I’m sharing this not to brag, but because I think it’s funny. I’ve talked about certain blog stats of mine before and it’s always because it entertains me to see how and why people are attracted to my blog.
So here are some highlights.
Once again my most popular blog post was written in 2011. For the second straight year, my Rerun Junkie post on Starsky and Hutch has been number one.
In that same vein, of my top five posts of 2013, four were Rerun Junkie posts: Starsky and Hutch; Little House on the Prairie; Emergency!; and Barney Miller (please note that only one of them…Emergency!…was written and posted IN 2013).
The odd post out was my Megalomania–A Boobies Birthday Story. I imagine a whole lot of people were disappointed when they clicked on that link from their Google search.
Speaking of which, my top five search terms: Kiki Writes (whoohoo! I’m famous!); Starsky and Hutch; Adam and Mary Little House on the Prairie; Kim DeJesus; and Barney Miller cast. I’m pretty sure that everyone that searched Kim DeJesus was disappointed, too.
I think that’s what I like best about looking at these year-end stats. There’s actual data of how many people came to this blog with high hopes and left crushed.
Finally, we get around to my first projects post of the new year.
I’ve got most of the heavy lifting rewrites done on “She’s Not Here Anymore” and it’s officially a short story now. I’m going to let it rest for now. It could probably use another round of picky revisions, if not two. But not this month. It can wait.
This month I’m going to start on one of my big year goals and start revising Spirited in Spite, which I thought was still a novel-length manuscript, but it looks like the previous revisions I did cut it down to novella-length. Now I get to decide if I want to expand it back to being a novel or just go with novella, which is kind of becoming my thing. And so my big goal takes on a new dimension.
I think I’m also going to start sketching out the next Ivy Russell novella. I’ve already got the idea for it, but it’s gonna need a little work, some fleshing out and outlining. I may even start writing it if I’m feeling good about it. You never know.
I might also start doing some work on the Hatchets and Hearts novella if I’m feeling productive. It needs some hefty revisions and I’d probably be better off getting them out of the way as soon as possible.
I had an easy time of it in December. Time to get back to work.
Last year I got quite complicated with my reading goals. I needed to have so many fiction books and so many non-fiction books and only so many re-reads to make sure I was reading new stuff and so many outside of my genre to make sure I was reading widely.
Well, it worked. I did all of that. Sure I was reading three books at once in November and then December to make sure I got everything read, but I did make it happen.
This year? Scrap all of that complicated business.
My reading goals this year are going to be very simple.
24 books. 2 books a month. Only 4 can be re-reads.
There. Done.
I think I’ve grasped the concept of reading more widely. I think I can balance my fiction and my non-fiction. The main goal this year is to read steadily. I have a terrible habit of reading in fits and spurts. I’ll go a couple of months without reading anything and then I’ll read four books in a month. It might take me three months to read one book and then I’ll read another in a weekend.
I need to be more regular with my reading and I need to make a habit of that.
Hopefully, this year’s reading goals will help me accomplish that.
Last year my big goals were revising The World (Saving) Series to the point of doneness; submitting seven short stories that were ready and waiting; working on a sooper sekrit project; and turning Night of the Nothing Man into a novella.
Of those goals, I managed to hit most of them. The sooper sekrit project hit several snags and skids and brick walls. It’s still there, but I still don’t know what it is or what I’m going to do with it yet. And I didn’t submit those seven stories. I submitted a few of them, but in the end, they got designated for an anthology. So they will get published, just not submitted.
Of course, the two big goals, World and Nothing Man did happen. Both of them done and one of them published (I’m still sitting on World, not sure what I’m going to do with it yet).
This year, similar things will happen.
Yet another of my novel manuscripts will be revised to the point of doneness. I think it’s going to be Spirited in Spite. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. And if I get it done early enough and I’m feeling adventurous, I think I’ll start working on A Tale of Two Lady Killers in the same fashion.
In novellas, I have three that need to be revised and one that I have an idea for and would like to write. I feel like all of that should happen. Novellas are kind of my thing right now and I feel like I should ride that wave all the way to the shore.
I need to get back on track with the sooper sekrit project, too. Even though it’s just sitting there, I feel like I’ve done too much on it to just shelve it. There has to be something in that mess I produced and I need to find it.
And that, friends, are my 2014 goals. They don’t sound like a lot, but believe me, it’ll be work.
It’s that time of year again when I make my not-exactly-serious New Year resolutions and see if I end up taking them seriously and actually doing them.
I’ll have you know that I kept most of the ones I made last year with the exception of choreographing an entire belly dance. Instead I ended up finding songs that were great to do belly dancing drills to, so close enough.
Anyway, here are my resolutions for 2014, including my two permanent resolutions because screw you, this is my list.
1. Don’t get dead.
2. Have a good time.
3. Go on vacation. Even if it’s staying in a hotel a couple of towns away, I’d like to take a proper rest somewhere else. It’s a money dependent resolution, but if I can swing it, I need to be swinging it.
4. Drink more. I actually don’t drink very often (and when I drink, I don’t drink much). Perhaps my life could be improved if I imbibed just a touch more frequently.
5. Maybe this will be the year I choreograph a full belly dance.
As I said earlier this year, laziness led me to stop reviewing every book that I read, which was my form of accountability when it came to doing my reading goals. Instead, I kept a list of all of the books that I read during the course of the year, some reviewed on my blog before I abandoned that idea, but most of them not.
This is the full list, the whole list, and nothing but the list, but the list is not in chronological order. Re-reads are marked.
The moral of this list: my goals were achieved. At least 24 books. At least 10 non-fiction. More than one outside of my genre. More than one memoir. A couple from authors I know. Good job self.
