Cold, Vices, Family and Writing Files

I’m in Lorain, OH because my last and oldest aunt has passed. Aunt Dot. A smile creeps along my face as I just type her name. The last of my dad’s sisters, the last sibling. There were 10 of them. 5 boys, and 5 girls; for every girl there was a boy, and for every boy there was a girl.  This is history, this is family, this I had to do.

To take my mind off of that, but not off of that, I started looking at my vast #vss365 file. It’s now 165 pages, dating back to 2020.  2025 is 63 pages by itself. Note: the #vss365 file is a file of poems, and short stories. ie vss Very Short Story

I really want to publish these pieces.  There are multiple reasons.

Last year, I was kicked off of Twitter, and that’s where many of these poems were housed other than this file I’ve kept between my phone, laptop, and G-drive. 

I really want to publish another anthology of poems. I’m a poet dammit, what can I say?

Shouldn’t I be looking for indie publishers and agents? ::sigh:: and yes. Shouldn’t I be buying author copies of the books I do have for in person events? ::sigh, again:: and yes.

However I’m not. I’m in my hotel room, and just now realized I’m like on Lake Erie and I want to get frozen water pictures like I did in Chicago on the pier.  

Writer stuff. Family stuff. Avoidance at its peak. It’s also 22 degrees outside, and smoking a cigarette is a vice, but that cold is a key.

The poems are good though. I want to catalog them and box them in to make sections for a book like I did with Fire Molten and Ash, but not like that. But at least put them in an order that makes sense for this moment. 

This is 2026, the beginning of a new year; still that same writer. Procrastination to a point, avoidance to a certain extreme, but still writing, still improving. And I’m off topic, way off topic. I did start writing another poem on the plane out here.

Back to the topic. Staying focused is difficult. I have at least three manuscripts that I’m working on for the year.  Ambitious? Sure, let's go with that.  But somehow, someway, another anthology of poetry is coming out.

Like I said, I’m a poet dammit.

That’s it for now.  Thanks for reading, thanks for sticking with me.  

Hey, if you want to help fuel the next anthology, or put in for the cigarette fund, pop over to payhip.com/StoriesAndSound and buy a book, or get some music.

Thanks ya’ll-~~deuces

ps…Happy ‘26