First, I was able to get 14 different writing projects accepted (mostly short stories in Static Movement anthologies and one of those a reprinting, but at least one novel at a small press). Unfortunately some 19 different projects were rejected - many of those by paying markets (anthologies or magazines) - making me still unsuccessful at aspiring toward the professional ranks of fiction writers. Even one market I thought I had an excellent chance getting into after two successful sales with the same editor last year proved a failure this time around (mainly due to my story being a future monster hunting story and the editor deciding there was no place for such a tale in the series third book - the story being considered good otherwise I gathered). Some of the same persons or companies rejected me this year as in previous ones - Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, Angry Robot Books, Redstone Science Fiction, Sword & Sorceress. Other markets rejected my work for the first time. Right now I'm awaiting a final verdict on one story at a small press where I've been published and rejected before. I also await to learn whether I'm qualified for a ghostwriting job to write a sci-fi novel after answering some questions from the employer in Northern Virginia. I will send another story to a market (Crossed Genres) that rejected three of my earlier stories (for superhero-themed issues) in 2010. I hope this will become my first professional pay rate story sale.
My personal and outside work life were also messes much of 2012. I lost my childhood home after eight months of this year and am still getting used to the new rental home I currently occupy. I quit the job I held one year ago due to the employer complaining about how poorly I did certain aspects of the cleaning work (doing my best but failing at things like window cleaning, disinfecting certain parts of treatment rooms and getting drywall dust off floors) and realizing if I couldn't improve I'd probably be fired. So I quit on March 20, but getting another job after that in this rotten economy took almost six months - admittedly I did not always look too hard, wanting some professional breakthrough from my writing to make me a true working author able to support himself that way. Then the second job I got lasted less than a month due to circumstances beyond my control. My right foot's ulcer (suffered since early in 2012 and delayed in healing due to diabetes) developed an infection after I moved in late August. I was often sick (even vomitting twice at home and once on the job) during September (also suffering chills and fevers sometimes). After a one-week hospital stay, with two surgeries on my foot's wound (once for a bone biopsy of the small toe and to clean out any infected tissues and again to suture the bandaged incision closed days later), I was forced to stay off my feet as much as possible (using a walker or hobbling on the right heel to get around) unable to walk normally or even drive anywhere. Forced to recuperate at home almost six weeks, when I was well enough to return to the second cleaning job I learned I'd been terminated for being away more than 30 days - an unavoidable consequence. Since learning this in early November, I've been without any job, watching my meager savings bleed away into many expenses (utilities and rent the biggest ones). I came close to being broke in recent times. Only borrowing against my life insurance policy (for a time recently I decided I was worth more dead than alive) and some final additional money from the folks who bought my home in 2011 has prevented that economic oblivion (I clearly see the Hand of God in these economic fixes). I'm still unemployed, getting silence or rejection from various employers I apply with in the last seven weeks after my last job was lost. I've not had a full-time job since 2009 (and that was in telemarketing). The last two (the one I quit and was fired from) were both part-time only.
