A Bigger Scratching Post

I have a file cabinet where I keep paper copies of my writing. Admittedly, I’d not been into this cabinet for almost 3 years. With all the family health issues, the long commutes, work taking up more of my time and energy, my writing had ended up being neglected. As I’d mentioned, I would be too tired and mentally worn out to even try writing, but every so often, inspiration would strike hard enough for me to write a small scene or snippet of a story. Either a new idea or a smaller part of a larger one, I’d write it all out, then end up eventually tucking it away into a file drawer.

So my main “writing” has been going through this file cabinet and getting it organized so that the stories and ideas would be easier to find. Three years worth of occasional random writing alongside the main bulks of my work. I was finding small bits of nonsense ideas that wasn’t panning out as a full story, but some of the information and hooks in it would work well paired with another story I had concocted. There were novel ideas and old fanfics that didn’t have any place being in public view, but some passages of writing in it had some merit and with polish and expanding would work well.

I still have yet to reach the back of the file cabinet, but whatever worries I had about not having enough content to post to satisfy the potential Patreon subscriber has quieted by a substantial degree.

I’ve got stories. Boy, do I got ’em.

One of them, a sci-fi space opera type has so much content that I could expand almost indefinitely with it. From short stories, to snippets, to multi-part novel length series, there’s a good hunk of it right there. Perfect for Patreon. Hopefully I can garner the right interest in the story that people will want to subscribe to me for more.

If the sci-fi doesn’t take, there’s a fantasy setting noir-buddy-cop-detective type story that could easily be serialized and expanded upon. Another story that takes place in an alternate history involving superheroes and dragons. Yet another that’s a fractured fairy tale in the vein of MYTHing Inc. Another a set of Ulitma Online fanfic stories (yes, I said Ultima Online, I was a beta tester for it back in the day) that could be retooled into a semi-decent fantasy tale.

This doesn’t even include the works I’d like to do just as single novels or multi-part novels.

I really don’t know why I was worried.

As for my still lingering worry about having to show my mug to appease the masses… who says I have to? When I look at a quarter of the content that’s on YouTube or Twitch or other such service there’s a good portion of posters who don’t show their mugs and just talk while video plays. Why does my so-called “introductory/thank you video” on Patreon have to be a shot of me talking? To heck with that. I’ll introduce myself while random pictures of black cats and kittens are shown.

Needless to say my feelings of anxiety over even remotely being able to do this, while still there, isn’t the nagging monster it was a week ago.

I can do this.