Obligatory Posts

Despite having a little time off and the availability to work on things for my website, I didn’t do all the “end of year” things that so many people program and just let go. I find as often as not that I get frustrated by recycled content. There are certainly things to look back at – both good and bad – but there are also many things to look forward to.

No, I don’t do resolutions. I made a new year’s resolution many years ago to *never* make a new year’s resolution again, and I haven’t since then. I post about it every year, and it hasn’t changed.

I received a summary of my “year in books” from Goodreads. I was extremely disappointed in my summary. Not because of the company or the format or anything like that. It was the simple fact that I ended up with less than 10 books for the year. It was just about 2,600 pages of reading total, but the “books read” also included one that I literally shelved as “DNF” because I couldn’t bring myself to finish it. It would be easy to be very depressed about this lack of quality reading, but I’m going to take the advice of a random internet person and be happy that I was reading. I didn’t stop reading, I’m just going slower than my previous years of 2 or 3 books per month. I’ve had a lot going on in my life and reading for pleasure became something of a challenge – but I didn’t stop. There are so many people out there that don’t read at all, and I do NOT want to join those ranks. I’m taking it as a win that I kept plugging along.

So this year I’m going to keep doing the things I love. It will still be a challenging time as things move and change and grow in the family life here. I’ll still have to work at making the time to actually accomplish things, but for some reason the start of this year doesn’t feel as bleak as some in the past. We’ll see.

Up next – some of that “creating” stuff. More to follow~

That drama

Remember way back at the end of the summer? The sun was out, the weather was warm and there was all this time to just sit and ponder the particulars of being a parent. Writing and creating posts just whenever the mood moved. Something about drama and what parents should… something. I don’t remember.

Here we are in the dark and chilly days of mid-November and somehow two whole months have disappeared. Oh, I know where they went, but they’re are gone just the same.

Having two, non-driving teenagers in different clubs and school based activities has proven to be quite the challenge. Morning, noon and night the schedule here is relentless. Then of course is the drama – the laughing, the tears the yelling… and that’s just me.

There is of course also my professional world. Writing is NOT the day job, and the day job is jumping. On the up side of that, I have accomplished a major first step in my career that has taken me many, many years to get to. It’s just a step, but an important one.

In the end, some of my creativity has suffered. I would not trade a minute of it for sitting and staring at the blank page. Writing is a solitary endeavor in the end, and I have NOT been solitary. I am just fine with this. Long nights and ugly weather will pen us in and give ample time for posting things up to an old fashioned notion like a blog. Hopefully I’ll get here more than once a quarter…

Squeezing

I have come to discover that writing in any form is a struggle. Yes, I know – all the writers and creative types I know just collectively said “duh”. I get it, but sometimes saying it (or typing it) helps with the reality of making a change.

I am a writer that runs on inspiration. Long haul work is extremely difficult doing that, and finishing something the size and scope of a novel is exactly that – a long haul. I suck at that.

I’ve been chipping away at the edges of writing for many years, but what I have been doing is clearly not working, nor is it getting me the result I desire. I need to finish more, but in order to finish more I need to actually create more. I can’t sit and wait for inspiration or the ever elusive (thought to be mythical) ‘free time’.

So – I’m going to be squeezing things in. Maybe the edits won’t be great. There will be grammar and spelling issues. I can’t edit if it’s not created. The secret story in my head will never go anywhere without trying to record it in some form.

There you go – I squoze it myself.

Secret Connection

A starting point. I need some kind of warm up. Sitting and staring into a blank page is a genuine challenge – and one that will be overcome. Writing can be developed, just like any other ‘muscle’ so we’re stretching, then digging into a workout.

From time to time I check out a website called “Post Secret”. The idea of the project, if you’re not familiar with it, is that people write a secret on a post card and send it in to an address. This secret is then shared anonymously for others to see. Some are silly. Some are angry. Many, many secrets make connections and help other people see that they are not alone. I suspect my own life would be significantly different than it is today if something like this had been available when I was a kid.

