Budget discussions during the special session are slated to begin June 3rd and last until June 5th, with a tentative slot for June 16th if needed. The first two days are scheduled for 0900EST until 2000EST. Long days ahead for the Senators.

For what the budget features, I’ll leave you with the approved bill that was laid on table at the end of session. Hopefully, because this bill already had moved through both chambers, it will be easy enough to put this matter to rest.

That said, the bill will be forced to go through eight different conference committees. The following is a list of the Senators who will be involved in the different committees, as listed on the SB2500 page.

• Appropriations Conference Committee/Budget:
  Hooper (Chair), Berman (At Large), Boyd (At Large), Brodeur (At Large), Gruters (At Large), Passidomo (At Large), Rouson (At Large);
• Appropriations Conference Committee on Agriculture, Environment, and General Government/Agriculture and Natural Resources:
  Brodeur (Chair), Arrington, Berman, Burton, Collins, DiCeglie, Grall, McClain, Pizzo, Rodriguez, Sharief, Truenow, Boyd (At Large), Gruters (At Large), Passidomo (At Large), Rouson (At Large);
• Appropriations Conference Committee on Agriculture, Environment, and General Government/State Administration:
  Brodeur (Chair), Arrington, Berman, Burton, Collins, DiCeglie, Grall, McClain, Pizzo, Rodriguez, Sharief, Truenow;
• Appropriations Conference Committee on Criminal and Civil Justice/Justice:
  Garcia (Chair), Ingoglia, Martin, Osgood, Polsky, Rouson, Simon, Wright, Yarborough, Berman (At Large), Boyd (At Large), Brodeur (At Large), Gruters (At Large), Passidomo (At Large);
• Appropriations Conference Committee on Health and Human Services/Health Care:
  Trumbull (Chair), Berman, Brodeur, Burton, Davis, Garcia, Gruters, Harrell, Rodriguez, Rouson, Boyd (At Large), Passidomo (At Large);
• Appropriations Conference Committee on Higher Education/Higher Education:
  Harrell (Chair), Bradley, Burgess, Calatayud, Davis, Leek, Smith, Trumbull, Berman (At Large), Boyd (At Large), Brodeur (At Large), Gruters (At Large), Passidomo (At Large), Rouson (At Large);
• Appropriations Conference Committee on Pre-K – 12 Education/PreK-12:
  Burgess (Chair), Bradley, Calatayud, Gaetz, Jones, Osgood, Pizzo, Simon, Yarborough, Berman (At Large), Boyd (At Large), Brodeur (At Large), Gruters (At Large), Passidomo (At Large), Rouson (At Large);
• Appropriations Conference Committee on Transportation, Tourism, and Economic Development/Transportation and Economic Development:
  DiCeglie (Chair), Arrington, Avila, Bernard, Collins, Grall, Ingoglia, Leek, Martin, McClain, Polsky, Sharief, Smith, Truenow, Wright, Berman (At Large), Boyd (At Large), Brodeur (At Large), Gruters (At Large), Passidomo (At Large), Rouson (At Large);

While there isn’t much to update on at the moment, I will be returning to this post once discussions begin. Keep an eye on this spot for more as we learn it!

Not going to waste much time up front. Let’s just get into the updates this month!

Finally got some much needed feedback on Book Two of Far North. Just from one alpha reader, but it still gave me the impression I was on the right track with things. I’ve also been slowly working on the cover art for the book. The rough sketch is all worked out, so it’s coming along!

While we’re talking about writing, the next part in the Vivekananda story is slowly coming together. It will be another long installment. Not as long as the last one, thankfully, and it will also be the final bit of the story.

Honestly, I’m really looking forward to being finished with writing about him.

Nosia is also cooking again! I’ve decided, once I’m through plotting this season out, to begin writing and releasing things as individual scenes rather than episodes. Though it will significantly add to the amount of posts made about Nosia, I think overall it will be easier to read.

Additionally, there’s the chapbook to look forward to as well. I’ve identified the pieces I want to include, the overall theme of the book, and now I just need to spend the time on reworking the stories. Most of these pieces were things I wrote years ago and they need a lot of work to make them shine. Still, keep an eye out for more on that in the future!

Lastly, it’s that time of the year again — 12 Streams of Summer time!

For those not in the know, twice a year I do a series of 12 streams in a row. One in summer and one in the winter. Always right before the solstice. Generally, we play a variety of games and try to raise money for charity.

I am once again asking you to join us this summer for 12 streams of fun!

This year we’ll be streaming some games made by Black creators to celebrate Juneteenth, in addition to our fundraising efforts. And…we’ve got a fun idea for how to raise funds for our charity of choice. Come pop by the stream to find out more!

That’s it for this month. Hope you all are staying safe and sane out there! Don’t forget to take your meds and hydrate, but also take some time out for you this summer. We can’t show up for others if we don’t show up for ourselves.

As mentioned in ​On Doing the Thing (Again)​​​ the next book in the Far North series is now with alpha readers! Has been since the start of the month too. It’s clocking in at 163 pages and 115k words, so I suspect it will be some time before notes are returned to me.

