Everyone is assessing their 2023 and making their 2024 goals. OK, here I go. 2023 for me had real ups and deep lows. It’s done. My 2024 goals are simple: Finish the things I’ve begun, and write and paint as much as I want, and travel some. If I could change one thing about myself in 2024, it would be successfully adopting a healthier lifestyle. That’s it. I love what I do, I just want to keep doing it. I want to be healthier.
I wasn’t feeling too hot today, so I gave my mind a vacation. I watched a long video on how to use trigonometry with just a compass, and later a dissertation on the proper use of commas. My fellow medieval enthusiasts will probably recognize the value of the compass for cathedral builders, just as will those who are interested in sacred geometry.
I also watched a history of Godzilla films that covered 1954 to around 2010, and that was interesting. I thought I’d seen all the movies but some of the recent ones, and I have, but I hadn’t thought about most of them since I was a kid. So many actors in hot, rubber suits! The movies where the monster suit was falling apart on camera were a bit of a surprise.
Remembering those old movies, I will venture to say that kids don’t comprehend cheesy things the way adults do. As an example, I remember watching Batman (the Adam West tv show), and as a little kid I took it very seriously. The camp elements didn’t really dawn on me. Maybe that’s just me, though. I was a country boy, so the silly elements just didn’t register. I remember taking Land of the Lost seriously too.
2024 is the year to get in shape again. When I worked at Menards, I had great core strength and a lot more stamina. Now it’s up to me to walk on the treadmill and do stretches. I figured if I was going to establish one habit in the new year, my health had to take priority.
I had considered establishing a meditation habit. I’ve always been good at mental visualization games, and mind experiments, and I’ve used mediation at various points in my life. I have never established a regular schedule, though, not in a way that would strengthen my mind. The benefits are supposed to be amazing.
Should I publish an Aorlis Atlas? I’ve considered it. If I do, I would need to find the printing service with the largest format available, then use that figure to divide up the maps. I would like to make a version that is entirely hand drawn, with hand labeling. It would be black linework with red, calligraphic labels, sort of like the maps that Christopher Tolkien made for his dad.
You know what’s weird? I had long thought of my personal blog as maybe optional in this day of social media. Who goes to blogs anymore? Yet, since I’ve been free-form essaying I’ve been putting up material there every day. So, www.scottastory.com still exists, it’s updated regularly and has been for a while, and it’s an author site focusing on stuff I’ve published. I do not currently have an artist site, but maybe I should. Hmmm.
I just finished filling out the WA Questionnaire, and it was fun to do. There were a few things I didn’t get express, however, so I thought I would state them here: First up, I am not a gamer. I played TTRPGs for more than 30 years (1977 to around 2003), but now my gaming group is gone. Some few have passed away, some have married spouses that didn’t share their enthusiasm, some have moved away, some have changed their interests. I’m not complaining. I loved the good times and great memories we had. Sometimes I really miss it bad. But, lives change, time passes, yada yada.
All this is to say that while I have presented Aorlis as a system agnostic game setting, and filled it to overflowing with adventure hooks, I do not use it that way anymore. I do write novels and short stories set in Aorlis, and for that WA is a wonderful series bible that I can reference from any device anywhere. And, I do reference it often. I’ve got a mass of information recorded here, and there’s no way I can remember all the characters, spellings, events, factions, places, etc. etc., so it’s here on WA. I would like for the readers of my work to be able to access Aorlis on WA as well, but so far, to be honest, I do not have a lot of readers. I have a much larger following for my art, and I appreciate those people to no end, but WA isn’t exactly set up to showcase art. By that, I mean the illustrations are spread all over my setting and can be daunting to find. Does it help elucidating all this AFTER I filled out the questionnaire? Nah. But it made me feel better.