Writing Report December 31, 2021

I planned to do some writing today for 2022, another Batty ‘bout THE BAT entry, this one focusing on two knock off movies, but I think I’ll push that back to next year / month / week.

As mentioned before, I’ve been keeping a daily running tab on my word count (that is to say, how many words I write in a given day with the intention of seeing them published as opposed to notes to be used in writing other words, including words later edited out or revised).

This year the blood total stands at 301,653.

Not bad, but I can do better.

That’s a monthly average of 25,137 and a daily average of 826 but those numbers are misleading.

I tend to work in long sustained creative efforts or spurts of creativity with significant gaps between.

Tomorrow I plan to start work on Big Project #1 For 2022; God willin’ ‘n’ the crick don’t rise, I hope to see it completed by April at the latest.

I’ll catch my breath and let it lay fallow for a while, starting Big Project #2 For 2022 in June (hopefully).

I wrote a one act play this year that left me unsatisfied; last month I realized it needed a second act, so I wrote one for it.

Still felt unsatisfied, then realized it’s because it needs a third act, so maybe between the two Big Projects I’ll squeeze it in.

I’ve got enough fictoids lined up to see us through January of 2023, but I’ll try to generate a few more during the year.

I love this country and am optimistic about its long term survival, but I’ll be frank, I can see us entering some very blood, very violent years.  Those of us with good will towards our fellow humans will need to work hard to stay allies with those who support liberty and justice for all, and oppose whenever and wherever possible the thugs who want to march us down the path to bloodshed and horror.

I’ve unfriended a few people in real life this year because when the choice came down to protecting others or lining their own pockets, they revealed who they were.

A couple of them are upset with me because I can see how their choices put the lives of those I love and cherish at risk.  I completely understand striving to protect those you love and cherish, I do not understand failing to extend that common courtesy to others as well.

If you don’t make at least a tiny effort to protect others, why should you expect protection in return?

The God damned fascists have hijacked an inspirational symbol -- the fasces -- and used it to name themselves and their movement.

Fascists then and now are lovers of the big lie, and the fasces -- an axe wrapped in a bundle of stout sticks to represent unity is impossible to break -- has its meaning perverted by authoritarians seeking to drive out all those different from them in origin / appearance / word / thought / belief.

The fasces symbol has avoided being forever tainted the way the swastika was tainted by the nazis, and its symbolism is vital to this country today (it’s on the wall behind the speaker’s chair in the U.S. House of Representatives, and has appeared on our coins in the past).

Out of the many, one.

Not one out of many.

May 2022 treat you better.

© Buzz Dixon