John Wayne couldn’t patrol the entire Old West. Forts were established to help protect those wild areas. None were as funny, though, as F Troop.
…with a bang and a boom…
The show revolved around Sgt. Morgan O’Rourke (Forrest Tucker) and Cpl. Randolph Agarn (Larry Storch) working to make their side business profitable while keeping it secret and also keeping their favored Captain Wilton Parmenter (Ken Berry) happy and oblivious, while he tries to keep the enamored Wrangler Jane (Melody Patterson) enamored without being TOO enamored. O’Rourke and Agarn worked with the Hekawi tribe, led by Chief Wild Eagle (Frank DeKova) to sell souvenirs, but also to help keep up certain illusions with Captain Permenter at the fort.
Members of F-Troop included lousy bugler Dobbs (James Hampton), blind sentry Vanderbilt (Joe Brooks), and Alamo veteran Duffy (Bob Steele). Chief Wild Eagle was aided by his son Crazy Cat (Don Diamond), who was more than ready to take over, Smokey Bear (Ben Frommer), and Roaring Chicken (Edward Everett Horton).
Chief Wild Eagle drives a hard bargain.
The show featured many of O’Rourke and Agarn’s get-rich quick schemes, including buying a ghost town, trying to get dancing girls for the saloon, trying to rope a wild horse to sell, and just about anything if the Hekawi could be made to agree to it. And since this was a Calvary post, there were always inspections, transfers, training, and other such military-minded things that Captain Parmenter was always prepared for as he always carried his trusty army manual with him.
Folks that stopped by Fort Courage included: James Gregory; Arch Johnson; Mako: funny men Henry Gibson, Don Rickles, Harvey Korman, Paul Lynde, Milton Berle, and George Furth; my forever favorite guest star J. Pat O’Malley; Catwomen Lee Meriwether and Julie Newmar; John Dehner; Zsa Zsa Gabor; Jaques Aubuchon (Boris!); Pooh and Baloo…I mean Sterling Holloway and Phil Harris; cowboys Jack Elam, Victor French (who I didn’t even recognize!), and Don ‘Red’ Barry; Vic Tayback; Jamie Farr (not in a dress but it’s this gig that led him to wear one); Mary Wickes; Jeanette Nolan; Pat Harrington, JR; and two of my favorite people Vincent Price and Joyce Jameson. Ivan Bell, John Mitchum, and Jimmy Horan also had recurring roles as troopers.
Let’s just get this out of the way right here. The show ran for two seasons in the 60’s (’65-’67). Political correctness hadn’t been invented yet. They called the Indians…Indians. In fact, they even use the word “redskin” in the theme song that was used the first season. None of the people playing Indians are Indians. This was commonplace at the time. Don’t let this detract from the show.
This is a show like Gilligan’s Island in the sense that it is quite silly, but it’s incredibly funny and probably wouldn’t have worked without this particular cast. Forrest Tucker and Larry Storch are brilliant together, their delivery and timing spot on. It’s hard to imagine anyone else doing the exact same scenes and having them be as funny. Ken Barry is a bit overshadowed because of this, but his Captain Parmenter is just as much fun and the interactions with Melody Patterson’s Wrangler Jane are both sweet and hilarious. Even though Frank DeKova and Don Diamond are basically playing stereotypes with the speech patterns and stuff, they’re still funny without every joke being about them being Indian. There are a lot of jokes that you can see coming a mile away and yet you still laugh.
I’m telling you, it’s all in the delivery.
I remember first seeing this show when I was a little kid (it was on late at night with Laugh-In, The Monkees, and Get Smart), but I never gave it much of a chance. I should have, though. I’ve missed out.
I was kinda dumb for a kid.
Don’t cry, Agarn. I was sad it only lasted two seasons, too.
In the next week I’ll have a holiday party, three Christmases, grocery shopping, one floorset shift, and hopefully a haircut.
I’m exhausted just thinking about it.
And I can feel my anxiety rise every time I look at my calendar.
It’s not that I don’t want to do these things (okay, I’m not a big fan of grocery shopping), but it’s just a lot of me to do in a week. For once, this has nothing to do with my laziness.
I’m an introvert.
Someone explained it that when it comes to social interactions, extroverts take in the energy from being out and about while introverts expend it. As an introvert, this means I will be expending some level of energy for every activity I do the week in question. The routine stuff, like floorset and grocery shopping, doesn’t require as much energy as the holiday party and the Christmases will, but it will all cost me. I’m going to be more than wiped out by the time it’s all said and done.
As an introvert, I require a certain amount of preparation and recovery time from social interactions. Sometimes it’s not much. Sometimes it’s a lot.
This means I don’t go out as much as my friends. I’m not as socially active. I have one friend that I know might be home for dinner one or two nights a week, maybe. She’s always running. After work there are all sorts of activities that she or her husband or her kids are involved in. And that’s great! But I have no idea how she can manage it because for me, it would be so draining that I’d be dead within a week.
She is an extrovert. And I’m little jealous of that.
Being an introvert can be a bit tiring. I don’t go out as much with my friends as maybe I should or maybe I’d like to. There are times when my energy is riding high and I’m good to go. Lots of times, it takes all I can muster just to get through the regular social interaction of my day. As a result, people stop asking you to do things because they know the answer will “always” be no. It’s kind of a bummer.
I’m not trying to whine about it. I’m sure there are bummer aspects to being an extrovert, too. I’m just not sure what they are.
I’m too busy looking on in amazement at how people can be so socially active and not need a day or a weekend or a week (or month, or…) to recharge. To me, extroverts are like the Energizer Bunny, just going and going and going.
Meanwhile, as an introvert, I feel like a dying laptop battery that’s gotta be charged every couple of hours.
I wonder if I can get a replacement off of Amazon.
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