Time to catch up on current events, just so I force myself to post something here for the first time in far too many weeks.
Hello. How are you? It’s nice to meet you. Photo by Kiy Turk on Unsplash
I’ve reconsidered my Patreon page. It may be because I really needed to, or it may be because I just felt the need to do something after so many weeks of spinning my wheels. Probably a bit of both. At any rate, I’m pulling After from Patreon back over here to the blog. I’ve got eighteen chapters up over there, and not a single subscriber. /shrug. Granted, I haven’t pushed it very hard, but I’m very leery of overdoing the promotion side of things. I suppose I need to get over that if I want to sell any books. I’ll leave the account up for a while until I decide exactly what I expect from it.
In Plain Sight is actually finally at the editor. I’ll start cover work on that shortly, then I’ll release it right after Discoveries.
I’ve been lost these last few COVID-ridden months, planning and re-planning and re-re-planning Red Dirt Justice. I still have a bunch of great ideas for stories, but I started chasing world-building plot bunnies, and almost turned it into a Bright-like urban fantasy thing. I played with that idea for far too long, then realized not long after the George Floyd protests that I’d turned into too much of a cop-worshipping series, which was never my intention. I’ll probably change which story I do first though. And I still want to do an urban fantasy kind of story; I’m just not sure how I’ll do that.
We’re not alone in having our lives upended by COVID, I know, but we’ve been fortunate. One daughter was going to dance in Cinderella, but that was canceled. Her younger sister was going to visit Hawaii with her Girl Scout troop, but once they announced a two-week quarantine, the troop postponed the trip to December. They recently changed the trip completely; they’re visiting San Diego instead. The cookie-selling season was cut short as well, which will affect the funds they raise for next year’s trips. But I suspect they won’t be taking the smaller, shorter trips they usually take during the fall, so things may balance out. And I was supposed to have gone to the Writers Police Academy this past weekend in Raleigh, but North Carolina pulled back on their reopening plans, so at the last minute, it went virtual. That’s a difficult format for me to work in, so I passed. I’ll attend the next edition, next year in Wisconsin.
I’ve been masking up when I go out, for the most part. A friend in Ohio printed this mask for me, which was handy. He sent it with some shock cord for the strings, which worked well enough, but they were short, and I’ve got a fat head, so it hurt a bit. I finally switched to some elastic (which was really hard to come by), although someone else suggested the rubber band tourniquets that lab techs use for blood draws. I wish I’d thought of that before my gross sewing job. Such is life.
A combination of COVID-induced cabin fever and being the first stand open in the area gave our church our best fireworks season ever. For all intents and purposes, we sold out, for the first time in the seven years we’ve been selling fireworks. Our returns fit in the back of a minivan with room to spare. The first year, it took two 15-passenger vans.
I haven’t been out on the bike in months. It’s going up for sale, and I’m going to get something a little newer and a little lighter. Sound familiar? Ah well.
I finally started reading again. I’ve recently read Bring the Jubilee, an alternate history story around the American Civil War, as well as The Black Ice, the second Harry Bosch book. I feel like I’ve read a couple of others over the years, but can’t recall which, so I’m going to use Hoopla to work my way through the series. I may watch Bosch on Amazon; I’ve heard good things about it.
My wife and I worked our way through Madam Secretary. We really enjoyed the writing and the casting. Lots of great chemistry between the characters, which isn’t that surprising considering that several members of the cast had performed together on Broadway.
It’s time for more hard conversations. This time we’re talking about life after death.
Back in January, I posted about the death of a friend and asked readers to start thinking about and planning for the end of their lives. Since then, the COVID-19 pandemic has probably caused lots of people to consider their end-of-life care. I hope they’ve been able to have those hard conversations face to face, not separated by masks or quarantine barriers in hospitals.
The other day, a friend on Twitter talked about the sudden death of her husband, and how she and her kids were able to survive those first few hours and days and weeks. She talked about the decisions she had to make, like disconnecting life support, choosing his burial clothing, his casket, his vault, and even whether to bury or cremate. She lamented about having to consider reserving the plot next to her husband at age 37. If you haven’t been around death, or haven’t had to deal with those questions before, it can be absolutely overwhelming to do it the first time when you’re in the middle of grieving.
