This morning the cat followed me around, and any time I ditched him, he’d caterwaul through the halls until he found me. Usually his crying is reserved for spotting the neighbor’s tom in our yard, but today, it was all for me. He wanted attention, and as any feline lover will know, it doesn’t matter one bit that I was already running late for The Job That Pays The Bills.

He finally caught me as I stood by the ledge over the stairwell. With the charger plugged into that wall, I stopped there to grab my phone and check my messages. He hopped up on the ledge and headbutted me.

Yes, I talk to my cat, and yes, I rambled away as I scratched his cheeks to prevent another headbutt. I told him he should’ve visited me last night, when I wasn’t doing anything at all, no writing, no reading, just lounging around. Perfect cat cuddling time!

My husband overheard this “conversation” and stopped to look at me like I had four heads. “If you didn’t read and you didn’t write,” he said, “what did you do all night?”

Damn, I guess I’ve been working extra hard lately. He’s right though. The reason I mostly blog about writing is because that’s what I do. Mostly. I’ve been running more lately, working through some muscle issues. I watch a couple of TV programs, but mostly it’s just background noise while he’s watching his favorites. I work at the Job That Pays The Bills forty-ish hours a week, and I certainly don’t intend to talk or blog about that.

What else do I do?

We game once a week. We sometimes share walks. I avoid housework like the plague, so I can’t even say that’s been consuming my time. No, he’s right. I’m writing or reading in most of my free time, and squeezing in a run here and there as my body (or the weather) permits.

I’m boring. I’m not blog material. Now, my characters on the other hand, are much more interesting. Wouldn’t you rather read about the struggles of a man whore when love drags him down kicking and screaming? Wouldn’t it be more fun to read about a young man’s eye opening summer where he learns being twinkish is sexy?

I know I would. Get out of here and go enjoy some fiction, dear readers. I have nothing interesting to say.

Ciao,
Pia Veleno

PS I hope to do a brief blog tour next month to celebrate the release of my first Loose Id story, Make You Sweat. Do you have a topic you’d like to see? Do you want to challenge me with an odd or unusual question? Leave it here, or find my email on this site, and let me know what you want to know. I’ll fit in as many as I can, dear Readers, because I love a good challenge.

I haven’t been getting many hits on this blog lately. I thought it might be the book reviews because those never get comments, but now that I look at the stats, only the flash fiction gets any major hits and rarely does anything but the #FridayFlash stuff get comments.

That’s fine, really. I like to blog because, for me, writing is cathartic. If no one reads, then I’ll still write, but I’ll write in a private format so I don’t have to waste so much time editing my words. After all, if I’m the only audience, why should I care about the typos? I’ll focus on the purging and subsequent reflection instead, and free up time for other pursuits, like running outside, away from the computer. Besides, I’ve pulled away from personal posts simply because between updates on my frivolous attempt to write something of quality and the mini reviews of all those freebie short stories, I don’t have room for many personal entries. I don’t want to post daily, or more than twice a week, because you all have better things to do with your time as it is.

This leaves me with a decision to make. What do I want to do with this blog? I suppose I’ll keep it going simply for the writing updates. I need to be held accountable, even if only a small handful of people take an interest. Though, at the same time, making myself blog about my hits and misses doesn’t seem to be inspiring me to work harder. Hmm…

Regardless, I’m not making a decision yet. I’m simply musing on the trend (or lack thereof) that I noticed this morning. I’ll now shift my focus to dwell on some flash fiction so I can write Friday, or maybe I’ll skip that and focus on the current WIP that feels like it’s moving along though if I think too hard about it, it looks stagnant.

As I reread this post, preparing to hit publish, I think of a blog I wrote recently on another site. I reflected on how the audience there would play along and “get” the self-depreciating humor while those here… well, let’s see what those here do.

Ciao,
Pia