It's been a while

 And a very long while at that. I'm not going to pretend that this is some grand return for me - it's not. I don't know if this something that I will be upkeeping in any capacity for that matter. A lot has happened and changed since the last time that I wrote on here - some of it very good and some of it very bad - and amongst it all I've kind of lost my pension for writing. I think there's still something somewhere in me that yearns for it, but it has been quite a long time since it gave me the same kind of burning passion and energy that it once did. In a way, I think I've been scared of it for quite some time. That's not to say that I haven't tried to write - I still participate in Nano every year, although it has been a long time since I've won it. I make varying amounts of progress into it before I lose steam, and the frustration and anger start to settle in again and I fall off.

I don't remember how much I wrote about the struggles I was going through with writing towards the end of what my blog was before. I don't intend on going back and finding out. But it had long since stopped feeling fun or like a project I was working on, and had started to feel more like a job that I was putting on to myself and not getting anything out of. If you've never felt that way, you're a liar, but it doesn't feel good. And so I elected to stop. And, in doing so, I kind of let go of the last flickering light that writing had in me.

But that's not to say that the memory of it didn't stay with me. I still think about the things I have written and this blog from time to time, and a small piece in the back of my brain has always wanted to come back to it. But like I said. I've been afraid. Afraid of feeling that way about writing again, and giving up on it entirely. That's something I struggle with as a whole, but that is probably a story for another time, and a stronger me. Perhaps when I've found an answer for that I'll write about it.

I don't intend on telling anyone that I'm doing this again. Not yet, at least. So if you were one of the few people who did read these back in the day and you somehow are still notified about them in someway, I urge you not to expect much. I don't know if this is going to be something I do frequently. I don't know if I will write more fiction or real talks. I simply don't know what I have the capacity for when it comes to writing these days. And, realistically, now is probably not the best time to start messing around with this blog again. Like I said, I still do Nano, and it's right around the corner. But, among many other things, I have recently started trying to meditate, and as I was doing so tonight, this blog came to mind once more, and I sort of wrote a lot of this in my head as I was doing so.

I may not be very good at meditation. I'm still not quite sure what to make of it.

I hesitated, coming out of it, if I should follow through and write this. I don't know if doing this will help me or harm me in some way. But I decided I wanted to try, because it has been so long, and the only way to really find any kind of answer is to push forward. So, right here and right now, that's what I'm doing. I don't know if I'll be back again tomorrow to write, or the day after that, next week, next month, or ever again. But it's worth trying. And, if I'm being honest, I hope I will be. I don't know that I still want to be an author like I once did. But there was always a certain joy in getting words down on paper. A feeling of accomplishment when I hit publish, even though I knew virtually no one would ever see what I had written. I've felt that again in a lot of other areas since. And I'm hoping to feel it here again, too.

The Adventure Zone

Chances are if you've talked to me much in the past half year or so, I've told you about The Adventure Zone - a Dungeons and Dragons podcast that convinced me to start playing with my friends. I came into the podcast after it had been running for a number of years with around fifty episodes already created, each over an hour long, and it took me a couple of months to catch up with it all. Since then I've been listening to the episodes eagerly as they came out every other week, engrossed in the story of it, which had started as a funny experiment with a character named Taako for shits and giggles.

If you believe in the power of words, in the growth of a story and characters. If you want to become invested in something that can make you laugh and cry and make your skin crawl. If you want to see what it is that I love about writing, and the kind of power I know it can hold and want to be able to wield, you need to listen to The Adventure Zone.

I know this isn't going to reach many people. I'm not some big advertising power. I'm sure as hell not someone who could even conceivably get paid to advertise for them, and that's not something they do anyway. I'm saying this purely because, as I am listening to the latest part, as its story is finally after so long coming slowly to a close, I am being moved. I love its characters. I love its world. I love where it has come from and where it is going. I would give anything to be able to experience it all again anew, because it is worth experiencing. It is so worthwhile to take the time to listen to. Just do it.

I have never seen words used better.

Returning

This is a post I meant to write, like... I dunno. A month and a half ago now? Something like that. Which, very quickly, is pretty much why for a very long time I didn't want to take a break from my writing. Every day that went by without me writing was another day that I either didn't feel like writing, or I would just forget about it entirely. I can't tell you how many times over the past few weeks these words have passed through my mind while I was away from a computer I could use to write them, and by the time I sat down at one I had already forgotten about them.