I talked in that previous post about end-of-life decisions, and of making your loved ones aware of your wishes, and equipping them to carry out those wishes. Now I want to talk about what happens after those decisions have been made. What happens after you die?
Key Issue
My parents had the foresight to have set up a revocable trust to handle their estate. Their finances were sort-of complicated, and Dad wanted to make sure whoever survived didn’t have to worry about how to handle things. But when my dad died suddenly twenty-six years ago on a sunny Wednesday afternoon, we realized we didn’t know the answer to a very pertinent question. Where was the key to the safety-deposit box?
You see, he’d kept his copy of the will and codicils in a safety deposit box, along with several other documents that would come in very handy over the next few weeks. But no one could remember where the blasted key was. Yes, we could have had the lock drilled if we’d needed to, but it would have cost a hundred bucks or so, and back in 1994, a hundred bucks was a pretty steep fee. It took us several hours of searching over the next four days to find that key, during which time I found both his cigar and chocolate stashes.
My dad was a veteran of World War II, and so was entitled to receive a flag to drape the casket and a two-man detail at the cemetery (we declined the latter). But to verify his eligibility, we needed a copy of his discharge document, which wasn’t immediately available. I seem to remember that turning up while we were searching for the key, but we shouldn’t have had to spend time looking for the key. It added stress to a time that was already pretty stressful as it was. So allow me to make a few suggestions that might make that time easier for you or your family.
That’s a common refrain for cops: if you don’t write it down, it didn’t happen. So to avoid making my kids go through what I did when my dad died, I’ve written a bunch of stuff down. I have a folder in my Dropbox account called “Important Stuff.” It’s got scans of my DD 214, my VA disability letter, and a few other documents that will come in handy when I kick off.
It’s also got a Word document called “Stuff You Need to Know,” broken up into five headings: Funeral Stuff; Net Stuff; Ravensbeak Domain; Writing; and Family Stuff. Let’s take a look at what’s where.
Funeral Stuff is just what it sounds like. I talk about what funeral home to use, what I want done with my body, and what songs I’d like to be played. I offer some notes about my obituary, because there are certain things I want emphasized. There are no rules on obituaries, by the way. Have fun with them! But please make sure the facts you list are really correct. Genealogists make great use of obits to verify things they’ve found elsewhere, and to give them tips pointing to other facts. The last part of that section is information about how to contact people. Now that I think about it, I should probably list actual addresses and phone numbers there.
Net Stuff has a list of online forums where I’m active so that my family can let those people know what’s happened. I started that list after reading a forum post about a member who’d died months prior. After reading the condolence cards and letters after my parents’ funerals, I realized that the family would have liked to have read all of those comments. I also realized as a forum member that it gave us a chance to grieve rather than wondering what happened to so-and-so.
That section also has the master password to my Lastpass password manager. That way my family doesn’t have to go through all of the challenges involved with forgotten passwords. I highly recommend using a password manager, and Lastpass is very easy to use.
Ravensbeak Domain tells my family how I’m running the domains that I keep running, like this site and our family site. Ravensbeak also hosts my genealogy site and a mystery writers forum. It’s got a quick primer on what they’ll need to know to keep things running.
Writing gives an overview of books I’ve written, books I’ve got planned, and books in progress. If I get around to setting up a literary trustee, that information will go here as well. I probably don’t have enough books done to consider a literary trustee, but I hope I’m around long enough to do so.
Family Stuff is extra information about things that didn’t really fit anywhere else.
What Else Goes Here?
You don’t have to set up your own document this way. I’ve got sections in mine that most people probably don’t need to have. You may need a section that I don’t need. But you really need to have a document like this.
What do you need to have in yours? Any of the important stuff. (smile)
Do you have a will? Where is it? What law firm did you use? I hang out at /r/legaladvice, and regularly see posts saying, “My family member just died and we don’t know where the will is.” Make a note in this file about who did your will, and where your copy is if you have one.
Are you the one who handles the money in your family? Does your significant other know about all of your bank accounts and insurance policies? Do they know all of the passwords and security questions regarding those accounts?
Take an afternoon and look at your life from the outside. Can you picture yourself or your spouse six months after you die, throwing up their hands and saying, “I just don’t know. They handled all of that for me?” That’s the kind of info you need here.
Where do you keep it?
