My First Blog Post
Whew boy.
First of all: I am sorry for disappearing for longer than I ever have before. It was…a very difficult time. And now I’m going to explain some of the details of WHY I disappeared after posting that final chapter back in December.
Oh lord, where to start?
Well, if it wasn’t obvious by now, I have depression and anxiety. I have my entire life, though the anxiety got worse in the last third of my life, and the depression got better. Sorta. But yeah, that kind of sets the groundwork for all this.
So, I think the lighting of the fuse that led to my actually just disappearing was lit in early November. Also in case it wasn’t obvious by now, I’m a fucking bleeding-heart liberal who believes in empathy and basic human decency. The way the election went was obviously a massive setback to a lot of people’s mental health. That’s actually where I got the idea for Trent’s ‘medically induced coma’ (that and House, obviously). I basically did that after I heard the news. Just got stoned off my ass for a week straight.
This is gonna get probably uncomfortable so, you know, now’s your chance to back out. I mean, not TOO uncomfortable, but I’ve been pretty tight-lipped on my life so far. While that will mostly remain true, I feel like I owe my readership an explanation.
I was already having difficulty with getting stoned too often by then, but that really sent it into overdrive. I spent more time stoned than not through the rest of November, December, and into January. While nothing really happened to me during the rest of 2024, I can look back now and see that my mental state was deteriorating.
Then January happened.
A few days after the first of the month, my cat, whom I’ve had for going on fifteen years now, had a medical emergency for the first time in his life. Now, it turned out all right, but actually having to bring him to the emergency vet and going through that whole process…that kicked me into a downward spiral. I had the worst emotional collapse basically of my life. It was like his mortality had suddenly been made real for me.
This, in turn, led to frequent breakdowns and mysterious stomach pain. I lost like twenty pounds by February, I was hardly eating. It was pretty bad. I went to the doctor’s a few times, but never got any kind of answer.
It was all looking pretty fucking bad as March rolled around. By then, I had simply given up on trying to write for Just Better. I had actually written some of a chapter in early January because I wanted to keep it rolling, but it simply wasn’t happening.
And then March happened, and everything got better. Sort of.
I have ADHD!
Something that should have fucking been known DECADES ago, but wasn’t even on my fucking RADAR as a possibility. But I took a test, test said I had it, they prescribed me meds, and what do you know!? The meds fucking lit me up like a beacon of calm focus. Within about half an hour of taking the first pill, it was like…euphoria. Just peace. It was finally fucking QUIET inside my head.
I spent March getting used to the new medication and also trying to focus on picking up all the slack in the other areas of my life and job. Discovered the dose was too low, so upped it and spent April getting adjusted AGAIN and still trying to pick up the slack. My stomach problems went away, and I had to severely cut back on the weed since it doesn’t quite play nice with ADHD meds. I also stopped spiraling into a sobbing mess every three days as I slowly forced myself to just stop engaging with social media and the internet at large, because I couldn’t fucking stand watching my country being literally deliberated destroyed by a band of absolute monsters while a third of the population fucking cheered them on. Obviously, that’s still a problem that makes me sick to my soul.
Then May rolls around and I had finally acclimated to my medication. I was basically ready to fucking GO. And so I went and got a lot of shit done. By then, I was thinking ‘I’ve fucking GOT to get back to Just Better! This is the longest I’ve gone without an update!’. But so much other work in my life had piled up that I kinda needed all my focus.
Well, May passed and I realized going hard as fuck was NOT my new normal. As June hit, I knew I needed a break. So I took it, and that was when I finally was like, ‘Okay, time to get back to Just Better!’. And then…I realized the hard truth.
It had been so long since I’d even looked at the story that I had lost the narrative thread. After waffling for a bit, I finally decided I was going to have to just reread the WHOLE MOTHERFUCKING THING. And so I did. Whenever I could spare some time, I read a few chapters. This went through the rest of June, and up to right about a few days ago!
Now, for the GOOD news, because there is a lot of it!
Rereading the entire thing gave me an opportunity to make some edits and corrections that I’d missed. I also wrote down a big list of ideas it gave me, ideas I’d forgotten about, or narrative threads I hadn’t followed up on but meant to. So there’s a lot of new potential ideas now.
It also kicked my ass into gear about finally bringing this whole Trash Mammal thing to the next level. As you can see, I have a website now! A real one, too! I also started having official art made for the story holy shit! And it will include nudes of all the girls HOLY SHIT!
And I’m also going to make cover art for each of the individual Parts! And create scenes from the story! Including some of those selfies and cellphone pics I mentioned like forever ago!
Right now, there’s only two finished pieces of art. One of Trent and one of Mae. Bea is being worked on right this moment and from the little I’ve seen of her sketch she is going to come out FANTASTIC.
Originally, I wanted to have all the characters and all the covers created before returning, but as I began getting an idea of the timeline of these kinds of projects, I realized that would take too long.
So here we are!
Reading through the entire fic again also gave me something that I had always lacked: the long view. Nearly from the beginning, I had an endpoint in mind. However, it was the sort of thing that could be kicked theoretically endlessly down the road, since I had so many ideas and I knew there were so many more to come. But now, after nearly four years, I finally have an idea of how this thing is going to wrap up.
You heard it first here: there are three more Parts. (Including the Part we’re in right now, Part Seven: The Health Era). How long will it take to finish these Parts? I have no idea. I know for a fact it isn’t happening in 2025. It probably won’t happen in 2026, either. Probably. It’s genuinely hard to say. There’s still a fair amount left to go, still a lot of ideas I want to tackle. But we’re finally beginning to see the end, somewhere on the distant horizon.
And then what?
Well, I still find that This War of Mine fan fic rattling around in my head, so I’m just going to do that one. I also have potentially a huge idea for Frostpunk, and that notion of Hobo: Tough Life hasn’t completely left me yet.
Um, sorry again for disappearing. I hope the new chapter (more coming very soon) and the website and the art makes up for it.
I’m probably not going to be blogging often, but if you have any questions, ask and I’ll try to answer! Either in response to this or sent to my e-mail address: ratedtfortrash@outlook.com. Also! If you have fan art or want to make it, let me know! I will show it on my site with a link back to your website or social media page or whatever.
Here’s to more Just Better!
-Total Trash Mammal