Monthly Archives: December 2021

Success! Ummm…

H/T to Steven D. Brewer in his blog, what does success mean to me.

Now this entry isn’t going to sound as scholarly as his, but humor me.

Was I rich this year? Nope. But I’m not complaining at what I have made. Any cup o’ tea helps.

Was I famous this year? I touched more people with Carnival Farm than I had with Grimaulkin. General fiction is a winner. Who’da thunk?

I did like something noted in Steven’s blog:

Jane McGonigal, in her book Reality is Broken, identified four qualities that make for a happy life: (1) Satisfying work to do, (2) The experience of being good at something, (3) Time spent with people we like, and (4) The chance to be a part of something bigger.

  1. Check.
  2. Check
  3. Cheaaaaaakkkk? (Two toxic people in my life I’m working on distancing myself from)
  4. Don’t care. At least, I don’t think so.

DBT talks about “Mastery”, and I will admit, I think that I have achieved the mastery of writing. (Wait! No more writing books? Oh, hella no–I’m addicted to collecting those like I’m addicted to collecting tarot cards.) So what do I do when I feel like I’m worthless–i.e., those two toxic people tell me I am worthless?

I write. Or I read something that I know I can write better. Or I outline. I plan the next scene. And I try to work hard on it to get it published.

Writing equals success. Publishing equals success. Money and fame are icing.

A Grimaulkin Return?

I have the itch to write. I put aside the NaNoWriMo project after its epic fail last month. I want to write something, but I have no idea what.

So I sat down with my writing journal, and what came to me was a scene I had done years and years ago on another blog. I had Grim create a spell call the Cornucopia Spell that he put on a fridge. Anything you wanted would appear in the fridge. Cooked or uncooked, but just the way you wanted it.

Well, one of the characters in the hostel that the fridge was located in liked to “stump the fridge”. He created bacon ice cream. A long and very funny role-playing session happened (but not as memorable as Penis Coat in the D). I could do a short story with that character and the Cornucopia scene. It could be part of the Storyteller’s Tarot as the ten of cups (wish-fulfilment).

As I kept writing in my journal, I realized that there were a few other characters I wanted to bring out. Jules, the naive wanna-be hero; Eule, the prankster; Masonry, the anti-hero; and more from way back in City of Heroes and Champions Online. I have to go back to all the stories I’ve written (skipping Bomber because he’s quite dead) to get what I was trying to do with them. Do I want to bring them all out, along with Grim, who owns this hostel for “wayward boys” because he’s forced to do years of community service for a crime he committed?

The thing is, I don’t want to mine old stuff. But it seems to be the fastest way to get at anything.

I’ll play with the idea. Let it stew and pull out old characters, read/write them up.

Maybe another Grimaulkin story might find its way out.