Round One: Fight!

Okay, I don’t know what we’re fighting, really. LOL! I mean, I’m in the United States right now, so I could just pick a problem. We have a few, I suppose. It just sounded better than, “I can’t believe it’s the 19th already”

Even though I really am astonished it’s the 19th already. I blinked and the holidays ended. I blinked again and the kids were back at school. Blink. Hi. Here we are.

I’ve been astonishingly busy.

Kids and small animals aside, I’ve been keeping busy. I’ve been learning more about Affinity daily. I’ve been blogging steadily when I can. I’m working on about 20 projects for Dragonbane and eventually Twilight Sword. There’s also a lot of work going on with various superhero projects, both personal and (professional?) for The OG GM’s Superheroes for Shadowdark. I still want to play around with a ton of flicks for Outgunned as a passion project if time ever permits. I have to get to that “caught up” vibe.

I’m incredibly bummed that Microsoft Publisher is going away soon. I relied on that software for nigh onto 35 years. Much like Front Page, it’s just going away. No more continuation. No more support. Nothing. We won’t even be able to be able open the files in about a month. It’s sad. But we have Affinity/Canva now, I suppose.

The job trap.

I’ve considered looking for a job or maybe doing some entrepreneurial work. There’s always a “but” involved. I can make tiny amounts of money no problem. And yes, above the board, not under the table. But if I want to make money while I’m on SSDI, I have to jump the shark and go to a legitimate, taxable income larger than what I make on the government’s check. Otherwise the SSDI dries up, and I don’t have enough coming in.

There’s also the whole issue of how I got onto SSDI in the first place. The physical job isn’t happening because the arthritis, fibromyalgia, and overall fatigue prevent me from doing floors or stocking shelves again. The doctor says I wouldn’t make it more than an hour or two doing the heavy stuff I used to do. That’s out.

That leaves the other half of things. I would love to find a nice, reliable, at-home job where I don’t have to deal with live human beings, like, at all. My customer service skills have deteriorated to say the least. My filter for spewing someone else’s company line or not saying something genuine no longer functions correctly. I’m even snapping out on telemarketers and people calling for that Thomas Johnson a-hole.

Not to mention the depression, fibromyalgia, fatigue, and the fact that I’m still a bit traumatized from that last place I worked. The minute somebody says, “We need to review your performance,” I’m out the f*k’n door like a shot. I don’t take direction well and criticism is non-negotiable. I’d rather run naked through a cactus patch than attend a “work team” meeting ever again.

I’m downright confusing for some people.

No, I don’t want to be around a bunch of people every day. But wait, I’m a TTRPG guy. Doesn’t that mean I have to interact with people? There are a few exceptions to the keep-the-eff-away-from-me rule. Conventions only last three or four days. I can live with that. Working in a (hellhole) corporate team environment sets off my BS meter and wears my tolerance thin within two minutes.

I’m not doing pretentious corporate business crap. If you do or you can, then Universe bless you. Great. Just not my jam.

What do I want to do?

I’m already doing it, everyday actually. Take care of my wife and kids. Make fun content for TTRPGs. Maybe work on a blog article or a video. Check, check, and check. Woot!

Reality be damned, I’m thrilled with my life as it is. Get me off the grid in a cabin in the woods and we’re good. I just need a small town nearby with a reliable internet connection somewhere. (Preferably in a coffee shop or café.) Oh, yes, I’ve thought about it. But otherwise life is pretty grand.

Then reality comes in and reminds me we have bills to pay. High school kids ain’t cheap. Kids in general ain’t cheap. Cats aren’t cheap. Money would be pretty helpful outside of the hobby and YouTube. That’s where the trap comes in.

I can’t make just enough to satisfy the judge and my bottom line. I either have to stay off the radar or make enough to make SSDI irrelevant. It’s a little bit like being on Welfare in the US. If you make enough to cover rent, but not enough to cover rent and food, Welfare goes away. This creates a reliance on the government that is counterintuitive to what works in a practical sense. The cognitive dissonance is overwhelming. I can’t go off of SSDI for any length of time, or I have to go through the whole long legal process of getting on it all over again. (Oof.)

The great big hope: YouTube.

I’ll say it up front: I don’t want to go viral. It wouldn’t do me any good because I’d have a bunch of people that likely didn’t come for my actual content. YouTube gurus talk about this sort of thing all the time. Having an overly inflated subscriber numbers do not help anyone. It’s also why “sub for sub” doesn’t really work.

What I do want to do is go micro-viral. I’m not aiming my content for a general audience. I’m not even aiming it at the broader TTRPG niche. I’m working on my content for Free League/Dragonbane fans, Game Masters looking for advice, and people wanting to hear about the TTRPG industry/hobby from what I think is a unique perspective. Eventually we might squeeze in some Twilight Sword and/or superhero discussion. I also like what Two Little Mice are doing with Outgunned if there’s a chance to make videos on it.

I debated about starting two more channels, but there’s no time in my day. I briefly considered doing a spiritual/UFO/paranormal channel. With the number of skeptics I watch, I’m scared witless that they’d debunk me and ouch. And I don’t know if there’s much of a gamer ASMR male creator community or if that would fly any better than my current channel. Actually, male ASMRtists are seemingly rare and probably underappreciated.

Really, I don’t have much advice about anything to sell a course of a coaching service on. Personally, I don’t think that market is going to sustain itself much longer given the sheer number of courses and coaching services that have come about due to people selling courses about creating said content. People have created so much competition for themselves over the last few years by selling courses and coaching that I can’t see it sustaining itself. There’s also so much free content on YouTube teaching everything and anything you’d ever want to learn. Heck, YouTube even has a Courses feature now.

I say it every year, but I think 2026 bears repeating it. This year I intend to write more, read more, and discuss cool TTRPGs as well as supplements. Most of all, let’s just have more fun. Let’s explore. Let’s save the kingdom from the evil warlord. Let’s discuss all the fun stuff in gaming that we love.

With the world in the state it finds itself in today, please be kind. Please be considerate to one another even if we don’t agree. Lastly, please pursue the thing that brings you the most joy without harm to others. Thank you!