Shakespeare famously uses a five-act structure. While I don't feel like my life is actually following the acknowledged actual form of building conflict and resolution that the five-act structure uses, I cannot help but feel like the last few months have been the beginning of my third act. Let me explain:

Act 1 for me, I would say is birth to my school years, and I'll honestly include college in that, so call it ages 0-23 or so. I think it's something of a self-explanatory act for many of us: childhood, puberty, teen years, and into young adulthood.

My Act 2, appears to have been about that age 23-40. A short act, but rather than learning to be a person, it was learning to be an adult. In those years, I went from being a recent college graduate waiting tables to a bank teller, to a call center employee (various jobs there), to a music publishing administrator. There were other notable events, such as the births of my nephews and godchildren, buying my house, and a few devastating relationships. On a more personal level, this was when I podcasted, did NaNoWriMo a few times, and published all my novels from Empeddigo to Assassin's Kin. It's also the period of time when I finally got the two gender-affirming surgeries that changed my life.

The nature of life blurs the lines between these "life acts." I could argue two real starting points for my Act 3, which is just getting started.

The first place I could point it would be about a year ago, when I first decided to pursue a neurodivergence diagnosis. Long story short, it was in June of 2024 when I was formally diagnosed as autistic. That diagnosis has and still is putting so much of my life into perspective. Behaviors I have that baffle or annoy me suddenly make sense, and by making sense, are more easily tolerated, forgiven, or even embraced. I am learning to better advocate for myself and to communicate why something is a struggle, without feeling like a fool or failure for not understanding why something like a simple phone call is so hard. 

The second place I could point to as the start of Act 3 is far more recent. A bit of context: I just had my 6th anniversary at my job in November 2024. The company gives two weeks of holiday break at the end of the year, which is generous and always greatly appreciated. I relished the time away, knowing it would be January 6th before I returned to work.

On January 1, I was finally able to acknowledge I was deeply in depression. Not for the first time, and I'm not unsafe. I won't go into my personal depression battle history, but I was able to recognize it and admit it then. I returned to work after the holidays feeling as if I'd had no time away. 

Long story short, I eventually realized that job itself was the primary source of the depression. For two of the last six years in the job, I'd been unhappy, to the point of actually searching for new employment. Hundreds of applications and not a single interview. Hell, I probably only got rejections 5% of the time, if that. More than anything, the applications were met with ghosting. But I digress. I was unhappy but treading water.

Treading water was no longer an option. After a lot of thought, I realized I had to take a risk:

I had to quit without having a safety net to catch me. For my mental and emotional health, I had to leave the job. I hadn't written decently in years, though it did sort of start coming back in the latter half of 2024.

So I did. I put in my notice, and I left that job. I started looking for new work, but in different places. And I started getting responses. Rejections, mostly, but that's better than ghosting. That's when I realized why:

For two years, I was applying for jobs similar to what I'd been doing in music publishing.

That wasn't where I needed to be. 

I'm a creator. I write, I craft, I speak. 

I make.

That's what I need to be doing with my life.

So this is what Act 3 looks like. I'm still here, currently working a part-time job that I don't like, but that at least puts some money in my pocket. But more importantly, I'm spending my time MAKING again. I'm working on books and stories. I'm getting voice demos together to audition for voice acting gigs. I'm crafting a lot more than I have in the last few years, whipping out chainmail again. 

I'm scared, honestly. But more importantly, I am HAPPY. In my job of the last 6 years, I've been financially comfortable... but spiritually broken. 

Act 3 has turned that around completely. I hope my savings last me long enough to start supporting myself through a combination of grunt jobs and freelance work. I hope that by the time this year is out, I might be scraping by with the occasional voice gig, patrons, a new book?!, and maybe even professional Dungeon/Game Master work. 

My life has always been meant to entertain and inspire. A lot of my Act 2 tried to do that, but I let the world trample me a bit, and I basically went into hibernation as an act of self-preservation. In Act 3, I'm throwing myself at it harder.

Other people can do it, so can I.

Act 3 is just getting started, and I feel so much more powerful than I ever have. I'm more afraid than I've ever been, but even that pales against my determination and drive right now. I've always been ambitious, but now I am not holding back for fear of failure. No more being safe.

No more scared, over-cautious, self-shrinking here. I have just as much ability and right as anyone to have both success and happiness. 

I really hope you come along for the ride, because I'm going to be seeing and doing some amazing things. Please come with me.

It's pretty easy to see where a lot of my writing upkeep fell off my own radar. I've mentioned before that finishing The Deadly Studies project turned out to be a blessing and a curse. I set myself goals and accomplished them, despite the project turning out about 33% bigger than I originally planned. It ended up taking an extra year and a half of concentrated effort I hadn't initially planned on.

I think that is what burned me out so bad once it was finished. I strained for quite a while to plan, write, edit, and release the series. Mostly just didn't want it to be like so many other projects of mine: 80% finished and then abandoned. So I pushed, I completed, I burned out. When 2021 came around and I hadn't done more than a tiny bit of token writing, I was mostly okay with it. I knew I needed to recover from the Studies. When 2022 hit and I still hadn't written, I got scared. Most of 2023 was me reconciling with maybe not ever being able to write again.

In early 2024, an idea hit me hard. The juices started flowing again, but like a long-closed faucet, it was rusty and slow to really gain any pressure. I did begin to plan a new novel... which is currently in that 80% completed and now abandoned maybe status. 

