Still Here, Somehow

I recognize it's been a while since I've posted anything aside from the occasional comment here and there, and figured I should at least let folks know I'm still breathing.

First off, I've gotten a bunch of new followers on BlueSky in the last couple months, and on the unlikely chance any of them have clicked through to this post, lemme say 'hi.' Hi. This is my blog. It's mostly write-ups about my Exalted gaming sessions and occasional venting about my writing issues. Things have been quiet lately mostly because I've been struggling with a rough patch, with some other stuff contributing. But feel free to settle in while I try to get this back on track, maybe peruse my write-ups with the help of the index linked in the sidebar. If you've got any questions or comments, I'm all ears.

I don't have any real progress to report writing-wise, largely because at best I've been treading water mentally and emotionally. I'm not gonna go into too many specifics because everyone's got it at least a little rough right now and any energy or sympathy you've got should go to their problems before mine. But yeah, the situation's not great, I'm trying to dig out from under it with a therapist's help, and as of this writing I've just gotten my psychiatrist to adjust my meds.

And speaking of other people having it rough, I want to boost something for someone very close to me, and I don't want to bury it at the end. The details are, to put it mildly, an absolute bummer, but my good friend Rhari is raising money to take her daughter on a very special journey. More on the GFM page.

As for me, a big chunk of what's kept me busy in terms of writing stuff has been a freelance gig. I never got around to announcing it at the time (before now), and to be honest I'm not entirely sure why aside from just dealing with depression and other distractions and actually, y'know, working on it. But I've been writing a chunk of the new Infernals book for Exalted, Third Edition. I'm primarily working on setting material, and quite frankly some of what the devs and writers have lined up for this is a doozy in a good way. (You gotta specify that, as 2nd edition's Infernals book was a doozy in a different way, with all due respect to everyone who worked on it.)

I'll be honest, working on it's been rough going due to the aforementioned mental health issues. Which has made the writing process more stressful than usual, and that stress has been exacerbating the mental health issues. If anything, it was worse than a similar problem I had with Alchemicals last year, and there's a part of me that's legitimately terrified that between my own screwed-up brain chemistry and the stresses of the world, my brain might be too fucked to keep freelancing. I'd honestly forgotten it was that bad until I went back looking through old posts to reference something and found a thing I wrote about it at the time.

(Edit: This is Chris popping in from the future to say that I wound up having to step away from the Infernals book. Maybe my brain is too fucked to keep freelancing after all. I wouldn't bother with this note except that this post is still visible on the front page, and I feel awkward leaving it up without some sort of update.)

But even before that, I'd gotten caught up with a story and setting idea that I've been fleshing out in notes and stuff. I don't know what form it's going to take, if any, because I don't know if it's an idea with legs or if it's just the excitement of toying around with something new. Regardless, it's taken up enough space in my brain it's been hard to shake it for other projects.

That said, I should point out I'm in a better place regarding my Conversion stuff, mentally (though I'm still thinking of renaming the setting). I haven't done much with it because of other projects taking priority (see the freelance gig above and other stuff below), as well as me wanting to take a step back and see how things are shaking out with regards to the current state of artificial intelligence. Not that AI is meant to be a major element in the setting, but it factors into at least one story and possibly more in the future as part of the setting's recent-ish history. (But then, there's stuff I initially planned for the setting I drifted away from and other stuff I drifted into, so that's another kettle of fish.) I'd rather take a bit of time to handle it to my satisfaction instead of having to dance around it later like Star Trek had to with the Eugenics Wars.

Anyhow...

I honestly can't think of anything else to get into here that I haven't pointed out in other posts -- like the lack of regular Exalted posting has been due to a combination of the depression and the fact that my group's been playtesting some upcoming material -- which, if I'd been a little more on the ball, I'd have linked the crowdfunding campaign for it, but I think you can pre-order the Exalted Essence Player's Guide over on Backerkit. I've got a bunch of posts to get caught up on, and in all those I'll try to get in write-ups for those playtesting sessions since that's probably fine to share now.

Okay, so that's probably it for the moment. Thanks for reading this far if you have, and I'll try to bring a little more life to this blog in the future. In the meantime, if you have any questions or comments feel free to share them either here or wherever you found the link to this post. Later!