ObscuraJournal 12/24/25

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas Eve, and good morning! Or afternoon. Or evening. Whatever. I'm writing to you from the swampy locale of southeast Texas, where the temperature right now is 63 degrees with a high around 73 ... typical weather for this time of the year in my neck of the woods. Despite the date, it does not feel like Christmas.

Of course, we'll get a cold snap in a week or two that will be ball shrinking cold, so there's something to look forward to.

I believe I might have figured out exactly what I need to do for my WIP, which is great since I've got about 10K words down already. Following the template of a few books I've recently enjoyed, I'm breaking the story into sections, each with a focus on one of the characters. There will be multiple POVs, including minor characters, but the main focus will be on the principles. The parts will also not be in chronological order. Indeed, I'm currently writing the second part before the first. The main reason is that I want to see these main characters young, a little wet behind the ears, poised to face the things in the world that will change them for better and for worst before we see them as adults. This second part is a step back in time. I've never written anything out of order before. Sure I've gone back to the beginning of stories and added events that happened earlier in the timeline, everyone does that. But doing it this way, with distinctive parts, is new for me, yet it feels right. If anything, in my head, it helps me write the kind of story I want to write.

This WIP will not be post-apocalyptic sword and sorcery, but it will show us how we get there. I definitely want to play in that world, but I realize that's actually another story, with different characters, possibly a little overlap with a few characters. Not really a series, more of a shared universe, which I find very cool.

Sadly, I'm not writing much right now, due to the massive amount of stress and burnout from the daily grind. Thankfully, Retail Hell is about over and things will get back to a sense of normalcy.

I've been replaying Ghost of Tsushima, this time with a renewed focus on exploration and charm gathering. Playing Ghost of Yōtei made me realize I was missing out of a lot of elements of the first game. It's very easy to just push through Ghost of Tsushima without using the armor and weapon charms to enhance game play, but it will definitely be more work as you near the end. Yōtei makes exploration part of the story, and with that focus, I saw what I was missing out on with Tsushima. I also started replaying Skyrim ... my 4th or 5th gameplay ... can't remember because it's been a while.

That's it for now. I might be back tomorrow, depends on how busy things are or aren't. We'll see.

peace&love