As much as I hate to do two "been gone a while, trying to do better" posts in a row, circumstances have made it kinda necessary. I'm not going to get into details publicly (or even much privately, quite frankly), but shortly after my last post things got a little rough on my end and I'm still bouncing back from it. And yes, I know it's obnoxious to vaguepost about personal difficulties, but radio silence tends to be more worrisome and this is unfortunately the sort of thing best kept between myself, a couple of confidants, and my therapist.

Regardless, I know I've been very quiet online in recent months, and I greatly appreciate those who've reached out to make sure I'm okay. Which I am, basically. Could be in a better spot, but as I type this I'm honestly having trouble remembering a time when I couldn't describe my life that way.

But this post is mostly just to acknowledge that I've been quiet, and to admit that I've fallen behind on a lot of stuff I've been working on, both destined for posting and otherwise. Even by my standards, I'm behind on a lot of writing and editing projects, and the fact that I've been poking at another new story idea hasn't helped. Thing is, sometimes when I get the 'new story' bug like so many writers do (especially those with ADHD, like myself), it's actually less of a distraction to work on it than to try not to.

So in other words, this is a typical 'proof of life' post for me.

On a related note, while nothing about it is in a state where I'd want to share it publicly (especially since doing so is often a barrier to getting stuff published), if any one wants to have a look at what I have so far for the new story, just ask. I've got a draft of a prelude and a first chapter that might be ready for another pair of eyes once I give it the 'read out loud' editing pass. The setting is a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid adventure story with both human and anthro characters on an alien world, kind of a mashup of themes and concepts from the Borderlands games and more traditional fantasy fare (particularly the modern era of Legend of Zelda games). I dunno if it's going anywhere, and I don't even have a proper name for it yet. I also don't know how long it'll be if it does go anywhere, or if it'll wind up just being something I draw from for shorter fiction, but if anyone wants to have a look and offer feedback I think I'd be fine sharing it privately.

Anyhow, if anyone has any questions or anything they'd like to share, go for it. I'm not going anywhere for the moment. In the meantime, take care of yourselves.

I recognize it's been a while since I've posted anything aside from the occasional comment here and there, and figured I should at least let folks know I'm still breathing.

I don't have any real progress to report writing-wise, largely because at best I've been treading water mentally and emotionally. I'm not gonna go into too many specifics because everyone's got it at least a little rough right now and any energy or sympathy you've got should go to their problems before mine. But yeah, the situation's not great, I'm trying to dig out from under it with a therapist's help, and as of this writing I've just gotten my psychiatrist to adjust my meds.

And speaking of other people having it rough, I want to boost something for someone very close to me, and I don't want to bury it at the end. The details are, to put it mildly, an absolute bummer, but my good friend Rhari is raising money to take her daughter on a very special journey. More on the GFM page.

As for me, a big chunk of what's kept me busy in terms of writing stuff has been a freelance gig. I never got around to announcing it at the time (before now), and to be honest I'm not entirely sure why aside from just dealing with depression and other distractions and actually, y'know, working on it. But I've been writing a chunk of the new Infernals book for Exalted, Third Edition. I'm primarily working on setting material, and quite frankly some of what the devs and writers have lined up for this is a doozy in a good way. (You gotta specify that, as 2nd edition's Infernals book was a doozy in a different way, with all due respect to everyone who worked on it.)

I'll be honest, working on it's been rough going due to the aforementioned mental health issues. Which has made the writing process more stressful than usual, and that stress has been exacerbating the mental health issues. If anything, it was worse than a similar problem I had with Alchemicals last year, and there's a part of me that's legitimately terrified that between my own screwed-up brain chemistry and the stresses of the world, my brain might be too fucked to keep freelancing. I'd honestly forgotten it was that bad until I went back looking through old posts to reference something and found a thing I wrote about it at the time.

But even before that, I'd gotten caught up with a story and setting idea that I've been fleshing out in notes and stuff. I don't know what form it's going to take, if any, because I don't know if it's an idea with legs or if it's just the excitement of toying around with something new. Regardless, it's taken up enough space in my brain it's been hard to shake it for other projects.