I have spoken to friends and shared before that when I was in my pre- and early teens I was really into Dungeons & Dragons (I still am!). I started playing and gathering all things D&D very early on. This was also the time of the Satanic Panic. Other kids in my neighborhood were told not to associate with me because I played this game. Some kids didn’t get rules that applied to that degree, but their parents removed any and all chance of them owning anything related to D&D. The quote from one mom was, “We understand this is a game of imagination that only needs a paper and pencil. We know we can’t stop that, but we refuse to support it.”

That’s extremely rough when it’s aimed at somebody just developing social skills. Your friend group, likely already limited based on choices that didn’t necessarily fit the social norm of the time, being bent, battered and reduced because a swath of the adults in your life give you “we refuse to support it” as the answer to you wanting to play a game and be social.

I saw this postcard on the Post Secret site:

The person that sent it in is a little younger than I am, but likely caught the back end of that same panic. It also shows (to me) the deep, far reaching social nature of this game. The reason it endures. Fantastical, imaginative and connection creating. When you find ‘your people’ and they join the amazing journey into a place that doesn’t exist anywhere except your mind it is a powerful thing.

For many, many years I refused to share my passion about D&D. I’m not a professional author (clearly) and not a professional artist (witness my art) but I have played this game, and others like it, for the vast majority of my life. Having had all my early attempts to connect with others about it met with reactionary, panic based push back I was not interested in reaching out to get smacked down or insulted. It became habit.

Putting this out here in writing (again) I think is part of my process of getting past that. Yes, given the massive success and mainstream knowledge / understanding of D&D these days it doesn’t seem like a huge leap, but it feels that way to me. I am used to push back, insults, and demeaning nicknames. I’m not over that, but I’m working on it. I’m certainly not intimidated by any individual these days. Also, I know, intellectually, that people are aware of what I do and what I am interested in among my friends. I have recently started extending that awareness out to others, including people I am associated with professionally. I am still attempting to maintain a clear demarcation between work life and personal life (as my lovely wife likes to say, ‘don’t shit where you eat’) but I am not longer hiding things like the YouTube videos or the Twitch stream from them either.

I am who I am. I am passionate about my hobbies and enjoy sharing them. I love this stuff. Maybe not as much as sex, but this ‘secret’ was out there and did what it was supposed to do… it made a connection.

All that writing, and I didn’t even pull a muscle. Time to keep going. Maybe I’ll write up some adventures for the campaign I’m running…

Musing

Sometimes I forget how much I used to ‘cheat’ and grab time to write from various places. A few minutes here, a couple of paragraphs there. These days those moments seem to be filled in, like water flowing down between ice cubes in your glass. The big objects are there and still relatively the same, the spaces in between are suddenly filled.

Here we are 2 weeks into the new year and I haven’t posted anything yet.

Looking back, it makes sense. There are lots of things I don’t share out here on the internet. There are things that people outside of my immediate, real world circle don’t need to know. There are things they don’t get to know. I realize that my readership numbers are not such that this is an actual problem… but perhaps someday. I will continue to treat this as if somebody actually reads this and cares.

So, along those lines I can say that while many things have changed, even more have stayed the same. Something I have noticed though is a distinct continuation of the creativity slump. When I looked back at my previous “welcome to the new year” post it showed that I’d read something more than 30 books that previous year. This past year I didn’t break 20. That’s dismal for me. A deepening slump.

I’ve submitted less of my writing as well. There just hasn’t been the inspiration… and it’s pretty clear that I need a muse. I’ve been pushing along my D&D playing and writing things for that, but it’s not translating into a creative bump the way it used to.

I have all the bits to work on miniatures and terrain… and have slumped terribly there too. It’s just not moving. There’s lots of amazing content out there to teach and show how to create excellent terrain. There are some amazing artists on my socials that show off great works (and let’s be fair, some not so great – but that’s just as helpful in many ways). I still haven’t been able to even muster a dungeon tile set.