In the romantic arena as a chronic bachelor I've had rotten experiences as well, but have realized a genetic condition has prevented my socializing well with other people (especially eligible young women in the past) and left me all alone most of the time. I began late in December 2011 joining different dating websites as a paying member having the spare income to indulge in such distractions. Sadly, every young lady (I aimed for women in their early 30s - the ultimate objective finding a soulmate for marriage and someone young enough to still have children if she wanted to) I tried contacting ignored or rejected me (but even the ones I messaged were very few). The occasional interest toward me as a man always came from slightly older or women closer to my own age (all clearly menopausal or sooner to be than I would've liked for the reason stated above about seeking someone in her 30s - not too young that we would be separated by many years to make me a creepy older man beside her, but still young enough to bear children for our family), often single mothers or divorcees (and an occasional widow). None of them seemed to have any common interests with my own and always lacked the outer qualities I sought in a true soulmate. Then there were the various scam artists, usually from some overseas or neighboring foreign country, often pretending they were instantly in love with me and sending clearly faked photos of models probably downloaded from the Internet. I dispensed with these scam artists (from Canada, Ghana and Nigeria usually) and even had one of them admit to being a young man posing as a woman. I read how these folks always want to private message away from the dating site's control or oversight and they always end up asking for money to come and live with the sucker they con for cash or gifts ($50 or more conned from an American can go a longer way in certain Third World places than it does here). After these fools preyed on me unsuccessfully (often pretending to be American women living abroad), I made contact with someone I first thought was different. A young elementary teacher (or so she claimed) named Elena from southern-central Siberia (living in a large city of 250,000 not far from Lake Baikal) wrote me back in poorly written English (almost as bad as some US texters with atrocious grammar and syntax) and seemed sweet. However, a predictable pattern emerged over the next few weeks. She quit her job soon after I began corresponding with her due to an alleged sexual advance from her school's male principal. Her photos were all of the same attractive young woman with light-brown hair and big blue-green eyes. She seemed tall and very physically attractive (not quite model quality) and claimed to be 28 years old. Unfortunately I was in declining financial straits that summer and chronically unemployed. She needed $500 to allegedly get the needed travel documents for emigrating from Russia to come here. I found out on the Internet that the US Embassy or consulates in Russia must approve the visa for foreigners to visit the US even temporarily. Something seemed fishy and after I had her background checked I concluded I was being deceived. I broke off the contact despite her continuing professions of attraction to me. I now suspect she was possibly a pawn of Russian organized crime wanting travel to America for some other reason than joining me for love. By late July I had quit all three dating sites I'd subscribed to - Plenty of Fish (or as I call it Bottom of the Barrel), Christian Mingle (it has plenty of divorced women among its members, even though the Bible teaches against remarraige after divorce) and Match.com (should be called Scammers.com). I will never sign up for those services again, nor would I recommend any of them (even though my younger second cousin did meet his current girlfriend on Plenty of Fish). So, here I sit alone with not even a girlfriend in my life (yeah, I know the photos of me here show I'm not handsome, but I'm certainly not what is known as fugly - some will disagree with me on that last bit).
So, in closing this long-winded posting, I am surviving, still unemployed and alone in my surroundings, with no tangible hope of either a career/day job or significant other. And to top my crap sundae with a spoiled, sour cherry, I have discovered this year the reason for my lifelong social awkwardness, physical clumsiness and lack of coordination, and narrow fixation on a few interests. I might have the autism-like condition known as Asperger's Syndrome. Reflecting on my life's past episodes and strange behaviors, it's the only thing that explains the abberations. I fit all the symptoms associated with Asperger's, but was never suspected of having it by any psychologist or psychiatrist of the few I ever met. It explains why I suck at girls (getting to know any available ones romantically), why I've made few friends in life, why I'm terrible at sports requiring good hand-eye coordination, and why I have a few intense interests at various points in my lifetime (in the past Dungeons & Dragons, the study of history and other various limited hobbies, and now fiction writing as a career to the exclusion of concern for my practical survival). I can't seem to hold a job, wanting inside to write fiction for a living despite failing at that goal. In short, something has to change about my life for the future to avoid some grim abysmal conclusion where I end up homeless and broke in 2013 or institutionalized for an inability to cope with the world's painful realities.
Yes, a few good things have happened in the past few days (getting two checks equallying together $615 and my rent paid up for four months in advance, along with being considered for a freelance part-time writing job on a novel), but there needs to be some more permanent, positive alteration to my circumstances and the ones I crave more than all others are a career where I'm creative, fully self-employed and unwilling to retire from that labor ever (fiction writing) and the woman who's perfect for me (but not the next guy) with her own professional accomplishments but still supportive and nurturing toward my personal goals. Will 2013 be the year I gain those two missing elements in my lonely life before it's too late? Will those changes occur when I least expect them? Well, dear reader, you will have to find out at my other Weebly.com website where I will be blogging in the coming year and beyond - http://theanticelebrityjohnxgrey.weebly.com/
Maybe we'll meet again there. Until then, good evening.