Vicky Welf Novel Mini Tease #1

*work in progress, subject to change, copyrighted by me Richard Raley, please don't copy and paste, etc*

“This is why I loathe bringing him up.” Brother ruefully shook his head. “He’s many things, but more than anything else King Henry Price is the mess that’s impossible to ignore, impervious to cleaning, and you will smell him until the end of your days…or until you incinerate those riding boots.”

Vicky snickered. “Quite the artful way to call someone a piece of shit.”

“Victoria!” Mother scolded.

“He did it!”

Not-So-Live Snarky Blog Reaction to Watching WW1984

 Spoilers Dipshits!

1.  Why am I doing this?  I think it's the only way I'm going to make it through the movie.  This really does show how much higher the bar is for a product when you haven't made the audience pay 60 something dollars for two tickets, a bucket of popcorn, two slurpees, and a commemorative Wonder Woman Covid Mask.

Like...two buttons on my remote and I'm switched over to Netflix or YouTube no problem.  Also in the middle of NI NO KUNI on my PS4 (which is a wonderful fairytale story btw), Reddit lurks, and my Kindle is sitting across the room on a bookshelf.  I think...or it's run away because I don't spend enough time with it any more...you only read one book a month!  And it's usually non-fiction!  And you edit on me, you know how that makes me feel?!?!

Let's not pretend it's not possible to reach that bar though, as my recent religious miracle experience on viewing the finale of Season 2 of the Mandalorian proves, grown man weeping tears of joy in a dark room all by his lonesome.

It's very possible!

2.   But not here!  I paused 27 minutes into the movie to start doing this, since...holy fuckballs what happened?

3.  The Mall scene is so bad I can't believe it wasn't that bad on purpose.  What zany antics!  Wowzers!  Even the old 60s Batman show would be embarrassed by that level of camp.  Commando-version Arnold thinks you've gone too far, okay?  SURF NINJAS was more realistic!  Kwan-stu, dudes!

4.  Do you see these pictures, asshole!?!?  Look at those pictures from the first movie!  You loved the first movie!  It might be relevant...linger...linger...slow pan...linger...

Real Talk:  This is 60 years later.  A healthy person would have moved on by now.  Also how fucking sad.  You're telling me she just stayed single and miserable for 60 years?

5.  Someone saw the GHOSTBUSTERS remake and said:  let's have Kristen Wiig do that again!  It worked so well the last time! 

6.  So we have two female characters in a scene written and directed by a woman and 99% of the conversation is about men and being in love.  Also, is it weird that I noticed how horrible Gal Gadot's makeup is in this scene?  Or maybe she just has really prominent dark spots under her eyes.  Or she's a drunk...  Imagine!  4K, the cruelest mistress!

7.  I'll just leave that overly aggressive cartoonish rapist on the floor, I'm sure he won't be a danger to anyone ever again!  I mean, he probably has brain damage from the way I punted him twenty feet so...ignore the blood leaking out of his ears!

8.  All you have to do to be sexy is wear leggings instead of skirts, got it!

9.  I can't tell if Lord's supposed to look like an 80s Trump or an older Steve Harrington from STRANGER THINGS...if he pulls out a spiked baseball bat it can only improve this movie, so more adult Steve!

10.  Okay, what are the giant plastic tubes about?

11.  Lord:  I'm giving you a bunch of money for science!  Wonder Woman:  Fuck you!

12.  IRS, the true villain!

13.  Golden crocodile head is cool, props people.  It's the best part of this overly long scene...

14.  Wiig:  Look at these sexy feet!  Gadot:  LEGS!  Wiig:  Oh fuck you!  Gadot:  Although I am 50/50 on whether my va-jay-jay was on the screen for a few frames there...

15.  The lengths he's going to to get this wishing rock is so over the top...just have him ask for it or swipe it!

16.  Hey, remember the first movie, you liked the first movie!  Here's lines from the first movie!  We're really sorry we killed this guy!

17.  LEGS!!!

18.  So we're getting that complicated just so Lord can get the rock, but why a dead man came back and is haunting some poor guy is just WHOOSH?  But we're also spending quite a lot of time explaining the dynamics of the situation?  I mean if you're going to just bring a character back to life like this then forget all the hoops and just do it...

19.  You're a genie, Maxwell!

20.  I'd judge her for taking so long to get to the stone, but we've already established that Dianna hasn't had sex in 60 years...so...priorities!

21.  Wiig:  Ha!  Even more legs and my va-jay-jay is 100% showing!

22.  Real Villain IRS strikes again!

23.  Nostalgia!  It's all we got, please help us!

24.  Okay, I gave sexy time a pass, but we're 20 minutes later and we're doing museum tours now...

25.  Weird Tubes!

26.  Oh fuck me, they depowered her.  I mean, I very much get that we're doing the whole wish must be countered with equal bad shit by this point, but you went with depowering?  Not the fact that she'd have to rape some poor random dude to have the sexy time?  That wasn't enough?  I'm guessing some producer was like:  Cheetah could never beat Wonder Woman in a fight, no one will buy that, so we better do something!

And what they came up with was depowering Wonder Woman.  Instead of, ya know...picking a cooler and tougher villain...instead of a CGI monstrosity that I'm sure will eventually show up on my screen one day....once we get through about 30 more minutes of 80s references and more legs.  And feet...

27.  This entire villain is built up like that Star Trek episode where Georgi--

28.  Sherburt's ability to appear out of nowhere totally soaked from head to toe is almost a superpower at this point...he has good purrs though, so we forgive him. 

29.  --asked the holodeck to make an enemy that could defeat Data .  I want to be as cool as Dianna!  Oh, you mean Wonder Woman!  And now you're a fucking cat, bitch!  Also, how hasn't she been:  hey, Dianna, I can like...lift cars now, is that weird?

30.  Never feed your cats Temptations, it's a massive mistake.

31.  Wait...they just have working and fueled jets sitting at a Smithsonian building?  And a fucking runway?!?!  With security all labeled up with Smithsonian sigils?  What is this fucking movie?

32.  Execs:  Hey, we need the invisible jet, people like the invisible jet!  People:  um...it's like...not really important.  Execs:  No, no, give them the invisible jet!

