Hello, hello.
Sorry for taking… nearly an entire year off.
I know that’s a wild time jump for the people who follow me here, but I had my reasons:
1. I Got Some Lucrative Work for a While
Lucrative as in “more hourly pay than I ever expected to earn.”
The downside: despite the company I worked for being super, duper, for real-real set on hiring me full-time with benefits (an event that would have literally turned my life around), they *drum roll* rescinded that offer at the last minute! After over a month of interviewing! Because of “tariffs!” Hooray!
Instead, they offered to bring me on as a freelancer–with no benefits, of course. A freelancer who, mind you, was expected to be in the office multiple times a week and put in “extra hours” while I was recovering from surgery. But hey, if I worked super hard, management would totally have no choice but to hire me full time.
Yeah. Sure.
I’m happy to say I stood up for my rights and refused to trek to that office and work insane hours. For a year, we had a pretty okay (if supremely unsteady) work relationship.
But, of course, that relationship just vanished into the ether without a word.
On the plus side though, at least I finally have time to write here for a bit.
2. I Wasn’t Sure about My Last Writing Tool
My mission for 2025 was to upload all of my personal writing tools for free. As of my last post in June 2025, that mission was technically completed, but I didn’t know it at the time.
See, last year, I was so hype about providing those tools that I started to feel like I was pushing them out the door. I’m not saying I don’t use the tools I published here (I use Check-Ins constantly, the Characterbuilder is still a personal revolution for me, and the Plotter’s Inventory has made plotting stories fun and focused). But I am saying that the last one I was thinking of sharing didn’t feel practical for most people.
Spoilers: that final tool was my “Framework”: a way of organizing story ideas in pre-production. Both the Characterbuilder and Plotter’s Inventory slot into the Framework, and that’s cool.
But it did not feel like the Framework, overall, would be useful. Outside of the three tools I posted here, it was really just other people’s ideas and common writing practices that I adopted into a big checklist that I liked. And it felt a little shitty and disingenuous to present that like, “Wow, guys! Check out this genius thing I made!”
Besides, if the only new content in the Framework was a skeleton for slotting in writing tools, it felt like it would actually muddy another writer’s process development. Like, figuring out how to organize your ideas–in a way you love–is part of the fun. Granted, I have really weird, intensely bureaucratic tendencies when it comes to my work, but I’m standing by this; everyone’s process is different, and you should develop the one that suits you. If the tools I’ve already posted on this site slot well into your writing process (the way others have slotted into my personal Framework), awesome. If not, that does not mean you’re doing it wrong.
That said, the biggest reason for my absence came a little later in the year.
3. I Had Yet Another Surgery (It’s Still Not Over)
I know, right? Since 2021, this has been my fourth time going under the knife, with anesthesia, for the same issue. Third hospital stay, fourth stint of PT.
Needless to say, I’m really, really over it. Especially because, for me, it still feels like COVID never ended; I still can’t just go outside and do what I want, and every time it feels like I’m nearing that point, something else goes wrong.
I don’t want to rant about this because it feels like I’ve already talked about my medical issues a lot on here. And every time I do, I present the hopeful side so I don’t get depressing; but then it rubberbands back to being awful and my choice is either (A) don’t talk about it, or (B) open up and sound like I’m full of shit, farming sympathy.
So, whatever–I’m just going to say, this final time, that I’m still dealing with my medical stuff and that’s probably going to continue influencing how often I post for a while. Because, if you’re uninitiated, recovery doesn’t always just mean lying in bed for a few weeks; sometimes, it means physical therapy every single day, for hours a day. Full and total disclosure: most days, I finish my 2~ hours of icing, stretching, and exercising and have to roll into handling normal, human responsibilities, only to finish a few of those and realize it’s time for more icing, stretching, and exercise. It is exhausting, and the moment I settle my ass into a chair and turn on a video game, I’m pretty much done for the day.
Point is, expect me to be inconsistent. And, for that reason, if you really want to catch whenever I post, consider Subscribing at the bottom of this (or any) page on Inktrap.
But “Back in the Habit” Though?
Right. Why am I even mentioning Subscribing?
Because I do have some extra time these days and I want to post a bit more on here in the coming months.
The current plan of action (in no particular order):
- Review and clean up my writing tools.
- Spruce up the site (including new art for “Aixa the Hexcaster”).
- Write a few posts with opinions I just want to put out there (as per usual).
- Post a new, 2026 writing tool.
The latter is brand spanking new–the result of chatting with a writing partner about one of his stories a few months ago. I’m going to post that in June, but for a quick preview, it’s a way of discovering the theme of one of your projects even if you didn’t have one in mind before you started. Massively helpful in steering a WIP with an unclear heading.
That said, I want to keep all of my posts shorter these days, so I’ll end this one here.
For an update on my writing projects, stay tuned.
I’ve been Louis Santiago and, as always, please feel free to use any of my tools on the Resources Page for your own writing. They’re all free and they always will be. If you want to talk about them on your own platform, cool, but please provide props and links back to this site; I’m still not asking for money on here, but I am trying to build my platform as best I can while helping other writers.
If you’d like to learn about any of my published work, check out my Publication Timeline.
That’s all for now. As always, thanks for reading.
And, until next time, fuck AI.
Inktrap 
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