Putting Things in Boxes
For those who haven't been following my every movement (shame on you) I ran a website dedicated to miniature wargaming. It got very very popular and ran for many years, but the fickleness of the Google algorithm updates did a lot of damage to me and it eventually became more expensive to maintain--it stopped paying off.
This Is Not Writing Advice
So, I wrote a book. Or, at least a draft. And I'm really, really happy with it. And here is how I did it, and here is not writing advice for anyone.
First, I have been struggling for some time with serious depression, as I have mentioned here and here. And this depression puts me in bed most of the time at 3:00pm, and it's been doing this for the past three years and it super, super sucks.
Well, as mentioned previously, my doctor changed my meds about three months ago at the same time that my therapist gave me some really high quality advice about behaviorism, and things have changed.
My One Political Post for 2024
I'm trying not to be political. I know that there's very little that I can say that will sway anyone one way or the other. But I wanted to say this:
Eighteen long years ago, I wrote The Counterfeit, book about the Illuminati and about conspiracy theories. And there was one big takeaway from that:
People believe in conspiracies because it is easier to believe a simple answer than a complex answer. It is easier to believe that there is a cabal of people in a smoke-filled room making the important decisions.
Take, for instance, inflation. I don't care whose side you're on but here's the deal:
I Wanna Get Better, by Bleachers
I've been posting the top songs you need to know to know me, and there's nothing on that list (maybe) higher than Bleacher's I Wanna Get Better.
This song came out in 2014, at a time when I was going through some really serious shit. I had schizophrenia--I had started showing symptoms in 2011--but I wasn't going to be officially diagnosed until 2017. And things were just really, really, desperately bad.
Wildfire, by Mandolin Orange
The Wikipedia entry on Mandolin Orange—who changed their name and now go by Watchhouse—a folk duo led by Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz, describes them as "bearing the stamp of folk, country, bluegrass, gospel and pop, all mingled in a unique melange perhaps best described simply as modern American roots music." Putting aside the fact that this flowery language probably means the article was written by their publicist, the description is rather apt. Marlin plays the titular mandolin, plus guitar and banjo, and Frantz plays guitar and violin. And, together, they have amazing harmonizing vocals.