I, Blog

For a blog that’s supposed to be my “main” online journal, this place doesn’t get a whole lotta love. I’m a writer, and writers are “supposed to” have a website or blog or some sort of online presence. Granted, as a writer I only have two books published and those are selfies, but there’s more to come! I always figured that with the passage of time and writing success (or effort), this place will see more activity.

Or maybe not. Whatever, I decided to do some geeking around with the site (notice that I haven’t called it by name, yet).

For starters, the “name.” I figured I’ll simplify matters and just call it “Paul Sofranko’s Blog.” It’s short, and to the point. I’m Paul Sofranko, and this is my blog. Of course, I have others, but those are specialized, “niche” blogs. (Links are in the Page tabs up top, below the title of this place.)

“Paul Sofranko’s Blog” isn’t very imaginative, but it’s less pretentious than previous names: “Writer for God,” “In the Land of My Exile I Praise Him.” “Paul Sofranko Dot Net” might have served again, but it’s just a notch higher than a minimalist, simplistic title I was looking for. šŸ˜‰

The purpose, such as there is one, of “Paul Sofranko’s Blog” will not change; still a place for me to post stuff on writing, reading and whatever miscellaneous ramblings that serve as my interests and that won’t fit into my two niche blogs.

Don’t come here looking for profound, insightful commentary on current events, Catholic or secular. There are plenty of blogs for that written by people who have the time to work out such posts for online publication. Such writings, for me, take time away from the fiction efforts I am trying to work with, as well as other writing and blogging work. I know my strengths and limitations, and I prefer to focus my thoughtful efforts where they’re best capable of being useful. Although I do reserve the right to do that here when the impulse occurs. But I have a full-time job that has nothing to do with writing or blogging for a living, and other personal responsibilities and commitments. In other words there’s a nice life that’s mine and it happens!

Are you a creative Catholic? ""Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics," is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone who is an alcoholic or addict? "The Sober Catholic Way" helps Catholics by describing the many ways in which their faith can assist in maintaining sobriety, and is a basic handbook on how anyone can live a sober life. . (Thank you!!)

The gardening season is finally here!

Spent a good part of yesterday and today digging in the field off our driveway to put in a vegetable garden. Much nicer soil than where the garden used to be. Nice, dark, rich-looking with plenty of wigglies in it. Wet, too. Veggies should do well.

The old garden had too much clay soil and things didn’t grow well. After 3 seasons, it was time for a change.

As it was still snowing just a few weeks ago, and there was a frost advisory early last week, this weekend’s developments are welcome. Long-term weather shows NO danger of frost. Finally! Going outside is safe! šŸ˜‰

I found cheap fencing today, so the original 15′ x 25′ will be expanded to be 25′ x 25′ . Some old fencing may be employed to expand on that, or may be for a smaller garden for other stuff.

I may just be tempted, for “accountability” sake, to post photos and updates throught the year. I had planned on doing that these past few years, but the results weren’t impressive.

Are you a creative Catholic? ""Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics," is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone who is an alcoholic or addict? "The Sober Catholic Way" helps Catholics by describing the many ways in which their faith can assist in maintaining sobriety, and is a basic handbook on how anyone can live a sober life. . (Thank you!!)

Peter and John rushing to the Tomb

I saw a beautiful painting in an article yesterday while perusing the news online. ā€œThe Disciples Peter and John Running to the Sepulchre on the Morning of the Resurrectionā€ by Swiss painter EugĆØne Burnand, is an image that draws you into it. You are just THERE.

Peter-and-John-Running-to-the-Tomb-1898-590x320

Source is right here:

The Greatest Easter Painting Ever Made.

In my opinion, John looks like Roddy McDowell and Peter kinda looks like James Farentino, who played him in the epic TV miniseries, “Jesus of Nazareth.”

Are you a creative Catholic? ""Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics," is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone who is an alcoholic or addict? "The Sober Catholic Way" helps Catholics by describing the many ways in which their faith can assist in maintaining sobriety, and is a basic handbook on how anyone can live a sober life. . (Thank you!!)

