I want to wish you all a happy new year. I hope you find greater freedom, insight, and joy on this next trip around the sun.

  But that is secretly more of a pretense. (you can tell I'm really good at secrets, can't you?)

  I don't have the emotional bandwidth to respond to each comment directly right now (nor the heart to only respond to a few), but I am deeply touched by all the comments on my update and feel compelled to respond in some way.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  So this is my blanket thank you. I've read and savored each and every one of your comments and I'm so thankful for you all. I'm also excited to have some new things on my TBR list (as well as some things to bump up higher on the list).

  Don't worry, I'm not going to start spamming non-chapter chapters. I just wanted to say my piece. My next post should come with an ETA for some written words of fiction.

  Take care, y'all.

  PS I feel like sharing some kind of fiction, so the spoiler in the author's note is a snippet of something random that burped out of my subconscious. A vignette, if you will. Maybe something more some day.

  isn’t every night. When I drink enough or convince one of the girls to share a bowl of starsight with me, when I don’t have any dreams, when sleep is just a blessed black void—I get a night of freedom from this hell.

  everyone, but when you go to it seeking oblivion you have already cast aside any shot at moderation. And there is no way I’d survive in the mines like that.

  did beat a guy to death in the mines before dumping his body in a lava flow one time. But that was years ago, and he had it coming. The girls and guys at the Lusty Goblet deserve better than getting bruised by some pea-brained stack of garbage who thinks that beating a night worker is something to brag about. As far as I’m concerned, they’re the saints that make this hell liveable.