I am a bit freaked out.

I was probably 35 or 36 when the picture above was taken. Add 20+ years and you get me today. My daughter is now 24 and expecting her first child. I have retired from teaching. That's why I am a bit freaked out. I'm almost as freaked out by the number of people from Russia who read my blog. I still haven't figured that one out. I can tell you that I have never felt more relaxed than I do right now. Teaching was the love of my life -- or so I thought -- and I'm sure I am going to miss the kids terribly, but when it comes right down to it, there are so many more things about teaching that I will not miss, not in the least. These are the things that caused me so much stress I am surprised I could bear them.  It has not helped that throughout my life I have been victimized by bipolar disorder. My meds pretty much keep it under control, but they do not cure it, and there are still days when I wake up depressed for no reason whatsoever. You can't explain that to people.  They just want to tell you the same old cliches, "Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps," "Think about all the good things you have more often and you won't be depressed," "Be patient and it will go away." I could rant about the ignorance people have about mental illness but that's not what I'm here for tonight.

I am just updating you all, giving you a glimpse into my life so to speak.  No, that will be too boring. I am writing again. The creativity is flowing for right now like it has not done for a long time. Naturally, that has me drowning in delusions of grandeur. I am querying several agents and I just know that one at least will take me on as a client. The trouble is, I have thought this many times before and it has never happened. I am in a manic phase at the moment, but I know that sooner or later, most likely sooner, the depressive phase will kick in, and all I'll want to do is sleep and/or eat. I will withdraw into a shell and not come out until it passes. I am actually surprised that I am not already in a state of depression. Today is the last day of my current publisher's existence. My novel Fall of Knight will disappear from Amazon. I will get the rights returned to me, and I'm hoping that someone will pick up it and the sequel which I've nearly finished. I am the eternal optimist unless I'm depressed.

I don't know if anyone actually reads this blog or not, but I'm thinking if anyone is interested, I could put in little excerpts of the sequel to Fall of Knight and get some feedback from people. Since I've been blogging I've had over 20,000 people read or at least look at this. It might be nice to hear what you think about my book.

Time to Reflect

I have four more days with my seniors and 11 total before I retire from teaching forever. I know you are never supposed to use absolutes like never and forever, but I think I can make an exception this time. I'm about to start on a brand new journey. I don't know how long it will last but I know that my next major destination will be death, but I think I have lived a good life really.  I won't miss all of the hassle of teaching, the bureaucracy and the paperwork, but I will most definitely miss my students, even the ornery ones.  My plan is to attempt to write full time and actually make a living out of it, but just as I always have, I have a couple of backups if the first one doesn't work, and there's no reason to think it will because it hasn't yet. I think I would need Divine interventions. Yes, I do believe in divine interventions, but I don't know if the Almighty is interested in whether or not I can make money off my writing. We have our pensions, which are not bad at all, but the thing is, most people like us are always just one major illness away from being so far in debt you might as well bury us in it. I sent a query to Bloomsbury Sparks publishing program. Now that Booktrope has folded I would like to get the book out again since the rights revert back to me. I'm hoping that they will like it so much that they also will get the second one and do it in hardback first, then paperback, and then sell movie rights to it. One can dream. My backup plan, which I'll have to admit I'm not quite sure about, involves being an official scorer for SAT. I can do that part time to add to my income. The most exciting thing about my retirement is that I am going to be a grandpa. I will spoil that child rotten. Well, I had written in five months, so I figured it was probably time to update. I'll write again.