Folks, I made the mistake of believing I could mow four acres of land on a day off in the Louisiana heat advisory day. I’m all kinds of tired.
I did manage to have one writing sprint done today, so another 500 words will be added to the tally.
Casey and Joseph, I think, had the right idea of how to spend a day off.
Little bro always crowds Casey, and Casey never complains.
Stay safe out there, readers. I need sleep.
-JB Swift
During the evenings, when I sit down and ready for writing, I set my priorities and chores. I’ll go over the campaign plots and make minor adjustments to work in the suggestions from players, look ahead for the next session (Players: sessions are available, so send them requests!) or fill out the calendar a bit, write a little in the Sidewinder Stories, and then I hunker down into the work-in-progress (WIP), “Peregrine: Rising”.
Once we get to the last one, it’s a struggle. Not just from exhaustion, but from distracting bits of other stories floating about in this attic I call a brain.
The Interstellar Tall Tales always looks interesting, and the Shadowrun story is downright fun. But neither are in the priority list at the moment.
So of course, I get distracted by reading them over again, until I realize what I’m doing and say out loud, “Dammit boy, get back to work!”
This will be an ongoing process until I finish the story. I know.
While I go about this fun day-to-day, I present Casey!
Stay safe out there, readers.
-JB Swift
As much as I complain about how physically demanding my profession can be, I forget that I am always slightly bewildered after a long stint at writing.
But after a morning of whittling away at the story and fixing errors, I’ve finished Chapter 3 for “Peregrine Rising”!
Of course, I looked up from the mental fog to see that Penelope is also enjoying the day off.
I’ll make ready for Chapter 4 after handling a few chores around the house. That one’s gonna be a bit lore-heavy, so I’ll need to think on how to approach it without boring everyone.
Stay safe out there, readers. Try to relax as much as the cat.
-JB Swift
Penelope thinks I should clean her windowsill siting spot instead of my other chores or having a writing sprint.
You know that the moment I do go over there, sprays and towels in hand, she’s going to give me a furious look for making her get up from her spot.
There is no winning, there is only cat.
Stay safe out there, readers.
-JB Swift
I woke up this morning in a mild panic. It was twenty minutes before my clock-in time and my son was asking me Mariokart questions while I blearily opened my eyes.
I was halfway through getting my uniform on before I remembered: it’s my day off!
This is what happens when you work back-to-back 11 or 12 hour shifts for weeks at a time. So, I’m back in civilian clothes and lining up my morning chores before I can sit down for writing. Apparently, I also need to do some site maintenance. One of my players messaged me about not being able to open the most recent Sidewinder chapter.
Of course, if there’s one problem, there’s bound to be another, hidden and waiting for me to move on to the next project before rearing up to mock me. With the Dungeon Crawl about to pick up steam (eyeing the players who haven’t checked in with their schedules), I’ll be wanting to change up the RPG tab at the top of the site.
In case I get lost in house-spousing and forget to update here: Penelope stole the dog bed and you should ‘awww’ at her.
Stay safe out there, readers!
-JB Swift
When you’re so tired you can resemble a Renaissance painting with your dogs.
Stay safe out there, readers.
-JB Swift
We were gone for four days, and Penelope had to be boarded along with the dogs. I know folks usually let their indoor cats have free reign of the house while they’re away, but this cat is, unfortunately, just too dumb to risk that. as you can see, she is angry that we thought to take care of her.
Don’t look at me like that, cat. You were head-butting the full water bowl earlier.
Stay safe out there, readers.
-JB Swift
It’s been a long, long day, readers. Not just for me, but for my son and our cat.
With a setup like that, you just know it’ll be interesting.
I went in to work knowing I was going to be struggling and trying to be done at a decent time. Han was talking about going to Kung Fu training all morning, though I had a feeling she’d be exhausted by then, so I didn’t push. She forgot that it was a half-day at school and she’d be spending the rest of the day with her grandparents, who have a small farm and no end of work needing done. She’d go into that with a will, which is always slightly frustrating.
Note: Figure out how to make cleaning her room seem similar to working in the garden.
What I wasn’t expecting was for my son to have a resurgence of strep throat, so the phone call of a fever and sore throat kicked up my drive to finish the route. There was no one who could drive him for a doctor visit, so I let my bosses know that I had a sick kid to take care of.
12 miles in under 6 hours with mail and parcels. My life is nothing but leg day.
But it was done, and Ben was seen by the doctor. He got a powerful antibiotic shot, which is just as uncomfortable as it sounds. But the boy is a trooper. He cried for a little while, was given a hug, and he went back to being his odd little self, just like his dad. It didn’t take long for the medicine to kick in, which made for a very exhausted 5-yr old who didn’t quite make it to his bed. I carried him the rest of the way.
