Recently I quit my job, without something else lined up. Now, that was not my plan going into it, but it turned out to be the most freeing experience ever. But it wasn’t like I just did it willy nilly. It was thought out through several months. It was meant to be a last resort, but it ended up being the route that was taken. It was a toxic work environment that I had to get away from, and I do not regret it.

Now, working there wasn’t all bad. It was pretty good at first. I started working there as an intern before I graduated college, and I continued on full time afterwards. My plan was to work there for a couple years, get the experience I needed, then go and find something else. So for the first year and a half or so, I was steadily learning and growing; getting a better understanding of corporate America. I started in January of 2015 doing a mix of customer service, sales, and marketing. That following summer, my coworker went on maternity leave, and I immediately got thrown into the deep end. I was the point person for customer service now, it was my greatest challenge to date; but I handled the stress, and I handled it well. I was awarded with Employee of the Month in October.

But things started to go downhill from there. I always knew that my boss was a bit of an asshole, but this is when I started seeing his true colors. It was different when I was an intern. I mostly kept to myself, and just obediently did my work. Now, I had to interact with the whole department. They say that within a year and a half, you should have a good idea of what kind of company you work for. And it’s true, I knew what kind of company this was, but I had so much fear, and doubt. I didn’t have the motivation or the drive to push myself out of this shitty situation. What’s worse, is that my depression worsened, although I didn’t really know it at the time. Cause it wasn’t like I was sad, or thinking about suicide. But depression has many forms: low self esteem, and loss of interest for example. Apathy and fear kept me downtrodden.

But still following my loose timeline; around the two year mark, I started applying, and looking for something else. I wasn’t searching seriously, more so just weighing my options. But the unexpected happened. Another coworker ended up going on maternity leave that spring. A lot of her responsibilities thus fell on me. My plans on leaving were then put on hold. I felt guilty for leaving at that time. It wasn’t so bad though, because I was learning new things, so I figured I’d stay a bit longer, learn all that there was to learn, then start up again in the fall.

But this is also when it really started getting bad. My former boss is not a pleasant person to be around. He is egotistical, arrogant, and straight up mean sometimes. He belittles his employees, embarrasses individuals in front of the whole department, and generally leads by fear. He’s temperamental, so you never know which way the wind will blow. Will he be overly patient, and calm, or will he yell at you for the smallest thing? It was always walking on eggshells around him. He’d make the worst dad jokes, and think he was so funny. He was inappropriate, saying things that were highly sexual or racist. The way he would try to get people to work harder would be to threaten your job security or your annual raise. He was not a good manager, nor was he a good person. Eventually, I started tuning him out. Anytime he would make a comment or a joke I would roll my eyes and walk away. I did not and do not respect this man.

But what was I going to do? There were no opportunities lined up. I had no options. I was worn down. I had no drive. So I did what I knew. I started smoking more. Every night after a long drive back home, I would smoke a bowl to forget about my problems. I didn’t have the brain capacity to deal with this shit at work and after work. I did what I knew. But what I knew, wasn’t what was good for me. The perpetual weed haze kept me numb. It kept me out of tune with my emotions. But it kept me going through the motions. Coffee to keep me awake in the morning, weed to help me sleep at night. Rinse & repeat. Eventually I became so worn down that I stopped trying. I resigned myself to this. This was my life.

But the unexpected happened yet again. In May of 2018, a cute, quiet girl from work DMed me out of the blue. She told me she was obsessed with me, and she felt like she needed to tell me. She couldn’t sleep. She was tired of being awkward; tired of not being able to speak her mind. She told me she didn’t know how she was going to get over it. She just wanted me to reject her and be done with it. No more what ifs. This was an utter shock to me. I didn’t know what to do, or how to respond. I didn’t think girls liked me like that (I know different now. Not to be cocky, but I get hit on quite often). Of course, I was just awkward and self-conscious. But I figured, what the hell, I got nothing going in my life, I might as well. So I gave her my number, we started texting, and the rest is history.

