Culmination of events

Noticing somewhat of a culmination of events in my life, even if some of them aren't connected and any deeper meaning between them isn't clear.

On my last deployment in 2015, I came up with a couple jokes that only worked as comic strips, so I did them and moved on.  Then I completely forgot they existed, meaning I didn't include them in 2020's The Horror Comics Picture Show, which is partially a collection of the comics I've made using microsoft paint.  This meant that, when I finally discovered them, I had no idea what to do with them.  I did want to publish all of my good material but I couldn't justify throwing two pages of meaningless comic strips into a random book, so what do I do?

I don't remember when I had rediscovered these strips, but it was seven books later before I finally figured out what to do with them.  There was a short story from my 'fiction' days which I'd always been proud of, but for whatever reason hadn't been able to include it in my earliest books where the best of my fiction had been printed.  This was an example of all my books being just one big book which I broke into pieces for convenience, but also tried to justify each book on its own.  In this case, I needed an excuse that would convince me to use this material, and with my 24th book, D-Vision, I finally figured out a way to justify it, just collecting old, unused material.  You gotta do what you gotta do.

But although I hadn't had any interest in continuing the strip, as I started finishing this book, I came up with another joke that fit, so ok, I went ahead and did it.  It filled up another page in the book.  Then I came up with a few more strips.  This was in September of 2022.  The book was finished and I carried on with my normal writing.  I told myself that *if* I had any more ideas for a strip, fine, but I wasn't going to push it.  Somewhere along these lines, I worked out the title, The Struggling.

It wasn't until December 30 that I came up with another idea for a strip, but after that it's been fairly frequent.  4 strips in January 2023, 17 in February, 19 in March, 19 in April and so far, 4 more in May.  It's not quite a daily strip but I can't see that as possible without me getting paid for it or something like that.  But that's one example of an event in my life which has led to today.

Another example was also from deployment.  I forget if it was my second or third time in Iraq, but at the very end, I was playing on my laptop.  This was either while heading to the Baghdad airport or sitting around and waiting at an airport in Germany, but I'd noticed that microsoft had a program to put together videos, combining video and audio.  I wasn't remotely interested in making actual videos but I was curious if they could be used for animated cartoons.  I came up with roughly a dozen very-simple images to see how it worked for animation and decided it wasn't good enough, so I never bothered again.

I did keep track of these images, and a few years later when I started making books, my first choice was always to pick a cover from something I'd done on Paint during my time in the Army.  These images were never considered, but I'd kept them available as possible uses.  I've always made a point of getting at least one book done a year and, since my first publication in 2011, I've only missed two years to date.

My 21st book, The Facts of Roses, was published roughly a week into January 2022, so ok, that year was taken care of.  I was mostly out of old material to use, at least any that was conveniently available, so I was fine with continuing to write and not worrying about the next book.  Well, a month later, I'd changed my mind.  The world looked like it might fall apart any day and I'd want to be as up-to-date on published material when it happened.  In uniform, I often said I was a soldier 24/7, but writing is what I do.  Well, I was no longer in uniform, so that priority was confirmed.

So I decided to publish the material I had so far for the last month, what I now term a 'booklet.'  Consciously I did not know I would keep doing them but subconsciously I must have known.  For one thing, I put the month of publication in the title itself just so it would stand out from any other.  For another, I wasn't sure what to do for the cover.  I didn't want to use any remaining quality images and I didn't want to waste time making up a new one, so what do I do?  While scanning my creations on paint, I noticed the collection of images I had made way back when, testing out how to make cartoons on a laptop.  They were simple, effective and so I picked one and carried on.

I did ask myself why I'd waste the complete set of images by picking one of them, but that solved itself as I've continued to make monthly 'booklets,' and switch images each month.  When I started the second year of publishing these, I just reversed them on paint, so yeah, they're the same images but they're also slightly different, to the extent any of them were different.  I think it's worked fine and will eventually just reuse the same images I've already done.  So that's another event which has built towards today.

Then there's the fact that I am now making videos.  On May 1 of this year, I discovered that Microsoft Word can actually read text out loud and a sound recorder lets you record it in two different voices which are fairly realistic, one male, one female.  I'm still working out how these should be done but I've downloaded some stock footage and now am making videos covering the current events I write about, an audio/video version of the books I've always been writing.  I'm not happy with the amount of time and effort it takes but otherwise it's entertaining and productive.  I don't watch tv or movies but I also hadn't paid attention to Hollywood writers going on strike, and now I've found myself willing and able to replace them.

I think that's really why I felt the urge to write all this.  Today was just a very productive day.  I'd started writing early, which doesn't usually happen, so I had enough material to use by early evening.  Then I started re-writing it.  That's always the hard part, I usually need to force myself to do that work even though it's required.  I'm willing to publish unedited material in my books if it comes to it, but for a video, I feel the urge to run through it and make sure the text is polished and works as audio.

But, surprisingly, I got it done, and it wasn't even late in the evening yet.  I was able to start work on making a video out of it.  Furthermore, I'd come up with a strip for The Struggling, so I was able to push that out.  I still have text from early-May to edit and tomorrow will start the process all over again, then I have to publish the new 'pamphlet,' collected versions of the last few days of material I've written, but I was just pleased that I'd gotten all this done today.

So why not finish it by writing even more material, this time covering why all this stuff from the last decade+ of my life had fallen together this week.  I really didn't have any of it planned, but now I've got about an hour's worth of video using a program I didn't even know existed when I woke up on May 1.  Not just the videos themselves, but several minutes worth of testing the program and probably 15-20 minutes worth of ads for Rococo Coffee.  Then there's the fact that I carried on with my writing as normal.  Then there's the fact that I've done three comic strips, which is more than usual during the period of time it takes me to finish a 'pamphlet.'  I even did a version of the first strip I did this month.

Thank you, God, for giving me the creativity and work-ethic to focus on all this material.  I do beg for more tangible benefits but I submit to your will and am grateful for your gifts.  That's really why I wanted to write this, just to put down that there is a connection going on across time and space and in each of our lives.  Even if we can't understand it or even see how it meshes together, we can see that it does weave itself together with common relationships we cannot comprehend.

God willing, I will continue doing this tomorrow and for as long as possible.  Writing is what I do.

v/r,