Well, hello there.
It’s another year, and Magician’s Touch remains incomplete. Sigh. That’s not the greatest way to start an update. I suppose I am meant to be all structured and have a nice intro, then an update, perhaps followed by a “what I’ve been reading” block, and then a sign off. Is that how these things are meant to go these days? Who knows? Who blogs anymore? Almost no one on a non-monetised platform, amiright? Perhaps I should have ads flashing away down the sides of the page enticing you with this one crazy secret doctors don’t want you to know about aging. We’re not meant to do anything for free anymore, are we? If you can’t make money from it, what even is the point, huh?
Heh. I opened a “New Post” thinking I should probably do a New Year post and let people know I still breathe. I didn’t sit down with a plan beyond that. I had just been listening to CJ the X’s “Subjectivity in Art” YouTube video, which had me thinking about my place in the art world as a writer of fiction I hope will be popular enough to cover the cost of creating it (so long as I never try to put a value on the hours I spend on it; just the editing and the cover art done by others). Am I an artist? Sometimes I think so. I am a creator. When does my hobby become worthy of demanding that people pay me for it, though? That is the line I think I will forever have difficulty defining. That’s why, for now at least, I fall back on making it widely available and then putting out my “busker’s cap” in the form of Ko-Fi or no-obligation Patreon. I am also considering setting up this website to take tips and perhaps offer a subscription. I have a plug-in that can do it. I just need to set it up and be comfortable with working out taxes and stuff. But since it’s hard enough to carve out time to write, I don’t see that happening fast! I guess that is why most creatives rely on those external services.
Anyway, for now, I still breathe and I am working away quietly at MT. Some scenes take several sessions to get to a point where I’m happy to move on, while others come out pretty much right the first time. It’s hard to predict which is which, and it can also depend on how many interruptions there are in the process of building a scene and you can probably imagine that, as a mother, I get a lot of interruptions, whether directly, or through little obligations cropping up throughout my day. And then I need to remember to do things like look after my own health. Who knew you had to put time in to that, too?
And so, I end up repeating myself once more. I am still working on it. I’m 95+% confident it’ll be finished this year. Maybe even really early in this year. There’s not much to go, but it is a full wrap up, so kind of important to get right, yeah? Yeah. I promise I’m doing my best to make it satisfying. I hope you’ll stick with me.
Oh yeah. I recently finished reading The Never-Ending End of the World by Ann Christy (and published by Campfire), and rather enjoyed it. It’s not a post-apocalyptic story, because the apocalypse is still in progress, albeit frozen in time. And it straddles SciFi and Fantasy, as it’s loosely based in science, and later has magical powers. It will, I believe, get you thinking and perhaps even have you reflect on your own values as there are two major groups in the book, each with a different approach to the problem they face with real life or death outcomes in the actions taken due to those beliefs. A worthy read, I think.
Roll on 2025. May more good than otherwise come from efforts made this year.