I’m tempted not to write this, since I think it might come across a little bit melancholy. But it’s hopeful, really! I promise!

For the last several days, I’ve been on my own. Chris is in Washington with his girlfriend, and they’re making serious plans to try and put their lives together. Bryanna has been enjoying her health since the gallbladder surgery, and seems sincerely happy. Melissa helped drive her sister to Oklahoma and has been spending time with her family there. It’s just been me in the house, which has given me time to think.

Mostly just me, I should say. There are two needy cats, and I’ve done my best to keep them happy. They take turns interrupting me while I’m working or playing. My nickname for Jasmine is now “Hard Mode” because she is particularly good at jumping up on my keyboard when the timing couldn’t be worse.

My health is improving. The Losartan is doing its job, and my blood pressure is closer to normal most of the time. Still high, but getting better. I check in with the doctor that prescribed me these meds next week.

Every morning, I record my blood pressure in a little notebook and I take a pill. When I take the pill, I’m consciously choosing to remain in this world and not let nature take its course, which is where I was a few weeks ago. Choosing to stay matters, and I’m very slowly starting to feel more like myself, more consistently.

That doesn’t mean things are fixed, though. All the issues that put me in a bad state are still there. The external ones. The internal ones. The ones I still don’t have a full grasp on.

Today, I had an uncanny level of productivity with work, so I kept at it well past quitting time. When I finally shut the work laptop down, I tried relaxing with some videos, but that wasn’t helping. I moved on to some Kerbal Space Program, which didn’t help, either. So I went for a walk and tried to process what’s going on inside my head and heart right.

With the sun down and the light quickly fading, my neighborhood triggered a familiar feeling. When I realized what it was, I decided I needed to write this post.

I loved City of Heroes. My whole family played with me, and I got several of my friends hooked on the game. We played together, and we had a lot of fun. Eventually people moved on to other things, but I kept my subscription going in the hopes I’d go back and play some more. When NCSoft shut the game down, it hurt.

Years later, the source code leaked, and I managed to get a hold of it. I bought a tiny system from Fry’s and setup up a database, compiled the game, and got it running in my garage. I brought City of Heroes back to life! And some of my friends and family played with me for a little bit!

But again, they moved on. I occasionally open the game and fly around. I can go anywhere in the world, but wherever I go, it is just me. Nothing I do there will ever matter, and the size of the empty playground weighs on me. I still have the setup, but I don’t fire it up very often anymore because it’s empty, lonely, and a reminder of a world that will never be again.

That’s what I felt while walking in my neighborhood this evening. There were other people around, but we were disconnected and distant. Courtesy dictates detachment. It has nothing to do with the street or the houses, but the whole world is just sort of empty, and I don’t think it always felt that way.

I have friends. I meet with them weekly, and we play games together all the time. And there are people I work with that I care about, that genuinely seem to care about me, too. Melissa loves me. My kids love me. There are others, and I hope the people I’m not mentioning don’t feel left out.

At the same time, there is a deep, indellible loneliness that I carry, and I don’t know what that’s about or how to put it down.

I could kind of ignore it while I was waiting for my heart or organs to fail. Now that I’m choosing life every day, it seems like something I need to figure out. I don’t want it get in the way of me being the best version of myself.

I am doing things. I made some progress on The Psychic Out of Time this weekend. I worked on that keyboard that I still need to finish and send out. I’ve been eating a little bit healthier this last week or so.

In other news, I’ve also started making progress on my plan for the Write Something Good podcast. I have the equipment I need, the accounts and the software I need, and I have material to record. I just need to organize it, write some outlines for a few episodes, and then set aside the time to record.

I have lamented publicly that a lot of panels at conventions are world-building panels in disguise. There isn’t really anything wrong with that, but I find that a lot of authors overbuild their worlds, or use world-building as a distraction from their writing.

The story lives in the heart of the characters. The reader’s ability to empathize with the characters and their plight is directly related to their overall enjoyment, whether the reader realizes this or not.

Let’s take The Martian by Andy Weir as an example. It is hard SciFi, with Mark Watney at the center. Mark has determination, humor, and resourcefulness that really pulls us in. We root for Mark because we like Mark. His victories are our victories. Andy Weir gets a lot of well-deserved praise for grounding his stories in plausible scientific ideas, and I don’t think he gets as much praise for his excellent characterizations, which enable strong empathetic connections.

This holds true for Project Hail Mary. We don’t need Ryan Gosling’s performance on the big screen to endear us to Ryland Grace.

Sticking with the same author, I think Artemis is not as popular because we don’t care for Jasmine Bashara as much as we care about Watney and Grace. There are good ideas in all three stories. The writing is excellent. I think the characterization of Watney and Grace is stronger and therefore, those stories are more beloved.

So in this essay where I’m asking the question about world building, I’m talking about character first, because I believe with all of my heart that character is more important than the world, which acts as set dressing and a vehicle for exposing aspects of the characters we are supposed to fall in love with.

