WRITER'S BLO(G/CK)

  What with this blog being named what it is and all, I figured that I’d probably better address the subject of writer’s block sooner rather than later.   So:   Here we go!   Background Information I was born on December 23 rd , 1970.   Why?   To grow up and write novels.   (My purpose in life is just that simple.)   I started writing when I was young.   I wrote for school newspapers.   Once I stumbled onto fandom I wrote for newsletters and zines.   When I was nineteen, I accidentally wrote my first novel.   (How did I accidentally write a novel?   I sat down to write a short story, and when I was finished it was 79,000 words long.   Whoops!)   After writing for other people’s zines, I started making my own.   I wrote all kinds of things.   Then, in the fall of 1997, something in my brain broke.   Over the course of two or three months, I lost the capacity for speech.   When I lost the ability to talk, I also lost the ability to write stories.   Five years later I regained

Yeah, yeah, I know.   The introduction is traditionally your first post, not your second.   Deal with it.   Who Am I? My Blogger user profile name is Battlegorilla, but my actual name is Mike Snethen.   I used to always hide my identity behind pseudonyms, but most of the reasons for that no longer matter.   The one remaining reason to use a pseudonym is that nobody ever pronounces my last name correctly.   (Pretend that it’s got an extra ‘e’ and say “Sneethen”.)   Between zines and blogs I’ve written under the bylines of S. Christian Michaels, Maestro Takatak (the Cosmic Buffalo), Zeitgeist the Clown, Battlegorilla, and possibly others (who can remember?)   I firmly believe that I was put on Earth to write novels, but I’ve had crippling writer’s block for almost 25 years now.   Lots of stories to tell, but no ability to tell them.   I’m chronically ill, and was pretty much a shut-in even before Covid hit. About the Blog The title of my blog is “Writer’s Blo(g/ck)”, whic

I can’t remember the last time I made a New Year’s Resolution.   For the past 20 years or so, I have instead made lists of things to do during the coming year.   This is one of those.   Last year’s list (50 Things to Do in Year 50) was by and large a miserable failure.   I successfully managed a grand total of 4 things off of it.   This year with a smaller list, I’m hoping to do much better.   I thought about arranging these in some sort of order, but that seemed like a lot of work.   So, they are simply arranged in the order I typed them in when trying to think of a full complement of 22 things.   Find a Sex Partner Sure, I’d like love and romance.   A girlfriend-turned-wife.   Things like that.   But right at the moment, I’ll settle for just having someone to have sex with.   Friends with benefits, and whatnot.   More on that in a later post.   Join a New Starfinder Group For the past year, I’ve spent every other Saturday online playing the (normally tabletop) role-play