Do You Love the Big Projects in Your Life?

It’s tax season. If you’re only just now realizing that taxes are due on Tuesday, sorry I ruined your weekend, but shame on you for relying on this newsletter to remind you of such a pain in the ass.

It’s called tax season because it technically lasts three months, but it’s not a season like the weather, or like a sport. Maybe it’s like hunting season, going back to when “revenuers” traveled through Appalachia trying to collect taxes, and instead were hunted for sport by the locals unwilling to bend the knee.

Taxes aren’t so much seasonal as they’re like the big projects you have to do in school. In 1st and 2nd grade, the teachers would gather all of our bullshit crayon drawings and letter-writing worksheets together in a kind of portfolio to be presented to our parents as proof that we weren’t simply shut in a room with a television all year. That was back when parents spanked their kids if the teacher reported that the kid was unruly or dumb.

With my kids, those early school projects became bound books, with snappy titles like: “My First Year in School,” or, “My First Story Book.” They were interesting for all of a few minutes, but my wife and I lost interest about as quickly as our kids, and now those books have been on the shelf for 25 years. I can’t bear the thought of throwing the books away, but it’s not like the drawings are good, or the story is well told. Little kids are terrible at that stuff.

Those books were done by a little kid who had only been potty-trained for a little more than half their life, and I don’t think they had much to add to the world of art or literature. Granted, the kids were cute and I still love them, but I don’t feel a great obligation to read their early work, just as I don’t feel obligated to read the early works of Stephen King or Bill Shakespeare.

In elementary and middle school, the projects get more involved. The kid may have to build a volcano for the science fair, and make a huge mess with vinegar, baking soda, and food coloring.

Our kids had a project involving a significant, historical figure, that they had to research, write a report, and then portray that person in costume at a school event. I guess it was educational but those sort of things are a nightmare for the parents who—let’s face it—research the figure, make the costume, and write the report.

The fact that our kids each got a B- on their project reflects how busy my wife and I were with work, rather than our intelligence.

If you go for college and beyond, there are big projects in the form of independent studies, a masters thesis, and possibly a Ph.D. dissertation, all of which are only read by, at most, five people. That’s the same number of people that read my kids’ “My First Story Book” from first grade, by the way.

All of this is to prepare us for the annual adult project of doing your taxes.

I’ve always made a living as a desk jockey drawing a wage, so my taxes are fairly simple. The big question was always, “Did I have enough taken out of my paycheck this year?”

The answer used to always be delivered in the form of another question: “Can I think of enough deductions so that I don’t have to pay this year?”

Thanks to taxes, most of us never escape the big project thing from school, but most people escape the concept of homework. That is, if you’re a mechanic, when you go home each evening, you’re done for work. I know a lot of desk jockeys check email, or take some work home, but they mostly escape the concept of homework.

However, when you’re a writer, you basically assign yourself homework for the rest of your life.

Stephen King, on the other hand, is a writer who writes for a living; i.e., no homework. Nope, if you’re not a wildly successful writer, the only time to write is after you’ve worked eight hours during the day. If you have a family, the writing won’t happen until supper is over, the school work is done, and the kids are in bed. Then—finally—you can crack open that laptop and do your homework.

This week, of course, my homework has been the big project of taxes. Each evening, I’ve been chipping away, finding the various forms, filling out the schedules, and sweating the numbers instead of writing. I’ll be glad when this project is over, and I can go back to my routine of working during the day and writing at night.

Honestly, I miss doing homework as a kid. Back then, my older brothers were in the same mess, struggling to get stuff done, and our parents were there to help or to yell at us. The yelling was harsh but we needed it, and we knew they cared.

Now, I basically have to yell at myself to do my homework. When I’m harsh, I worry that I don’t care as much about me as I should. Great stories rarely emerge when driven by a harsh, uncaring voice.

I want my writing to spring from a source of joy so that, when it’s bound into a book, it will be read by more than four or five people.

Meanwhile, at My Writing Desk…

My book is available for pre-sale:

Ashley Undone, a crime story and family drama, is available for pre-order. Set in Ann Arbor, it’s a Cinderella story pitting love of family against the evil of greed.

Reviews and early sales help a book more than anything. If you enjoy my stories here, you’ll love Ashley Undone.

Note: The ebook price may drop before it launches and I’m pretty sure you get the lower price. For those of you here on the Picayune, if you let me know you bought the pre-order of Ashley Undone, I’ll send you a collection of Mickey Picayunes covering 2019-2024.

Also, if you’d like an advance review copy, click here.