That said, I should point out I'm in a better place regarding my Conversion stuff, mentally (though I'm still thinking of renaming the setting). I haven't done much with it because of other projects taking priority (see the freelance gig above and other stuff below), as well as me wanting to take a step back and see how things are shaking out with regards to the current state of artificial intelligence. Not that AI is meant to be a major element in the setting, but it factors into at least one story and possibly more in the future as part of the setting's recent-ish history. (But then, there's stuff I initially planned for the setting I drifted away from and other stuff I drifted into, so that's another kettle of fish.) I'd rather take a bit of time to handle it to my satisfaction instead of having to dance around it later like Star Trek had to with the Eugenics Wars.

Anyhow...



I honestly can't think of anything else to get into here that I haven't pointed out in other posts -- like the lack of regular Exalted posting has been due to a combination of the depression and the fact that my group's been playtesting some upcoming material -- which, if I'd been a little more on the ball, I'd have linked the crowdfunding campaign for it, but I think you can pre-order the Exalted Essence Player's Guide over on Backerkit. I've got a bunch of posts to get caught up on, and in all those I'll try to get in write-ups for those playtesting sessions since that's probably fine to share now.

Okay, so that's probably it for the moment. Thanks for reading this far if you have, and if you have any questions or comments feel free to share them either here or wherever you found the link to this post. Later!

This is sort of a general update post (which I'm also crossposting to my blog). Intellectually, I don't think anything here is going to be any surprise or revelation to anyone, but I feel like sometimes I need to send out a "proof of life" broadcast.

So, first off, I've been struggling with a lot of major personal stuff for a while, and that continues. I've mentioned this on and off in passing, and I'd go into more detail if it was appropriate to do so here. It bugs me that I can't talk about it, because before it all started I was trying to be more open about stuff bothering me and not bottle up so much. Part of the problem is that as much as I'd like to find a comfortable medium of being open about what I can while keeping the things I can't close to the chest, I'm not sure what I'd have to say. "I'm miserable and I'm having trouble writing." I mean, that'd mostly be it, albeit in a variety of different phrasings and levels of self-deprecation.

Because, y'know, I'm miserable and I'm having trouble writing.

And there are multiple factors that feed into those difficulties, some of them out of my control. And I have trouble keeping the stuff I can control in check. But the biggest barrier, outside my ADHD, is the distinct impression that I'm the only one that cares about my fiction writing, except the handful of times I've written it under contract. I find it difficult to remain emotionally-invested in my characters or stories when clearly they aren't especially compelling to anyone else, either.

I know I'm a broken record about this, but I'll say it again: about 99% of the encouragement I get regarding my writing comes from people who don't read it. Seriously, while I do appreciate the thought and I don't want to come across like I'm giving anyone crap for it, it's frustrating beyond my ability to articulate that my complaints about nobody reading my fiction get more attention and feedback than the actual work itself. (Even with the gaming fiction for books that sell hundreds or maybe thousands of copies, I can count on one hand the number of times I've heard or read any reaction to my gaming fiction from people who weren't the developer I was writing it for.) While it's not conscious on my part, it's probably not an accident that I have an easier time complaining than working. It's all dragging me down to the point where it's affecting my enthusiasm/ability to work on other stuff, too.

This shouldn't be news, if you've known me for more than five minutes. This is something I've complained about, before. None of that has changed, and I don't know how to do anything about it. Under the pretense of a "New Year's fresh start" thing, I'm considering putting up a self-promotional post in a few spots, see if I can get some eyes on my work while I poke at the WIP stuff I've got, but it really feels like actively tracking down Lucy specifically to hand her the football and hold it for me to kick.

Either way, this is a long, whiny way of saying that my writing progress hasn't really advanced beyond the state it was in when I posted about it back in September.

I'm not sure what else to add to this, so I'll just say for anyone who has paid attention thus far, thanks for reading, and I'm sorry I'm such a disappointment and waste of time.

