The Week That Was/The Week That Will Be (Part 1––The Week That Was)

This post is two posts––well the first part of two days of posts, anyway so look for the exciting conclusion tomorrow.

Yesterday’s post (which you are reading even though it’s today and you have NOT ridden in any Delorians lately) got swallowed by the cascade effect that actually started over a week ago. (I will post a little something extra this weekend to make up for yesterday.) A lot of times, like Tuesday, I spend an eight hour day watching The Contrarian, and the only reason I am able to get a post up is that it was already written. And even though Labor Day created a three day weekend (the staff still refuses to come in on bank holidays even though I’ve doubled their salary from two to four cents per article on TOP of their daily stipend of fast food coupons—yet still they give me attitude), it was part of the week of dining on phail as the phail train crashed into the phail station and created the phail singularity.

The Week That Was

Last week was a recursion loop of phail. At each level the past phail magnified the intensity of the phail until everything collapsed into a phail singularity, and anyone who touched the event horizon of phail would simply have every plan for the next 168 hours instantly sucked out of them and replaced by emergency child care and screaming.

The first perturbations of phail began early last week, and I dismissed them at the time like a hapless fool in a disaster movie. In fact, a little, tiny, but high-ranking military official inside my brain assured the initial little, tiny scientist that discover the phail there was nothing to worry about. “It sure would be a shame if your department came up for an audit again” said the little, tiny, but high-ranking military official. 

The little, tiny, but high-ranking military official was the first one to get eaten by the Phail, of course.

As much as it seems like I fly this blog by the seat of my pants, the first thing I really, honestly, genuinely (stop laughing, I’m totally not kidding) try to do when my life takes a turn for the more stable––as it finally did when summer school ended––is try to stabilize my schedule, get back into regular and predictable updates of non-jazz hands writing, and even write a little out ahead so that I can do things like have an emergency day without skipping a beat or get some Early Access articles written for my amazing patrons.

And things were looking good. Even though the weekend was going to have to involve some packing to get ready for a train trip, I had it wired.I was ready to chew gum and kick ass. Things were looking so good, they were extra good with good sauce. (Like a really nice parfait.)

Things looked good enough, in fact, that several gods of mischief blew kisses at me. They were worried I might get bored. These kisses combined into one epic, life-destabilizing mega-kiss. Sadly, at this point watching my best laid plans blow up is boring, so even that didn’t work out. What would truly be interesting would be if a week of writing went like I planned.

See, I was on track to have this very wide open five-day weekend with gobs of writing time to catch up and prepare myself for the upcoming writer retreat/vacation/train trip I had planned. I had settled into my latest pet-sitting gig, didn’t have any other jobs and was about to clock some epic word counts.

The Contrarian, though, had one more week of summer, and while it was established that Uberdude was going to take a couple of days off to run kiddo through some young super hero training, no one quite got around to making sure I was on for the later half of the week.

Fortunately that came up Monday. 16 hours melon-balled out of a week’s writing time is rough (I don’t know how many of you have chased a four-year-old for eight hours, but those days are not really opportunities to “double dip”). However, I could absorb it with notice. I was just going to have to really crank it out on Monday and Tuesday. But then that packing was still going to be there on the weekend, so I was going to have to crank that out too. 

Still, doable. Just a little phail. Phail salad.

Then came the extra time. A second entire tier of phail. Super heroism in the age of Trump involves double most enhanced humans having to do overtime punching Nazis, so that meant I needed to do eleven hour days instead of eight. Coming home to collapse instead of knock out an hour of word smithing changes a landscape pretty quickly if you were hoping to get a little ahead. Would you care for a phail appetizer?

Then Friday there was a major upset and someone ended up hospitalized (who wasn’t me this time—but seriously why is my life playing like I’m a secondary character in a medical drama these days). The kid was going to need more supervision. Here’s your phail entree in a light phail sauce garnished with truffles and phail.

And this whole time, I was watching a doomsday clock on some freelance work I’d kept putting off counting down. (I mean I thought I had all day Thursday and Friday so…..) Oh….well I didn’t order the phail pairing, but let’s just go with it.

Still, what really sent the whole train wreck sliding off the rails as it barreled into the the station of Monday and Tuesday and became a phail buffet with parphail for dessert. A SCHEDULED eight hour day with The Contrarian on top of trying to wrap up a job and pack for a trip that would start crack early the next day (today). All without having had a moment to do anything but try desperately to catch up on sleep and zone out enough to achieve basic functionality.

And that’s when everything collapsed into the singularity of phail. With literally zero time to write a post, I simply had to spread my hands and laugh. I started out walking to an uplifting version of Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head, and ended up with in a Doom Metal montage about existential futility.



Of course....Where would such a post be without the PSA at the end where knowing is half the battle? 

