Isaac Asimov's autobiography, I, Asimov, is a book that I have read numerous times. My copy is tattered. Torn. Coffee stained.
Back in 1964, Asimov wrote an essay in which he offered his predictions about 2014. Although Asimov was looking ahead fifty years (to our current year) his essay includes some uncanny, "spot on", ideas that are now clearly a part of our every-day lives.
For example, Asimov believed fifty years ago that we would have hand-held, personal devices that would allow us to talk to (and see) people on the other side of the world.
He also predicted the U.S. and world populations (both with astounding accuracy).
He predicted inter-active entertainment via screen technology. And also believed that, while there would be many unmanned missions to Mars, the ability to put a person on the red planet would still be eluding us in 2014 (he believed the technology would be there, but we would not yet have solved the problems inherent in the human equation.) All true.
Now, I'm not a smart man . . . but I thought I'd offer 10 Predictions for 2064. Might make some people mad, or afraid, but I'm really just trying to help folks here.
Prediction #1: I will be dead.
Prediction #2: My son will be 70, very much alive, and will be retired and existing on small bags of black licorice while living in a trailer down by the river.
Prediction #3: My wife will be dead.
Prediction #4: My daughter will be 74, retired, and will bring flowers to my grave on the odd-numbered years. She will refer to me as, "Your Majesty."
Prediction #5: Most of my friends will be dead.
Prediction #6: I will have died in the gym at the age of 100 while trying to complete the eighth rep of a 400-lb bench press.
Prediction #7: My wife will celebrate my passing by throwing a huge "Life Insurance Party" at the Sleepy Dale Retirement Village. This party will include booze and Chippendale's dancers.
Prediction #8: The Important Collected Works of Todd Outcalt will be posthumously published in 2064. The book will be 24 pages in length and will consist primarily of cartoon illustrations drawn by a middle-school art student.
Prediction #9: My wife will contribute the Foreword to the Collected Works, in which she will admit that we didn't have sex until our wedding night but everything was "wild and woolly after that".
Prediction #10: Both of my children will write memoirs in 2065 and will actually make money from these tell-all books.
(Photo: The author's favorite flavor, big as life.)
Lately I've been living on Ramen Noodles. I eat 'em most days. These packages, purchased in bulk, are about ten cents a meal. But I love 'em.
My wife doesn't understand my infatuation with the noodle. She always wants some fancy box of Hamburger Helper or a dollar-fitty can of soup, and she always makes the same two comments when she sees me slurping up my slop: "How can you stand to eat those things?" and "Could we at least go to Taco Bell?"
Actually, Ramen noodles have been feeding writers for years. After all, I don't have time to cook. Not with all my deadlines. I've got to have a meal I can unpack, drop into a small pot of boilin' water, and then eat on the go or at midnight. Ramen Noodles are perfect. And they come in six or seven scrumptious flavors, too. I wish my family would live on these things.
The way I've calculated it, if all five of us (yes, there are five adults in my house!) ate Ramen Noodles three times a day (that's fifteen meals) . . . I could feed the lot for $1.50 a day, or, get this, feed a family for just pennies over $10 a week.
I don't understand why others in the house can't get with this program. I don't need peanut butter and jelly, or Mrs. Calendar's apple pie, or a quart of Chunky Monkey ice cream. (Though, I must admit, I do consume five pounds of protein powder a week, and that's running me $15.) Throw in some well water and a pot or two of coffee a day (another "splurge") and I'm doin' fine. In fact, I know I could live on less than $30 a week when I'm writing full bore and don't have time to think about food or sleep.
One of these days I'm going to buy an entire pallet of Ramen Noodles. I'll just tell the semi driver to drop off a load and I'll store the lot in my garage. That's another thing about Ramens . . . they never go bad. They can sit for a century in a dark, dank basement but taste fresh as a daisy after they've been boiled in water and seasoned with the contents from that tiny little foil packet. I'm sure the Egyptians ate them to build the pyramids.
The Pharaohs, I've heard, were also incredibly frugal.
It always feels warmer when I wake up to a good word. And this morning the word came from an editor that he is accepting several of my poems for publication. (Thanks, Ron.) Always makes my day.
As things stand now, these deep winter days have become a paradise. Free from the pressures of being outside, I can hunker down late at night and write through the freeze. (There's actually a little heat produced from this keyboard and, on really cold nights, I can feel the disparity in temperature.)
I can also look back on today and say these were my first accepted pieces of 2014.
It's been a few weeks since I produced any noteworthy poems, so I'm always grateful to place one of two into the market. Does wonders for motivation.
