Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Squick (1st draft)

Superheroes of the Mythos.

This Risus supplement builds upon the Serious Risus rules presented by Lars Erik Larson, to create a world of Lovecraftian Superheroes fighting to defend a humanity that hates and fears them.  Think X-Men with a severe ick factor.

In the World of Squick (name pending satisfaction test... this is all first draft), the player character take on the roles of advanced meta-humans - the Afflicted - characters touched or twisted by contact with the horrors of the Mythos.  Squick does not use pumping or funky dice; though Hooks are mandatory and Tales are preferred.

CHARACTER CREATION

Squick Characters begin play with 10 dice to spread among their cliches, no more than 4 of which may be spent on Power Cliches (see below).

Additionally, each character has 6 dice in the Health Cliche.  They also possess 6 dice in the Sanity Cliche (minus 1 per Power Cliche possessed).

HEALTH CLICHE
A Character may not roll more dice for any physical action than his current Health Cliche Pool.  This includes seduction and other social roles based on appearance, that don't involve intimidation.  When a character fails to defend against a physical attack, he loses dice from his Health Cliche, rather than from the defending Cliche.

Your Current Health Cliche (Permanent Health minus Wounds) can be used in place of other cliches to fend off disease or poison, for tasks relating specifically to endurance, or tests based on Strength or Agility that are not better covered by other cliches.

When reduced to 0 Health, a character must roll his Permanent Health (difficulty 15) to fight off death.  If the roll is successful, the character survives.  He loses one permanent die of Health and must choose an infirmity that reflects this loss.  This infirmity could be anything from a missing eye to a lost or crippled limb.

A Character with 0 Permanent Health (or who fails his survival check) is dead and no longer playable.

Healing
A Character may roll his Current Health in an extended Target Number 15 roll to regain one die of Health at the end of 8 hours of rest (on a day in which the character has not been injured again.  Injury resets the extended roll to 0).  He may make this roll only once in a given 24-hour period, but so long as he is not physically injured, his total carries over to the next day.

A Character making a Healing Roll under the care of a properly cliched medic or physician, may "Team-Up" with their care-giver(s) for this roll - see the Risus Rules for more on Team-Ups.

SANITY CLICHE
A Character may not roll more dice for any Mental, Social, or Psychic action than his current Sanity Cliche Pool, except in the case of specific intimidation attempts.

Your Current Sanity Cliche (Permanent Sanity minus Psychic Wounds) can be used in place of other cliches to defend against mental, emotional or psychic attacks, when the character possesses no more appropriate cliche.

When reduced to 0 Sanity, a character immediately suffers a Psychotic Break and loses one Permanent die of Sanity.  He must choose (with the aid of the GM) one appropriate Derangement Hook (see below).

A character with 0 Permanent Sanity has devolved into a gibbering idiot and is no longer playable.

Recovery
A Character may roll his Current Sanity in an extended Target Number 20 roll to regain one die of Sanity at the end of 8 hours of rest (on a day in which the character has not lost additional Sanity.  Mental duress [in the form of lost Sanity] resets the extended roll to 0).  He may make this roll only once in a given 24-hour period, but so long as he is not lost Sanity, his total carries over to the next day.


A Character making a Recovery Roll under the care of a properly cliched psychologist, psychiatrist or spiritual advisor, may "Team-Up" with their care-giver(s) for this roll - see the Risus Rules for more on Team-Ups.

Additionally, a properly cliched character (GMs discretion) may use meditation or religious self-reflection to regain lost Sanity.  A meditating character may make a recovery check after every 1d6 hours (rolled after each interval) of uninterrupted meditation.

FRIGHT CLICHE
Many of the so-called Afflicted - the meta-humans of Squick, as well as every abomination and even some horrifying and unfamiliar situations, possess a Fright Cliche.

When first encountering any Fright Cliche, a character must roll a contested roll against that Fright Cliche or suffer a loss of Sanity (and possibly a Fright Check Table?).  Additionally, a character must roll against any Fright Cliche that increases its dice pool in his presence, or that he has previously failed against and is encountering again in a separate scene.

