It’s been some time since I just chatted away about what life is like, and I realized the other night that I really should. A lot has happened over the summer and fall, so this will probably be all over the place. Even so, there is a lot of immense good to talk about.
I’m going to start with writing, since we’re already here. Obviously that’s still happening. I did just post my project updates a couple weeks ago, so there’s that. Things are happening, but slowly due to only having so much time a day. Words are happening, but I haven’t been able to focus on short fiction or my novel outline like I want, or even get my D&D one-shots written, mostly because I’ve been very busy with D&D preparations lately.
Which brings us to the next thing I wanted to talk about. Dungeons & Dragons. But to talk about that, I need to talk about work for a moment. Back in June, while working at a local convention, I met up with an old friend from high school. Long story short, she offered me a job doing inventory at her small game/hobby shop and running D&D there. Needless to say, I jumped on the opportunity. I’d just finished the month’s work at the TN Renaissance Festival, Joann Fabrics had closed, and I had managed to land a part-time job that would only be a couple hours on weekends, on occasion. That job is working birthday parties at my local climbing gym. So I got some physical outlet and a gym membership free for being an employee, but at most I get 3 parties a week, and that’s nowhere near enough money.
This new offer was for 3-4 days a week, as needed and available, but 10-hour days. So part-time bordering on full-time. Pay’s not great, but it’s better than minimum wage, and it’s in an industry I’m actually interested in. Plus, it’s working for a small business rather than a corporate soul-sucker, which is why I quit my corporate soul-sucking job in February in the first place. This was going to be exhausting and hard for not much pay, but I couldn’t ignore the positives. A steady but casual job, the chance to run D&D for pay, being surrounded by nerd culture, the freedom to chainmail or write my own stuff if things were slow.
It was at the beginning of August that my first D&D party met for the first time. In 20-ish years of playing and GMing, I’d only ever played with friends and only ever homebrew content. I’d never run or played a module. Not to mention I’d played 3.5 edition and would be playing 5e 2024 edition. With strangers. Using a module. So it was the beginning of August that I met my players and helped them make their characters. This would be for an 8-session campaign capped with a PVP battle royale. I’m writing this on Dec 8, so as of this writing, the battle royale happens TOMORROW. I’m so stoked.
But the important thing is, I really got to know and love these players. I grew significantly as a GM and developed a lot of self-confidence about it all. I’m definitely not an encyclopedia of the rules, but as I tell my players, I’m more interested in the mechanics serving the narrative than the other way around. If something’s arguably doable and will make the shared story we’re telling better or more dramatic or exciting, yeah, let’s go for it! Of course, that means if something’s impossible, like hell I’m allowing it. You don’t get to roll death saves if your idiot self jumped in a volcano. No. You’re dead at that point.
It was at the end of October that I started offering one-shot D&D sessions. I’ve had two so far, both very successful! I also got the Daggerheart core set, so I’ll be learning that system and adding that as an offering starting next year sometime.
I’ve also been working on trying to drum up voice acting work. I’ve put out 30 auditions this year, with almost half that just being November and December. No hits yet, but half of them are still open, so I don’t expect to hear back yet. My feelers are always out.
I did, however, land an unpaid but fun writing gig with a project called “Epic the Journey.” We’re expanding on Jorge Rivera-Herrans’s Epic: The Musical. I figured a fun passion project could take up some time, and I love Epic, so it made sense. I’m helping script scenes between the songs, but I also managed to snag a tiny vocal role as one of the suitors, so I’ll take it! It’s something to work on.
On the chainmail front, things have definitely gotten interesting. And not just because the chainmail itself is exploding. It’s what’s around it. My best friend Erin and I have been selling at conventions for some time now, and it’s rough. Not going to lie. We don’t do it to make money. More than anything, it’s just an effort to fund the hobby itself, get us traveling a little, and enjoying conventions. We’d be lucky to do maybe 5 conventions a year, usually just breaking even on them, which is what we wanted.
