The reason I wasn't starting NaNoWriMo last night was because I was going to play Exalted in a game run by a friend-who-shall-not-be-named. I didn't start anything or do anything serious because I only had an hour or so between the time I get home from work and I leave. So, I couldn't do anything in that hour either since I like to eat or something. When I got there, I found out that she didn't have anything planned nor did she remember that she had this commitment.

I also found out from her husband why he didn't show up at the Changeling game that I ran on Sunday. Something serious? Not really. He got a new computer and spent the entire day futzing with it. He didn't call, he didn't send an email, he didn't tell anyone that he wasn't going to show up, despite spending two entire weeks talking about it.

I have commitments. I have quite a few of them. I run Exalted every other week and Changeling every four weeks. I have my comic, Glorious Saber, due on Thursdays for the last fifteen weeks. I have my commitments to Debian, my open-source projects, and my games. Excluding the ones dealing with development, which is on-going, I make a very clear point of calling and telling people when I can't show up. I don't cancel on the same day of gaming, unless I'm seriously sick. Even then, I call every single player to tell them I can't make it. When I'm in a game, I may be late by 15-30 minutes, but I show up. If I can't, I tell them.

It is hard when people don't give you the same respect. When someone runs a game, I want to know before I leave my house that they won't be there. If they say they'll be there, I want to know when they aren't. In my case, I have players that drive 2-3 HOURS to get to my game and I make sure they know before they leave because of the distance they drive. That and one of my prior DM's would decide 5-10 minutes before gaming that he couldn't be bothered to run.

I told myself I would do 26 strips of Glorious Saber and I will do at least 26. If I don't think it is doing as well as I hope, I'll stop at 26. That is a half year of comics to see if the idea is sound. I'm on 15 (including last week's filler), but I will do 26 comics. I said I would. I have a commitment and I owe it to the people who may or may not be reading it to finish it.

Case of the Morning Zombies (NaNoWriMo, 0 of 100,000 words)