Burnt

I should be running D&D right now; instead, I'm resting and writing this post.  I'm just too tired, too sore, too unable to think properly enough to run a game.  Reality.  At least I can say I'm employed, for three months now . . . I've been working as a prep cook in a gluten-free rib house of some quality.  I can say the work is hard or I can say simply that I've lost three inches around my waist and about 25 pounds in less than 90 days.

I had hoped that the last post where I proposed underwater rules might inspire a bit more conversation than it did, but I know it is Thanksgiving and that my American readers are wrapped up with black sales, football and food.  Perhaps I will hear more from people tomorrow.

I was looking forward to trying the underwater rules.  I don't know when I may be able to, now, as things are actually getting harder on Saturdays, as the owner has set up a series of Saturday parties, where we manage from sixty to as many as two hundred people at a go.  By the time I reach 5 p.m. on a Saturday, I'm wrecked ~ and not much able to play.  Damn, but it's a frustration.

Having been down this kind of road before, though not for about a decade, I know the thing to do is to keep working and designing.  That much I can do and in the long run, it all pays off.

A part of me says that I should suspend everything ~ the wiki, the game, the blog, everything, and just work on the book.  The book is a thorn in my side just now.  I'm stuck.  I shouldn't be stuck, I know everything that is meant to happen and I should be able to just finish it up now, but I'm not doing that.  It's hard to explain . . . it is a sort of, well, shame.  That makes no sense, I suppose, but that's the truth.  Another writer, another artist, might come closer to understanding.  Some of my DMing readers might get that as well.  I'm not kidding when I say that writing, art, is an act of courage.  It is like kneeling down in front of block, resting one's forehead on the wooden surface and doing so while a person stands right there with an axe in their hand ~ metaphorically.  That's the sort of stress it creates.  However one might feel that the work needs to be done, to be finished, there's that hesitation.  It doesn't go away.

Going into seclusion is a way of dealing with it.  Seclusion is an embattled defense against shame.  Only . . . sometimes it doesn't work.  Then one is put in the situation of remaining secluded and still getting nothing done, with the shame still there.

A blog is probably not the place to talk about this.  I'm so used to wearing my situation on my sleeve, however, I might just as well go on doing that.

I wish the best to all of you as we begin this Christmas season.