A Starting Character possesses a Fright Cliche of 0, modified by any appropriate Hooks, or Power Cliches (see below).

POWER CLICHES
Biokinesis.  Think Tetsuo from Akira.  Psychic control of Flesh and touched matter, allowing for melee attacks and grappling up to 5-feet per die away.
May change size by one step on the size scale per die, sloughing off flesh or assimilating outside matter as needed.
TINY - SMALL - MEDIUM - LARGE - HUGE - MASSIVE - GARGANTUAN - COLOSSAL
(each step up the scale adds 1d to all Strength based cliche rolls and damage soak rolls at the cost of 1d penalty to agility-based cliche rolls and dodge attempts.  The reverse is also true).
Can use growth to attack against touched creatures (Resisted Biokinesis roll.  Damage = partial absorption, death = total absorption).  Targets become trapped in the mass of flesh and non-organic matter.  Resisted Biokinesis to maintain grip.
May attach tendrils of flesh to targets to communicate telepathically, which may be resisted.  He may even roll biokinesis vs the Health cliche of a touched character to heal that character - which must be resisted, as the body attempts to reject the intrusion, beneficial or not.
Fright = +Biokinesis when used.

Combat Tentacles.  You have 1 Tentacle per die of this cliche, sprouting from somewhere on your body.  Instead of additional tentacles, you may choose to allocate two cliche dice to 1 tentacle, to increase its reach from 5 to 10 feet, 3 dice for 15 feet.  These are grasping appendages with no fine motor dexterity (an additional cliche die may be spent on one tentacle to grant it fine motor manipulation), but can be used to grab, grapple, slam, climb or balance as though they were one of your natural arms or legs.  Use your Combat Tentacles in a Team-Up for any of these cliche checks, or take 1 additional action per round for every 2 tentacles you possess.
Multiple 10-foot tentacles can be used for increased locomotion, adding 1 die per Tentacle to your speed (speed is determined by choosing your highest physical cliche and multiplying by 5 feet per round).
Add your Combat Tentacles to your Fright Cliche.

Contagion.  Carrier of the Dread Contagion - a sentient plague.  Immune to all disease (including the normal effects of the Contagion), but each die of Contagion inflicts a -1 penalty to all social rolls against the uninfected (unless relying on intimidation).  Add Contagion Dice pool to your Fright.  This represents the boils, pockmarks, rheumy eyes, blackened skin and hair loss that marks you as Infected.
Tumor within/on your body is intelligent, possessing a personality and intellect of its own (though starting with no experience, the Contagion may earn experience of its own and learn new cliches).  You may communicate telepathically with the Tumor.
Typically, it is assumed that the Carrier's goals and those of the Tumor align, allowing the Player to treat the Tumor as part of the character.  When severely wounded, however - or when acting in direct opposition to the Tumor's aims (continued growth and spread of the Contagion), the character may have to make a contested cliche roll against his own Power Cliche to use his power, or even - in dire situations - to retain control of his own body.
The Tumor (and by proxy, the character) can roll Contagion to dominate any infected creature or character. Causing it to act as a minion (willing to obey any order that doesn't put it into direct harm).  The Tumor can control a number of Infected equal to this cliche.
Can cause any character to become infected through physical contact with bodily fluids.  On initial infection, any character may roll TN30 to instead become a Carrier.
The Tumor (and character) may make an opposed Contagion roll when touching any Infected creature or character in order to heal himself by "attacking" the target and absorbing their health dice, healing a number of wounds equal to the damage inflicted in the attack.

