A wild update appears! 1/8/24

Alrighty, long radio silence again. Sorry about that. I have a good excuse this time, though!

I got sick. Again. But!

This time I got real damn sick.

There was a lovely product recall here in the Great White North on some plant-based milk replacement products about a month ago (by a company that, for legal reasons, shall remain nameless) due to a bacterial contamination by Listeria. Of course, the one damn time I buy this brand because my regular is out of stock, I get the oogy stuff. Most people just ended up with the equivalent of a stomach flu, but for the vast minority, myself included, the bacteria invaded the nerve system and did some nasty shit. I had wild mood-swings, loss of balance and equilibrium, and worst of all I spent an entire day hallucinating. It was so bad I woke up screaming multiple times, and thought my house was haunted. Man, it was not fun cleaning up all the salt I was throwing around that night. I still feel like ass, but I'm through the worst of it and slowly getting back into the swing of things.

I also got a new part-time job. I hated it (fuck you, Staples), so I quit and got another one. It's as a clerk in a gas station, which suffices for now. Gives me time to work on the farm and, if I can ever get my head back on straight, do some writing.

Man, that infection fucked me up bad lmao.

All that to say, I haven't been writing a lot lately. I know, I know; not what y'all wanna hear, and definitely not what I want to have to say. I was doing so well, getting back into the swing of writing here. It is what it is, though, and I just gotta try again. We'll get there.

At least I can give y'all a preview of my first Morgan POV scene! Yay!

I cannot wait to start writing her more. I think I've said this before, but I plan for her to be the foil to SI!Ben's more taciturn, deadpan humour he's come to develop lately; almost like the early version of SI!Ben. She's already started terrorizing the help in the Keep, and man do I have plans for her and the girls. And Darean. He's gonna be there, too. I haven't forgotten our good little bean. And he will be a good little bean, much like Morgan from Invisible Ties, to act as a foil for Morgan's more bizarre antics this time. I've got plans, I've got time, and now that I'm recovering, I've hopefully got the brain power again.

Also, I've been thinking of some little side-hustles to make me a little extra cash on the side, but easy ones so I don't lose too much time to them. I'm planning on selling some crushed-up slate and shale as basing accessories for miniatures, meaning I hit rocks with a hammer and send them to people in little baggies; I've already found that they make nicer rock and rubble effects on mini bases through my own experimentation, so I hope other people enjoy using them, too. I've also decided to try my hand at some simple craft ideas; I'm hand-making making some protective and decorative pagan amulets and jewellery from natural, responsibly sourced Canadian timber. Which means I'm using trees that were blown down or struck by lightning during last year's storm season XD. Here's a picture of some prototypes I did up:

 The first one is an old Saxon spell for staunching of bleeding and the like; the second one is a message that says "I think you're cool". I dunno how selling these abroad is gonna go, just because of individual countries' laws about importing wood, but I do seal them in polyurethane varnish, so hopefully that's good enough. I've got some other designs I'm kicking around, too, so we'll see what happens. But, like I said, these are both easy little projects I can do around other stuff.

This update is getting long, so I think I'll cap it here, but again, I appreciate all the support and patience y'all have for me. It really means a lot to know you're willing to put up with my shitty schedule keeping.

Thanks for everything, guys, and Nagaspeed.