Wagner's Writings

“Write a short story every week. It's not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.” - Ray Bradbury  I had this idea at the beginning of the year to follow the quote above my famous Science Fiction author, Ray Bradbury. I thought, sardonically, that I COULD! write fifty-two bad short stories. I'll show you, Ray! In all seriousness it's a great creed to follow when the key to writing is writing (consistently!) Because I'm probably a masochist, I like to have a lot on my plate when it comes to creative stuff. With enough shit thrown at the wall something is bound to stick, no?       So I did stick with it on January 1st, but I kept it to myself. I made it a whole seven weeks - about the first week of March until I fell off that. It's the last of April. It's not too late to catch up, right? That means I owe 10 short stories to myself in addition to the rest of the weeks forthcoming. Easy-peasy.      The beauty of a short story is that it's, uh...

    In June, I'll be releasing a chapbook, a mini collection of poems, called ISOLATIONIST. I'm writing this because I wanted to say thanks to all the kind words and anticipation for this little book of mine and to explain a little bit on the whole process and how this all came to be.       When I had this idea nugget of mine for a poetry chapbook I didn't expect much out of it with the exception of a couple friends here and there, but when I announced the thing I really felt the love. Especially quite a few people asking for, um... physical copies??? And I'm out here thinking nobody would want to read it period, let alone something to hold in their mitts!       I didn't expect that. Cool stuff, man. It really warms my heart. So if you're anticipating this as much as I am, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! And I love you.      So, I gotta talk about my book, I guess. Let's see how the sausage is made. I apologize in advance...

         Gotta love my consistency on these blogs. The beauty of having a small audience is that you know that I do this solely for me. I would do this a whole lot more if I simply had the time for it. I'm a busy guy, but in a good, healthy way and not one where my responsibilities possessed me and wears a "Cody" name tag. So I thought I'd give a little update from this past month or so.      One lesson I've learned recently is I've really got to chill the fuck out. I'm such a worry wart who expects the worst. I always worry about going to the doctor's in particular. Being a diabetic and living in a pretty tense time while not doing my best on dieting, I always have this thought that death is an inevitability. With recent losses in my life, that worry is not so far-fetched, although quite an extreme. One little ache in my heart and I'm all, "Whelp that's it for me. Peace." A great attitude for a twenty-six year old, right? Some do say...

      Rather than a blog about some topic I thought I'd plop down for story time. I've been circling over notes over a few projects I'm working on (one mustn't have just one project on their plate) and came across research notes on a novel I wanted to be my first novel. I see this as a good opportunity to reveal a little bit on the writing process and the lessons learned when a project falls through.       Spoiler: You've got to pick yourself up and keep on moving with the next one.      I've started kicking around the idea of writing a novel for many, many years. The seeds of that were sprouting in my head starting in middle school but never really ventured out from the short stories that I was writing. In high school I've had a few jump starts but never anything came of those ideas either. It wasn't until late 2017 early 2018 that I had seriously considered writing a full length book. At that point, I've written quite a bit of short st...

     It's the second month of a new year and I've already tripped up on some goals I've set for myself. Most likely the cause is some mixture of self-sabotage and the catharsis of "finishing" something. I'll explain that in a bit.      So for 2022, I've had a couple goals in mind. First, I wanted to write fifty-two short stories a week - one for each week of the year. Last week was the first one I've missed. Now this week I'm currently scrambling to write two stories as to not let myself slip away entirely. This is in junction with other writing projects I'm juggling (as I always do).      Secondly, I also wanted to do this blog thing more consistently. The silence really speaks for itself on that one. The reasoning for that one is a little more psychological than running out of time for a small piece of fiction. If you know me, it's hard not to tell that I get inside my own head a lot. Typical cliches of the "suffering artist" - ...

 1.21.22       2022 really had to go and take my man Meat Loaf, fucking Robert Paulson, like that? The dad in Tenacious D's The Pick of Destiny?!?! Damn...      I'll be honest for a moment. This death really brought me down a notch or two. I really admired him and his work from his albums to his film work. Really fantastic artist in my eyes and a real influence on me being a heavy set guy. Article #2 for 2022 was me going to be gushing over the Moon Knight trailer and my connection with that character, but Meat Loaf takes higher importance.      I was once a young hungry pre-teen who dug around everywhere for rock music to discover and digest. I have no idea if it was my Mom or Dad's but I came across a burned CD for "Bat Out of Hell." I wasn't immediately pulled into it with it being a little intimidating with having seven songs with a forty-six minute runtime. Damn those are some hefty songs. This was a point before I sunk my teet...

     So I totally thought I would keep up with article posts in 2021. Turns out that was a (hash)pipe dream because one has to be baked out of their freaking mind if they think they can start up a blog when the world seemed to be falling apart. Oops. That's my bad.      I was cautious about the new year and all that. That being resolutions always go by the wayside, and you know, in the midst that world not functioning at 100%, I can't say I blame anyone, including me. However, being a couple weeks in I feel rather... good for once? I still have all my problems (depression, an unhappiness about my current stage of where I am as a person), but I think I have quite a handle of things as well as I can manage at the moment.      I beat myself up in the past for not writing as much as I should, not interacting with people as much as I should, not being in a career I want for myself, and because I'm a nerd who should give me his lunch money. That's ...