So, what do I do? Where do I start?

I don’t know. I don’t have a good answer for that. It fills me with fear that the drive to do those things is seeping away. I love all that creative stuff. I crave great stories. I want my stories, my art, my creativity to be out there and be part of this amazing, creative world… and it’s just not going.

What do you do? How do you contact your muse?

Haiku

Poetry is something I’ve always struggled with. It feels like being a good story teller would relate to good poetry with word choice and the way a statement flows when spoken, but that’s just not the case. I can get a rhythm, I can work with a particular rhyme structure… but it just never seems to come together.

Haiku seems to be the answer for me.

I read a little about the history of this poetic form in the book Japanese Death Poems. It’s a fascinating bit of history if you’re into something with a little bit of a dark tint. The form was massively celebrated during Japan’s history and has changed in form and format over time.

Still not something I’m going to ever be great at, but a form I can work with. Friends of mine got married this past weekend. One of the things happening at their reception was a haiku contest. While I know these poems won’t have the meaning to people reading here that they did to the couple, I felt it was worth posting them. Get outside your comfort zone now and then. Try something different. Write a poem…

You told a story
of the man in the past – it
was always a skirt

We visit the bar
then elevator roulette
who really won?

Modulating the Wave

I’ve been away from here for a while. It happens. There’s probably some kind of wave pattern here, but I’m not going to find it. I have had a lot of feelings about so called “productivity” and what that means. I’ve been working hard at doing the things that I’m moved to do as I feel like doing them. Sometimes I practice niksen. Niksen is the Dutch art of doing nothing. Sounds silly, but it matters. Taking time and just letting my mind wander. Staring at the screen saver on the TV and just watching the fish swim. Breathing, closing my eyes and listening. Trying to get all the junk signals to quiet down and focus on the ones that matter.

I recall posting about this before, but I’m going to say it again in case there are folks that have missed it in the past. At one point I was reading a regular column from a local new source. This is someone holding the job of writer at an actual news source. Yes, writing the “local view” type columns, but still a pro. Then this writer filed an entire column that said, “I have nothing to say. Seriously, there was a deadline and I came up empty…”

I was furious. This person could have relinquished the weekly spot to somebody with something to say. Could have put in anything at all and it would have been better than “I got nothing”. I stopped reading that persons work (yes, still employed at that new source) and constantly question the managerial choice of keeping this person on board.

I will never do that here. IF I’ve got nothing to say, guess what? There won’t be a post here.

The biggest issue for me here is that I have things I want to say frequently but they tend to be time sensitive type things and by the time I get the chance to type something up it feels like the moment is past. So, for right now – I’m riding the wave. There maybe be a flurry of posts, there may be a gap. Perhaps I’m trying to change the wave pattern of my production by going to stare at some fish.

Mood Matters

I know that being a pro in the field of writing – any writing – requires the ability to write on demand. Deadlines must be met. Words must be produced. Nobody will pay you for the fanciful ideas floating in your head until you write them down (or draw them, or paint them, or build them). Waiting for inspiration is the direct path to never selling anything. Writing takes practice. It means repetition and expansion and edits among many other things.

I often quote a very famous author who has a slick statement about inspiration. “I don’t have a muse, I have a mortgage…” is a great quote. It’s easy to say. It’s hard to back that up.

I am far more attached to my mood than is good for anyone who wishes to be successful as a creative artist of any kind. The combination of creative drain from my day job, my inability to focus on a single kind of creativity and the things that happen in my day to day life often mean I am drained and just have no creative juice left to flow when I get to the keys.

I want to include some kind of declaration here about how I intend to do more, be better or whatever would fit, but the truth is that mood matters. I have made many declarations like this in the past and none of them have ever pushed me past certain barriers. Schedules, task lists, extensive notes are all wonderful and helpful things but none of those produce inspiration. There’s no spark. I’m going to keep struggling along in the best way I can. I’ll keep looking for that moment when a story leaps fully formed from my head, into my fingers and directly through the keys. Mood matters.

