Turns out my writing ambitions didn’t survive moving across an ocean unscathed. Quelle surprise.
No plan survives first contact with the enemy, as they say. They being consultants, politicians, and your uncle a few drinks too deep at the family gathering. You know, insufferable assholes. I mean, totally reasonable to expect that I could just post through it, right friends? Abandon everything you’ve ever known, pick up another language, navigate an alien, baroque and frankly mildly hostile bureaucracy, and keep on trucking. Very normal, very reasonable expectations.
Well, it turns out immigrating kicks fucking rocks, except in all of the ways in which it is the best experience a human can have. Weird dichotomy that. Anyway, we’re about three months out from the last time I wrote to you, and that was just a review of a solo game that was kind of interesting.
In the background, impossibly, the writing has soldiered on. The novel polish is chugging along, twenty chapters down with thirty-two to go. Editing blows. It has to happen, because it makes the book better, and I’d like people to actually read the next one, you know? That said, I, personally, am really done with it. I understand the characters. I know what the story is. There’s nothing new or interesting for me there now, and I want to go on to something that I don’t know. The issue is that if I go meet some new players or make a new stage, I’m gonna muddy the waters and foul up the ongoing work.
There are many things under the sun though, and it turns out I also like to write essays. If you are here, you may have noticed this at some point. In 2025 I was _real_ angry about a lot of things. I started writing a collection of essays about it. I didn’t stop writing those essays because I got less angry. I stopped because I got too busy running for my life. I’m a little more settled now, and the stars have aligned for me to pick it back up.
It’ll probably be a book eventually. A younger, slightly more ambitious and foolish version of me set up a project page on itch for it an age ago. Just because I’m gonna put out a collection doesn’t mean I can’t share bits and bobs with you though. So, here’s a shiny rock I found that I thought you might like. It’s not so angry (and a lot of the other essays in that folder are really, really mad. Honestly I’m a little concerned about Jordan, just between you and me.), it’s more of a bittersweet thing. A letter I wrote to a younger me about romance and how what people expect of me has always felt a little weird.
Younger me is a little… it’s intentionally inexact. When I wrote it, I thought I was writing to my teenage self, and well, I was. Reading it back in an effort to put a little spit-shine on it, I think maybe I was writing it to a much more recent me too. You’ll get a chance to see it Wednesday (the 27th). Believe it!
That, state, academia, and family willing, will be the beginning of a return to a regular cadence. I’m aiming for the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of each month. Content may drift a bit, just because I’m not actively doing software consulting anymore. Expect more pieces on writing, playing games, and the queer experience and fewer about responsible use of LLMs in every facet of our lives. No longer my day job to push that stuff, thank fucking god.
Anyway. Wednesday. Not a Boy in Love. Talk soon.