Let’s talk goals. I want to cook more, thus the slow cooker/crockpot as I mentioned a few days ago. It’s still in its box.I bought the ingredients needed for corn potato chowder, so I’ll get to that this weekend. We’re supposed to get 2-4 inches of snow today (downgraded from 4-7, per usual), and a chowder would be perfect for this weather.
1. My memoir. I have been trying to write this ever since I got out of the hospital. The problem is that I get bogged down in the history of my family and all the dysfunction. It’s hard to know what to include and what not to include. The problem is that I can’t talk about my medical crisis without including that. It’s the context needed. But it’s so complicated.
Here’s the thing. As traumatic as my medical crisis was, it really…wasn’t. What I mean is that on the daily, it didn’t really hinder me. My parents were here and my mother cooked, did the laundry, and cleaned Shadow’s litter. Those were the three things I–I could have done them, but it was just easier not to. To be brutally honest, though I would much rather have struggled to do those than to have my parents here.
This is mostly what the memoir is going to be about. I feel like it’s bait-and-switch, though. If the memoir is supposed to be about my medical crisis, then that’s what it should be about. However, it’s just not that interesting. I mean, the event itself was shocking and a once in a lifetime experience.
My time in the hospital was also wild and something that is hard to explain. I was delusional the whole time because I was high on very strong drugs. At least one chapter if not more will be about my experiences in the hopsital.
I feel like I want to start with that day. I mean, what else matters, really? Plus, it makes a banger of an intro. What a hell of a start, really. Me dying twice and being in a coma for a week. It doesn’t get much more high octane than that.
Then again, do I want to just throw readers into the deep end like that? Well, yes. That tends to be my style. Just get the big stuff out of the way. Plus, it’s a bit of a flex to hit them with a ‘yeah, I died. What of it?’ start.
It’s difficult because my brain is very much do its own thing. Things make sense in my head, but I can’t necessarily explain them to other people. It’s frustrating as fuck. I can make the logical connecttion in my brain, but not on paper or in words.
It was the same in math. I could do things in my head that the teacher wanted me to write on paper. It really bothered me because it was simple shit like multiplication or addition. He was a terrible teacher and everyone hated him. He killed my love for math.
This is my priority in 2024. Write my damn memoir. Finally. I have started it so many times, but then I just give up. i want a decent worknig draft by the end of the year.
2. A new kind of murder mystery. My goal during NaNoWriMo this year was to write a new kind of murder mystery. I haven’t written fiction since before my medical crisis, and I miss it. I got lost in the weeds and wasn’t able to pull off what I was trying to do. I have another idea, and I want to get it done. The basics were there with my NaNoWriMo project, but I have to tighten shit up.
Here’s the thing. I’m having the same problem I did with my memoir. I run out of steam because I can’t bring it together. Is this a problem related to my stroke? No idea. I have the tendency to blame everything on my stroke when it could be just aging or anything else. But why not put the blame on the stroke? It’s easy enough to do. And it might actually be true.
Before my medical crisis, I always had a story running in my brain. Now, it’s quiet. I would like to get back to the past two series I had been working on. They are both trilogies concerning fantasy. One included alien species and the other had demons and supernatural shit. I really liked both of them and was on the third book in each.
I don’t want to talk about my plan for my novel, but I want to, again, have a solid first draft by the end of 2024. I have the basic outline in my brain, and I just need to put it on paper. I also need a new laptop because this one is on its very last legs. I’m not mad. It’s been almost five years, which is old for a laptop.
3. Slow cooking. I have thought about doing content. One of the things I’ve thought about is doing some kind of cooking channel. This is in the vein of me doing things I don’t like doing. For some reason, I think this will be funny. I mean, mosst cooking shows are from people who like cooking and are good at it. I hate cooking, and I am not good at it.
I don’t want to go for anything elaborate. I am single and I can eat the same thing every day. That means stews, soups, chowders, etc. I just need to get over my strong distaste for learning new shit when I don’t like the thing I’m learning. I am a terrible student in that I cannot push myself to learn something I really don’t want to do.
I have no idea why it’s so hard for me to get going, but I aim tomake the damn potato corn chowder this weekend. By hook or by crook, I want to get it done. I’ll report back if I manage to get around to it.