Well, last November, at a small local con, we met Sean and Lilli. Sean is a tall biker-looking dude. Lilli is a 5-ish foot long ball python. Sean basically said, “Hey you like snakes, right?” and put Lilli around Erin’s shoulders and walked away.
That’s the how the relationship started. So Sean and his wife Mindy run one of only two accredited reptile rescues in the state of TN: Ecto Gecko. They bring snakes and reptiles to conventions to raise money for the rescue, but also to offer education, interaction, and photo ops with the reptiles. Bearded dragons, ball pythons, a 9.5’ Colombian redtail boa, corn snakes, uromastyx, a rock iguana, a sulcata tortoise… they have a lot of animals.
It was at that same convention in June where I got the job offer that Erin really made friends with Sean, Mindy, and the reptiles. The con was slow enough for us that I could handle the chainmail booth, but so busy for Sean and Mindy that they needed the extra hands. Erin spent most of the con helping them out, and that’s how it started. We met up at multiple cons, and Erin would help them out while I ran the chainmail booth.
Sean and Mindy recognized the value in partnership, and now… they’re opening doors for us. They already have, but 2026 is going to be a massive change. Being tied to Ecto Gecko, The Chain Nerd is going to be at more and bigger conventions, right next to the huge draw that are the lizards and snakes. Oh, and Sean also does car work and has a few fandom cars he brings to cons: the Mystery Machine, the Ecto One, and an Umbrella Corp SUV. So we’re by the big draws. At big cons.
Seriously, wait til you see our convention schedule for next year. It’s already head and shoulders more than we’ve ever done, with a lot of cons we never would have imagined being at in the foreseeable future.
Needless to say, I’m busy as hell. Taking downtime has become very crucial to my well-being, since there’s always something to do and to work on. I’m afloat, but working and living hard right now. But damn, I am so much happier than I was a year ago. I regret nothing as far as quitting my old job.
And that’s not even taking into consideration how much my self-image has improved. I’ve gotten confident and happy in myself this year, and it shows. I needed this year. Badly. Thanks for going through it with me.
I’m going to start with writing, since we’re already here. Obviously that’s still happening. I did just post my project updates a couple weeks ago, so there’s that. Things are happening, but slowly due to only having so much time a day. Words are happening, but I haven’t been able to focus on short fiction or my novel outline like I want, or even get my D&D one-shots written, mostly because I’ve been very busy with D&D preparations lately.
Which brings us to the next thing I wanted to talk about. Dungeons & Dragons. But to talk about that, I need to talk about work for a moment. Back in June, while working at a local convention, I met up with an old friend from high school. Long story short, she offered me a job doing inventory at her small game/hobby shop and running D&D there. Needless to say, I jumped on the opportunity. I’d just finished the month’s work at the TN Renaissance Festival, Joann Fabrics had closed, and I had managed to land a part-time job that would only be a couple hours on weekends, on occasion. That job is working birthday parties at my local climbing gym. So I got some physical outlet and a gym membership free for being an employee, but at most I get 3 parties a week, and that’s nowhere near enough money.
This new offer was for 3-4 days a week, as needed and available, but 10-hour days. So part-time bordering on full-time. Pay’s not great, but it’s better than minimum wage, and it’s in an industry I’m actually interested in. Plus, it’s working for a small business rather than a corporate soul-sucker, which is why I quit my corporate soul-sucking job in February in the first place. This was going to be exhausting and hard for not much pay, but I couldn’t ignore the positives. A steady but casual job, the chance to run D&D for pay, being surrounded by nerd culture, the freedom to chainmail or write my own stuff if things were slow.
It was at the beginning of August that my first D&D party met for the first time. In 20-ish years of playing and GMing, I’d only ever played with friends and only ever homebrew content. I’d never run or played a module. Not to mention I’d played 3.5 edition and would be playing 5e 2024 edition. With strangers. Using a module. So it was the beginning of August that I met my players and helped them make their characters. This would be for an 8-session campaign capped with a PVP battle royale. I’m writing this on Dec 8, so as of this writing, the battle royale happens TOMORROW. I’m so stoked.
