This is what life looks like.
Good morning! Hope you are having a lovely day.
Today I’m starting something new inspired by my dear friend Becca Scott who is my accountability buddy. A new series called “This is What Life Looks Like” where I publicly write my morning pages, a daily writing exercise that I used to do to ground and gather myself in hand written diaries before meditating for 20 minutes in the morning. This is What Life Looks Like is an unfiltered, mostly unedited view into the life and mind of me, Satine Phoenix. Everything I do is curated online and I’m excited to show more vulnerability and opinions about things I don’t address publicly. It’s about 20 minutes of writing about everyday things that come up in life. It’s messy, it’s creative, sometimes boring, sometimes may make no sense — And that’s OK. That is what morning pages are and I encourage you to write for 20 minutes every morning before going about your day.
Jamison Stone and I went on our honeymoon with Becca and her husband David Kerns in Costa Rica 2 weeks ago and we’ve all returned feeling much more enlightened than when we arrived. I could go on about how amazing Costa Rica is, and I will in another blog post, but what I’m noticing is the importance of disconnecting from Social Media and work and spending time talking with people you trust deeply. The pressures of getting things done and the email avalanche is overwhelming. Getting 2 weeks off and not answering phone calls and emails was recharging in a way I didn’t realize it was going to be and I’ve only experienced this peace and rest once before at the beginning of Covid Quarantine. Covid has been awful with the loss of so many friends and family… and yet for the first time I felt I had permission to rest. To live on my own schedule, truly. Even though I am my own boss I don’t feel like I get to make my own hours as I will work from wake to sleep every day, cramming meetings and other work into every sliver of my waking life. People ask me what it is like “Living the dream”, and I want to say it is really hard and exhausting, constantly needing to sprint to the next gig not having stability or trust that next month will be the same. And with all of this, I am so grateful to get to live like this doing work that I love. It is a duality of emotions. I’m exhausted and so happy. I wouldn’t choose to do anything else. So I stay quiet and smile.
Now is the time to figure out how to take time here and there for myself and for my family. Newly married, new step mom… I don’t want to be the Peter Pan everyone knew me as when I lived in LA. I love the responsibility of having a family and strong career. This means working smarter, holding boundaries, not doing everything myself. Can I do that? We will see.
This month we are playtesting Sirens: Battle of the Bards Salvata Bard Class, Subclasses, Backgrounds, Districts, 10 Chapters. We have over 270,000 words written that need development edits, play testing & editing with another 3-5000 that still need to be written. We’ve worked so hard to get this far and feel terrible that we are behind in delivery and yet we refuse to be pressured into releasing a product that has not been fully tested or edited. We hope folks have patience and understanding. We are doing our best and wish people knew that it takes about 12-18 months to create a book of this magnitude. We thought we could get it done in 6. We were wrong.
While all of that is happening we have 2 Satine’s Quest events in May: My 42nd Birthday event here at our home in Colorado May 20 - 22 AND the New York to Bermuda Norwegian Joy cruise May 29 - June 5. Both of which I’m still writing and fine tuning the story that needs to be fleshed out and written for all 5 game masters to run and understand with weaved looping stories and external DLC style excursion quests for addition clues and boons.
A couple days later we are the Headlining Special Guests for Origins Game Fair (originsgamefair.com) in Columbus Ohio June 9-12. I’m running pannels, workshops, games & a Livestream show! All of these need at least a written outlined adventure.
And on top of these wonderful items we are traveling to Seattle May 8th for Peter Adkison’s Actoroke taping & Tulsa Oklahoma on May 13th for Last Gameboard’s Activation at Gamestop.
I am honored to be invited to these events and get to play with so many people. It is wonderful, complicated, and I wouldn’t want life to be any other way.
GRATITUDE: I am grateful for the attention and patience of those who support me and my family.
SOMETHING I LIKE: Recently I took an Everlywell blood test for food allergies and intolerances. The results I got back showed me that everything I was eating harmed me. I’ve begun eliminating those foods from my diet and feel so much better physically and mentally!
In conclusion: Rest & balance. I need more of this and hopefully it will allow me the clarity to soar with light through all of May & June!
Have the best day!
Satine
