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I wrote a thing, earlier this year, to basically argue to get hired as a full-time comics reporter at an outlet. It was, to all intents and purposes, a manifesto arguing that comics as an industry worked at enough of a financial scale to be worth said outlet investing in a full time industry specialist — something that also paid attention to the ways in which comics are the source material for other media and thereby worthy of attention and reporting that might otherwise seem out of scale with how big comics actually is, as a business.

It was a document that I’d been asked for; in fact, it came out of a conversation that suggested that the position — while not something that existed at that point in time — was a very definite possibility, with me being the person most likely to fill the position. In other words, it was a document that I was eager to write, and something that ultimately ended up being part passion project and part research intensive, figure-filled argument to demonstrate that I was very much coming at the subject from a position of authority. Which, not unintentionally, would also demonstrate that I was the right person to fill the position I was arguing should exist.

As is clearly the case, considering what I’ve been writing about recently, all of this came to naught — the position never happened, and therefore I couldn’t fill it. When I got the final word on this subject, I thought to myself, I should just post the manifesto on the blog, and what had previously been in this very WYSIWYG window was, indeed, that manifesto. Common sense prevailed, in the end, as I realized that it was a document that I might want to revisit and recycle for other outlets at some point in the future. Hence, this post.

I write this not simply to fill in what would otherwise have been a void of something I didn’t say, but to point out the value of keeping some things back for the future, just in case. Who knows what 2022 has in store, after all…?

After a year of false starts and raised hopes that were ultimately dashed, and all manner of unpleasant and difficult opportunities that disappeared before too long, I’ve started quietly, behind-the-scenes, working on something new for January that I’m… cautiously excited about…? And that, my friends, is kind of the problem.

Not the excitement, I should quickly point out. It’s nice to get excited about things, especially after a year of being disappointed or having dreams dashed by the cruel glare of reality. There were times this year when I worried that I wouldn’t be able to get properly excited about new projects after seeing one after another “dream jobs” appear to disappear in front of my eyes, so it’s particularly rewarding and reassuring to feel this flush of eagerness regarding what lies ahead.

What’s got me nervous is the “cautious” bit. One of the problems with the multiple car crashes that defined by 2021 workload or lack thereof was that new things would appear as possibilities, and I’d go all out for them, only for them to disappear in one way or another, and each time, I thought to myself, if only you hadn’t counted your chickens before they’d hatched, you wouldn’t be quite so hurt and disappointed this time. Maybe not those exact words — really, who actually talks about chickens before they’ve hatched unless they’re in the hatching chickens business — but that general meaning, at least.

I know, rationally, that this new thing is not going to be the answer to any of my current woes in the short term, with the exception of giving me the opportunity to exercise some muscles I’ve not really had the opportunity to in awhile. I need to bear that in mind, though, as I work on this, and not get lost in the excitement only to crash and burn later when fame and fortune doesn’t arrive as a result. I mean, I know it won’t, but hope — for better or worse — continues to spring eternal.

I made the mistake of reaching out to a number of the “dangling, unresolved career opportunities” a few days back to, basically, try and resolve them before the end of the year. If nothing else, I thought, at least I’ll hopefully have an answer and not have to keep wondering about things. I was a fool, let me tell you.

It’s not just that getting multiple, “The answer is no, we just didn’t know how to tell you” messages in quick succession does something to your self-confidence, although that’s definitely the case — although, to be blunt, my self-confidence is pretty much in the toilet thanks to everything else in 2021 as-is, so it could be worse, I guess…? Actually, no; getting rejected repeatedly, even from opportunities that I had already pretty much figured were rejections by dint of simply refusing to engage, is really not any kind of fun, and ends up feeling like an encore of the big Broadway number where you’re told that no-one actually wants you. It’s really shitty.