The idea of tempering life with writing and scheduling and how “fair” the mantra to write every day is has come up a lot lately in my orbit, and I’d just like to point out that I had a day where I didn’t “write every day.” It happens. It’s not the end of the world, and to the best of my knowledge that’s not why any of my patrons stopped supporting me. There was too much and I just couldn’t get to it. 



However here’s the wisdom nuggetoid coming to smash into your atmosphere and cause an extinction level event in your ignorance: abandoning writing wasn’t the thing I did at the first sign of trouble. I kept revising my schedule and trying to get it back in there. I kept paring down how MUCH I could do and moving when all over the G-cal, but it was still there until there was absolutely no time left. I planned on getting to it until the last hour ticked over.



It was a priority.

And if people are looking for something that digs a little deeper than the bumper sticker wisdom of “Write Every Day,” one place to look would be how our lives become reflections of our priorities, not because we never phail them one shitty day of fail singularitizing, not even because we never have health problems or emergencies or sick relatives or bills that eat up our lives, but rather they tend to merit out one decision at a time over months as we place them front and center with each new plan (or don't).

Part 2: The Week That Will Be

We Interrupt Your Regular Broadcast (Personal Update/Novel Progress)

I'm standing by a table right now!
Image description: TV "Please Stand By" broadcast.

Really Rough Draft  

Raw unfettered shit-  34, 809 (Last week 30,396) [Just this week- 4413]   

Slightly polished turd- 29,688 (Last week18, 242)  [Just this week- 11,246] 

*Reminder slightly polished turd is usually soft revision I've done to help jump start me into the next day's writing. It's no where close to a second draft, but it's a bit more polished than my raw copy. But a blank page is a hard start.

Personal Update

Abysmal word counts this last week (although a strangely high amount of turd polishing–seems I was having a hard time getting going), but at least I've figured out why my word counts have been so these last few weeks.

This week when I went to do my monthly budget for October, I discovered that I didn't need to draw any money from my Kickstarter funds. It should be somewhere around $450. What happened? Well since my teaching never changes, and I didn't get any unexpected donations, somewhere in there I must have watched The Contrarian for an extra 30 hours. It was just an extra shift here or an extra couple of hours there, but apparently it added up. It explains why I felt vaguely busy, addled, and constantly like I didn't have quite enough time to write this whole month.

It also cut pretty hard into my writing time. The bad news is that I'm behind, and I don't want to be behind. Especially since getting a book from draft to finished product in a year is already a pretty fucking tight schedule. The good news is that if I end up going over next year, I'll have the money to keep going for another month.

Upcoming Week

The next week is going to be very different from our usual fare.

First off, Pancreas Man and The Spleen got punched into next week by Timefist. (I mean they LITERALLY got punched into next week.) Sonic Gal has gone to cover some of their patrols while they're in flux. (Literally IN flux.) Uberdude needs some tag ins to help with T.C., so I'm helping out a little extra for the next week.

I also have a number of "business" bits that need to be taken care of. Our first round of Kickstarter rewards are going out and an e-mail list made of the $50 or greater donors so I can put out the first of the "Inside Scoop" mails. I also need to clean up a lot of links and menus here on the blog.

I also just got off the phone with the advice nurse complete with an epic finger wagging that I have to be resting more or my bronchitis is going to turn into walking pneumonia.  I better take that one seriously or it's going to be a lot more weeks of even FEWER word counts.

In an effort to keep my word counts from tanking again (despite the week), I'm going to be running a bunch of guest blogs and shuffling around our regular schedule to keep me as bed resty as I can. You know me though: there will be something going up.

Here's my "lesson" for the week. I want people to really understand that trying to write for income involves a lot of steps that AREN'T WRITING. The idea that an agent will just whisk away your manuscript and replace them with royalty checks while you don't miss a keystroke is not even true for Stephen King or JK Rowling–they give a lot of time to book signings, talks, interviews, and such. So if you decide you want to be a writer for a living, be ready to do a lot of other work that hasn't a damned thing to do with actually writing. Just part of the cost of doing business.

Phase 2 (Personal Update)

Image description: CT scan

That sound you just heard was everyone who can read a CT scan sucking in their breath at once.

Last October, Sonic Gal had some trouble bursting into sonic motion. At first she was just winded after a big fight, but then she started to have trouble going from Hell's Kitchen to Gotham in under two seconds. It took her more like five.

And then ten.

By the time we figured out that Miasma had hit her with a carcino-bio-agent dart (hoping to take her out long term so that a dimensional gateway to the world of goateed robots would provide an army to rule the world), her tumor was big enough to vote in some states. This CT scan shows it at its largest, just before treatment started. The white ovel is her rib cage and the bump in the back in the middle with the three prongs is her spinal column.

