This time Next Year...
Dad, dust, and choosing to self-sponsorship
Dropping the Mask again.
Last time I did, I was talking about cardboard castles, lost jobs, and trying to make scraps matter to someone.
This time, it starts with my dad.
We sat together yesterday and talked for almost four hours.
Where I’ve been. What’s working. What very much isn’t. The parts that don’t usually make it into play reports or monster write-ups.
I’m not big on sharing my personal life. I’d rather talk about cursed deserts and weird ledgers than money, fear, or responsibility. But now that I’m a dad, I keep finding myself going back to my old man. Asking questions. Leaning on him in ways I never did as a kid.
It’s… a lot.
But that’s not really what this is about.
This isn’t a “fatherhood essay.” It’s about how that conversation ended.
“This time next year we will not have this conversation again.”
I’ve always had a rebellious streak. High-level demand avoidance. You tell me I have to do something and my whole soul suddenly wants a nap.
But this didn’t land like a command.
It didn’t feel like a threat.
It felt like faith.
Like he was saying: I believe you’re going to move. I’m betting on you.
Last time I talked to you all directly, no fiction, I said I wanted to have impact.
I still do. But what I want is smaller and stranger:
I want to matter to someone.
The way certain authors mattered to me when I was younger.
The way their stories dug in and just stayed.
That hasn’t changed.
What has to change is how long I keep hiding behind “perfect.”
Perfection Is Fancy Procrastination
At some point in that conversation, I started listing all my reasons:
why I haven’t launched this
why I haven’t finished that
why so many drafts are “not quite there yet”
My dad just smiles and goes:
“Perfection is just fancy procrastination, son.”
And I had nothing. No slick counter-argument. No “you don’t get it.” Just the awareness of fifty-plus drafts sitting in my backlog. Rebrands. New directions.
“That’s not good enough.”
“That doesn’t fit anymore.”
“I’ll post it once I fix X, Y, Z…”
I can dress it up however I like, but under all of it is this:
I’m chasing a version of “perfect” that does not exist.
I’m using that chase to avoid finishing in public.
If you make anything, you probably know this feeling. The “it has to match the movie in my head or it doesn’t deserve to exist” thing.
Here’s the unpleasant truth:
It will never match the movie in your head. That gap, between what you imagine and what you can actually pull off today? That’s the whole journey. That’s craft. That’s the ache that never goes away.
The people we call “masters” don’t win because they nailed perfect.
They win because they finish anyway. Over and over.
So when my dad says:
“This time next year we will not have this conversation again,”
what I hear is: stop worshipping “perfect” and build some finished things that can actually carry weight.
Which means I have to talk about the stuff I hate talking about:
Money.
Sales.
And asking for help.
Obligations, Control, and That Word I Hate
Here’s the obvious bit:
I have a family. I have bills. I’m not a mysterious desert hermit painting monsters in a cave with no rent.
At the same time, I literally don’t know how to exist without making things. Worldbuilding through solo play, sketching, writing these reports… that’s how I think. How I process. How I stay even remotely okay.
Those two truths crash into each other constantly.
I can’t treat this like a hobby and then be confused when it doesn’t help feed anyone. But every time money enters the chat, my brain drags out one specific ghost:
Sales.
I hate sales.
Not “hey, I made a thing, if you like it you can buy it.” I’m fine with that. I mean the tactics stuff. I used to do door-to-door insurance sales. I was decent at it. Not amazing, but trained. I learned how to:
flip “no” into “yes”
keep pushing until people were exhausted enough to sign
poke at fear of death and sickness until the policy felt inevitable
It worked. And it made me hate everything about that world.
So now, any time I think “I should tell people about this thing I made,” my whole body goes:
“Nope. We’re not doing that again.”
I have zero interest in manipulating you. I don’t want to warp the truth. I don’t want this place to turn into a nonstop “buy my thing” siren.
I want the work to be the argument.
The stories.
The monsters.
The tools.
The deserts.
If those land, that should be the reason you decide to support me.
So that’s the tension:
I need to self-sponsor this if I want to keep building it.
I refuse to become the nightmare version of “creator selling stuff.”
Which brings us to the BoneShop and paid subs.
The BoneShop: Another Tower on the Castle
Quietly, in the background, I’ve been cleaning things up. New names here. Tweaks there. Stuff feeling a bit more cohesive.
That’s because I finally did the thing:
I opened a store.
The BoneShop is tiny right now. A handful of pins and stickers based on pieces I actually like and don’t cringe at.
You can peek at it here: The BoneShop
In my head, this Substack has always been a cardboard castle: built from scraps, held together with tape and stubbornness, but slowly becoming something real.
The BoneShop is just another tower on that castle. A way for the art, the creatures, the little moments from these reports to step out of the screen and exist on a jacket, a sketchbook, a desk somewhere.
Long term, I’d love that to grow into:
prints and art cards
small zines / chapbooks
weird decks, bestiaries, table tools
That’s the “why” behind the shop. It’s not random merch. It’s pieces of the same world we’ve been wandering in together.
Paid Subs: Self-Sponsorship Without Being Gross
I don’t expect this to blow up. I’m not chasing 10k subs and a brand collaboration. I make strange desert things for strange desert people. That’s you.
Most of what I do here will stay free:
the fiction
the play reports
the core tools and ideas
That’s the heart. I don’t want to slap a paywall over the heart. But if this is going to carry more of its own weight, I need a clearer way for folks who can and want to back it to do that.
So here’s what I’m working toward over the next year.
If you’re a free reader:
You get the stories, the world, the main tools.
Sometimes you’ll see things a week or two after paid folks.
For certain tools, you might get a simpler, text-only version instead of the full polished package.
If you’re a paid subscriber, my goal is:
Early access to new posts & tools
Same stuff, just sooner, while the dust’s still on it.First look at BoneShop drops
You hear about new pins, prints, etc. first.Discounts in the BoneShop
Because if you’re literally sponsoring the work, you shouldn’t pay full freight on top.Full digital tools included
When I make a tool or mini digital product, paid folks get the full version thrown in.
On pace:
I’m aiming for around two usable things a month (tools, tables, mini-supplements or similar) alongside the ongoing story.
I’d like to do a store drop roughly every three months, as energy and life allow.
This is the target, not a blood oath. If I need to adjust, I’ll tell you. No stealth changes, no weird “gotchas.”
How You Can Help Me Not Have This Same Conversation Next Year
This is the part I’ve been avoiding for… way too long.
If anything I’ve written here (or in past posts) has given you that little oof—that gut-punch, that “damn, I feel seen” moment—here’s how you can help:
If you’ve got the means and the desire, become a paid subscriber. You’re not just buying “exclusive content.” You’re literally helping me keep writing, drawing, and building this weird desert atlas.
If paid isn’t happening right now, share a post that hit you. Send it to a friend, drop it in a group chat, mention it to another gremlin who likes solo TTRPGs and haunted sand. That helps the work find its people.
If you see something in the BoneShop that feels like it belongs on your bag / jacket / notebook, grab it when you can. Little physical artifacts, little votes of “keep going.”
I’m not going to run countdown timers. I’m not going to guilt-trip anyone.
I’m just done hiding behind “it’s not ready yet.”
Next time I sit with my dad, I don’t want to be listing all the things I almost did.
I want to be talking about:
the stories we told
the tools that actually made it to your tables
the strange little castle we kept building, one scrap at a time
If you’re still here, reading this far?
Then, honestly, it’s already not for nothing.