THIS BEAUTIFUL WORLD IS SAFE AND IT’S ALL THANKS TO YOU

It would probably help if I updated my website more than once a year.

Truth be told, part of the reason I haven’t been active on this website is because a lot of my writing energy has been placed on my Kindle Vella Story “Gods Cannot Pray” which is a stat-heavy Progression Fantasy LitRPG I’m becoming more and more excited about. Vella is Amazons’ serialize content website, and while it is likely most popular for its romance stories it certainly does have its fans among the fantasy fiction crowd. The plan is to continue to update my story chapter by chapter, keep it up for about a month when the first three arcs are finished, and then turn those three chapters into a proper novel via the Kindle Direct Publishing platform with an an availability via Kindle Unlimited. At this time, Vella is only available in the United States and Canada (unless you have a VPN!) but the novel will eventually have a wider release. As of the time of this writing, it has about 70,000 words. I anticipate ending the novel at around 150,000 to 180,000 thousand. Here is to hoping!

In the real life front, things have not been easy or straightforward. However, they are far improved from where they were at the beginning of the year. I am no longer living in a hotel, which is a great boon. I continue to work two jobs, although the goal is to eventually work full time at one while working my side hustles during the day time. My mental health is the best it has ever been, thanks to a solid team that has listened to me and helped me improve… although this journey was not without a lot of tripping and falling along the way. I’m on enough SSRIs to make a heroin addict wonder if I should “slow down a bit” but, well, that’s where I kind of need to be at the moment.

My children have their individual challenges but continue to do well. They are growing up so fast.

I am, for the most part, optimistic.

Social Media is kind of weird. I am free to focus on more fandom oriented posts on Twitter, but as many of you know Twitter is a burning dumpster fire right now. I tend to keep Facebook focused on more real life endeavors, but fandom and interests continue to bleed through, and recently I’ve got family asking questions about my extracurriculars. Uncomfortable questions. I literally only use Instagram as a way of sharing photos and videos with family who do not, for whatever reason, use Facebook. I’ve played around with Tiktok a bit over the period of about two years, and for the most part feel like it just isn’t for me, although I will likely use it as a promotional tool in the future when I start publishing more content. I had Snapchat for like three days, but outside of one friend from a decade ago the only people who seem to use it are bots trying to get me to sign up for pr0n links. People keep telling me to try Telegram but I haven’t used that since I played Ingress. I am on Discord, but I am really flighty about which servers I am on (although it is, at this time, one of the best places to reach me for instant messaging.)

Also, the amount of time I spend doom scrolling is time I’m spending not doing something productive, like housework or bettering myself with writing or spending quality time with my children who need me. I arguably should be spending less time on social media, not more. And yet, it’s about the only way I socialize these days, and the networking aspect of it has always interested me. I’m unlikely to end any time soon.

So as I return to this WordPress blog, it will likely be a place that I focus on what I term “Longform Content.” Life updates I don’t mind sharing with a wider audience, opinion pieces, commenting on various aspects of fandom, short stories and commentary on my larger works, that sort of thing. I’d like this to be a place that I can be reached by those interested in what I have to say, as well as by those who would like to start a dialogue with me about the things they don’t care for. Above all else, though, I like the idea of this being “my” place, a place where I’m unlikely to be banned or removed from any time soon.

Originally, I had planned to share this space with other friends and content creators, and I may do that more in the future, but it’s obvious from the lack of turn-out that this simply hasn’t panned out like I would have preferred. So I’m not sure if I’ll be seeking that out in the future as a way to “add value.”

I used to do Youtube videos, but these days I mostly use the platform as a backup for unlisted videos I share with family and immediate friends. I’m not sure if I’ll ever return to that style of content creation.

Featured Image from the game “Labyrinth of Yomi”, all rights reserved to their respective copyright holder(s).
Readers are encouraged to check out my Vella novel at the following link: Cick here to read “Gods Cannot Pray”