It was big, and really scary. Her oncologist/hematologist missed it–looking for a blood disease instead. Fortunately her nurse practitioner caught it just in time. And I don't mean just in time like everything is "just in time" when you write superhero realism. I mean while we waited for tests to come back, there were cardiothoracic surgeons who had been briefed on the tumor's location standing by for the hail Mary in case that bad boy shifted half a centimeter. It was that much of a time bomb in her chest.

Fortunately she's four rounds of chemo in, and at last check the softball (with a chunk wrapped unmercifully around her aorta) was looking more like a lemon with very few living cells. It's great news. And when she's not laid out from the chemo drugs or the meds to help with the chemo drugs, she's feeling a lot better. Oxygen is so awesome for living things.

But if you've been through chemotherapy, you know those drugs are not fucking around. Even a superhero can't just shrug them off.

Sonic gal did four rounds of chemo, and like a rockstar, just kept kicking ass and taking names at doing light patrols and fighting local crime. She let me and Uberdude do some of the real super-villain stuff, but you'd never have suspected she was in cancer treatment if not for her oft-changing hair color and sudden incorporation of brilliantly colored scarves into her Sonic uniforms.

However, the pain, the bone aches (from white blood cell repopulation), and the overwhelming fatigue is starting to catch up in a way that's harder to ignore after round four. Moving at sonic speeds takes a lot of energy, and when she does get hit (which happens more now that her Sonic Dodge power has slowed down) there's a lot of ache already there that makes it worse. If only she had super-endurance or uncharted healing factor or something.

And there's still two rounds of chemo to go....then radiation.

She kicked ass hardcore for months, but now she's filing for the superhero disability fund that lets her take some time off from hardcore crime fighting without being taken off the official national registers. She will of course still stop shoplifters and if she's in a bank when its robbed, she won't just let it happen, but dealing with The Death Vortex or La Muerte Eléctrica (a new local team of electricity supercharged Mexican Wrestlers who black out whole city grids by suplexing each other into power pylons) is too much right now.

The second half is just going to be a lot worse. So if you've got a good thought or three sitting around for The Hall of Rectitude or especially Sonic Gal, we sure wouldn't mind.

For my part I'm on increased patrols and Contrarian shifts–even from the last time I said that. I'm really going to keep trying to update M-Th for sure and some weekends when I can, but we're getting into the really hard part of the treatment, so there might be days here and there where I drop the ball or REALLY settle for jazz hands. 

The Sad Breath Between Vacations (Personal Update)

Suffering from "Forgot to bring my razor to Portland scruff" syndrome.

I have returned from Portland where the Hall of Rectitude had an emergency chain of domestic terrorism to combat. Fortunately we were able to stop the super villains after several epic battles at the Portland Children's Museum and neighboring zoo. There was a particularly fierce scuffle while trying to leave the seals.

My turn around will be brief though because tomorrow morning I am off to see O.G. in Denver. And this turn around is pretty unusual for an uberintrovert like me. I mean there is every possibility that with cleaning the cat boxes and house, unpacking, doing all the dirty clothes from Portland, and repacking, I will have zero opportunity to play Fallout 4 until my eyes bleed. A true travesty of all that is good and right in the world.

On the plus side, I scheduled my voyage so that I am taking a thirty six hour train ride specifically so that I have time without an internet connection to write. I'm even going to be extra extra extra good with good sauce, a side of disciplined, and a tall frothing glass of inner strength and NOT bring my gaming laptop with me, so that I don't just play Fallout 4 the whole train ride. Even though it's a brand new game and I just bought it and I want to play it so bad I might wet myself.

This means that I will not really be able to upload content tomorrow. (I'm going to try to make a quick vlog tonight to post right as I'm heading out the door, but life has a way of saying "Not so fast!" around here at night.) On Thursday we have an interesting guest post from a published author who is going to tell you some advice that I personally disagree with a little bit (but it's important to hear all sides).  By Friday, we will be back in business, and hopefully with a few high quality gems I've whipped up while I was on the train.


I came home to sad news. A friend. Someone from my choir days in high school. She was a sophomore when I graduated. Her parents found her body.

I didn't know her as well as I could, but she was always a brightly blazing fireball shooting through the sky like a meteor towards the next big thing. Her enthusiasm was like a wildfire, and she could get an Eskimo excited about selling ice cubes on spec. I remember laughing after each over-the-phone tutoring session and thinking "Next time I've got to remember to charge her for that...." The sky seems a little bit darker without her fiery passion lighting it up in brilliant hues of red, a glowing trail in her wake. A little more empty too.

I'm at that age now. My friends don't seem to look like they're going to live forever anymore. Bodies are starting to give up. Long struggles with chronic illness (even those misnomered as "just" mental) are starting to be too much for those shouldering the burden to go on bearing. In some cases addictions are taking their toll. It's still rare and unexpected now, like the first few kernels of microwave popcorn. But it has begun.

