J.J. Goodman: Writings, Musings and More

I have a problem. (Just one?) *squints menacingly*  I see my time away from my personal blog hasn't dulled the wit of the parenthetical heckler. I suppose that's a good thing, considering the fact that the heckler is born of my imagining of my reader's reactions to my neurosis. So I got that going for me, I guess. But things have been rough, this past year and a half. That creativity that once fueled me has, for the most part, gone dormant. And if you know me, or even if you're familiar with these pages, you know how much of a problem that is for me. Writing is my outlet and, if I have no outlet, all that boils and roils within this dark mind of mine stays there in the shadows. Growing. Festering. Overtaking. Even visits to my "Serenity Point" pictured above haven't helped me to release the growing tempest in my head.  This past year, despite the incredible joy it has brought me, has perhaps been more difficult for me than I let myself admit. Increas...

So... a friend of mine recently gave me a writing prompt/challenge to start a story with the sentence "one more step." Well, as I've been obsessed with The Expanse as of late, I decided to write a short story based within the Expanse universe  It's something I just kind of whipped together on my lunch hour the other day, so forgive any errors or continuity issue with the show/books.  For these purposes, the story would be set around the same timeframe as Book 1, Leviathan Wakes , and Season 1 of the show. I purposely tried to keep specific reference to the series to a minimum, but picture the ship in the story being something akin to the  Canterbury . With that,  I look forward to your thoughts on One More Step : an Expanse fan-fiction short story. ********************************** One more step. That's what you told yourself out there in the void. One more step. Then another. Then another after that, until the job was done and the airlock cycled shut behind you ...

  Okay, so, here's the thing….   (Oh bloody hell. What now?)   You shush. I was going to say that I'm sorry for the decidedly atypical and harsh tone of my last post. It's just that, well, the political climate of the last four years has made me a little hyper-sensitive when it comes to the women in my life. I don't regret that, either. I have a huge responsibility as a daughter-dad to do whatever I can to be the best, male role model she, and her soon-to-be-sister, will ever have. That can be a little overwhelming sometimes, and you know what happens when I bottle things like that up.   (Brain go POW!!!)   *squints menacingly*   I suppose I can't argue with that assessment. So yeah, that last blog post? Brain went pow. This one, however… let's get back to lighthearted and heartfelt, shall we?   (Am I gonna need coffee and tissues?)   Probably. Because today is, after all, Halloween. In a few short hours my betrothed and I will take ...

  To get up to speed on the Ramblings of an Expectant Dad 2.0 , please feel free to visit the links below: PART 1 PART 2 PART 3   PART 4 PART 5 PART 6 Otherwise….   ________________________ *YAWN* (Starting a blog post with a yawn?) I slept for all of about seventeen minutes last night. (Oh crap this one's gonna be a doozy, isn't it?) Little bit, yeah. So…. Offspring 1.0 is having a really tough time lately. Despite all our efforts, and despite her outward excitement over the prospect of her pending big sisterhood, she's not really okay. There's a lot of anxiety built up in that tiny little brain, and being all of less than four-months shy of three years old, she has no idea how to express it. There's been a bit of regression, especially when it comes to sleep. Sadly my betrothed and I have found ourselves sleeping in separate rooms a little more as of late due to the uncomfortable, late stages of her pregna...

 To ramble back to the beginning of Expectant Dad 2.0, please visit the links below: PART 1 PART 2 PART 3   PART 4 PART 5  ________________ Okay, so apparently writing that last post got the proverbial juices flowing. Actually, it wasn't so much writing the last post as it was my finally being able to go to a doctor's appointment with my wife for the first time in thirty-five weeks. (You haven't been to a single appointment yet???) Nope. Thankyouverymuch upidstay ovidcay uckfay ouyay in your acefay. (Tell us how you really feel.) You know me well enough by now to know that not being able to attend a visit, not being able to hear my new little girl's heartbeat in real time, not seeing her for myself on the ultrasound screen, has been downright murderous. So to say it was a huge relief to finally be in the room, to hear that heartbeat, to see her tiny fingers, tiny little toes, tiny little face in 3d on the ultrasouDEAR GOD.  OH MY DEAR GOD.  (What??) ...