Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Watching, Playing, Reading #1

Everyone likes chatting about entertainment, right?

Watching:  Flash Season 3.  Yes, it's basically a soap opera, but it has superpowers!  Not enjoying this one as much as Season 2, Zoom and Earth Two being far better handled than Savitar and the Flashpoint seems to be (only halfway through).  Or maybe it's just that this is the first time I've binge watched on Netflix instead of using the DVR week to week.

Playing:  Hearts of Iron 4, Kaiserreich Mod.  Germany won WW1 and come 1936 the world is in even worse shape than what happened on Earth One.  Commies control France and the British Isles.  The royal family and nobility have fled to Canada.  The White Revolution was victorious in Russia and now sits on the edge of Imperialism.  Isolationist America is in political turmoil and readies itself for a second civil war!  Sound fun?  Yeah, its fun.  Might be better than the base game actually, or at least have more replayability.  One of the biggest faults of HoI 4 is that outside of Europe it's very stale and you really don't have enough manpower to get anything done.  Not so here.

Reading:  Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson, Stormlight Archives #2 Reread.  I enjoy Sanderson quite a lot, especially for his world-building inventiveness, maybe not as much as some of his hardcore fans (they scare me!), but I never miss a book of his for sure and have been reading them since Elantris first hit shelves back in 2005.  His BIG FETCHING(*Mormon approved curse words only) SERIES is the Stormlight Archives, a world with with highstorms, magic vapor swords, magic vapor iron-man armor, all sorts of other magic-by--talking-fairies thrown on top, and lots of crabs, giant enemy crabs!  His third book is coming out in November, with a smaller ancillary novel arriving early October, so I decided to do a reread on the last book, since it's been awhile and if you think you forget a lot of stuff between releases, try writing a few of your own novels between them and see how the ol' noggin keeps up.

And yes, I'm writing :-P

So...your turn now, what are you punks ingesting for your entertainment needs?

Tuesday, June 6, 2017

June Quick Notes

1.  It's...sort of hot.  Actually having a shockingly mild summer at the moment in Fresno, with only a couple days near 100 so far.

2.  Last month I did get the time to start in on Gush, began making some progress and I REALLY like what I've got so far, but sadly my momentum got killed by a sudden case of food poisoning that destroyed me for about a five day period.  Still, I'm hopeful to get back to it in the last half of this month.

3.  Right now I'm jumping between four different POV lines.  Gush, Novella 1, and Novella 2A/2B.  So while no one work seems like it's moving along, I am starting to make progress bit by bit.

4.  The first novella is very plot based and while it has two POVs they're in the same location more or less, T-Bone and Eva both taking part in the assault on Paine's hideout.  Been struggling with this one a little bit, but I've fixed the problems that rose up and I'm happy with the altered direction I'm taking.  Mostly it comes from me being an author that prefers either difficult conversations between diverse characters or build up to huge moments of conflict and with Assault on Dread Fortress Paine, it's a very typical action take, I guess you could say.  Something you'd expect at least, with lots of faceless enemies that I usually resist.  So basically I have to keep telling myself "Bad Raley!' every time I try to backstory for every rando.

5.  The second novella however is almost totally character based.  I mentioned that I was unsure about the POVs and kicked around a few of them, but settled on King Henry's 3rd person POV and Vicky Welf.  Still going back and forth on the title but it takes place two weeks after FM6, where both  of our characters visit home for the first time in a long while.  If you like slice of life and world-building this is a novella for you.  Still...might be a few important moments where something plot based happens...

6.  Still waiting on my covers to come through in August/September before I release anything else.  Probably be putting out the King Henry Book Pack with FM1-FM3 then, plus looking to do the print-on demand versions as well.  Not sure when I'll finish the novellas yet.

7.  Might have to go to Idaho for the Fourth of July.  Had an aunt move up there a couple years ago and my grandparents are pretty determined to visit, only they really can't travel alone any more, so might have to help out.

8.  E3 starts this weekend!  Can Sony possibly top last year?  One Winged Angel with live orchestra to start the show with a hypexplosion plz?