Here it is, 2 years after my last blog post, and the pandemic is finally behind us. I come to this site maybe twice a week, but I'd forgotten this blog was here. I figure it's time to add a post for the people who have read the blog.

During the pandemic my erotica writing venture sort of went on hiatus. I'm now trying to crawl out of the writer's block. A death in the family in late 2021 didn't help. I have three or four books in the works: one I'm trying to finish editing, which I hope to get out by the end of next month, and a couple others to hopefully follow before year's end. Both of those are partially written. I've been writing them in chunks.

None of my recent books reflect the pandemic, except the latest one mentions it in passing -- as a prior event, thankfully behind the characters. When you're writing books about people having lots of fun sex, and holding sex and swing parties, the last thing you want is lots of talk about coronavirus. It's like taking a massive bucket of cold water and tossing it over the entire scene. The point of most fiction is to help the reader escape the dreariness of the day-to-day world, not drag them back into it. After thinking things over (and reading the opinions on the matter expressed by other self-published authors), I decided to leave the pandemic out of my stories until it was over.

Outside of writing and work, life moves on. The pandemic itself didn't crowd out my life any, as I don't have a terrific social life. My favorite pubs shut down during the lockdowns, and a couple took their time to return to normal. A lot of stores cut their hours, some drastically, even after the pandemic was over. Where, in 2014 there were 24 hour grocery and drugstores in the area, now there are zero.

Even coffeehouses that were burgeoning in the late 2010's are now barely holding on. As a part-time, but non-professional musician, I still have a few connections to some of the local music community -- they disparage the loss of venues to play. And it's true -- the numbers of venues were dropping before the pandemic thanks to gentrification, but the pandemic just sped up the live music venue elimination process.

In a way, it's a bit depressing. Progress is supposed to be a positive thing, right? I guess not always. Loss of music venues, stores cutting hours with less product on the shelves during holidays, businesses not coming back from being locked down -- it sort of cuts into the zest of public life. On the other side of the coin, it gives me some things to include in my books. I know things aren't the same in the rest of the US, Canada, and the greater world, but I try to include enough day-to-day reality to make things plausible. It gives the characters in my books real stuff to deal with.

I've looked over some other members' photos over the past few visits I've made here to NN. It seems a lot of folks here on NN have active sex lives, which is really cool. A lot of you could fit into my books' storylines. I still don't have any pics here because all I have is dick pics and the world doesn't really need anymore dick pics.... Or does it.

Well, it's time to sign this entry off. It's a sunny day outside, and I've got stuff aside from writing to get done.

Hope all is well with anyone who reads this.

As corona still casts a pall upon society and day-to-day life, another infrequent blog post here. It seems I manage one every year.

The past year and a half has been sort of dull, actually. I was working regularly during re-opening last year, which was a slower process in my state than it was in others. They let small offices continue working if the social distancing protocols were followed. As more and more re-opened, the business wasn't really picking up, so work slowed after a while.

I applied for some work at a large retail corporation and almost got the position I applied for, but it was already filled. Months later, I realized that the entire process was basically handled by computer bot. This is the future -- you will be hired, monitored, reviewed, and fired -- all by computer program. No humans needed in that process. One of my neighbors is a die-hard socialist and at times like this his view of capitalism appears more and more valid.

One thing that's strange is that although I have a full line of 'favorites' on my browser's drop-down task bar, when I scroll through them there is less and less activity on most of them each ensuing month. Some sites and forums are seeing maybe one tenth the activity there was a couple years ago. The porn sites still have activity, but it's even different there, from a few years ago when I began hanging out at them. Social media in general is reaching this point where I've seen it all before. The same tired, old political arguments, the same rehashed music postings, and the like. Some stuff gets posted that was posted just a few months previous, by the same poster. I get a lot of cat photos on my feed, because I click the like button when I see them. I started doing that last year, to replace the political hash with something a bit better. It worked.

On the porn sites and forums I've seen the same trend I noticed in my last blog post here: people just disappearing, often for no reason, and with no warning. They just exit stage left, without even a goodbye. I'm not referring to the ones that push the limits on sites, just regular people, including women I've chatted with. One day you're chatting. Next day they're disappeared completely.

