74: Thanksgiving and Skipping Posts

Writing Journal 14-27 Nov- 2022

Ok. So I skipped another week. It happens. A lot is going on during the holidays and maybe I should have taken the time to write a bunch of essays in advance and schedule them.

Maybe I’ll do that, maybe I won’t.

I’ll admit that I find myself in a weird mood as the end of the year approaches. On one hand I am pissed at myself for not writing anything for two months… and yet on the other hand I have written a bunch of Cthulhu stuff, a D&D one shot adventure (that will more than likely be 4 actual play sessions), and I created a bunch of maps.

So… I’m still being creative, and still working on periphery projects, but the novel is not progressing.

The worse sin, I started working on ideas and scenes for the next novel. The worse sin. (Other than actually starting other novels at the same time).

Though I will admit, that thinking about the later novels has had me questioning and thinking about the end of this novel.

Pages (Normally Words)

I have no words to report. But I have been working on things. Mostly through the lens of role playing. Since I worked on my adventure for my brother’s group I peppered it with events, characters, and things from the previous novels. I’m repeating myself to long time readers, but I have sworn that if I take time away from writing to run games, then I will be running games in my novels.

Which is really weird when you think about it. Since the novels are based on games I ran over 20 years ago and over the course of three editions of D&D and several groups of friends, etc. I mean these were already run as adventures… mostly. The world itself changed several times (I mean literally I mapped and remapped, over years and with every edition change).

Funny aside. I was running the one shot and introducing some things and then looked up and realized that my brother was one of the players in the original version of the campaign. So, he was nodding his head as he started to recognize things from literally 24 or 25 years ago.

Maps

Speaking of maps and such… I spent a ton of time on them recently. And today I’m pretty sure I’m going to throw them all out.

Let me explain.

I have this weird obsession with trying to keep things in scale… but then I start drawing things and making flourishes and suddenly realize I just made a city that was forty miles across. Not that that is a problem as cities that large do exist, but it’s insane to map.

I keep thinking either too large or too small, and then you have to strongly keep reference material at hand.

In the previous novel I wrote about a fantasy Egypt, and I mapped out sections of it but only sketched what the whole country looked like. When I did it, I made sure it was only slightly larger than the real-world Egypt (since my planet is about 140% the size of earth. Everything is slightly larger). So, I constantly use Aegyptus as my scale marker as I draw the countries around it.

Back on topic, the maps I recently drew I just made cities too large and I spent probably a combined 60 hours on all three of them… and they have to get thrown out. Yup. On the good side I can use them for reference for the redraw that will start today.

Writing Thoughts

I’m still constantly questioning how I’m handling pov and whether I should have a stronger narrator voice instead of using a singular character as the narrator of each chapter.

Its odd because the books are all bookended with an actual storyteller is trapped in a prison and he’s sitting down and telling the story to his jailers. But when we go to the story we sink into the eyes and mind of a different character in each chapter.

But the conceit is that this master storyteller is sort of omnisciently telling the story. He is literally showing the minds of the characters and their inner thoughts to his listeners.

Sometimes I think it would have been better had I stuck with him as the narrator of each chapter. Telling the story and once in a while zooming in on the inner thoughts of each character as I need them. I feel like a lot of the characters aren’t getting much time because I’m only using a limited number of POVs. I have these great characters that we see their actions and what they’re doing, but we never see their thoughts.

Of course. If I do this it would mean rewriting this entire novel, and the previous novel as well. My thesis novel is a prequel and is its own experiment with POV so it would be fine as it is. It’s a ton of work, but it might make a better story. That is something very hard to contemplate doing though.

The Pharoah’s Gambit is almost 200k (and could have been much longer but I cut things to keep it below 200). Rewriting the whole thing with a narrator telling the story over their actions and allowing jumping through all of their heads would bulk it out even more. Though I could cut some chapters where I changed the POV but showed the same scene.

They both have pros and cons. And frankly, I don’t want to think about it too hard. The indecision will cripple me and I’ll use it as an excuse to not write.

Hobbies

Well obviously, I’m gaming a ton. I have D&D three nights a week now, one game I in person and lovely. We turn that game into a gathering, dinner, and a game. Love it.

My monthly game is on hold until January and I hate to say it but I might let that one go. The monthly Cthulhu game is great, but I feel the “sand-box” part of it is a failure. The game has been come a day-by-day travelogue with business, mystery, and changing their minds and switching focus as events keep unfolding. We finished the first arc, then wandered through a bunch of hooks, and all of the characters either took a different hook or were indifferent to them entirely. As such I have 1 character focused on topic A, one character on B, and one character who made decisions for the rest and the they all went along with C.

But while they waited for C to happen, they nibbled on B and mostly ignored A.

We decided to do take a break for the holidays and we moved toward a C-adjacent story. I have all of the characters focused but I also have an immense world event happening. I’m going to break the sandbox and day-to-day minutiae, do a short time jump, and throw them into the middle of a problem. Let’s get on track.

I fully understand now why everyone who runs long term Cthulhu games do it by lining up a bunch of modules. It just works better to focus the players on a single task and give them plenty of rp between modules and going into the module… but having them all pulled in different directions… sigh.

I will be returning to run long term D&D again at some point next year. I just haven’t figured out the logistics. I want a good 5-7 players, weekly or bi-weekly (or two on two off), and in person. IF I can run it in my store that would be awesome, or my game room…one of my players houses. Whatever. RP heavy, backstory driven, taking place in my world during one fo the historic events. Done.

Podcasts Etc

Speaking of Games. I finished the Mighty Nien. Powered through the last forty episodes over the last month. I loved it all so much. Some of the best characters, though I was getting a little annoyed with the villains at the end. Overall it was amazing. I delved into the Exandria Unlimited stuff a little, trying to delay my start of Campaign Three. But those episodes fell quickly and now I find myself already 8 episodes into Bells Hells. Even better characters here.

All of my other podcasts (D&D and Glasscannon) ended, but I have a few CoC ones I can fall back on and I paused Dimension20 for over 8 weeks. So, I’ll probably end the year by listening to Sleeping City Chapter 2 and then the next short season, and then start Starstruck Odyssey.

Painting

I’ve been painting a bunch of minis. Besides commission work, I painted a bunch of characters for the Thursday game and they have more on order. So, a lot of D&D minis have been painted. I also did a bunch of monsters and some characters to have a good time.

I have to set up for some more today and tomorrow. Though I guess I should also write and map.

See that’s the problem. So many ways to go. So many things demanding my attention.

Hell, I even have some video games I keep saying I’m going to play and they’re still sealed in plastic. Sigh. Sigh Sigh.

Outro

Let’s call it there. I will try to write for next week, or I might skip and do blogs every other week as Christmas gets closer and then inventory at work and all of that crap. The end fo the year is full of things to do.