Imagine if The Martian featured a different character. Maybe they’re a soft-spoken gentleman from South Carolina that gets by on the strengths of the people that came before him. Instead of “sciencing the shit” out of the situation, he falls back on what was prepared for him, and when communication is re-established, he uses charm and double-speak to get people to do things for him.

It’s a stretch, but I’m trying to get you to imagine what kind of story The Martian would be if Mark Watney had been based on Lindsey Graham. I don’t think we would root for Watney in the same way. In fact, as the audience, we might be actively hoping for a different outcome. We would see this Graham-Watney character trying to manipulate well-intended people from a position of solitude, and we might wish for those people to see through his lies and… I don’t know. Save his life while exposing him for who he is?

I don’t think this reimagining of the story would be very good, and I don’t think it’d be a great use of the reader’s time. Maybe we don’t need to immortalize Lindsey Graham by talking about him and keeping him alive in our stories.

Our world contains villains, and when some of those villains are no longer members of the living, the world will be lighter for it, and their absence worth celebrating. When Mitch McConnell has finally expired, I will drink a Scotch specifically, and not a Bourbon since that was Mitch’s favorite. When Trump dies, I’ll wheel the barbecue out into the front yard and cook up burgers for anyone that comes by. Putin’s death might also earn a small party.

Lindsey Graham doesn’t quite hit that same mark, for me. He was really bad, for sure, but he was also pathetic in a way that makes me think he’s not worth spending energy on. The best thing I can probably do is just forget about him.

I have already talked about him more than I would like, and I see his name in the news and on social media way more than he deserves.

To be honest, I really don’t like speaking ill of the dead. It doesn’t bring me much satisfaction. They’re gone. The mess they made is left for us to clean up.

At the end of my life, the greatest punishment you can give me is to forget me completely. I think Lindsey earned that, but not much more.

That is the kind of world I would like for us to build in our lives. Not one where we continue to suffocate on the fumes of those that embodied the banality of evil, but one in which we revere and try to live up to those that inspire us to be our better selves.

The world we build is based on the characters we remember, so in both fiction and fact, we should fill our worlds with people that inspire us.

As I’m writing this, I’m once again in a conference room at Bel Air. This continues to be one of the strangest places I write, but it’s convenient for the Shut Up and Write monthly marathons. I have plans to work on The Psychic Out of Time today, but I want to warm up by catching up the news here.

There has been a lot of it.

Here is what I’ll be talking about today:

• Bryanna’s Health Scare
• A Really Great Baycon
• My Health Updates
• Current Projects

Bryanna’s Health Scare — or — How I Came To Understand Luigi Mangione

Almost a month ago, I posted this thread on BlueSky about my daughter’s abdominal pain and the need to get her to the hospital. I needed to talk about what was going on with Bryanna so that I wouldn’t lose my mind.

They kept her in the hospital a few days. They got her pain under control and her bloodwork suggested that the pancreatitis was resolved. The recommendation was that she lose some more weight and return much later to have her gallbladder removed. They could see stones in the MRI, but there was no rush. They described it as an elective procedure, and they let her go.

A few days later, the pain returned and Bryanna was back in the same hospital. They said that the gallbladder had to come out, and she would not be released until that surgery was performed. But, Bryanna is a big girl, and they wanted to have a bariatric team perform the surgery. Also, there is no bariatric team at Mercy San Juan. She would need to be transferred somewhere else.

The doctor described this as a life-threatening condition, in that if she left and had another event, she could perforate, get sepsis, and die. He would not release her, but he also couldn’t do anything for her.

Bryanna wound up stuck in that hospital for 12 days. She didn’t have any pain, and she could walk around the hospital as much as she wanted, but she couldn’t work, go home, see her cats, or live her life. The insurance approved the surgery, but not the transfer, so even after a surgical team at another hospital said they would do the procedure, Bryanna was stuck. As long as she adhered to the system and followed medical advice, that is.

Somewhere along the chain of bureaucracy, most likely within the walls of the insurance agency, a simple calculus was laid out. Is my daughter’s life worth more or less than a 20 minute ride in a van? Someone that never met my daughter decided that the answer is no, Bryanna’s life is not worth that much, and they repeatedly denied the transfer.

The doctor maintained that they could not release Bryanna because, again, he believed she had a life-threatening condition. But, she could sign herself out, go to the emergency room of the other hospital, and hope that they would take her in.

Let me spell out the irony. The medical advice was to leave Against Medical Advice. How stupid is that?

It turns out, the Sutter in Roseville is amazing. We took Bryanna directly from Mercy San Juan to Sutter and they did not waste time. We checked her in Wednesday evening, she had the surgery Thursday around noon, and she was in our home recovering by Thursday night.

By the way, when the surgeon’s at Sutter evaluated her, they determined that they did not need the bariatric team to do the procedure. Mercy San Juan held Bryanna hostage for more than a week, and it was completely unnecessary.