33.  Oh yeah, it's the Fourth of July btw.  Look at how pretty!  (it is pretty)

34.  Hey, drunk rapist guy is back!  He's getting his ass kicked again.  Fuck rapists!  Except Wonder Woman for what she did to the guy Steve is possessing...cuz she's pretty so it's okay, right?

35.  Lord:  Oh look, that archeology lady that was mean to me followed us all the way to Egypt...fucking kill her!  Also, why are we in Egypt?  We know Patty Jenkins is trying to do a Cleopatra remake and I feel like maybe she's got some Egyptian fetish...

36.  WW's acting like she's not bulletproof before she realized she wasn't bulletproof btw.  Also is this really only the second action scene and we're 80 minute in?  Remember in the first movie how we had a badass dog fight scene and the beach scene and the No Man's Land scene by now?  Wait...is Steve kicking a tank turret?  Useless love interests are just the worst...

37.  I don't know if the CGI or the kids playing soccer on a highway when they're in the middle of giant flat desert is worse...

38.  Save the bananas!

39.  Egypt to Washington by morning...I see they have Game of Thrones teleport powers...

40.  Ancient Mayan, no problem, let me read that!  Right next to Greece, no problem!

41.  Steve's gonna have to sacrifice himself again so that Dianna can get her powers back to full.  Execs:  they liked the first movie, let's repeat the first movie!

42.  Look a kid, he's not completely evil!  But he's letting his kid doom himself through wishing...so he is a dick...

43.  Steve:  OMG she never got over me in 60 years.  Crazy/Hotness scale tilting in the wrong direction!

44.  Random lasso exposition powers activate.

45.  Oh yeah, that silver dinner tray really did a good job blocking bullets, Steve.  And yeah, we really had to worry about Steve killing a bunch of secret service agents using guns with a fucking sword, Dianna.

46.  I knew you for 5 seconds, Barbara, and this isn't you!

47.  Two hours and there's still thirty minutes left...

48.  Artist-Formerly-Known-As-Steve:  What the fuck is going on?  And who's been using my dick?

49.  They keep doing that green screen close up of her using her powers and it looks horrible.  Not as horrible as this flying CGI...

50.  Cheetah already had a wish!  Listen movie, I was starting to think maybe I was being too mean, even if this is all in good fun, but you can't go on and on about your rules and then just say fuck 'em when you feel like it.

51.  Wiig:  Wait until you see my CGI monstrosity legs and va-jay-jay!

52.  7 billion people on the planet, no one wished for Lord to shut up or drop dead.

53.  Execs:  have her ride lightning, that would be cool!

54.  Execs:  make sure she uses the armor, we made toys with that armor!  I mean, she has her powers back so there's no reason for the armor and unlike Cheetah, she's been trained in combat since she was old enough to walk, maybe even some jiujitsu before that...but we have to have the armor!

55.  My CGI and beat your CGI.

56.  Don't worry, instead of you having to actually do anything, we'll just film a close up on your face over and over as you get hit by something we can't see.

57.  Human tetherball fight or a Pink music video?

58.  Limp rope...happens to all of us.

59.  Ah, this all happened because white people made fun of his tamale, of course!

60.  Lord:  Fuck off helicopter guy!  Pilot:  But I brought you right to your son...somehow.  Lord: I don't need you!  I was actually in GAME OF THRONES so my teleport powers are even stronger than anyone else!

61.  Exec #1:  This movie needs more kid!  Exec #2:  Jeremy...you've had too much cocaine.

62.  Exec:  We're releasing the movie in Christmas now, so of course we need a Christmas scene reshoot!  Don't worry, only two or three of the crew will die from COVID.

63.  Hey, it's the guy I raped!  FYI...  Also, nice clothes.

--FIN--

Dinner Party From Hell Conquered

Chapter List for Vicky Book

One Does Not Just Drive to Welf Manor <---finished

A Boy is In My Room, Squee!!!  <----finished

Constructs:  The Next Generation <---finished

Hands Up!  Fashion Police! <---finished

Consanguinity, What's the Worst that Could Happen? <---finished

Winter Lovin' <---we are here

The Battle for Tyson Bonnie

A New Challenger Appears!

Maximus Wrangling

Eureka, By Victoria Von Welf

Over the hump?  Feels like it.  Pretty happy with how it all turned out as well.  Mama Welf has a great monologue in addition to a bunch of other little moments.  Vicky has her own major epiphany, Tyson holds his own in political warfare, and one of the new characters introduced is pretty much Emily from THE BETROTHAL but with superpowers...so...that's terrifying.

I am considering moving some of the exposition back to an early chapter and turning it into a conversation since there's like a three thousand word info dump and that's after I cut some of it and rearranged it so it wasn't all smushed together.  I favor a TELL AND SHOW approach with King Henry because he's so off the wall, but other characters don't get to break the rules of writing like he does.  Or like...every rule that's ever ruled...

Side note:  Smushed is a word, Google, get your shit together!

The chapter I'm working on now is mostly just a reset chapter before we go into the big event that is the main reason I decided to write this Vicky novel.  I'm not sure how many pages that main event is, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be at least 50% of the whole novel, if not more.  There's a TON of characters and happenings and...oh, good stuff, good stuff!

I am taking off the rest of the year for the holidays, but this is progress.  Still can be better, but I'm feeling like my old self and health wise I don't think I've felt this well in at least a decade.

Mom really needs the support and happy thoughts right now with everything that happened, especially since my aunts are stranded on the other side of the country cuz the Rona.

And is happening...we got kind of smacked in the face again a couple days ago.  My father went in for his yearly check up and apparently his heart is in AFib.  He's got really bad lungs already from working in a cold box warehouse his whole life, so we just figured his latest bout of fatigue and windedness was the usual winter mix, but...nope.

Obviously a very NOT GOOD situation.  For one, it increases his risk of stroke and heart failure massively just on its own.  They already stuffed him full of blood thinners and got him into a specialist the very next day...such rapidity itself being alarming.  And after years of hauling my grandfather to and from appointments and surgeries, my poor mother has to take my father in next week for an echocardiogram and a cardioversion to try to reset his heartrate.

It's not even the "he could die" part that's troubling me, it's just the idea of more doctors after everything we've already gone through...I've only had two months of normal, if you can have anything normal in 2020.  Fuck me, again?!?!

So I'm taking a week off.  Watching some movies, watching some sports, playing some football manager.

I'll dive into the Welf Winter Gala in 2021.  And *fingers crossed* get back to King Henry terrorizing Singles this year too!

