C. A. Winter Blog

Can't sleep It's daytime Can't stay awake I'm exhausted When is dinner, when is evening, when is bed time I'm ready For tomorrow Doesn't bring anything new But perhaps A different menu * My mind wanders to the furthest Corners of the room Which activity can I do Should I stay or should I sit with my back Pressed against this plushy couch? To move Is it worth it? * Filtering, pouring, waiting, sipping This is my coffee we speak of In the morning I crave it In the night I avoid it Getting too old for such An exhilarating relationship This is my emotions,  We speak not. * Do you feel the prose? What about my craft Are you invoked by what I said? Have you stopped to think? I doubt you, More than you can ever know. This is garbage.  * A poet is a poet is a poet. Sitting with my fingers nimbly Putting nonsense into life Tap tap, tip tip Now I'm off to fucking write. *

Stimulus, I Pray to Thee     How exhausting is it to have a brain in this day and age? The loops of soundbites, the flashes of lewd images, the intrusive thoughts. I'm cooked to the core like a steak well done and my juice is gone and all that's left are fatty nuggets of info-dumping, melody-humming, soul-sucking, half-baked, trauma-inducing zygote-killing memories. I'm fiscally infertile for new content or consumption. They've ripped the virgin out of the olive oil and I need a cold press or a hexane bath to extract whatever's left of my humanity. Have you ever stared at a cold blue screen and read the words of utmost importance just for Doja Cat to play like a little lyre behind your ears? Have you ever focused on something you think you love, only for the thought of a thought of a thought to derail your total utter interest? Suddenly I'm on the phone again, suddenly it's been an hour, suddenly it's been a month and whatever I was supposed to do has fl...

I suppose on a surface level I'm irritated. My skin is itchy and my lower region is aching. Dull, uneventful, untouched. Constant. Where is this coming from- lack of sleep? No, I've slept well. Lack of water? I've pissed twice in the hour. Perhaps a lack of understanding of my own nutritional needs and a simple case of the 'ball pain.' Not much else to say about that. On a deeper level, I'm irritated with the state of life right now. I turn to my phone and all I hear about is how awful everything is. RIOT RIOT RIOT! If I turn off my phone, it goes away. Does the problem exist in the physical or simply in the universe? Like a rendering of a quest not mine, an echo of a life unrealized. Running the simulation with no overlap in the main story. My story, untarnished by whatever melodrama the WEF or ICE has cooking up. Am I a bad person for checking out when there's a tuning fork right on the fucking pulse of a violent clitoris? Is it wrong I avoid the feelings ...

By C. A. Winter Before the second drink slid down my throat I was a mess. Purely wretched, filled with diabolical malaise. Shaking like the West Coast and sweating like the Amazon. Thick, putrid drops of beaded ammonia slid down my wrinkled forehead and practically served as nature’s bitters; a splash or two in the gin won’t hurt anyone. The first one settled my fingers but didn’t do much as far as the brain was concerned. If anything, it made me more irritable. A taste of what I wanted turned my little demons feral. What a disgrace. And it’s only noon or so.  I’m lurking in the kitchen in front of my father. He’s left a knife on the tipping point of the sink in case another peanut sandwich entices him. I’m shivering from my abstinence but I’m on my way. My hands are hot and the fridge cools them while I wait for him to pass. He surely heard me kick the freezer shut. That’s why he hasn’t said anything. Yellow mustard stares me down. Do I take a squirt to cover up the smell? Will he...

 Dear reader, whoever you are. My numbers are low but there are at least numbers. My words are few but at least they are readable. My brain is exhausted but for you I push on. Dear reader, I wonder who you are. You're the one that sends the notification to my phone that someone, somewhere has clicked and scrolled on the latest post. That someone is you, dear reader. I need you the most. If you are the reader, which we both know you are, I wonder what you think of these ramblings. Stories and sentences, blogs and blurbs. The innermost thoughts of my mind, smushed onto a page and formatted to be bitten and chewed. Writing has devoured me, and the words are perpetual. If only to be read by you, they must exist. You and I must exist for the words to exist. Dear reader, I urge you to press on. Whatever kind of day you're having, what month or year. Grief, sorrow, joy, discovery. All of it. Take it. Feed off of it. Dear reader, never stop. Without you I am nothing but a rambling man ...