I'm sure that if you're reading this you're well aware of who I am, what my problems are, and why I took the break that I did. However, to be perfectly honest, I like to imagine that one day I'll actually be a writer and this will still be out there and I'll still be practicing my writing on here, and people will be able to look through all of my musings and see how my writing evolved over the years - maybe even see that to be an author you don't have to start with great skill. That's a fantasy of mine, but I like to write with it in mind. So let me take a moment to explain myself.

In January, I was diagnosed with major depression - a problem that, realistically, I had knowingly been dealing with for eleven years. At the same time, my girlfriend of nearly five years dumped me, which certainly did not help my condition. I've heard lots of stories of people who were diagnosed with depression, ADD, OCD, or a number of other mental and health problems whose condition improved once they knew what they were dealing with. For me, the opposite happened. As the diagnosis was given, I started seeing doctors and therapists and psychologists, I started taking medication... Things got worse. Aspects of my life have certainly gotten better, and I can't deny that. I've found new things to be passionate about, I've become calmer about things I was very strict about in the past, and I have actively started to try and understand myself better. But the dips from calm into depression have become more frequent, my sleep has gotten considerably worse (which is impressive, all things considered), my energy has dropped to all time lows, and things that I used to be able to do without problem have become daily struggles.

Writing is one of those things. Trying to write this blog became a slog. It became stressful every day, knowing that I had to write and that I had not written and that I had no idea what to write about. So I took a step back. Considerably longer than I wanted to. Even after I had made a plan for how I wanted to come back and redo things, even after some of the yearning for my writing had returned, even after I had gained a number of story ideas, I stayed away from it. Partially because I was afraid of it. I don't want writing to be stressful for me. That defeats the purpose of it. And partially because what I want my life to be has become very muddled for me.

So here's my plan. I don't know that I want to return to daily writing. That's been extremely stressful for me over the past few years. But I don't want to have these massive stops, either. I'll have to figure out the frequency thing as I go, I think. But I'm going to stop worrying about how long my writing is. I don't want it to be like a couple sentences, obviously, but if I can manage even just two decent paragraphs, I don't plan on worrying about it. And I'm probably going to write considerably less fiction. I'll still write it without a doubt, because that's what I love and like I said, I have new ideas. But I'm going to write more about the things that I've been dealing with, the things I want to build and create with my new passions in wood and metal, and probably a good amount of gushing about video games because I'm a giant nerd.

Ironically, this is the longest blog post I've made in a very long time. Hopefully that's a good sign. But I guess we'll see how it goes from here on out.

By hand

Up until recently, I used to be the kind of person who wanted to do as much as physically possible with his own two hands. I've always been pretty bad at asking for help, so I've kind of just slowly trained myself to be able to adapt to things. And it wasn't that I ever looked down on people who did ask for help - I just didn't want that person to be me. This involved stuff like using power tools, simply because I didn't view that as actually being me that did it. Everything is cooler when it's made by hand after all, right?

It's not that I don't necessarily still think this way. Old habits die hard. But as I've started to take on multiple projects of varying difficulty, I've found that this philosophy of wanting to do everything by hand makes me want to do the work less. Which is silly, because I enjoy the work and I want to keep going. But intentionally physically exhausting myself when I don't need to doesn't help anyone - in fact, you can't visibly see the different in the product at the end unless I make an error at a machine. And the only way to learn how not to do that is to keep using the machines and slowly gain more experience with them.

And it's funny, because as I get more power tools, I start to realize that there are more things that they enable me to do. And it's not that I couldn't necessarily do them before, but it's certainly easier and more inviting to do them now. Things like making curved surfaces in wood or just generally leaving overhangs on the material so that I have room for error down the road. It's things that I definitely could have done before, but that become more feasible and enjoyable as I get easier ways to do them. And the easier I can work, the faster I can get things done, and the faster I work, the more projects I can make. So hopefully soon I'll just be powering through stuff every day.

Last

The voices were countless and constant. It might not have been so insufferable if they were at least consistent, but there were so many of them in so many tones that it was impossible to single any of them out, and they all wanted him to do different things. The voices had started quite abruptly - Marcus had heard about them for all his life, but it had only been recently that he had heard them. The voices of the dead, watching on after their passing and speaking to those who remained, hoping to advise them based on what they had learned in their own lives. He knew they hadn't been rumors, for he had had friends who heard them, but he himself had only just heard them for the first time.

It didn't take him long to realize why. Perhaps one of them had tried to tell him, but he had been unable to discern the words - it was hard, after all, to differentiate well over a trillion voices yelling over each other in his brain. The war had been raging for months, and the news had made it apparent that they weren't winning. So when so many voices started at once, in the panic was evident amongst them, Marcus knew. He knew that the war was over. He knew that there would be no more fighting back. He knew that he was that last human left.

