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Blog Sonata No. 1 in Chainsaw Major, Op. 1

Writer's picture: J.E. EricksonJ.E. Erickson

I’m really good at New Year’s resolutions.

 

Last year, my resolution was to stop drinking as much as I had been, bear down, and write this urban fantasy trilogy I’ve been struggling with for nearly a decade. And I did it. I drafted all three books in less than 12 calendar months. I’ve revised two and am in the middle of refining Book One with my beta reader and editor.

 

I wish I could understate to you my relief at having the characters out of my brain, screaming to be released. It took so, so long but I finally feel like I’ve told the story they want me to tell.

 

I promise to tell you about Jo and Lucy in a future blog. For now, I want to use this first post to talk about 2025. This year is a focus on my health. Physical, financial, mental.

 

The past 24 hours have been about reflection and making simple decisions. Physically, I’m in okay shape. I’m a member of a boxing gym where I practice Muay Thai and Western Boxing. I spent ten years in the military, which kept me in shape. But I eat too much. I like candy. I bake. My parents smoked in the car when I was young. I had my first cigarette and 10 and smoked almost daily until my 30s. My job and hobbies keep me in a chair. At 45, I’m in better shape that many dudes my age, but I know the health tax man is coming for me.

 

Financially, I have a good job. It’s boring, unrewarding, and unchallenging, but it’s a writing job that pays well enough for me to treat myself to cover artists, editors, and gym memberships. The woman I work for is awesome (Meghan, if I find out you’re reading this, I will make your life miserable) because she gives me space to keep my work and personal lives separate. I feel like I can control my own levels of stress. It’s not a bad gig.

 

Mental health, though, is the impetus for returning to blogging.

 

I, as your average childless American, am a creature of too many comforts. I consume too many things. Too many channels on television. Too many flashy options for streaming services. Too many red packages of foodstuffs in my pantry. Too much car than I need. (I bought my first new car at 43, and I’m never getting rid of it. Subaru Foresters FTW!) Too many games with too many lights asking me to kill and collect too many pixels. The worst part is that I know, rationally, I know these things are asking me to consume them even more. It’s their default state.

 

We use the word “consume” in so many contexts but don’t stop to think what it really means to our brains. Growing up, when I consumed something, it meant I ate it. Easy, right? Cut it up, munched it down, and it went away. It was dead. I consumed, and the thing ceased to be.

 

That doesn’t happen anymore. When we consume, we become this fucked up Human Centipede sewer pipe for shit to flow through, and everything in the world has access to our collective toilet seats. It has access, and it wants us to consume it. The thing doesn’t die anymore. It doesn’t cease to be. It is never-ending media and never-ending sensory stimulation delivered a high-speed, shot straight out of a greased cannon and straight through to my brain’s asshole.

 

In short, I feel like I need to pump the brakes and start severing my connection to the rest of the planet. No more doomscrolling. No more cable bill. No more national news. No more unnecessary streaming services (Shudder is necessary. I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT IT!). I’m even going to stop my own half-assed book marketing, in exchange for trying to bring people this way. Y’all can stop by, take a breath with me, and just sorta chill a couple times a month.

 

Don’t get me wrong. I want you to give me millions of dollars by buying my books, so don’t put the checkbook down. What I don’t want to do is just have my books and my online presence shoved into your faces like a million other things from a million other people trying to make millions of dollars. I simply want my own little chill corner of the internet where I can hop on every two weeks, maybe every week, and talk to you about stuff I like.

 

So, expect to see me showing you snippets of my books and discussing elements of writing craft I tried to employ; talking about my writing process, baking, personal philosophies that have nothing to do with modern politics or the social sphere, D&D, other TTRPGs, my dogs; reviewing books from my indie author buds; or just babbling about a cool bug I saw that week.

 

I don’t know where this will go. All I want at the end of the year is a greater sense of mental peace, a clearer head, and a chainsaw.

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©2025 by J.E. Erickson 

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