All Eyes on the Future

2023 is coming to an end and I feel like there is so much I haven't done but still want to. I've finally updated almost every page on the site, dating all the way back to spring 2017...but I haven't been very good about writing new posts. The good news is that life is pretty simple and straightforward for the time being, so I should be able to summarize recent events.

The most important thing is that we found out who Baby Goomba is: He’s a boy, and his name is Logan!

To be honest, Kim and I would have been happy with a boy or a girl. Obviously, a girl would “round out” the family in the sense of being a traditional nuclear family. A girl would also have added something new, which makes it exciting in a unique way from when Graham was born.

But having a second boy is exciting for a bunch of other reasons. Logan will (hopefully…) be Graham’s best friend, someone to grow up with and play with and get into mischief with. It’s something I didn’t have growing up, and Kim didn’t have either. We love that Graham will get to experience it, and he’s already really excited about having a baby brother.

Also, we didn’t have a girl name pinned down, but “Logan Michael” had been our boy-name choice for a couple months. We both love the name “Logan,” which is Scottish in origin and really just pairs well with “Graham.” It’s rare but not weird, and also a little whimsical. (The middle name, “Michael,” has a couple meanings for us. But the reason I originally suggested it was in honor of a very, very close friend who passed away unexpectedly last year.)

Logan’s due in January, but he’s measuring ahead of schedule. Kim and I both think he’ll arrive early, so there’s a chance we’ll have a Christmas baby to add even more joy (and chaos) to our favorite time of year. We couldn’t be more excited.

Worldbuilding updates

In terms of “other stuff,” I managed to condense several years of fantasy world origins notes into a single 5-page document. It’s still evolving so I don’t want to share it yet, but I’m really proud of the final product and I think it actually opened up even more doors for stories in the future. 

It’s interesting how trimming down one big idea creates more ideas to consider. Part of that is probably a byproduct of how narrowing your perspective blinds you to everything else; in terms of worldbuilding, that means I unintentionally gave myself more territory to explore without having to create anything new. But I also think that by forcing myself to pick and choose the most important details to focus on, I had to consider the aftermath or byproduct of each big event. It opened up a lot of pathways to explore, which is great for telling new stories.

Once I completed that document, I moved on to mapmaking. That process has mostly consisted of polishing and completing the started-but-never-finished project I worked on earlier this year. I got a lot done, but most of the details are still in progress…and have been for months now.

It’s a weird problem, actually. This “mixture” of three different projects overlaps in weird ways; I’ve had to scrap beloved ideas I held onto for 10+ years, or rework things I once considered “sacred” so they can mesh with the other pieces of this “new” setting. As a result, the notion of marking up a map with names has a sense of permanence, and I’m not confident enough to do that yet.

That means I’m on to the next step (before I have to backtrack). I still need to create a document that explores the history and culture of each race in the world, which is a different but equally daunting challenge. Thankfully, I’ve got a head start thanks to my now-abandoned anthropomorphic experiment, but it’ll still be a massive undertaking. And the more time I spend on this worldbuilding — which is, to be fair, maybe two hours a week — that is less creative energy I have to spend on, you know, actually writing something.

The will to write

November is National Novel Writing Month…which I’ve never done. I tried it once, but cranking out 1,500-2,000 words a day for 30 days was too much for me. And in the past few years, I’ve had a hard time drumming up the will to write, so it would be a challenge I know I’d fail quickly.

That’s not to say I’m not excited by the projects I’ve got in mind. Far from it, in fact: My brain is absolutely swimming with ideas for this new world. In the past three months alone, I’ve spent dozens of hours on worldbuilding and mapmaking...but I’ve only written maybe 8,000 words throughout the entire year. 

And as someone who claims to be a writer, that’s not great.

I honestly don’t know why it’s been so difficult. For most of the year, I’ve been caught up in the same daydreaming, worldbuilding haze where I lived for most of my college years — a time when I wrote three novels, start to finish. I could spend an entire week puzzling over the details of a single city in my world, but I can’t drum up the umph to write 1,000 words that tell a story about that place.

I’ve definitely been feeling exhausted this year — not physically, but mentally. Once Graham is asleep and Kim’s in bed, I just can’t find the motivation to sit down and write. When I have made myself do it, it hasn’t felt “inspired;” it’s just adhering to a routine. I force myself into the situation and hope something good comes out of it, but I’m never really satisfied with what I end up writing.

Maybe I need to change my tactics in 2024. Maybe I need a new time to write (like during lunch), or maybe I need to invest in a tablet so I can sit and write somewhere that isn’t my work desk. Maybe I should start writing with pencil and paper, or recording voice memos of scenes and then filling in the details later. Heck, maybe I should try all of these ideas just to break the routine.

I mean, it couldn’t hurt, right?