Presently, as I write this, it is -5 . . . but it feels warmer.
A pot of coffee and a warm keyboard work wonders.
This week I should be completing a new book. But often, it's that final push that proves the most difficult. Sometimes, when I complete a book, I have the same feeling as when I take a beloved pet to the veterinarian to be euthanized. When I've lived with a book for months it becomes an old friend and it is difficult to let go. Sometimes there is grief--and its not unusual for writers to pass through a period of depression when they finally put a book to rest.
Fortunately, I have so many new projects and deadlines, I can't grieve for too long. I've got to focus on the thrill of a new puppy . . . taking up some fresh, squirming book that is slick with promise, or turning my attentions, at last, to some brief friendship with an essay or a poem. Writing every day means that I experience funerals followed by birthday parties. I lay to rest one old friend and follow it up by celebrating the new.
As I get older, however, this pace offers new challenges. Sometimes, I can't remember the name of the deceased--so when an editor calls to ask me about a book, I have to ask, "Which one are we talking about?" And now that I'm juggling multiple books, essays, and writing assignments simultaneously, it's tough keeping it all straight. Writing for hours at a time doesn't help, either.
My wife says I need to create a giant chart so I can keep track of the publishers, editors and deadlines. She may be correct.
But I'm afraid I'd forget where I put the chart.
I would hang something like this on the refrigerator, but I'd be afraid that others in the family would look at a note like, "March 1" or "New York" or "Done" and think that I was talking about cooking a steak.
These may be similar. But in most cases I don't think a sauce would help.
I don't always write poetry, but when I do . . . I write about anything. Well, most anything.
It's difficult for me to keep up with myself and my obligations these days. I have new titles coming out later this year, writing to meet other deadlines every day, and producing essays and poems along the way for magazines and journals. Rather insane. But I'm truly grateful I can do it . . . writing refreshes my soul and creating new worlds keeps me from being so lonely when my wife's not at home (which is most nights).
More recently, I've had a few poems accepted for publication and later this year I'll have my first collection of poetry (a book) making its way into print. (Thank you, Penny.)
I don't always place poems on this blog, but here's one that surprised me with its appearance a few weeks ago. I like it. Although it's a metaphor, it rather sums up how I feel about the role and meaning of ordination in my life (while certainly not defining the whole of me).
Ordination
Was it the laying on of hands
That melted me toward faithfulness
Or proved the Spirit's touch?
Or would the mundane make amends
Or cause mere water to express
Some power twice as much?
I say it is a love that sends
And through some graceful gentleness
Reveals the Lord as such.
Well, now that 2013 is a distant warm memory and I have a new year ahead, it's time to set some writing goals. But I'll have to aim high to beat last year's achievements, all of which turned out to surpass the goals I'd set in January of 2013.
I could also include some goals of a personal nature, benchmarks like:
Be able to select my wife out of a lineup of strange women . . .
Prepare an evening cuisine not consisting of Ramen noodles . . .
Expand my repertoire of conversation at home to include phrases other than:
* See you in the morning (maybe)
* Yes, I've been up since 4 a.m.
* Where did you hide my licorice?
But the way I see it, since my wife is planning a 30 year anniversary trip later this summer, we'll catch up on life when we are in Ireland, London, Paris, Rome, Venice and Florence. (Yes, Lord willin' we'll be there in July.) And I can write abroad for the first time, too.
At any rate, my goals for 2014 are rather grandiose, but here they are:
1. Write/publish/or contract for seven books in 2014.
2. Publish 150 essays.
Now I've got work to do. And the only way to get there is to write every day. I can rest later. After I'm dead.
A few days ago, while perusing my home library, I came across a book proposal stuffed inside a thick anthology. I have a faint recollection (or do I?) of inserting the proposal inside the front cover many years back. But the interesting thing here is that this old proposal was now a book.
Finding a manuscript is like discovering an old shoe. I know that I must have worn it at one time. It served a purpose. Others had even seen me in it. But I've since purchased a new pair, and now the prototype is relegated to the back of the closet.
It is always a fascinating venture to see how a proposal turns into a book--particularly noting the many changes that the publisher and writer undertake from inception to completion. Sometimes the style changes. The tone. Or chapter headings and titles that the author had created are transformed by marketing departments or illustrators.
The old proposal was little more than a sketch compared to the final product.
Some day I know I will discover other artifacts stuffed inside books. It is inevitable. I forget where I put things . . . sometimes, even, while I am using them.
I've written my best essay, my best poem, my best book already. I just have to find out where I left them.
