#FFF

So as many of you must know, November is National Novel Writing Month and writers everywhere get all wound up and try to knock out a novel in a month.  It is abbreviated as NaNoWriMo or something stupid, presumably an event created by and intended for writers and that's the best thing that they could come up with?  The world's most garbage portmanteau?  Writing circles generally call it Nano, which is only marginally better, but at least its shorter.  I never do it because November is a terrible month to attempt to do anything other than watch football and dream of turkey and mashed potatoes and whatnot.  Who has time to sit down at the keys in November?

I don't know about y'all, but I haven't been able to do jack shit creatively in the last year, what with the pandemic and the election and protests and civil unrest and the many and varied other goddamn attacks on my peace and sanity and holy shit it was all I could do to hold it together and not run screaming out of the house pulling my hair out.  So the upshot here, what I am trying to say as, even now, I knock the dust off of my rusty ass writing skills, what I am trying to say here is that I don't want to write a goddamn novel in November when I have so many unfinished things right now.  Nano is great for some people but for me it is an exercise in frustration and disappointment and its the fucking holiday season folks, and sure, it might be nice to get away and put on the ol' headphones instead of listening to Uncle Larry go on and on about how Antifa are injecting the nation's youth with vaccines and making them gay, so I get why some would want to do it, even if you don't get anything good out of it.  

But the thing is this, okay? The thing is, I have unfinished projects galore here. I have a novel that is written and just needs some fixing here and there, I have a middle grade sci-fi thing that is pretty much ready to go, I want to put Antiartists up on KDP and guess what?  It ain't New Years anymore and Valentines Day is absolutely irrelevant since the last time I put a construction heart covered shoebox on my desk in grade school and we all traded up valentines, which was rad as hell. Why thank you Heather!  I will not, as Bart Simpson has instructed me to do on your thoughtful valentine here, 'have a cow, man,' but I will, as Bart has further instructed, 'have a radical Valentines Day.'  Since then Valentines has been stupid.  Like I just wanted flowers, but not spontaneous meaningful flowers, but mandatory flowers that don't mean shit.  Grow up you doofus, Valentine's is for dorks.  

SO lacking any good excuses, what I propose is this: lets make a new, non-Nano, writing/creative event and call it Fuckin Finish it February or FFF, for those that shy away from the eff word or like those goobers that like to put asterisks instead of vowels to protect us from the terrible poisonous sin that is profanity.  I got some bad news for you dipsh*t, with or without the asterisk it reads the same so if you want to write f*ck you may as well go the full monty because it don't make a d*mn bit of difference.

Anyway, what I propose is that we take these unfinished projects, hell just pick ONE even, and we take February and finish the fucking thing.  We fucking finish it in February, we FFF the shit out of it, okay?  

Look I know its been hard, I have read about people who respond to stress by working, they just rise to the occasion and knock out a bunch of stuff and feel great but what I do instead is I roll up into a chubby middle aged ball and I protect all my softer bits, and I snack until I feel a little better.  I stay up too late feeling anxious and alone watching the same shows over and over (anyone want to take another run through Letterkenny?  Anyone on their third or fourth trip through every season of Rick and Morty?)  What I do instead of working is NOT work and I like to feel guilty about not working and I like to fill my fat congested heart with despair and fear and I like to wish for a meteor to strike or a huge sinkhole to swallow my house because I just can't do anything to extricate myself from this stupid and self defeating cycle.  I don't lose myself in the work, I fill a gigantic salad bowl with Fruity Pebbles and watch seven seasons of The League, all while berating myself for letting my goals to slip so far away. 

So its been shitty I get it, I've lived it.  But I have a cool story that has been sitting there on my drive and goddamnit I want to be free of it, it has been taking space up and I need to let it go.  I need, in other words, to FFF the shit out of it so I can move on with my life. 

You can FFF too, if you want. You can take that thing that has been sitting there, that unfinished screenplay, that song, that half built birdhouse, you can take that thing and you can fucking finish it. You can just FFF the hell out of that model airplane or that ship in a bottle, you can pick up your paints and dust off the easel and you can dig that canvas out from under the unused winter coats and you can finish the fucking thing. You can FFF that piece of shit and move on with your life.

What's hilarious is that I have been meaning to write this for a while now, more than a week, and moments ago I was screwing around on my phone instead of doing anything and I saw a tweet from these dudes that do this Propagandhi podcast (Unscripted Moments; these dudes are superfans and take one Propagandhi song and research and talk the absolute shit out of it.  It is wild and an absolute love letter to one of my all time favorite bands. Check them out @Propagandhipod on Twitter) that said this: "If you're sitting on a cool idea PLEASE do it.  Start on it right away. DO IT." and I mashed the retweet button because I know for sure that it is a sentiment that I agree with, but then I realized that I was on my ass again trying to decide if I wanted to start a fresh character on Borderlands 3 or if I wanted to try and respec my maxed Moze to take on endgame content solo, and I thought hey I've been meaning to launch FFF and I haven't done anything that feels like progress in forfuckingever so what the hell, why not knock this shit out instead?

And here's the thing:  I did it.  I got up, went into the bedroom, grabbed my wife's Chromebook, sat down at the kitchen table and I FFFed the hell out of this blog.  

You can do it too.  FFF it.

Here are the things I want to FFF this year:  

1. Finish my story The Coast, a bleak as hell horror story inspired by the PUP song of the same name.

2. Start a new weekly blog called Fatboy Diaries where I chronicle the successes and struggles of my goal this year of losing 125 pounds.  

3. Submit my story Millar's Song for publication.  I have a dream spot and this story is perfect for them. 

And that's it.  February is a short month, and it ain't a leap year, Jack.  

You can FFF too if you wanna.  Do it. Now. Go get your wife's Chromebook and get to work. You know, metaphorically.  Or literally, I suppose; I don't know your life.  FFF the shit out of whatever it is.  

I have always signed off Still Writing, and I would like to believe that is true, even now. 

Happy FFF, my friends.  Good Luck. 

Still Still Writing

RP 

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I cut out all social over the holidays, but I am more or less back on Twitter.  Tell me your FFF goals.  Use the hashtag unless it means something already and chances are if it does, its probably something gross, so maybe check it out first I guess.  @RDPullins   dissent.within @gmail .com  I wouldnt really bother trying to reach me on Facebook or Instagram; in all likelihood I wont see it. Stick together.  Tell the people that you love that you love them.  Now if you don't mind I am going to go respec my level-capped Moze.  Peace.