  C. A. Winter - For January 22, 2026 Chapter Analysis; Sample Sections The purpose of this submission is to see how my section from last week stands in different lighting. After some feedback, I was able to edit it based on what I interpreted, then another time based on what I liked. There are commingled factors in all of them. I want to know which of these samples works best, without the context of the rest of the scene, since I did not provide it before.  I took a look at the core of the section and found two things; we were jumping around timelines and I didn’t realize it was jumping. The first edit (Sample 2) is what I did the night after hearing the feedback. The second edit (Sample 3) is a serious reconsidering of the structure and importance of the timing of everything. Does it matter where they did the call? Does it matter when he was at the gas station? No, I don’t think so. Not anymore, anyways. Written feedback given:  “…To directly answer your questions: Are...

 When I do it- I want to- This will happen- I'm gunna do it- I had an idea- I want to do it this way- I want to do this- In the next one, this'll happen- But for this one, I want to do this- I want to- I want to- It's going to be like this- I had a thought- What if in the third one- What if in the second one- When I do it- When I do it- If I do it, it'll be better than what I said- It'll be different later on- It'll be this way- Not that way, when I do it- I'm a perfectionist- I'm a planner- I love my outline- I didn't have time to do it- but I did an outline- I want to do this- I want to do that- When I do it- When I do it- When I do it- When it's written- When I write it- And at the end of it- then it'll be like this- it will be like this- I haven't written it yet, but when I do, it'll- I'm gonna do it- When I do it- And then after that, I'm gonna-  Shh. Stop. You won't anyways. 

 One hour isn't enough time for anything, is it? It doesn't feel like it. Not to me, anyways. I look at the clock and it reads 10:01pm. At 11:00pm, it's bed time. In-the-bed time, not sleeping necessarily. Less than an hour to do anything. There's lots to do; reading, studying, gaming, writing. All four sound good, all four entice me. But I am only one man, and I can only do one at a time.  That's a lie; thanks to Speechify (#sponsorme) and Youtube (#ihateads), I can study and game at the same time. That's the only crossover. That's a bummer. If I could read my book and play my game and write my story with only one processor, I would. Hell, it would save a ton of time in a multifaceted way. I wouldn't have to choose, and I wouldn't have to take my time choosing. It would just be, and I would just do it all.  Why does choosing take so much time? It's 10:09 now, and the clock moves in perpetual motion. Less time than before, yet no action has been ...

Today, I have not much to say. Other than perhaps if you are struggling to find inspiration, stop looking. Inspiration is not real. There is no inspiration to be found if you are looking for it. The magic comes like a blizzard and ceases when the wind stops blowing. Put your mind to rest, practice making things that don't mean anything, and let the urge grab you by the throat.  Good little artist, take your brush out.

 There's a new bump on my hand. A tiny little red mole between my pointer and my thumb. It's been there for a while but I didn't notice it really until now. It's annoyed me, it's stared me down at the computer, but only today I acknowledged it. Does this resonate? The cool thing about yourself is that you never really know you all the way. I thought I knew myself, then I found out I didn't, and since then I've been growing to know myself as an adult. It's pretty early on still, but I know that I still am learning who I am and what I think. Slowly, things have changed.  I learned the other day that I am socially anxious. Another little red thing I knew but never acknowledged. Big crowds and familiar faces. Those things make me sweat and shake. Literally shake. I bartended a wedding a month and a half ago, and the guest list was extensive; spanning three of my old employers to an ex girlfriend and her husband, all the way to old party friends and gym bro...

Art and creation and other things A blog by C. A. Winter  I'm worried about the journey ahead. Writing is a solitary hobby- hours alone in an office chair with my butt glued to a cushion and fingers tapping like spiders on a keyboard. The room is probably dark, and my phone is halfheartedly tucked under my leg to keep myself interested in the screen. Maybe Reddit sits open behind the document. Maybe the document is drowned out by Reddit. While having access to all the world's knowledge in a click is convenient, I see the appeal in a typewriter or a notepad. Fewer distractions, less guilt. No comparing my skill to someone more skilled than I, and no judgement passed to those who say weird things like "epic burn" or use too many adverbs. It makes me shake angrily. Shit prose.  So what am I supposed to do in the dark but dream of other worlds where fantastical people meet to do incredible things? Is it so far fetched to wonder if other people think about the loneliness o...