I’m Off My Meds Again!

Listening to advice from friends, I am going to start other blogs to carry topics unrelated to writing, instead of clogging the space here. Since my favorite off-topic interest is off-the-wall stories in our modern or pop culture, the first new blog is called “I’m Off My Meds Again” and can be found at http://www.offmymedsagain.wordpress.com. It’s MY platform for MY craziness. If you love the world of abnormal, bizarre, whacko things, then you’ll love this space. If crazy talk isn’t your cup of tea, stay away!

A Writer’s Cash Cow

Are you looking for that writing topic that has the potential to turn you from pauper to prince?

Consider the doomsday story.

According to CUNY physics professor Michio Kaku, the doomsday story is a cash cow that cycles around with intensity about every ten years. Remember Y2K? Today it is the end of the Mayan calendar.

(Make a note to self to check pop culture in 2020 to see what doomsday buzz has turned into a roar.)

There are real problems that get eclipsed by doomsday stories. Some of those problems are:

• Heating up of planet earth
• Melting polar ice caps
• Increasingly rapid migration of the magnetic poles
• Real help for adults with mental illness
• Curing cancer and other life-threatening illnesses
• Financial solvency for governments
• Clean water
• Weather changes

That said, if you are strictly a commercial writer, you have three or four years to check your societal crystal ball and decipher the clues telling what the next big doomsday story will be. Then write your heart out and ride the wave. The last five years have been lucrative for the Mayan storytellers. Maybe you will be my new rich friend the next time doomsday cycles around.

Over-Caffeinated

“Hell. Where is it going now?”

The ever-circling icon in front of WordPress.com on the toolbar indicates I am off in an unknown and unwanted direction.

“When will I ever get the hang of this?” I click a button. Nothing. I click again. Click, click, click. Still the circle goes round and round.

WordPress.com is not responding, the tool bar reads.

“No shit.”

Click. click. click.

Try something else. Add tags. Yeah, I’ll add tags. I type HUMOR, but only the H appears.  And the flashing hash is in front of the H. I move the cursor behind the H and type UMOR, but only the U appears and the hash is in front of the U.

“Dammit.”

I try again, but can only type one letter at a time. I am getting tired of repositioning the cursor. I go back to working on the body of the post.  In the midst of a sentence, everything disappears.

WTF?

The circular icon is spinning again. And spinning, spinning, spinning.

The list of posts appears.

“I did not hit publish. I did NOT,” I say as I scan down to today’s items. I see the word DRAFT.

“Oh, thank God.”

I click “edit.” The screen with text appears. Half of my post is gone, vanished in mid-sentence, mid-word. About three paragraphs before the spot where  I was working– gone!

I stand up, close the notebook lid and head to the kitchen for another cup of coffee.

 

True story. My morning. End of story.