Gestalt. The Worm that Walks.  The character's body is composed of a swarm of tiny maggot-wasp hybrids called Wyrmwasps.  The character gains a secondary "Swarm" form.  In this form, the character adds his Gestalt cliche to his Fright, but can fly 10-feet per round per die of Gestalt (1 mph per die in sustained, overland flight).  The Swarmed Gestalt takes up any space equal to 5-feet per die, and may automatically attack any creature that starts its turn within the area of the swarm.  The Swarmed Gestalt may crawl across any surface at normal speed, or "squeeze" through any cracks that a large maggot might be able to fit through).
Uninjured, a Gestalt may roll this cliche and add the total to its Fright Rating. Unless swarmed, the uninjured Gestalt appears human. Injured Gestalt suffer a penalty (equal to Health Dice lost) to all social rolls not relying on intimidation. She also gains a bonus to Fright equal to that penalty.
A wounded Gestalt may roll TN10+damage taken to "cover up" injury and appear normal.  This disguise lasts for the scene.  A Gestalt character recovers 1 Health die per hour of non-strenuous activity or rest, so long as that health was not lost to Fire or Acid.
A swarmed Gestalt character may separate herself into a number of smaller swarms (one swarm per cliche die).  Each swarm is under control of the character - as an extension of herself, but suffers a penalty to all cliche pools equal to the number of swarms (also, each swarm must possess at least 1 die of Gestalt).
Additionally, a fleeing Gestalt character can choose to split apart into individual wyrmwasps. In these forms, the character cannot make any cliche rolls - in effect releasing the Wyrmwasps to flee on their own, however - a Gestalt Character cannot be killed so long as a single Wyrmwasp lives.
A slain Gestalt character who did not flee in this manner, may roll this cliche against TN20 to cheat death.  A single surviving Wyrmwasp take (6-Gestalt cliche)d6 days find "wild" Wyrmwasps and reform.  The character regains consciousness at the end of that time frame, 3d6 miles from the location of his death, in a random direction.

Gut Leeches. The character's digestive and endocrine systems have been replaced by a number of large 1-2 foot long slug-like lampreys (one per die of this cliche).  No longer able to take nourishment from normal food and water, the character feeds by allowing the Gut Leeches to escape his body (usually tearing themselves from his body, leaving him horribly emaciated and hollow.  The Gut Leech shares an empathic link with the host, and is treated as an extension of the character (unless the character is low on Health, in which case the leeches instinctively seek out sustenance).
Each Gut Leech and the "evicerated" host has a Fright Cliche equal to Gut Leech.
The Gut Leech consumes matter or flesh by spitting its corrosive digestive juices on the target and then eating the disolved remains.  It can consume 1 foot of matter per round in this manner, and can "keep" a number of Heath Dice worth of material equal to this cliche, before it must return to its host.  Each Gut Leech attacks as a separate creature, using the host's Gut Leech cliche total as its dice pool.
When the Gut Leech returns (requiring one round to do so), the host is immediately healed of a number of Health dice equal to the Leech's "kept" dice. Additional dice are pooled together and can be added (in any combination to any cliche roll.  This temporary pool disappears at a rate of one die per hour if not used.
If one of the host's Gut Leeches is killed, he loses one die of this cliche to reflect the loss, and must make a contested Sanity Roll against his own, adjusted Gut Leech Cliche to avoid losing Sanity.
A Gut Leech Host must feed at least once every 24 hours, or begin losing Cliche dice at a rate of 1 per hour (lowest cliches first, then character's choice).  These dice are replaced by a returning Gut Leech's "kept" pool, after any Health Dice are returned.

Re-Generation.  You possess a remarkable capacity for healing and regeneration, granting you several benefits.
First, you recover from wounds at a rate of 1 per round.  You recover permanent Health dice at a rate of 1 per hour (this also represents the fact that you can regrow amputated or lost body parts), and you automatically succeed on Health Checks to remain alive when reduced to 0 Health.  In order to be killed, you must be reduced to -6 Permanent Health (You are still unconscious at 0 Health, regardless).  Typically this is done by burning your remains.  Regenerating wounds possess a Fright Cliche equal to the damage healed.
Second, you no longer age - or you age at such an astonishingly slow rate as to make no difference.  Your sanity will corrode or you will be exterminated long before you ever need worry about death by "natural" causes.  Your Fright Rating - relevant to those who become aware of your longevity, is equal to the number of decades they have known you.
Lastly, and sometimes problematically, you can reproduce asexually.  Any portion of your body lost or amputated, can potentially grow into a cloned duplicate of yourself.  A piece of flesh as small as a finger can duplicate an entire Re-Generating Character.
Using the d6 Hit Location Chart, each location requires 1d6 hours to regenerate if there is a brain attached to the amputated flesh or 1d6 days if not.  For this reason, a generated duplicate will typically grow "upwards" toward the head first, before finishing its gestation.  Upon generation of the last location, the duplicate awakes, with all the original character's memories, up to the point of amputation (the duplicate possesses all of the character's cliches at 1d lower than the original); and begins with a helpful attitude toward the character, in effect serving as a Minion.