This was the first step on my journey to enlightenment. There were ups and there were downs. I was and am far from the best boyfriend. I had a lot of issues that I needed to work on. It all culminated in The Incident in August of 2018. I hit a person while backing up at a gas station. This brought me to the lowest of the low. But this also brought me to some of the best decisions I would ever make. My parents were extremely worried about me after this incident, so they came down to visit the next day, and my dad immediately contacted a therapist that he had heard about from one of his friends. I’ve been seeing her every other week for about a year and a half, and it’s brought about an incredible amount of self-discovery. It works, talking to a professional with no judgment, no interruption, no lack of interest. It’s like talking to a friend, but better. You have her undivided attention for a full hour. We went through techniques, and tips, and advice on how to overcome my depression. And sure enough, I grew more and more confident. The less I smoked, and the more I talked to my girlfriend and my therapist, the more I began to heal. The numbness went away, the negativity fizzled out. I ended up winning Employee of the Year in 2018. My crowning achievement. In my head, I figured I could work here for another year or so. But I knew there was still no growth, still no opportunities for advancement.

And sure enough, December 2019 would be my last month at this company. Because inevitably, the highs became lows, and the lows went even lower. But the difference was mentally, and emotionally I knew I could do better. This wasn’t the end. I wasn’t destined to stay at this dead end job for the rest of my life. I was in a different headspace. I could do this. I wouldn’t let the negativity and the bitterness at this company get to me again. Several things happened to facilitate my job search. First, I started going back to church. I know church isn’t for everybody. Religion isn’t for everybody. In fact, the first time we planned to attend this particular church, I changed my mind halfway there. I wasn’t ready. My girlfriend, of course, was upset. We had a long discussion, before I dropped her off and went home. When I got home, I didn’t know what to do, so I watched the live stream. This church was different from the ones I had attended previously. It had a different vibe to it, so I was willing to check it out.

After we started attending this church, things started to tumble into place. For my birthday in August, we went to Disney World. On our way back from the airport, I hit my head, and got a concussion. Which, as you all know, started the thought juices flowing. A long-time coworker and friend of mine got fired for reasons beyond his control. *Cough cough nepotism cough cough* Me in my concussion addled mind decided fuck this, I’m outta here. So that week, I started applying, and soon after I was granted an interview. I also needed to go on a road trip for my current job, visit some of our customers. So I planned it all for the same day. This was a Thursday. The following day, my boss called me into his office at 8am to yell at me about something that I wasn’t doing correctly, because I already had too much on my plate. Then at 9am, he gave me Employee of the Month, and had the audacity to ask in front of everybody why I wasn’t smiling. You knew damn well why I wasn’t smiling you asshole… That was the breaking point.

At this time, I decided that I would do anything to get away from this douchebag. I was even considering leaving without another job lined up. But I was talked down from it. I listened to the voice of reasoning, and concluded job first, then quit. So things went back to the status quo for now. I had a schedule of applying to job listings on Mondays and Tuesdays after work, and writing a little on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. It had occurred to me during my concussion that my first love has always been reading, and my talent has always been writing. Screw what everybody says, I’m going to become a writer. And this was to be my side gig until I was good enough to make it my main gig.

Status quo was all fine & good but the inevitable happened. My temperamental boss blew up yet again. Surprise, surprise! My boss was about to go on his lunch break, one of the sales managers didn’t know if he was going to return to his office before heading out, so he waited for my boss outside of the bathroom. Kinda strange, but small & innocuous right? Wrong! My boss got up in his face, and was like, “you wouldn’t do that to the owner of the company would you? Don’t I deserve the same fucking respect?” My cubicle is right next to the bathroom, so I heard the whole loud & angry exchange, and I’m just sitting there rolling my eyes, muttering to myself, “are you fucking kidding me? You don’t deserve any respect. Talking about respect while disrespecting your employee.” This exchange just reinforced my need to get the fuck out of there. I had another interview at the beginning of November. For some reason or another, it didn’t work out. But I was still ok. I wouldn’t let the negativity get to me again.

But lo & behold, would you look at that. Mid December, my boss does something to me that I felt really crossed the line (as if the 5 years of mistreatment that I was subject to and observed wasn’t enough already). So, I was on the phone with my girlfriend, she does billing & credit; I needed to give her an Amex credit card, since I’m not able to enter it on my end. We have this phone rotation system for sales & customer service, so administrators are able to see who you’re on the phone with. My boss gives me a ring, once, twice. I figure I can just call him back after I’m done with what I’m doing. He calls me a third time, at which point I’m done with my conversation, so I go into his office. Turns out he needed to see me about something I was already working on, so that’s bullshit. Then he starts talking about how when I’m on the phone with Katie, and someone else calls, I need to check to see who’s calling. And I’m thinking, “whatever dude. First off, I don’t need you micromanaging shit that I’m already handling; second you’re not that important, get off your high horse; third my conversation with Katie was a minute tops.” So I go back to my desk, and see that he had sent us both an email asking us to get off the phone, so he could talk to me. One of the things that my therapist went over with me last year was being accepting of my negative emotions, as long as they were justified. I have every right to my anger, every right to my sadness, as long as I understand why I feel the way that I do, and as long as I’m able to regulate it, and bring myself back to my center line. To say the least, at this moment I was furious. He wouldn’t have done this if I had been talking to anybody else. In my mind, I had two options left to me: I could walk out right then & there, or I could be professional and give my two weeks notice.