Jesus in the Ashes

Ash Wednesday was two days ago, and I took this webcam picture of myself as a part of the annual #ashtag fun. You basically take pictures of yourself after recieving ashes and post them to social media.

This was mine:

Ā #ashtag2014

A friend of mine on Facebook sees an image of Jesus on the Cross in the ashes. Others, myself included, can see Him also. A miracle! (Just kidding.)

Please, no need to make pilgrimmages to my forehead, the ashes are long gone.

Kinda neat to see such things. I wonder what they mean?

Are you a creative Catholic? ""Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics," is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone who is an alcoholic or addict? "The Sober Catholic Way" helps Catholics by describing the many ways in which their faith can assist in maintaining sobriety, and is a basic handbook on how anyone can live a sober life. . (Thank you!!)

Strange “sightings” in Church

While at Daily Mass this morning I saw someone who from behind and to the side was a dead-ringer for a friend I knew from kindergarten through some college. Same Mr. Spock-inspired haircut and shade of black hair, same physical build. It wasn’t JJ, who passed away from leukemia in 1995. But the similarity in appearance was amazing.

This brings up something else, a phenomenon I’ve noticed at my home parish, and nowhere else: Every so often I see people who bear a striking resemblance to someone from my old, hometown parish, either a physical similarity, or “something about them” is reminiscent. Odd. It would be one thing if I experienced this at other parishes, but that has not happened, only where I attend Mass now.

Are you a creative Catholic? ""Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics," is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone who is an alcoholic or addict? "The Sober Catholic Way" helps Catholics by describing the many ways in which their faith can assist in maintaining sobriety, and is a basic handbook on how anyone can live a sober life. . (Thank you!!)

Death sucks

Death sucks.

Someone, be they a human person or an animal person, is in your life for years, then they’re not. And it’s not like they moved to some far off strange place like California, where you can still email, Skype or Facebook with them. The distance they travelled is measured not in miles or kilometers. But in time.

It’s a wide chasm. We may take a few more years or decades to get to the point where we can cross it. That is a part of the chasm separating those on the other side from us. But forgetting the amount of time between now and when we die, that chasm is just huge. They’re in eternity. We’re not.

But there’s a hole left behind. That space in your life that they filled is now empty. They are no longer there. That spaceĀ can’t be filled by anyone else.

This post was caused by the death of our cat, “Mr. Onyx,” whom I nicknamed “SpeedBump.” HeĀ died this morning.Ā He’s the black kitteh in the picture. The cutie on the right is his girlfriend, Jerrie. Nice headshot of him is right after.

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I nicknamed Mr. Onyx, “SpeedBump,” after his penchant for laying right between wherever anyone was sitting and wherever a doorway is, as well as slowly walking down the hallway before you.

We don’t know how old he was as we didn’t get him as a kitten. His previous human died from cancer and untreated alcoholism and we took him in as no one else could.

He lived with my wife and I for almost exactly 6 years.

He is survived by two other kittehs, Jerrie and Ninja.

He had an amazing impact on our lives, bringing much joy, love and FUN into them.

We will bury him in a Mary Garden, next to our house, and we’ll plant stuff around him that would attract the birds and bunnies he so loved to watch from the patio window.

Where are our beloved pets, after their death? That is for another post. But Mr. Onyx’s death is really hitting me. The death of a pet in not inconsequential.

Pets matter.

Additional NOTE: This is a “retropost,” a post from an old blog I wrote on “The Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven (& Purgatory) and Hell” that I shuttered a few years ago. Individual posts are being transferred to either In Exile or Sober Catholic, whichever seems appropriate. Some are backdated, others postdated, some edited, in case you’re confused as to why you never saw a particular post if you’re a diligent reader. The process should be completed byĀ early 2022.

