In which I’ve gone and turned 51, of all things, and here is a short paragraph about it.
I’m fat as hell, my feet always hurt even though I only work part-time, my skin has no elasticity and is just drooping like fabric on the bias, I have a nearly constant stabbing pain in the index knuckle of my right hand, my hips hurt, I have nerve issues in my feet due to, according to google hospital, either menopause or neuropathy that occasionally drive me bugnuts when I’m lying in bed trying to go to sleep, sometimes I can’t sleep, or I wake wide up for no goddamned reason at all, my teeth are yellow, my desire to go out and hang with people is nearly as low as my introvert better half’s, I’m more or less running out of British TV shows to watch, I’ve been so sedentary for so long that popping up two flights of stairs here in the house makes me pant for three minutes, whatever symmetry my face may once have enjoyed is well and truly over, HOT FLASHES, sometimes everything from ovaries to vestibule feels weird as hell because hormone changes and so-called sexual atrophy, there’s no fat at all on the balls or heels of my feet, vericose veins, I’ve actually sharted, something I always thought was either a joke or an affliction affecting only young, stupid beer drinking males, twice in the past three years, my hair is thin and brittle, my nails are ridged, I think about death a lot and find sex scenes and courting plots juvenile and annoying, I have actually heard myself say “nobody’s writing any decent sci-fi these days,” I’m freaked about the fact I’ve never made any money and owe more in student loans than I’ve saved for retirement, my nose and ears are enormous and are just going to keep getting bigger, my eyebrows have discovered what it is to be tufty, my ass has changed shape to such a degree that I now fart like a man, and my sweat smells weird and old.
But it’s also true that I’m not on any meds at all*, which I’ve been told by a doctor friend is “unusual” for “someone my age.”
*yet
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“Just wait, it gets better and better!” My Dad said that to me when I was 50 and he was 72. Now I’m 69 and he’s dead, and it’s unfathomable I’ll be 70 next year! Anyway, I’m still writing decent sci-fi, but no one will publish it, so I just leave it lying around on Amazon.
Why the hell won’t anybody publish it? You’re, well, you’re you!
If 51 is this weird, I bet pushing 70’s even weirder! Better than the alternative, one assumes, but who knows.
Update: You have been leaving things lying around Amazon! So I’ve bought the first three of the Venusworld series, thanks.
The short answer is, my particular combination of style and subject matter is no longer wanted, either by the progressive editors (doesn’t fit the Narrative) or by the alt.right editors (to dirty). A longer answer would be that some time in 2011, when I was getting started making ebooks of my backlist, I realized my magazine stories were descending into self-parody. Besides that, all the editors with whom I’d worked well were either retired, fired, or dead. I got to think about all the books I wanted to write when I was young, and figured, Why not…? I submitted Crimson Darkness to every book editor I worked with over the years, rejected by all, but Amazon doesn’t have gatekeepers, only plagiarism bots. So I got started. Just now, I’m halfway through Venusworld, Vol. 4, The Mountains of Surprise. And I plan to get started on another series soon called The Guardians of Jove. It’s all stuff I first thought of when I was 12, but informed now by 60+ years of writing experience. I’ll writeuntil I drop, and my dad lived to be 87.
Exactly what I’ve experienced.
Just wanted to let you know if you and Scott decide to buy in M-F, note that I’d be happy to help with the down payment. And twice as much if there’s room to park my RV for a couple weeks per year. So chew on that.
Mush, have you had any blood work done? If you haven’t, it would be good to get an HbA1c test to see how your blood sugar levels are doing. Neuropathy in the feet and being overweight is a classic T2 diabetes combo.