Love to all of you, stay safe, and have a happy new year!

Watching, Playing, Reading: Fall Edition + Update

Update:  I am writing.  Despite the election distracting me at the start of the month and a few "Stomach Days" here or there, I'm at about 10k output for the month.  Which isn't good, pre-2019 hell-life I would have been very disappointed in a month that only had 10k output, but it's a vast improvement on the miserable almost-suicidal numbers I've been producing for the last couple years.  Vast improvement!  There is hope!  20k December here we come?!?!  30k in our wildest dreams?  Please?  Please?

I am however still stuck in the Dinner Party That Will Not End.  The "novella" is no longer a "novella" or even a "tiny book" it's very much a decent sized baby boy.  Right now I'm introducing some new characters you've yet to meet that will add to the world's depth quite a lot, especially the Welf family tree.  Also as annoyed as I might be with the Dinner Party That Will Not End, Mama Welf has a pretty amazing origin story monologue .  I was super pumped when I wrote it, especially the way all the pieces of her past clicked together.  Moira von Welf isn't a fun character and I never expect her to be a fan favorite, but she makes every scene she's in better and that's a great feeling.

Also since I'm taking the time to flesh out some of the characters in this book, I'll have a much better feel for them once I get back to War to End All Wars.  If you look at FM6 and how it really expanded the world as a whole and the Mancy and the Divines, these two books I'm working on now and the couple "tiny books" that came before are doing the same for mancer society and the next generation.  While of course closing up the school story in style and moving us into our mad dash towards CHAOS CRAZY WORLD with the back half of the main series.

Chapter List for Vicky Book

One Does Not Just Drive to Welf Manor <---finished

A Boy is In My Room, Squee!!!  <----finished

Constructs:  The Next Generation <---finished

Hands Up!  Fashion Police! <---new chapter split due to size, finished

Consanguinity, What's the Worst that Could Happen? <---we are here

Winter Lovin' <---some of this is also written

The Battle for Tyson Bonnie

A New Challenger Appears!

Maximus Wrangling

Eureka, By Victoria Von Welf

==WATCHING==

QUEEN'S GAMBIT:  Watch this if you haven't already!  Very good, can't recommend it enough.  Girl orphan genius drug-addict becomes chess prodigy.  First half is better than the second half, but at 7 episodes it's a bingeable watch and it's a complete story, which is excellent.  Anya Taylor-Joy is going to be a very big deal in the years to come, no doubt about it.

TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7:  I'm a massive Aaron Sorkin fan, so...movie of the year?  Sure.  Especially since there's only been like a dozen movies out this year.  Regardless of that, this was the first movie this year where I watched it and went, "wow, that was good".  Followed by, "wow, I forgot what that felt like."  Cuz...the Sonic and Bad Boys 4 Life void has been pretty rough, hasn't it?

Great writing, great storytelling, improving directing.  Like I said, MASSIVE Sorkin fan.  Probably part of why I write so much fucking dialogue.  SOCIAL NETWORK, top 5 movie for the decade for me.  STEVE JOBS...the structure work in that movie and the idea to fit an entire life into 3 days, I geek out so hard when I watch it.  Plus the fact that I read the Issacson book its based on, 600 pages-ish? and reading that book I still could not tell you who Steve Jobs was.  Watching the movie?  You get exactly who he is, even if there's factual manipulation, it just boils him down to his essence.  SO GOOD.

RICK AND MORTY SEASON 4:  More Rick and Morty is great.  Also a huge fan of Dan Harmon.  Episode 6 is obviously the highlight, but...sometimes just laughing at dragon-sluts jokes is enough too!

CROWN SEASON 4:  So...I hated Crown Season 3.  For one...it was a boring time period.  Also, sorry to the new cast, but the first cast was miles better.  Some of that is also the writing.  In the first couple seasons Queen Elizabeth is viewed as the protagonist of the story and now she's very much the antagonist to Charles and Dianna, so much so that it's the queen who is viewed as the biggest problem with forcing that relationship over the two people in the marriage, who granted don't come across too great either.  This season is an improvement over Season 3, since more interesting stuff is happening, but...still not as captivating as the first two.  Dianna was also weirdly portrayed as stuck as the same person for an entire decade.  I was only a kid, but I was around for late 80s Dianna, and she was massive in a way that's almost unthinkable today and she very much had agency in making herself into that superstar, where in the Crown she's stuck as that early 80s childish, naive Dianna.  Charles is such a insufferable jackass...like, the character makes Heinrich Welf seem oppressed and bearable.  That's pretty impressive!

PREMIER LEAGUE:  So, not everyone is as shitty as they were a couple months ago and yes, Liverpool has injuries, so who knows if they have what it takes to keep pace, but...they could.  Even with all the injuries they arguably had 5 players better than the best (Vardy) that Leicester fielded and Liverpool dominated.  But mostly, as the AMERICAN MEGA NEUTRAL...I believe in the Mourinho-sance, baby!  A storyline where both Man Utd AND Chelsea fans will have collective aneurysms?  Yes, please!

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE (RANT INCOMING):  Not watching it because fuck me is the CBS ALL ACCESS app total garbage!  I had it months ago to try to give the new Star Trek stuff a fair watch (Nope!) and I ordered it through Amazon Prime, but there's a way to link them so you can use the CBS app too.  Only when I re-subscribed for this soccer-ball go around the geniuses over there never seemed to bother considering the possibility that someone might do that and it's totally and completely fucked.  Nothing works at all.  I'm logged in, but I'm locked out.  And to make matters worse, you can't live steam CBS sports programs through Prime, you only get the replays and consider yourself lucky if those things go up only a day late.  IIRC, I was waiting on the Man Utd-PSG game for three fucking days, that's how bad it was.  And for my enlightened european readers, yeah, that's the only way you can see the games in the States.  On a fucking steaming service.  I mean sure, I pay for the sports package in my cable subscription, but why let them see them there when we can be massive greedy assholes?  We love being massive greedy assholes!

==PLAYING==

INDIVISIBLE:  So this is a great Indie game, very recommended.  It's a hand-drawn puzzle platformer minor Metroidvania with Paper Mario combat.  It's very beautiful at times.  Each new character is fun to see in action.  As far as the action goes, its much faster pace than Paper Mario and there are four controllable characters, each controlled with a specific button and the D-pad in combination.  I dug it.  The puzzle platformer stuff was less fun.  Not my jam.  And by the end you have so many different inputs you're using it's pretty chaotic.