Kung Fu training was before that, and Sifu has put me into learning Bung Bo (Crushing Step, I think). That’s a Long Form in Seven Star Praying Mantis, and Long Forms are leg-intensive.
And to round out the evening, Penelope needed a bath!
I might have to leave this post in Drafts for a couple days, but I’ll get it posted soonest!
Stay safe out there, readers!
-JB Swift
All right, all right. I’ve been pretty quiet on this for a little while, and I’ve said repeatedly that I would get back to daily posts. Unfortunately, the last couple of times I have tried getting back in the habit, I’ve had things come up that demanded my attention. Hopefully, this time I will stick to it.
Foremost in my ‘distractions’, we had a bad scare among our animals. Korra, our youngest dog at age 8, was diagnosed with advanced pyometra and required an emergency surgery. The doctors told us she had a less-than 50% chance of surviving.
Sarah and I agonized over whether or not we’d attempt the surgery. There was no knowing if she’d survive going through the procedure, but we decided that our little water-wolf would try to survive as much as possible. We brought the family out to the emergency hospital and spent what time we thought we had left with the pup.
There were tears and confused questions from the kids, but even our 5-yr old knew that Korra was hurting and said he hoped she got through okay. It was a long, long day of awaiting the news.
Korra proved to be stronger than anyone expected.
She’s been recovering ever since, and had her sutures removed a few days ago. We’re still watching over her, and the vet warned me that the pyometra means she will inevitably be diagnosed with a cancer, but for now she’s energetic and yipping at me for attention.
Secondly in my distractions is the same duo that has plagued me for years and years: procrastination and imposter’s syndrome. It’s infuriating to know what your problem is even when it robs you of your creativity. But staring at this screen and being mad at myself isn’t going to get the work done, so I’m here making sure I’ve set aside the time to handle my writing and website maintenance.
I know Hannah’s been asking me to post her weather photos again, so at the least I need to write those again. Or the kid will get mad at me. There are a few essays I keep thinking to write but looks at above paragraph, I keep putting them off.
But hey, it’s Sunday. Good day to get back in the habit.
Stay safe out there, readers. I’ll have something for y’all tomorrow.
-JB Swift
As stated in the title, I’m going to be making an effort to work on my daily postings. It’s turned out that this is the best way to keep up on my life, since I’m so introverted that I could be mistaken for a houseplant.
(I’m going with an orchid, as they don’t move until absolutely necessary and it gets everyone’s attention when it happens.)
To start off, I’ve passed my recent Kung Fu test! I’m now at Maroon (Purple, really, but I like the word ‘maroon’ and no one can stop me except Sifu) and two ranks away from Black. At the rate I’ve been progressing…that’ll be another ten years. Hopefully, Han will surpass me in that time. She’s got a gift for the art.
Also, I have a new family member! My mother adopted a puppy, so now I have to teach the puppy how to be house trained, and teach my mother how to house train her puppy.
That’s going to be occupying my time, but it’ll have the side benefit of teaching my kids how to handle animals. All of our dogs were adults when we started having children, and they’re considered ‘elderly’ now, so they’re (relatively speaking) pretty calm around the kids. That pup, though, is a boxer and untrained.
Have pity for my kids, folks. They’re not used to energetic critters but couch potato dogs acting like roommates.
Lastly, story updates. I’ve started making a serious effort to work on my homegrown science-fiction story, but that one won’t be ‘readily available’ to readers for a while. I’ve upgraded my account here, so now I can set up subscriptions, donations and other means of accepting money from followers and readers.
Another way of putting it: I’ll be self-published the moment someone decides to pay $1 to read my work.
…panic ensues
This means that I will, when it’s set up, have sections of my website inaccessible for those not willing to pay to read the material. While I apologize for that, please understand that I’ve been working towards being published since I was 16-years old, and I’ve only recently discovered this little loophole. The Sidewinder Stories and other fan-fiction ideas will stay public access, though. Like hell I’m going to have my players go through my quirky ideas and challenges and then turn around to pay to read how I interpreted their actions.
Expect progress on the homebrew science fiction in a month or two. By then, I’ll have my outline mapped enough to start writing in earnest. Of course, the Star Wars RPG story will remain my priority, or my players will throw shoes at me. Can’t go around sabotaging my own efforts, now can I?
….no one got that, did y’all? Dammit, I thought it was funny.
Something to expect much sooner, however, is a writing I’ve left on the backburner for too long: that Dresdenverse Sherlock Holmes story. I had gone over it recently and remembered all the things I wanted to show in that story challenge. So, I’m working on the chapter prompts for it and will sit down during a few evenings and finish it out.
Things are happening, readers! I’m excited, terrified, and battling imposter syndrome as I push myself toward achieving a long-sought after goal!
Stay safe out there!
-JB Swift
Swift's Corner 