About Fred

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” – Samuel Beckett

A few resolutions for this brave new year, 2002:

  • I will write something that will change the world. If this change is not immediate, irrevocable or earth-shattering, and if the only world it affects is my own, that will be enough. I will finish the stories that have stalled in my head. I will put pen to paper and craft new worlds from whole cloth. I will write or die trying.
  • I will read more. My goal will be a new book every two weeks, give or take depending on length, averaging some two dozen for the year. I would like to read at least one new book every week, if not more, but I have a job and responsibilities, and I know myself too well to make promises like that.
  • I will keep in touch with old friends, write letters, answer emails, remember birthdays. I will remember to thank others when they do the same.
  • I will do something unexpected, I will do something that frightens me, and I will learn something new every day. I will be wiser when the year is through, and I will still have much to learn.


Me and my new (eternal blue pearl-colored) car. Bring it on.

“Happy Endings” by Margaret Atwood:

So much for endings. Beginnings are always more fun. True connoisseurs, however, are known to favor the stretch in between, since it’s the hardest to do anything with. That’s about all that can be said for plots, which anyway are just one thing after another, a what and a what and a what. Now try How and Why.

Happy New Year.

For somebody who hates the cold of winter so much, I sure picked a hell of a state to live in. But today, I learn, is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. After this, the tide begins to turn on what I dislike most about winter: the shorter days, the longer nights, sundown before five o’clock. I seem to tire more easily in December, feel like I get less done, have fewer hours with which to work. I’ve never suffered from severe depression, so I hesitate to call this anything as troubling as seasonal affective disorder. But I am happy to learn that we’ll be getting more sunlight after today. Even though the skies still threaten snow, and Christmas is a just four short days from now, spring seems somehow closer at hand.

Some quotes, because that’s the sort of guy I am:

“It’s reassuring to know that, after everything that’s happened in the past three months, there’s still irrefutable proof that Bush is a dick.” — The Onion, “What Do You Think?”

“It continues to amuse me when $25,000 items have little “Add to Shopping Cart” icons next to them.” — caterina.net

“A coworker sugested to me yesterday that the last sequel to Harry Potter, where he returns to the magic school should be called Welcome Back Potter.” — teambanzai, via e-mail

“If novelists had a real union, we’d get paid to procrastinate. There would be strikes for longer procrastination hours.” — Caitlin R. Kiernan, Low Red Moon Journal

“Nobody thinks it will work, do they?” “No. You just described every great success story.” — Say Anything, which I watched again this weekend, along with Almost Famous and High Fidelity