Tag: creativity

• January 9, 2023

  The Birthday Resolutions Pick Up Steam

  

  In the eleven or twelve years I’ve been making birthday resolutions, my success rate is mixed at actually following through on my goals. Some years, I check off each and every one, accomplishing everything I set out to do. Other years, I make little to no progress.

  I think the reason for this has less to do with the resolutions themselves and more to do with me. You see, when I first started documenting my annual ritual of creating resolutions for the coming year on my birthday, I would set out these grand, vague, life-changing milestones to hit—and I’d fall short. It’s not that they were bad goals. I chose them because they seemed out of reach. But I was under the mistaken impression that Future Me would be inspired to try harder and accomplish more, but Future Me saw an insurmountable obstacle and threw in the towel.

  It turns out (no surprise) that habits are hard to change, no matter how sincerely you want it. The older I get, the more I understand what works and what doesn’t work for me. I know that I do better with smaller, specific resolutions—especially when they build on something I’m already doing. Maybe it’s cheating, but it’s a lot easier to hit a target if you’re already aiming for it.

  That self-awareness is at the heart of what makes a good birthday resolution. Sure, you want to grow, you want to challenge and stretch yourself, but you’ve also got to play to your strengths and not set yourself up for failure.

  It’s an approach that’s working for me, helping me make incremental improvements over the course of a year. Of course, that’s isn’t stopping me from making big, vague, no-way-you’ll-finish-this-in-lifetime-let-alone-one-year resolutions like “be the best parent I can be,” but I’m under no illusions that I’ll be checking them off this time next January.

  If Past Me was all about resolutions as rockets, then Future Me is about slow and steady progress. Just keep chugging, Future Me. You’ve got this.

  With all that preamble aside, here are my birthday resolutions for the year 2023 (my thirty-third trip around the sun):

  Finish My Projects

  This one carries over from last year, because I will always struggle to prioritize existing creative projects over shiny new ideas. It’s just in my nature to constantly churn out new stories, but this year, I really want to wrap a few things up, including the final two seasons of The Adventures of Captain Radio, revisions on my novel, and editing a collection of sci-fi stories I wrote with my friends back in high school that really deserves to see the light of day.

  Get Outside Every Day

  If there was a silver lining to the early days of the pandemic, it was my daily walk. It helped me stay grounded when it felt like the world was in chaos. It may be cold or rainy, but a dose of the outdoors, however small, does wonders for my mental health. So, for at least a few minutes every day this year, I want to get outside and get a few lungfuls of fresh air to clear my head.

  Experiment Fearlessly

  I used to write things because I thought they would have mass appeal. I wanted to be taken seriously as a writer and I desperately wanted to be published. But something clicked into place over the last couple of years. I started writing pieces that were less mainstream and more like the things I wanted to read. And a funny thing happened—those pieces found an audience and I was taken seriously as a storyteller with something to say. In 2023, I hope to continue that evolution; to not worry about what everyone else is writing or what I think would be marketable and to trust my instincts. Here’s to a year of fearless creativity.

  New habits and routines aren’t made in a day. These resolutions will take time—if I accomplish them at all. But I can feel the momentum building. It’s gonna be a good year.

  —30—

  Jonny Eberle is a writer, podcaster, and storyteller. He lives in Tacoma, WA with his family, a dog, and three adorable typewriters. His writing has been published in Creative Colloquy, Grit City Magazine, and All Worlds Wayfarer. You can listen to his audio drama, The Adventures of Captain Radio, and his writing podcast, Dispatches with Jonny Eberle, wherever you enjoy podcasts.

  If you liked this post, please consider subscribe for his monthly email newsletter for news, curated reading recommendations, and more. Thanks for reading!
• January 5, 2023

  The First Loaf of the New Year: A Meditation on Bread-Making

  

  It’s still dark outside as I weigh my flour. The light of the digital display on my kitchen scale glows blue and casts shadows across the mound of all-purpose and whole wheat flour in a glass bowl. I hold a meat thermometer under a stream of running water, adjusting the faucet handle by degrees in search of the perfect temperature before filling my Pyrex measuring cup and mixing the water with the flour to form a thick paste. Then, there’s time to relax while the flour absorbs the moisture, before salt and yeast are added and these simple ingredients are transformed into something altogether different.

  There is waiting. There is checking, peering under the lid to see if anything has changed. There are moments to reach in and pull and fold sticky dough, then to step back and let it rest again. Unlike nearly everything else, there are no shortcuts, no way to speed up the process. Baking bread forces you to slow down and move at the pace of very small things. The yeast does not care what time it is nor what else I may have planned.

