On The State Of The Author

Long, long story.

• HEALTH ISSUES-I'm not dying, or even in serious trouble. But, every time I have even the slightest nasal blockage, it becomes either a sinus infection or a bronchial infection in short order. I know what the issue is-years ago, I found out that I have a deviated septum. Juuuussssst enough to cause one side of my sinuses to drain less efficiently and if that passage gets inflamed in any way, no drainage from there, then backup, then infection...

  The cure is easy enough-essentially, they break my septum and reset it to heal up properly. But, my last insurance company considered it a "cosmetic" procedure and wouldn't pay for it. I'm hoping that since my company changed insurance policies, they won't consider it "cosmetic" and I'll have stuff stuck up my nose for a week, then less of a problem. Might even help with my snoring.

  And, on the snorting...I got a CPap machine and both my writing and mental health fronts, it has helped a lot. It's also helped with my bowel issues (I've always had issues with diarrhea and upset stomach, but the last few years it's been worse...). Full colonoscopy confirmed nothing was wrong in there, but getting consistent sleep has reduced the issues by quite a bit.

• WORK-The company has been cracking down severely on overtime, and I made the mistake that quite a few people did-thinking that I could keep getting OT as much as I want, as long as I want, and that was adding about 30% to my final take-home paycheck. So, I had an involuntary cutback of about 30%, and I was living barely below my means then. I'm trying to get below my means now, and that means a lot of discretionary payments are going down fast. Patreons are being reduced to their minimum values, a few have been cut, a lot of con plans have either been reduced or canceled, been missing some interesting Kickstarters, switching insurance policies to something a bit more affordable, etc, etc, etc...

  I've thought about a second job, but the issue is that any second job would be weekends-only, and sixteen hours a week on the weekends would be $600-700 a month after taxes at a minimum wage job. Maybe. Uber or Lyft isn't an option-I don't own a car that would let me do runs and my work schedule is just occasionally weird enough that I can't really do a job in the evenings-and any evening job would only be for three, four hours just at the time between when stores close and bars open, as I have to wake up at 4am to catch my bus to work.

• WRITING-The part I think you've all been waiting for. And, the short version is...my muse is having difficulties with ponies that aren't in latex anymore.

  The long version? Once I got on the CPap and got started thinking...I just started to write a whole new, original content novel. Urban fantasy/magic with some interesting twists. I finished it about a month ago, and I'm working on getting it edited, a cover made, and putting this sucker up on Amazon/Kindle for publication. Then, writing the second book in the series (yes, I have an idea for a series). This, along with just getting tired of the drama, the fan wank, the issues of any fandom community, and the stories in general has meant that my pony-writing has been reduced to non-existent.

  I still want to finish some of these stories, especially The Dawn Of Dusk Shine, it's just going to take a whole lot longer than I expected. Paying writing is going to have a much higher priority right now, and that's hard.

I will be keeping everyone in the loop, and if I can get my head into the right places, I'll try to get some more writing done for the stories here.

But, I will keep you informed. At the very least, that's all I can do.