15 Minutes to Blog

It is 5:46pm my time. In (roughly) fifteen minutes, hell will more or less break lose in my home as one-half the help leaves and I am left managing my small children with one less person and no mother coming home tonight. "Cry me a river," says the single parents living in the USA that can't afford the kind of childcare that small money buys in Paraguay. I know that. I'm not saying I'm suffering terribly...just that what is a "non-usual" situation for me and my family creates (some) discomfort. And that my writing time is limited.

(11 minutes to go)

Probably people think I've been futzing around the last so-many odd hours since my last post. Or doing taxes. Or have run out of inspiration after so many thousands of words pumped out in recent days. Nope...that's not it. Well, maybe the "futzing around" part...but that's what I might (deprecatingly) call my "research." I've just been slogging through the internet you know. Today spent several hours intensely researching the conquest ("colonization" if you want to use the Wikipedia term) of South America. The Pizarro's were assholes (as were the Portuguese), and they took up entirely too much of my time...I really don't care much about what's west of Argentina or north of the Brazil's southern border.

Mostly I've been spending time catching up on Paraguayan history (which I haven't done for a few months since first coming down here). It's depressing as shit.

(7 minutes)

Other than real world history, I've been reading blogs, blogs, blogs. A lot of Tao. A lot of Hill Cantons. A few others. Old Dragon magazine articles by Ed Greenwood (as suggested by HC), and MAR Barker essays (and commentary on same in other blogs). Because I'm doing fucking-A world building.

Which I hate and which is daunting and which I'd like to do right for a change.

Because the FHB I was working on waaaay back in the September-November months (you can check previous blog posts labeled under Moon) is getting an overhaul. Because (and I'll explain this in a future post) I doubt it could be taken quite as seriously as I had originally intended.

Plus I want to do something that makes use of my time down here. The stupid environment in which I live. This fucking country with its heat and ants and bullshit "social values."

And treasure finding. This isn't a land of heroes. My FHB was going to be a fairytale, "heroic" fantasy adventure game. Nah. People want to dig coin out of ancient temples in jungles. Let's go with that.

(two minutes over)

More later. People are (nicely) sticking around as a I type this up. There will be posts in the near future on the following:

The Magnificent Seven
The Big Six
Skill Trees
Counting Coins

And maybe some stuff about world building in South America. Maybe not till next week...but then again, maybe tonight (I've been having serious bouts of insomnia lately).

More later.

(four minutes over)