  By mid-afternoon, my dough has evolved. It has structure now and bubbles of gas pressing against its skin. I lift it out of the bowl and shape it with floured hands, then place it in a floured basket and cover it again for one last rise.

  I preheat the oven, knowing that it will take a long time to get up to temperature. A Dutch oven warms up inside. Then, a burst of movement, getting a perfectly proofed loaf out of its basket and into the Dutch oven without burning myself and getting it back into the oven before the moment passes.

  

  There is something special about baking the first bread of the new year. I’m not sure why it is, maybe it’s the closeness of working in the kitchen while it’s dark outside, or perhaps it’s the stillness that descends after the holidays. Sure, there’s a recipe to follow and ratios to adhere to, but a good bake comes down to more than checking off the steps in a list. It’s about instinct, intuition, and a pinch of luck.

  When the bread emerges, it has developed a dark brown crust that crackles under my fingertips. It sounds hollow when tapped. The whole house smells like baking bread. And has the winter sun fades, I cut into the loaf to enjoy the first warm slice with butter.

  It had been a long time since I’d made bread. It’s an investment of time—a whole day at least, and sometimes several. I’m not an expert by any means, but when I devote the energy to bread, I’m reminded of why I like making it in the first place. It’s satisfying to make something from scratch, to know I’m drawing on techniques that go back generations and connect me to bread-makers stretching back over 14,000 years.

  Most of all, when I practice my bread making, I am reminded that good things take time and care. And that the time is worth it.

  

  —30—

  Jonny Eberle is a writer, podcaster, and bread maker. He lives in Tacoma, WA with his family, a dog, and three adorable typewriters. His writing has been published in Creative Colloquy, Grit City Magazine, and All Worlds Wayfarer. You can listen to his audio drama, The Adventures of Captain Radio, and his writing podcast, Dispatches with Jonny Eberle, wherever you enjoy podcasts.

  If you liked this post, please consider subscribe for his monthly email newsletter for exclusive content, curated reading recommendations, and more. Thanks for reading!
• December 21, 2022

  “The Evidence for Coal” Revisited

  

  There’s nothing quite like a good Christmas story. Perhaps you have your own memories of being read “The Night Before Christmas” as a kid and swearing you could hear footsteps on the roof. Or maybe your family sat down to watch Charlie Brown choose a scraggly pine to be the center of the Christmas pageant. Personally, I always looked forward to seeing the claymation TV specials like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. In any case, storytelling is a large part of the Christmas mythology in western traditions, blending old and new beliefs to create something a little more magical than our day-to-day experiences.

  Back in 2016, Creative Colloquy put out a call for Christmas-themed stories, poems, and essays. I thought it would be a fun challenge to add my own twist to the generations of Yuletide fiction that’s come before. Set in the North Pole in the days before Christmas, “The Evidence for Coal” shows what happens when jolly old St. Nick and Big Data collide. It’s a bit of a satire of our data-driven culture and a bit of a reflection on why the idea of a man in a red suit delivering gifts to children around the world is so strangely compelling in the first place — nothing groundbreaking, just some good old fashioned Christmas fare.

  READ “THE EVIDENCE FOR COAL” BY JONNY EBERLE

  This year, I decided to revisit this story, sprucing it up for my podcast on writing and the creative process, Dispatches with Jonny Eberle. I asked my friend William McDonald to narrate it and I think his acting chops really serve to bring the story to life. I can almost smell the hot cocoa wafting through the corporate halls of Santa’s workshop.

  Ready to give it a listen? You can find the episode below or check it out wherever you find your podcasts. I hope you enjoy it and happy holidays!

  — 30 —

  Jonny Eberle is a writer and podcaster in Tacoma, WA. His work has appeared in Creative Colloquy, Grit City Magazine, and All Worlds Wayfarer. You can follow him on Twitter, join his mailing list, and listen to his audio drama, The Adventures of Captain Radio, wherever you enjoy podcasts. Want to hear this blog post in podcast form? Subscribe to Dispatches with Jonny Eberle.
• October 20, 2022

  New Short Story: “Reviews of Sanctuary Creek Honey Farm”

  

  This Labor Day weekend, my family took a road trip through North Cascades National Park. Along the way, we stopped in the small town of Winthrop, WA, to grab a snack and stretch our legs after a long drive. Things went downhill almost as soon as we got out of the car.