I will be one of those old people who has forgotten how to be angry. I can tell. My heart will be too full of sadness and too covered with scar tissue. I didn't know her as well as I could, but I grieve, and my heart feels heavier than it did yesterday.

Pour one out for Jenn if you get the chance. And if you see a red comet ripping through the sky, that's just her hurtling towards the next big thing.

Flips and Flops (Personal Update)

Super heroes fly in style.
Sidekicks (if they get monetary clearance at all) fly Southwest.

Working on getting the Hall of Rectitude packed up and onto their plane to New Zealand in just a couple of hours. Which means watching The Contrarian. Sonic Gal could easily pack in just a few seconds, but she's been trying to fight some crime over on Telegraph and 38th Street right up until the last second they have to go.

And when Sonic Gal does something "right up until the last second" it's literal.

I'm going to fluff today (hur hur), and post what I was working on for today on Tuesday next week. (I'm not sure I want it to survive a "Weekend Launch.") Because if I try to finish this up today, either Uberdude is going to miss his flight or The Contrarian is going to end up French kissing an electrical socket. Besides, I want every last second possible for hugs and kisses because as much work as raising a mind control psychic superhero with possible villain tendencies, I am going to miss this kid like mad starting about fifteen seconds after I've dropped the gang off. I might be the one who bursts into tears when he Skypes me.

Anyway, tonightI have to play Skyrim until my eyes bleed.  FOR THE BLOG!!!!!

Also, as an aside that I wish were more hypothetical, if you don't know how fast Sonic Gal can punch you in the throat if you start singing "Leaving on a Jet Plane," consider yourself lucky.

The Hall of Rectitude

The Contrarian–Day 1

While I no longer reside in the physical Hall of Rectitude. The Superhero sidekick project continues in The Hall of Rectitude's East Bay Area branch.

Uberdude- He's amazing. His superpower is being uber. Seriously uber--like, not just a little bit uber. The only problem is that he gained his powers by having experimental ferret DNA serum injected into his lymph nodes, so sometimes he gets really distracted around shiny things. You might think with a name like Uberdude, he is just raw muscle, but actually he's not. He's really good with computers. He doesn't kick villain ass so much as he programs robots to kick villain ass for him and algorithms to find them and stuff, and then he goes play some video games while crime gets fought in the background by his genius. In fact, if he could somehow program the crime fighting unit to be controlled remotely via his monitor in a way that makes it look like an immersive first person shooter game, he would probably end crime by 2020.  Completely.

Sonic Gal- I used to be Sonic Gal's official sidekick, which is to say I get out of her way when she's kicking ass and bring her beverages when she's tired from a hard day of fighting crime. She got the name because she's SO fast when she moves around that she just makes a streak and a sonic boom. She often fights crime so fast that she can leave from where we're fighting crime, fight some OTHER crime, and get back before I even notice that I'm not doing so well all of a sudden. She makes The Flash look like he took some Percoset, slammed four shots of whiskey, and smoked a J before every patrol. She's that fast.

The Contrarian- The contrarian joined The Hall of Rectitude in December of 2013 by being born. He has the psychic ability to contradict anything you say about him–though he has come to use his powers far less often after three years. For a while he was working on a super-drool power, but he gave that up to work on increased cuteness. His birth was quite the ordeal.

Wrecking Ball- Wrecking Ball showed up in 2013, right around the time I started having trouble finding the time to write. He is big and blunt (though not stupid) and often overreacts by punching through walls and furniture. He has used the Miley Cyrus song as his anthem despite several Cease and Desist orders and a lawsuit. He is especially fond of starting the music before he actually shows up and then timing his first hit with the "WRECK" in the chorus.

Rhapsody- I moved in with Rhapsody (and her two kids, Treble and Clef) in August of 2021 and formed the East Bay Hall of Rectitude branch.  Rhapsody doesn't take that much of an active hand in the front line superhero work, but tends to let her music enhance everyone around her. She can inspire, delight, titillate, and her personal favorite…seducing all the superhero women in the tri-state area. (She calls these abilities her "power chords.") Once she's got her ukulele going, it's hard for anyone not to find her enthralling, and if she can't sing/seduce sapphic villains out of their nefarious plans, she's probably going to sing/seduce a few of the sapphic heroes that help stop them after the fight is over.  

The Triumphant Return

I'm home in Oakland, and I can now reveal something that you likely had NO idea about. That I was not in Texas to see my mother, and we did not take a "charming little day trip to New Orleans." I was actually part of a top secret operation to thwart a multi-team consortium of super villains engaged in an uberheist to steal the French Quarter from New Orleans.

That's right. They were going to steal the entire French Quarter, and one of the really good cajun places in the Garden District too.

But good will always triumph as long as we're not too busy with our own shit, and it's at least a living wage. A conglomerate of multiple cities' crime fighting units went in in a hail Mary operation to stop them. It was a million to one. So we added a lot more heroes until the odds were better, and then we went in.