d6 Hit Location Chart
6=Head
5=Neck
4=Arms (1-3Left, 4-6Right)
3=Torso
2=Groin
1=Legs (1-3Left, 4-6Right)

A generating duplicate has a Fright Cliche equal to your ranks in Re-Generation, plus one per missing body location.  Double this if the character or any duplicates are present.
The Duplicate is an entirely separate entity from the character, and may - through abuse or neglect - grow ambivalent or even hostile toward the original.  If treated right, the duplicate(s) may prove a valuable ally or asset, otherwise, you may end up with a uniquely skilled nemesis.
The Re-Generating Character may generate a number of duplicates equal to his Re-Generation cliche.  This includes any duplicates of duplicates (created through the amputation of duplicate flesh rather than your own - and possessing 1 less die in each of the duplicate's cliches).  Once this limit is achieved, any amputated flesh is simply inert, and does not generate further.
Add one to your Fright Cliche for each duplicate in the scene with you at the same time.

Toxic.  Your bodily fluids are universally poisonous.  While you are immune to poison and disease, your every drop of blood, sweat and bile - even the oils on your skin is toxic.  Your touch on bare flesh automatically attacks using half your Toxic Cliche.
Weapons treated with your blood gain a bonus equal to this cliche.  Your tears and sweat may be collected and weaponized.
When injured, you exude an aura of poison with an area equal to 5-feet per wound level.  Any living thing entering that area is automatically attacked by your Toxic Cliche.  Additionally, when stressed or fatigued (sweating, crying or breathing particularly heavily), you must roll TN15 to avoid exuding this aura in a 5-foot radius, even if uninjured.
Add your Toxic cliche to your Fright for any character knowingly afflicted with or witness to your poisoning.

DERANGEMENT HOOKS
In addition to any effects listed, a character suffering from any Derangement is immune to the Fright Cliche of characters or Things whose Fright Cliche is equal to or less than the number of Permanent Sanity lost.

