Author: Matthew Groff

  • Reforming the Writing Habit

    July was a busy month with vacations, and the kid did some traveling with friends, and I had a huge home improvement project to finish. And I started watching Vikings, which I am finding really entertaining.

    Something had to give, and that was writing. After two years of writing nearly every day, I decided I should take a break. There was a nagging thought in the back of my head that if I took a break then in a roundabout way, I was admitting that writing isn’t that important to me.

    Maybe…

    The other thought I had was that everyone needs time away, a respite, time off. I have been working at all of this, blogging every weekday, working on stories and submitting them to magazines, and I especially have been journaling constantly. I have put down close to 500,000 words from July 2020 to July 2022.

    But, I got out of the habit of writing every day. Just the mechanical act of sitting down, either with the computer or a journal, and putting down thoughts and ideas. If I felt like doing it or not, I did it. Out of everything I had tried over these past two years, I think that was the achievement I was most proud of; I had a good habit of writing each day.

    With the time off, I have to restart this habit all over again. Maybe I’ll fall right back into it. Maybe I have to work at it again. Maybe none of this really is a big deal.

    Maybe.

    Now, I just got to start going to the gym again.

  • I’m on a Hiatus

    July has been a busy month for me. I’ve been traveling, completing home improvement projects, and ring Summer tour guide for my kid.

    I guess what I am saying is that I’m taking a hiatus in the month of July. I’m not shutting down the blog, or stopping writing. I know that my out put is going to be infrequent until the start of August.

    So, I’m taking the pressure off my shoulders as I uphold my commitments and promises I made to my family, and especially my daughter.

    I’ll be back in about a week, and I’ll talk to the four of you loyal readers then.

  • Life with My Dog

    We have a little dog that is one tough coward. This dog is great with people and kids, and I have often made the joke that if I got mugged while walking her, the dog would roll over for the mugger. BUT, what makes the dog maddening is that she want to fight and kill any dog we encounter on the street. So, she tried to be a tough little dog.

    And then the rain comes, and she turns into the biggest little chicken. I know many dog are scared of thunder and fireworks, and our furry one is the same. Right now, thunderstorms are rolling through, and she is curled up with me, shivering, waiting for the weather to pass.

    I am taking full advantage of my scared dog. Normally, she is following my wife around the apartment because I guess the dog thinks she’s the alpha around here; Not that the dog is wrong. This means I don’t get a whole lot of snuggle time with the dog.

    Not that I am demanding that the dog spends her time with me. I am a cat person, so I feel like an animal and me should be more like roommates than family members. You know, I respect your space, your respect mine. But now and then, I would like the dog to curl up on my lap while I read. Not a big ask, but I feel it is manageable.

    The one thing I will say (as a person, a person in a relationship, and a person in a family) I don’t think I like the idea of living without an animal. There is something reassuring having a pet in the home, and taking her on vacations, and just another life at the end of the bed.

  • ODDS and ENDS: New Schedule, Rewriting, and August 6th

    (I do less before 9am, than most people do all day.)

    The kid is out of school for summer which means that stay-at-home-dad’s school year schedule has been thrown out the window. I know it isn’t my job to “entertain” the kid every moment of the day, but it does mean that I am her go to person for questions, and just about everything else. The quandary I find myself in is when do I write? I was knocking out blogs in the morning, but as of this week, the time is hard to find. I might have to write at night and publish in the morning. Or, whatever. I’ll figure out the new schedule.

     While I was on vacation, I didn’t do much writing, though I did spend a bit of time thinking about it. What I came up with is that I have to rewrite a story. And it’s a story that I have rewritten three times already. And it’s a story that I have submitted to four different lit journals. Not that it matters, as the chance of it getting published, even if it is rewritten, are slim at best. I just can’t stop tinkering with it. On one hand, I want to get it right, and on the other hand, I wonder if I keep messing with it as a form of procrastination?

    Premiere League starts up on August 6th. Well, that’s when Tottenham’s first match is.

  • Odd Start to Summer for the Kid

    New York City is just weird compared to the rest of the country, so let’s just start right there. I say this because around here, kids are off from school for July and August. The month of July is when all the camps happen, both sleep-away and day camps. August is the vacation month, or at least that’s when most people take their vacations, because August is honestly the worst month to be in NYC; it’s hot, humid, and there is this tar/urine/wet-garbage smell that is everywhere. Last Summer, in the month of July, the kid was in a day camp for the first two weeks in July, then we spent a couple of days with friends in Vermont. Following that, the kid took the last week in July to visit a friend in Virginia. It was only when we got to August that we started running around the parks and playgrounds again, and the kid made some friends that she ended up seeing most days, so she had someone to play with. We left on vacation right after school ended, and now that we are back in the City, the kid is running into the problem that there aren’t any kids her age to play with at the playground. There are little kids under six years old, but very few kids over that age. And today, it finally clicked in why that is; all the older kids are at camps. And it is really hot out, too. It’s an odd start to Summer in the City for the kid. Added on top of that is the inevitable let down of coming home from after a vacation. Home just seems very dull after a week of staying up late, eating ice cream, and going to amusement parks. She’s a little bored, and I am okay with her learning how to deal with boredom. Yet, I also had hoped that there would be a few kids she could run around with.