life – Andrew Careaga

Friday Five: what’s ahead

My so-called writing and blogging plans for 2026

“Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.” So said Dwight D. Eisenhower, one of the military leaders who planned Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Normandy against Nazi German forces.

As a career military man, Eisenhower knew what he was talking about. It was in the military where the terms SNAFU and FUBAR originated.

I was thinking about Eisenhower’s words recently as I thought about my writing plans for 2026. I also went back to my first journal entry of last year, in which I laid out my plans to finish the first draft of my novel by the end of that January 2025.

Let’s have fun with it

Writing should not be drudgery

Sometimes, we writers take ourselves too seriously. We’re so busy writing and revising, polishing our jewels of poetry and prose to a high gloss, obsessively monitoring book sales or social media likes, and fretting over audience reaction — will anyone read it? will it even get accepted? — that we forget to enjoy the exciting, invigorating process of the creative act.

We would do well to heed the guidance of Sgt. Hulka from the comedy Stripes and “lighten up, Francis.”

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Maybe I’m just giving myself a pep talk here. Maybe no on else takes themselves so seriously. Or maybe you’ve got those worrisome thoughts of perfectionism crawling around in the back of your mind like a cluster of spiders (I envision the daddy long legs variety: creepy but ultimately harmless).

Failing to flourish

All around me, life is flourishing. But my writing life feels like it is dying on the vine.

Here we are in the middle of April, and all around me in this part of the world I see dogwoods are in full bloom, the brilliant purple flowers of redbuds giving way to the new, tender sprouts of leaves, and the dreary, dirty browns of winter erased by lush greenery, from lawns to trees to fertile undergrowth. My unevenly green yard is bursting with the yellow flowers of dandelions, which contrast with the canvas of lawn like the radiant stars of Vincent Van Gogh’s The Starry Night.

All around me, life is flourishing, as it should be in mid-April. But my writing life feels like it is dying on the vine.

The obligatory end-of-year wrap-up post you’ve been waiting for

The year in writing, recognition, loss, and life

If nothing else, 2024 for me was a year of transition and disruption. And — I hope — a year I learned to be more grateful and empathetic.

After 40 years of full-time work, much of it in academia, I entered a new phase of life last January. Some call it retirement, but it has hardly been that. My pursuit of creative writing and some freelance work has kept me busy enough. In addition, my wife and I and our cat had a couple of health scares that made us reevaluate our values and gave us greater insight into the workings of the U.S. health care system, the good, bad, and ugly of it. We also mourned the passing of a few friends from our church family and continue to honor their memory.

In other words, a lot of life happened in 2024. Here are some highlights from the year:

Two bits of good news

About a recent short story publication and an online interview

We interrupt this month of writing-focused activity to bring you a couple of happy updates from my weekend:

My short story “Lower Strata” was published by the literary magazine Spillwords. This story, which went live Sunday (November 17, 2024), was something I’d written 25 years ago, probably, and shoved away after a few revisions. I reworked it over the summer a few times then sent it on to Spillwords, and last month they let me know they were going to publish it. This was one of those rare occasions in which the one and only litmag I’d submitted a story to accepted it. Like a lot of writers, especially unknowns like me, our stories encounter many rejections before they find a home. (It’s part of the gig. There are a lot of very good writers out there, and only so many places for our work.) So I guess this one hit a responsive chord with an editor or two there. I hope you also like it. I’d love for you to give it a read and share your thoughts. I’m always looking for ways to improve!
I was “spotlighted” by another literary magazine, Bulb Culture Collective. This litmag specializes in republishing pieces that have been published previously by magazines that are no longer in operation. Such was the case with my flash fiction piece, “Baseball 1971,” which I’ve discussed here previously. BCC also selects writers for their “Shine a Light” series of features, and they reached out to me a couple of months ago inviting me to be a part of it. Their e-interview with me went live also Sunday, November 17, 2024.

So that’s the news from these-here parts. If you’re interested in reading some good stuff, I recommend you add Spillwords and Bulb Culture Collective to your reading list.

Image via Spillwords.