I gave my two weeks the next day and never looked back. I made the right decision. No regrets. Cause there was another situation a few days later, where he rolled his eyes at Katie because she did something that he didn’t like. Which is funny, because earlier that same day he had called out a sales manager for being late to a meeting, saying that he felt like it was inappropriate that she was late. Later in that same meeting, I forget the context, but he had said, “cause we’re professionals!” Alright dude… So rolling your eyes and throwing a hissy fit isn’t inappropriate and unprofessional? Alright then.

That being said, I’ve been unemployed for almost a month now. But I couldn’t be happier. I calculated my savings before I left and I have enough to last 6-8 months. It’s not crunch time, and I’m not in a rush to find a job. I’m just enjoying my time and living life. I took a week to visit my parents, and hang out with my sisters and my cousins. I haven’t had that luxury in a long time. I don’t know about other places, but at my workplace it was always awkward to ask for time off, because my boss was always so goddamn weird about it. Sometimes he’d approve your vacation right away, or sometimes he wouldn’t get back to you for almost two weeks. I finally had time to see my parents for an extended period of time, and they seemed so happy to have the three of us back at the same time. I just couldn’t bear to break the news to them, so they still don’t know that I’m jobless. I didn’t want to potentially ruin the mood. Rest assured, I’ll get back into my job search next week or the following. But right now I’m just enjoying the time I have to myself, where I can do puzzles, read, listen to audiobooks, play video games, watch Netflix, do crosswords, go on nature walks, do whatever the fuck I want. I’ve dedicated myself to writing more. I’m doing morning pages now, my creative juices are flowing, so there should be new content coming more frequently.

The first time I got high was in my freshman year of college. It was probably late September or October. I had two suitemates that I hung out with regularly, let’s call them A and B. One night B comes up to us and was like, “guess what I just bought,” and he holds up a little baggie. A is like, “do you have papers or something?” B says, “nah, I met someone who has a piece.”

So we go out to the quad later that night, and we meet up with a bunch of people. I don’t know what to expect, but am told that usually the first time you smoke you might not feel high or know that you are. I had no idea what I was in for. I was also extremely paranoid, after all, I had never done anything like this before. Yes, I had friends in high school who were potheads. But I never hung out with them outside of class, let alone after school. Some of them would go out to the woods to smoke during chemistry class, but I never went with them. They would come back to class blazed as fuck, and I could tell. But seeing someone that’s high doesn’t give you an accurate representation of how it feels to be high. As someone who’s never smoked, you see them saying or doing dumb shit, but you just pass that off as them being a dope.

After you’ve smoked a few times, you can start seeing where your dopey friend was coming from. But me back then? I had no framework for what to look for. At that point in my life, I had only gotten drunk once, but I didn’t even drink like that. It was a funny and stupid story. Back in 8th grade, my parents had this thing that they called cell group. Every two or three Saturdays there was a gathering of their church small group at a host family’s house. When I was younger, I was a showoff. I was eccentric, a contrarian, I did things to get people’s attention. But only at church; at school I was quiet and reserved. I think this was a defensive mechanism that I put in place to hide my insecurities and anxieties. I was comfortable around people at church, I wasn’t comfortable around people at school. That’s besides the point though.

Well anyway, it was a summer day, and someone had set up two coolers full of drinks. One of them had sodas & juices — kid’s drinks. The other had Mike’s Hard Lemonade or something along those lines. I decided I would try one since I was curious. It tasted just like juice to me, I couldn’t taste the alcohol in it. I thought this was interesting so I had another one of my friends try it. We shared three between the two of us. This was our first time drinking, so again, no idea what to expect. My skin started feeling hot, so we both went down to the basement to play some video games. We had sat down for maybe 20 minutes, but I started feeling dizzy, and my friend started feeling hot. So we went outside, and we started fanning ourselves. One thing led to another and we started running around in circles in the front yard. Neither of us had any idea why we were doing what we were doing, it was like it just happened all of a sudden. We were very confused, but I now know that we were acting crazy cause we were drunk.