The last couple of nights, Bryanna has been recovering in my bed, and I’ve been sleeping on the couch in my room. Bryanna is doing great. She’s happy and healthy and I’m so thankful that this has worked out as well as it has.

A Really Great Weekend at Baycon — or — Rediscovering My Best Self

In the middle of all of this going on with Bryanna, I went to Baycon in Santa Clara. Melissa stayed home and went to Bryanna’s room every day to keep her company. There really wasn’t anything I could do for her as long as they kept her in the hospital, and I felt obligated to attend the event.

I didn’t go into it with the best attitude. I’ve been down for a long time, and I was worried about my daughter, and I just didn’t know how I was going to attend this event and be the kind of person I needed to be.

But it was fine. Better than fine.

It’s hard for me to put into words what it was like. I met up with friends and acquaintances that I missed. I sold some books to strangers, spoke on panels, gave feedback at the workshop, and did all the things I’m supposed to do at a convention like that.

My worries for Bryanna weren’t forgotten, but they were manageable. She was trapped in the hospital, but she wasn’t in any pain or danger. With it being Independence Day weekend, nothing was going forward with her surgery or transfer or anything. She couldn’t really have multiple visitors, and Melissa was there.

While at Baycon, I got to be an author and do author things, and that is the best version of me. I had not been the best version of myself in a long time, and I didn’t realize how much I needed that.

My Health Updates — or — Choosing Life for a Change

I have been depressed, or fighting off depression for a long time. I don’t enjoy my work like I used to, and I haven’t been writing, and at a certain point, I began to believe that the world in general would be better off if I wasn’t in it anymore.

I wasn’t going to hurt myself. However, if something was going wrong with my body, I felt no urge to fix it. My blood pressure has been astronomically bad, and I figured that was as good as any way to let nature take its course.

Giving up like that is both freeing and limiting at the same time. Long term worries go away, but with less time to play with, it is really difficult for me to motivate myself to do things I don’t want to do. Since my duties at work have become so unsatisfying, and the day job takes up so much time, it really felt like I was wasting my time. This further fueled the depression, creating a very dark, downward cycle.

A few weeks ago, I used the virtual care options we have with our health plan to start talking to a therapist. I’m not sure how I summoned the strength or will to do that. But I did, and I’ve met with him online 4 times.

To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure how it works, or if it’s working. It’s not like he has given me much in the way of advice or had me change my behavior.

While Bryanna was in the hospital the first time at Mercy San Juan, I took Melissa’s place and stayed with Bryanna in her room, sleeping in a chair. The doctors had been concerned that Bryanna had sleep apnea, and they had a CPAP machine in the room for her, but she didn’t want to use it because the rush of air was too intense. As I tried to sleep next to her, both she and the nurse seemed a little concerned about me, because I wasn’t breathing very well.

Imagine the situation. You’re in the hospital, trying to provide comfort for your daughter. She has just gone through the worst physical pain she’s ever been in, and in the middle of that, she asks, “Are you okay? I think you need help.”

That stuck with me while I was at Baycon. When I got home, I tried the virtual care again, this time to ask for a sleep study. The doctor that met me was extremely no-nonsense, looked at my blood pressure history and current blood pressure, and she immediately prescribed me a different blood pressure medicine. She also filled out the form for me to get a sleep study.

Today is the fourth day on the new meds, and my blood pressure is the best it has been in over a year. And I’m not suffering the side effects I felt from the other meds, so maybe this is going to be okay.

Melissa has asked me a couple of times what happened at Baycon that I came home and started to take care of myself, and it’s been hard to explain. For a weekend, I was the best version of myself again. For a little while, at the worst possible time, my daughter was worried over me when I was supposed to be providing her support. For just a moment, it felt easier to choose life over death, so I’m trying that, and I’m trying to make better choices, so that maybe I can be the best version of myself more often.

Current Projects

Now that I’m caught up here, and the first half of Shut Up and Write is over, I’m going to try and push The Psychic Out of Time a little bit further.

I’m right on the verge of getting to write about a very fun character, and I think that’s going to be great. I might get some real inertia from that. If I can generate enough excitement over that part of the story, maybe I can carry it forward into tomorrow and keep going. I really want to finish this book as soon as I can, because I’d like for it to be out by Baycon next year.

As I’ve said before, this will be the last Mel Walker story. I don’t want to accidentally mix my politics into Mel’s world, which is difficult to do while Trump is in office.

After I finish The Psychic Out of Time, I want to write the next story after One For the Road, and have something special for Melissa. I’ve been giving that story a lot of thought lately, and I think it’s going to be fun.

I’m going to revisit The Exorcism of Jack Evans, which is technically in the same world as Mel Walker, following Mark McAdams when he was younger. I might send that to Waterdragon Publishing after I’ve given it one more edit.

I also want to do another edit of Spin City and work on pitching it to agents. I have a couple of people I mean to send it to, who have been very patient but would like to see more stories from me.