So Yeah, I've Been Gone

From March to May without an update, not exactly the best track record here. So here's a quick update on what's been keeping me busy and preventing more updates.

Late March and April I mainly blame work. Things got very busy and, despite our mandatory overtime normally ending sometime in February at the latest, we got thrown into a very busy end-of-first quarter and had to spend a lot of extra hours working. Since I was also back to running my group's Kingmaker game and playing in our Monday night Council of Thieves (then later, Rise of the Runelords, as CoT went on hiatus, and soon to be taking a break from that and jumping into Age of Worms) game, the sudden time crunch was not exactly generous. Given the option between working on worldbuilding or working on prep for the game that week, the latter obviously took precedence.

That's not a full accounting, admittedly, but it's the majority of reason for the initial slowdown. My PbP games on Paizo and my general web presence declined as well, overall, for a variety of reasons. Worldbuilding isn't the only thing that's suffered - I have a handful of other writing projects, not connected to Finiens or other works, that I've had the desire but lacked the time or motivation to work on.

Overtime slacked up again and we went back to normal schedule in mid-April, but it was about that time that my health took a turn for the worse. Thankfully said turn was only relatively minor, all things considered, but it was an interference in my writing. A bad sinus infection hit me in the middle of the month, followed by a second just as that one was starting to clear out. Thankfully the treatment for the second held better, and I haven't gotten that particular illness again yet, though a new long-term allergy medication may be more responsible for that level of persistent health as well. Then however was my latest visit, about two weeks ago now, for a bad spell of vertigo. In addition to possible inner-ear damage from the two infections, my blood pressure was apparently way up, which forced me onto a diet change and yet more medication, which put me out of commission for anything involving intensive physical or mental work for a while, until I adjusted.

Then my grandfather passed away last Tuesday, and my family rushed down to Texas for the funeral and to help settle his estate. So while my health has improved greatly, the past week I've been an emotional wreck instead. Combined with the travel time itself, I've been in no shape to do any writing until today.

Thankfully, the chaos seems to be about over. I've got the next week off work, before I'll be headed back to Tennessee at the end of the week and resuming work next Monday. Since my head and my health seem to be settled now, that's a fair bit of time I'm hoping to fill with getting some writing done, and among that more worldbuilding. With the completion of the articles on Dwarves, the races of Paziou are finished; we'll be moving to the continent of Stormwind next, home of the fey Elves, the bold Orcs, the inventive Kobolds, the resolute Glaistigs, and the vagrant Leoni.

So yeah, that's what's been going on here. Hopefully further delays, if there are any, will be relatively short. Glad to be back.