Shores of Night

Hi,  Welcome back to the Shore of Night, or welcome if you're new. I'm Grim, a nonbinary, autistic person who blogs about too much stuff.  In a world where blog advice is to focus on one subject, Shores is more like a walk along the beach, discovering what the sea's washed up. A place of flotsam and jetsam, if you will.  Photo by Jason Mavrommatis on Unsplash I'm trying to blog more, so you'll hopefully see more entries... but that does mean you'll be getting quite a few small pieces about my life, which you may actually like.  Anyway, today, I'm thinking about work... again.  Partly, that's because my annual review is coming up, and one of the questions was about my career goals. I've been going back and forth on this for ages, but when I had that question, I suddenly knew. Slightly annoyingly, it wasn't anything new but a confirmation of the things I'm interested in.  Neurodiversity advocacy, particularly in universities. Since I discovere...

 Hi, Welcome, or welcome back if you're new, to the Shores of Night. My name is Grim, an autistic, non-binary person, and I talk about too much stuff here.  You know how it goes.  Photo by Igor Kasalovic on Unsplash I'm sort of just trying to keep going with the blog, and -help! - I'm blogging without a plan! Danger, danger, Will Robinson!  I usually at least have an idea of what I'm going to write about beforehand, but today's subject literally came to me as I sat down to write.  So, this post will be a catch-up about writing and how that's going.  Or more accurately, how it's not going at all.  I started this year with big plans. I was going to write ten short stories, get them published, finish a setting for gaming (at least to the point where I could play it with my group), and plan a novel to start next year.  Looking back in September (as in... now - sheesh, where has this year gone?) I have achieved almost none of this. I got a story publ...

 Hey,  Welcome, or welcome back, to the Shores of Night. I'm your host, Grim, and I talk about far too many things.  I'm conscious that I'm pretty bad at updating the blog. This is really a proof-of-life blog piece. I have a few essays/think pieces on the back burner, waiting to be finished. One's about human nature and the other about fantasy and history, and I'll try to get them published soon... ish.  After that I'll see what I can start writing about. I'd quite like to do something fairly big, perhaps a deep dive into a roleplaying game like The Wildsea or Vaesen , or a Chapter and Verse series for the Definitive Edition of Ars Magica, going through it chapter by chapter. I also want to talk more about mental health and the odd things I find interesting, because let's face it, I'm interested in some odd things.  That, though, is for the future. I feel like I have to get through this month first.  September Honestly, this time of year is exhaus...

 Hi,  Welcome to the Shores of Night, or welcome back if you're new. I'm Grim, and I write about far too many subjects for one blog... I think I'm used to it now.  I wanted to talk about my own personal cosmology in terms of spiritual beliefs. My main belief is in Mother Earth, Gaia, the Anima Mundi - whatever you want to call her- with occasional dips into acknowledging a sea god and believing in Bast, the Egyptian cat goddess. They form an eclectic mix, and I'm not applying much logic to them. I believe in Gaia because without a planet, we wouldn't exist, and because if we don't protect the Earth, we'll suffer a dramatic change in lifestyle, at the very least. My faith in a sea god is because I live by the coast and there are times when the sea can be awe-inspiring, both in its beauty and its violence.  I believe in Bast because I still maintain the closest thing I've seen to divinity is looking into a cat's eyes. I associate cats with beauty and c...

Photo by Luke Jones on Unsplash  Hi,  Welcome back to the Shores of Night, or welcome if you're new here. My name is Grim, I'm a nonbinary, autistic person, and I usually write about fantasy, writing, paganism, roleplaying games, and whatever else takes my fancy.  Today I want to swerve into my mental health journey and talk about some of the things I'm wrestling with. I've already talked about some changes, which I believe are deep work paying off.  I've been in therapy since 2022, and learned I'm autistic in 2024, so the past few years have really helped me learn to like, and possibly even love, myself. It's allowed me to reframe a lot of my experiences into something more manageable and encouraged me to have more self-compassion. I feel like a lot of the places I've struggled with sit in the space between what I feel I should have experienced and what actually happened, as well as the various double binds we humans are so good at creating. I guess it...

 Welcome back to the Shores of the Night, or welcome if you're new. My name is Grim, and I talk about more things on this blog than I probably should.  Today I'm thinking about friends. Specifically, the issues I have making them. One of my earliest memories is being shunned on the playground because I didn't watch He-Man after school. It didn't improve. Most of my childhood was spent learning that people I liked tolerated or downright disliked me, and that's also been a feature of my adult years. In most social settings, I feel locked out, either because my interests don't align with most people's or because the environment's too loud, too bright, or too crowded. I find myself more comfortable in quiet spaces, libraries, book clubs, roleplaying games, that sort of thing. The worst thing I can imagine is going to a nightclub or something like that - which isn't to say that I never went to nightclubs when I was younger and I didn't know I was auti...