(And if anyone is reading this and thinking 'if you can psych yourself up to write this post, you should be able to psych yourself up to write other things,' you can go fuck yourself because if it was that fucking easy I'd be fucking doing it.)

First off, I'm way overdue on this, but right now on Backerkit there's a crowdfunding campaign for Alchemicals: Forged by the Machine God, an Exalted 3rd Edition splatbook featuring the Alchemical Exalted, who are sweet magical robot-people who (for the most part) live inside a giant magical robot-god. I mention this because I worked on it -- and in fact, as I write this, the most recent manuscript preview contains some of the material I wrote for the book! The previews are available for backers only, though I'm pretty sure you can back the campaign, download the preview, and then cancel it, if you really want to. I can't stop ya.

(Also, as a side-note, while this is a 3e core system book, the setting material is also useful for the Exalted Essence rules, especially with the updates to the Adamant Caste.)

If you'd like to know more, episode 338 of the Onyx Pathcast has a basic explainer of Alchemicals. And past episodes include interviews with the developers and a couple of the writers.

There's also a slightly-outdated pair of episodes from the Systematic Understanding of Everything podcast, talking about the Alchemicals themselves and the magical machine-world in which they live. These two refer primarily to the 2e books, but there's a lot of broad strokes stuff that still holds up as those books naturally fed into the new one, and all of the podcast's hosts wound up working on it.

Or, if you'd rather skip the podcasts, I can answer questions if people have any.

In semi-related news, here's a reminder that another book I recently worked on, the Trinity Continuum Player's Guide is available over on DriveThruRPG in PDF and print on demand. It's a supplement for the Trinity Continuum 'core' line, though the material in there is useful in any of the various timelines of the Continuum.

Anyhow, I hope everyone's holiday season is off to a solid start. Take care, and hopefully I'll be able to check in again soon!

If you're reading this, I'm thankful for you.

I should have shared these before, but I've been struggling with stuff lately and shit falls between the cracks.

Anyhow... first off, a gaming book I worked on, the Trinity Continuum Player's Guide, is available over on DriveThruRPG in both PDF and POD. It's a supplement for the Trinity Continuum line, some sort of guide for players if I understand correctly. (When I began work on it, it was initially under another title, but they merged it with another book.) I wrote a bunch of material on time travel and some fiction for it.

Also, on either the 12th or the 14th of this month, the next Exalted 3rd Edition fatsplat, Alchemicals: Forged by the Machine God is coming to Backerkit. I mention this because that's yet another book I worked on. I'll share a link to that when it goes live. I'm planning on doing a little bit of content for my gaming blog related to it as well, for the heck of it.

I've got a much longer version of this post over on my regular blog, and some of what's there you've already seen here in recent venting. Rather than reproduce all of that here, I'm going to share the portion of the post where I talk about where I'm at on writing projects. If you want to know more about where my head has been at, go click on that link to read the full thing on the blog.

Here's what I've had in the works in some capacity. This all got put on hold while I was doing that freelancing gig and while I was recovering from the burnout I inflicted on myself in the process. I'm covering as many different distinct writing projects as I can think of, partially as a way of keeping them all straight myself.

Let Sleeping Foxes Lie -- I've been editing and revising this in fits and spurts as I go, and it's probably my highest priority if I don't have something that needs more immediate attention. I've also got some setting material I need to finish up and send off to Vaughn that's completely fallen by the wayside amongst my freelancing and burnout (with a sprinkle of emotional collapse on top).

Conversion -- Once I get Let Sleeping Foxes Lie revised, I plan to give the main Conversion story the 2.0 treatment as well.
Also under the 'Conversion' umbrella are a pair of short stories that I did a few years ago. They've collected dust in my files because they also need revision and I don't want to just post them online in case an anthology comes along for which they'd be a good fit.
I also have a couple of unfinished short stories, both started for anthology submissions but I couldn't get them done before the deadline. One of them was kind of emotionally-fraught to work on (I started it as kind of a writing-as-therapy project) and while I've gotten it to a point where I feel better about it, I honestly don't know how (or if) I want to finish it. The other I have a vague outline in my head for how I want it to go, but I just don't know an interesting way to get it there.
I've also got some vague concepts in mind for future stuff in the setting, but nothing definitive due to a combination of self-doubt, wanting to get a definitive revision of the main story together, and the fact that I'm kind of standing back and watching how this current real-world AI madness is shaping up, because some of that may be relevant for setting backstory reasons.

