(Sunday Paper, Year V, Issue 19)

You’ve probably noticed I’ve been toying around with a few different things on social media, particularly the ‘Live’ functions on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

If you haven’t noticed, well, good for you for managing your social media during quarantine in a way that allows you some time away from people like me.

If you have noticed and are bothered by it, well, I’m sorry.

But the good news is I think I’ve settled on what’s going to happen from here on out.

Allow me to share with you the things I’ve been working on the past - oh my gosh - 8 weeks.

I guess it’s fair to say I’ve been working on some of them for 8 weeks…but really in fits and starts.

And some of these things are actually what I’ll be working on for the next 8 weeks, give or take.

But regardless, let’s start with what you already know:

Online Lessons

I started the quarantine thinking about how I could do something helpful.

The most obvious thought - because I was seeing my daughters home without school and no plan from the city yet, and considering my teaching background - was to do something educational.

It took a bit to find my footing there, and I think I finally did…just when the schools got their acts together and there were more solid plans in place for students.

I felt what I was doing was redundant. So I took a break from those lessons - but I do plan on coming back.

I’m thinking once summertime hits and kids who are used to going to camp might not have that option there might be a need for ‘Sucich Summer School’, and I’m making some plans to put into effect then. Probably not every day - because I suspect there will be competition then as well - some kind of on-line camp programming. But I think I’ll be less redundant.

So I think that will start happening in late June/early July…but I’m already thinking about how I can do it better than the first time around.

Writing

I almost hesitate to tell you this, because I hate saying something and then not delivering on it…but I’m working on a book.

For a long time I just couldn’t come up with any ideas.

I think part of this was the fact that I was doing a lot of comedy writing. For whatever reason, that pushed a lot of the other creative writing out of my brain for a long time.

But then, maybe around the beginning of this year (actually, some of these ideas date back to last spring, I remember) I started to have little ideas here and there.

The ideas were disconnected….but I started to string them together and they became the basis for a story that I am now thinking about and starting to put together.

I don’t know what will come of it.

But I guess I’m putting it here for accountability, and someday when we revisit this we’ll wonder whatever happened to the book John was working on during quarantine.

Reading My Work

Lastly, I’ve figured out the best use of Facebook Live for myself.

I’ve always enjoyed hearing certain authors read their work. David Sedaris immediately comes to mind. George Saunders, in my opinion, is the pinnacle of reading one’s own work…although I could probably listen to him read or talk about anything.

But I was thinking about that, and how I missed performing, and how I wasn’t doing any comedy writing - I’ve been thinking about a lot in recent days.

And it occurred to me that I had a huge archive of work to draw from that I could read aloud that:

-allows me to scratch the performance itch

-allows me to revisit some old writing

-perhaps will inspire some new writing - whether that’s future Sunday Papers, essays of some sort, or maybe even comedy writing

-and, I’m hopeful, will allow for some interaction. I have only had limited success with interaction on these live videos, but I like the idea that in theory someone can respond to what I’ve written in the past and am currently reading and I can respond in real time in an unscripted way. (This is a valuable tool for if I ever get to host a show again.)

So I’ve come up with an idea that a few days a week - at different times of the day - I’ll read a Sunday Paper from the past on Facebook Live, and other days I’ll go back through the ‘365 New Things In 2013’ archive and read some of those. (The archive actually got messed up when I moved all of those posts over to Squarespace and there was no way to find old ones without going back through multiple pages. So I’ve actually gone through the 365 posts and taken down their unique URLs for easier access…as though I needed other busy work to distract me.) I also might occasionally throw in other essays I’ve written.

I am not going to do this daily to overwhelm you. I’m figuring I’ll catch different people at the different times of the day that I do this - a couple of days before the work day (at 8:30-ish), a couple of days after the work day (maybe 6-ish), and a couple of days at lunch (noon-ish).

I’ll start this evening, 6-ish, by reading this Sunday Paper. I can’t remember where I experienced this - part of me thinks it was working an overnight at a TV station but I don’t know that for sure - but I remember hearing a radio station where a newsreader would read articles straight out of the newspaper. Maybe for the visually impaired?

Anyway, I will do that on Sunday evenings with that day’s Sunday Paper, and then Monday through Friday will be for the old stuff.

I’m probably going to keep it strictly to Facebook, unless someone can convince me it should be on Instagram.

I hope it will be enjoyable to you, and I hope you’ll interact. If you’ve come to the Sunday Paper from somewhere other than the Facebook page, here’s where you can go to Like my Facebook page…and you can follow me on Twitter here while you’re at it.

If you’re a mom, Happy Mother’s Day.

If you’re not a mom, well, thanks for reading.

I’ll see you later.