Powering Thru
Journal #118 13- 19 May 2024
Three blogs in a row!
Unexpected, and to be honest I thought about skipping this week, but I won’t be around next week. Therefore, it would have skipped two weeks, etc.
And to be honest I’ve managed to get a lot done this week.
Revision Pace
Last week, I mentioned that I started the revision on the last novel. It was slow going as the early chapters are very dense, very long. And I mentioned that it would pick soonish.
It did.
I knocked out about 12 chapters this week, I’m well into the 20s now, like chapter 23 or 24 to be precise. By page count, I’m more than halfway thru the book. Between today and tomorrow I intend to be in the back third of the book.
I’m enjoying the read thru and looking forward to starting the next novel. All of my fears aren’t gone, but the excitement is starting to overcome the paranoia.
Other Writing
Besides the revision work I’ve found myself back at the Gaming/World Building work as well. Ideas just flood the mind.
Which always happens when I’m working.
I’m pretty sure I’ve gone over this in previous blogs, but considering the sheer number of them n this site I’m unlikely to remember when it was. I always have more ideas and a better imagination when I’m pulling myself thin. Doing too much.
I find it funny that one of my favorite authors, Steven Erikson, was asked if he still played RPGs (since his novels were wholly based on the games he played in his teens and twenties). His answer was that he had to concentrate only on the novel he was writing because he couldn’t spare the time/energy/ and imagination for both (writing and playing).
On the flip side, I find that if I’m working on games, playing in games, and writing stories… my brain is constantly coming up with more and more ideas. But only as long as I’m staying really busy. Paradoxically, I can NOT work on multiple novels. I mean, I probably could, but I tend to hyper focus on only a single story. But I can work on D&D characters, backstories, world-building, short story ideas, a Call of Cthulhu scenario, and perhaps outlining the next novel, while also writing.
Gaming
And gaming has been really decent of late.
Mostly.
I’m not in love with all the games I’m in… One of them is tired, one is 50/50… but the other two are very interesting. Despite one of the interesting games falling flat every 2nd or 3rd episode, it’s still young enough that it has potential to win overall. I will make a prediction right now: THAT game should only last so long, maybe 20 sessions total. It works better as a series of adventures with a planned ending.
This DM ran a previous game that was supposed to be one story, but became a wholly different one. And it just meandered on and on. He finally got the picture and pulled the pin. This new game is fine, but should not overstay its welcome.
Funny enough, the best game is probably the RIFTS game… but only because no one wants to engage the mechanics. The rules are so shitty, and books laid out so poorly, that none of us want to figure out how things work. So, we end up trying to RP every situation and avoid the worst conflicts. Interestingly enough, the one thing the game DOES get right, is it awards experience heavily for avoiding the fights and RPing heavily. So, for the first time out of the half dozen or so games I played in RIFTS I have a character who has leveled TWICE!!
Amazing.
Other Media
All of this writing and revision has strongly cut into my media consumption. I managed to catch up on my comics and I’m only a week or so behind in my reading. But I have barely seen any K-dramas, watching not a single episode this week, and only a handful the week before.
Inversely, I have consumed a large amount of actual play podcasts as background noise while doing everything else. Last month I listened to about 20 episodes of Bell’s Hells (I’m back in the 60s) and these last three weeks I powered through about 80 episodes (only 1 hour each) of the Glass Cannon Podcast (Giant Slayer). Plus, a bunch of other shows on their network as well.
Also, went back to Dimension 20 and watched the Magic and Misfits and I’m 4 episodes into Star Struck Odyessey.
Tons of story. Tons of Role Playing. Been a good couple weeks overall.
Going Forward
Won’t be a blog next week, as I won’t be around.
I’m hoping that in two weeks, on June 2 I will be able to report that the first draft of revision will be done. At that point I will prepare to get Dusk started.
This will be the summer of the darkest novel. I really should have written this book back at the end of the year, going into winter for the tone and feel. Oh well. My procrastination has brought us here, and back when I was a teenager and first creating this world… I used to write a novel every summer during high school. So, its kind of a throwback, only this time I do my writing in the mornings of my days off instead of writing from 10pm to 3am and then sleeping all day like I used to back when I was 15.
But now I’m just maudling.
Thank you for reading this far. See you all in two weeks.
