Bottom of the Top #50

John Winkelman

Welcome to the last “Bottom of the Top” post. It was a fun run, but nostalgia mining can quickly become pathological, and I felt it was best to stop before that point was reached.

Here in the middle of December in each of these years I would have been anticipating or dreading the upcoming holidays, sometimes both in equal measure.

1977: Dan Hill, “Sometimes When We Touch”

Approaching Christmas at the end of the second marking period of third grade in Parma. Living in an apartment and probably anticipating spending some of the holidays with Dad, playing with the electric train set which would keep our attention for another couple of years, and looking forward to a new Micronaut or two. This song would have hit me right in the feels even back then, at eight years old. And possibly singing along with it when in a car going to a family event, which were usually fun as I was too young at the time to notice all of the toxicity.

1982: Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band, “Shame on the Moon”

I do not believe I have heard this one before. It’s much more, er, quiet, than most of Seger’s more well-known songs, but good for all that.

1987: Men Without Hats, “Pop Goes the World”

I may have heard this one before. It’s fun and the video is most excellent, and is quite a different sound than “Safety Dance”, which is refreshing.

1992: Jon Secada, “Just Another Day”

I must have heard this song at least once a week throughout 1992 and 1993. Or maybe songs which sounded a lot like it. In any event this was what most of the second half of my college experience sounded like.

1997: Shawn Colvin, “Sunny Came Home”

Yeah, I heard this one a lot while I was working at the bookstore. Both in-store, and on the radio driving to and from work, practice, visiting the family, etc. It’s really good and wow, can Colvin sing!

The Year is Winding Down

John Winkelman

New books for the week of December 4, 2022

As we reach the midpoint of December I feel, for the 22nd year in a row, a profound sense of relief that I no longer work in retail. When the owners of a store yowl, from their expensive house in an expensive neighborhood, that the workers making barely more than minimum wage need to work both smarter AND harder, I begin to understand why the plans for home-made guillotines are proliferating across the internet.

Anyway.

Two new journal arrived at the house this week. On the left is the latest issue of The Boston Review. On the right is the latest issue of The Paris Review. Both are the last issues I will see of these publications, as I have let both subscriptions lapse. Despite my earlier misgivings I am sticking to my guns, and from now on will only purchase books intentionally, rather than subscribing to a dozen periodicals and catalogs and letting the arrivals sit unread for years at a time.

It’s also cheaper that way, which is always a concern.

In reading news, I am well over halfway through Crime and Punishment, and still expect to complete it before Christmas.

In writing news, other than journaling, I haven’t written anything since the end of November. Too many things going on all at once.

I think I am about due for another Great Simplification, the first since January of 2013. Ten years is probably slightly too long to go between Simplifications, but for the past several years I have been both happy and content, and haven’t felt the need to change things significantly. I am still happy and content, but entropy is making itself felt in several areas of my life, and in order to focus on those areas I need to let some other things in my life recede into the background.

So it goes, as always.

IWSG, December 2022: Holiday Writing

John Winkelman

Poe hiding from loud noises.

[EDIT – didn’t actually write the post before its scheduled publication time. That has been corrected.]

The past several weeks have been busy, thanks to NaNoWriMo, work, family obligations, and planning house upgrades. Thus a short IWSG post for the month.

The Insecure Writer’s Support Group question for December 2022 is: It’s holiday time! Are the holidays a time to catch up or fall behind on writer goals?

In past years I would have said holidays are when I fall behind, even though I have vacation time, but this year I think I might put that down time to good use. This is mostly because I have an actual plan and an actual draft to work on, with an actual end goal in sight. This is seldom the case at the end of the year. That, more than anything else, tends to drive whether or not I actually sit down and do the work.

 

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Bottom of the Top #49

John Winkelman

The second-to-last of these posts. Nostalgia mining quickly becomes tedious, and though I have heard a great many song for the first time, and rediscovered many more that I haven’t heard in decades, it’s time to put this project to bed.

1977: Odyssey, “Native New Yorker”

This is some groovy disco. I don’t know if I have ever heard it before, but it does scratch that 1970s itch nicely.

1982: Fleetwood Mac, “Love In Store”

This song appearing in this post right now is another one of those unfortunate coincidences. Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac died six days ago, on November 30.

1987: Bruce Springsteen, “Brilliant Disguise”

This is a repeat from earlier in the year, so please enjoy this live version from 2005.

1992: TLC, “Baby-Baby-Baby”

This is a repeat from last week, so please enjoy the full album version.

1997: H-Town, “They Like It Slow”

This is a repeat from earlier in the year, so please enjoy this live version from Soul Train.

December and All That

John Winkelman

New reading material for the week of November 27, 2022.

Well, NaNoWriMo is over, so my daily routine, such as it is, is back to normal. A little more reading, a little more journaling, a little more sleep. December is here, and with it the usual holiday angst, though there is considerably less this year than in the previous couple.

(just kidding about the sleep)

Two new bundles of bound pages arrived at the house in the past week. On the left is the latest issue of Poetry, which is almost certainly the last one for my subscription. And on the right is the eighth edition of the Long List Anthology of works which were considered for the Hugo award in the previous year, but didn’t win. These anthologies are excellent, full of superb and varied stories.

In reading news, I am well into Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, and loving it! It’s a much easier read than The Brothers Karamazov, but then the list of books which fit that criteria is vast.

In writing news, things have slowed down just a little as I figure out how to connect what I wrote for NaNoWriMo with what I wrote before NaNoWriMo 2021. I have a sense for what I want to do, but knowing that no matter what I write to complete the pre-first draft will almost certainly be completely changed in the next edit, I have difficulty taking the step of putting my ass in the chair and typing those words.

