What’s already happened since midnight: I’ve kicked a meth addict out of the hotel, I’ve let a new mother cry on my shoulder, I’ve called the police, I’ve fallen in the swimming pool trying to fetch a guy’s cell phone, and I’ve covered my hands with fiberglass.
What I’m going to do the rest of the day: Cry and consider drinking lots of alcohol but instead I’ll probably just go to sleep and play Playstation.
Also gotta write some articles and finish Little Heaven and think about Story #2 of 2017’s Story a Week challenge.
Gotta read some slush, too.
Gotta do a lot.
Gotta drink some coffee.
This work shift has not been the best. I don’t want to do much of anything. I want to cut my hands off and scream into the sky.
Edit MYSTERY NOVELLA. Not a novella in the mystery genre. Just a novella I can’t talk about yet. I apologize for the confusion. Although the novella does indeed contain mysterious elements. But what doesn’t?
Argue with locals trying to barter the price I’ve listed for my used PS3.
Research anthologies and magazines currently open for submissions.
Finish reading Little Heaven and write a review.
Return to work after two nights off and try not to let misery devour me.
Go to sleep. I don’t work tonight and there’s no reason for me to be awake right now.
Eventually wake up, probably?
Proof Dark Moon Digest #26 and consider begging people to subscribe to the magazine by pledging to our Patreon but think better of it. I can’t ask people to buy things anymore. I can’t ask people anything. It’s so sickening. How can we function this way?
Get over myself and beg people to pledge to our Patreon. Like I’m some fuckin’ saint.
Watch the promo videos for Resident Evil 7 again and pee myself in the anticipation of its arrival.
Finish that goddamn story I haven’t been able to shut up about in the last couple posts.
Finish that goddamn article pitch I haven’t been able to shut up about in the last couple posts.
I finished that book review I was talking about last time, but the place I intended on sending it to turned out to be a dead end, so I’m waiting to hear back from another site about a potential reviewer gig.
Read more of Little Heaven.
Read Dark Moon Digest submissions and pretend like one day we’ll be completely caught up.
Spend time with Lori. Ask her to participate in a murder-suicide and pout when she once again declines the invite.
Buy a vanilla Diet Dr. Pepper from Sonic during happy hour. Drink it.
Purchase vendor table for San Antonio Lit Fest since I forgot the other day despite writing it on one of these to-do lists. GOTTA DO BETTER, MAX. GOTTA DO BETTER.
Repair credit card reader management somehow fucked up earlier today.
Mop the lobby and embrace the urge to turn my life into a musical once that mop’s in my hands.
Finish review of Jeff Strand’s excellent Cyclops Road and submit to cool website for potential reviewer job.
Watch the season premiere of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Continue article pitch for potential column gig with horror magazine I can’t yet name.
Continue that goddamn Lana Del Rey tribute story. Not just continue but finish the motherfucker.
Continue edits for novella by MYSTERY AUTHOR.
Try not to blow up in a fit of rage caused by further issues with my Mac. Call Apple and inform them I just spent $150 with Geek Squad to repair it (and it’s not even repaired yet because now I have to order a goddamn part from Amazon since they don’t carry that shit in the store for some weird fucking reason) and only now did I discover Apple recalled my very type of laptop because of a faulty sata cable. Guess what’s wrong with my laptop, you motherfuckers? Also, surely Geek Squad knew about the recall. Sneaky bastards, all of them.
Try not to punch the next person who says “THAT’S WHAT YOU GET FOR BUYING A MAC” in the face. Some people only exist to say “THAT’S WHY YOU SHOULD HAVE BOUGHT A PC/MAC” after listening to someone’s computer troubles, and let me tell you, when the bombs drop, their deaths will be mercy killings.
Cash my paycheck since I am notorious for losing my direct depositing sign-up sheet so I’ve settled on never having direct deposit. It’s just not my destiny.
Play some more Alien: Isolation.
Play some more Rocket League with the kid.
Rub Lori’s back.
Squeeze in a short nap somewhere between blowing up in a fit of rage and rubbing Lori’s back.
Catch a 10:45PM showing of La La Land at the Alamo Drafthouse in New Braunfels.
Make a sign that says “PLEASE DO NOT ABUSE ME, YOU FUCKING ANIMALS” and tape it to the front desk service bell at my hotel.
