How do I measure thee? Let me count the ways. (Jan. 2023)

“In a contest of will the universe always wins.” – Malcolm Sterling

Let’s start with raw numbers—for the TLDR crowd. The month’s goals were to read a certain number of books and write for a set amount of time.

For January 2023 those would be:

Monthly Total
Reading –
– Short Stories – 21 of 22 (Yeah!)
– Novel – Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain – 1 of 1 (Sweet!)
– Crafting Novel – Zen in the Art of Creative Writing by Ray Bradbury – 1 of 1 (Kill’a Sweet!)

Writing –
– Free Writing – 8 of 22 (Oh no!)
– Drafting – 15 of 22 (Getting better!)

But wait, there’s more. . .

In the aggregate this isn’t so bad for the first month of a thirty-three month (1000 days) project. It’s gonna take some time to get the rhythm and scheduling down.

I completely tripped on some of the weekly and monthly goals, and was only able to focus on the daily tasks. This kept me busy enough so I’m not sure how realistic separate weekly and monthly goals are going to be for writing. But let’s continue with it for a bit longer before making any drastic changes. I just got my boots on.

The positive takeaway from this project, if nothing else, is that I have read more in the last month, than I have in years! I’m almost in tears thinking about this. What wasted time. Why did I ever stop reading for fun?

The free writing I did was an exploration of first person POV. I’m working on a short story with that POV and I need some practice. A lot of sci-fi, fantasy, is close third person, and that’s what my stories have been, well are, so getting some first person exposure and exercise is warranted. It’s neat to see how POV flavors have changed over time. Several of the short stories for this month were specifically chosen because of their first person POV usage.

Many of the free writing sessions I used as exercises in personal journaling. (Note to self, delete all free writing from January 2023.)

There were a few free writing sessions that sparked short story ideas and took place in books that are still in the drafting stages. I was excited about those and they are now in the pile of drafts for fleshing out into short stories before tackling the books in those universes.

Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury. Overall a good book, but as the decades progressed the essays started repeating. I’ll do a posting about my thoughts on this book as well as Huckleberry Finn. Not sure if I’ll do this for every novel I read, but in the spirit of “1000 Days to an MFA”, I should at least do one for the crafting books.

Yeah, this was a pretty decent month. There are things I will considering adjusting—track time, not just sessions—but how much do I want to be a slave to the metrics? “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it,” said my Administration course professor in college. So there is that.
But they also said, “You manage processes, you lead people.” For a computer science degree program this was a statement not said enough. There was a lot of emphasis on the technology. Often it’s lost that technology only exists because of people making decisions about that very technology and how it’s used.

But before I start to soapbox a rant about technology and how its promise of making things better for us all appears to have gone askew, I’ll close with the short stories I read. Recommended ones are marked with an asterisk(*).

2nd – My Father’s Mask – Joe Hill
3rd – Raphael – Stephen Graham Jones
4th – Paperclips and Memories and Things That Won’t Be Missed – Caroline M. Yoachim
5th – Falling Leaves – Liz Argall
6th – Not Smart, Not Clever – E. Saxey
8th – Microbe – Joan Slonczewski (*)

9th – The October Game – Ray Bradbury (This one upset me a bit. I was not expecting it. It made me sad.)
11th – The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis by Karen Russell
11th – Likeness – Judith Chalmer; Crashdown – Emma Osborne; Graveyard Rose – Seanan McGuire
12th – Afterparty – Daryl Gregory
15th – The Turing Machines of Babel by Eric Schwitzgebel (***) (apex-magazine.com or Amazon link)

16th – L’APPEL DU VIDE by Rich Larson
18th – Living Rooms by Laurie Tom (*)
19th – The Black Side of Memory by Lael Salaets
20th – Legendaire by Kai Ashanti Wilson

23rd – Lisa With Child by Alex Black
24th – Not in the Flesh by Adam Colston
25th – Seeing Double by Tom Crosshill
26th – Exanastasis by Brad R. Torgersen (*)
27th – Poison Inside the Walls by Scott W. Baker

31 Jan – Confliction by Simon Cooper

One can measure success through actionable intentions, even if the goals are not fully met, or even met at all. I tend to mix a bit of both. Intentions are great but if you only intend and never actually do anything, what are your intentions worth? (“Thoughts and Prayers”)

The smallest, poorly executed action upon an intention is infinitely better than the intention itself. Or as someone more versed than myself put it, “Anything worth doing, is worth doing badly.” — G. K. Chesterton

In that spirit, onward to February 2023.
-Malcolm