However, these superhero teams were short a number of side kicks because of finals. (Side kicking is a popular job for students and villains plan their heists accordingly.) So I flew out to shore up some of their defenses...and do a lot of dishes.

It was not an easy battle. One of the worst I've ever side kicked for. I ended up nearly suffocated on Bourbon Street by some smelly cheese after being attacked by the French villainy team "Sacre Bleu." But we won. They formed a line they thought was impenetrable, and...you know honestly, I would think they were pretty tired of this joke by now.

Anyway, I'm glad I can tell you all about it now instead of living that horrible lie and making Cedric write about vacations and family and lackadaisical, carefree time off. I'm sorry he had to deceive you like that. I'm home now, nursing my wounds, and spending the day cleaning up some old blog menus and entries and getting ready for tomorrow's poll.

Because here at Writing About Writing, it might look like we're taking a week off for vacation, but we're actually too slavishly devoted to page views to stop writing.

And we're probably fighting French super villains anyway.

Called Away

Dear Readers of Writing About Writing,

Cedric here.

Chris has been called away at the last minute to Houston, Texas to do some side kicking there for their local crime fighting team whose own resident sidekick is in the middle of some pretty ferocious finals.

Apparently she decided she wanted to get an MBA and open a little barrista and doughnut shop near Baycliff. So Chris bounced out to take over the sidekick duties of getting beat up and needless expository dialogue while she bones up on

Chris is currently under "deep cover," so if you see him, don't mention the crime fighting thing. Ostensibly his cover story is that he's over there visiting his mom, but he's really going to kick some ass and clean some kitchens.

And it occurs to me that I probably shouldn't have told you that, so please don't mention it when next you see him.

I'm hoping I can can whip at least a few of the guest bloggers into shape for the next few days to get some articles up. Plus Chris said he might be able to e-mail me an article or two if he gets enough downtime. We'll be working hard here at writing about writing to make sure that Chris's moonlighting vacation doesn't interrupt your blog reading experience.

But just in case, you might get ready for some reruns.

Happy Birthday Contrarian

A year ago today, The Contrarian entered the world.

Since then he has done all that cliche crap about making me see rainbows and Christmas trees again for the first time and changing my whole world and blah blah blah. It's all true, the little bastage. Oxytocin is a cruel master, and his mind control powers are particularly refined given his psychic power of contradiction.

Today he turns one.

The Contrarian has added a strange constellation of powers to his psychic ability to contradict things. Among them are a physics defying quantity of drool, the ability to shatter spinal columns with a scream, and an increased ability to mind control any adult humans in his vicinity to help him with extreme cuteness.

He has also decided recently that relying solely on his superpowers won't be enough, and a grueling physical regimen commenced. He is now capable of a shuffling gait across various rooms before falling back down onto his butt, and hopes soon to have full ambulatory power.

I logged some serious hours of cellular mitosis, Uncle Chris.
Don't forget to tell them about that.

Today he gets a Frozen princesses theme party, his own cake to eat by himself, and a pre-weakened villain that he gets to vanquish all on his own. The Hall of Rectitude is stuffed with Uberdude's and The Brain's family.

Me? I get a bipedal cephalopod in my face and up my ass. But I'll tell you about that later.

Self Reflection Sucks (Part 2)

Continued from Part 1

I couldn't move. My eyes were stuck on the shard of the Mirrorshield.

You're not a real writer. I thought. Forty years old, and you triumphantly hold up your mediocre numbers and dollars a day as some sort of yardstick of success. Weren't you supposed to have a book written by now? No, instead, you barely write fiction at all these days, do you? A few minutes here or there if you can spare it. All on the back burner while you whore yourself for page views. You and your precious process. Your process is,"hang on." Your process is, "don't let the world see what a sham you are." You haven't taken a good look at yourself in years.

I tried to tear my eyes away, but the mirror just kept dragging me deeper and deeper into the self reflection.

"Months, it took me to negotiate with the forces of the underworld to bribe my way out of corporeal death," Warlock said, still whispering in my ear. "And another two to learn all the quirks of this cadaver I'm riding in. Do you have any idea how complicated women's plumbing is? That little brat's parlor trick ruined everything I had going. But the advantage of a year without a body is that it gives you time to plan."

"And oh, how I have planned for this," Warlock said.

"I'm just a sidekick, Warlock," I said. "The worst thing I'll do is write a scathing blog post about you."

"Oh you needn't tell me how useless you are, Chris," Warlock said. "Do you even actually have any powers, or are you literally riding the coattails of your cohort?"

"Literally would mean they were wearing coats you know," I said.

"Um...don't correct me," Warlock said. "It sickens me. Oh and by the way, Mr. Creative Writing major. It's DOCTOR Warlock to you."

