Personal and Professional Goals.

  

Louis Shalako

 

So far this year we’ve accomplished more than one personal and professional goal.

When you're a writer, all of this is sort of bound all up together in one big ball of wax. We live our work around here.

We’ve published three short novels in the 60,000 to 70,000-word class. We’ve optimized and learned how to use our new computer.

We ditched the old Neon and got another half-decent used car.

We are well on the way to getting our teeth fixed.

It’s not even the end of June yet.

What that means, ladies and gentlemen, is that we can now set a few more goals, because there are still six months left in 2015.

We've been kicking ass all over the place; figuratively speaking because I'm not that violent. We're only slightly evil, ladies and gentlemen.

I’m not a big fan of wasting time.

For one thing, I’ve lived here for three and a half years. I still have sheets for curtains. I’ve never hung a picture in this place.

One of my goals is to find a home. That might not happen this year, but it won’t happen ever if I don’t take the time and work at it a little bit.

I obviously have time to write one or two more novels. I obviously have time to write a score, possibly a hundred short stories, as well as the usual dozens and scores and myriads of blog posts.

I would like to get a webcam. I wouldn’t mind a professional microphone. I wouldn’t mind a half-decent 35 mm digital camera with a couple of lenses, flash, remote, tripod, etc. Video would be nice.

I could really use a winter coat and a better diet overall, in the long term, and every day.

I would like to afford a six-pack every day, and I would like to pay off my credit card, and I would like to do one or two things besides, such as go camping or even go to a frickin’ motel with a pool in some other town and just see what it’s like to watch TV and have nothing better to do than drink beer, stuff quarters into the vibrator bed and if the phone rings don’t answer it.

I would like to swim five hundred metres without touching bottom. Last year I got up to a little over three hundred.

But that was then and this is now.

I want to ride my bike more.

I wouldn’t mind having sex again before I die.

Other than that, I don’t much care for awards and accolades.

I would prefer to maintain my hard-won obscurity. My cat was killed by a car a few years ago, but then I've never owned a dog in my life. I wouldn't mind doing that, too. But first, a new place to live.

I might even be willing to fall in love again.

One more time, ladies and gentlemen.

Bear in mind, all of this has to be paid for, and then I still want to give away a billion dollars before I die.

That last one is a bit of a toughie, and we are really going to need your help. If you really believed in love and life and happy endings, the best thing you can do to help is to grab a free book.

That really would make my heart sing.

Thank you for reading.

END

Home.

Three men stood at a crossroads.

“I shall miss you, old friends.” Thucydides wept.

“We shall meet again, if not upon mount Olympus, then surely at the gates of hell.” Aristides clapped him on the shoulder. “I shall miss you as well, but your home awaits you and no man has earned it better.”

Eyes brimming with his own manly tears, Ulysses shook his friend’s hand in honour and gratitude.

“Stand tall and back down to no man. Tell our story to any who will listen, for any true man could learn much from you. And all of this.”

“I shall never forget. And I will tell them, Ulysses—I can promise you that!”

“Aye, and neither shall we.” Aristides stood with thoughts of his own home clear in his head. “I shall always think of you, and often wonder where you might be.”

The three embraced as brothers for one last time.

“Off with you then, Thucydides, and we shall meet again in better times.” For a long time, they watched his retreating figure, until distance and a smoky blue haze made his small figure all but disappear.

Heaving a deep sigh, Aristides turned to Ulysses.

“Let us be off then.” His friend nodded agreement.

“Home awaits. Let us not tarry, me to my good wife and son, and perhaps you, my friend, to marry!”

With a laugh and a shrug, Aristides could not help but agree.

“What sort of a wench would marry one such as I, is a question sublime.” Aristides chuckled. “As long as she is a good, hard working woman, with good teeth and nice eyes, it may be within me, for I shall give it a try.”

“I never could best you in poetry and song.” Ulysses ran out of words. “It is but a few miles more, and that will have to do. Now, let’s move along.”

With a gesture, Ulysses shouldered his friend's burden so that he might sing.

"Earth’s loveliest, where the nightingale’s

Liquid notes most haunt

The darkness of green glades,

In her home amongst ivy dark as wine

Holy with the presence of the gods, un-pierced

By the sun, and windless from the storms.”

– some old Greek poet.