Anyway, it’s not just that, honestly; it’s also the fact that, with every closed door, I get that little bit more melancholic about the future, which led to a recent morning where I’d been woken up by one of the pets and could not, for the life of me, get back to sleep. I just lay there, feeling as if a void of Something That Wasn’t Writing But Joke’s On You I Have No Other Employable Skills was lying in wait for me, just around the corner.

On the plus side, I feel as if a midlife crisis centered around the idea that you have no real job prospects is oddly fitting for someone in their late ’40s, even as I’m simultaneously appalled at being such a cliche that this could apply to me. Remember those halcyon days when I had consistent, well-paid work? Remember (checks notes) 18 months ago? [Writer rises from desk, stifles sob, says, “Excuse me, I have something in my eye,” and runs from room, dramatically.]

It’s beginning to look a lot like the end of the year, which means that I have to take stock of the important things — like, for example, just how little money I actually made this year. To put things in perspective, the income I had this year didn’t even cover my share of rent over the past 12 months. (I will forever be particularly grateful for the good luck that saw me get money from the divorce when I did, otherwise this past year would have been very, very different indeed.)

I am nearing the point where I’ll have to make a decision about my future, insofar as work is concerned. I promised myself I could have 12 months to, basically, fuck around and find out if freelancing irregularly for outlets would work out financially, and the answer is a pretty definitive “no.” So, instead, the question becomes, “Well, what’s next?”

I have had no shortage of exciting opportunities come my way since the discovery that I wouldn’t be staying on with THR in the way I had been, way back in January; the kinds of things that would, at any other time, had been bucket list items instead of potential life rafts. Unfortunately, in almost every single case — there are a couple still out there, unresolved — every single opportunity vanished.

I was going to write, “vanished before I’d had the chance to accept it,” but that’s not even true; I had accepted more than one, only for it to disappear after the acceptance but before any of the benefits had kicked in. That experience, which has repeated pretty consistently across the year, has been genuinely dizzying, going from, well, that’s a strange and unfortunate coincidence to wait, am I cursed somehow to where I currently am, which is a vague cynical expectation that nothing positive is going to happen career-wise, because past experience has taught me that.

There are but weeks left before I have to decide if I’m going to continue to live off savings and try to make this thing work somehow, or if I have to go off and find something, anything, better to do. Despite everything, I still harbor a forlorn hope that something magical can happen, even if, really, I’ll believe it when I see it.

This time last weekend, I was feeling no shortage of jealousy over not being at San Diego Comic-Con Special Edition, the official name given to the mini SDCC running over Thanksgiving weekend. It wasn’t that I wasn’t enjoying time off and spending it with Chloe and the family here at home, just the opposite; but I would check social media or websites and see people who were there, talking about how it was a Comic-Con like SDCC used to be, more than a decade ago; where it felt more about the comics and less about the movies. Where it wasn’t a mass of humanity that felt like a crowd at every moment for a five day stretch. Where it might even have been — dare I say it? — fun.

(I saw a report that said that Hall H, the mammoth room where the big movie presentations normally happen, had been transformed into a COVID testing area, which felt like some kind of larger point was being made about the world we’re living in now, but, well, this is the world we’re living in, now.)

I’d check in and see people I know post photos of places I know, and I admit it; I’d feel as if I was missing out. If only I could just be there, it would be just like old times, I thought to myself wistfully, because I miss comic conventions and seeing friends the way things used to be.

And then, all the news about the Omnicron variant started breaking, and I thought, well, at least I didn’t have to travel and hang around in airports when that was happening. And then the news this week broke that the second person identified as having the Omnicron variant had attended an anime convention in New York in mid-November, and I thought to myself, really, what are the odds that someone from that convention was also at San Diego Comic-Con Special Edition? Probably really good odds.

That, dear reader, is how I learned to stop worrying and give up being jealous about not going to comic book conventions. At least, this time around.

