Mike Williams

Blog Update – Good Times

There has most definitely been blog inconsistency over the last couple of weeks and I wish I could explain it.

I think I’ve just been exhausted. I remember a couple of nights where I would get home from work and quickly end up in my bedroom.

I’m sure that loosing my younger brother last month has sucked some of the life out of me. I’m still devastated by it.

And now…

This is me making the adjustment. I have a bunch of tasks every day that I need to perform in order for me to call the day completed. That hasn’t been happening. Writing included. I keep the journal and I write in that everyday but my daily word push has fallen by the wayside since I finished *The 6th Iteration*.

So, today I get back into the solid routines I have created. I will begin the next short story. I will begin to spec out my screenplay which I still have no ideas about other than I want to adapt a short story. *Debauchery in B Minor* may be the one I go with because it is just a fun story.

Sometimes it is difficult to move forward with a tragedy you’ve suffered but moving forward is exactly what we need to do. I have a lot of things I want to do before I leave the world of the living.

I hope all of you do too.

*The picture is from the morning newspaper. It was taken in Chicago and when I see the sand, it throws me off.*

HDWGH – Story 36 – A Little Extra

From The How Did We Get Here Series

Now: Dexter Lewis slid the Hershey Bar, lighter, and cigarettes from the plastic bag as Harris began driving away from the convenience store. Harris looked over and asked, “Where’d you get the cigarettes, bro?”

Before: Dexter stood in line behind his friend Harris at the checkout line at the neighborhood convenience store. Dexter was flat broke but his friend Harris had plenty of money. Dexter had repeatedly asked for a small loan so he could buy some essentials but Harris always turned him down. They were friends but Harris had a controlling nature. He didn’t like that Dexter smoked so he had never liked the idea of lending him money just so he could buy some.

When they got to the end of the line, Dexter pulled a few items from the checkout margins including some cigarettes, a lighter, and a few snacks and lumped them in with what Harris had picked up. The trick was to keep Harris occupied long enough so that he wouldn’t see what the lady was putting in the bag. When they got to the car, Dexter would dig out his prizes and Harris would be none the wiser. He had no clue about what the cost of what he bought should be.

WWDC 2021 is Almost Here!

This is the yearly event I look forward to. The event where Apple releases the beta version of the next operating system.

The conference is all about software and in rare circumstances Apple has announced hardware but since this is a software conference, I wouldn’t bet on it.

I’ve tried to stay away from the speculation. I really don’t care what other people think and I just want to be surprised by Apple. The folks that work on these products should be the ones to tell me about them.

I’ll update this post as I find out what is going on.

It’s June!

You know what that means?

No more crappy weather allowed.

From here until, like, October…

I am the king of nothing in particular and I have spoken.

Tundra

I usually don’t post this one. This particular one caught my attention and just struck me as hilarious.

CleanShot 2021 05 31 at 05 06 56 2x

Writing Through Pain

A great article and couldn’t be timelier for me.

Grief is the ultimate thief of creativity. As artists, we have a duty to observe and experience those poignant moments so we can better portray them in our art. But experiencing them isn’t always conducive to our deadlines. Grief is different than your run-of-the-mill writer’s block. There is the desire to write, the words are there ready to be put on paper but the energy to put pen to paper is lacking. The normal remedies of researching, journaling or even reading no longer work.

Read the whole article here.

Weird Series of Events

I would start this sentence with “so” except that every time you do, I think a small child dies somewhere.

I was on the fence about going to my brother’s funeral. Why? There are any number of reasons but the main reason is that there are people there. Anyone who knows me to any extent knows that I have a social anxiety problem. I’ve had it all of my life and the only times I ever tried to do anything “social” someone else pushed me to do it.

If left to my own devices, I’ll stay away from public events. It has absolutely nothing to do with COVID-19 although lets face it, the whole thing was great if you don’t like being around other people.

The morning of the funeral I was outside rounding up some pool supplies for the weekend. I’m getting read to shut the make-shift gate and I look up to see an SUV hitting his breaks right before he T-Bones another vehicle at the intersection in front of me.

I took this an a sign. A sign that I should possibly stay at home and not jump into a motor vehicle. I don’t drive because the law says I can’t. I don’t drive because I don’t want to drive. I fell out of love with it a long time and many trucker accidents ago.

My brother was killed in a single vehicle accident. He was driving and wasn’t wearing his seat belt. Everyone else was. They lived. He did not.

In summary, I know I haven’t put up a post in a couple of days. So, this is it.

Jesus. I used the word “so” to start that last sentence. I feel dirty.

HDWGH – Story 33 – Fowl Clairvoyance

From The How Did We Get Here Series

Now: Chad Hess stood on the pier with a look of disgust and heart break as Nicole Harris told him that she would not marry him and that his present condition was obviously a “sign.”

Before: Chad Hess had arranged his marriage proposal with careful precision. Nicole Harris was extremely superstitious and he knew he would have to be very careful. He would need to check and re-check every plan he was making to make sure it met with Nicole’s approval. Nicole had turned down another marriage proposal when her soon to be husband received a letter in the mail informing him of an upcoming tax audit. Nicole took that as a bad “sign” and called off the engagement. Chad was not going to allow that to happen to him.

He took Nicole out to the local pier to the beautiful spot at the very end looking over the glistening blue water. This spot was one of her favorites. Chad knew he couldn’t go wrong. Chad got down on one knee.

When a seagull left an extra special gift on his right cheek. Seeing the warm specimen slide down Chad’s cheek was all she needed to see the situation for what it was.