Daniel Aegan

Another year is under our belts. Another trip around the sun is complete. We should have had many accomplishments in 2019. We should be making goals for 2020. That’s what everyone says anyway

I’ve had a case of blogger’s block. I was hung up on issues from this last year that have been holding be back. But I need to power through and put it behind me. I have been.

So let’s take a look back, since humans can’t seem to take a single step forward without looking behind them to see if they shat on the ground. If they did shit, they’d stop even longer to examine it for shoeprints.

I left a lot of shoeprints in a lot of turds during the last year. I didn’t make all the brown piles of nastiness, though. Full credit had been given to me from the minds of crazy people with a chip on their shoulder, but I’m much too modest to take it. Alright, I’m mincing turds here. Let’s move on…

And therein lies the issue: Conflict avoidance. It’s easier to ignore your problems than it is to face them. I’ve lost friends during the course of 2019. I’ve lost a few. Each one left its scar, but I’ve dealt with them better than the ones who’d inflicted them.

I’ve been told that I’ve changed, and that’s probably not far from the truth. They meant it as an insult, subtly masking their disdain for what I’ve become. There was a time (maybe even before 2019) where I was a completely different person. Someone muttered recently that we’re completely different people every seven years. I don’t believe I’ve changed… Definitely not in the cringe-filled and venom-oozing way I’ve been told I have. I’d like to think of it more as evolving, but I’m better with words than most. I also have the distinct point of view of my own life. Funny as it sounds, I can judge myself as well, and I’m often a cynic when it comes to me.

I believe in energy. Sure, I work with electricity in my professional life, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Well, maybe it helps my understanding a little bit. I do believe that people create or repurpose their own energy. What you put out into the universe always comes back to you. You can spend your years producing negative energy, and that will reflect on your in some way, shape, or form. Or, and I can’t stress this enough, you can do more than something good and see what comes your way. Nice guys only finish last because their motives are fucked.

I talked about the people who have left me during the past year. To make matters a little more complicated: I left them as well. Not in all cases, but in some. There comes a time when enough needs to be enough. I endure a lot of negative energy from people who work well with it, but it always ends up warping me before I’m through. I’ve been gaslit, abused verbally, and accused of despicable acts and insulted to boot. The problem with taking negative energy from people is that they’re always willing to dish out more. When you finally decide it’s enough, they’ll do whatever they can to get you back. Otherwise they have to deal with it themselves, and no one wants to wallow in the shit storm of their own creation.

Future avoidance of those storms is where my personal focus will be in 2020 and beyond. Yes, there are still people in my life who irk me and spread hate at their default setting. We’re living in a time where this trait is respected and revered for some reason. Hell, Nazis are back and there are people who haven’t even flinched about it. The only positive about this is that they’ve identified themselves in public, making them easier to avoid. I’ve been more boisterous about my views as well, making myself easy to avoid from their point of view. Win-win.

Did you know Ted Danson was close friends with Bill Clinton? Weird, right? But it’s not at all unbelievable. What is unbelievable is how I just learned this at the end of 2019.

I’m veering way off topic here. Hopefully a little self-realization is what helps kick my ass into updating this blog more often. This public journal of mine isn’t helping me gain any points in my want to be a recluse, but it’s definitely an exercise in honest and harsh writing. Sometimes I just need to kick my own ass.

Or brag… I accomplished a lot in 2019. I self-published two of my books: Blood Drive and Lost Women of the Admiral Inn. I also wrote a pile more along with a whole slew of shorts. I even had two of them printed in Prismatica Magazine. It was a year of getting words on the page, and I got tens of thousands of them. Most of those words will see the light of day at some point aside form a novel that turned too YA for my liking and spiraled toward doom after the first part.

It’s funny how a year’s worth of writing accomplishments can fit into one long paragraph but dealing with personal issues can take up several. It’s not that I didn’t accomplish a lot writing wise. It’s that there’s as lot I’m keeping under my hat. I did write that full novel that turned out to be a plop. I also wrote a few more that were worth finishing. I even wrote a ninety-thousand-word novel in forty-five days during the summer. All in all, it was a productive year.

The novel I have on my plate now, Reign of the Unfortunate, is in its finishing stages. I’m just about at the climax. I planned to be done with it by tomorrow night, but fate wasn’t having it. I’ll probably have the first draft of my first villainpunk piece a week into 2020. This one is a milestone of mine. I’ve wanted to write this story forever. This is an homage to the Sinister Six from the Spider-Man comics, and I’ve always wanted to get this on paper. I had some help from a friend named Mikey Blackheart to iron out the details, and it pops thanks to his advice.

So now I’ve dipped a toe into 2020. Might as well look forward to the steps that have no bits of shit on them yet. They’re nice, new, and ready for the plop of a lifetime. I’m going to skip the “new year new me” bullshit. I was never much for that. I’m usually not one for resolutions either. I can spout nonsense about wanting to lose weight or be a better person or do something amazing I’ve never done before. But I won’t. Well… Maybe I’ll dabble.

In the closing days of 2019, I fixed up my personal space. My home office was reorganized, and it looks fantastic. My daughter took a corner for her art stuff, but I can share. There’s room enough for my big-ass desk, all my books, my board games, and even a space set a side for my tarot stuff. It’s my own little slice of fuck-off. So I have that ready for me for the start of the next decade.

What’s in store in 2020? I plan on reading the final version of my book Kai the Swordsman and making the necessary changes to publish it early in the year. I’ll be doing the same with I’m in Sci-Fi Hell a little later. Maybe I’ll have it out in time for a summer blockbuster. I want to round off the year with my fantasy comedy Excalibur Nights, which is in the editing stage now. I have a surprise I may or may not drop sometime during the year if I can get it together and can be satisfied with it.

I’ll also be getting second drafts done of the books I worked on this year. Two at least, maybe three. I’ll need to get them ready for 2021 after all. I’m not sure if I’ll start another novel or not this year, but only time will tell. The Muse tends to strike me on Her schedule, not mine. I have other book ideas, but I haven’t realized them as full stories yet. There is one with a tentative title Trash Rat that’s called to me, and that’ll be my next likely project.

On a personal level, I plan on doing all those cliché things everyone says they’ll do in January. Weight loss? Hell yeah, chumps! New diet? Just try to stop me, assholes! Be a better person and role model? You better fucking believe it, motherfuckers!

I’m going to be focusing on positive energies, more or less. I’m going to continue cutting people out who bring hate and negativity to the table. At this point I don’t care who the are or how long we’ve been “cool” with one another. I’m through living life in the cesspool created by the people with whom I had chosen to surround myself. I had done it for years, and it did me no good. A new decade seems to be a good jumping off point for this.

And I’m looking at those who questioned my decisions and labels. I don’t personally like wearing a label for I am or how I choose to live my life. I’m a guy who came out, went back in, redefined who and what I was, and became cautious about with whom I was open. I plan to be open more with friends and family about this in the coming year and beyond. There are those I trust and those I don’t. But that’s just the nature of things. Only time will tell if I’m doing the right thing for myself.  I have the support of those who matter to me, and that’s what’s important.

There’s not much else to say. 2020 is coming whether we like it or not along with all the challenges and obstacles that it can throw at us. You can dodge all day, or you can power through it. It’s not going to let up, so neither should any of us.

That’s about all the inspiration I can muster. I’ll be fired out of a canon next year. Hopefully I don’t get scorched to bad.

See you in 2020, people!

-Daniel Aegan
12/30/19