Anxiety. Particularly nervous about a thing or situation. -1 penalty to all cliche rolls when confronted with the object of your anxiety, or the promise imminent encounter.
Bulimia. Advanced Food Fixation Derangement.  Roll against Target Number 15 to avoid gorging until over-full.  Half dice pool penalty until you purge, inflicting 1 Health damage to yourself.
Cataplexy. Choose a triggering emotion: exhileration, anger, fear, surprise, orgasm, awe embarrassement, or laughter.  When faced with your trigger, roll against a Target Number 15.  If you fail, you suffer a half-dice pool penalty to all cliche rolls due to muscular weakness, trembling as all of your muscles go slack.  Effect lasts 1d6(boxcars) rounds.
Compulsive-Aggressive Disorder. Everything is a threat.  You may only use Intimidation for Social rolls.
Delusional Mania. 1. Mild. When suffering a physical attack, roll Current Sanity against TN 5 for severe damage, TN 10 for potentially injurious damage, TN 15 for potentially lethal damage.  If you fail, you cannot dodge or avoid attack for the remainder of the scene without "spending" an additional temporary Sanity to represent the expenditure of Will to resist your delusions. +1 Fright.
2. Severe.  As above, except a failure results in your inability to dodge, and you won't avoid damage unless you "spend" a die of Sanity to represent the expenditure of Will necessary to resist your delusions. +1 Fright.
Dependent Personality Disorder. You auto-fail all social or psionic attempts to coerce or control you when made by the subject of your Disorder.
Depersonalization.  No sense of Connection to self.  You may not roll Sanity instead of other Cliches.
Diogenes Syndrome.  A Severe inferiority complex prevents you from maintaining personal hygiene, cleanliness and even healing.  Must expend one temporary Sanity in order to heal yourself (via powers, magic or medical know-how) or to clean yourself.  You still heal reflexively as normal.
Depression. Failure to achieve any goal results in a Target Number 15 roll.  Failure results in an inability to Roll Sanity instead of other cliches, and suffer a -1 penalty on all cliche rolls.
Fixation. Roll Target Number 15 to avoid obsessing over a loss or victory.  On failure, roll 1d to determine how many scenes you are fixated on that loss or failure.
Fugue. When faced with your Trigger, roll against TN15 to avoid entering the Fugue.  Half-Dice penalties to all cliche rolls, representing disassociative amnesia.  Roll a number of dice equal to lost permanent Sanity to determine how many hours your remain in this state.  Once the Fugue ends, memory returns, though events in the Fugue state require a TN20 cliche roll to recall.
Inferiority Complex.  Cliche Roll TN15 any time you could be boasting or othewise one-upping another, to avoid doing so.
Insomnia.  TN15+number of nights sleep missed in order to sleep 8 hours.
Irrational Defiance.  When given orders by superiors, TN15 or suffer a half-dice pool penalty to all cliche rolls made in attempt to accomplish those orders, due to your need to defy your superiors.
Manic Depression. On any failure, TN15 to avoid lapse.  If you fail, roll 1d6.  Odd = depression (inability to roll Sanity instead of other cliches, -1 penalty to all cliches).  Even = Mania (-1 penalty to any cliche rolls made to avoid action, +1 bonus to any endurance or "active" cliche rolls - excluding combat rolls).  +1 Fright in Mania.
Masochism. TN15 roll to avoid causing pain or humiliation to yourself when opportunity arises.  May gain a 1d bonus to this roll by systematic cutting - on days in which you have cut.
Multiple Personality Disorder. Trigger causes TN15 cliche check.  Failure causes secondary personality to emerge. May rearrange 1d6 Cliche Dice according to limitations set by your choice of additional personality and GM Fiat. +1 Fright if Personality shift witnessed.
Mythos Compulsion.  Insistence on investigating Mythos Lore & Creatures. -1 penalty (cumulative) to all cliche rolls when prevented from following a lead regarding the Mythos; until you can investigate some Mythos related thing.
Narcissism. TN15 to avoid a bout of vanity whenever you succeed on a goal.  On a failure, disregard all help in favor or yourself, -1 die penalty to all Teamwork rolls and any social cliche check.
Obsessive Compulsion.  With GM help, establish a strict code of behaviors.  If forcibly kept from performing these, TN10 to avoid resorting to violence.  TN20 or spend one Sanity to override these compulsions for the scene.
Paranoia. -1d penalty to all social rolls.  The Slightest hint of suspicion or aggression triggers a TN15 cliche check to avoid fleeing or attacking.
Phobia. TN5-20 (dependent on severity) to even approach the target of your phobia.
Pyromania. TN15 to avoid setting fire when opportunity presents itself.
Schizophrenia. -1d penalty to all social rolls.  TN15 to avoid attacking/ escaping the Trigger. +1 Fright.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Meatloaf beetloaf I hate meatloaf

Watch "Meat Loaf - Wasted Youth Live" on YouTube

I think my love of the music of Meatloaf may be indicative of the major failings in my life - specifically, my willingness to settle for (and sometimes venerate) the mediocre.

I'm learning to appreciate the analogy of "the rut." I imagine that I'm trying to get up on my feet - be happy - get my shit together, but every time I turn around, there I am. Wallowing in a ditch somewhere, wishing things were different.