  Winthrop, it turned out, was under siege by bees. Bees were everywhere, dive-bombing us when we tried to enjoy an iced chai at an outdoor cafe, popping up unexpectedly from under the boards of the wood-plank sidewalks, and swarming us when we dared to stop in a creekside park for lunch. In the end, we gave up, packed up, and drove an hour farther into the mountains to eat in peace.

  Our experience wasn’t all that unusual, but it left me wondering what would happen if a town really did get taken over by bees. How would the residents react? How would tourists rate their visit if they were constantly under threat of being stung by oversized and increasingly organized honeybees?

  I couldn’t get the idea out of my head. So, I started writing. The end result was a weird, experimental little story in the form of a series of online reviews — to say anymore would be spoiling it.

  I’m pleased that the editors of Creative Colloquy enjoyed it enough to publish it on their site. You can read “Reviews of Sanctuary Creek Honey Farm” now:

  READ “REVIEWS OF SANCTUARY CREEK HONEY FARM”

  If you like the story, let me know by leaving a comment below. If you’re a writer in the South Sound with a story or poem that’s ready for publication, check out Creative Colloquy. They’re always looking for local scribes to feature. Thanks for reading!

  — 30 —

  Jonny Eberle is a writer, podcaster, filmmaker, and photographer in Tacoma, WA. You can find his words in Creative Colloquy, Grit City Magazine, and All Worlds Wayfarer. While you’re here, read more of his travel writing, sign up for his monthly newsletter, and follow him on Twitter.

  P.S. If you’re reading this before October 30, 2022, there’s still time to help my audio drama The Adventures of Captain Radio win an Audio Verse Award! Learn more here.
• July 12, 2022

  Audio Drama, Sherlock Holmes, and Public Domain in My Interview With Grit City Podcast

  

  A few weeks ago, I got to sit down with the friendly folks at the Grit City Podcast to chat about my work as a writer, podcast creator, and filmmaker. We talk about my podcast “The Adventures of Captain Radio,” my involvement as a member of the Creative Colloquy board and as a contributor to Grit City Magazine, and Tacoma’s amazing arts community. See the post below from Obscure Studios to listen to the episode. Thanks to Scott, Justin, and Jeff for having me on the show!

  This week, you can catch Obscure Studios president Jonny Eberle on The Grit City Podcast! The Grit City Podcast has a simple premise—in every episode, the hosts sit down with Tacoma-based creatives and entrepreneurs over a couple of drinks to learn more about them and their projects. In this episode, Jonny joins the crew for […]

  Obscure Studios Talks Audio Drama on the Grit City Podcast — Obscure Studios

  — 30 —

  Jonny Eberle is a writer and podcaster in Tacoma, WA. His work has appeared in Creative Colloquy, Grit City Magazine, and All Worlds Wayfarer. You can follow him on Twitter, join his mailing list, and listen to his audio drama, The Adventures of Captain Radio, wherever you enjoy podcasts.
• June 27, 2022

  How to Write When You Don’t Have the Time or Energy to Write

  

  

  Don’t get me wrong, I love to write. Creative projects fill my proverbial cup. But sometimes, I just don’t have the time to devote to the practice of writing, or when I do have the time, I can’t muster up the energy to actually put my fingers to the keyboard. Am I a bad writer because I can’t get the words to flow?

  I’m not a machine. I can’t flip a switch and suddenly be in production mode. That isn’t how creativity works. When the baby hasn’t been sleeping well or when I’ve spent all of my creative energy at work or when the dishes are overflowing the sink, it’s hard to even want to write.

  And yet.

  There is a voice in my head that says, “You’re not a real writer if you avoid writing. You’ll never publish your novel, finish your podcast script, send this short story out, etc.” Maybe you’ve heard this voice, too. It’s persistent, gnawing. It’s also dead wrong.

  I don’t know anybody who can write like clockwork every single day without a break. We all feel exhausted or overwhelmed sometimes. I often take long hiatuses from my creative writing, which makes me feel guilty, but it shouldn’t. Because there are days when the news is bad and the chores can’t be ignored and after all that, I just need to shut my brain off for 30 minutes with some TV. Or simply go to bed early.

  I would love to be one of those highly disciplined artists who stick to a rigid schedule, churning out masterpiece after masterpiece. Maybe I’ll be a full-time writer someday and have the privilege to spend my days like that. But right now, I have so many other things that need my attention.

  I don’t think that makes me a bad writer or somehow not a “real” artist. I’m human—and most of us humans need to rest when we’re tired, so we can come back refreshed, inspired, and excited to put words on the page. After all, if you’re not enjoying the act of writing, then what’s the point?

