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Don't lose your passion! Write! Write! Write!

Look upon my life and don't do the things I do. Don't separate yourself from the people around you because of shame or doubt. Don't be a self-involved and inward-focused mooncalf.  

I used to jest that I'm writing a book titled The 1,000 Habits of a Highly Ineffective Person, but now I'm actually reminiscing about life and writing more about my past. I'm actually thinking about my time abroad and putting it into words. Today, I finished the final touches on a short story about the time I went to a friend’s house to see the spirit of his deceased younger brother conjured by a Tamil witch . . . and it’s not fiction. 

I'm thinking about the values of the beautiful people I lived around in Tamil Nadu and other places, and how community and family should be stronger values in my life and eclipse the “rugged individualism” that the U.S. system installed in me.  

For stupid reasons, I gave up on the dream of writing after I pursued an MFA. I fled the American economy to work overseas, and I didn't submit any short story or poetry publications to journals or magazines for over ten years. 

But that’s behind me.

Coming back to writing means writing the things I love and not just writing to be published inside of this or that journal or to impress people in this or that group. When I sit down to write now, I'm not writing to project an identity. I want to splatter the page with visions of the future and the terror of the past. I want to write the things I want to read that no one else is writing.

Some of my old stuff is linked below. Most of the journals I was in are no longer available. I just have tattered copies of them on my shelf. Maybe I’ll take pics and post them on here someday. 

Not all of it was tripe . . . some of it was fun and different:

The Legend of Middle Earthen Town at the Aphelion: The Webzine of Science Fiction and Fantasy

The Circum-Migration of the Animalis Manes: 3:AM MAGAZINE.

Five Steps in Your Evolution: MONKEYBICYCLE.

Las Vegas: 3:AM MAGAZINE.




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