The Monkey Declines to Dance

It's been six days since my surgery and I'm more or less recovered. There's bruising all over my stomach, I'm a bit stiff, the bandage comes off soon; I'm finding it frustratingly difficult to concentrate or achieve flow as I normally would, so the week's been something of a write-off. A holiday, as it were.

I'm certain that readers have noticed the distinct lack of my traditional D&D content on this blog.  It's been about writing, comics, occasional ventures into other things (recorded my third essay video today), and the wiki, but not D&D, not the books I'm supposed to be writing, not a lot of advice telling how to run this or design that.

Easily, I could churn out an essay like that.  Talk to your players thusly, concentrate on this part of your worldbuilding, consider this when initiating an adventure, organise your NPCs so that they provide such-and-such... whatever.  Those who might have gotten a burst from the recent post I wrote about dungeon mapping, worksheets and setting the standards of a sandbox should note that I was not the initiating factor there.  A reader, and as it happens one who doesn't — so far as I know — support my patreon, took the time to write and ask me a few questions. Which I then graciously answered, spending my precious time not map-making or writing wiki pages to invest in performing that service.

For 17 years of this blog's existence (the anniversary is the 28th of this month), I have never hesitated to do that.  I have always been open to being asked things and the answers I've given consistently have always been more than the reader expected to receive.  There's always been a positive fall-out for other readers when I've done this.

The only thing going on with my ceasing to invest of my own accord is that I'm sick and tired of speaking to a wall.  My audience here equates to a group of about a hundred people who pay their money to the ticket window, sit down in the seats, in the darkness where I can't see them, while I do my little performance on the stage... to pretty much no acknowledgement, no response, no notice, no attention given and definitely without support beyond that ticket window.  Apparently, despite my every effort to reach out, to explain, to discuss, to appeal, to resolve and to bend, I'm expected to do my little performance and shut up.

So, I've decided not to.

Please feel free to continue buying your tickets.  I can make as much money and a helluva lot more if I shutter this online presence, get a straight job and use that capital to go on building my wiki and game world, which matters to ME, for my reasons.  But providing advice here without the expectation of either notice or communication?  Thank you much, but I'm done.

Someone wants to ask me something, I'll answer.  Feel that I have something to say, that you'd like to name, fine, I'll say it.  But I'm done with this bullshit dead-air stage time for it's own sake.

I'd rather have surgery done and be forced to rest than go on with what's been happening these last five years.