The Rambly Self

Pete here! 

So the first half of 2025 has felt like tumbling down and back up a flight of stairs. The set backs (that which there are) are not so writing related as they are to… well, look out the window. 

I quit social media. It’s an action I’m sure might look insane to any other struggling writers trying to get noticed, and to them I say ‘good for you’. I’m very happy you can simultaneously live your art and also get a few treats from the dystopian skinner box we all now live inside. 

I scrapped an entire essay tracking my relationship with social media, and the fraught relationship with reality it fostered. Lot’s of pontificating on the why and the how and the where are we going of it that I’m sure was laid out more succinctly in an episode of Black Mirror ten years ago. Truthfully, I’ve left Instagram and the other facism conduits after asking one question. Do I want to be noticed, or do I want to be healthy? 

There’s no way I’m going to get a manuscript finished, editable, and most importantly, enjoyable if I’m bogged down with a torrent of the very worst this species can generate. It doesn’t matter that I’m cut off from the movers and shakers and those who can put a price on what I do, maybe now I can actually make my art good. 

And guess what? It worked! Psychopomp Blues is now in a readable state that I’ll be making changes to based on the reactions of a few trusted readers. I was younger person when I last had a manuscript I could share with others, and this time around, I appreciate the menial nature of it all. Writing shouldn’t be a bomb of disappointment strapped to your ego like a booby trap; it’s a craft, one that is whittled away at every day, getting sharper without you even noticing it. 

If anyone reading this would like to take a gander at the current state of Psychopomp, just email me. It’s baggy, broad, and I’m sure there are plenty of typos, but I’m happy to get eyes on it. 

In other news, I’m making a card game! That feeling of getting absolutely no sleep when an idea hits hard enough that you have to scribble three pages of notes at 4am… it’s a feeling I’m glad to be cursed with. 

Omerta is a card-based Mafia simulation for up to eight players that pitches you and your friends with and against each other, striving to make the most money and or getting away with being a rat! It’s sorta what happens when you finish your first watch-through of The Sopranos and play Balatro at the same time.

Expect more updates like this in the future. I’m trying to bake them into my schedule upon learning that I actually quite like my rambly self. I’m placing them next to my meticulously planned and labored self in the clubhouse ‘selves I need to spend more time with’. Not welcome in the clubhouse this year is my rambly, labored, false-starting stressed self. I can’t stand that guy.

With love,

P