I'm not gonna stop trying (I would like to stop lying to myself when I'm not); but goddamn its overwhelming sometimes.  If I wasn't at work right now, I might just go back to bed.

Monday, April 8, 2013

I Hate Mondays...

But even more than that, I hate myself, sometimes.

I had so many plans, today. So much I was going to do.  I woke up early looked at Facebook and YouTube and then -

Well, apparently I went back to bed, because I just woke up again. This happens to me a lot. I have no memory of going back to sleep, or even of deciding to do so.

I spend an inordinant amount of time in bed.  And usually, I don't even know I've lain down, until after I wake

It's incredibly frustrating, and I don't know what to do about it.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Meteor Shit

I'm a writer. I also like to draw pictures and play games, but the thing that makes me get up in the morning is the need to tell stories. Goddammit if I don't love telling stories.

Here's one now:

I had no notion of Stephen King as an honest-to-god real life human being until I saw the movie Creepshow on HBO. Jeez, I'm guessing this was around 1984 or '85.

I'd read a few King books.  The Stand, Carrie - I'd seen a few movies.  Even at around 12 years old, I was a huge fan of the man's work.

Then this bumbling, backwater idiot comes on-screen and finds a meteor rock in his back yard. I nearly shit myself when I found out it was the man who'd written all those stories I'd loved - who'd scared the shit out of me with vampires and psychic weird girls and all sorts of things that go bump in the night, even when you know they're not there.

It was amazing to me (I still hadn't quite gotten a handle on the whole notion of "acting") that this moron - this country bumpkin could do so many amazing things with his typewriter.

That was probably the first time it occurred to me that I might want to be a writer.  It was only a passing fantasy - at that point I was still hell bent on being Luke Skywalker when I grew up, or maybe a Motorcycle Stuntrider; but it would come around again and again, usually carried to my doorstep by Mr. King.

When I accidently bought On Writing because it was a new Stephen King Book. After I finally finished It. The first time I read the Gunslinger. Firestarter made me want to tell stories almost as much as it made me long for psychic powers - and a Shop against whom I could wield them with impunity.

There were others, of course, Tolkien, Piers Anthony, Michael Crichton, Douglas Adams, Kurt Vonnegut...

All great writers -great tellers of tales- and all had a hand in forming within me the desire to write; but it was Stephen King who really inspired me and handed me the tools with which to chase that dream.  Because it was King who filled my head with monsters and aliens - King who wound up an imagination already set on fire by the likes of Star Wars, Indianna Jones, Dungeons & Dragons and Elf Quest - and convinced me that paper burns better than anything else when it comes to campfire stories.

That last bit is a little muddled.  I got lost along the way.  Stephen King made me believe in books.  Made me believe it enough that I wanted to write my own.

Only time will tell if I'm any good at that; but I'm enjoying the doing of it almost as much as the finished work, so fuck it.  I'm not gonna stop.  And I have Stephen King to thank for that.

Saturday, April 6, 2013

No time to talk, busy

Making my own webcomic... no time to talk about someone else's.  Um... Sinfest.  That's fucking brilliant.   Google it.  Read it.  Buy the Merch.

My focus has to shift a little bit here.  If I'm going to write a novel and create a weekly comic strip and write a cyberpunk noir serial for the internet, I need to draw in the attention to that here, instead of splintering myself into so many different areas each week.

I'm still working it out.  Stay tuned.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

TQOTU - The Kritillic Attack

This is the WIP 3rd or 5th page of the Teenage Queens of the Universe webcomic. There's a lot of negative space to be filled in and I need to finish my lines, but here's where I am now. I will finish and post the fully inked page tomorrow.

I'm going to post about a page a week here until I'm confident I will keep the schedule and then move everything over to its own comic-based hosting.

I have no confidence in my ability to tell a story in pictures well. At least, not well enough to carry a comic. My original intent today was to post a page and invite critique, but (while I would still welcome criticism) it occurs to me that I have spent the last forty years waiting until I could draw a perfect page, rather than just fucking getting on with the drawing.

