A little while back, I was doing some livestreaming over on my twitch channel, and someone in the chat mentioned that they missed my blogs.
Wait…
I just did the math and realized it’s actually two or three months ago. It doesn’t *feel* like 2-3 months. It either feels like two weeks or two years. My perception of time was never the best, and now with Covid it feels like I’m living in a tesseract that’s also an escape room designed by a sadist.
Anyway. Back a billion years ago, I was streaming and someone asked me if I ever planned on writing more blogs. I mentioned that I’d love to. I miss writing the blogs, too. Or rather, I miss the community that we had here where I would share stories and people would interact in the comments.
Truth is, I’ve made notes, taken pictures, set aside links for at least two dozen blogs just this year alone. A lot of them I’ve actually started writing, too…
But there’s a lot that gets in the way. Covid, of course. Regular life. Being a dad. Other work. Mood disorders. Chaos and charity….
Also, when I think of writing a blog, all I can think of is the fact that I haven’t written *anything* here in the last six months. Hell, I’ve barely written much in the last 2-3 years.
It’s so different than it used to be back in the day: I used to post at least once or twice a week, telling y’all little stories about what was going on with me. My adventures as a fledgling author. I enjoyed sharing little pieces of my life, and odds are, if something interesting or important happened, y’all would hear about it here.
But for a long while now, a lot of what’s been going on with me… talking about it just hasn’t been appropriate. Most of the big events in my personal life are depressing, or not entirely mine to share.
On the other hand there’s my professional life. There have been big things there too, many of them centering around the development deal with Lionsgate, and the show I was working on with John Rodgers for Showtime. Those things have been a big part of my life for years, taking up a ton of time, energy, and headspace. (Hell, just negotiating the contract with Lionsgate took me nearly 18 months.)
Was it interesting? Absolutely. New? Terrifyingly so. Were there stories to tell? Very yes. Once Flavor Flav stopped me in my hotel lobby and told me I really looked like an old friend of his. I actually worked with Sam Raimi. (He’s really nice.) I got to be in a writer’s room for the first time. In fact, I’ve been in more than one.
The problem is this: A lot of times I wasn’t legally allowed to talk about some of those things. Like one of the writer’s rooms I was in. Signed a big NDA. Just not allowed to say.
Even when it wasn’t illegal for me to talk about, a lot of times it would have been really unforgivably rude. Like when I met Raimi, we talked a couple times *long* before Lionsgate ever made the announcement that he was involved in the movie. So I couldn’t just go on my blog and tell y’all about how he was really nice and also he gave me a lemon.
(Also, for those of you who haven’t been following the news. Raimi isn’t involved in the project any more. It just didn’t work out.)
So yeah. Through the last couple years, even when it wasn’t illegal for me to share news, after a few mistakes I learned it was still really bad form to talk about a lot of things publicly. And so, because I wanted to be a good collaborator, I just didn’t talk about things.
So what does this have to do with me streaming a couple months back?
Well, as I said, someone mentioned that they missed the blogs, I said I missed them too. But I’ve gotten out of the habit. And the world is on fire. And I’m constantly exhausted. And part of me feels like I’m going to start sharing stories here again, I should try to catch people up on that last 4-5 years of my life. An odd, impossible urge…
So I mentioned a thought I’d been rolling around in my head. That rather than worry about posting up something important or profound, I could just share one good thing out of my day on the blog. Just a little thing to remind me that not everything is covid. That there’s still joy to be had in the world.
People seemed to like the idea, so I decided to do it.
And then a couple months went by….
But here. Now, I’m going to do it. Here’s one good thing, a text a business associate sent me after we had a zoom meeting:
As you can see, this is from a while ago. I’ve been saving a bunch of little things like this with the intention of sharing them here more regularly.
In other news, Worldbuilders just launched its Midseason Fundraiser. For the next week, we’re selling a bunch of cool geekery so we can keep the lights on.
It only lasts for a week, and some items are limited quantities. So if you’re curious, you should head over and check it out.
Also, in addition to my regular streaming and gaming and Q&A and such that I do, today (Tuesday) I’m going to be doing a livestream to talk with him about his new book that’s releasing today: Peace Talks.
This chat will be extra fun for us here at Worldbuilders, as we’re we’re also selling copies of Jim’s Books with specially designed Worldbuilders-Exclusive bookplates…
You can catch our Q&A over on my twitch stream.
You can see the cool bookplates designed by Satine Phoenix and Nate Taylor over here in our Indigogo or over here in the Worldbuilders store.
As always, all proceeds go to making the world a better place.
Stay tuned. I’ll be doing a couple more blogs over the next couple days…
pat
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