The story is "girl and her friends save the world".  Also, like many stories with female leads, our main character is her biggest obstacle and causes all of her own misfortune...the side characters and the voice acting are the highlight in that area.  Got more than a few smiles out of me.

Best girl:  Razmi!

POKEMON SWORD:  How do people play these games every time they release another one?  Even with it being on console, even with the new Wild Area stuff, how is it still the same fucking game?  Beat for fucking beat!  I haven't played one since Black/White and still I was bored out of my mind within 5 hours.  I only bothered to finish it because I've never actually bothered to finish a Pokemon game before.  The new clothes in every city was actually the only highlight...how depressing is that?  Plus since I'd just played INDIVISIBLE the combat was even worse than it usually is, me sitting there wanting to Paper Mario the moves up.

There's no voice acting...it's 2020.  It came out last year.  It's one of the biggest franchises of all time.  It doesn't even have fucking voice acting.  I'm an adult staring at a scene and reading text in 2020.  And it's bland, lifeless, characterless text too!  If you have a 9-year-old and you want to give them baby's-first-rpg, fine, go for it, but never again for this old cranky bastard!

And there could be a killer game there too...party based Pokemon RPG to save the world, updated with characters and dialogue trees and choices to make, with a true open world?  Just money sitting on the table, Nintendo...

Best Boy:  Falinks!

HADES:  SUPERGIANT DOES IT AGAIN!  GAME OF THE YEAR!  Final Fantasy VII Remake came out this year.  Ghost of Tsushima came out this year, but Ghost of Tsushima, while top class and fuck me did I love 90% of that game, was not a perfect game.  It had flaws.  HADES is 99% perfect.  The only complaint I have is that some of the later unlocks takes so long to come about and maybe having to beat the game 10 times to get the full story is a little excessive, but I still enjoyed every run I made.

So this is the Hades/Persephone story from ancient greek mythology where you play as Zagreus, Hades' son, who is trying to repeatedly break out of the underworld and find mama.  Gameplay wise it is a roguelike ARPG.  Each 'run' takes about half an hour and you face a mix of enemies and receive various rewards and buffs along the way in the forms of Olympic Boons from your immortal cousins and uncles.  It's officially the best ARPG i've ever played.  It tops Diablo 2:  Lords of Destruction.  High praise, right?

Also the best game I've played since God of War in 2018.  In the top 5 for this generation with Witcher 3 and Horizon: Zero Dawn and Person 5.  It's so good.  Story, gameplay, roguelike elements, the randomness, the art, the music, it all meshes together, it's all top notch.

Just blown away!

Each run ends in inevitable death, but each run I got better.  My character leveled and got new weapons and new gods and allies showed themselves to help me, but I just plain got better at fighting through the waves of enemies.  All until the point where I finally kicked daddy's ass and got to send him back to the queue at the front of Underworld and it felt amazing to do so!  Also, every time you think you've seen everything, more stuff unlocks.  Another god appears.  You realize that you can get DUO boons that mix two gods powers.  Wait...is there an alternate leveling build?  When did that unlock!  A weapon gets an alternate style to use.  You finally see a Daedalus hammer upgrade that just randomly never came up before. 

My highest praise is to say this:  once I completed the story I started over from scratch to see how fast I could beat it without faffing about trying every new boon or weapon that came along.

I haven't done that with a game since Mass Effect 2.  That's the level we're talking here.  Maybe ARPGs aren't your think, they're not my thing either.  I played Torchlight 2.  I played through Diablo 3 once.  Not my thing.  But this worked for me so much!

Cannot recommend it enough.

Best boy:  Cerberus!

Best girl:  Dusa!

LUIGI'S MANSION 3:  Fuck this game.  Fuck everyone who gave it a good rating.  Fuck whoever decided to finally put it on sale and made me buy it.  Luigi handles like a three-wheeled oldsmobile and, frankly, that comparison is insulting to three-wheeled oldsmobiles.  If this game wasn't Nintendo or Mario related it would have been reamed by reviewers.  Yes, it has some charm and yes, it's cute, but...oh my god the controls!  And the fact you only have 6 different possible actions to take in any situation but there's only one puzzle answer combination so you have to do EXACTLY what the developers want you to do all the time and the boss battles only give you a total of 3 seconds to figure out what actions they want you to take.  It manages to be both mind-numbingly simple AND tendinous.  That's a gruesome mix!

And why does the ghost scientist sound like a randy ewok?  Why, Nintendo?  Why you got to put that image in my head?

DAYS GONE:  Only just started and I'm already tired of the zombies.  I hate zombies so much.  If this game was just post-apoc "Sons of Anarchy" I'd enjoy it so much more.  Even though motorcycles suck to control in videogames...always, without fail.  Motocycles and jetskiis.  Don't ever do them!  Unless you're Wave Race 64, cuz that was the shit.

==READING==

BATTLE GROUND:  I really shouldn't type this...you have rules to not comment on other writers for a reason, Richard...

Okay, so...I loved the previous half book (fuck you, greedy ass publishes just as bad as greedy ass CBS) because it was about conversations and characters and the few fights we saw were all based around how the characters were in conflict with each other.  This half...is what I feared it would be.  Big, loud, generic fights that...bleh.  There's some small bits with Mab that are good, but for the most part...am I old or something?  Is that what's happened?

There are fight scenes I enjoy and have enjoyed.  The Mountain vs Red Viper in ASOS is top class and what I'm always looking for in a fight scene.  Two characters perfectly capable of winning, back and forth, massively high stakes for characters we relate to AND huge political implications as well.  There's also the "power up" battle moments that still get me pumped up.  Dumai Wells in Wheel of Time, still a great example.  Kaladin at the end of The Way of Kings, a dozen battles over the course of Malazan, etc. 

But these grinding chapter after chapter action scenes just bore the shit out of me these days.  It's also not like Harry Dresden has this amazing and complex fight style where he's pulling off all these interesting counters and imaginative uses of magic.  He has three moves.  One of them is to hit things with a stick really hard.

1.  Set it on fire or freeze it!

2.  Is it still alive?  HIT IT WITH A STICK!

3.  ???