I have, like seemingly half of my Twitter feed, been watching The Beatles: Get Back over the last few days, intermittently. It’s something I do passively, almost — the nine-hour runtime and exhaustive (and exhausting) approach to what to include make it near impossible for me to sit down and concentrate exclusively on it, so I put it on as background in the evening when my attention wanders — but it has, unexpectedly, been a revelation in ways that go far beyond the music for me.

Something that stuck out from the first episode was a reference to the band being 28 or so at the time it was being filmed; turns out, that was only true of half of the band — Paul McCartney was 26, and George Harrison just 25. That feels extraordinary to me, today. Imagine being that young, and having done so much, having lived through all of that — Beatlemania, writing and recording what was essentially the basis for modern pop music for the next half century at least, being celebrities of such status — and you weren’t even thirty yet. For that matter, imagine knowing, as I suspect at least McCartney did, that your career and creativity might have already peaked at such a young age…!

When I was 25, I was at a loss; I’d graduated a year earlier and was teaching, but I had no long term plans that seemed achievable, or at least, no idea how to achieve them. Nonetheless, I felt young and at the start of things, as if I had the whole of my life ahead of me to accomplish everything and anything. Imagine being at that age and having already created With The Beatles, A Hard Day’s Night, Revolver, et al.

Stranger still, for me, than re-contextualizing the Beatles as young men, was the realization that my father was a contemporary of the band, at least in age; he was born in 1941, a year after John Lennon and Ringo Starr, and a year before McCartney. At the time Get Back was being shot, he was 27. That feels almost impossible, in some way. (I always, always imagine/remember him as being in his late 40s, the period I’m in now.) I watch the footage and try to imagine him that age, in the late ‘60s fashions, young and vital as the band seem. It’s a dizzying, bracing experience, but an oddly affirming one.

In the months before Tango passed, he worked out this ritual that, I admit, at the time seemed just as frustrating as it did charming — although, in retrospect, that frustration came as much from fear and sadness and stress knowing that he was not healthy and wondering if it was a sign of something else going on, instead of simply being what it appeared on the face of things.

Nonetheless, what he started doing was this: as was his manner, he’d run toward the back door with no small level of urgency, as if he really needed to get outside before his increasing incontinence got the better of him. One of us would run after him, and open doors to usher him outside with great speed, at which point, he’d just… stop.

It wasn’t just that he didn’t actually need to piss or shit; as soon as he’d get outside, he’d just stop, entirely. He’d stand there, and lift his face up slightly. By this point, he was mostly deaf and mostly blind, I should point out, so it was extremely unlikely that he was looking at anything in particular, or listening out for a specific thing. He just was standing there.

He was, however, sniffing. It was the one sense we’re pretty sure didn’t desert him towards the end. (He even seemed disinterested in food more than once, so it’s possible his taste started to fade, too, and his sensitivity to touch was an open question, but that might simply have been age and arthritis.) He’d stand and sniff the air, and it was as if he was being particularly appreciative of where he was in the world at that moment.

I was thinking about that this weekend, in part because new dog Alfie seemed to do the same thing for a second before getting distracted by something I can’t remember. Watching him do that made me nostalgic, and particularly sad that Tango wasn’t around anymore, but it also made me feel as if Tango had worked something out that I struggle with: how to just exist in the moment and be grateful for it.

Maybe, one day, I’ll be able to be more like Tango was, and not just in terms of incontinence or, I don’t know, going blind or whatever.

I’ve been thinking about editing lately.

I’ve obviously been edited a lot during my career, and I’ve also been an editor back at io9, in what was retrospectively one of the more rewarding parts of a relatively unrewarding time in my career. There are times that I think that I’d like to do more editing officially — I’ve unofficially helped out a bunch in editorial roles, whether it’s copy-editing or doing bigger picture repositioning and revising of already-written material — in large part because I find something really fulfilling in working on other people’s work, and trying to make it better in big ways and small.