Are you a creative Catholic? ""Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics," is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone who is an alcoholic or addict? "The Sober Catholic Way" helps Catholics by describing the many ways in which their faith can assist in maintaining sobriety, and is a basic handbook on how anyone can live a sober life. . (Thank you!!)

Reading and writing is cool, when you think about it in an odd way

The very idea that you can inscribe, whether scribbling by hand or banging away at a keyboard, little squiggly things called “letters” that together make things called “words” that in and of themselves stand for ideas is fascinating.

Weave these words together in some rational or artfully irrational manner and you can tell a “story.”

And that someone else can use their eyeballs and scan theses squigglies and interpret their patterns and decipher their meaning, called “reading,” is even more fascinating.

The very idea that someone else, in some far off place and time can “read” these squigglies on a page (paper or digital) and derive enjoyment or get angry just turns the fascinating into something awesome.

Writing can be quite the responsible and exciting thing, when you think about it. I mean, just ponder the wonder of it all.

I got the above idea once by just imagining “reading.” I envisioned some sort of light beam emanating from an eye to scan words on a screen or paper, and seeing the words just fly up into the eyeball and thence into the brain. And once there creating pictures and scenery and the like.

It is interesting to just think about the commonplace and wonder. I just think that the act of reading is taken for granted, and we forget its awesomeness.

Are you a creative Catholic? ""Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics," is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone who is an alcoholic or addict? "The Sober Catholic Way" helps Catholics by describing the many ways in which their faith can assist in maintaining sobriety, and is a basic handbook on how anyone can live a sober life. . (Thank you!!)

The Artistic Temperament is a Disease

ā€œThe artistic temperament is a disease that afflicts amateurs. It is a disease which arises from men not having sufficient power of expression to utter and get rid of the element of art in their being. It is healthful to every sane man to utter the art within him; it is essential to every sane man to get rid of the art within him at all costs. Artists of a large and wholesome vitality get rid of their art easily, as they breathe easily, or perspire easily. But in artists of less force, the thing becomes a pressure, and produces a definite pain, which is called the artistic temperament. Thus, the very great artists are able to be ordinary men ā€“ men like Shakespeare or Browning. There are many real tragedies of the artistic temperament, tragedies of vanity or violence or fear. But the great tragedy of the artistic temperament is that it cannot produce any art.ā€ ~GK Chesterton, Heretics, 1905

A Facebook friend (and one from whom I learn much) posted this Chesterton quote in a debate thread.

It explains a lot (the quote, not the debate). I find it healthful to ā€œutter the art from within;ā€ however I fail to utter more often than I do utter. I aspire to write, and do so, but I don’t write more often than I do write. Such is the tired refrain of many so-called and self-referenced “aspiring writers.” We want to write, but don’t, and perhaps from that comes this ā€œartistic temperament,ā€ one of ā€œvanity or violence or fear?ā€ Vanity: the desire for the ā€œwriting life;ā€ violence: the resulting self-loathing and esteem-reduction from failing to do what you’re supposed to; fear: fear of failure, that of discovering that you are horrible at writing, and maybe fear of success?

The funny thing is that I find writing to be therapeutic. I feel better after having done so and thus become the ā€œsane manā€ when I ā€œutter the art from within.ā€ This partly stems from a feeling of accomplishment. “Hey, I wrote today!” Partly it comes from just the emotional and psychological release.

Perhaps this is a successor to my alcoholism. I knew I should stop drinking and why, but I feared doing so. I also lacked the strength or will to stop. I only did so because no other choice was offered. I was unable to physically go and replenish my stock and thus found myself in the hospital with DT’s. If I continued, I would die. So maybe the choice was helped along.

The parallel to writing? ā€œNo other choice but to write.ā€ I have to develop the ā€œsufficient power of expression to utter and get rid of the element of art inā€ my ā€œbeing.ā€ And I have to associate this need with sanity and survival.

I am a writer, it is what I (should) do, and to not do it is a type of death.

Interesting notion; now let’s see me put it to use.