Song in the Dark -- On hiatus. I'm thinking it's probably got two chapters left and maybe an epilogue or denouement, and I have a vague idea on what I want to do with those, but nothing's nailed down. I haven't felt especially inspired to prioritize it over anything else I've got in the works, and I honestly don't know if that inspiration will come.

Material for my gaming blog -- After asking repeatedly for ideas on what I can/should do with my gaming blog besides write-ups of my tabletop sessions, the only response I've gotten is a single person saying "Sorry, I don't read blog posts." So I'm going to take the hint and not bother. I might do a couple of character builds here and there because it amuses me to do so (probably characters for the Exalted book I worked on, when that's closer to being released), but I'm simply not going to waste time and energy producing other content for it unless I come up with something that really needs to get out there.

Side projects I haven't talked about publicly -- I've got a couple of these, one of which I posted a test chapter for some years back and had to spend weeks begging for feedback on it (and the current version of that bears little resemblance to what I posted).
Side Project A -- Urban fantasy setting. I've got a few chapters and a vague outline for a longer story in the setting (starting with a version of the aforementioned test chapter), an idea for a short story or two, and a stack of worldbuilding notes. This is mostly me wanting to have something to draw from if, say, I see an anthology I want to go for but it won't fit in the very narrow niche of my cyberpunk setting.
Side Project B -- Another setting that's kind of a sci-fi/fantasy blend, but I'm not sure if I can really nail it down to a distinct genre yet. I don't even know if it's going anywhere at all, but this was a case of "I had an idea stuck in my head for a few days and the only way to stop thinking about it for twenty minutes was to write some of it down."

And then of course there's the little bits and drabs and ideas I scribble down and will probably never get around to, that I'm only mentioning here for the sake of being thorough. These are mostly community content for a couple tabletop RPGs. (For those of you unfamiliar with the expression, 'community content' means 'authorized homebrew I can post to DriveThruRPG and sell.')

I think probably my biggest weakness as a writer is that my stories are never really about anything. They're just me spinning out a scenario that sounds cool in my head, in a way that I can share with people. Even if I have some deeper meaning or allegory in mind, I get creatively distracted and it never really makes it onto the page.

Not that every story needs to be about something, but I offer very little substance to go with the style, and I think that's the reason why so few people get really invested in my fiction. I think that might be the reason why it bothers me so much that I get so little feedback, because maybe on some level I need other people to read the meaning into my stories that I fail to include.

And I don't have the first clue regarding how to do something about this. Even if I did, I worry that I've run out of opportunities to impress people, that I've already weighed myself down with too much mediocrity and even if I do turn out something legitimately good it'll be seen as a fluke.

You know the saying "not a has-been, but a never-was?" Well, right now I feel like I've managed to pull off both.

First off, as a reminder, I have a gaming blog where I try to regularly post write-ups of my tabletop gaming sessions (though I fell a little behind these last couple of months amidst recent struggles and still getting caught up). For a while now I've been running Exalted in some form or another, if anyone's interested. I also occasionally build a character and write-up the process of that for the blog. Most recently, I just took the plunge and basically wrote up MythicFox as a Pathfinder 2e Bard.

But I'm not posting this just to plug the blog, but also because I've put up a post where I'm asking for some input/feedback from anyone who may be reading it or might be interested in doing so. You can find that here, and can either leave a comment there or post here or whatever.

It's a question I ask myself a lot these days.

Between private personal crises and ADHD struggles, my mental health has not been great. I'm medicated, and seeing a therapist, but dealing with just everything going on is still a difficult process, and among other things it's been exacerbating various doubts I have about my abilities as a writer.

