Month: September 2018

What is a Blog Good for Anyway?

You can see from the number of updates that I don’t blog much these days. Not that I ever really did, but 2018 has really seen a slowdown of my writing on multiple fronts. For the first half of the year I focused on getting Sun Spots across the finish line; then, when it was done, I just collapsed in a heap that I’ve been slow to rise from. Frankly, I don’t write as much as I want to, whether on fiction or gaming, and my blog always seems to be de-prioritized no matter how hard I work.

Sadly, though, my writing overall seems to be de-prioritized in my life in general, and this year I’ve already said no to a couple projects that I would have like to have worked on, just because I knew I couldn’t follow through. I am currently working on two Cthulhu gaming projects (one is a post-apocalyptic scenario for Cthulhu Reborn; the other is, of course, The Advocacy), both of which I’m running behind on. I’m glad for the work, and will be spending the rest of the year on both of these. But I’m really not sure how to make it all work.

A friend recently said something like “you’re doing all the work you can do already,” which to me meant that things like this blog and all the other projects I want to do (hello podcasting!) just are not possible at this point in my life. For whatever my writing goals are, I have this whole other real life with a family, job, and everything else that takes most of my time. I have to regularly remind myself that I have chosen security over freedom, insomuch as that I have a great day job and overall career that pays well and helps feed, clothe, and educate my family. To keep all of that together, my writing just falls to the bottom of the list, regularly; it’s just how it is.

And, also, it bears mentioning that physical health is now just a thing I have to keep in mind. Right now (Sept 3, 2018 *already*), I’m nursing both a sprained knee and strained rotater cuff, both on my left side, both from trying to be physical and engaged and healthy in my life. Instead I just hurt myself. Suddenly I’m this somewhat fragile middle-aged man who not only needs to get and stay healthy, but who has to be really, REALLY careful in how he does it. Luckily both of these injuries were mild overall, but whew, hobbling around in a knee brace for the last few weeks really puts things in perspective.

All of this takes energy — energy that used to get me up at 5:30 am when I was writing and energized and really working hard at my fulfilling my creative goals. When my dad died last year, I really wanted to bounce back and use that moment to take on the world. But, instead, I’m just having trouble getting out of bed in the morning, getting all my work and chores and active attention-giving done that my life demands of me. I have a good, wonderful life, but my god is it exhausting.

So this blog sits and waits, a slowly festering pool of my un-attended writing dreams and efforts. I have so many great ideas for this blog, but it’s not going to happen any time soon. I’ll try to keep this place updated with my current projects, and look to continue using it as the overall home for my writing. But this blog will see just irregular updates for the foreseeable future.

In the meantime, I need to go clean the kitchen.