Snapshot

 Hi,

Photo by Mira Kemppainen on Unsplash

It's been a while, hasn't it? Not since I posted -  I was generally grumpy about the festive season (humbug!) last weekend - but since I talked about my life here. Reflection is something that comes pretty easily to me, and it feels natural to take stock at this part of the year. It's a natural part of winter, where things are slower and the world a little quieter. 

This year has been a bit crazy and it feels like it's been tough, emotionally. In some respects I've ended up running as fast as I can to stand still, as Alice in Wonderland put it. As we grow closer to the end of the year, I'm trying not to feel too aggrieved by things, as well as girding my loins for whatever comes next. Please forgive me because I don't feel I can really go into immense amounts of detail in some areas but will at least touch on the parts which have been difficult. 

The good news is that my job is now safe. My employer has had to downsize, letting people go. My role was due to end at the end of March. While this is a relief, I'm trying to learn the lessons from the situation. So far, that's coming through as a need to upskill and focus (which is often difficult for me). I'm also committing more to the union and hoping to become the Green Rep in the new year. 

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The bad news is that mediation with my ex-wife fell through and the case is now closed. I need to reflect on whether it's worth continuing to push for things to happen or if I should simply walk away. I simply don't know. I'm conscious that I tend to give up too easily, and I'm sure my therapist would offer a lot of counsel on why. 

I think part of it is that I'm just tired. It feels like I've been the driving force behind this from the start, doing the forms, ticking the boxes, finding the resources and trying to get things to a point where everything's tied put to bed.  

At present, I plan to see if my union's lawyers can help, so we'll see what happens. It may come to nothing, but I don't see what else I can do. 

The whole thing has me thinking about what I want, and how I should go about getting it. I'm often bad at working out the steps to getting to things and even worse at staying on target. In some ways, this post is in part about ordering my thoughts and if not getting all my ducks in a row, at least making sure all my pagan squirrels are at the same rave. 

Part of that is deciding how quickly I want to put things to bed and how much emotional and mental energy I want to devote to the past. 

cover by Raymond Swanland

In that spirit, of course, there has to be a sense of recommitment to the things that bring me joy and I want to grow in my life. For example, writing, which I still feel determined to make at least a part of my life in a more significant fashion. Words and expression are endlessly important to me and I truly love them. Only this week, I've been geeking out over a paragraph in the Chronicles of the Black Company and getting a little thrill at the turns of phrase that Glen Cook brings to bear. I want to write, I want to have the energy and focus to make wonderful stories that people love. What that looks like, is the next part of the process. 

With that in mind, I'm trying to focus on building my writing career by focusing on short stories and roleplaying adventures. I have novel ideas, and works in progress, but at present I feel it's best to focus on short pieces that I can either self publish or send to magazines. 

On top of that, in an effort to work out what roleplaying game I'm running next (which I know I want to be a horror conspiracy game), I'm working on fleshing out four one shot adventures to establish players' preferences and get a place to focus. 

Of course, despite this attempt to focus, I have also been writing a roleplaying setting. In it, the power of necromancy is out of control following the fall of the Liche Emperor. There's a touch of "so it goes" to that, I'm afraid. I think I'll always have those impulse projects, so I'm trying not to berate myself too much about giving myself a side quest. 

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I wish my brain wasn't so woolly, and I worry that this move has been driven by a) my people pleasing tendencies and b) an unfair assumption that most people know what they want far more than I know what I want. I get very confused when people tell me they want me to be happy... honestly, it isn't something I'm used to. Most of my life has been "grin and bear it" to the point where I just, well, do. To give myself some compassion, this comes from a long period of time where my opinions didn't count, so learning to put myself first is a journey I'm still on. 

Vaesen by Johan Egerkrans

The thought that I might be moving because of my job situation (sadly, there's very little in the way of career prospects where I live) also led to me deciding to focus more on things I love and try to finesse the skills and knowledge attached to them. So with gaming, for example, becoming very good at running a specific set of games and not keeping titles I won't run lying around. In gaming terms that's led to me really focusing on some World of Darkness titles, the new Laundry Files game, Vaesen, Night's Black Agents, and some Warhammer stuff. 

It has also made me more committed to writing and playing my own settings, because to be honest I do feel quite tired of playing with other people's toys. Hence, my attempt to build a setting with too much undead stuff going on.