The New Year has come and a space rock the size of Texas is hurtling through the atmosphere straight towards Time Square

Hello everyone. I used to write a blog a while back, in the days when I was a frequent RPer and a writer of fiction. I still write fiction from time to time (but mostly flash fiction and poetry now), but with the exception of participating in one or two every year I've pretty much dropped out of the roleplaying profession. This has made me sad. Globejumper was once a hive buzzing with activity and now it seems to have been smoked. You've got Rise RPs on the daily, sure, but other than that there's only one or two active games going at a time. What happened?
 
I'm trying to get back into RPing. It's tough to do, being at school and all. I need privacy when I write, as roleplaying on the internet is something I still feel kind of embarrassed and self-conscious about in real life. It's nothing to be ashamed of, but outsiders really wouldn't understand, just like all those other weird fetishes I have. It's hard to get privacy at school, especially when you live with five other people and your bedroom door doesn't lock. Distractions like friends, schoolwork, and alcohol have never been conducive to my RP-running abilities. Nothing has really changed, except now I have some RP ideas I'm excited about and I'm committed to trying them out, social life be damned.
 
One of these ideas I just put into action, hoping for good results. I was bored, browsing some of my old RPs when I came across Small World, a whimsical little adventure RP where all of the players are tiny people living on a post-human Earth. They fought scorpions and frogs. It was sort of a blend of Pikmin and this other game where you play as a tarantula and a scorpion and you mess these other bugs up with arachnid karate. It was a pretty dumb game. But I really liked the RP when I read it again. So many RPs nowadays are serious, and even the silly ones can get pretty dark when characters die horribly due to idle players and testy DMs. There's nothing wrong with that, but reading that old RP of mine really inspired me. It felt light and fun and heartwarming. That's not usually what I go for, but Globejumper seems in need of a bit of levity.
 
So, I started a new RP. Well, "new" is being generous...It's a great RP for me to reboot, because we hardly got anywhere the first time around as far as plot points are concerned, so I can reuse the same premise without returning players knowing how things will turn out.  It's also a rather old RP, so the class of roleplayers on SSLF has changed substantially since then. Many of the players from the original are gone today. Since those days, my views on running RPs, storytelling, and character development have significantly changed. I have new ideas for the RP that I can mix in with the old ones that I never got to use. I'm really excited for this project and I hope it proves successful. Things look rather bleak at the moment with just one sign up after several days, but a handful of people have shown interest and I'm determined not to lose hope so soon.
 
I have another RP planned for the summer. It's a bit of a big one. I've worked on it for almost two years, but the idea's been in my head far longer than that. It's been refined a lot during that time and I've done a lot of reading to get inspiration, but I'm finally at that point where I feel like I have something good. The plot is outlined and the sign up post is written, and I'm really excited for it to debut. I see it as a return to my roots, sort of like an encore for the most successful RP I've ever done. It's very, very different, though. It will turn some people off, but I think it will get a lot of people thinking creatively and making really great characters. Together, I hope we can pull it off.
 
I guess one of my New Year's Resolutions (ugh) is to get back to running RPs, or roleplaying in general. If things go well I might even run another next winter, but only time will tell.
 
So what is this blog going to be for? Well, maybe it's just me trying to commit more to my goals. I plan to use this space to discuss roleplaying and writing, whether it be theory, method, style, sources of inspiration, or just simple commentary on ongoing personal projects and RPs in Globejumper. By doing this I hope I can get a dialog going between myself and other roleplayers and writers here on the site. I think this will help me stay on track when it comes to starting and finishing RPs, and keep me in the right mindset to properly run an RP. I also like to bounce ideas off of people so I know what's worth pursuing and what should be left alone.
 
Without further ado, welcome back to Ramblings of a Deranged Hocotate Freight Employee. I started this post intent on actually talking about something, but I spent so much time talking about why I wanted to restart this blog that now I think it might be better if I wait a little while to discuss what I was intending. I need more time to mull it over anyway. I hope you guys get something out of this and take the time to challenge my assertions, ask and answer questions, and discuss with other members. Starting a blog is pretty self-indulgent on its own, but if I get the impression that I'm the only one reading this and I'm just doing it for me, I'll probably stop.
 
Maybe I should quit while I'm ahead.