Blog: Figuring It Out

Hello again, and welcome to another installment of this vague blog series I do. The plan is to run through some updates to various things I have going on. Plus, some talk of Dungeon Crawler Carl. So, what’s up?

Project Updates

On the project front, here is where we are at.

• Cosmic Dash: The Swarm will begin tomorrow, as in the first chapter. I have a landing page up for the project in general that I will also be building on. The project page will have an automatically updating chapter list, so there is little maintenance on my end (unlike the landing page for The Dead Life).
• I should have another RGBots to post today. I’ve kind of been casually uploading them when I find time. I need to actually stick to set update days, though.
• Fang & Bone is going strong, and the next chapter will be up next week.
• Mostly still drawing the characters for Thorn By My Side and not the actual comics. I want to make sure Cosmic Dash is fully up and running before I dive too deeply into production on the comic.

Fatigue

I have had a couple of thoughts lately that have been weighing on me. A lot of it concerns the fact that I am doing all these things out of a desire to create, and a compulsive desire to share. The first thing is that I have been dealing with some heavy fatigue this week. I don’t quite know the cause, but it’s been a struggle to do much outside of my teaching work. Even then, I have been dragging my feet on that, too. I’ve been feeling very self-conscious about it, and it’s been a sour spot for me this week. I hope that I am feeling less tired next week, so this week I am just going to do what my body is pleading for me to do.

Production Schedule

The other thing I have been thinking about is that the production of the Cosmic Dash chapters is taking longer due to the illustrated component. Inevitably, I expect a schedule change, so I am kind of pre-thinking that. My idea is that maybe we’re moving into a Fang, Dash, and miscellaneous rotation. So maybe one week is a Fang update, the following week is a free space for a short story, poem, or some kind of side project, then back to Dash, and then back to a miscellaneous project.

That feels like a comfortable rate and gives me room to explore as a creator, but I also worry about the pacing of the other projects. It’s a tough balance as an independent creator to find and one I have always struggled with. I do not get paid to work on these stories and can only fit them into my schedule when I can. Things would be different if I were being paid to update stuff, but that just doesn’t happen.

So what happens if these chapters start taking longer to come out? More than likely, people stop reading. So it’s a real push-and-pull between my availability to work and the demands of potential readers. I doubt I’ll ever find a comfortable solution there as a writer.

What I am Reading: Dungeon Crawler Carl

Something that has been helping me with the fatigue issue has been getting back into reading. I can stay in a restful spot but keep my mind active, and that cuts the tension I am dealing with regarding the fatigue.

As for what I am reading, I have just finished Matt Dinniman’s The Eye of the Bedlam Bride, the sixth Dungeon Crawler Carl book. Of the series so far, I felt this one dragged the most for me. I was mostly over the card gimmick after the first third of the book, and the middle third really began to feel like a slog for me. I think there were cool things and a couple of very good moments, but it took me a long time to get through this one.

I have also started to get really annoyed with Matt Dinniman’s “gore” problem. Not the violence and gore in the book (i live for the sicko shit), but rather his overreliance on the word. If I made a drinking game out of the use of the word, I’d be dead a few chapters in. Quite literally, he overuses the word gore and never describes what it is. Phrases like “a shower of gore,” “trudged through gore,” and such are so recurring that I began to laugh every time I saw them. I wonder if it is a way to pre-censor the book, but it has no impact, and the word has been functionally useless since the first Dungeon Crawler Carl book.

I had finished reading one night after a particularly affecting “farewell” scene and was getting ready to read the next day. I told my wife about the “gore” thing, but emphasized that farewell was well written and that, as much shit as I had been giving Dinniman, he did a great job. After that, I sat down to pick up from where I had left off, and two sentences in… the useless “gore” word showed up.

Has anyone else noticed the gore issue, or am I just nitpicking? In any case, I am excited to get into The Inevitable Ruin.

Commission Queue

I am back to commission work again to supplement my teaching income. Right now, I have two clients in my queue. I am wrapping up a logo for someone. The other project includes five characters, which is quite a way to start this queue. So, right now we’re going to say the commission queue is at six items.

So, if you want to commission me, please keep in mind there is going to be a little wait. I will get to you, but it may take a bit.

Life and Other Things

I am back to teaching for the Summer session. It is a six week class, meaning that is is an 18 week semester condensed down. Week one is done and I am pretty optimistic.

The theme of the enshittification of the internet seems to be going well, and it seems like the students are latching onto it. We’ll see if that enthusiasm continues into week six when their podcast projects are due. I am waiting on their first paper, due tomorrow. It’ll be interesting to see where they are in writing skills, as my first paper is always a diagnostic tool. I do feel bad I haven’t been able to do as much work preparing for future weeks due to this sudden fatigue, but thankfully, with the first two weeks of material down, the hardest stuff is done. Successive lectures revolve around assigned readings and explaining the techniques those readings use to make their arguments. I just dislike missing an opportune time. Next week I’ll be grading, which eats into the lecture prep. Ah well.

The only other thing worth mentioning is that I had a fun time doing the vote entry for some primaries last week. My friend David Gallaher introduced me to the Associated Press’s vote entry operator work, which has been very enjoyable every time I’ve done it. Formerly, I was a webscraper, but this time around, I was a phone operator, and it was a great experience. I can’t wait to do it again in the actual election in November.

And with that, I’m closing out this blog entry. How do you feel about the addition of the current book I am reading? Should I keep that going? Do you enjoy the blog component? Let me know. Otherwise, you can support my writing and projects by donating or subscribing to my Ko-fi account for as little as $1 a month. It really helps.

Here’s more Paul Simon.