4.  Profit!

And that's probably what 3/4ths of what Battle Ground is.  It also doesn't help that outside of those grinding action chapters, which also I would not be surprised if they were increased in size and number to justify the book split, but original point of this disaster of a sentence:  I thought the choices Butcher made outside of those scenes were...not so hot.

One, he kills a character and just kind of discards and then replaces them by the end of the novel in a way that's just...very rough.  Even icky.  Granted the character in question did not fit the power levels the story is at now, but...that was cold, bro!  Colder than Mab's evil, darkness-spewing sexy killer fairy va-jay-jay!  And then the way the replacement comes in at the very end and who that replacement is...that's sketchy.  Granted it's got a lot to resolve in the next novel, so there's a chance, but...them threads are already frayed, lot of work left to tie it all together.

Two, another underpowered character gets a sudden surprising power increase in a way that...was also very raw.  Needed, probably, since Harry could use some more rivals that actually have a connection to him and aren't some random super god that's never been mentioned before.  But also...oh, okay, so they're now a badass demon wizard...totally in character, mind you!  And needed!  But, where was the build up?  Even Butters becoming the Jewish Jedi had build up.

But mostly...just too much fighting.  The days of Drizzt killing a hundred orcs making me jazzed are long over.  And caveat on all this:  I am not a perfect writer pretending I don't have mistakes or moments that I didn't quite earn in my own works and that's usually why I politely keep my mouth shut as to not be a complete hypocrite.  My fight scenes are not the best part of my own work either, fucking guilty!  Also I know I'm basically in the middle of splitting FM7 into multiple books, so...yes, I know.  I also know my books are getting larger and larger and who the fuck do I think I am?  I'm both working on it and failing miserable at it at the same time, cuz I AM A HYPOCRIT.  This is why you should shut up, Richard!

To recap:  RR is an old man now who doesn't like hundreds of pages where people hit things with sticks and he really wishes he could have read the one book version of this story.  A whole book built around peace talks between dozens of supernatural factions with barely any fighting sounds like a wonderful time to him! 

THE PATH BETWEEN THE SEAS:  One of the must read novels about the Panama Canal's construction.  As I've said before, when I start getting into a writing frame of mind, reading fiction can get hard for me, so this has been my jam for the last month.

RHYTHMS OF WAR BY BRANDON SANDERSON:  It's on my kindle...so...that's the thing.  I think I need to reread OATHKEEPER.  All I remember about it is that it wasn't as good as the second book, which wasn't as good as the first book.  I hope this one is great.  I've been reading Sanderson since Elantris came out 15 years ago and at this point I've very much noticed the trend that his first book in a series is always the best its going to be.  Then things...decline.  And decline.  And decline.  Usually he writes trilogies, so you're always getting that new first book or short story with the amazing world-building that makes you shake your head in envy, but with Stormlight being a 10 book series...well, it's going to be a new challenge for him.

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Given the length of this, I think it's fair to say:  see ya all next year!  Send me good vibes to keep the writing flowing!  Don't get the Rona over the holidays, you dingus!

Quick Notes Number ???? Edittion

1.  Family has come down with something, no idea what.  Seems like it's just a cold, so...here's hoping.  But got a fever and a headache so...boo!

2.  Health has been up and down, still trying to work when its up.  Just general stomach bull-crap that I'm still dealing with for the most part.  Tried a few brussels sprouts and...results were not awesome.  Also there were a few days after I got a flu shot where I had a pretty serious ache/chill combo going that wasn't too fun.

3.  Writing wise, I've been stuck in Welf Dinner Party Hell for a couple weeks now.  I thought, 'oh I'll have a small dinner party scene here to bulk out the story and connect the first day to the second day and yada yada no big deal'.  It just...turned into a monster.  Which after ten years of doing this I've found is often the case with 'no big deal' scenes.

*WHAT FOLLOWS ISN'T SPOILERS BUT IS WRITER SAUSAGE MAKING YOU MIGHT NOT WANT TO KNOW*

4.  First I had the brilliant idea to play with two timelines and flashback to the dinner party while Vicky is waking up for the morning, since hey if I did that then I could focus even less on the dinner party, but...it just kind of stole all the thunder from both scenes and I wasn't happy.

5.  So I had to break one chapter into two chapters, separate the flashbacks and rewrite/flesh them out.  Haven't even gotten back to the morning scene, since I decided if I was going to do this fucking dinner party then I was gonna fucking do this dinner party right.  Although I will say that Vicky Welf waking up for the day is VERY MUCH not how I wake up for the day.  It's hilariously positive.  I spent about a page on how wonderful blankets and pillows are.  So over the top...

6.  Then I had to pause and figure how who three guests attending this party are going to be, two were obvious (interesting side note:  these two characters are characters I originally came up with for School to End All War but now they're kind of skipping their own introduction, which is kind of weird, but that's me!) but the third has a specific purpose and it needed some decent ruminating.  Then once I decided on a character, it's a character that occasionally has been mentioned before but not fleshed out by any means, so I had to search through all the old books every time I mentioned them.  Little facts you just randomly throw out can really add up over a few books.

7.  Basically a lot of the problems with this novel so far is with Mama Welf.  I have to keep asking myself, "Okay, how is Mama Welf going to fuck with people?  What's her angle?"  And usually she's got about five angles.  One of which is just that she's the badass and you better recognize!  The other problem is Vicky.  Vicky is...well, I find I'll sometimes write a bit with her and then go...yeah, Vicky Welf wouldn't have doubts like that.  And I'll have to do a quick edit.  Yes, she can get riled up or vexed, but she just doesn't have the doubts most people have.  So...it's a new experience to be inside of that POV instead of another character commenting upon it.

8.  Next up was:  how does Mama Welf FINALLY start in her conversation with Tyson she's been waiting to have for months now and he finally can't dodge her?  And how does it all play out?  Well, this is Vicky's novel so all this was from her POV (see above) and...she's obviously interested in the outcome, but she's also a step removed from the action so that just didn't work.  So we now have a Tyson POV scene for this bit, might have one more later in the book too.

9.  In a way, it's kind of like giving up a no-hitter by sacrificing the whole "this is Vicky's book and hers alone" aspect, but...I think this works better.  Also, a little bit of Tyson is the perfect amount of Tyson while this still being very much Vicky's book.  And Imaginary King Henry 9000 can make an appearance, which is always fun.