For instance, I recently wrapped up and turned in a draft for some stuff I was contracted to write for an RPG book, and it was a real struggle to get done. I had some technical issues with it, which would have been bearable but I recently had to switch ADHD meds and wasn't doing great on the new one and so that combined with executive dysfunction made every little speedbump into a brick wall to climb over or punch through. The work was challenging in other ways, too -- not counting the purely-fiction piece I wrote for a fiction anthology, this'll be the dozenth RPG book I've worked on, and it was an Exalted Third Edition book, and I honestly think the mechanical elements of my sections were probably more... I guess 'dense' is the most appropriate word... than the rest of them combined. It was a fun challenge, but a challenge nonetheless -- probably on par with having to hammer out and explain the rules and boundaries of time travel for the Trinity Continuum Player's Guide.

But it was a massive struggle in revisions, and as the deadline approached, the stress of not having it done was making it hard to relax, which just made it that much harder to focus on it, which made the deadline even more stressful, and it became a vicious cycle. I felt like I'd really burned myself out and a lot of stuff kinda fell by the wayside, which is also why I got really quiet online (if anyone noticed). The whole thing reminded me very uncomfortably of the difficulties I had before my ADHD diagnosis and medication. Thing is, at the time I accepted and first started work on the book, I was on a different medication, and even though I was having some issues with that (having developed a tolerance to it, thus the need to change), I was still in a better place than the stuff I changed to later. And even though I've talked to my doctor and we tried adjusting the dosage and I seem to be doing better now, I'm not going to deny that it scares me a bit that I can have such a drastic swing in such a short time. Every time I work on an RPG book, there's a point where I get paranoid and worry "Is this the one I screw up so badly they won't hire me again?" and this last time I was probably the most severely I've felt it.

I got it done, after a little extension from the developer, and for reasons I won't get into here the delay might have indirectly made the material better, but that fear was still there. So much so that I can't help but wonder what's the bigger contributor to my improved sense of well-being: the medication or the relief of having the assignment done.

But it's still brought to mind doubts about my writing in general. Like, as you should know because for a while I wouldn't shut up about it, I spent a little over a decade writing what became a novel and finished it up last year. I shared links to it on social media, almost everyplace I could get away with, and it's gotten no attention. After a previous blog post of mine that was kind of a cry for help, someone reached out about properly publishing it with an actual editor and everything. And I said 'sure, I just want to give it a revision pass first and I have another project I want to get off my plate before that' (which I had to set aside to work on the Exalted book), but I've been questioning on and off for a while whether it'd be worth it. The biggest thing holding me back from just self-publishing it myself last year is the thought that nobody will want it. AFAIK nobody's even read the whole thing, or if they have they haven't said anything about it despite my repeated literal begging for anyone to do so. I'm not sure I can in good conscience ask people to pay for something they wouldn't read for free, and I'm actually less comfortable asking other people to put in time and effort just to share in my failure.

But part of what sent me down this little spiral and inspired this post in the first place was going over my Discord servers and realizing that I actually never shared the novel over on the Furry Writers' Guild server. And I don't know if it's because I forgot or if it's because I'm not really active there (I've talked before about how I feel disconnected from the furry writing community as a whole) and didn't want to be like "oh, hey, I know I haven't posted anything here in a year but come read this thing I wrote." But, again, I can't even get my friends to read the whole thing and tell me what they think, so I don't know what I'd expect out of virtual strangers.

But either way, it comes back to one question -- What the fuck am I doing? Because I honestly don't know. I feel like a failure, that I've let so many people down, and the only reason I keep trying at all is because giving up would be a bigger disappointment. And I hate feeling this way, because it feels like an insult to the handful of people who have said kind things about my work. But it's not like I have fans, there aren't people who see my name on a game book credits page and say 'oh, I wonder what he worked on.' Most of the people who have said something complimentary about "Conversion" just commented on the chapters they read at the time and said they look forward to the next parts and then I never heard from them again. What am I supposed to do, go hit them up and beg them to come back? That's what the +watch function is for; if they wanted to read more, they'd have done so. I dunno, this train of thought is going down a track that's already well-traveled.