But the important thing is, I really got to know and love these players. I grew significantly as a GM and developed a lot of self-confidence about it all. I’m definitely not an encyclopedia of the rules, but as I tell my players, I’m more interested in the mechanics serving the narrative than the other way around. If something’s arguably doable and will make the shared story we’re telling better or more dramatic or exciting, yeah, let’s go for it! Of course, that means if something’s impossible, like hell I’m allowing it. You don’t get to roll death saves if your idiot self jumped in a volcano. No. You’re dead at that point.
It was at the end of October that I started offering one-shot D&D sessions. I’ve had two so far, both very successful! I also got the Daggerheart core set, so I’ll be learning that system and adding that as an offering starting next year sometime.
I’ve also been working on trying to drum up voice acting work. I’ve put out 30 auditions this year, with almost half that just being November and December. No hits yet, but half of them are still open, so I don’t expect to hear back yet. My feelers are always out.
I did, however, land an unpaid but fun writing gig with a project called “Epic the Journey.” We’re expanding on Jorge Rivera-Herrans’s Epic: The Musical. I figured a fun passion project could take up some time, and I love Epic, so it made sense. I’m helping script scenes between the songs, but I also managed to snag a tiny vocal role as one of the suitors, so I’ll take it! It’s something to work on.
On the chainmail front, things have definitely gotten interesting. And not just because the chainmail itself is exploding. It’s what’s around it. My best friend Erin and I have been selling at conventions for some time now, and it’s rough. Not going to lie. We don’t do it to make money. More than anything, it’s just an effort to fund the hobby itself, get us traveling a little, and enjoying conventions. We’d be lucky to do maybe 5 conventions a year, usually just breaking even on them, which is what we wanted.
Well, last November, at a small local con, we met Sean and Lilli. Sean is a tall biker-looking dude. Lilli is a 5-ish foot long ball python. Sean basically said, “Hey you like snakes, right?” and put Lilli around Erin’s shoulders and walked away.
That’s the how the relationship started. So Sean and his wife Mindy run one of only two accredited reptile rescues in the state of TN: Ecto Gecko. They bring snakes and reptiles to conventions to raise money for the rescue, but also to offer education, interaction, and photo ops with the reptiles. Bearded dragons, ball pythons, a 9.5’ Colombian redtail boa, corn snakes, uromastyx, a rock iguana, a sulcata tortoise… they have a lot of animals.
It was at that same convention in June where I got the job offer that Erin really made friends with Sean, Mindy, and the reptiles. The con was slow enough for us that I could handle the chainmail booth, but so busy for Sean and Mindy that they needed the extra hands. Erin spent most of the con helping them out, and that’s how it started. We met up at multiple cons, and Erin would help them out while I ran the chainmail booth.
Sean and Mindy recognized the value in partnership, and now… they’re opening doors for us. They already have, but 2026 is going to be a massive change. Being tied to Ecto Gecko, The Chain Nerd is going to be at more and bigger conventions, right next to the huge draw that are the lizards and snakes. Oh, and Sean also does car work and has a few fandom cars he brings to cons: the Mystery Machine, the Ecto One, and an Umbrella Corp SUV. So we’re by the big draws. At big cons.
Seriously, wait til you see our convention schedule for next year. It’s already head and shoulders more than we’ve ever done, with a lot of cons we never would have imagined being at in the foreseeable future.
Needless to say, I’m busy as hell. Taking downtime has become very crucial to my well-being, since there’s always something to do and to work on. I’m afloat, but working and living hard right now. But damn, I am so much happier than I was a year ago. I regret nothing as far as quitting my old job.
And that’s not even taking into consideration how much my self-image has improved. I’ve gotten confident and happy in myself this year, and it shows. I needed this year. Badly. Thanks for going through it with me.
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