A Shot in the Dark

Let's see if I can write a thing. This seems like as good a venue as any, since at this point posting to this blog is similar to talking to myself. I think the pageviews I get each day - which are very few - are simply the Brownian motion of the Internet. Digital presences bumping into this node, and then wandering away, without an apparent order.

I went to the doctor a little over a month ago because my depression symptoms were getting worse. This was also just before things at work got really bad for about a month (and are not what I would call 'good' now, but I'm still here). I have a superb doctor, and we talked a bit, and she asked how we would know if the new regimen was working? I thought about it - one of the things that happens is that you lose interest in things you otherwise love and enjoy. So I said that a measure we could use is writing. When I'm writing again, that will tell us that the regimen is working.

I'm still not sure that this will count, but I had to try to force something out.

A friend of mine put together a G+ group for writers and game designers who also struggle with depression. It shouldn't be surprising that there would be some significant overlap there. We share a hobby that involves tons of sitting by ourselves and thinking, which is exactly the kind of environment in which depression thrives. Or maybe it's a self-fulfilling prophecy - sitting alone and thinking encourages depression, and then depression encourage sitting alone and thinking. Voila.

I'm at the stage now where it seems that everyone around me is doing well and accomplishing things and growing as persons while I am a sack of garbage slumping my way through a dreary life. That probably sounds over-dramatic, but over-dramatization, or 'catastrophic thinking', is a symptom of depression, so there you go. Subjectively, that is what it is like. The things I do and say seem, to me, like abject failures to achieve anything I want to achieve - so much so that it is pointless to try.

One of the survival methods that I have learned is to try to ignore these intuitions. To trust, somehow, that they are false, or, since I am not good at really trusting, to just move forward as if I trusted. To identify those thoughts as symptoms rather than truths. This is a challenge in a career where my intuitions about other people are very important to how I proceed. I often have to trust my intuitions about other people, to rely and act on them even, and on the other hand ignore my intuitions about myself.

For example, I am so certain I am rambling like an idiot that I actually feel a faint nausea. So I'm just going to hit "Publish" and see how I feel later in the day.

Back to Some Game Design

My obsession with Tolkien is well documented. There has been a recent lull in editing activity on my other projects, and one of the things that happens at such a time is I dust off an older project and put some more work into it. In this case, that project is Servants of the Secret Fire, my Middle-Earth RPG. It is a cool game, and I hit a point where I had enough new tweaks and ideas that I wanted to put down another draft. So far, so good - about 5,000 words have rolled out in the past few days, partly by way of iPhone while watching a friend play Red Dead Redemption, so clearly my mind is in this space.

I was recently invited to write for my friend Pete Figtree's blog, and he gave me a blank slate, so of course I wrote about Tolkien. I have also been reading about Tolkien and listening to the Aldasaga podcast, which is about Tolkien and Norse myth. I think these things build up to a critical mass, and one of the main ways I discharge this extra intellectual payload is through gaming. Since I haven't yet found a group to play The One Ring with, this is what happens.

It's also a hell of a lot easier than dealing with a new city, new job, toddler, moving and bills.

The One Ring is hands-down the best Middle-Earth RPG out there right now. I love running it and would likely love playing in a game as well. I can still do better. Now I just have to prove it by actually doing better. If I finish SotSF, I will be of course be giving it away. If anyone reading this has any interest in reading or paytesting it, please contact me and let me know. It probably won't be ready for beta playtesting for a while (I haven't even had an alpha playtest yet, honestly), but obviously that'll need to happen.

Maybe other people have fewer of these, but this is one of those projects that I work on simply because I enjoy thinking about it and working on it. I don't make it a priority over actual work - Never Pray Again and writing for my new job come first, no question, as do the couple of editing gigs that I have. But there is still time when I can squeeze in even more writing and thinking, and this is it. My fantasy heartbreaker.

I don't know whether it is better or worse that I realize that and still work on it.

Whose Story Is It?

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As I write my way into this fiction attempt, I've had some time to reflect on my approach - present tense, multiple viewpoints. I think that I was bouncing around, wondering whose story this actually is. One of the characters emerged, and I think this is his story. He's one of the more interesting characters, to me anyway, with lots of internal and external conflicts currently and coming his way. He has interesting relationships with the other main characters, with some nuance and potential conflict there too. He's also one of the few characters I'm sure will survive the story (not all the main characters will).

Looking ahead, I don't think he will be present for every event I have sketched out, and some of the events he won't be present for are a big deal to the story, so I may need a second POV. I'm not sure who that should be.

Writing in first person continues to open up challenges and opportunities. It's odd to be writing fantasy, which always has the artifice of being "once upon a time" to some degree in first person. It is happening both in a legendary then and yet the reader's now. There's no room for things like an imaginary manuscript history for the story, or the idea that a storyteller is setting things down on paper that happened long ago in their own life. It is cinematic, and I'm actually not even sure that this technique plays to what strengths I have as a writer (which in fiction are very few and underdeveloped).

Still, it's worth continuing. This is practice. I am still enjoying writing my way into this story, and I'm approaching 40,000 words without feeling fatigued with it. As long as I continue to learn, it's worth it.