And this is something I'll probably address with my therapist at some point, but I've only got so much time per session and can only see her so often and I've got bigger shit to untangle.

But a lot of my problem is, I guess, that it's really hard for me to sustain interest in my writing unless other people are interested as well. By the time I get stuff out onto the page, the characters and scenarios are already so played out in my head the only way I can really appreciate them is through other peoples' eyes or by waiting long enough I don't remember writing the story before I reread it. But when my doubts, struggles, and failures get layered on top of it, it makes it difficult for me to remain interested in my own settings, and makes me question whether it's worth trying to write anything new -- and I do have new ideas, and new settings and characters I want to explore, but am I just going to be banging my head on a different brick wall until I get a headache? As I've observed before, writing without an audience is just masturbating with extra steps and with far less payoff.

And I apologize if you are +watching me for my work and just getting periods of silence broken up by pissing and moaning and venting. You deserve better than that, but I'm not sure if I can deliver, because I have no clue what the fuck I'm doing.

Insert boilerplate 'sorry I've been so quiet,' so on and so forth. I haven't posted much here because I haven't had a whole lot to post. I've been juggling -- and badly so -- a combination of mental health issues, private matters, and contracted freelance work. All I've had the time and energy for in terms of personal creative endeavors is my weekly Exalted game and occasional RPG-related blog post.

Could I be using that time/energy to write stories instead? Probably. But having the regular sessions to prepare for and write up blog posts about after is helping to maintain momentum, and it's one of my primary sources of socialization right now. But in either case, I'm not sure what I'd have available to post in any case -- I don't have any short stories in the works, mostly writing or revising longer-form stuff that if I share at all in an unfinished state will be private.

Either way I don't have any real announcements to share, other than mentioning the aforementioned freelance work -- I'm working on the upcoming Alchemicals 'fatsplat' book for Exalted 3rd edition, which makes the eleventh RPG book I've worked on (twelfth if you count fiction anthologies), and the fifth distinct game line I've written for.

Anyhow, I can't think of anything else I feel up to tossing out right at the moment. If you've got any specific questions, feel free to ask them. Take care of yourselves.

First off, I hope everyone had a pleasant and safe New Year's Eve & Day. I know it's been quiet here, and it's because there hasn't been much to say.

Writing-wise, it's nothing I can even pretend is exciting. It's all either idly poking at one or two new ideas that probably won't go anywhere and/or see the light of day, or boring revisions of old material that I hope to do something with. Well, I want to hope to do something with. Well, I tell myself I want to hope to do something with. (Sorry, nothing kills my enthusiasm for my own writing more than actually having to think about it.)

If you're at all interested in my gaming stuff, there's an update on my blog where I go into more detail and don't want to reformat it for here.

So for anyone who's been following or at least interested in my Exalted game, we recently wrapped up the 'season' of stories after way too many sessions. Write-up on the season finale is here, and if you want to look back through earlier stories with these characters you can check the Actual Play index here.

Somewhat-related, in case you missed it I've also been occasionally doing write-ups of different characters for my blog, and I recently got around to actually putting together an index of those to keep track of them.

In other news, I hope everyone's had a safe and pleasant holiday season thus far, and that you remain safe and all that through any New Year's Eve/Day shenanigans.

If you're reading this, I'm thankful for you, more than I can really say.

First off, if you're interested in my writing and want to know where my head is at regarding it, I recently made a blog post delving into all of that in some detail. Just kind of a braindump in which I get some things off my chest. You can find that here.

Second, and unrelated, if you're interested at all in RPG stuff, I've been writing up more characters for the aforementioned blog. I keep forgetting the last few of them here on FA, and at this point it would just be easier to link the appropriate post tag than do so individually. Right now I've got two Exalted: Essence characters, and three Trinity Continuum characters (one from the core book, one from Æon, and one from Aberrant).

So over on my gaming blog, where I recently wrote up an Exalted: Essence character, I have done so again. Same game, different character.

