What's Next?

The James River Branch is very nearly done. Oh, I have maybe two or three months of work yet to do, but I'm down to the fine strokes; I'm close enough to the endpoint that I'm looking past the layout to the next challenge. What will I do in the following act?

Without going into too much detail, I'm on the cusp of a major change in my personal life. Unquestionably this will influence my modeling direction. But that direction is nebulous at best; it remains a murky fog of possibilities. Do I begin a new major Z scale project? Do I shift my focus more to T? Or do I return to N?

I wish I knew. I'm not fond of such lack of focus. At the same time, it's exciting to realize that the possiblilities are rich with interesting options—even if they're still limited by time, space and physical constraints.

I must be realistic, and bear in mind that, even if I wasn't employed, I'd have a time constraint: I have much less life ahead than behind, and I'd like for my remaining time to count for something. The space constraint is not so much a function of the room I may have available, but how much of it I can fill, practically and well, in my remaining time. And as for physical constraints, failing eyesight and shakier hands do limit what I can do.

Yes, it's a serious bit of thinking I've been doing. And I know it sounds just a tad morbid, but it doesn't serve me to ignore the realities of life. With respect to my modeling, I'm not sure what it means in terms of "me and Z." I've never been a rah-rah Zed-head; I just chose to model in Z because it suited my circumstances at the time. I'm not committed to the scale by any means; I could get out of it just as easily as I got into it.

As far as accomplishments go, I think the James River Branch achieved a short-term goal quite well: push the boundaries of Z scale as much as I'm able. Yet I know I'm capable of better; I simply don't know what scale I'll use to test myself next.