Update: A Happy New Year!

Hi everyone! This is a bit different to the usual posts, just a quick update about what I've been up to over the holidays and what my plans are for this new year we find ourselves in all of a sudden. 

    The week before Christmas I foolishly said I would publish a bit of fiction on my store page and bang out a piece about Elden Ring. Poor Isaac, poor John O'Dreams. I should have known, but from pretty much the day I made such claims that I would be busy as one of Santa's elves in the run-up Christmas, though much more tired. So I let the blog and the short story fall into the back-burner as I suppose you have to do sometimes. Anyway, I desperately needed the holiday, so I hope my adoring zealots will forgive me. 
    Today specifically has been a real day for getting back on track with housework and admin. Happy to report that Strider has been nothing but the best boy, dreaming his little puppy dreams while I do futile human things like laundry and budgeting.
    Speaking of getting back to it, I am hoping to get a blog post (a proper one) up in the next few days as well as editing the second half of Heim, that short story I was going on about. I had originally just meant to spell-check it and hit publish, but I wrote it maybe three or four years ago. I'd like to think that, having done a whole separate degree in creative writing, I'm a bit of a better writer than undergraduate-me.  So I've gone back and properly redrafted it, fleshing out the sections that were lacking and cutting the stuff that was, frankly, a bit shit. That should be up on itch.io by the end of the week and you can give me money for it or not; I'm not your dad and I'm not going to tell you what to do.  

So that is what has been happening in terms of the blog. In terms of me (if you don't care then I suggest you stop reading post-haste, chum) I have been just enjoying my time off. Strider has had me and Tom up before 7am most days which is a big change from when I had holidays without a dog as I'd just sleep in until I needed to get up. I've really enjoyed just being awake to play games, keep the house looking nice, going for walks etc. 
    I've managed to start my third playthrough of Hades, this time on the Switch and I intend to complete the fucker. Just got to the credits yesterday and I'm pushing on trying to max out Zag's relationships with everyone, get full rank on the keepsakes etc. I'm doing my best to get this done before the second game releases. I have a really interesting idea for a blog post about the game and how its mechanics interact with the mythology it adapts. After that I'll move on to Norco which was gifted to us by one of the lovely and long-suffering folks who watch our intermittent streams over on Twitch. 
    I also just finished N.K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season, the fantastic first book in a trilogy which I'll probably go ahead and read straight away. I didn't really know what to expect, although I'd heard great things about Jemisin's work, and they did not disappoint. So I'm looking forward to discussing it at bookclub this week.

Apart from all that I'm excited to see what I get up to in this new year. Thank you for reading and keep an eye out for another stray letter from the Lost Post.