"No it's not," I said.

"Yes. It is," she said.

"It's not. You're not a doctor."

"I am. I have a doctorate in occult studies from Penbrook."

"That's not an accredited university!" I said.

"Shut up! It's an honorific."

"Do I look like the kind of person who's going to honor your stupid mail-order degree?"

Warlock's hand darted out and grabbed my arm. A searing pain lanced up my arm and radiated into my chest. I heard a clipped scream, and realized it was my own. I felt like my soul had been scorched–which given Warlock's proclivities, was probably not too far from the truth. I felt my mind almost unhook from the mirror, and my eyes almost return to my control as a result of the agony, but Warlock let go of me an instant before I could tear my gaze away.

Instead I just couldn't escape the horrible reality about who I was, what I'd become, and how neither of those things was a writer. I was some half rate blogger–and that was on a good day.

"Well done, Chris," Warlock said returning her voice to a whisper. "That was quite well done. You very nearly tricked me. But you'll not get away this time. Your soul is mine. And I shall burn it like diaphanous tissue and masturbate to your ethereal screams."

"Well, that was....really graphic," I said. "I guess being dead for nearly a year makes you want to put the necro in necromancy."

"You'll not trick me again, you powerless hack of a writer," Warlock said. "However, I must stay my hand for just a moment. I've promised something to someone who arranged this little meeting of ours."

"Hello again, Chris," ChronoTron said, stepping into my peripheral vision. "Or I suppose the appropriate greeting is, 'We meet again.'"

"Appropriately cliche," I said. "Seriously, no one from the future has original lines?"

"Sarcastic to the last, I see," ChronoTron sighed. "No matter."

If I could just move. If I could just look away from that horrible reflecting mirror that was sucking me deeper and deeper into self doubt.

"Listen....ChronoTron," I said, unable to keep my voice from shaking. "I've been thinking. I have to tell you. I think it's time we saw other enemies. I need some space."

"Are you trying to break up with me as your nemesis?" ChronoTron asked? "Because that's actually pretty funny with you paralyzed, powerless, and suffering from crippling self doubt."

"Yeah," I said, struggling against the inexorable slide into the mirror's reflection. "Well, I just don't tend to have nemeses for very long. Honestly, I get bored. I have trouble committing. It's nothing personal, you're just not as interesting to me anymore." I could see in my peripheral vision that he was setting up the biggest time syphon I had ever seen. If it was to scale with the other weapons he'd used, it would steal all of my time in a single blast.

"You're right," he said, unfolding a tripod. "In a just a moment, you'll no longer be my nemesis."

"Yeah, well, I'd really rather break up with you," I said. "If it's all the same."

"I decided I needed some help from your time in order to defeat you," ChronoTron blathered on, ignoring me. "Fortunately your list of enemies is rather extensive. And one of them had an ace in the hole–a small shard of mirror that makes you realize how small and pathetic and not-a-writer you really are."

I tried to struggle, but I simply couldn't look away from that horrid little shard. I tried not to doubt myself, but they crept in everywhere. I wasn't writing fiction because of the baby. Life was too busy. It wasn't my fault. But then again a real writer would have found the time–found a way. I was a poseur. I didn't even have a book deal.

"Better now than in ten years when we're committed," I said, struggling to no avail. "I just really need to work on myself right now, and I can't be tied down to someone who wants to fight all the time. I'm a sidekick, you know. You deserve someone better. I just don't see a future with you."

ChronoTron laughed. "You know, ironically, you're absolutely right about that." He aimed the syphon. "You'll want to step back Warlock. Not unless you're not doing anything important for the next fifty years."

Warlock took a step away from me, and was immediately replaced with a 57' Chevy blasting Rock You Like A Hurricane.

Technically Warlock wasn't replaced so much as crushed by the 57' Chevy. It slammed down from the sky, trunk first, splattering Warlock's new body all over the pavement, but it was so quick and unexpected that the illusion was almost perfect.

Everyone paused. The only sound was the Scorpions: "My body is burning/ It starts to shout/ Desire is coming/ It breaks out loud." Then the sound of pedestrians screaming and running for cover as they realized supers were having a fight on the street.

A smokey outline of a vaguely human torso, coalesced from under the Chevy oozing out and past my head. "I fucking hate you!" it yelled at me as it puffed away.

That's when Wrecking Ball landed next to the twisted hulk of car, leaving two impact craters where his feet hit the sidewalk.

"Oh," ChronoTron said. "It's you."

"Yep." Wrecking Ball said.

With no further banter, Wrecking Ball swung at ChronoTron, but half a meter from ChronoTron's head, Wrecking Ball's fist slowed to a crawl. ChronoTron gave it an amused look and stepped easily to the side.

"Time dilation field," ChronoTron smirked. "I sort of figured you might show up, so I took a couple of precautions. Your ridiculous strength won't be so useful if it takes your fist thirty seconds to reach me."