10.  Now I'm sick and I have to wait a few days to get back at it :(

11.  And none of my clothes fit :(

12.  Vicky von Welf and the Mancy Masquerade Chapter List (work in progress):

One Does Not Just Drive to Welf Manor

A Boy is In My Room, Squee!!!

Constructs:  The Next Generation

Consanguinity, What's the Worst that Could Happen? <---we are here

Winter Lovin' <---some of this is also written

The Battle for Tyson Bonnie

A New Challenger Appears!

Maximus Wrangling

Eureka, By Victoria Von Welf

13.  Stay safe everyone!  Plague is gonna spread like wild this winter, be extra careful!  And as always, thank you for the kind emails of support as I recover from surgery!

VWatMM Mini Tease:  Moira von Welf put down her spoon like it was a weapon she might have to pick back up.  She completely ignored his niceties and finally struck.  "So, Mr. Bonnie, tell me about your parents."

Watching, Playing, Reading: Combined Update Edition

Finally feeling a bit better post endoscopy, plus just general post surgery stuff.  Still handling the new stomach and everything connected to that stomach having the occasional trouble.  They tell you to eat lots of protein but they never mention that means you'll be shooting bullets out your poor backend.

It's also quite a lot of work staying hydrated, taking all the pills and just balancing what's going down my throat.  I think it's probably four to five hours of regimented eating+drinking+medicating before I can even 'start' my day.  And some days the stomach just nopes out on me getting any work done just because.  You will watch youtube videos, play football manager, and feel horrible nauseous and you will like it, Raley!

Drinking a cup of coffee a day again, that's been nice.  And I'm working on managing 1/3 cup of food per meal now.  One great piece of news is that thanks to the endoscopy biopsy it's confirmed my esophagitis is in remission and all those white blood cells causing the trouble have gone away, so...yay!  Still no diary ever again probably but...well, guess I'm gonna have to try me some vegan cheese soon.

We struggle on!

==WATCHING==

GOOD PLACE REWATCH INTO SEASON 4:  Just starting this, but I love this show so much.  It's just brilliant and so enjoyable and it makes the heart feel light and the brain get all tingly.  Yet...terrifying, so terrifying.  Not in a horror movie way, but I swear I have an existential  crisis every time I watch a new season.  Plus I've had a crush on Kristin Bell since VERONICA MARS, and she's quite good in this.  Which if you dig the school side of my books you should very much watch VERONICA MARS...like...now.  Go do that.

CHARIOTS OF FIRE:  How I think it's going to go:  hey let's watch some old Oscar winners we've never seen!  That'll be fun!  How it actually goes:  How did this movie win an Oscar!?!?!?!  So blah!  So boring!  You picked it over RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, what is wrong with you people!!!

YELLOWSTONE SEASON 2:  Pretty much every thing I said about season 1 but double.  Still with the mega super whiplash on what direction they're going in with the plot and the characters.  End of season 1:  Kevin Costner has cancer!  Start of season 2:  ummm...horrible idea, sorry we said that, I mean...just a ulcer, right guys?  He's totally okay!  We'd never kill the reason you're watching, what you think we are?  Stupid!  Season 1:  Jaime is this bad ass lawyer that fixes problems and keeps his simpler brothers from causing too much trouble and he's tired of his dad's shit so he's going to run for attorney general and burn it all down.  Season 2:  total pussy, total cuck, just...so unmanly and not cowboy, cuz cowboys are the coolest and lawyers are wimps!  Goes whining back to his daddy to fix his problems and is a total fuck up!

But the Beth character is fun...so there's that...

AMONG US YOUTUBE VIDEOS:  They're like mini contained episodes of SURVIVOR and I can't turn away...

PREMIER LEAGUE:  It's early yet and I've only been watching seriously for about four years now and I'm a horrible AMERICAN MEGA NEUTRAL but everyone is kind of shit except for Liverpool again, aren't they?

==PLAYING==

CRUSADER KINGS 3:  This is mostly what I've been doing the last week.  I loved CRUSADER KINGS 2.  Had so many great moments.  My first run with that game where I had no idea what I was doing and the six way war for the crown that broke out after my version of Willian the Conquer died will always be one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had.  Having the Byzantium throne stolen from me as a child heir literally a year into the game after one of the worst RNG battle deaths I've ever seen and then refusing to restart, bidding my time as duke and then king of Bulgaria, having even worse luck as one of the most OP female characters I've ever seen died without a child just before I was about to retake the throne only for her less able twin sister to rise to the occasion and be crowned empress and be titled the Usurper, founding a dynasty that would go on the reform the roman empire and codify the unorthodox faith as the only one and true christian faith!  So good!  Plus the ASOIAF mod.  Plus the After the End mod.

So...3 is still rough.  Some crashing.  Bugs.  They've stripped societies and artifacts out of the game, which were some of the best parts of the previous.  I'm sure we'll see them added as DLC over the next year.  Also sure that we'll see some areas of the game get some loving and generally just more events and choices, since given how many people I've killed with poison spiders so far, I'm shocked the people of France haven't burnt down the forests yet.  So, it's very base.

But its a very pretty base.  And fun.  And it's got a lot going for it and I'm sure I'll spend probably a thousand hours playing it over the next five or so years.  Got to give another go at reforming Rome after all!

==READING==

BATTLEGROUNDS BY JIMMY BOY BUTCHER:  Literally just downloaded it on the kindle so not a whole lot to say yet.  Please don't suck?  Please be worth the 30 dollars you've made me pay for this story...somehow.

Nothing Happening

 You'd think I would have learned my lesson by now.  Every time I've posted positive news this year for you lot, something has come up and kicked me right in the balls.  So here we go again.  Not some huge problem, but post endoscopy has been really rough and no new writing has gone down.  Pretty much knocked me back to a liquid diet for the last week, just started pureed food again today and it's dicey.  Lot of nausea after eating.  Really have to take it slow with drinking too.  Was in pain again, but that seems to have gone away at least.

So...we just wait on everything to heal and settle down again.  I mean, we're still waaaay ahead of where I thought I'd be at this point, but...just annoying.  I always think of that scene in Cat Killing Coyotes where King Henry talks about the second wall always being the worst one.  I got over surgery, I totally edited the Vicky novel and was moving into new territory FINALLY and...we're waiting...

If I don't update this blog for awhile take that as the good news!