And if you know nothing about Exalted and would like a quick primer, I've got one here that I wrote up a while back.

Over on my gaming blog, I posted a thing where I do a step-by-step walkthrough of Exalted: Essence character creation. You can find it here.

Writing that last journal was actually kind of draining, so I'm out of cleverness for the moment. But just letting you know that a friend tossed a Blue Sky invite code at me. So now you can find me there. I'm also still on Mastodon at mythicfox@furries.club, and I've got my gaming (and ostensibly writing) blog as well.

So here's the general writing update I promised a little while back.

In case you missed it, I finally got around to finishing and posting the final chapter of "Conversion." It's been a long time coming.

I don't have much in the way of immediate plans for the setting. I've talked about doing a collected edition of the main Conversion story, but if I can be blunt for a moment I don't think there's any interest in one. I've got a half-finished story I'm stalled on, and a handful of varied ideas, but nothing concrete. Once I get another little side-project out of the way I'm going to try and focus on posting the Conversion-setting stories that got published some years back in ROAR and FANG.

Beyond that... I'm not sure. I need to do my revision of "Let Sleeping Foxes Lie," which looks more and more like a full rewrite every time I glance at it. Not just because I cringe at what my writing was like then, or because of the bits where it's unintentionally problematic, but more to bring it more in-line with other stories in the setting (like the short story I wrote, "The Kit Gloves Are Off," for Samhain Secrets: World Premiere).

I've got a story idea in the works for another setting I've been tinkering with, but I've learned my lesson about publicly posting chapters of unfinished stories. They just serve as uncomfortable reminders that I haven't finished the story yet, make it awkward to go back and edit earlier chapters when I need to do so, and they potentially make it difficult to get the longer stuff published. I'd rather post completed short stories than fragments of longer works. (If anyone's interested in beta reading unfinished stuff, let me know.)

Speaking of which, I might move "Song in the Dark" to Scraps for the indeterminate future. It's completely stalled, and while I've got one or two upcoming scenes in my head, I don't know where the larger story is going or how it's getting there. I'm a little concerned that I've kind of moved 'beyond' what I started writing the story for. I was coming from a very personal place and maybe time and experience have changed me in some way, or I hit some sort of catharsis in the last chapter I wrote (or both), and whatever drove me to write the story in the first place has faded. Maybe I'll do a reread of the story so far, replay the game, and see if that shakes anything loose. But I'll be honest, I'm not as hopeful as I'd like to be.

And with that taken care of, let me take a moment to remind you that I've got a blog with write-ups of my tabletop game sessions (including an ongoing Exalted game), as well as indexes of my published game writing and fiction. Note that I contributed opening fiction for some of the game books and it may be viewable for free in the previews, and the fiction index also includes links to a reading I did of "The Kit Gloves Are Off" for a podcast.

In case you missed it, I've officially finished the Conversion main story. I wanted to try and get it done by the tenth anniversary of when I posted what became the first chapter, but that wound up not happening.

I can't think of anything to add here that isn't already addressed in the description of the final chapter, though I do want to reiterate my thanks and appreciation for the bits of encouragement I've gotten over the years and to thank everyone for their patience.

But this journal is meant to serve a couple of purposes.
First, to offer a place for people to ask questions, offer general feedback, that sort of thing. If you're reading this without an FA account, feel free to leave comments over on my gaming blog or reach out to me on various social media.

Second, to re-ask something I first brought up a few years back and got literally zero response: While I don't know exactly when/if I'd do anything with it, I've thought about commissioning some 'chapter images,' getting a scene drawn from each chapter as a way to make the story chapters 'pop' a little better in the gallery. I have a lot of trouble seeing the forest for the trees, so while I have a few ideas as to which scenes I'd probably have done, if anyone has any thoughts on that matter feel free to say so.

(Semi-related, I've thought about getting an icon done for other stories in the setting that don't feature Lawrence, but I've got no clue what would be good/interesting.)