If you keep it in a safety deposit box, make sure everyone knows where the key is!
It doesn’t even have to be on the computer, although mine is in two places. The digital (and most recent) version lives on the computer, but I also print it out every so often and put it in the folder that contains our trust information. My wife and I set up a revocable trust several years ago, and they gave us a binder to keep our copies of documents related to it. All of the kids know where it is and what they need to do if we both die suddenly.
And just like your estate planning, this isn’t necessarily a set-it-and-forget-it thing. For example, my religious views have changed rather drastically from eleven years ago when I first created my document, so I’ve made the appropriate changes in the funeral section. You should review it at least once a year, just as you review your estate planning and insurance policies.
You do review that stuff, don’t you?
Tell The Stories
There were dozens, if not hundreds, of stories lost to the ether when Dad collapsed that afternoon. I’m sure he didn’t expect to have a massive MI that day, and that he thought he’d have years to pass on the stories behind all of the stuff we’d brought back from his childhood home. I’ll probably talk about this more in depth in another post, but I really want to encourage you to start writing down stories about your childhood. Even if your kids don’t want to hear them right now, I can almost guarantee that when you’re gone, they’ll appreciate hearing those stories, especially if they’re in a form they can share.
Everyone’s going to die. Do what you can to make it easier on the people who are left behind.
I welcome your support at Patreon, where you’ll see exclusive content like After, my post-apocalyptic serial novel, as well as first drafts, deleted scenes, and so forth. You can sign up for my infrequent newsletter here. You can find some of my other writing at The Good Men Project, too. Subscribe to the blog via the link in the right sidebar so you never miss an update here, either. You can also add my RSS feed to your favorite reader. And of course, I always appreciate readers sharing my posts via social media shares.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted any cover songs, so let’s see what we can find from Phil Collins.
Phil Collins is another favorite artist of mine. The drummer
of Genesis for over twenty years, he started his solo career in 1978 with Face Value. I’d listened to Genesis off
and on, mainly via singles on the radio. I picked up on his solo stuff in the
80s, not necessarily because of “In the Air Tonight” and its 1984 appearance in
the pilot of Miami Vice though.
“In the Air Tonight” is probably Collins’ most iconic song. Even if you don’t know it’s Phil Collins, you know the song, and people air-drum to it the way they play along to Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” It’s also more than a little difficult to cover, because the drum part is so much a part of the song. He’s probably most famous for playing it at both LiveAid concerts, taking advantage of the Concorde to play it first in London, then Philadelphia. By the way, I’ve heard the rumors about the “story behind the song” since the 80s, and they’re not true.
Chris Daughtry has what I think is my favorite version of this song, one I’ve linked to in the past.
Sierra Eagleson has a lovely cover of the song. Collins himself played a piano version at Live Aid. Eagleson has a similar version, but I think does it a little more soulfully than Collins.
Blacktop Mojo does an acoustic cover in a distillery in Dallas. The link starts the video where the music begins, but you can rewind to learn more about the place if you like. The acoustics of the building and Matt James’ voice do wonders for the song. –
I can’t find much about Corvyx, but his voice on this is fantastic, although if you don’t like snakes, you’ll probably want to just listen instead of actually watching the video.
Flutetastic has a beautiful version of the song, played on a Native American Flute to a conventional backing track. But the flute he plays it on I think fits the mood of the original lyrics incredibly well.
“In The Air Tonight” is not his most commonly covered song though. According to SecondHandSongs, that honor belongs to “Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now),” his love song from the movie Against All Odds, covered by 100 different artists. Glee, Bonnie Tyler, Barry Manilow, even Straight No Chaser have all covered it.
Of course, he’s covered a few songs himself. Ten years ago, he covered Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colors.” I think though my favorite is his 1982 cover of The Supremes’ “You Can’t Hurry Love.” It’s not that he does anything special on the song, I think, but more because of the video.
I welcome your support at Patreon, where you’ll see exclusive content like After, my post-apocalyptic serial novel, as well as first drafts, deleted scenes, and so forth. You can sign up for my infrequent newsletter here. You can find some of my other writing at The Good Men Project, too. Subscribe to the blog via the link in the right sidebar so you never miss an update here, either. You can also add my RSS feed to your favorite reader. And of course, I always appreciate readers sharing my posts via social media shares.