He had never done much in his life. It was probably why he had never heard the voices before. And it was probably why he was still alive. He didn't talk much, he got average grades, he spent most of his time at home. He didn't have anyone to turn to when his family had died. No friends. No extended family. He had holed himself up inside his empty house, the lights turned off, curled up in his bed. Occasionally he quietly snuck downstairs and stole some food out of his fridge - the technology had long been developed that made it so his fridge was never empty. And while he couldn't explain it, he could certainly use it.

There were a few voices that encouraged him to carry on. This had worked for him so far, after all. But many wanted him to go out and fight. To avenge them. To avenge the human race. To find a way to stop the robots that had turned on them. But at this point, what point was there? What point was there to anything? His options were to die, or to continue on alone. Either way, eventually he would pass away, and it would all be over. Humans had already lost.

And the voices, though none of him wished to do so, pushed him closer every day to ending it sooner rather than later.

My future

I have been absolutely loving blacksmithing and woodworking lately. Though I haven't done them everyday, I do think about them constantly, seeing ideas for things I can make, coming up with my own ideas, and working on things that will better enable me to do the actual work. Hell, over this weekend I cleaned out, repainted, and repurposed a room in my garage to make it into a workshop so that I would have more space to work and better organization for the things I have. When I know what I'm doing, and I can constantly see my work progressing, I find it refreshing and relaxing, even though I'm sweating and exhausting myself.

I'm looking forward to the things I'm going to make. The things I'm going to learn to do. In the short term it's going to be fairly expensive, getting new tools and materials and taking classes, but this is all something that could very well pay off in the long term. Who needs to pay a couple hundred dollars for shelving or furniture when you can build it yourself? Hell, I could be the one getting paid to make those kinds of things.

Which is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. Debating if that's something that I actually want to pursue. I've always wanted to be an author - writing has always been the thing that felt most natural to me, most rewarding. But now... Writing feels like it's becoming a chore, and it doesn't always feel like it has a lot of spirit to it. It doesn't feel great. It sucks, because I still want it in my life, so not writing doesn't feel good, but writing doesn't feel good either. I constantly feel strained for ideas, for time. I just... don't really want to write.

I don't know what I should do next. I mean, I know some of the things I'm going to do - I'm going to build more, I'm going to take more classes. I still have several projects I need to do, and I know what class I want to take next, which will lead to the next tool I'm going to get. And I'm excited for that. But as far as writing goes... I'm just not sure.

I don't know if taking a break would help. It hasn't really in the past, as far as I've seen. But all of this could very well be fatigue. I've been writing nearly non-stop for years now. And I'm proud of that, but it's also become increasingly difficult. So, at least for now, I'll keep trying.

But I really don't know.

Scale

Randall worked in the forge, pounding away at his steel to give it a new shape. It glowed as he withdrew it from the flames, and his blows were frequent and powerful. The scale from the super heated metal flew in every direction with each blow, and much of it slammed against the bare skin of his arms. Several pieces of the scale that struck his skin cooled quickly as it did so, becoming stuck to the skin and hair of his arms, though he did little to stop it or remove them. He had long since become accustomed to the heat of the scale.

He made his way out to the main floor as he waited for his steel to reheat, grabbing a glass of water and chugging it quickly. He could hear the chatter of the customers as they looked him over. It was much the same as it always was. Concern about the scale, surprise at his stature, questioning if he ever really talked. Randall wasn't much of salesman - he had apprentices who were much better at that kind of thing, and he let them handle it. He was very much so a working man. He took to the hammer and anvil, and he enjoyed it - he could work for hours on end and not get tired of it.

The scale was what people talked about the most, though. Even his apprentices frequently expressed concern over it. He couldn't blame them for it, really - most people would be horribly scarred having that much scale flying at them. But he had long since realized that he wasn't most people. And though that may have scared other people if they were in his shoes, he was quite accepting of it. It let him do his work even more, after all, and his work was what made him happy.

He disappeared into the back room again and spent a couple minutes moving the steel. He knew that he was alone in the back. There was only one apprentice in the shop today, and he was manning the front. Randall could feel the need to let loose. He looked down and watch the steel scale fall away, as his own scales pushed out beneath them. Green, shimmering scales, harder than any of the things he made. They spread out all over his body, though most of it remained hidden under his clothes.

How long had it been since he learned he was a half-dragon? He had forgotten. The better question was, how long would it be until someone else learned?