I digress. Current thoughts is to make first blog post of the month the current project status report. Partly to remind me of all the juggling balls I have in the air. So without further ado:

CURRENT PROJECTS MARCH 3 2025

• Dungeons & Dragons campaign 1: Bard Campaign - Session #6 fully planned. I have 2 options for Session #7 fully planned, depending on how #6 ends, with the possibility of a 3rd option if needed (not likely). Loads of worldbuilding done, and I have a good general sense of where this campaign is going for the short term.​
• D&D campaign 2: Tootskies Campaign - This one's new and very experimental. This campaign is really one of my big excuses to learn D&D 5e and familiarize myself with DMing virtually. I know what the planned endgame for the campaign is, but getting from here to there will be interesting. Currently working on session 0.5.
• Criminal from Birth sequel - This is my biggest personal project right now. Criminal came out in 2018. I actually wrote the sequel's first draft in, I believe, 2019, WHILE WORKING ON DEADLY STUDIES. What the hell was wrong with me? Anyway, I did finish the draft, but it got set aside to finish the Studies, and then fell by the wayside when the burnout hit. It was only when talking to my best friend a few weeks ago about writing that I remembered it. Found the files, dusted them off, and, well, it's really coming along. And wow do I see the changes in my maturity and writing ability this long break gave. Second Draft Status: 8 of 37 chapters edited.
• Magic Items book - This is the project idea that came barreling into my head early last year. Still outlining this book, but my outlines are pretty detailed, to the point I consider them more like a .5 draft. Haven't worked on it for a while, not sure if it's viable at the point I have it. Not sure if I'm happy with the first 2/3 of what I have. Outline Status: Roughly 60-65% through with planning, maybe?

It's been a long time. Five and a half years since my last post here. The world has changed dramatically since I updated this website, and along with it, I have changed drastically. So much for the better.

Confession
Since the last of the Deadly Studies books released in late 2019, and the second collection in early 2020, I have been extremely burned out on a creative front. While I felt accomplished and continue to hold a lot of price in the written works I produced in the 2010s, looking back on that decade has been very bittersweet to me. For more than a couple years since then, I've been overcome with a sense of loss and grief for what I couldn't manage to do anymore. Putting down words grew hard, then impossible. 

Simply put, I burned myself out pretty hard on putting out the Deadly Studies. What was originally planned as a 7-novella plot turned into 10, and my desire to complete the series with books releasing every 6 months until it was finished was a tall order. While I did meet that criteria, and I remain pleased with the work I put out, it was a massive bite to chew, and it took a long time to digest afterwards.

So I honestly spent most of 2022 and 2022 finally forgiving myself. I made peace with the fact that the words might not ever return. 

Imagine my surprise when they came back.

The Future
I turned 40 last summer. To my surprise, I don't feel that age. Months of introspection, more than a little pain, and more sunshine than I deserve had put me in the mindset to make a new Act 3 for my life. And writing is coming back into it. 

I couldn't be more pleased by that. Despite the current horrific political climate we find ourselves in, the future is so bright that I can't look at it head on. And if even in some small way, I can contribute to that light, then goddammit, I am more than willing to throw my candle into the blaze of humanity.

However, I do know my own tendency to bite off more than I can chew (see that confession) so I'm taking things slow. For now, I hope to add more to this website. My initial plan is weekly updates. Might be a simple observation, might be a bit of prose. Probably, things will include a monthly project update. Because I am writing again. Expect to see projects come onto and fall off the radar as they're explored and cast aside as needed.

Expect to see more than just novels. I'm trying to refine and upgrade my skills as a Game/Dungeon Master in ttrpgs, particularly Dungeons & Dragons. Some of my writing work these days is in homebrewing campaigns... but I have mid-to-long-term hopes of eventually developing and releasing my own one-off adventure content. 

In short, I'm trying to stop letting life get in the way of my truest passion: creating. Thanks for coming along for the ride and for being here now that I'm back!

I don't update nearly as often as I should, but I hope to remedy that going forward. I'm working on figuring out a way to get project progress bars on the side of my homepage, but for now, here's what's been going on lately:

DEADLY STUDIES SERIES
Lesson 4, Assassin's Lover, is currently available for preorder and will be released officially on September 4, 2017.
​Lesson 5 is currently at the editor awaiting notes. Once that's done and back in my hands, I'll make changes. It should release in January 2018
Lesson 6 is undergoing first draft writing. One chapter written so far.

So far, the Deadly Studies series have been released only in ebook form. However, once Lesson 5 is released next year, I plan to release a paper version of Lessons 1-5, so keep your eyes out for that!

STARSIGNS
I am working on an audio version! No ETA as of now.

CRIMINAL FROM BIRTH
Criminal is a fantasy courtroom drama, a project I wrote back in 2010 and finally found a publisher for. Stitched Smile Publications will be releasing it within the next year. More info as it comes.
Also, I am currently working on a sequel for it. I'm one chapter in.

TEGG
I am currently working on several projects for The Ed Greenwood Group that I cannot talk about yet.

COLD READS LIVE
I will be submitting a short story to Cold Reads LIVE, a youtube live show that I've had the honor to be a voice actor on several times. More info as it arises.

VAMPIRE NEEDED
An audio dramedy I co-wrote with the astounding Michael Corley is currently in its recording phase!

OTHER
I finished the outline of a sci-fi horror novel. No ETA on when I'll begin writing it, but it's waiting for me.
I'll be on the ARCHIVOS Brainstorms sometime soon to workshop another novel (Faithful) I've been wanting to write for a few years.