"Swirl"

My dreams have been busy lately.  Awake or asleep, My thoughts swirl around people I know and have known.  I yelled at a man 20 or 30 years ago, "Stupid, and damned proud of it!"  He laughed and cracked open another beer.  Apply his ways to my conundrums on a personal or national level, and it explains a lot, which isn't to say I like reality.

I overheard a couple of climate change deniers discussing their concerns about whether or not fruit trees will be confused by the weather which is in the 60s F in mid-January.  These women understand trees could bloom, and that winter may return and freeze the blossoms, but they don't believe human activities are a factor, even though they agree January has never been this warm.  They're only going to admit to a problem when apple prices go up, but really, not even then.  They never admit they were wrong.

Another woman said, "A lot of scientists say climate change isn't real."  I emailed her the NASA website which disproves that statement (without my personal commentary).  She said I should look at other "news" to get the other side of things and gave me a newspaper with an article trashing Joe Biden, none of which was true or current.

I feel like Michelle Obama at the 2017 inauguration and hoping that US democracy isn't swirling down the drain.

I do in fact read what the opposition has to say, and it worries me about a lot of things, but I'm also trying to feel optimistic that the structure of the US is strong enough to withstand its current challenges.  We've had some terrible presidents before and survived.  Well, some people survived.  A lot of people didn't.  But hey, I'm trying to be optimistic.  I'm even trying to get my head around the inevitable Pence presidency as if it isn't a calamity.  At least he isn't pathological (I hope).

This troll has been in my mind for the last year.  It may not be my most charitable creative effort, but it just had to exist.  I'm not talking about the model for it because he just gets stronger every time his name is mentioned like clapping for fairies in Peter Pan.

Enough of my political angst.  One of the reasons I started thinking of the beer drinker was as a character in my slightly dusted off novel.  I actually have a lot written, but only a small part is actually worth much.  It occurred to me that I need an actual plot and found this article helpful.  I've spent some days pondering about the goal of my story and how I'm going to get there.  My plot isn't entirely filled in, but I have made progress.

I've also thought a lot about why I stopped writing this novel.  My lack of plot made me feel adrift and I couldn't get centered.  I talked about this with someone who made a series of personal criticisms of me and my writing, which I consciously rejected, but which undermined my subconscious motivation.  I'm going to avoid people like that.

It's going to take a long time before I have something to show on this project, but I've made a commitment to myself to write something every day, even if what I write is bad at first.  Progress takes effort.  I'll try to keep that in mind as I watch politics too.