3-27-2022 Update

Turns off Elden Ring
Wow, it's been a while...

TL;DR
Writing has resumed, but I'm going to finish stories before editing/publishing them. Or at least get far enough ahead to have a buffer and not accidentally go six months without an update. My bad, fans.

And special thanks to everyone who has been leaving comments and stuff while I was afk, I look forward to reading them all.

Status Updates

So this is everything and the kitchen sink that I need to work on. I think the best thing (esp. given the potential to release a few chapters then get sidetracked) is to finish the stories first, and then release them. Then no matter how busy I am, the only limiting factor to a timely release is having an hour or two for editing (versus having many hours of writing and editing.) Here's the basic order that you'll probably see things.

• Dash of Humanity 3.5 (short story)
• Dash of Humanity 4
• Ponified Without Consent
• Twilight's Dollhouse 2
• Animorphs Crossover
• Clop

The part of the blog that's deep and insightful

So lately I came to a bit of a realization, and it reminds me of a quote I used to throw around because I saw it on Family guy without really understanding it:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. — Henry David Thoreau, Walden.

So lately it just sort of hit me. I'm in the prime of my life, I've got an objectively good job, I'm single... why am I a passive participant in life? Watching it go by? Shouldn't I live deliberately? Shouldn't I have some fun in case nuclear Armageddon cuts this great strange journey we're on short?

So I started making deliberate decisions during the day. Playing games, exercising, sorting boxes of old crap, getting new furniture, finding new cooking recipes... every time I find myself tempted to sit down and Netflix away another 5 hours so I can go to bed and repeat the cycle at work the next day, I instead make a choice to do something. And one of those choices has been to resume the writing

Another quote to paraphrase was from a writing podcast about "Why is writing hard?" If you stop to think about it, writing is easy. You do it all the time. What is hard is the preconceived notions you have about writing. "You're not a real author unless your published" is a common one. Or maybe you've thought of writing but then though "I'll never be as good X" or "I can't publish this until I get 3 editors" or "It's only got a 60% like ratio and didn't get 100 views!"

For me the writing pressure is usually the vague sense of being "good enough" to live up to... whatever... the standard for fan fiction is. To share another quote of a random youtuber. "You can't please everyone, but the corollary to this means that you'll always please someone." That was another "aha!" moment when I realized that if I'm having fun with a hobby I should keep doing it and not pressure myself.

I tried optimistic nihilism in the past: where if nothing matters, anything matters, but to be honest the most motivating thing has always been the social interaction and the feeling of a job well done. So I think I'll stick to unhealthy parasocial relationships for now, at least until we officially realize the internet is toxic and the Amish actually had it right all along, we had exactly the right amount of technology in the 1800's. I'm joking. Probably.

So hopefully some of that advice helps.

The part of the blog that's just for fun

So if you haven't checked them out yet, in no particular order, check out Elden Rings, the new Kirby game, and Rune Factory 5 (or 4 which is sort of the definitive edition of the series.)

Also there's some really bingable content if you're into horrific true stories about caving and cave diving on this channel I found. I think the best videos he did were the "places you can't go and people who went there anyway". The most recent stuff is a bit click-baity, but he's got 100's of videos so I guess eventually he had to appease the algorithm.

For what it's worth, I wouldn't be caught dead diving in a flooded cave hundreds of feet deep but hey, you do you. It is endlessly fascinating all the little nooks and crannies of the planet we haven't explored, and how that fact alone is enough for people to risk life and limb to explore them. I think that was the most fascinating part of the channel, is learning about all these places you would never even know existed and how unfathomably remote they are from our everyday lives.

I also got some nice bookshelves and organized my little library. Only 3 MLP fan fiction books but 3 more are on the way, and 7 shelves of other literature. Maybe I'll be up on that bookshelf one day, or maybe it'll remain the last bastion of Warhammer 40k, Sanderson, and Dresden File's books that it currently is... Well, there's Lovecraft, Homer's Odyssey, and some other stuff too. I just have to find the time to actually read all of it. Having 'stuff' is easy but the curse of consumerism is never being content to enjoy any of that stuff, because it's only desirable until you have it. Perhaps the Amish actually were onto something...

I thought I had more random stuff to talk about and memes to share, but luckily for everyone I am a bit tired now. I just did typo fixes to 10 chapters of DoH3, thank you to Sollace for sending them. I have a lot of comments to catch up on, story updates I've missed, etc... The last of my furniture and spring cleaning should take place this week (or month...) But I'm planning to do 1.5k words/day for the month of April to sort of jump start my writing again. Apparently I'm solar powered and now that the sun remembered the Northern hemisphere exists, it's helped a lot.

Leave a comment if you want to let me know what you've been up to or what new story / thing that happened since Feb 22 I should check out.

Comments

[harts fire]

i will admit i was starting to worry that it was going to be years before we saw you back friend.

[Axolotl222]

Considering how I also recently adopted "live life to the fullest" attitude which has resulting in me getting strong-armed into agreeing going spelunking a few weeks from now, that channel seems... interesting

[Kaidan]

5646711
Observe posted safety regulations and signs and you'll be fine. Like, if they say "hey don't go in this cave it floods when it rains" then don't go in. Almost all the people that vanished were disregarding posted safety guidelines.

Non-underwater caves sound fun and I'd totally try one of them out. I just wouldn't see a 2 foot wide hole in the ground and go "Yeah, I think I'll squeeze head first through that and see what's on the other side."

Anyway have fun and let me know how it goes :D

5646710
Yeah the time flew by and I realized my "week off" turned into a "month off" partly due to a new found motivation to do and try new things outside of my normal routine. So I figured I'd better update everyone and get back to writing.

[Axolotl222]

5646773
Who would've guessed cave diving has so much reading involved...