It’s been two years since the Sun Spots Kickstarter launched, and I thought it’s time to drop the price of all the Sun Spots books. Great time to pick one up!

The book is here.

And the GM Kit is here.

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.

I saw the teaser trailer for the new Star Wars movie Solo last week and it has me nervous for the Star Wars universe. I’m a big believer in Kathleen Kennedy and what she’s done for the Star Wars universe. And while the new movies have been a bit uneven, they’re way more consistent than what Lucas ever did for us.

But one of the most amazing things about the SW universe is all the questions we have about it and all the little crevasses it holds for storytelling. The first movie, and the original trilogy, created this amazing universe that let our imaginations run wild. What is the Kessel run and how long does it normally take to run it? What happens if you fall into a Sarlac pit? What is the real history between Han and Lando? In our minds, all of these little questions help us create the larger and larger universe that is needed to fill in the details. Imagination is a powerful tool and letting your readers/viewers fill in gaps in your world with these question is a powerful tool to get them to keep coming back.

I’ve always been torn about everything in the Star Wars universe that came after the original trilogy, and part of me wishes it never existed. Because I remember what it was like to only have the OT, before the books and video games and Jar Jar Fucking Binks ruined everything. We had created a new world in our minds, full of possibilities that could never be matched. I liked the Clone Wars well before we knew what they really were — they were way more interesting as a question than an answer.

There is a lot of talk about how Hollywood these days is just full of reboots and franchises, and Star Wars is probably the worst offender. At a movie a year, the Disney-owned Lucasfilm is leaving no money on the table. We need to squeeze every possible dollar out of these universes and leave no pocket unexplored. A far cry from the maverick that Lucas started out as, his movie franchise now shows us how a sustainable creative endeavor can continue to provide coin with the right level of interest and investment, even if it means leaving no question unanswered.

It’s the same reason why sequels are usually so unfulfilling. We love a story for all of the possibilities it brings, and then a sequel (or, ugh, sequels) goes about answering all those questions and basically taking away all the mystery and interest that brought us to the story in the first place. Having mystery and unfulfilled potential in stories is actually a good thing, but Hollywood and Americans in general have little impulse control, and the impulse usually leads to revealing as much as possible. Because money.

My inner 12 year old, as usual, is torn. There is so much good geekiness available now, and Star Wars really leads the way. But when we over-explain and over-answer the universes that give us delights, then we steal their magic and turn them into commodities, something rote and known, without any mystery. I want Solo to be good, but part of me would rather have it not exist at all. Then I could just make up the stories in my head, which are way better than anything on the screen anyway.

Just a quick post to say that, no, this blog is not dead. I’m in a sort of mild hibernation, where I’m not only dealing with some pretty serious real-life issues, but also working on two large and important writing projects (one of which is Sun Spots, of course). Later this summer I’ll come out from hibernation and have all sorts of good stuff to talk about, but for now, I got other stuff to take care of.

More soon…

The Kickstarter for the Cthulhu RPG scenario Sun Spots has delayed its project start by two days to Thursday, September 15th due to an exciting development!

More details will be revealed in the next couple days, but suffice it to say that I could not be happier with where things are headed, and I know this development will only make the Sun Spots book bigger and better. 

I can’t wait to share this with you!!!