What inspires you?

Called Out

I have spent a fair amount of time lately talking about Dungeons & Dragons. It’s a hobby that has been with me (almost) all of my life. It has impacted me deeply and changed a number of things for me. I love the game. I have written and spoken with others before about the scars left by the years of the Satanic Panic and how it forever changed my view on many things. What I have never, ever considered is what sort of impact this game that is so meaningful to me would have on somebody that doesn’t look like me, or that didn’t grow up in an environment like mine.

A friend of mine recently posted an article about fantasy role playing being racist to its core. I was a little shocked by this accusation. Only a little shocked as I’d been hearing some rumblings about it, but never anything direct or clearly called out. The article did just that. It pointed directly to all the things that other people found completely wrong and racist that I hadn’t given any thought to. I didn’t ignore this on purpose, it was simply that it literally never occurred to me. Never gave it a thought.

That – the complete thoughtless nature of that statement – is ample evidence of living deeply ensconced in white privilege. I can say that I have not been, nor do I believe that I am a racist – but the pure ignorance of the situation does not help, nor does it lend itself to any believable argument supporting my statement.

Wizard casts mirror image

Story telling has always been my jam when it comes to D&D. I routinely bend or ignore rules that don’t suit my story or my willingness to slow a good story down. I have just accepted the parts of the kit as given and used them to tell stories. I don’t (for the most part) limit my players if they wish to mix and match things that the rules say don’t work or stop them from playing anything against type. The problem is that the “type” exists. I don’t know how to fix that.

Everyone believes they are the hero of their own story. It’s a sweeping generalization that ignores the core of the problem, but it does show a certain something that I struggle with in story telling. I have come to despise the “misunderstood” villain. Yes, there are tragic stories out there. Yes, some people do the wrong things trying to achieve an admirable goal. At some point there needs to be a line drawn. There is such a thing as “bad”. Sure, Dracula might have a tragic love story involved somewhere in there, but he eats people. He’s not misunderstood, he’s a monster. He’s the bad guy. Stories need a ‘bad guy’ to work against. Someone to hinder the hero, work against them and provide the ability to learn and grow past a certain point.

One of my favorite antagonists of all time is the operative in the movie Serenity. Above and beyond the simple fact that Chiwetel Ejiofor is a fantastic actor and does amazing work with that part – the operative is a fantastic ‘bad guy’. He’s relentless. He does all the things you think he shouldn’t do, all the things that make him a monster. He does it because he believes he’s doing the right thing. His belief that he’s on the side of right is absolute. Having a believable and nuanced antagonist is critical to a good story.

Does the ‘bad guy’ have to be the black guy? I hadn’t ever really given it any thought, but others might read into it differently. I want to argue that the color of the actor, doing a magnificent job delivering that part, doesn’t matter BUT I’m not the one routinely experiencing racial prejudice. Tying this back to D&D, do the Orcs have to be the ‘bad guy’? Are there people that read into the race of orc a representation of black people? It’s not an easy question. Are they “evil” simply for being born to a group that is not your own? Doesn’t seem right to think that way. There are rules and statistics connected to what race a character can be in D&D that certainly show a racist bias (and to be fair I only see this now because it’s been pointed out to me). It could be a case of ‘it’s always been that way’ and I’ve been unknowingly perpetuating something that others find deeply offensive simply by enjoying my favorite hobby as it has always been.

Some folks have taken this topic on head first. There is a Kickstarter out there (that has already funded) creating alternate rules for D&D 5e that eliminate the racial based parts of character creation and replace it with ancestry and culture to explain starting bonuses and penalties. I really like the concept. I may buy the supplement to adapt into my own games even though I don’t play 5e. It’s a system that seems to make a lot of sense. It’s certainly worth checking out.

