Update: First “Update” for 2015 and Last “Update” for the Rest of Time

Happy 2015, people! I hope the year’s been going well for you so far. My first fifteen days have been acceptable; pretty full of editing and working–which, along with sleep, make up the three primary modes of my life.

But before I go on here, I want to clarify the title of this post.

So, here’s the thing: this blog has changed a lot over the past few years.

It started as a super-naive and super-self-congratulatory site for War of Exiles; back at the tail end of my “I’m the best writer in the world and totally infallible!” era, I talked pretty constantly (and unironically) about how amazing and revolutionary War of Exiles would be while also heavily criticizing some writing practices and standards. Years later, I still love War of Exiles and think that it’s different enough to be interesting, but I’m also not a self-congratulating idiot anymore, so I don’t assume it’s going to be revolutionary or change anyone’s life because that’s pretty insane. I’m also not venomous about other professional’s work anymore; even if you love observing differences between yourself and other writers, actually working at the craft–being beaten down by it repeatedly–will work that raw, critical self-confidence right out of you. Years later, I respect anyone who’s gotten published and I just want to give people something interesting and fun to read; that’s all.

After that, my blog got more laid back and experimental. This is when I started Games for Writers, a series I still add to on occasion, and RED Comics, my web comic that I can officially say requires too much of my time to continue working on. This era had a little of everything, from ideas about writing to movie reviews, all posted in an attempt to find my footing. Not the worst phase of the blog, but also not what it’s become and not an era I want to revisit.

After that, and as late as 2014, this site got the tiniest bit more personal (through some of the roughest few years of my life) but eventually turned into 100% writing theory. Really, very detailed and probably too intense writing theory. “Fantasy Story Stats,” “Fiction Sins,” “3 Degrees of Story Completion:” just a lot of posts about different facets of the writing experience. Different ideas that probably already have names I’m not aware of. This I will occasionally continue doing (my next post will probably be such a post, although I’ll keep it fun because I also don’t want to die of boredom).

And that brings us to now. If my blog’s not going to be any of these things, then what’s it going to be? The one thing it has been that I haven’t mentioned here: a journal. NaNoWriMo really changed how I feel about writing. As a process, overall, but also how I feel about posting here. For ages, I tried to keep my personal experiences and my posts pretty distant from each other. For ages, it was just an article about Metal Gear, or a comic about Batman with a progress bar in the upper corner and the occasional “Update” post. But I want to change that.

Which means that this is the last “Update” post because all or nearly all posts will be “Updates” from now on. I’m considering how to do this exactly (whether to tack an update onto every post or just post weekly updates on top of whatever longer post I want to write), but regardless, the site will always be about that Progress Bar–will always be transparent about a writing process I’ve only just (maybe) figured out.

This is one of many changes I have planned for the site in 2015 and, I feel, a good beginning. I hope you agree. And I hope you’ll keep joining me for my weird, anti-social journey–our, perhaps, shared quest on the road to being published and finally sharing the grand silence of our still unseen  fantasy worlds.