I've spent most of the last year trying to get my life in some new kind of order.

Coming back to the states from the desert was a shock to the system. I spent months trying to buy a house only to be stymied by the fact that since I own my own business now the banks look at me differently and won't give me a loan. Moving myself, moving my woman, getting used to a new dog, then ANOTHER new dog, getting married... all while sorting out a new work situation.

I look back on the year and realize I've done practically nothing creative.

One might argue getting married is an act of supreme creativity and I might be inclined to agree but that's not exactly something I can post is it.

I can't even post a picture of that... well I suppose I could but it would be unAmerican not to charge for those kinds of images.

So I'm sitting here looking at the class in front of me who are all working on an IP troubleshooting lab thinking to myself that I need to get back into writing.

I have some checks coming in and this class will bring me another one; the contract I'm looking at picking up is likely a few weeks off yet, so why not focus on writing in the intervening time?

I'll have to spend SOME of that time studying, such is the nature of the job, but surely I could take some time off from games and invest that time in something a bit more productive if not lucrative.

Some of my time will of course be spent on BtV. Right now we've been coasting on material that was written last year. The pace of the comment is subject to forces outside my control, but still I should go ahead and work out more of the finer details. In broad strokes I know what's going to happen but if I don't start getting more specific I may miss foreshadowing opportunities which will lessen the impact of the story overall.

Still, BtV can't be my only creative outlet. I have been thinking semi-seriously about making a real effort at publication. It's been many years since I dusted off that dream and took a look at it, but in those intervening years I've lived quite an interesting life. I've seen much of the world and garnered experiences that I think will make it easier for me to write with a better grasp on character development and human nature.

If I do decide to take a serious shot at a novel though it will almost certainly not be anthropomorphic. There just isn't enough demand for that sort of work to make it profitable, and I'm not the sort to be satisfied with being a big fish in a small pond. That's one of the reasons I gave up Air Hockey. I got tired of having to explain a sport I was good at but that no one else knew was a sport. It's still a fun game but there's just no local competition, my associates having also left the game years back. Likewise I look at most of the stuff I've done in furry and no matter how much I personally may like it I understand that it's just not publishable in the broader sense.

I had a few ideas about stories set in an alternate past, just after the Civil War. I may dust some of those off and have a look, but if I do make a serious literary effort in the next year I definitely need to organize the attempt so as to give it the most reasonable chance at success. Thus this journal, to organize my thoughts.

Oh, and I love my wife dearly, which is an afterthought in this journal but not in my life. Her support and the changes I'm forced to deal with in order to live peaceably with a lovely woman I deeply love has made me a better person.