Research potential open calls to send my short story “Every Breath is a Choice”. It was originally accepted to be published by Time Alone’s Let Me In anthology, but the press emailed their authors today informing them the project was dead. This was not a surprise. I predicted this would happen last year when they decided to split the anthology into three volumes because “golly, there are just so many good stories! we couldn’t possibly choose only ONE ToC!” Note that they couldn’t even publish one volume, nonetheless three.
Scratch ass.
Write a pitch article for a potential column series at a popular horror magazine you’ve undoubtedly read.
Write a pitch book review for a website that mostly reviews movies.
Continue and possibly finish this week’s short story, currently titled “Poison (Deadly Nightshade)”.
Add at least one page to novel-in-progress, titled Cirrhosis.
Continue edits on mystery novella.
Continue edits on Betty’s novella.
Type an entire sentence without getting interrupted by a guest requesting guidance on proper toilet-paper-wiping etiquette.
Don’t eat like a piece of shit. If you spend several weeks eating mostly healthy, then have fast food, your stomach will definitely file a complaint with the landlord. Ugh. Whataburger, you monster.
Proof this month’s issue of Dark Moon Digest.
Proof John Foster’s upcoming collection one final time.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Remind myself there’s a town in Texas called Ding Dong.
Send PDF of The Nightly Disease to Chinese agent requesting to check it out on behalf of one of her clients. Try not to get my hopes up. Try not to wonder why anybody would give a shit about some dumb thing I wrote while very sleepy. Consider contacting other foreign publishers and throwing my book at them. Wonder why I don’t have an agent. Consider setting myself on fire.
Write blog post about The Nightly Disease being officially available since it’s been out for, like, two weeks now and I haven’t said shit about it on this blog, except for right now, but this doesn’t count because nobody should be reading this list but me, hence why I’m posting it publicly instead of privately.
Continue working on Week 1’s story for the Story-a-Week challenge.
Begin edits on novella written by author I cannot reveal yet for a collection PMMP’s publishing sometime in early 2018.
Continue edits on Betty Rocksteady’s novella.
Continue not giving a shit about the point of doing things and continue just doing them because I fucking want to because that should be enough it needs to be enough it is enough and if anybody ever tries telling you or me differently burn their house down you burn it down and you make them eat the ashes of all their possessions and the ashes of their family
Enthusiastically reject the desire to edit punctuation into the last section.
Continue listening to Ramshackle Glory’s Die the Nightmare (or is that Live the Dream?)
Scream the sentence “ALL COPS ARE BASTARDS” over and over until I lose my voice.
Eat healthy. Stay moving when I’m not typing or shitting or sleeping or dying.
Contemplate pitch idea for a 33 1/3 book. Modest Mouse’s The Lonesome Crowded West? Well, no shit.
Only sleep the bare minimum necessary to prevent an automobile accident.
Eat a dope-ass snickerdoodle cookie my girlfriend bought me at H-E-B. One of those kinda healthy (although what cookie is truly healthy?) cookies you find in the vegan aisle. Lots of protein and fiber and shit like that. They’re delicious. [FINISHED AS I WAS WRITING THIS LIST]
Drink some coffee, but don’t overdo it like I did on New Year’s Eve. I drank three entire pots that day. My stomach got furious at me and rejected it all out about twenty minutes into the new year. But I try not to drink alcohol because cirrhosis is destroying my liver and that is not a joke, it’s the real deal, Phil, so what else is there? Water? Ha-ha, what the fuck, you’re adorable.
Begin edits on Betty Rocksteady’s novella for the second time. PMMP’s publishing it sometime this year. Probably in April, but I’m not 100% yet. I’d already edited half of it, but my Mac is officially D-E-A-D and I am a fool who forgot to back it up, so now I’m starting on the edits again. The one time I edit something directly from a computer screen instead of printing it out and attacking it with a pen and highlighter. This is what I deserve.
Wonder what I will do if Geek Squad can’t fix my Mac. I have some money but not a lot and certainly not enough for a new laptop right now. Thanks a fucking lot, Santa.
Order vendor table for San Antonio Lit Fest in April
Read more of Nick Cutter’s Little Heaven and John Darnielle’s Master of Reality
Write a blog post about embracing the 2017 Story-a-Week challenge
Write my first story of 2017, a little girls-on-the-run-with-a-goddamn-gun piece currently titled “Poison (Deadly Nightshade)”, which is, yes, a reference to Lana Del Rey’s “Ultraviolence”.
Survive my first shift back at the hotel after three extremely productive nights off