Hello, folks!

This month I bring you a slightly different update. But before...

Have you noticed how you can be "disheveled", but not "sheveled", or "eveled"? Also, if being "disgruntled" is definitely bad, is being "gruntled" a good thing? It certainly doesn't sound like it, being "gruntled" sounds like something very unpleasant that happens when you anger a bunch of trolls.

English is weird^[1].

So, What's Up?

You may have noticed the glacial pace of development over the last few months. Features that I really thought would be done and dusted by now (ahem mobile support) are nowhere close to good enough, and the features I thought I'd be working on right now (VTT integrations) are but a tiny speck of a dream in the distant horizon.

As I sit here looking back at 2025 and making plans for 2026, I've realized that most of my ambitions with Bardic Tools aren't even close to coming true.

That's not where any of us want Bardic Tools to be. In this post I share how we got where we are, and what I'm doing about it.

If you're not interested in how we got here, but just want to read what I'm going to do about it, click here.

So, What Happened?

On reflection, there seems to be a very simple explanation:

My superpower is focus.

I shine when I have just one thing that my mind can latch on to and obsess over. The second half of 2025 was... not that at all. Over the past 5 or 6 months, I've juggled freelance work for several clients to keep me under a roof, with Bardic Tools, with maintaining relationships with the people that matter a lot to me.

And, unsurprisingly given the aforementioned superpower, juggling was not my strong suit. The plan was to do freelancing part-time, maybe just during mornings, maybe a few days a week, and leave large chunks of time for Bardic Tools. It was a beautiful plan, one which allowed me to work part-time, keep my expenses low, and just enjoy time to work on Bardic Tools.

It was a beautiful plan, except it never freaking worked. It never survived contact with the real world, and it took me a damn long time to figure that out.

There are three realities that made this plan impossible:

1. My brain can only hold a limited amount of information at a time. Every time I switch work from a client project to Bardic Tools, I need to spend a bunch of time just remembering how everything worked.
   It's like my brain is a fish tank and every project needs different water, so I have to change the water every time I switch between projects.
   My freelance work suffered because I felt pressured to do Bardic Tools so I was constantly thinking about it.
   Bardic Tools suffered because I had to switch to freelance work.
   I suffered because I couldn't focus on either.
2. Freelance work doesn't come exactly when you want it. A shocker, I know, especially to anyone who has freelanced before, but it turns out you kind of have to take the work when it comes, not when you want to. As a result sometimes freelance projects overlapped, which left even less space for Bardic Tools.
3. There are people I care about deeply, and I want to give them my attention. Not much to say about this, really, but to repeat that maintaining healthy relationships is a non-negotiable for me. Sometimes, that means flying places to be with people that need me, and I'll do that gladly. I'll burn Bardic Tools (and the rest of my career) to the ground before I stop going to see my parents (or fiancee or friends) when they really need me.

In conclusion: Life is unpredictable, and it turns out the life of a freelancer is even crazier. And when life got crazy, the thing that always got dropped was Bardic Tools. Sad.

That's not where any of us wants Bardic Tools to be, so let's turn to happier matters and figure out...

What I'm Doing About It

After a surprisingly long time thinking, a realization struck me.

And not even in a nice, "aha" way, but rather like an angel that comes down from the skies with a big ol' "+4 Mace of Stop Effing Around" and hits me over the head with it until I see the blindingly obvious solution:

Treat Bardic Tools Like Your Favorite Freelance Client.

If Bardic Tools is a freelancing client, I have to treat it like other clients, and reserve actual months in my calendar to work on it, and only on it. And because it's my favorite client, I don't care that it doesn't pay really well (actually, doesn't pay at all, because all the money goes into growing The Library)—I'll always want to schedule time for it.

So What's The Plan?

For the first half of 2026, we're going to do an experiment. For each month, I'm going to be choosing a mode:

• If a month is "freelancer mode", I won't work on Bardic Tools features. I'll still commission sounds for The Library that you request, and I might have time to create the odd scene here and there, but I give myself permission to not worry about shipping features. I'm not sure what I'll do with the monthly updates during that time, we'll see.
• If a month is "Bardic Tools" mode, I will work only on growing Bardic Tools, really full time, with as much focus as I can.

I have landed a fairly lucrative contract that, if I work really hard, I think I can finish in about three months, which should leave me with enough funds to comfortably afford 3 months of "Bardic Tools mode".

So this is what the first half of 2026 will look like for me, straight from my actual journal after I came up with this plan:

I hope that this experiment pays off, and those three months give me the chance to get much, much closer to getting Bardic Tools out of Early Access.

I know April seems like a really long time away, so as a small thank you for bearing with me please feel free to use code FREELANCINGJOY to get either 3 months for free, $12 off your next subscription if you're on the yearly plan.

In Conclusion

I'm still really, really happy for what Bardic Tools, and especially the community around it has grown into this year. You, the people reading and commenting and suggesting things and being excited continue to be the energy that keeps me going, and keeps me wanting to make Bardic Tools into something you'll love.

Thank you for an amazing 2025, here's to an even more amazing 2026.

-- Borja

And One More Thing

I didn't know where to write this, so I'll shoehorn it in at the end:

You may be having a hard time this time of year. You may be forced to be away from family, or you may not want to be close to them. Whatever the reason, please remember to lean onto the community if you want to!

One of the cool things about my schedule is that I'm usually available on Discord at most times, most days. If you want to have a chat, even if you don't know what to chat about, just head on over to either #general or #fireside-chat, and start typing. Or DM me, saying "I wanna talk but I don't know what about".

Just... don't feel alone. I'm too tired to put it in better terms, but you get the meaning.

1. And so are all the other languages, don't get me wrong. ↩︎