Life Isn’t Fun Anymore!

July 2020 Blog

It’s now just a matter of survival, and apparently, it can always get darker.

Mirthless: A Haiku

Laughter is a sound

Seldom heard in the bleakness

Encompassing us.

by Ann Wilmer-Lasky

Yet again, nothing has gone as planned. I have spent a lot of my sleepless night time contemplating things like – do we deserve happiness? I don’t know the answer, but I sure do know that we don’t deserve such a sh*tload of unhappiness. It’s like Mercury is in constant retrograde. By the way, Mercury is retrograde until July 15^th. That surely doesn’t help.

It seems life is now one great big game of Russian Roulette, and you know there is a bullet in the chamber somewhere. If you pull the trigger often enough, eventually you’ll find it.

According to a scene in the movie “Psycho”, “you can’t buy happiness”, but you can “buy off unhappiness”. Lately, we can’t even afford to buy a lottery ticket, where for a few hours or minutes you can dream of the chance for a better life.

It’s gotten to the point where all the “feel good” platitudes in the world can’t help anymore, and it’s getting harder and harder to work on publishing a book which seems to little matter anymore.

But I plod on, and I plan on. “After “Global Warning” is published, I’ll work on publishing a self-reflective Haiku chapbook by the 100^th anniversary of Ray Bradbury’s birth in honor of the man who once told me that I was a writer. I’ll never forget that.

Then I want to publish the prequel to “The Chronicles of Acqueria” and the sequel to “Seasons of Sam Rock”.

That should take my mind off everything else that’s going on, but I’m not sure it will. Although, I am pretty much physically isolated from the rest of the world, it constantly creeps in through the media. I don’t particularly care to keep so well informed, but then I don’t feel comfortable being uninformed either.

So, day by day, I continue to slough on, which has been my wont to do until I no longer can.

I will go to bed tonight almost assured that I will wake up again in the morning and continue on. As long that still brings a smile to my face, I’ll be okay.

This blog this month is shorter than usual, not because I have nothing more to say, but more because I really don’t want to dwell on this topic.

I hope this month finds my faithful readers and fellow writers well and safe. I understand there is a lot more reading and writing going on, so that’s a good thing.

So, until next time, read and write to your heart’s content. I offer a wide variety of reading material for your enjoyment:

https://www.amazon.com/author/annwilmerlasky

As always, I welcome your reactions and responses to any of my blogs. I love to hear from my readers. Also, here are links to my Twitter and Facebook accounts, if you care to share your thoughts with me there:

https://twitter.com/awlasky

https://www.facebook.com/ann.wilmerlasky

As I post this, it appears that COVID_19 is indeed spreading at an accelerated level. Hopefully, science will prevail, and we will soon get a handle on the problem.

Doors

July 2019 Blog

There is a finality to the closing of a door that opening it again cannot erase.

Simply Idiom: A Haiku

by Ann Wilmer-Lasky

That one door closes

Does not mean another will

Open suddenly.

Yet, I face another door. Or, I face yet another door.  Different ways to say basically the same thing. I stand in front of another door that I feel I simply  must open, even though I’ve little time to explore the doors I’ve already opened.

In order to continue to live this life as best I can (tenuous as it is), I’ve decided to build upon my literary resume and add “proofreader” to my list of talents. Writing is a blast, but the books are few and far between, and the royalties cannot sustain me.

Proofreading on a freelance basis should afford me the ability to have a night out once in a while and not worry about paying the piper later.

So I have begun studying the ins and outs of being a proofreader. It seems I already have the most basic of qualifications – a rather facile command of the English language.

I guess reading the dictionary way back when was not all that stupid or strange for people like me. And all those English tests I aced and the classes I took will serve me well as my prerequisites.

There are many online resources to help anyone along in this endeavor, including some that cost you an arm and a leg (almost literally) to learn what you can learn from the all-inclusive, reasonably priced “Copyediting & Proofreading for Dummies”.

By this time next month, I should actually have some paying gigs under my belt and be well on my way to solvency. (Well, a girl can dream, can’t she?) In any case, it’s a good thing I love to read, because I’ll be doing a lot of it.

On a totally different note, the door has closed on half a year already. Six months under the bridge and washed out to sea. The most I have to show for it is that I’m six months older (not much wiser, just older).

I still have my plans, but they are still that – plans.

I am closer to having an audio book released. It will be “The Cottage”, my only contemporary novel – a paranormal (or not) tale of ghosts (or not) with lots of blood and casualties (for real).

The audio version of “The Seasons of Sam Rock” is still on hold.  Hopefully, the technical difficulties will be resolved soon.

I’m still working on “The Chronicles of Acqueria: The Early Years”, and I’m aiming for it to be published early Fall.

My Haiku chapbook on climate change (Global Warning) is now becoming more relevant  than ever. I’m still deciding what charity will get a portion of the proceeds: there are so many good ones out there. If my faithful readers have any ideas, I’d love to hear them.

I know a lot of the country is having constant rains and flooding. Here in Roswell, NM we are suffering drought conditions. We no longer have a lawn and the almost constant winds are blowing the dust-like dirt everywhere.

Hopefully, the USA will come to its collective senses and take the reins once again in leading the world to save this Earth we would like our children and their children to continue to live on in relative comfort.

I suppose that will have to wait until our political turmoil has settled down. That probably won’t happen for another couple of years.

Hopefully, the “doomsday clock” and/or “tipping point” of no return will wait for us to get our priorities straight.

While we’re on the subject of opening doors, let’s consider the totally “open door”  no privacy allowed policy of the internet. Actually, I believe there is no privacy anywhere anymore.

Lately, on trips to the doctor (in fact, a new doctor), I have been met with a list of medications and even flu shots from varied venues and over several years. It would appear everybody feeds everything into a central source that is accessible to who knows whom.

And since there is virtually no internet security anymore, we are faced with this new reality: there is, in fact, nothing private anymore. We are all of us public property.

I for one no longer do anything I need to keep private anymore, so I am not worried. But I am beginning to think that George Orwell was a genius with precognitive abilities.  “1984” is alive and well. “Big Brother” is everywhere. Even Ray Bradbury got it right in “Fahrenheit 451” with the interactive screens and the total control of thought by burning books and controlling information dissemination.

In protest of all of the above, I will continue to write and disseminate hopefully thought-provoking works for the next generations to enjoy.

This month I’m featuring “The Chronicles of Acqueria: Blood Moon Treachery” available from Amazon at https://tinyurl.com/y96zzp9u in honor of its coming prequel : “The Early Years”.

My featured poetry for July (Eldreth insisted on it) is “The Castleweaver's Tales: A Dozen Glimpses of Medieval Madness, 25th Anniversary Edition” in print from Amazon at: https://tinyurl.com/y9d8czj4

Until next time, keep the faith. Keep writing and keep reading. Enjoy what other universes may make you happy. Perhaps someday, even this one will match up to our ideals, but I’m still not holding my breath.

Until that time, I welcome your reactions and responses to any of my blogs. I love to hear from my readers. Also, here are links to my Twitter and Facebook accounts, if you care to share your thoughts with me there:

https://twitter.com/awlasky

https://www.facebook.com/ann.wilmerlasky

As all of my books are available on Amazon, I’m also including a link to my Amazon’s Author’s page. Feel free to visit me there also:

https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B003SH6HIQ