365.25 Days Past

It takes the planet Earth 365.25 days (or rotations along its axis, which is currently tilted at 23.44 degrees) to make one complete revolution around the sun. On the Gregorian calendar, we begin counting day 1 on what was on average the coldest day of the year (warmest if you're on the Southern Hemisphere). Of course, it would be silly to have a 6 hour day. After all, it wouldn't be as fun to count down to 6:00 AM then it is midnight. So how do we make up for this discrepancy? We stick it on to the last month that was added to the 12-month calendar, February, every 4 years. Hence the leap year. That tidies things up both culturally and astronomically so that we can celebrate every 31st of December and countdown until midnight.

We make promises to ourselves before the new year comes in, and never follow through. We become our own politicians and forget the regrets of yesterday. Even if it is just for one night of the year, it's nice to see everyone so optimistic about the future. I have had one hell of a terrific year, if I do say so myself.

I ended my internship at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California with a bang, headed off to Hawaii to make concrete float, graduated with a B.S. degree in civil engineering, bumped into Stan "The Man" Lee at Comic-Con, managed to unwittingly and unintentionally offend Jorge Garcia, get Jorge Garcia to send me back my poster with his autograph on it, wrote 31 stories in 31 days in celebration of Halloween, and not to mention that I can actually say I got out of Vegas with more money than I had going in.

For those of you keeping score, I did manage to get Hurley crossed off my makeshift Jacob's list. I had been nervous to send the poster seeing as how, I screwed things up royally, but I guess Karma's letting me know I can go on with my list (that was a totally unintended "Earl" reference).

Some might wonder who the old guy in the picture above is. He, along with Richard Matheson, have been the most influential writers in my creative endeavors. That is, Ray Bradbury, the most prolific writer in the United States since... well, forever, with Mark Twain a coming in a close second. You see, my project for Halloween was inspired by the great Ray Bradbury.

For those who have read the man's work, it should be no surprise that Halloween holds a special place in his heart. I've had the pleasure of meeting him many times, and every time his advice is the same: "Do what you love and love what you do... And to hell with everything else." He gave a lecture a few years ago (that I posted below) in which he was asked how he has been so prolific a writer. He started writing in his early twenties and does not show any signs of letting up as a spry, fiery 89-year-old (not too mention that he promised to live to at least 100 and have his ashes scattered on Mars). Bradbury's answer was simple.

There was no trick. Just read one short story every day for a year and write one short story a week. By year's end, that's 365 stories that you have read and 52 that you have written. Some of them may not be great and some of them may be downright horrible, but he guarantees that no writer worth his salt can write 52 bad stories. I tried to write 31 stories in 31 days, which left me exhausted. So I intend to spend the following year doing just that. And who knows? Maybe I'll actually finish a novel I start. I hope everyone haves a fantastic New Year's and in the words of John Lennon, "Let's make it a good one."