Fingers of Autumn

Journal 67 12-18 Sept. 2022

This week did not see me get nearly as much done as I would have liked and I’m once again splitting my time between too many tasks. And having picked up a third game night every week… well time has become even more precious.

But we can rejoice that the nights are turning cold again, and the air is slightly crisp. I feel like it may be a tease. That we’ll get one week of Autumnal mornings and then suddenly have a week of over 90-degree temps.

But for now, I will say it feels like Fall.

This week’s writing:

The novel continues. Very slowly.

But I will defend myself before I post my meager numbers for the week. I did pull out a new notebook and look through all of the notes and various missing gaps in my pantheon and myths of my world and I sat down and spent many hours fixing it.

And kept trying to fix it and overthink it and all of that.

I mapped out the generations of the gods, I placed some people into higher brackets then originally intended, had to go back and change origins and histories for peoples and places. Realized how many gaps I had and how daunting a task I would make it because I can’t do anything simple. I finally found some half measures and allowed me to ‘stamp’ it as adequate enough to leave it on a back burner.

The key thing as it allowed me to take my main villain and explore his motivations and see his perspective on things. I found the reasons why a reader should/would/could sympathize with him. At the very least you could understand how it got to this point (though I do admit there are gaps in the timeline where you wonder what happened and why he did certain things).

But I digress.

Words…

I managed a couple of short sessions this week. Mostly all within a single chapter that is still unfinished.

I have this issue where I think I might be replaying dialogue too much, but then I remember I said some of these things in previous books between the same characters… and then I have the crisis of whether I’m getting things wrong.

Also, am I repeating myself, because what if this book is someone’s first in the series?

Then they don’t know the original version of the conversation. Then I worry that readers who have read the previous books might realize I got the information all wrong, or that I changed someone’s stance on the subject. Which makes me want to go back and look over the previous conversations… which leads to not writing.

But I’m digressing again.

Two sessions. 2881 words for the week (sad I know) the manuscript sits at 106,040 and chapter 20 is almost done. The last third will be almost entirely action sequence so the writing should fly by.

Gaming

The first week where I had all three games in one week. I will admit to being a little tired. I don’t know why I’m tired, but I am.

My first game went well, the story progressed and we have a few lines of action to follow and I really enjoy that game. I feel like I haven’t lived up tot the full potential of my character yet, but it’s going well.

The second game continues to be zany, as it’s meant to be a lot more light hearted. My goblin warlock is still being thrust into missions from a weird organization. The first mission had us steal an artifact back from some vampirates. The second mission sent us to deal with Space Clowns. Luckily not in Clown Space (this is a thing in Spelljammer, no really), but on a back water Podunk fantasy world where the clowns have set up their bigtop. Half our party got kidnapped into the base and the other half went to the rescue.

And the third game went sideways. I’m not a huge fan of modules but anyone who has read these posts knows that I have become involved in two different Curse of Strahd games. A monthly game and one that is 2-weeks on, 2-off. Our characters sort of got out of Ravenloft, but in the worse way. We actually helped Strahd get married and he allowed us to leave the realm.

There is a lot more to that, but it would take a whole page of writing to go through all of the details. Suffice. It was not a wholly happy ending.

Running Games and Telling Stories.

I’m still thinking of coming out of semi-retirement as a Games Master. I ran Torg Eternity for a little over a year (then covid happened) and I’ve run a few Call of Cthulhu sessions. But I have not run D&D since 3.5 edition. That’s a very long time.

I am right now working on putting together a gazetteer and guide to my world. And I’ve debated running several of the stories in my novels (as I have already run the Shadow Elf invasion 2.5 times I probably wouldn’t run that again. But I could run exploration of the new world… or the Doom of Vaesra, the fall of the Holy Empire, and various other stories in different eras and parts of the world. The problem is I have given myself so much choice and I don’t know what players would want to play in. I also don’t really want to run online… but I could work around that.

I have so many ideas. These last three weeks have felt like a massive resurgence of gaming for me. And this setback last game and the morning after has been a downer. In anycase I will go on.

Actual Plays:

My “actual plays” continues at a breakneck pace, I’ve practically given up watching any regular TV at this point, especially as I can listen to a game or podcast and still write, draw, paint, etc.

I am 64 episodes into Mighty Nein and trying desperately to ignore all the talk about what’s happening in the current campaign as apparently a bunch of characters just crashed and died. Sigh.

In Dimension 20 I’m finishing up Fantasy High Sophmore year, and about to start the Unsleeping City Chapter 2. I really love Mulligan as a DM.

Glass Cannon is delivering with Traveller of the Jump, and their Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign, and I really want to start their Get in the Trunk (Impossible Landscapes, Delta Green) Campaign. I love that Glass Cannon includes character creation in the first episode.

On pause I have Black Dice Society, but they’re taking two weeks off so I should be able to power through the 4 or 5 episodes to catch up. Beyond Silver and Steel… I only started the first couple episodes. Beyond Heroes, I’m halfway through the Wildmont season, need to go back to that. Then I have a dozen podcasts I left off in. Three different Masks games, 2 different 2HS games… 1 Cold Fire Within game, 3 Shadowrun games… a lot.

Toku

On top of all that I went back to watching Toku.

Finished another season of Sentai and switched back to Kamen Rider. Currently working through Saber and already have Revice on deck.

And I restarted Garo back at episode one. Though I’m a little mad that the DVDs I have are apparently censored and edited. I have found that many of the episodes are on YouTube and various other places, but I spent good money on the DVDs and most of the online eps aren’t subtitled. It has been a pain in the ass.

Digressions

Have I digressed enough? Too Much.

Lot on my plate and still trying to deliver is what I’m getting at.

Will keep pushing for words and trying to get everything together.

Thank you for reading and have a wonderful day.