A New Year and Much To Come

Even though the days are still short and weather is still cold and wet, there's a lot of things happening in the first few weeks of this year. The little wins and new beginnings in my life are what's keeping me sane amidst everything that's going on in the world right now:

• We had some snow recently that was really pretty to watch in the evening.
• I recieved my first dose of testosterone on my 50th birthday. It's definitely one of the best presents I've ever gotten myself.
• The Wife took me out for brunch after, which was super tasty.
• My Mom sent me some beautiful art for my birthday.
• I got to give a good friend of mine writing advice.
• I've found some pants that are comfortable and actually fit!

It's not an exhaustive list, but I'm celebrating them, because wins are wins!

There's a lot going on with my writing, too. I've made a breakthrough with The Uranian Gambit and while there are some aspects of the story that are different from my first version, it's a much juicier story than it was. It's moving forward, and that's all to the good.

We're still working on the formatting for The White Queen and Nemetona. There are still some bugs to work out in our system, which might delay their releases somewhat, but we're getting there.

As a Wiccan Christian, there are certain holidays in both calendars that mean a lot to me. In the Wiccan calendar, it's the Autumn and Winter holidays, particularly Mabon and Samhain. In the Christian calendar, it's the Lenten and Easter season (40 days of Lent and the week of Easter). Every year I do a Lenten working, and in the spirit of the season, I do something that is a sacrifice of time and soul. Some years it's been lighting a candle every day and doing meditation. Other years it's been some sort of creative project, like last year's Lenten poetry (which will eventually be published as a book).

This Lenten season I am writing 47 short stories, using a word prompt each day from a list of words the Wife provided me. It riffs off the idea of "Very Short Stories" that I used to do on the former bird site and BlueSky. I loved doing these little slice-of-life snippets of story. Sometimes these tiny stories were stand alone and sometimes they were set in one of my worlds. It was one of these Very Short Stories that actually lead to the creation of the Night Church universe and series, when I wrote a little conversation between a vampire pastor and his friend. However, unlike BlueSky and the former bird site, I don't have any word limits for this working, so the stories will be as long or as short as they need to be. And who knows? Maybe I'll create yet another universe to start writing novels in, or new characters for my existing ones! If a story has explicit themes (sex, violence, slurs, etc), I will add a content warning at the beginning of the story.

The Lent stories will start on February 18, Ash Wednesday, and run until April 5th, Easter Sunday. I hope you'll enjoy the stories I come up with, and yes, I'll probably collect the best of them into a book.

I'm still streaming on Twitch, and soon I'll be reading Nemetona for the Tales from Flat Space podcast there. I'll post here when I have a start date for that.

That's all for the time being, and I hope everyone is surviving the winter so far. May you all stay safe and do what you can for your fellow humans, however you can. Don't let the fascists win.