Doesn't seem like a good time to do major projects right now, but I'm trying to persevere.

I've been poking at a fantasy novel that I abandoned a while back, in the same world as "Striking the Root" and "Striking Chains", about a time of religious upheaval. (And griffins, and squirrels.) Over 5K words into a new opening and I have around 37K words of old material to recycle.

The "Ethos" game project had a minor breakthrough recently; see gallery. Seems like there might be a reasonably fun game mechanic if it's built into something bigger. I have a rough plan for a follow-up but am a little intimidated because this one ought to be more complex and polished than the last few. The challenge will involve managing that complexity to have a more complete game that makes me say "yes, this is worth really pushing for".

I should be finishing a humor story set in Hoofland, but slammed into a wall on that one, partly because it's humor. Been provided recently with a large number of Tales ideas, most interesting and several really good; not sure how to approach these. A basic problem with the Tales series is the conflict between in-game adventures and out-of-game futurism, and trying to find an audience for either. I'm not sure of the direction I should go with that, other than that I'm interested in jumping around 10 years forward in that timeline. Got told I shouldn't expect to break into the LitRPG market in a meaningful way, and got to re-open an old spiritual wound today about the furry fandom.

Wrote a little TF story ("The Antique Crown") and enjoyed that enough that something like it might even end up being the replacement setting for the game project. You're an adventurer focused on nonviolent persuasion after all.