  How do you write when you don’t have the time or the energy to write? 1) Aim small. Instead of writing for an hour, write for 10 minutes, or write even one sentence. It feels good to make progress on a project, no matter how small it is. 2) Maybe you don’t worry about it today. Your Word doc with its incessantly blinking cursor will still be there tomorrow. It is good to give yourself a break. Rest when your mind and body need it. Give yourself permission to focus on your to-do list and don’t feel bad about dedicating time to other parts of your life. Stephen King has to fold and put away his laundry just like the rest of us.

  It’s okay not to write. You’re still a writer, even if it’s been days, weeks, or months since you actually wrote a word. If the desire to tell a story is still in you, then you’re the real deal.

  So here’s to the working parent writers. The full-time job writers. The juggling-multiple-jobs writers. The caregiver writers. The chronic health condition writers. The gotta-focus-on-my-mental-health writers. The burned-out writers. I’m with you. And when we’re ready to get back to our manuscripts, it’s going to be amazing. Until then, be kind to yourself.

  —30—

  Jonny Eberle is a writer and podcaster in Tacoma, WA. His work has appeared in Creative Colloquy, Grit City Magazine, and All Worlds Wayfarer. You can follow him on Twitter, join his mailing list, and listen to his audio drama, The Adventures of Captain Radio, wherever you enjoy podcasts.
• March 28, 2022

  How I Finished the First Draft of My Novel

  

  

  Way back in November 2021, while insanely sleep-deprived from caring for a one-month-old, I made a fateful—and you might say crazy—decision: I decided to take a crack at writing a novel.

  This was far from my first attempt at writing a novel. My computer’s hard drive is littered with abandoned first drafts I had every intention of finishing. I can come up with ideas at the drop of a hat, but following through on those ideas has always been a struggle for me. This time, something was different.

  Every day in the month of November, I wrote. And I don’t mean I sat down at my computer with a steaming mug of tea and no distractions while I worked on my masterpiece. I was working full-time, caring for my newborn daughter, and supporting my exhausted spouse as we survived the early days of parenthood. There was no extra time for this creative endeavor. So, I wrote in the middle of the night while rocking a baby to sleep, tapping a story out one-handed on my phone in the dark at 3 a.m., and praying to the autocorrect gods that my words would be intelligible in the morning.

  November came and went. I kept writing. The Google Doc I was working in groaned under the stress as the novel grew. Soon, the app was crashing every third or fourth time I opened it. But I pressed on, determined to see the project through.

  In February of 2022, my wife went back to work and I took leave to spend time with our daughter. So, nap time became writing time. In between juggling parenting and housework, while making sure the dog was getting her walks and putting out a fiction podcast, I soldiered on.

  Last week, I typed the final line of the first draft of my novel, bringing my story to a close. I’m taking a break before diving into the next phase: editing. For now, I can at last say that I did what I set out to do. I wrote a novel. At just shy of 100,000 words long and chronicling the ups and downs of a family entangled with the Las Vegas Mob over the course of six decades, it’s no small feat.

  Several years ago, I set myself a task of completing a manuscript by the time I turned 30 years old. I missed that deadline by a couple of years, but I proved to myself that it was possible. And having done it once, I’m pretty sure I could do it again. That’s a good feeling. I’m well aware that there’s so much more work to be done. This is only the beginning. But I’m choosing to bask in this pause between the first round of labor and all the editing that is still to come to enjoy the feeling of accomplishment.

  If there’s a message to other artists in my experience of these past few months, it’s that it is never too late. If you’re contemplating a daunting creative project, go for it. Don’t wait for the perfect time, because it will never come. Take the leap. Write it down. Pick up the paintbrush. See how far you can go.

  —30—

  Jonny Eberle is a writer and aspiring podcaster in Tacoma, WA. His fiction has been featured in Creative Colloquy, Grit City Magazine, and All Worlds Wayfarer. You can listen to his debut audio drama, The Adventures of Captain Radio or his writing and creativity podcast, Dispatches with Jonny Eberle, wherever you find podcasts. Follow him on Twitter or join his mailing list for more news, writing, and musings.
• February 28, 2022

  New Short Story: Victorious

  

  I’m pleased to share that I have a new short story published this month on Creative Colloquy’s website. It’s a piece of flash fiction written in response to artist Steve LaBerge’s installation “Touching Down in Tacoma,” which was a part of the Tacoma Light Trail, an exhibition of light art in downtown Tacoma. For a few weeks this winter, LaBerge transformed the lobby of the historic Pantages Theatre into an alien landscape with a lone illuminated figure sitting beside a suit of some kind and a board of multicolored squares. Also included was an ethereal song provided by the Puget Sound Revels.