If you're doing this, fucking quit it. I wonder how my art might have grown and matured if I'd just got on with the business of drawing, instead of bellyaching about the shit I didn't like.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Patchwork Quilts and Procrastination

I'm beginning to think that choosing to write a weekly serial here on my blog was a huge mistake. I'm already kind of disappointed about the number of unfinished drawings that appear here. I don't want to add more unfinished work to that collection, and while I have a (very) basic outline for where the Mirror Soul story is going - there's a lot about Decker and his world that I haven't sorted out yet.

One of the reasons I've laid out my blog like this, with all sorts of different products on all sorts of different days, is because of the way I work (when I work, but I'll get to that later).

My mind is always racing. When I'm not drunk, I see novel and short story ideas (or things to draw or stories to run in D&D or Star Wars or whatever game we're playing next) in the world around me. I guess I'm lucky that my brain seems to have come equipped with an automatic plot generator attachment; It's never been hard for me to come up with ideas. Only to follow through with them.

Of course, there's a down side. I get wildly passionate about every idea that springs into my mind; I really believe in every story that passes through me - finished or not. The "David Wright" section of the Great Library in the Dreaming is full of some of the best novels never written.

I end up abandoning one project for another. Drawing this, writing one story instead of the other (which I was half-way through), ooh! What if I ran a D&D game based around the Tarrasque? Shit like that.

Happens all the time.

For instance. When I sat down to write this, I got an amazing idea for a GURPS campaign, wherein the Players run a band of Samurai making their way through the old west in search of the [MacGuffin], encountering cowboys and indians and getting caught up in all manner of Wild West Shenanigans. I actually started working on a Samurai Template before I remembered what I was supposed to be doing.

Truth be known, even ths blog is a distraction from the novel I'm supposed to be working on (although, today I have the excuse of being at my Mother's house and not having internet access, so I can't reach Google Drive, where I keep my manuscript and notes).

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that I've been letting my imagination stop me from doing any real producing. I ought to keep a file on my computer (or phone, or Drive) that lets me record all these good ideas and then forget about them; instead of working a little bit on this and a little bit on that and doodling a little bit here and there.

My hope is that this blog will allow me an outlet for my desire to work in patches of this and that, so that I can focus on one big project at a time.  What worries me about the serial, Mirror Soul is that it really is a big project - even though I'm attacking it in pieces (posting 2-4,000 words a week). I find myself thinking and working on this "small project," rather than the novel (which is supposed to be finished in less than 20 days).

I don't think working in patchwork is necessarily a bad thing, so long as you keep your focus.  So I guess that's what I'm going to try and do.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

No Blog Today

On my way to the hospital.

Monday, April 1, 2013

I Hate Mondays...

But I spent Easter Sunday with the family, and that was nice.  I'm puzzled, thinking about the whole thing - because I don't quite understand why we (by which I mean my family) come together for that holiday.

Don't get me wrong, it was great.  Good food, having a bunch of us together, the whole nine yards - but we're not what you'd call a religious bunch.  I think we might've mentioned The Arch-Lich jesus once, you know - in jest; and no one I know or am related to ever talks about equinoxes or spring festivals.  It's weird.

I guess we get together because its an excuse to do so - and it's tradition, so you'd feel like an asshole if you backed out.  All the times throughout the year when we ought to spend time together and don't, and here are these few holidays when we "have to" so that we can.  I hope I'm conveying this right, because there's something beautiful in that.

I ate too much.  I ate too much and I went off keto - drinking beer and soda and eating candy and all the good shit that comes with Easter dinner.  I weigh 266 lbs.  Which means I gained a bit.

Also, my toothache and headache (both absent since I started keto) were back with a vengeance this morning.  Still not enough evidence that the diet was the key to that, but it sure sucked to qake up this morning with railroad spikes jammed into my skull.

I'm back on the diet and looking forward to the future, but if the headache goes away, you can be damn sure I won't be having another damn cheat day.

Damn my teeth hurt.

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