The Year That Was 2022

 

It is that time of year when folks write blog posts touting their successes and accomplishments over the year. It boggles the mind how much some folks have done over the 12 months. This is not one of those posts. Unlike some, I don’t have a lot to show for 2022.

As I have said before, I remain very slow reading wise. Everything I do now is way slower and takes a lot more effort than it seemed to be just a few years ago when I had to juggle so much more as a husband, caregiver, dad, etc.  The grief is stronger than ever. Keeping this blog going is becoming far more difficult and increasingly seems a fruitless task.

I said last January after the blog and everyone involved won the award as the Best Review Site once again, that I would not enter the Preditors and Editors contest this year. The site won it three years in a row and I am very grateful for that fact. I thought then that enough was enough. I still think that now. One has to know when to walk away, while on top, and not keep pushing when the moment in the sun is over.  

2022 saw me resume the Presidency of the Short Mystery Fiction Society. It was not a post I wanted again, but I was also not going to let the group fold up. There seemed a real danger of that a few months ago. So, I am back doing a lot for SMFS and that takes up quite a lot of time.

I read at a couple of the Noir at the Bar Dallas events at The Wild Detectives this year. Those readings seemed to go well. There is some talk there will be another one sometime in the Spring, but whether it really will happen, let alone involve anything with me, remains to be seen.

Paying editing work is not happening. I had a little bit the previous year, but nothing much at all this year.

I am also not writing at all as that part of me seems to be gone. I did have one story published, The Beetle’s Last Fifty Grand, appeared in the anthology, Back Road Bobby and His Friends. Solicted by direct invite that had a specific set of guidelines, I was able to finally create something that worked. But,  it was a brutal process, and did not come easy. The folks that have read it, seemed to think it was a good short story.

For me, 2022 was not much of anything, professionally or personally. I am still here and hanging in despite worsening health, a bank account headed rapidly to zero and that will mean I will have to sell this place just a few years after moving back home, and a world that seemingly is increasingly mad. I continue to escape the real world, as often as I can, via various tv shows and books.

It is what it is.