Watching, Playing, Reading: September Edition

==WATCHING==

THE BOYS SEASON 2:  Whoever at Amazon decided on this cruel, evil release structure that just plain sucks ass instead of the glorious binge model established by Netflix needs to have their genitals rubbed raw by old-fashioned Coca-Cola bottle caps glued to a lint roller.  Why are you following Disney's torture scheme?  Disney Plus kinda sucks.  You don't even really sell Prime Video by monthly subscription so it can't be about the money.  What, you want to trend every week on twitter?  What are you, a fifteen year old girl?  In fact, I don't even know if that joke works any more since fifteen teen year old girls probably use some other social media site my getting-older-by-the-day-ass doesn't know about.

You're the big dog, Amazon.  In the words of our prophet Billy Butcher:  you're fucking Posh Spice.  Or Mel B.  Pick one of the still relevant ones.  Disney Plus ain't even on the tour bus.  They have one great show and Hamilton, which...okay, why are those songs still stuck in my head months later?  You're evil Lin, super fucking evil.  But that's all Disney Plus has at the moment.  Baby Yoda, Hamilton, and nostalgia that only lasts so long before you need to snazzy new designer drug on the block.  You got about a dozen great shows by now.  You even made a show where Cara Delevigne plays a fucking fairy and she's a decent actress it in, you know how hard that shit is?  You're awesome!  So please stop this one-episode-a-week shit and never do it again.  If you pull it with Lord of the Rings or Wheel of Time I will be EVEN MORE disappointed in you.

Also, please take this is friendly constructive criticism and let me keep publishing my books on Direct, cuz...I like to eat, okay?

Oh yeah, what are my thoughts on the second season?  Pretty slow so far.  Palpable feeling a dread that's pretty unique and extra ominous.  Homelander is just such an interesting and amazingly realized character and the powerlessness he projects on the rest of the cast is almost overwhelming.

YELLOWSTONE SEASON 1:  How has Kelly Reilly not at least gotten an Emmy nomination for her work in this?  Just another killer totally fucked up character I love seeing in media.  Overall, it's a strange show.  Sometimes I'm very impressed by it, but other times I feel like it's got some serious multi-personality syndrome going on.  Like the writers aren't talking to each other episode to episode and the producers got distracted so oops, let's recon some shit.  Bit of a whiplash from it and it's happened multiple times.  On the other hand, show has some great quotes.  Maybe not Justified level, but also maybe the best since Justified was out.  Not that I'm a quote guy, my brain is horrible at it and I've even had myself quoted to myself and been surprised I was the one that wrote it.

COBRA KAI SEASON 1:  I'm actually disappointed in this one.  Not saying it's bad, I just expected more from it based on the ratings of people that actually bothered to watch it on YouTube Red  gave to it.  Only finished the first season so far, but it's just so very high school.  I do like the nostalgia but Karate Kid was never in my TOP 10 as an 80s kid and...like I said, so very high school.  Plus it comes across as really cheap.  Did watch the first episode of Season 2 just now and I am glad that someone realized "oh hey, this could make money for us, we should probably get the actors in shape and teach them how to do some martial arts!"  Going to keep with it!

==PLAYING==

GHOST OF TSUSHIMA:  Love!  Someone finally did a Japanese Assassin's Creed and OMG it was awesome, what a surprise Ubisoft!  Granted, it's just plain better than Assassin's Creed.  The combat is better, the gadgets are cooler, the stealth is actually existent unlike AC Odyssey.  And duels, man are those duels are fun.  Probably my favorite game since Red Dead Redemption 2.  They might even be neck and neck.  RDR2 is a great experience but at least with Ghost I never wanted to scream at my controller because I pressed a button and instead of talking to a person I just started strangling them and now the bounty hunters are after me.  Or ya know, accidentally hit a trigger and oh look I just shot my fucking horse!  But as far as Ghost, loved it.  Actually got a platinum trophy and it wasn't a huge hassle, how nice that was.  Thanks to everyone that recommended it to me in my emails, had already bought it, but you lot moved it to the top of the pile.

GREEDFALL:  So this is considered a Double A game I'm pretty sure, in that the studio isn't Indie, but they're not exactly dumping millions or paying thousands of employees to get it made.  So it's...good.  Especially if you're like me and you like Western Style RPGs.  If you haven't played the Witcher 3, you should play that.  If you haven't played Dragon Age Inquisition, you should play that.  Same for Divinity 2 and maybe even Mass Effect Andromeda.  But if there's nothing else in the Western RPG field and you love them...then Greedfall is a game to play.

Again, you can tell it's on the cheap.  Not a lot of enemy types.  Loot is randomized.  Voice acting is...there.  But there's a pretty cool story going on about colonization of a 'new' land and you're very much an explorer and diplomat of a character, which I enjoy.  Do you befriend the natives?  Do you side with the religious or the scientist faction?  Can you stop the plague that is ravaging your homeland?  Still got a lot of it to go, but we'll see if it keeps my interest or not. 

==READING==

PEACE TALKS BY JIMMY BOY BUTCHER:  So I made the mistake of assuming this was split up because it was SO FUCKING LONG it had to be split up or it wouldn't physically hold together as a hardcover.  Which...wow, I actually gave a better motivation to the publishing companies than them just being greedy assholes.  So...30 dollars for one book, nice one guys.  You jackasses.

It's a bummer too, because I think this might be my favorite Dresden novel.  I know I'm in the minority on that one.  I'm also in the minority that CHANGES is my least favorite Dresden novel.  I'm not an explosion, hit-em-with-your-staff oriented reader.  That's all that Changes was...so...didn't dig it.  But the fact that Butcher FINALLY dropped the mandated pointless fight scene every fifty pages with PEACE TALKS was just...nirvana.  Ya'll remember the jet ski scene in COLD DAYS?  How fucking horrible was that?  But not in PEACE TALKS.  And the fights that were there were character driven.  AND most of the conflict happened with words and emotions.  FUCK YES!  RR approves!

It could all go to shit in the last half, but...I have hope that even though it is obviously going to be action heavy, that it will be meaningful action.

With no fucking jet skis.

And the publishers have another fifteen bucks.  The twats...