We also finished our play-through of Disco Elysium over on Twitch. What an absolutely fantastic game! Pretty sure most of you already know that though. This week I’m off for a bit of rest, but if you’d like to come join us and be a part of the Byrd Bunch, we’ll be starting a new game on April 6. Still not sure what we’re playing next yet, but we’ve got some strong contenders!

As for everything else in the works…

Nosia Archives, the next short story series I’m working on, has had a few character changes happen that have slowed things down a bit. It’ll all be worth it thought, trust me! It’s opened up some interesting avenues not just for the characters but also for the world of the story. Still hoping to be able ti share even more in the coming months!

The long awaited next installment in the Vivekananda series is…slow going, I wont lie. I’ve had to split things out yet again, so now it’s looking like a 6 part series. The draft for part 5 is already at 4 pages and there’s still more to go! Thank you for the patience on this. This project really ran away from me so quickly.

That’s it for this month! Hope to have Vivekananda’s next part out in April. Please keep your fingers crossed it’ll happen. Otherwise, as always, stay safe and sane out there!

I wonder if it’ll ever normalize that I keep writing and churning out new novels.

Early this month, I finished the first draft of Far North – Returning: Vic. It’s still a shock. While there’s still plenty of editing work left to do, that’s half-way through the series as it’s been planned.

When I was a kid I had two dreams: become an actress or become a writer. I let myself get talked out of the life of acting. I almost let myself get talked out of writing.

The thing is, as I’ve recently rediscovered, I have a writing problem. Even in moments where it seems to be slow going I still prefer writing. Even when the topic I’m writing about drives me insane, I still prefer writing.

It’s just that expressing myself in this way is easier than any other method of expression.

What I hadn’t anticipated was the feelings that come up with completing a major work. For about four years now I’ve been immersed in the world of Far North. Plotting, writing, discovering, and editing. Yet each time I hit a major milestone, like completing a draft, there’s a mixed sense of relief and emptiness.

Then comes the trepidation as I release it into the world. Will people like it? Could it have been done better? Did I forget to include something? Does it all make sense?

I mention all this because I think it’s fascinating to note. Now that I’ve done this twice, I wonder if it will ever get easier. I wonder if more successful, higher profile, authors become numb to the process or not. I wonder if creating something, dedicating all this time and energy into it, will ever stop producing these feelings.

I wonder if I really want to get so used to creating that I don’t experience that sense of completion and anxiety. That maybe that’s why I keep doing this. The joy isn’t so much in the creating itself; the joy is in reaching the end goal and starting the process all over again.

Hi, hello, how are you?

I’ll be keeping this update rather short and with minimal formatting. Why? Well, I’m trying out some new things and haven’t fully settled on how I want to present everything just yet.

One noticeable change is that I’ve stopped recording word counts for each day. At the end of January I realized that even that simple act was building up an expectation and anxiety for me when it came to writing. To the point where I was beginning to resent working on projects if I didn’t hit stride right away to exceed my word count goal.

That said, I didn’t want to stop recording progress. Tracking progress is important and helps in contributing towards a sense of accomplishment. So, I began just recording days I did and didn’t work on Far North, with color coding for the word count range. Instead of focusing on a specific word count, I found that this color coding method actually helped me realize that I was “on target” most days.

Another thing that came into focus is just how spread out my project tracking had become. I was tracking information across multiple places — project tracking software I was largely ignoring, my productivity software, my personal planner, and in these updates — it was beginning to be too much. At the moment I’m looking into a more simplified way to track all of this, but that’s all in the conceptualization phase. When I have something more solid to present to you all, I will!

On to actual updates however!

The second book for the Far North series is headed into its final bit of writing before it heads off to Alpha readers. Well into the 150k word territory and clocking in at 160 unformatted pages, Book Two is my largest work to date. Honestly, I’m really proud of it and can’t wait to get it in reader’s hands!

As for Exploring Spirit and Nosia…well, these projects have been slow the last couple months. I’ll be honest and say that this Vivekananda series has taken far longer than I anticipated. Partially that’s due to motivation: as this series has gone on, I’ve gotten more and more worn down by the subject matter.

When it comes to Nosia, it’s largely just needing to make more time to sit down and idea generate. I’m slowly but surely heading towards having a complete outline for the first season. These things just take time, especially when we’re discussing multi-season story lines. This is very ambitious for me, so I appreciate everyone’s patience.

Lastly, streaming. My regular viewers know that I’ve trimmed down my stream schedule to once a week on Sundays. At the moment, I have no intention of adding in more days for the foreseeable future. I will, however, still be doing the regular 12 Stream events in the summer and winter. There are a lot of game titles I’m still waiting to know more about; a lot of release dates that seem to be getting pushed further and further back. I have some ideas in mind for games to play while we wait, thankfully, but I do hope to see some of these titles release soon!

At any rate, that’s it for the month. I’m working on a few other articles at the moment too. Just some thoughts about things and a “what I’m watching in the FL Senate 2025” update. Keep an eye out for those!

As always, stay safe and sane! See you all next month!