Looking at other people’s stuff in an editorial capacity is also really clarifying in what kind of writer you are, and what you want to do with your own work — or, at least, that’s been my experience personally; when I see someone do something that rankles for whatever reason, and then recognize that I do the same thing, a light goes off in my head and a mental note is made to try and change that in future. Similarly, seeing someone do something particularly successfully, especially if it’s something that I’ve struggled with in the past, makes me think about why it works and how I can try to steal some of that mojo for myself.

There’s a skill to editing, of course, but editing is really two separate tasks in one: the ability to read something in a critical, analytical manner to identify what would make it better and sharpen what’s already there (or, if it’s entirely a mess, what to cut and how to salvage it), and the ability to communicate that to the creator in such a way that they hear what you’re saying and don’t think that the message is actually I hate this and you suck. That last bit is more difficult than it sounds, and something that trips up many an editor, in my experience.

Maybe, after the headfuck that has been 2021 professionally, I should start thinking about transitioning into a more editorial role somewhere in 2022…?

My left knee has been hurting for the past couple of weeks. When I kneel on it, it sends a sudden message of no, don’t do that, this isn’t good up to my brain, as if I’m pushing it down on some uneven surface. Given that, with an almost four month old puppy in the house, I find myself doing a lot of kneeling these days, this is far from an optimal experience.

(I’m pretty sure the whole thing got started because I accidentally kneeled a little too heavily on the bathroom floor awhile back, while preparing to clean the cat litter boxes; animals are not good for me, it seems.)

I’ve reached the stage in my life where it feels insincere to be as surprised as I am when my body aches like this. I’m firmly middle aged now, I’m 47 years old; this is the portion of my life when things are supposed to start aching and hurting for seemingly no reason, the part where my body takes stock of its situation and thinks that, all things considered, I’m lucky I’m not in worse shape and still able to get out of bed in the morning.

Adding to my complicated feelings about 2021 — they’re not that complicated, I hate this overly cruel, seemingly ruthless year — is the fact that I’ve spent much of the past twelve months dealing with physical ailments. My lower back has been in various stages of pain since the late summer, in no small part because it seems to flare up when I feel particularly stressed, and I’ve felt particularly stressed since… 2018, maybe…? Add to that headaches, buttaches, and multiple other thankfully temporary ailments, and it’s been an unusually painful year.

But that is, I guess, the point — this won’t be unusual moving forward. The house that I live in, that my body has grown into over the past nearly five decades, is in a state of disrepair now. I’ll have to take better care of myself from now on. Starting with, I suspect, less kneeling… or less grimacing when I do kneel.

I’m off schedule.

This might already be obvious to anyone who’s been paying attention to when posts usually appear here, with the traditional Monday-Wednesday-Friday rhythm disrupted for the past few weeks; I’m not even getting around to writing this until Saturday morning, after all, which is a sign for quite how bad things have gotten.

Of course, “bad” is an over-dramatic way of looking at it — it’s not as if some great disaster has befallen me to make me slip out of the schedule I’ve been keeping up all this time. Nothing has gone wrong, per se; it’s simply that life has taken a turn.

I suspect that my irregular working schedule plays no small part in throwing me off. Back when I was doing roughly the same thing week in and week out, I could roughly predict what every day of the week looked like: what I’d be up to on Monday, Tuesday, and so on. It was that environment in which I started doing this blog again in earnest, during the divorce, to ground and rediscover myself in something just for me. The schedule made sense, then, because I could already imagine the spaces I’d carve out to write the posts in.

These days, everything is far less steady. Yesterday was working on one freelance post for Outlet A, proofing and corresponding on another for Outlet B, being a second set of eyes for Chloe on something she was working on, and having a strange, surreal conversation that I suspect closed down a work opportunity for Outlet C. My focus was scattered (more so when you factor in the multiple animals to look after during the day), and I didn’t even remember this blog until late afternoon, when I didn’t have anymore words in me.

Consider this an apology, then, for the slip — but also an internal acknowledgment that things are more complicated and less certain, but that writing here remains something important for me, nonetheless. I’m still discovering myself here, even now.