  Looking at LaBerge’s piece, I was struck by the whimsy and the melancholy in the scene. With that in mind, I set out to write a short story incorporating the various elements of the installation and trying to imagine who the lone figure was and what they were doing there in this bizarre, otherworldly place. The resulting story is “Victorious,” about the last survivor of a devastating future war in the final moments of a world about to end. It appears in this month’s fiction and poetry published by Creative Colloquy, alongside a poem by Erik Carlsen.

  Before reading the story, I invite you to look at “Touching Down in Tacoma” and listen to the music. Then, head over to Creative Colloquy to read the story. I hope you enjoy it!

  view “touching down in tacoma”

  read “victorious’ by jonny eberle

  — 30 —

  Jonny Eberle is a writer and aspiring podcaster in Tacoma, WA. His fiction has been featured in Creative Colloquy, Grit City Magazine, and All Worlds Wayfarer, and his debut audio drama, The Adventures of Captain Radio. Follow him on Twitter or join his mailing list for more news, writing, and musings.
• February 18, 2022

  I Guess This Makes Me a Podcaster: On Creating The Adventures of Captain Radio

  

  Let me start out by saying that I didn’t intend to create a podcast. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always enjoyed podcasts, having been a fervent Radiolab listener for more than 10 years, and I regularly recommend shows like 99 Percent Invisible, Levar Burton Reads, The Moth, and Imaginary Worlds to anyone who will listen. But I never thought I would make one. These shows were highly produced works of art. Coming from a film background, I knew how much time and energy that takes to pull off.

  But then, the whole world changed.

  A deadly pandemic upended my daily routine. I was out of work, alone at home, for days…and then weeks…and then months. I read a lot, but I also dove headlong into every podcast I could find, sampling from genres and formats I never knew existed. I listened all the time—in the shower, while weeding the garden, out walking the dog—trying to shut out terrifying reality with comforting voices in my ears.

  All that listening dredged up an old idea. Back in college, I used to joke with my friend and frequent collaborator Will McDonald that someday we were going to make a black-and-white sci-fi B-movie called Captain Radio and the Mutant Mole People from the Eleventh Dimension. For years and years, it was nothing more than an inside joke. Then, in the fall of 2020, something clicked and I realized that Captain Radio wasn’t a movie at all, but a 1930s radio show.

  I started writing. Soon, I had dashed off three scripts bursting with rocket ships, ray guns, robots, mad scientists, rapid-fire dialogue, melodrama, and (of course) a valiant hero. It was silly stuff, popcorn fare of the highest order, but it felt good to write something hopeful in the midst of a global catastrophe. I needed the escape, and I suspected others did, too. So, I pitched the show to Will and asked him to come along as the star and co-producer. For some crazy reason, he agreed. Together, we assembled a talented voice cast from across the country, many of whom we knew from Theatrikos Theatre Company in Flagstaff, AZ.

  After a lot of work finalizing the six-episode story, organizing recordings, learning my way around Audacity, creating sound effects with random objects lying around my house (wine glasses, bags of rice, and a wet sponge among many others), the first episode dropped on December 31, 2021. Chapter 4 is out now and as we rocket toward the season finale in a couple of weeks, I’m proud of the work we’ve done and hope listeners have enjoyed coming along for the ride as much as we’ve had fun putting it together.

  If you’re interested in checking out the show, you can find The Adventures of Captain Radio in all the usual places you consume podcasts, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. If you enjoy the show, please take a moment to leave a rating and review telling others one thing you liked about it — that helps us immensely. You can also buy merchandise featuring artwork and quotes from the show, or you can skip all of that and make a monetary donation on Ko-Fi to help pay the bills. You can learn more on the Obscure Studios website if you’d like to dig deeper.

  I didn’t set out to become a podcaster, but here I am. I’m so excited to be sharing this spacefaring journey with you. Thanks for listening.

