It’s been a while since I’ve made a blog post, it’s long overdue. I want to talk about some of my struggles I’ve had to deal with over the last few months and what I’m doing and hope to be doing in the future.
Sad News
In my last post I was struggling too, mostly due to my mother’s health issues. Those health issues caught up with her and she passed near the start of April. It’s been hard, but not as hard as I feared it would be, still, it’s hard. I’ve been struggling with my energy level and my concentration. Both things are affected by grief. It has put a huge damper on content. I don’t know when I’ll be back up to where I was at the start of the year but I’m working on it.
Patterns and D&D
I’ve noticed some patterns with how I creatively work. It comes in waves. Sometimes I will hyper focus, sometimes I feel like I can’t even get out of bed to work on the computer. That, I’ve known for a long time and it’s depression, but it also comes in waves as to what I’m focusing on. Sometimes I will start writing a new story, sometimes I’ll skip to a whole new type of project.
In that regard, I’m also in a transition. My stories, while still on my mind, have been put on the back burner and I’m now hyped up for D&D. My one game I’m doing is fun, I’ve planned a lot out, but I have a refined idea for a second game.
I want to get two or three players, I want to keep it a small game, and I want to focus on character background and character development. The story will heavily incorporate the player’s backgrounds, making it a more personal game. Additionally The players will be required to keep a diary in their character’s perspective on the companion webpage. I want it to be something of an interactive art exhibit, featuring the Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition system as the vehicle to tell a story.
This second game will also be set in Shattered Kingdoms and will be ran alongside the first game within the same world and timeline. This will allow for some possible interaction between the parties down the road if their stories cross. I’m really excited about this.
While I have not written much down about this new project I’ve thought a lot about it and have done a lot of YouTube based research for developing character backgrounds and personalities. I even created a playlist with the videos so I can point them to potential players so they have an idea of what they are getting into. You can view the playlist HERE if you like.
This feels like a natural progression of my story telling. Before I was really hyper focused on doing it through my writing, now I’m focusing on it through running D&D. The most difficult thing is trying to hand pick players. I’ve only been looking for a few days but I’m being rather particular.
Near Future
I’m trying to get back into streaming but I won’t be doing any regular game streaming anymore, at least not on a schedule, but I’m not giving up on streaming.
I plan to slowly incorporate a once a week writing into my schedule again. This could take the form of short story writing, editing, D&D writing or any other text based creative art that appeals to me.
Additionally I am continuing my current D&D game, although it’s been hard to schedule everyone. In fact the next episode will be streaming June 5th on Twitch. The second game I spoke of I hope to have going in the next month or two.
Then I also want to do a beer tasting, I’ve done one before, and I’ve been planning a new one for months now. I think it’s about time to get that done. It’s more involved than my last one, which was just a stream. I plan on making a introduction YouTube video, a beer tasting YouTube video, edited from the live stream and then a third video with highlights from the whole stream.
Distant Future
Things I would like to add are in real life streams, something I’ve done a few times this year already. I want to do more and do it more regularly but it really depends on the state of the world. This could take the form of beach trips, group hangouts, game nights, trips to bars, bear tastings and of course LARP Stream.
Hopeful
I hope to get back to working more regularly, this is my first attempt at pushing myself to get back on the grind. It will take more time to get back to where I was, but I know it’s possible. In fact I’m sure I will supase where I was productively at the start of the year.
I look forward to see where things will take us over the next six months. I hope you will join me on the journey.