So this was the only experience I had with any sort of substance usage up until this point, so I was very clueless. I was told to puff puff pass. And that it’s easy, just put your finger on this hole, light the bowl, lift your finger, inhale deep, then inhale again. It didn’t make sense to me, so suitemate A helped me with it. We passed the bowl around a few times, until we were all out. A bunch of people got up and left, but a small group of us stayed and sat there for a little bit. I noticed that the streetlight that I had been looking at seemed hazy now, but I didn’t think anything of it. Someone suggested that we go to H-Quad to get food, so that was now the plan. All of a sudden, people started running (I never found out if they were strangers or part of our original group), so my friends and I joined in. I asked someone why we were running, and he told me, “I have no idea, just run.” So I did. We ran all the way to H-Quad, on the other side of campus. At first I wasn’t going to get anything to eat, but I changed my mind after my mouth started watering looking at my friends’ sandwiches. I ordered one, and I vaguely remember it seeming to take way too long to make, and I also remember really enjoying that sandwich. This was my first experience with the munchies.

But after that experience, I didn’t smoke again until midway through Junior year. I was too caught up in other things. The story I told for a while was one that went like this: I smoked once, but I didn’t get high. But that was just me being naive. I know better now. I smoked once, and I got really high. I just didn’t know it at the time.

If you’ve talked to me at all, you know that one of my passions is fantasy. Sometimes I’d rather live in the world of text than the real world. My first experience with the magic of fantasy was when the teacher read us the Magic Tree House books in 1st grade. That shit was incredible! That being said, I’ve been a fairly avid reader most of my life. My mom used to take us to the library on a fairly regular basis: every 3-4 weeks. I would go look at the same couple of sections: Redwall, Dragonlance, and Greek/Roman mythology. This was my zone. This was my first love.

I may have vehemently denied it in recent years. But I am, and was, and always will be a NERD. There is no changing that. But for the first decade of my life or so, the nerd was created and fed by mostly internal factors. My days consisted of reading and playing with Legos. I was in my own head all day. But I have two very distinct memories in my early days, of being affected by outside influences.

The year was 1999, we had just moved to Massachusetts in October. There was a kid named Elijah who took it on himself to be my friend, show me the ropes as it were. One day several months later, I was at the school library with my class for one of our special periods. I was wandering around, and Elijah came up to me, and was like, “why don’t you get something?” Me, being the weirdo that I am, was always hesitant to borrow books from school. I much preferred to borrow from the town library in the center of town. The town library let you keep a book for 3 weeks at a time, the school library made you renew it week after week. I was always afraid that the book would be due before I finished it. But once, just this once, young me decided sure, let’s borrow a book, why not? So I told Elijah, “ok, but I don’t know what to get.”

He said, “follow me. I know the perfect book. Let me find it. I’m sure you’ll love it. Let me know what you think.”

He handed me Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone. I was hesitant to take it, I knew my mom wouldn’t approve, plus it was such a big book for such a small kid. My mom as did many other moms at my church disapproved of magic and witches and wizards. They thought it was devil worship. Harry Potter was a wonderful scapegoat, simply because it was the biggest thing at the time. But little did she know, this was my introduction to a genre that I’ve learned to love and appreciate throughout my life. I don’t remember what thought crossed my mind, but something caused me to reluctantly take the book and try it out. Maybe it was fate, I’d like to think so.

So I took the book home with me, and I hid it under my bed. I read it only at night (when I was supposed to be asleep), to ensure that I didn’t get caught. I only ended up reading about a third of the book before I returned it, but this was the start of something new, and different, and exciting. What I read ended up sticking with me, so much so that I still remembered the little that I had read, when I finally got around to reading the entire series in 2014.

There were two other catalysts that kicked me into a higher gear of nerd-dom. The first occurred two years later. I had a church friend whose parents had a massive home theater with a projector; before big screen TV’s were a thing. As a collective, we were having trouble picking a movie, so he said, “I’m going to put on this movie. Trust me it’s good. Don’t tell anyone cause it hasn’t technically come out yet.” He put on a bootleg version of The Fellowship of the Ring, and my whole life changed. These movies meant so much to me, and I wanted LOTR everything. I was probably way too young to read the books, but read them I did, and re-read them, and re-read them, and re-read them.