Finally, as I've said before (and again got zero feedback), I've been toying with the idea of doing some 'rebranding' and renaming the Conversion setting, partially because I feel like the name -- which I initally came up with for the central story -- suggests the setting has a whole has a lot more transformation than is actually present. Also, I worry there might be confusion with the aforementioned central story (which I may also rename at some point in the future if I do a collected edition, who knows). I can't promise I'd use anyone's exact ideas, but if anyone has any input or advice on what direction I should be looking in for such rebranding.

Thank you again for your time, patience, and interest.

(I don't feel like getting into it now, but there'll be more of a general update hopefully within a couple of days.)

So for anyone still here and paying attention, I've finally scraped together the time and energy to do a last round of revisions on the denouement of Conversion. I need to do some formatting and then I'll post it tomorrow, as I'm a little too headachy and tired to do so right now.whenever I get a chance, as I've hit a technical snag and need a little more time.

But I'm glad to have it finished, after all this time.

It's taken too fucking long because I've had a lot going on, but I finally have a draft of the denouement ready.

The draft is also too fucking long, though I'm not sure if I'll shorten it at all or if so by how much. It feels a bit like I spent too long wandering around at a party saying goodbye to everyone before heading out, which will fit when you actually read it. But I dunno if it's a good thing or not. I'm just happy to have the thing written down.

I'm gonna let it sit a bit while I work on something else briefly, and then I'll give it an edit pass and a polish and post it. After a literal decade of poking at it on and off, it'll be nice to be done with it.

So first off, the Scion Second Edition book I worked on, Realms of Magic & Mystery, is now available in print-on-demand. (Full disclosure, that's an affiliate link, if you use that to buy the book or something else after it leads you to the site, I get some store credit.)

Second, my reading of "The Kit Gloves Are Off" from Samhain Secrets: World Premiere is now available on Spotify, via Blackwarren Books' 'Allora Public Radio' podcast. It's in two parts, and each is about an hour long. So here's Part 1, and Part 2.

And just as a reminder, while it's too late to get in on the crowdfunding (though there may be pre-order options available, I'm not sure), you can read the fiction I wrote for the Trinity Continuum Player's Guide on this Backerkit update.


Finally, just to get something off my chest, I really hate that for some people, +watching is a promotional tactic. For someone who occasionally struggles with a desperate need to have his work noticed, I die a little inside when I see I have a new follower, only to discover that they're just an artist trying to get eyes on their page.

I know this is last-minute, but we've had to reschedule tonight's reading until next week.

But that gives you plenty of time to get caught up on the first half!

Reminding folks that this Friday, April 14th, at 8pm Eastern time, I'll be reading the second half of "The Kit Gloves Are Off" over at the Blackwarren Books Discord. As a reminder, you can pick up the anthology in which it appeared, Samhain Secrets: World Premiere, at this finely-crafted link. (It's always best to buy direct from the publisher, but if you must go through alternate storefronts, you may find links to those over on my index of published fiction.)

Edited to add: The first half is on Spotify!

Now, the more recent thing. Realms of Magic and Mystery, a Scion Second edition supplement I worked on, is now available in print on demand. If you bought the advance PDF and you're getting Onyx Path updates via DriveThru, you should have a link to a coupon for a discount on the POD as if you'd bought the PDF-POD bundle (as well as a notification of an updated PDF).

Last, and most certainly not least of the important updates, the Trinity Continuum Player's Guide crowdfunding campaign is going into its final week. "Falling Into Place," a piece of fiction I wrote, was posted as a preview here, and as of this post the backer-only manuscript previews have included most of the material I wrote for the book, with some mechanical bits still yet to arrive this coming Tuesday, the 18th.

And as a final note, sorry if it feels like I've only had things to say about stuff that is at best peripherally furry-related, when I still have to finish up Conversion. All I'll say is that right now life is a bigger struggle than is appropriate to get into here, and the final chapter of Conversion has been tricky because... well, not gonna get into a huge thing about it. Let's just say I made choices with dubious benefits. We'll see how it looks when it's finished.

I thank you all for your patience. You've stuck by me longer and farther than is reasonable. It won't be forgotten.