The Future Tom Hump Post

What kind of person clicks a link to a post with a title like that?  What is wrong with you – seriously?

I mean, sure, I’m not talking about anything gross, but it sure sounds like I am.  Like I’m selling some kind of product for your overly randy hound dog to go to town on, with a picture of my smiling face on it.

Really, really sick.  Is that actually what you thought? 

Man.  That makes me lose my faith in humanity.  I’m not talking about a post for your dog to hump.  I’m talking about a blog post, specifically the six month mark of The Curse of Future Tom. 

Much like Wednesday is Hump Day because you have to get over that hump and then it’s all downhill from there, this is my Hump Post.  And I’m Future Tom.

Jeez, man – I’d have thought that’d be obvious.  I would never be so intentionally, flippantly offensive on my blog.  Do you think I’m trying to deliberately insult people or something? 

I’m sorry, I got to get my head together a second here.  I’m just shocked.

Okay, I’m fine now.  I’m sorry I snapped at you, big fella.

Anyway, don’t think I’m not aware that it’s the Hump Post for you, too.  Writing this thing every day is at times exhilerating, infuriating, gratifying, exhausting, or terrifying.  It all depends on what kind of mood I’m in.

That’s good news for me – I get to write according to my own mood.  But a recent study indicates that less than five percent of the population of Facebook are in the same mood I am at any given time.  So those of you who keep showing up here and reading this have got to be thinking just like I am, Really, Tom, are you 100% certain that the whole “every single day” thing was necessary? 

You might also be thinking, Even the eight hundred word thing, man, you got David B. Dale over there writing whole novels a third that length.  I just wish you’d thought this thing through..

And how.  Do you have any idea how difficult it is to write and post eight hundred words when you have a half an hour left to do it, and three kids who want dinner?   

Or when you totally lose your shit and post a long, venonous rant that you feel bad about later, but that you can’t take down because you didn’t post anything else that day and it’s against the rules?

Or when you got drunker than hell at your mom’s house (!) and had to be driven home by your wife, who was a remarkably good sport about it, and then dumped in your garage to babble about crab dudes who communicate by clicking and farting? 

Sure, you’re probably thinking.  Say, Future Tom, do you have any idea how hard it is to run into you at Jo Anne Fabrics and not tell you that I feel like wringing your neck for never shutting the hell up? 

I don’t know man.  What the hell were you doing at Jo Anne Fabrics, by the way?  I got three daughters – what’s your excuse?

Anyway, most of the time it’s pretty gratifying and I’m just being silly.  But I’ll tell you one flaw in my not-very-well-thought-out plan.

The purpose of writing every day was to establish an identity as a writer and get any kind of a thread of a writing career started.  It’s working, too – I am light years past any place I’ve ever been in that regard.

Expect an obnoxious social media blitz out of me the day the book goes on sale by the way.  If I have my way, they’ll be selling souvenir Future Tom glasses at Burger King – Collect the whole set!

But you know the problem with writing and posting something every day is that you don’t have time to write things that you don’t post.  Things that you then go ahead and try to get someone to pay you for publishing.

That’s going to be Future Tom: Year Two.

Right now, the writing is like a rigorous exercise regime, and I feel like I could do an infomercial, cause my writing muscles are totally ripped now.  You should see me standing there in front of a mirror with my old writing pants on, holding out the waistband.  You could fit another Me in those pants, though that would be every bit as disturbing and gross as a literal hump post.

On the professional front, I’ve entered two fiction contests so far and I’m still waiting for them to announce the winners.  You can bet your ass you’ll be hearing about it if I place at all in either of them. 

My posts average around nine hundred words, so 182 posts equals 163, 800 words, which equals roughly 655 pages in six months.

Holy Christmas, I didn’t know that when I first got out my calculator just now.

And the book coming out includes about a hundred pages or so that were never posted on Future Tom, so I’ve written seven hundred fifty pages in six months.

I think I might be making my intended point.  I just think that from several valid perspectives, it might be a sort of irritating, borderline creepy point.   Some folks might be kind of thinking, “Okay Tom, you’re a writer.  I got it.  I admit it.  I recognize you formally as a writer, for crying out loud.  Are you happy now?”

Why, yes.  Yes, I am.  Thank you for asking!