I’m hopeful that since this systemic racial problem has been pointed out meaningful change will happen. Something with as much weight and history as a 50 year old game isn’t going to change quickly. It needs to, but it will stagger under it’s own weight. It’s tempting to take a shot at gamers and say they’ll stagger under their own weight as well – but perpetuating another stereotype doesn’t help. Some of the people involved will not recognize their own privilege and rage at anyone trying to change what they perceive as their own domain. Geek culture has raced to popularity lately, but that doesn’t change the thought processes of people that have felt marginalized or socially disparaged for a significant part of their lives. It’s going to be a long struggle, but one we all need to start NOW.

The first step to correcting anything is admitting to and understanding that there is a problem. Fantasy gaming, D&D in particular, has a problem and I have unwittingly been part of that problem. Now that I am aware I will be more thoughtful of how I represent things, people, situations and characters across the games I play and the stories I write.

I would love to play in or run a super diverse game. I have always taken purposeful strides toward inclusivity and gender balance in all the games I run. I want to do better. I will do better. Knowing more will help. Being aware will help. What sort of things have you encountered (good or bad) in your game experiences? What suggestions do you have for creating a more diverse and accepting game environment?

Addictive Behavior

I had every intention of being very busy and productive over this past weekend. Some of what I planned on doing was being on here and getting more posts lined up. Clearly I failed at that. I was thinking about it and I genuinely believe it had everything to do with a level of addictive behavior from me.

I know there are folks out there that will think this is a pile of nonsense. I half agree honestly, but I want to put it out there because edging toward understanding is important.

I really think that I have addictive behavior and tendency when it comes to watching television. It’s a feeling I have. Don’t know how to explain it. I’m not generally an addictive personality but I AM a complete child of media. When you see those memes about GenX being that “lost” generation that were the first of the latch key kids? That’s me. Come home, let yourself in, lock the door and entertain yourself until we get home from work. It’s not good or bad – not trying to judge here, just giving context. It’s also when MTV started (among many other networks you may feel have “always” existed). I watched a lot of television, saw a lot of movies and this learned behavior has stuck with me ever since.

So what I’m saying is that, as stupid as it sounds, I really can’t break away from TV. I find myself floating back to it even when I *know* there’s not a damn thing worth watching. Then I get all depressed and disappointed when the stuff I watch is total shit. I know this probably sounds even sillier when you couple it with the facts that I was a Nielssen household member at one point AND I write a monthly piece for Watch The Skies called “You Should Be Watching” where I suggest fandom related content to go and check out.

This past weekend I estimate that I watched somewhere between 16 and 20 hours of TV. Maybe more. I lost track of all the stuff I streamed across YouTube. That’s way, way too much. I know this. I couldn’t help myself. I lost all productivity as I jumped from movies to football games to binge watching a cartoon series on Netflix (yes, both seasons of it). Football is really tough to sit through these days, but I did it. All four playoff games. Yes, some of it was likely to become history as very famous players end their careers, but it’s just a mess to watch. The ad time alone has stupid marketing stuff swirling in my head (OK – I’ll give the Tag Team ad props – it makes me laugh more than it should). I saw the new film “Outside the Wire” and it wasn’t bad… it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad. I watched Bill and Ted Face the Music. I had really high hopes for it… and those really high hopes weren’t matched.

In the end I just came away sort of sad and numb with nothing to show for my time.

I am thankfully not addicted to other things in that way, but this is a small step toward understanding what folks struggling with addiction deal with. It’s not easy to deal with. It changes how I feel physically and emotionally. I’m going to work hard at shrugging this episode off and try to limit how much time I spend with the TV. Yes, I’m going to keep working the Should Be Watching stuff. No, I won’t take the TV out of the house (the only way I know to stop an addiction – take away the thing you’re addicted to and don’t have access). I am not the only person living here with a desire to be passively entertained from time to time… I just can’t let it be ALL the time. Thankfully this IS something that can be controlled.

IF you’re struggling with something, stick with the plan you have to be better. Keep working at staying away. There will be tough days, but don’t let those days beat you. Be strong.