Author: Jacob Swift

Swift is a US Postman, writer, RPG player, husband, and father, based in a small town in Louisiana. After ten years of not seeking publication, he’s decided to try again. In the meantime, he works a manual labor job and cares for his family. This blog site is a spot for him to put his notes and thoughts down, as well as brag about his family’s accomplishments.

Word Count, Kung Fu, and D&D

Probably one of the most frustrating things to my life is that I love my day job, even though it hinders me in my pursuit of other goals. If you’re curious, my alter-ego is that of a mailman with a walking route. I’m one of those awkward and quiet postmen that just shows up on your property, puts mail in the box and drops off your parcels, and walks far away before you realize I was there. My daily routine has me covering about 12 miles (19 kilometers) with near 70 pounds (31.75 kilograms) slung across my shoulders, so it’s a safe bet that by the time I make it home, I’m dead-tired.

But wait, I do more.
After the New Year, I promised myself I’d do three things:
1: I’d get to my writing after a 3-month hiatus (the Heavy Season of Mail)
2: I’d go back to Kung Fu training, now that my children were grown enough.
3: I’d start my Gaming Sessions again.

Now, the months of January and February were rough starts to the first, and I know why: I was so damned tired at the end of the day, and if I had either coffee or beer (my two favorite evening drinks) I’d find myself asleep at my desk, waking up at 1AM and staggering to bed for the next day. It’s not a healthy practice, but it’s one I can’t always plan for. How do you plan for “passing out at your desk and handling paperwork”? An easy solution to this is switching my evening beverage up, so it’s just enough of an odddity that I have something to focus on. A cup of Earl Grey tea does wonders when you’re seeking self-discipline, I’ve learned. Brits, y’all are on to something.
That said, I’ve managed some 1,400 words this week. That’s not much, but it’s better than a few other weeks I’ve tried. I won’t be adding more to it for the night because at this moment, I’m way too exhausted to make the attempt, and I did tell myself I’d work on this thing today. I’ll have to settle for some note-taking and outlining, either in my current story or one of the others that I’m playing with.

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My late-night easy-listening selections

I also told myself that I’d get back Kung Fu training, which was not all that difficult to do, to be honest. The kwoon (school) is fairly close to my workplace, and my Sifu is a postal customer, so it’s good odds that I’ll talk to him almost every day. I went back in January, after almost two years of absense. I was put on probation (no sash) and treated as a new student (back to basics!) until I showed that I was comfortable with my training. I was put through training again and, after almost two months, I was tested for the next level.

And I passed!


Since I’ve come back to training, my kwoon has stepped up in its online presence, and even has its own blog site. I’ve been asked to write articles for it, which is something I’ve taken to with way more care than I usually do. My writing on Kung Fu is chock-full of philosophy and emphasis on Eastern religions, which unfortunately makes the fundamentalists in my area nervous, so I’m having to watch what I write.

Finally, I promised that I’d have D&D sessions, again. That’s one that deserves its own spinoff, and will likely have its own page with a bunch of stories, but for the moment it’s a blank-canvas campaign. That means that I had put a small village on a blank poster-sized sheet and told my players to come up with characters/backgrounds and I’d figure out where they went.

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This is the result of some 50 questions! Never ask the DM about history!

The D&D game is set for Saturday night February 29. If I have the time and energy, I’ll dive into the specifics of this party, but at the moment, they’re in the hamlet of Eisenstadt and the local brewmeister is wary of them, but willing to take their coin, and might have a possible job for them.

With that said, I’m stupidly exhausted and falling asleep as I type. I’m off bed. Take care, readers. Be kind to each other.

The Postman’s Travel Buddy

I’ve had this little guy with me ever since I saw him in the street while delivering. He looked really odd, so I took to him immediately and put him on the dash in my work truck. That was about two years ago. Now, if the mechanics need my truck for maintenance, they inform me so I can grab him and put him in whatever loaner work truck is available. I really should give him a name.

 

Back at it, again.

Well, here I am, once again thinking that there will be people out there who find my blogging interesting. Who knows? Maybe that’s true, or maybe someone typed ‘Swift’ into their search bar and this actually pinged their results.

Either way, welcome to my little corner.

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Jealous, aren’t ya?

Of course, that’s a picture of the desk when it needs to be presentable. All of the crap that usually litters it is just behind me on the table, but you get the idea. This is where I am, most evenings. When the kids go to bed and my wife is readying to turn in for the night, but I need to wax creative or just have too much going on in my mind, I’m right here, plunking away at either the laptop (when it works) or the tablet. That, or I’m turned around at the table, with gaming books spread out everywhere and three different notepads in front of me, as I try to figure out the next Big Challenge for my gaming party.

Occasionally, there are times when I don’t have the gumption (good word, that one) to work on the novel, or I’ve plotted everything I could possibly have plotted in my upcoming game’s plot, but I’m still waxing creative. I had thought to actually write shorts based in the game universes I have running, which admittedly would be a lot of fun, but I keep putting that idea off. Let’s be honest: I’m not all that certain my current project will be published, and it’d take some serious effort from my fellow nerds to be so meta that they’d read a fictional short story based on a D&D game (or worse, the Star Wars or Shadowrun campaigns). Along with that, I keep getting writing prompts, sometimes from friends saying “Hey! This looks cool and you should try it!”, or sometimes from the Internet being the horrible temptress that it is and saying “Hey! You call yourself a writer! Look at these challenges and prove yourself to somebody, anybody, maybe even yourself!”

The Internet is evil. Not for the reasons that fundamentalists give it, but because it gives me so many ideas without increasing my life span to write them all.

Normally, I’d put these ideas and prompts onto the back-burner. After all, I’m writing a book, again. It’s kinda something I want to finish. I have campaigns to write. Hell, I have letters to write, grievances to write, recipes to write….you get the point, I’m good at only one thing in the creative area, and even that is debatable.

Funny thing is, I used to also have a blog site. I kind of forgot about it over the years, but I also forgot about the annual bill that keeps it up and running. It was low enough that according to my checkbook, it just looked like I had gotten my math wrong at some point. But no, it’s still here. Anyway, I used to write about the odd, inane things that interested me in my early- to mid-20’s, and I’m highly amused that people either took me seriously or had a real interest in those old writings. The difference between those writings and this: I know I’m not all that special, and I’m probably amusing enough to get your interest.

When I received an email that the old site had been visited, my first thought was “Why is that thing still functioning?!” I went to it, read through it, and switched it to private, because…*shudder*…that is some horrible and boring work. But I wanted to have a place to put up the other work I keep telling myself to write. I know it’d be good for my craft to do so.

Hence, my little Writing Corner here.