Category: On Writing

down the road a piece

October 25, 2025 / Cheney / 0 Comments

Two years ago, right around now, I was supposed to be going to Maine for a writer’s retreat led by my favorite living poet.

That didn’t end up happening because I didn’t find a job by then and I was rapidly running out of money. I had to take the refund when I had the chance and save all the money I would have spent on hotels and gas and food for the few days I would be there.

To say I was devastated would be putting it lightly, because this is also just after I would have been seeing … Read the rest

nothing is forever, not even close

February 9, 2025 / Cheney / 0 Comments

“All I’ve ever wanted is to be a writer” is a sentence I’m sure I and many other writers have uttered throughout life, and it’s true but also not true.

There was a time in childhood when I watched the movie SpaceCamp over and over and over again and then was taken to the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. where I doubled down on my dream.

I took home posters of the Milky Way and a Space Shuttle pointing at the sky, its bottom engulfed in the flames from the rockets about to take them away.

I … Read the rest

I’m Not Ready to Give Up

January 24, 2025 / Cheney / 0 Comments

_{If you’d like, you can also read this for free on Medium.}

I don’t know what to do with myself right now.

Just over a year ago, I started work at a wonderful place with wonderful people, and over 90% of the time I can confidently say that I love my job, and being there makes me happy.

That is a true statement.

For the entirety of my life since I grasped the understanding as a child that one day I would have to work at a job to have money to live, I knew that the only job … Read the rest