  — 30 —

  Jonny Eberle is a writer and aspiring podcaster in Tacoma, WA. His fiction has been featured in Creative Colloquy, Grit City Magazine, and All Worlds Wayfarer, and his debut audio drama, The Adventures of Captain Radio. Follow him on Twitter or join his mailing list for more news, writing, and musings.
• January 11, 2021

  The Birthday Resolutions Achieve Escape Velocity

  

  Against all odds, for the first time since I started making birthday resolutions well over a decade ago, I accomplished all of my goals last year. To be sure, most of them were pretty vague: take better care of my body, write more short fiction, and read to expand my horizons. My thirtieth year of life did not go as planned, but despite the many personal, professional and existential crises that threatened to derail me, I accidentally did everything I set out to do in 2020.

  When the pandemic shut everything down, I found solace in my daily walks around the neighborhood. And when Jura, our puppy, came to live with us, those walks became longer and more frequent. At one point in the fall, I was averaging almost four miles a day and feeling better, stronger, more energetic.

  After a months-long creative rut (during the aforementioned existential crisis of living through a global pandemic), I started writing. My output this year was more than it has been in years. I published three short stories and one article in various journals and periodicals, which still feels like an incredible feat. I also dove into a long-neglected project of editing a collection of linked short stories I wrote with some friends back in our high school and early college days. In it’s final, printed form, it will be over 500 pages long and will commemorate a wonderfully formative and creative time in our lives.

  Finally, I set myself the challenge to read and learn more. Just one week before COVID-19 upended the world, I completed my Strategic Communications and Public Relations certificate. Throughout the year, I read heaps of books — over 4,000 pages worth of fiction and nonfiction. Along the way, I learned a lot from journalists and academics by reading probably hundreds of articles throughout the year touching on subjects as diverse as systemic racism, geopolitics, history, and quantum mechanics. This year, I was reminded of why I love books so much and how much comfort the written world can provide during times of stress and uncertainty — whether it’s through new information or pure escapism.

  So, how do I plan to top those birthday resolutions this year? It won’t be easy. But I hope to use the momentum of last year to catapult myself to new heights in the year to come. Because what is the past if not a booster rocket, lifting us into a higher orbit in the future? Here’s what I’m resolving for 2021:

  Prioritize Self-Care

  This is a tough one for me. Last year was personally difficult. I lost my job, lost out on vacations and events and seeing friends. Even though I’m an extroverted introvert by nature and don’t mind spending time along at home, there were times when I was so worried about the future that I couldn’t imagine a scenario where anything got better, ever. I realized that I wasn’t taking very good care of myself. I may have been attending to my physical needs — sleeping, eating, exercising — but I was neglecting my mental well-being. Things eventually did get better, but I know that I need to do a better job of caring for my whole self, physically, mentally, and emotionally. That will mean knowing when to stop doomscrolling, when I need to talk to my spouse, and setting healthy boundaries for myself. 2020 was a wake-up call I intend to answer.

  Follow My Creative Whims

  Last year, I wrote a lot and broke out of my shell a bit more as a writer. I started to incorporate more speculative elements in my fiction and people seemed to enjoy that aspect of my work. In the past, I’ve often kept my pieces intended for publication rather grounded, but letting go of reality (or at least, loosening its grip on my creative freedom) allowed me to follow my instincts in exciting and unexpected directions. I also experimented more with stories that comment on timely issues, like the pandemic and climate change. This year, I resolve to trust my writerly intuition; to worry less about what someone else might define as “literary” and worry more about what kinds of narratives make me want to keep reading. If I enjoy writing it, chances are someone will enjoy reading it.

  Bake the Perfect Loaf of Bread

  A few years ago, probably as a result of binge-watching the Great British Baking Show, I started to learn how to bake bread. I made some progress and had a few good bakes, but this year, I want to take it to the next level. Not to merely bake something adequate, but to create a flavorful, crusty masterpiece to rival the best bread I could buy at my local bakery. I declare this the year of pre-ferments, long rises, kitchen scales, proofing baskets, and steam-filled dutch ovens. This year, I shall bake the perfect loaf of bread. So say we all.

  For the first time in a long time, I have no preconceived ideas about what this next year of life will bring me. Last year has taught me that the status quo can change in an instant. The year ahead is filled with challenges I can’t begin to anticipate, but I hope to face each one with courage, determination, and a sense of wonder.

  Twelve, eleven, ten, nine.

  Ignition sequence start.

  Six, five, four, three, two, one, zero.

  All engines running.

  Liftoff.

  — 30 —

  Jonny Eberle is a writer in Tacoma, WA. His newest short story, Firemaker, is now available to read in the current issue of All Worlds Wayfarer. Follow along with updates on how this year’s resolutions are going by following Jonny on Twitter or subscribing to Jonny’s newsletter.