All of a sudden, me and several friends from church were hooked. We roleplayed and pretended at church, at home, on hikes, at church retreats. We were lost in the wonderful world of imagination. Smartphones didn’t exist back then, and videogames were limited. So this was our entertainment: role playing, Pokemon, and Magic cards. What a wonderful and simpler time…

The year is 2002. In comes broad band, out goes dial up. The Internet is still pretty new to mostly everybody, but Xanga and AIM started their respective heydays. The more time I spent on the computer, the less time I spent reading. From 7th grade on, I read only as much as I needed to. My intake consisted of comic books and books for school (I’m not a good liar so Cliffnotes wasn’t enough).

It wasn’t until 2012 that I picked up a book and read for the joy of it. The third catalyst. The day we refer to as The Day Adam Injected me With the Neckbeard Gene. I can’t pinpoint the exact day unfortunately, but it was sometime between spring of 2011 and spring of 2012. Freshman year of college, he showed me the pilot for Game of Thrones. He ranted & raved to me for days about it. A Song of Ice & Fire was his brothers’ favorite fantasy series for more than 10 years, and all three of them were so excited to see it come out in a visual medium. This was before the fame and the fortune got to George R. R. Martin’s head. Y’all know how I feel about him so I’ll spare you the details.

So Adam showed me the series, and I thought nothing of it. But we happened to be taking a walk around campus a few weeks later, and we stopped by the campus bookstore. We walked by a shelf and he was like, “look, look look! Here’s the series I was telling you about. You should buy the first book.” Again, I was hesitant, like do I really wanna read a book? But eventually he convinced me, and I was like, “should I just buy the whole series?” Adam said, “nah, just try out the first one, See if you like it.”

So I bought the book, and I did nothing with it. It sat on my shelf, gathering dust for a whole year, and I was content with that. My interest wasn’t piqued, until the following April, when I read and watched The Hunger Games. I was told I wasn’t allowed to watch it unless I read the books. My eyes were reopened. I figured I would start reading A Game of Thrones, and I fell in love. A couple days after I started reading it, I bought the rest of the series, and started buying used books on eBay. This was the start of my journey. A journey I will follow until the end of time.

All this is a long winded way of saying what I’ve read, what I need to finish, and what I have next. Like I’ve said and realized recently, writing is my talent, and reading is my passion. What’s the point of all this reading? It’s to give me ideas so that I can one day write something or somethings. The thoughts are still stewing, but something will come to fruition one day. If you really really think about it, the fantasy genre is all the same. It’s just each author coming up with their own take on the same tropes. Nothing is unique, but that’s ok. That’s what I love so much about this. We can all tell the same stories, but the twists & the turns and the paths will be different. Each story is intricately woven and spun into something very different. The beginning and the end may be the same, but the path through is distinctive.

This was my path through so far:

• I read the first 4 novels of ASOIAF from May-July 2012. A Dance With Dragons was read in October. I’ve jokingly said that if I was forced to burn books, the GRRM ones would be the first to go. In all honesty, I probably will read & purchase the rest of this if he ever writes another, but I highly doubt he will. I have absolutely no interest in reading Fire & Blood, and I have pretty minimal interest in reading his backlog.
• I slogged through some shit not worth talking about, but it showed me what to avoid when it comes to garbage fantasy. I’ve learned my lesson and I always do my research. I read all the negative reviews, so I know beforehand, whether or not it’s going to be a book I like.
•  The next series was Prince of Thorns/King of Thorns by Mark Lawrence. He has a degree in physics & mathematics, and was previously a research scientist, so anything is possible! He’s written 3 trilogies to date, and I own them all, but I have yet to read past the second book so this is definitely still on the docket.
• Scott Lynch and his Gentlemen Bastards novels are some of the easiest and quickest reads, but he has had some personal issues and his output has been slow.
• Patrick Rothfuss has also been quite slow.
• Joe Abercrombie has some brutally violent books (he calls himself Lord Grimdark after all), but his writing tapered off a bit after 2015, but he does have a new series coming out so I will get back to him.
• Jim Butcher wrote at a furious pace since 2000, but seems to have taken some time with his latest Dresden book. I still have a couple more to read, and will go through the Codex Alera series at some point.
• Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings blew me away in 2013 when I read it during one of the worst summers of my life. This book was the only thing I looked forward to. I have one real book left to read, some YA stuff & misc, and his finishing touches of The Wheel of Time, otherwise I’m caught up. He’s the best author under 50 in the world, don’t @ me.
• Peter V Brett is a quick & interesting read. But a case of “I forgot what the story is about while I was waiting for the next one, and I didn’t feel like re-reading yet.” A typical occurrence for me… I have the last two books (one of which I bought twice by accident). I will do a re-read of the whole series at some point.
• Dan Wells. Not fantasy, more so horror/sci-fi. I’ve read everything he’s published so I will have to wait.
• Harry Potter is over and done with, but was definitely a good read. Will I read her Cormoran Strike series? No idea
• Brian McClellan’s Powder Mage group of trilogies has a unique take. But I’m caught up, even with novellas. Will need to wait
• Brent Weeks’ last novel in his Lightbringer series is coming out later this month. Maybe I’ll pre-order it. I also have his previous trilogy to read as well.
• I picked up a few Tad Williams novels here and there. He’s one of the fathers of modern fantasy, and I’d like to start digging into his bibliography at some point. He was writing dictionary sized novels before it became popular!
• I finished one trilogy by Anthony Ryan. It was quite interesting, and the first book was quick, but it seemed like it took forever to get through the other two. Maybe that’s what happens when this book is unofficially designated as “the one to be read during my lunch break.” I have his other trilogy, so logically this is also on “the list.”
• And last but not least I started listening to The Wheel of Time on audiobook in May of this year. So instead of music, Robert Jordan has been on the air on my drives.

So what am I reading now and what will I be reading?

1. Finishing The Wheel of Time obviously. I am about to start book 8 of 14.
2. I am reading Carrie by Stephen King, and I have created a Stephen King checklist. I’ve marked off everything “scary” for reading later or not at all. I will go through some of the shorter works first, then listen to The Dark Tower audiobooks after I finish WOT. I don’t think most people know, but King is quite a versatile author. He doesn’t just write horror/thriller/supernatural. He also writes fantasy, crime/mystery, sci-fi as well. I’ve read Under the Dome and 11/22/63 both of which are quite good.
3. Whenever I decide to go off my King kick, I will finish reading the Dresden Files. I have two left plus the one that will be published shortly. Codex Alera will wait. I have a habit of reading multiple books at once. I like to be reading one epic fantasy and one urban fantasy at the same time. Sometimes I may do three books at once: a physical book, audiobook, and something on Kindle
4. The Shadow of What Was Lost by James Islington is the “lunch break book”. I like it, but it’s been a slog. I’ve been reading this since July. Depending on how I feel after I’m finally done with the first one, I may finish the trilogy now or later.
5. Re-read the first two Mark Lawrence books, then finish the others
6. I guess you can mix & match the order of the rest of these, as I am undecided on what is next:
   1. Re-read and finish Peter V Brett
   2. Read Miles Cameron’s Traitor Son Cycle. Which funnily enough I had started reading years ago on Facebook of all places. His publisher had a 12 Days of Christmas promo where they were posting daily snippets of his first book
   3. Finish Brent Weeks Lightbringer series
   4. Read Starsight by Brandon Sanderson when it comes out in November
   5. A Little Hatred Joe Abercrombie’s new series and/or The Shattered Sea trilogy which I never ended up getting around to
   6. Blood of Empire by Brian McClellan, the last book in his second trilogy when it comes out in December
   7. Start Anthony Ryan’s Draconis Memoria trilogy or read his followup to Raven’s Shadow trilogy
   8. Switch it up and read Doug Pederson’s autobiography or Charlamagne tha God’s second memoir
   9. Read Nicholas Eames’ Kings of the Wyld. The next lunch break book perhaps?

And finally… further down the line

• The Witcher books
• Michael J Sullivan’s Riyria Revelations & Chronicles. Mix of audiobook (I’m not able to find all of them) and ebook
• Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms (novels based off of two different Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings). I’ve already created a checklist for reading order of Dragonlance
• Tad Williams bibliography
• David Gemmell bibliography, another father of fantasy who passed away too soon
• Neil Gaiman, I’ve read a few but I should finish
• And this is not reading per se, but eventually we will get our D&D group back together and I will DM Storm King’s Thunder