Sometimes I am so overwhelmed by depression I must scream into the internet to feel any semblance of catharsis.
And sometimes I am so overwhelmed by joy and relief I also must scream into the internet. Fuck that feels good.
I have and never will shy from politics. For those who don’t know, my degree is in political studies and history and informs much of my writing.
Donald Trump lost the 2020 Election. Joe Biden is the president elect and will take power in early 2021.
Living through history sucks. We’ve all felt it. Whether or not it’s the media narrative, our social change crashing against technology, a world unable to keep up with itself, and a host of other possibilities. Things have been hard. I am one of the lucky ones and know how fucking privileged my life is. I do what I can but in the streams of history individuals are nothing. Today is a good day though. In the shit-show of 2020, there is finally a day where we can say a bad guy lost.
As much as I live and revel in grimdark and horror my coping mechanism for trauma and depression, it does feel really good to have a victory. I like grimdark because it rejects permanent victories and that is a far more realistic reflection of life.
Today is a good day, but hard times are always ahead. Winter is Coming. But a spring will always come too. That nihilism pervades all my writing, I literally can’t help it, and it is my genuine outlook on life.
I find it liberating. Today is a good day. A bad guy lost. We still have a pandemic and encroaching environmental disaster. Tomorrow there will be more bad guys. And when those are defeated there will be more. Human nature, across history and cultures, have always bristled against stability and towards conflict.
But today is a victory. A victory for progressive voices. It matters for the world. Not just America because no country, no nation, and no person is an island.
For everyone on the ground who made the American Election happen this way. I thank you. American-centrism is a thing, and an issue, but it means something when the global hegemon rejects a fascist populist. Regardless of what is replacing him. He lost. The bad guy lost.
And that’s reason to celebrate.
More on the subject of writing, I completely forgot to acknowledge NaNoWriMo and my goals for the month!
My goal isn’t word count. It is daily hours spent on various projects (this website included) each day I sit for a minimum for three hours to transcribe, rewrite, edit, research and, of course, write. My goal is to keep a working-day ethic with my creative projects.
It’s not easy. I imagine three hours is likely the average writing that most working people are doing during Nanowrimo? Possibly? Maybe? I fucking hope so. I am aiming for a total of 90-100 hours of work this month. Hopefully ending the month with an upcoming small publication!
Bi-weekly writing advice and genre-talk blogs are coming. Working away on discussions of event vs setting genres and how that can inform both audience expectation and a writers intentions. Stay tuned!
Thank you,
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ZFSigurdson 