After ten years, I’ve finally finished The Jump. I started this a few months before Trump announced he was running for President way back in 2015. The story is about a President who declares martial law, becomes a dictator complete with a cult of personality. And all sorts of horrible things as well as bizarre things result.

One of the struggles I had with finishing this was not wanting people to view this as a rumination on a President Trump. It really bothered me that people would read this story that way because that was never my intent. There were also a few road blocks in the telling of the story that completely stopped me for a few years. Last year, I finally figured out how to get around the biggest road block and also decided to just ignore the Trump comparison. In fact, I embraced it just a bit and pulled a few phrases and actions from Trump’s litany and included them in the story.

That still didn’t get me completely there, what with all the distractions the modern world throws my way, but in the last month or two, I’ve finally come up with a system that is leading me be a bit more productive. My most productive time is late afternoon. A few hours before dinner seems to be my writing time now.

The Jump is with a couple of beta readers now. I’ve heard back from one. I think the other will have a lot to say about this piece. I shared it with her a year or two ago and she made some suggestions and had some questions. I anticipate she’s going to have a lot of questions again. One of the things I did with this is … well, it’s a bit of an abrupt ending that leaves a whole lot of questions unanswered. A lot. Some readers won’t like this, but I don’t like books that end with a few pages of wrapping everything up. And that’s all that I had left to do at the point where I decided to end the story. So, I chose not to wrap everything up and leave it to the reader to decide what happened with everybody and how we got to the end that we did.

Hopefully, The Jump will be published by the end of summer.

Meanwhile, finishing that piece has helped with my motivation and intent on some other pieces. I’ve mentioned Carlota, my sexy end of the world, space travel tale. I have this dream that I can finish it quickly and maybe package it with The Jump. So, I started working on it today.

I also have a completed long short story, Hard Ground, that I want to put out there in the universe. But it isn’t long enough to work as a paperback all on its own. The story is set in Sacramento. I had this idea of putting it together with other stories set in Sacramento and calling the collection Sacramento Stories. The only problem is that most of my stories that fit that definition have already been published in my other short story collections. As a result, I’m gonna have to come up with more! Or maybe just publish Hard Ground as an ebook. I don’t know.

We’ll see what happens. I know this, the energy I’m getting from finishing The Jump is something I need to hold on to and use to keep moving forward on the other stories that have been hanging out for years.

If you’ve got this far, here’s a 100 word story I just wrote:

“Stand up.” 

That’s what Mr. Atchison told me to do. My 8th grade gym teacher had a way about him. Not a good way. An abrupt, annoying way. I acted like I didn’t hear him, or that he was talking to somebody else. 

“Stand up, John.” 

Okay, I couldn’t ignore him anymore. 

I looked at him and thought about whether I wanted to comply. The last time he did this, I had to run laps the entire period.  

Sighing, I stood.  

“Your mother is in the office. You’re apparently needed at home.” 

“What?” 

“I don’t know. Something about your father.”