New Year, Same Me — But Different

Well, the good news is that I’m not dead, as you can tell from this post existing. The other good news is that I’ve been writing a lot. Book 3 of the Meaning Wars is done, Book 4 is also now done and out to beta readers (but if you’re interested, I can always use more!), and book 5 is 2/3rds done. In addition to that, I also am 60K of 100K into a coauthored book with a friend of mine, Anna Lewis, set in her series about a nigh-immortal pirate who’s about to get his first taste of therapy in five hundred years.

That probably sounds like a lot more writing than I’ve done in the last few years, and that’s completely correct. However, I haven’t been running my online text-based D&D game, and as you all know, my blog’s been on hiatus.

2020 Bad

But the last few years has been A Lot — Trump’s presidency and the related empowerment of authoritarian leaders across the world, issues around trans rights and especially Black and Brown lives and existence — it’s been hard, especially over 2020, to feel as though my words have any merit, weight, or meaning. Stepping aside and letting PoC talk is rarely a bad thing, but self-doubt latching on to that was maybe not great.

I mean, in 2016, two artists I value deeply passed away — Leonard Cohen and David Delamare. People die, that’s just how that works; I personally don’t want to die ever, if I can help it. (Blog post upcoming; yes I’ve thought this through extensively, shush.) Other artists died, too. Britain and India and Brazil…