Status, Updates, Thoughts, Stuff
The weather has completely turned in my neck of the woods. We went from days in the 90s, to low 80s, to 60s in about two weeks. This weekend has been a rainy and windy one, kicking off the falling of the leaves.
In short, it’s been a wonderful autumn weekend. I’ve already taken out my various sweaters, jackets, and long-sleeve shirts. I am ready! 🍂
Today I’ll go to church, prep weekday meals, and read my book while drinking some warm apple cider.
It’s the first of October, and that means that it’s once again that time when my birth month is hijacked by our culture’s obsession with Halloween and horror. Spooky season, as many refer to it.
I don’t like horror in any way. It’s not my thing, it doesn’t do anything for me, and frankly I find out collective obsession with it annoying. I also don’t really like Halloween, not anymore. For years I pretended I did for the sake of others who enjoyed it, but I don’t do that anymore.
That said, I also don’t begrudge anyone who loves spooky season, and I’ve certainly learned to like Halloween a little bit seeing it and enjoying it through my daughters’ eyes.
Enjoy spooky season if that’s your thing. I’ll enjoy my birthday month in my own way. Maybe I’ll even read something spooky at some point this month just to be a part of the zeitgeist.
Maybe.
I’ve been writing the Magic chapters of Project Legacy for the last month, and it’s made me think hard about what I like and don’t like about magic systems in role-playing games in order to decide what I want in my own game.
It’s been eye-opening how pervasive a magic system is in a role-playing game; even if you’re trying to keep it simple, as I am, it still touches a hundred other areas of the game and rules, tending to spiral out of control. I am making the conscious choice of modeling my magic system on that of the big fantasy role-playing game because I want familiarity and compatibility, and although I am simplifying a lot of the processes that go along with the said magic system, it still means I’m dealing with schools of magic, and spells, and caster traditions, and so on. Since it’s a design choice, I am leaning into it and giving things my own spin, which is its own kind of fun, but admittedly it has made this section of the book a chunky one.
For a brief moment, I thought about taking magic out completely, but it’s a trope of the genre, and I enjoy it, so it stayed. Now I just need to finish this section because I’m going crosseyed from writing about spells and magical items and arcane traditions.
I was looking at the stats for this blog, and consistently, regardless of the day, the average number of readers hovers at 4. Some days I have an impactful post that gets double-digit readers, and then I have a few here and there that get one or two readers only, but those are outliers. Four, maybe five, is my constant.
Why do I bother writing every day for four or five people, you would be perfectly okay to ask.
Persistence. Because writing every day gets me to actually write every day. Because it forces a routine upon me. Because it gets me thinking and getting things out of my head and onto the metaphorical paper. Because I like it. Because it’s worth it for me.
Whatever other people may get out of my posts (and I do thank each of you, readers), I write because it helps me keep writing, and that persistence is something I can then move to other areas of my life. Daniel, I can tell myself, if you’ve been able to write a blog post a day for the last 200 days, then surely you can also [insert goal here].
I’ve decided that I’m gonna get my novel ready for release and self-publish it once and for all. I wrote it for NaNoWriMo back in 2011, and it has since languished on my hard drive, going through a couple of full editing attempts, but never making it all the way through.
I need to get that project done once and for all.
I’ve already figured out how to restructure it, which means I will have to write some new chapters and edit others, but I think it’ll give the story the cohesion I’ve felt it’s been lacking all these years.
I don’t know when it’ll be done, but it’s now officially on my To Do list. It’s time to finish that story so that others can be told.
I’m having a bit of melancholy, not so much for a past that’s gone, but for a way of life I wish was possible.
Lately, I’ve been reading a lot more fiction, and it always makes me excited to write again, to work on my own stories, to finish the novel I wrote 10 years ago, to keep developing the one I started two years ago, to make new ones out of thin air. The fact that I’ve been working for the past three months on my new game, Project Legacy, a book I’m extremely excited about, feeds into this. It makes me wish that I could write full-time and still make the salary I make now. (And maybe not exactly what I’m making now, but enough to cover expenses comfortably.)
It’s a passing thing, a fugue of a feeling. I indulge it for a moment because there’s nothing wrong with wishing. And once the moment passes, once the wish has been wished, I go back to my job (which I like, whatever the chaos that surrounds it may be), and go back to writing when I can/make time for it, and forging ahead putting words down one at a time.
We went apple-picking this weekend at a local farm and what can I tell you, I am living my best autumn life right now. We got a huge bag of Red Delicious, Fuji, and Jonah Gold apples that we’re gonna use to make stuff at home, along with some apple cider, and donuts.
Best. Autumn. Life.
Last night we lit up our first bonfire of the season. The night was cool and crisp, somewhere in the mid-50°s F (13° C) so just right for a nice fire and smores. I set up our firepit in the backyard, chopped some kindle off a log, and set up the wood in a simple criss-cross pattern. Then I lit the kindle up, and the fire got going right on the first try! It usually takes me a couple of tries, so yay for me. We sat around the fire, enjoying the dancing flames, the cool breeze, and some roasted marshmallows, both by themselves and in a smores sandwich.
And then one of our dogs escaped from our backyard, but she came back later in the evening so no worries.
I love bonfires, and I’m sure to light up a lot more this fall season.
We have three hermit crabs, acquired during our last trip to the beach. Two are fairly big, one smaller, all of them cute in that weird kind of way that small things are.
The girls are fascinated and scared at the same time, but they’ve been doing a great job of taking care of them. Not that they require a lot of care, but they play with them (much to the crabs’ chagrin), feed them, and make sure they have water to wade in. It’s been a good experience for them.
I like to play with the crabs too, especially the little one; I let her walk all over my arm while my girls shriek in delight.
They do look like little xenomorph facehuggers, though.
The most wonderful time of the year is finally here, and I couldn’t be happier. It’s time for soups, chili, jackets, and coziness. It’s time for Hygge.
I’ve been watching “booktube” recommendations from my friend, and almost all the channels are doing their Fall Reads video, listing the books they want to read this fall. I love the idea, but my problem is that I don’t really care for spooky stories, which is mostly what they’re all going for.
I know a lot of people go ga-ga for Halloween, but I’m not one of them; for me, fall is a time for coziness and gatherings, for outdoor cool and indoor warmth, and I’d love to find books along those lines for my Fall Reads list.
So, do you have some recommendations for cozy gathering novels? Let me know!
The Daily Highmoon 