"Yeah?" Wrecking Ball asked. "Did you put one on your little machine too?" He punched the time siphon. A glittering explosion of thumbnail-sized debris scattered from his fist, leaving only the smoking tip of the tripod remaining.

"FUCK!" ChronoTron screamed. "Fuck! Fuck! FUCK!  Do you have any idea how long it took to make that?"

"Gee," Wrecking Ball smiled. "I guess now you're really out of time."

ChronoTron pulled a smaller syphon. "Fuck you!  No matter. The old fashioned way will work just fine on immobile boy over there."

"Yeah, I wonder how your time toy works against wrestling moves?" Wrecking Ball said spreading his arms and trying to reach around ChronoTron.

"Fortunately, we don't need to find out," ChronoTron said. "I really did expect you. And the time dilator is only one of the couple of precautions I took."

A sense of foreboding flooded over me. As if struggling with self reflection weren't enough, I now got the distinct impression that something terrible was about to happen. Wrecking Ball dropped his arms to his side and looked around, doubt crossing his features.

"And while I definitely would have liked if Warlock could have at least survived the opening....move," ChronoTron said, "the little mirror she brought has served its purpose, and so has she. So now I think it's time for you to meet my second little bit of insurance."

The shadows around us deepened. The sense of foreboding grew. A breeze caused every goosebump on my body to stand at rigid attention.

"I see you survived our last encounter Wrecking Ball," a silky, androgynous voice said from all around us. "I shall be more...thorough this time." The darkness had grown into a local dusk. Shadows reached out from everywhere towards Wrecking Ball like long, greedy fingers.

Wrecking Ball spun left and right looking for the voice. Fear etched his face. "Chris," he gasped between terrified breaths. "I can't..... I won't be able to....."

The color drained from his face as the first of the long shadows reached him. "It's Harbinger!"

TO BE CONTINUED....

Self-Reflection Sucks (Part 1)

Today's entry is a combination of a personal update and the ongoing fiddling with the knobs to make Writing About Writing a useful and entertaining place to land.

So there is a timeline involved in this entry that could be considered critical backstory:

• February 2012. The climactic battle with my (then) nemesis Mirrorshield ends during a lightning storm on the rooftop of the Oakland Tribune building. After twenty unrelenting years of his devastating ability to hold up his shield and cause me to see myself in stark cold truth, I finally don't mind what I see. At least just enough to keep my wits about me and deliver a coup de grace with a lightning rod through his torso. Seconds later, lightning strikes his impaled body, and he dramatically flails, dropping the mirror shield to the ground below. Then he falls from the roof, smacking his head on the "I" on the way down where he lands on the roof of a car.

No "Next time, Chris!" for that guy. No siree bob.

• September 2013. The Brain enters third trimester. My housework contribution to The Hall of Rectitude increases.
• October 2013. Wrecking Ball, a local superhero roughly built like a tank, except with arms, officially signs on with The Hall of Rectitude to help our PR image which has been taking some hits in the Temescal area after one of Uberdude's creations razed a charming little Ethiopian place with dual auto cannons. It turned out not to be the secret lair of The Ethiopian.
• November 2013. Wrecking Ball gets into a fight with The Harbinger. He is critically injured and ends up in a coma. Most of the Hall of Rectitude is busy trying to put away local crime syndicates before the baby comes, but I visit Wrecking Ball every night and read him Hamlet, Macbeth, and Othello. I even do the voices.
• December 2013. The Contrarian is born. His psychic ability of contradicting everything saves me from the soul-ripping powers of The Warlock.
• January 2014. I take over local patrols in addition to cleaning duty since Uberdude and The Brain want to stay home and coo over the baby.
• February 2014. I am badly injured on patrol by Dawnweaver. Her deprivation ray saps me of alertness, memory, cognitive ability, and performance. I end up convalescing. Uberdude makes an impassioned soliloquy and returns to patrols, unleashing a plague of tiny robot chihuahuas on Dawnweaver, an act which causes her to declare him her nemesis and focus her attention on him instead of me. He tries to hide it, but he is often suffering from deprivation. Wrecking Ball wakes from his coma, but is not yet ready to return to crime fighting.
• March 2014. I begin to notice I am missing time. A few minutes here. An hour there. I'm not sure where it's gone. Wrecking Ball gains strength and is nearly ready to return to active duty.
• April 2014. Uberdude cannot handle the influx of villains who have heard that The Temescal is "open season." The Brain and Wrecking Ball return to full time crime fighting. 
• May 2014. My severe difficulty with time management comes to a head, and I attempt to analyze why I seem to have so little. I discover that I am not just suffering from a perception issue, but that there are actually bits of time that are missing from my life.

Can't look at this chart right now. Crying baby (which trumps "Looking At Charts").

