Indie Writer Life: The Great Homestead Swap

The dog has forgiven me. The cat…never gonna happen. They’re both clingy still and I don’t think any of us has adjusted to the time-zone/climate-change. I’ve traded up the homestead I carved out of the forest over many years. You might think I wanted more amenities and to get back to civilization. Nope. I wanted to get farther away.

Fortunately, a relative needed to get closer to towns and the medical services that go with them, so we agreed to swap for a little while. It’ll give us both time to see if what we think we want is really what we want.

For me it is a step backwards, not back to no water or power, but back to less. It’s a neglected farm with unreliable resources but so far, I’m enjoying the change.

It was just this time of year when I launched the first homestead. I remember the mosquito swarms that had no mercy. I remember that the whip-poor-wills sang incessantly. All. Night. Long. And I particularly remember the iron bar that went across the door every night to slow down entry should a bear decide to pay a visit.

I washed away the sweat of the day in the frigid downpour of evening thundershowers, because there was no well or running water. I made morning coffee over an outside fire, because there was no power.  I read paperback books in the evenings, by lantern light, because even if I fired up the generator to power the TV, there was no signal where I chose to make my home. It’s not like that there anymore. I don’t want to go all the way back to those hard-old-days, but maybe halfway back.

Here at my new home, I have internet–sometimes. I have water–most days. I have power intermittently and make my own when I don’t. I basically have to start at the beginning with the gardening, enrich the soil, build the raised beds, learn to grow things in a new climate. Interesting times ahead in the real life.

In the virtual life, I moved the Nook Writer’s Colony to a new server just before the home swap and I’m still in the process of creating regions and getting things running as they  should.

Regions up so far.

Greyville: The welcome region for the writer’s colony.
URI: world.narasnook.com:8900/Greyville

Paradise: A shopping region filled with unique items created by Nook members.
URI:world.narasnook.com:8900/Paradise

Pandora: A region where you can pick up tools and watch tutorials on making and controlling NPC. There are several sky islands there with special demo scenes created by Nook members to teach how to use NPC for storytelling and game development.
world.narasnook.com:8900/Pandora

That’s all for now. I’ll let you know as I add more. I think I hear the forest calling.