In non-internet based life, I lost a cat last year, and another one this year. It's never easy burying your little pals. Another cat got sick but is doing much better. The weather has been standard, I guess. A medium summer for the most part. I stay active with my bike riding, and guitar playing, learning some riffs off of YouTube. My novel writing took a dip -- for some reason I lost interest, and it's been a chore trying to get it back. I don't know why that is. The older books are still selling, and that's good.

Yet another year passes and there's this blog here and I haven't used it. But then, there really isn't all that much to say. The weather is shitty here, Halloween was almost called off, and the rest of the holidays -- which mean little to me anymore -- appear to be called off except for those science deniers who think they're impervious to things like nanomicron sized viruses, and are intending to hold Thanksgiving virus spreading events.

I still write erotic fiction; it's written porn, basically. It's a way of getting into another world where it isn't raining 24/7, no one gives a flying fuck about politics, no one has massive hang ups about shit, and people always at least have good sex.

And yes, I do hang out on the political forum a lot, even though I detest politics in general. It keeps me sharp engaging with people. Dialogue is healthy for the mind.

Sometimes I look over the rest of this site, and one of the saddest things is to see posts here and there left by people who no longer are members -- posts from as early as 2007 or 2012 or 2013 or whatever, and they just disappeared off the map. And you wonder where they go. One of them was an NN 'friend', who just up and left about 4-5 years ago. No fanfare, no goodbyes, just 'pffft' -- off into the ether she went. Her blog, of course, which was interesting, went with her, which is understandable... but that's the internet for you -- permanent and temporary at the same time.

Anyway, right now more fiction writing awaits. There is an empty word processor page on my computer screen that needs to be filled, and it's time to devote the keyboard to something constructive.

Well we got past September 11th and now the 12th is about gone. It's weird how I remember the 11th so vividly. Of all the days in 2001 -- and it was a pretty good year for me, overall -- that one is the one I remember the most. That, and the day earlier in the year when I heard "Left Behind" by Slipknot playing on the radio while driving home one afternoon. Not much else from that year sticks out in the memory banks -- there are memories, I'm sure, but not palpable ones.

Of course, the images and the terrorism and the recorded phone calls and messages and the shock of what happened on 9-11 would be remembered -- who could forget that.

But I also remember the rest of that day pretty clearly. It was a nice Indian Summer day -- the weather was awesome. The morning was a nice one, too. Aside from the news, it was a relatively calm day at work. It was a day where everything should have lined up for good things, but instead it was the opposite.

I don't know why I am writing any of this here. Another space to fill, I guess.

Too many times gone down that road. Climbing out of the downward spiral. I suppose each time it gets easier, but the pain isn't any lessened when it happens.

Put the thoughts and feelings down into fiction, maybe get some use out of it. Had writer's block lately. Never feel like writing when the world looks dim. Working out, getting out and circulating helps. I just see the same stupid shit done by the same people though. Alcohol fueled. They're drunk and I'm sober (not risking a DUI). Makes the world an interesting place.

One of the cool things about writing fiction is you can create whatever you want. If you want a homeless guy making fun of a poetry slam -- you can create it. And if you're any good as a writer, you can pull it off.

If you want a housewife to discover the joys of multiple partners behind her husband's back, and her husband (doing the same thing) discovers her doing it by accident, and then there are the fireworks that inevitably ensue -- you can do it in fiction.

Everything can be done in fiction.

I just got a copy of the Adventurers, by Harold Robbins. It's like an action movie in print. That guy knew what the f*ck he was doing.

On an unrelated note -- took my cock pic off the NN profile. Just got tired of seeing it on there.

Working on a novel. A porn novel, of all things. Imagine that. At first, it was just an exercise, but then it actually developed a plot. If I'm lucky when I get it in e-form it may sell a copy.

Drew on some of my own experiences, good and bad -- especially when the couple fights, splits and reconciles.

Projecting on some of it, of course. Reading comments on forums like NN has helped fill in a few blanks, as none of my partners have been open sexually -- most were very closed minded about it. It must be something in the water around here.

Reading other 'erotica' books out there has helped, a lot of them, even though the vast majority are written by women, seem extremely unrealistic.

It seems women do most of the reading of these novels & stories. So I suppose I should go back, edit out the sex, and replace it with deep and meaningful emotions.