This year. This fucking year. What a dumpster fire. Mostly. It feels like this one year has lasted for five. And while the socio-political aspects of the year bear most of that weight, there was some good that happened as well. I want to take the time to talk about my own year as it’s be quite a roller coaster as well.

The beginning of the year saw my partner, Nici, and I waiting to move away from my parents and back here to Tulsa with their mother. In February, we started our first D&D campaign with some friends, which definitely helped ease the stress of Darth Cheetoh pretending to be president and my stepfather’s continued…eccentricities. On top of that, I was still hard at work on the first draft of The Demons Within. We finally got to leave in April and, on top of coming back home to Tulsa, I’m still pretty proud of the fact that I managed to not only drive a moving truck for the first time but also did it while towing my van. That was a long 14 hours and I never want to do it again.

April also saw me join forces with some other r/Fantasy regular authors, starting the Fools of Fantasy. We had a big sale for the month, which really gave me a big boost in visibility and sales. It was pretty rad all around.

Once back in Tulsa, we started working towards a few things. First up, healthcare. We found out about Morton Health and their sliding scale, which we qualified for. Our visits are only $30 for each of us AND they’re a comprehensive clinic, which means that I also got to go for an eye exam a couple of months ago. We got Nici on the path towards health over the summer by finally discovering that they have hypothyroidism. Which explained A LOT. Unfortunately, before May ended, my van died. The transmission started going out and my battery was corroding itself to death slowly. Thankfully, Morton offers free transportation, so we’ve easily been able to get to and from our visits as needed.

May saw me finish the first draft of The Demons Within, along with doing Patreon stuff. I also managed to get us on foodstamps, which has been immensely helpful. Cause food. I’ve continued doing a good job at managing my diabetes without medication and keeping my A1C under 7 and part of that is thanks to not worrying about affording food. After all of that, the summer was relatively quiet. I’d also promised Nici I would sing at karaoke if they got their blood drawn, so I sang at “Last Caress” by The Misfits at live-band metal karaoke. My buddy (and our DM) discovered it before we came back so that’s our big group activity. It was a lot of fun. The next time, in August, I sang “Electric Eye” by Judas Priest and fucked up the second verse.

August saw me begin work on Grimluk 4 and the second draft of The Demons Within and preparing the kickstarter for the latter as well. Things with our living situation grew a bit more tense. It seems impossible to escape family drama but we’re getting by. D&D has helped a lot (as well as when we switched over to play Changeling the Dreaming with another member of our group running the game). D&D makes for a weird sort of therapy.

I also spent the summer working on a Fighter subclass and a Fighter-based character sheet for D&D, as I wanted a sheet that I felt more comfortable with. The subclass/archetype was the Monster Hunter, based on the Unearthed Arcana archetype Wizards did. Both have been pretty popular (along with the Orcs overhaul I released for Orctober). You can find links and previews to all of that in the works section in the nav bar above.

October arrived, with the second draft of Demons Within finished and the launch of the kickstarter and Orctober. It was a lot of fun. I’m still disappointed that I wasn’t able to actually get the recording of our one shot done and up for everyone but technical difficulties are fun that way. I was sure the kickstarter wouldn’t fund but, goddamn, a whole bunch of big damn heroes came in during the last 12 hours and made it happen. I’m still floored by that.

I’d also decided to take a break from writing for a bit. I was a bit worn out between starting a new book, getting a second draft done, doing all the Orctober stuff, and life in general. November was kind of a blur, with Thanksgiving coming and going, and now Christmas is gone and we stand at the end of 2018. I spent these last two months doing some proofreading for a friend to help her prep for celebrating her 20th book release.

Now here I am, at the end of the year, feeling accomplished and hopeful. Nici’s doctor put them on a new medication for mental health that seems like it will be the Right One finally. And along with everything listed above, I’ve had some other things that cemented/revealed themselves to me. So I’m gonna finish out the year with a public announcement.

As I said above, D&D is a strange form of therapy. And what do you know, it worked something out for me. See, my character, Gorthos, a half-orc fighter, is both bisexual and polyamorous. The latter of which I’ve been thinking heavily about through the middle of last year. The former of which has been a creeping question about myself. It came up with someone I’d developed heavy feelings for quickly. Ultimately, she and I ended up losing contact but it was a big sign. Add to that another friend of mine that I’ve known for a good long while and can honestly, 100% I love them with those kind of feelings too, and yeah.

Then, continuing on, there was a story for the other side. Early in my relationship with Nici, I realized that if they ever wanted to transition into a man, I would stay with them. I can’t imagine not having Nici in my life. That was NEON SIGN number one. Then a couple of months ago, I had a dream about a dude friend and I kissed him in the dream. When I woke up, I thought, “oh, that was nice, I’d totally date them.” Neon sign number 2.

So, I guess what I’m saying is that I’m ending the year by saying this:

Hi, my name is Ashe, author of the only high fantasy weird western series starring an orc, and I’m bisexual and polyamorous. I lean more towards women still, but I have a non-binary gendered partner who I would still with no matter their gender identity and I can love more than one person at a time, and do.

Fuck you, 2017. We’re still here, asshole. The year’s been up and down, see a lot of change, a lot of destruction, a lot of outcry. It’s just the beginning. I think 2018 is gonna be pretty damn big.