Clever titles escape me

So here we are again, with another instance of the textual equivalent of me posting a picture of myself holding today's newspaper to establish I'm still around. Not much to say or report at the moment, as I've mostly been juggling a lot of boring, tedious tasks. And for a number of reasons, it seems the pile gains and loses tasks at about the same rate, and my arms are getting tired of all the juggling.

I haven't really had a lot to say -- less than usual, it feels like -- which is why, if you follow me on Bluesky, you'll know that my feed is almost entirely reposts these days, with the occasional random observation or quip. Though, when I phrase it in those terms, I'm pretty sure 'these days' really means 'the last few years.' I dunno.

There's not much to report, writing-wise. I'm still hammering away on stuff when I can, though I've got a couple of beta readers I've been meaning to check in with for a while now, and just keep putting it off because it feels like there's something else I should be doing first. And I'm sure there's probably something I need to be reminded about as well, but everything in my head is a jumble at the moment and I've been bad about getting back to people. (I thank you all for your continued patience, BTW.)

I've actually been spending more time than usual lately thinking about my 'Conversion' setting, though not in any sort of 'future development' way. Long story short, while it's not a major element of the setting as a whole, the sort of 'central story' that kicked off the setting that I finished and posted a couple of years ago has a major character who is -- in the common parlance -- an artificial intelligence. And at the time I'd put some thought about exploring more into the setting's history with AIs and such, why the character seems to be the only one, etc. And as I've mentioned before, I took a step back to see how the current AI/LLM discourse is shaping up before delving deeper into the topic. And as the whole thing goes on, it's clearer that if I do ever get around to revising the novel as a whole, there are chunks that are going to need a [i]massive[/i] rework from the ground up. 

This isn't out of some burning need for accuracy or realism, but let's put it like this: If William Gibson were in the middle of writing Neuromancer -- which has global computer networks and VR and such but not cell phones -- and then suddenly smartphones showed up, I guarantee you he'd have stopped and reworked a few things.

(And for the record, I'm not at all comparing myself to Gibson -- I wouldn't even put myself on par with a bad fanfic attempting a Chuck Tingle-style parody of Gibson. It's just the first good example I can come up with.)

Maybe it's for the best that I've pivoted away from the cyberpunk writing as of late, and am toying with other stuff (even though I know there are other projects that probably need the attention more). But I dunno. Even with meds and therapy, there's a lot in my brain that's a mess right now and I'm doing the best I can with it.

Anyhow, just as clever titles are beyond me, so are clever sign-offs. Take care of yourselves.

A 'Blah' update, but an update nonetheless

So this is a quick update, for no other reason than I accidentally put myself into a mood and I'm trying to distract myself from it. Not sure why I thought this would work, to be honest. There's a lot I don't feel comfortable about discussing publicly, and I hate being that guy who's vague about what's bugging him because then it looks like I'm trying to milk things for sympathy.

(Speaking which, I'd like to take a moment to thank folks who've occasionally checked in with me during quiet patches, made sure I'm okay, etc. I may not be great about showing it in the moment, but I sincerely appreciate it.)

But what else is there to talk about? My own personal writing isn't going anywhere. And my professional writing, such as it is, is pretty much dead in the water. Without getting into details, I had a bit of an emotional breakdown back in April and May, and botched the last paying gig I had. Dunno if I'll be offered another, when they weren't exactly beating my door down before. And I'm almost terrified of being offered another one (let alone seek it out myself), because I legitimately don't know if I'll ever be in good enough working order to do any sort of contracted writing in the future.

(The thing that hurt the most, in retrospect, was learning that I had confidence to lose.)

In the meantime, I'm still lingering in a couple of Discords connected to work I've done in the past, practically waiting for someone to realize how long it's been since I've written anything relevant and kicking me out. Not that I think they would, but few things feed impostor syndrome like being surrounded by people who regularly prove they belong there.

...

Alright, so this is me, like, a week later after putting that blog post draft down with a weary sigh and deciding to come back later when I'm in a better mood. I could, and perhaps even should, rewrite all the pissing and moaning above, but I want to be more emotionally honest with myself and everyone else, and that's not going to happen if I'm redacting my thoughts for fear of looking like a dipshit.

The only thing I can bring myself to really work on at the moment is the half-baked story I've mentioned a few times in passing, trying to find beta readers for the first chapter. Though that said, what response I have gotten from that is encouraging enough I'm still somewhat enthusiastic to keep hammering away at it for now. (Speaking of which, I'm still open for people wanting to give me feedback on the first chapter.)

I've got other stuff I need to go back and revise, or finish, or finish and then revise. As encouraging as my therapist has been on the matter, it's still an uphill battle to convince myself it's worth the effort. It doesn't help much that with all the trouble I've had focusing on issues right in front of me, it's a miracle I get any writing done, let alone remember to work on stuff that's fallen by the wayside.

And I keep going back to the idea of picking back up with my gaming session summaries. Though I'm so far behind on those, I'm looking at just doing really broad summaries of the stories themselves rather than going session to session as I have, at least until I'm caught up. I try to plan out the stories in games I run in an 'episodic' fashion, if you haven't noticed, and might just try to keep it to one post per episode for a while and, depending on how I feel about the result, maybe even keep it at that going forward as each episode finishes. It kinda cuts down on how many posts leave off on a dramatic cliffhanger or anything, because I don't normally leave off my episodes that way even if the occasional session does, but given the lack of response to basically anything gaming-related on this blog I don't think anyone will notice.

Anyhow, I think that more or less covers anything I feel the need to say at the moment. There's other stuff I could say, but that feels like it needs a dedicated post and a more appropriate mood. Honestly, going back to finish this post I began in a really shitty headspace isn't doing much for my current headspace. Anyhow, having provided something akin to proof-of-life, I'm just gonna drift back off again. If you need me, you know how to find me.