From Isaac Asimov:

ā€œI write for the same reason I breathe … because if I didn’t, I would die.ā€

ā€œIf my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.ā€

Are you a creative Catholic? ""Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics," is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone who is an alcoholic or addict? "The Sober Catholic Way" helps Catholics by describing the many ways in which their faith can assist in maintaining sobriety, and is a basic handbook on how anyone can live a sober life. . (Thank you!!)

Happy New Year!!! Plus some odds and ends…

Today is the First Sunday of Advent, the beginning of the new Liturgical Year in the Catholic Church. A day of new beginnings and preparing for the Lord’s coming! Also, with the secular New Year a month away, an opportunity to “warm up” for whatever changes in life one has planned com January.

New Years are just a artificial temporal construct, I mean, one day is much like any other along the calendar. Seasonal changes aside, when we actually start marking a new journey about the Sun is arbitrary.

But, it serves a useful psychological purpose. Like new starts and such. For example, my oft-repeated plans to “blog more.” šŸ˜›

The short fiction I mentioned in For the first time in about a quarter century… was rejected. I think I got a form-letter rejection email. I will submit it elsewhere, perhaps after reviewing it again. If it gets rejected again (I am unsure as to how many more times I’l try) I may self-publish the piece through Smashwords and Amazon for $.99, even though I said in a comment to that post that I wouldn’t.

The awesome writing website, Writing-World.com! has The Writer’s Year Datebook & Planner for 2014 as well as a submission tracker. They offer free spreadsheet versions to download. Don’t let the word “spreadsheet” be intimidating, it’s easy to write in and to keep to-do lists/journals/notes and keep track of story and article submissions.

Are you a creative Catholic? ""Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics," is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone who is an alcoholic or addict? "The Sober Catholic Way" helps Catholics by describing the many ways in which their faith can assist in maintaining sobriety, and is a basic handbook on how anyone can live a sober life. . (Thank you!!)

For the first time in about a quarter century…

… I may be submitting a short story for publication.

I last did that back in the 1980s, without success. I forget how many stories I submitted, but it was a single digit number.

If this is surprising given all my talk about my writing aspirations, let’s just say that I probably expanded the frontier of reasons for “not having written,” at least successfully.

The last time I actually submitted anything for consideration was a spec script for the TV series, “Star Trek: The Next Generation” in 1991. I am not counting that in my quarter century mark as it wasn’t an original short story of mine (original story idea, yes. But not original to me as Star Trek is someone else’s universe.) The script wasn’t purchased by the Star Trek people, obviously. If so, life would have taken a very different path. But it was rejected and I subsequently became distracted by trying to achieve self-reliance and a decent income with real day jobs while living in Southern California. After 4 years I left, then basically gave up writing for over a decade. I also drank for most of that time. Writers stereotypically are noted for being drinkers. Leave it to me to give up writing and take up drinking, or take up writing while NOT drinking. šŸ˜‰

Earlier this week I awakened from a nap with a vision and an opening line in my head. I decided to take and run with it, and the result is an 1800ish-word short fiction piece which I think is suitable for the online magazine Daily Science Fiction. I spent a considerable amount of time reading the stories they’ve already published (they’re archived) and I honestly think that “Cold Creations” is a fit, and is comparable in writing quality.

Nevertheless, I am faced with the raw, naked terror of doing this. What if it’s rejected? WHAT IF IT’S PURCHASED?!?!?!?!? At long last, my dream of finally being called a professional writer, and a science-fiction one at that, may be achieved. My heart may not survive the shock of the pent-up decades-long wait. šŸ˜‰

Daily Science Fiction is a fine online magazine for people who enjoy reading good science-fiction, fantasy and all related subgenres. It’s free to read, either online or email subscription. They also pay well, $.08 a word.

Are you a creative Catholic? ""Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics," is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone who is an alcoholic or addict? "The Sober Catholic Way" helps Catholics by describing the many ways in which their faith can assist in maintaining sobriety, and is a basic handbook on how anyone can live a sober life. . (Thank you!!)