• June 2014. Plaguebringer, who usually causes plagues of bacteria or viruses, tries something new: a plague of middle school students. The Hall of Rectitude deems the onslaught of obnoxious, self-centered kids a "low priority" and I am dispatched to handle it. Alone.
• Late June 2014. I discover why I am missing time. A traveller from the future (where they are "out of time") named ChronoTron is stealing time from people who are too busy to notice. He does not realize I am a sidekick and we end up in a fight on the roof of the Ordway building. I am saved by Dim and Sum who end up being...well "criminals" is such a strong word given that they barely steal at all from people who don't totally deserve it, but I guess technically outside the law is correct. They look so good in boots though. So so good. ChronoTron declares himself my new nemesis.
• July 2014. After considerable effort, I am able to round up the last of the plague of middle schoolers and return them to their parents none the worse for wear. Uberdude is given the key to the city for having the presence of mind to deploy me. I am given a $32 gift certificate to Sephora. 
• August 2014. The Contrarian learns how to make messes. Nothing will ever be the same. Blog goes insane and tries to get 50,000 page views. Between the two, I barely survive.

But the room was clean ten seconds ago.
I only turned around to grab my Kindle. I don't even....
What the actual, literal fuck?

• September 2014. ChronoTron returns, attacking the Hall of Rectitude. Wrecking Ball happens to be enjoying a day off catching up on Orange is the New Black and eating Chinese take out. He hears the commotion from the foyer, jumps down from the mezzanine, and one-punches ChronoTron into next week. Literally.
• Friday October 3, 2014. Jenny pops my "what's your process" cherry. 

Which catches you up to this weekend, specifically yesterday. I was taking a walk down on Piedmont Ave., half-heartedly looking for some place to have lunch, when I heard my name. A strange woman with golden hair and a bright smile waved and gestured me over. 

"Chris," she said. "It's me. Jenny. From Friday's mailbox."

"Oh, hi!" I said, starting to walk over. "I didn't realize you lived around here." Jenny turned out to be into breathtaking short skirts and breathtaking knee-high soft leather riding boots (the kind with the tops that fold back down about six inches). I didn't stare, but it was hard not to notice.

"Well, I work out here actually," she said. "On the weekends. Doing charity work. For homeless orphans. Who are missing limbs."

I cleared my throat. "That's....very....niche work. How many of those are there in Oak–"

"I was wondering if you could look at something," she said. "I totally took your advice, which was amazing by the way, and I came up with a process of my own. Just for me. Will you look at it?"

"Sure, I guess," I said. "But really it's about you."

"I know," she said. "But I'm such a fan," she said. "I was really hoping you could just take a glance. Please?"

Had her skirt somehow gotten shorter? Don't stare, Chris! You're a feminist. Male gaze. All that stuff. Be cool.

"Sure," I said. "I'll take a look."

She handed me a small folder.  "I was just so inspired by your process. The way you are barely able to keep up and aren't really writing much fiction these days. The way you can only just keep up. It moved me."

"That seems like a strange thing to find inspira..." I said as I opened up the folder. My words died in my throat.

I was staring at my reflection. A fist sized, roughly-crescent-shaped piece of mirror sat in a hollowed out alcove within the little folder.

I looked at myself. My overweight face looked back with bags missing sleep under my eyes. It hit me how little fiction I was doing. How I had entire projects in my head that were just slipping away since I could never seem to catch up or stay ahead on the blog. How my life was just a cascade of barely keeping my head afloat. I saw all my ambition and my drive poured into petty time sinks like Facebook. I saw what a waste I was becoming. 

A familiar feeling of paralysis gripped me. I couldn't move. I was too busy loathing what I saw in my reflection. What had my life come to? Why was I wasting it? Who was I kidding? I wasn't worth the oxygen I was consuming.

"Like that?" she said, sliding up to my left side and whispering in my ear. "I thought you might get a kick out of it. That's the biggest shard of the Mirrorshield I could salvage from the street below the Tribune building. Took me months to track it down."

I felt her hands running through the thin down on the nape of my neck. "Worth it though. The enemy who pwned you up and down California for twenty years, and who you only defeated in a spectacular, and uncharacteristic, moment of self esteem–his power is now mine. Look closely Chris...at what you really are. No self delusion. No rationalizations. No pretense. Just you and the truth."

I swallowed. Was I even a real writer? Did blogging even count? One more poseur in a long line. I couldn't move. I could barely think. I could only contemplate how my life failed in so many ways to live up to what I wanted it to be.

"Have you no psychic baby to save you this time?" she asked, a Welsh flavored English accent creeping into her words. "Or shall we finish what we commenced before Sonic Gal so rudely interrupted us?"

The affected accent. The speech patterns....I knew them.

"Warlock?" I gasped.

"In the flesh," she said.

On to Part 2