So, what's been going on this last week?
Progress has been slow, objectively speaking, but I'm working on about a half-dozen plans and projects. Been working to get myself back on the path and focus on what's really important to me. So I figure this week I'll just get you up to speed on what I'm working on. Let you know what you can expect in the future, and that kind of thing. Maybe get into some meditations on what I've been reading lately if there's time for that at the end.
Maybe you've noticed that after a year or more of erratic social media use, I'm up and running again. Let's just say there were good and bad reasons for my extended absence from the digital world. It's really not too much to say that my life fell apart for a while. It was kind of a bizarre adventure, and it's too much to get into here and now. I might tell you the story one of these days, but as is… well, I haven't even told myself the story fully. And I know I'll never know everything of what happened.
The short version is that my whole life fell apart and I thought I was going crazy for a while. And eventually I came out of that, but I still wasn't in a good headspace. Spent a good long while cursing myself for my stupidity and incorporating the knowledge that the world is a far stranger and more complicated place than I'd ever realized. Which would have been bad enough, except I lost hope for a while.
And we need hope in this life. We have to believe that what we do makes a difference, that it's possible to improve ourselves and improve our lot in life. We have to believe that it's possible to live a good and justified life in this world. Because without hope, we wilt. And I wilted. Gave up on writing, fell into drinking five or six times a week, festering on how unfair life is and how life's just a tale told by an idiot, kind of thing.
I've been in a bad place, is what it amounts to. And I pray that's all over with and I've come out the other side with nothing wounded but my pride.
My pride needed wounding, by the way. I've always tried to cut myself off from the world around me and convince myself I was better than everybody else. All because I found the world overwhelming and felt a creeping suspicion that I was actually worse than everybody else. And I say all this now as if it's all over with and Geof's pride has been humbled forever. But there's always the danger of falling. It's more true to say I've realized what an idiot I can be and learned some of the dangers of thinking you're special. Which may be a step down the long road to humility.
So: Geof's back on Twitter. Or X, as they call it these days. (I swear that's never going to seem right, it'll always be Twitter to me.) But I'm also on YouTube, aiming to post about once a week. At this point it's mostly readings of some of my short stories. The video quality isn't where I'd like it to be yet, and I definitely have some improvements to make. But maybe there's something worthwhile in hearing a short story read by its author–I enjoy reading them, at any rate, and it's a way of sharing my work with new people who don't know about it yet.
If you've been around here for a while, you'll probably be familiar with the stories I'm reading, at least for the foreseeable future. For the time being I'm only narrating stories of mine that have already appeared in other places. That's going to change after a few months, though–after a little while I'll be putting out fresh stories over there. So that's something to keep an eye on if that's your thing. Or if you just want to have my voice whispering sultry in your ear on your drive to work, or wherever else…
And I'll go ahead and do the obligatory YouTube thing: likes, comments, and subscriptions are immensely helpful and very much appreciated. It's a long road ahead of me and if you can find it in yourself to do me a solid I'm grateful from the bottom of my heart.
So, that's Twitter and that's YouTube out of the way. Let's get to the meat and potatoes.
For a long time I've been teetering on the brink of self-publishing. I've wondered if it would be better to go for traditional publishing, I've wondered if I'll just put book after book into the world and never make so much as a ripple in the pond, I've wondered if I should just burn everything I've ever written and swear never to put pen to paper again in my life. I've wondered if everything I've ever written is the most absolute dreck it's possible for a human being to create. I've been humbled a bit and been forced to face my massive shortcomings. But… for all that, I truly believe I was put on this earth to write, and if I give up hope on writing I give up hope on everything. If I stifle it, I stifle the part of myself that believes in life's goodness and beauty. I crush out the seeds in my soul that hope to grow into something truer and better and more beautiful than I am. To put it simply: if I give up on writing, I give up on living. And I've seen the hell that leads to.
Which is all a way of leading up to my big announcement: sometime very soon I'll be releasing my first book on Amazon, an as-yet untitled short story collection. Currently I'm aiming to have it out on December 2, but that's still a tentative date so don't set your watch by it. So that's something to look forward to.