Happy December, everyone!

NaNoWriMo 2022 Wrap-up

John Winkelman

Poe in Repose

Well, NaNoWriMo 2022 is over, and I can chalk up another win for myself. I hit 50,000 words in my WIP Cacophonous on November 23, and managed to get in a couple thousand more before the end of the month. I had hoped to hit 60k but family and holiday stuff, as well as a strong attack of burnout from the year, sapped all of my creative energy. But still – 50,000 words in a little over three weeks. I’ll accept that.

This year I employed the same strategy as last year – one document for every day of the month, word count in the title, and let the chapter breaks fall where they may. As with last year, this had two benefits. First, it removed the sense that the next chapter couldn’t start until the previous one was finished. I didn’t have to finish scene X by the end of the day. I could pick it up the next morning. This is really more of a psychological than a practical trick. but it does keep the focus where it should be for NaNoWriMo – productivity and word count. The editing happens later. This is Draft 0. After it is all cobbled together, it is draft 1. Then the editing can begin. And second, I could start each day fresh, unencumbered by what I had worked on in the previous sessions.

The big change this year, from the past three, was the community involvement. Of course 2020 and 2021 had no in-person events, and 2019 I think I skipped out on everything so I could be with my partner as she had recently moved in and things around the house were still a little chaotic.

I didn’t realize how much I had missed the community aspect of NaNoWriMo until I walked in the room for the kickoff party back at the end of October and saw all of those familiar faces, some of whom I had not seen in five years. Then there was a book launch party for the first publications by Lakeshore Literary, the new publishing endeavor which grew out of the ashes of Caffeinated Press. And then two weeks ago we had DoKN, or the Day of Knockout Noveling, where I wrote about 5,000 words in one afternoon, ate a lot of really good food, and encountered many more of the people who I had not seen in years.

So, like so much else in 2022, my sense is that the world is making up for the two years when we couldn’t do anything, by having everything happen in a very short amount of time.

As of this writing I am about 60% of the way through Cacophonous. More if I take the short story I wrote in October 2021 and turn it into the last couple of chapters. I will certainly use a lot of it, but the book is significantly different from the short story so I will only bring over the bones of the first work.

Will I participate in NaNoWriMo again? Absolutely! There are no bad sides to such an event.

Bottom of the Top #48

John Winkelman

Hellooooo December! In the interregnum between the last two major holidays of the year, there is nothing to do but try to stay afloat and make it to the new year with sanity intact.

1977: Stevie Wonder, “As”

This is a repeat from last week, so please enjoy this live studio version of “As.”

1982: Kool and the Gang, “Let’s Go Dancin'”

1987: New Order, “True Faith”

1992: TLC, “Baby-Baby-Baby”

1997: Imani Coppola, “Legend of a Cowgirl”

To 50k and Beyond!

John Winkelman

New books for the week of November 20, 2022

On Wednesday, November 23, I reached 50,000 words in Cacophonous, my 2022 NaNoWriMo project. I still have, I think, 15,000 to 20,000 words to go to complete the first draft. It probably won’t be done by the end of the month, but hopefully by the end of the year.

First up is (Re)Living Mythology: A Collection of Black Magical Stories and Poetry, from Android Press, fresh from a successful Kickstarter campaign. The list of authors here is impressive and I very much look forward to diving into this one.

Next is Nicole Sealey‘s poetry collection Ordinary Beast, which arrived at the best bookstore in West Michigan, Books and Mortar. I first became aware of Sealey when I participated in the “Sealey Challenge” a couple of years ago.

While at Books and Mortar, on a whim, I picked up N.K. Jemisen‘s The World We Make, the sequel to her magnificent The City We Became. This book also has the honor of being the 100th piece of reading material to arrive in 2022.

In reading news, I just finished Duncan Hannah‘s collection of journals Twentieth-Century Boy. Hannah is a wonderful writer, and had a rich and full life. This is one of those books (like Jim Harrison‘s Just Before Dark) where it is easy to read a dozen pages and suddenly think, “What have I done with my life?” The answer, of course, is different for everyone, but usually more than you think.

With the end of the month just a couple of days away, I have started my read for Dostoevsky December: Crime and Punishment (translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky), a book which I am ashamed to say I have not yet read, despite really meaning to for over two decades.

Bottom of the Top #47

John Winkelman

Thanksgiving week. SO many other things to think/worry/stress about. Music helps. Not always, and not necessarily a lot, but it helps.

1977: Stevie Wonder, “As”

I wasn’t sure I had heard this song before, until the chorus of “Until the rainbow burns the stars out of the sky” and I had a sudden memory of…something. Me being quite young, certainly. This song was originally released in 1976, so I would have been seven years old, eight at the latest if I heard it when it when it was still new. A vague hint of Sesame Street or The Electric Company or some similar TV show, possibly a special or the Tonight Show if I had the opportunity to stay up late, which happened once in a while.

1982: Phil Collins, “You Can’t Hurry Love”

In my memory this song blends directly into the original by The Supremes, but given the realities of 1980s music I definitely heard this one a lot more than the original. It’s a fun little video.

1987: Laura Branigan, “Power of Love”

Back in the 1980s I had a HUGE crush on Laura Branigan, mostly due to  her huge hit “Self Control.” She had an amazing voice and she left us far too soon.

1992: Exposé, “I Wish The Phone Would Ring”

Exposé is one of those bands where I recognize their sound much more than any of their specific songs. They were all over the place back in the early 1990s, the heyday of my MTV-watching life.

1997: She Moves, “Breaking All the Rules”

I…have never heard this song before. It isn’t bad, but not particularly memorable. Good voices, though.