess what happened to me today....

A Profile in Pie

2/3 She deploys the pie.... #pieintheface #overalls #Dickies #bluedenim #plaid #cosplay #mylittlepony #nightmaremoon

This was a week that just cried out for a pie in the face! #pieintheface #overalls #Dickies #bluedenim #plaid

Splat 5

ICYMI: Check out my Pi Day post on the blog (link in profile)! Happy Pi Day, folks! 😊 #piday #piday2018 #overalls #vintage #key #hickorystripe #dungarees #biboveralls #pieintheface #pieinface

20180616_085522

Pies, Prismafied

Pies, Prismafied

Pies, Prismafied

I also occasionally make videos and post them to YouTube. I've thought about "vlogging" in the past, but I've never really found the time or motivation to get into all that (though I don't rule out appearing on other peoples' shows and such). Mostly my videos are just forays into me getting hit with pies. Here are the ones I made in the 2010s (links only--I don't want to take up a ton of space embedding them all):

How to Properly Dispose of Three Coconut Cream Pies
Anatomy of a Pieing
A Pie in the Face is a Wonderful Thing! (A compilation)
Smush or Splat?
The Porphyria Pie Challenge (pies self-administered)
Pi Day 2015 (pies self-administered)
How to play the Pieface Game if you don't have the game (pies self-administered)
Pielexa: A new treatment for RBF! (repurposed footage)
The Evil Lurking Pie-wielding Cosplayer of Chestnut Ridge
Pi Day 2016
A retirement gift for my friend Joyce: She gets to pie me
Pi Day 2018 (a silent movie...I like the way this one turned out!)

Goodness, that's a lot of pies in my face in the 2010s, especially when I consider that I didn't even get pied in 2019. I suppose I could stop, but where's the fun in that!

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the decade that's just ending. Let's bring on the new one. Even if my 2010s weren't that bad, the world needs a better decade. Badly. And it's in our hands to make it happen, folks. So let's get it done!

1 comment:

Roger Owen Green said...

If you're too busy for a pie in the face, you're too busy. Don't make me come out there...