If you're here and reading this, there's a better than average chance that you're more interested in my writing than most. Thanks for being an early adopter! :P
Seriously though, as I'm prepping this beast for publication I'm looking for beta readers and people to drop reviews on the product page on Amazon once it goes live. So if you're interested in letting me know everything that's wrong with my writing before it goes live, or would like to publicly bash my illiterate prose on Amazon, or both… just lemme know, either here in the comments or via email at geofreycrow@gmail.com. I'll get you a PDF, assuming I can figure out how to make a PDF, or I'll patch you into the Google doc if I can't. It would be a huge help to me, early access to you, and I would personally be very grateful.
And if you're worried that there won't be anything new in the short story collection, don't be. There are some older pieces I've put in there, but the vast, vast, vast majority of the collection is new material you haven't seen before. So don't worry that this collection might just turn out to be my recycling bin. It's not.
Looking into the new year, I have two novels in progress (yes, I know it's weird). I had to set both of them aside for a number of months, but I've recently looked them over and found to my relief that they're both still alive. I'm just as excited about them and they both fire my imagination as much as they did when I first started drafting.
More than likely the first one I complete will actually be the second one I started, which has the working title Whether I Be False or True. I won't tell you too much for now, but part of it is the story of an accountant who encounters his lost love–living and breathing, even though she's been dead for seven years. Meanwhile everybody at the office (including his good friend Vincent Vincent) seems suddenly to have decided he was a fascist, even though he's always been a staunch Libertarian.
That's a beyond bare bones description of the novel, but rest assured there will be more forthcoming. I'm aiming to have a first draft completed by the end of the year, and will certainly keep you updated with my progress. Ideally, I'd like to have Whether I Be False or True out and on Amazon sometime in the spring of next year. Will be looking for beta readers and reviewers for that as well, and I'll let you know when I'm ready for that.
The other novel has the working title Nothing Collapses, and it's set right here in Louisville, Kentucky. Max Howe, a newly-minted Professor of Philosophy, returns to Louisville for the Fourth of July weekend three months after the death of his twin brother in a mysterious car accident. While visiting his brother's grave at the St Andrew's Cemetery (a real life cemetery less than a mile from where I sit typing this), he meets a woman who just so happens to have lost her twin sister three months ago in a mysterious car accident. The novel traces their separate stories leading up to and following that (fatal?) meeting. Plenty of ghosts, weird cults, shame, guilt, family trauma, sibling rivalry, vampires, temptation, corruption, mental torture, and potentially Faustian bargains for one and all. Tell your kids they're not allowed to read it, then leave it within easy arm's reach on the coffee table!
I'll be finishing up Nothing Collapses just as soon as I get to the end of the first draft of Whether I Be False or True. Knowing me, I'll probably pile right into it on the very same day I finish drafting the first novel. So the good news is, assuming all goes well, I'll have two novels and a short story collection published and out on Amazon come summer 2024.
So that ought to be enough to keep you up to date on what I'm up to and what you can expect in the near to mid-term. Except for this blog itself, really–I'm not quite sure what it is, or what it wants to be. That's another thing for me to think about and work on. Is it enough for this place to be a spot for weekly updates on my progress, or should it have a little more zest and panache? I halfway figure all the zest and panache would be better spent on Twitter, YouTube, and my works in progress. But if all I put here is progress updates, what are my posts gonna look like?
"Hey guys, I did some writing this week."
"Hey guys, I did some writing this week too."
"Hey guys, I lost all my fingers and couldn't get any writing done this week. But I found them again and that's how I'm typing this right now."
If you have any strong opinion, feel free to let me know. Personally, I'd like for this to be a place for people who like and value my work to keep up with my projects and get to know me and each other. (I'm not gonna use that phrase "build community" because there is literally nothing on earth as lame as that.) Not at the same time, if all I'm doing here is grandstanding about me and what I'm up to, I'll feel like an asshole.
Anyway, I'm blathering. I'll think it over, I'll see what you have to say, and we'll figure out what this blog is from there. Because I need a place to announce projects and plans, sure, but it needs spice, it needs zing, it needs personality or it's dead.
We'll come up with something, I'm sure. For now, this is Geof signing off, and hearts and hugs to you and yours in the coming week.
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