THE BLADE ITSELF REREAD BY JOE ABERCROMBIE:  Maybe the worst part of me being sick and being so mentally fucked about Grandpa battling cancer is that I lost my connection to pretty much every one of my favorite authors in the last few years.  So my mission this year and the next is to get back at it and do rereads and catch back up.  It's a grave sin that Joe Abercrombie has two new books I haven't read.  So that's who I picked to start with.  I've also never reread his stuff, so it's fun to get a new perspective knowing what will happen and already having an understanding of the characters.  THE BLADE ITSELF reads a ton better already, just from knowing who Ninefingers is and Bayaz and all the rest.

If you like my books and you like fantasy novels, read Abercrombie.  Nowadays its kind of just something that's done, but when this first trilogy came out it was incredibly subversive.  Reading the last book I was just laughing like a madman and kept repeating, 'yes, just do it, blow it all fucking up you mad bastard' and it's one of my favorite novels for what it pulled off.  He also does some brilliant stuff with structure and character tics.    There's this whole chapter in The Heroes (I think!) with a letter that's just perfect.  He makes me very jealous, not of his fame, but of his ability, so...that's probably the best praise I can give.

Good News About Lack of Posts

 So...I'm writing!  Not crazy Mad Scientist Mode, but I've been making some serious progress for the first time in forever.  Been feeling a ton better, energy levels are up, not in pain like the last six months...so, things have been SO much better.  I still have days where the new stomach just isn't a fan of something new I tried and I'm gone for at least twenty-four hours, but that's still a huge improvement on where I was when the EOE first flared.

Also lost a ton of weight.  September 2019 to September 2020 I've lost one hundred pounds, sixty of that on my own pre-surgery so...pretty much nothing fits now.  Pants are gone, belts are gone.  I'm in shirts that were WAY at the back of the closet and I haven't worn since like...maybe college.  Haven't even really started exercising seriously because California is HELL ON EARTH at the moment and my asthmatic lungs are not fans of the apocalypse it turns out!  Plus, ya know, pandemic and all that.

The one thing I do have on my plate for tomorrow is that I'm getting another endoscopy done for the EOE, hopefully my last for a long while, since they need to check that fixing my stomach and hernia, plus the steroids are working and that I'm--cross fingers--in remission now as far as all the white blood cells wrecking havoc upon my GI tract.  So...I always get a little cranky for about a week after those.

But enough of all that...writing!  Yes, writing.  Rewriting and editing VICKY VON WELF AND THE MANCY MASQUERADE.  Quite a lot of work needed just on what I had actually.  You might remember that this story took place originally in the GLASSBREAKER GOES HOME.  As a counterpoint to King Henry's homecoming you also got to see Vicky and Tyson visit Welf Manor.  But there ended up being so much story to both that I ended up splitting it up and then...2019 and 2020 happened and here we are with me trying to get back on the roller-coaster!

Now, VWMM takes place months later.  So instead of being two weeks after FM6 its a week or two prior to FM7.  First of all, all of the summer descriptions need to change to winter ones, so...there's some work.  Also, instead of everything beginning, everything is coming to a conclusion.  Like for example, Vicky was thinking about doing a spectro collection about Eureka but now she's already done it and a lot of the story revolves around her unveiling the collection at this Welf Winter Gala that her family holds every year for Old Mancy Elemental New England.  In addition, since it was only two weeks later, nothing had really happened in the originally version, but now everyone has progress to where they will be in FM7 more or less, so I've got to give you lot some info on that too.  So quite a lot of rewrites there.

And in addition YET AGAIN to all that, this is now not half a story, but a full story, so more is going on.  There will be a plethora of familiar faces at the Welf Gala and a lot of politics, and ya know, T-Bone trying to not get killed by roaming Constructs and the like.  And new faces will appear as well.   Spent a whole day coming up with five different characters that are quite powerful and so far I hadn't brought up, but I think it's time.  Also a few of Class 2015 make an appearance, granted as 18yo's instead of 14yo's, but a small preview on WAR TO END ALL WARS.

This is a story very much in the same idea as GOES HOME in that if you wanted to skip it, you could. But...when the Angel of Death shows up in another novel and you're like "who the fuck is that?" that's on you dog.  Also, shame upon you!  Very much not recommended to skip even if King Henry isn't around, even T-Bone's super over-exaggerated head King Henry.  I think it has the potential to be a killer little novel that really sets the stage for FM7 and I'm going to be really trying to stay off the net and as long as my health keeps improving we actually have a shot to finish it, which I haven't felt about a book in a long, long while!

PS:  HOLY FUCKBALLS THAT DUNE TRAILER!!!!!!

Week Three: It's Gonna Be Hot

 Well, it IS hot, but no relief in the future either.  Given the most common problem with this surgery is dehydration I really picked the worst time to have it done.

HOT.

FUCKING HOT.

HELL ON EARTH HOT.

EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE AND THERE ARE RANDOM BURSTS OF LIGHTNING HOT.

So...how am I?  Okay, I guess.  No pain really.  Was some serious itching for a few days that gave me chickenpox flashbacks.  Still yo-yoing between all clogged up and there she blows!  TMI?  Very TMI.

9 hours sleep and being in bed by 6PM is pretty much an everyday thing at the moment.  Just not a lot of energy.  Not a lot of patience either.  Very, very irritable and...well, I can't deal.  I mentioned playing CONTROL in the last post and the second boss wrecked me twice and instead of buckling down and conquering I just clicked off the PS4.  Reloading for a few minutes and running back?  Too much work!

On the food front I've graduated up to pureed food.  Or at least attempting pureed food, since I only can add one new food a day.  But I get stuff like Hummus and refried beans and soft scrambled egg and lentil soup now.  A whole 1/3 of a cup of it each meal.

Am dropping the pounds and my esophagitis has been chill and my hernia is fixed, so no complaining but...it's rough on my taste-buddies.  I think I miss spices the most.  I don't get cayenne or curry back for months, that's just not fun!  My poor, lonely sriracha bottle! 

Anyway, day by day I improve.  Keep staying safe everyone, country is still a mess, so don't join in the orgy.

Watching, Playing, Reading: The Return Edition

==WATCHING==

PERRY MASON:  I think if people had just viewed this show as "Jim Smith" totally unrelated to the character they know, it would have gone down a lot better.  But for whatever reason, the Hollywood geniuses decided they needed to take yet another hero of yesteryear and totally beat the shit out of him, poor Luke Skywalker wasn't enough.  Green alien titty milk still haunts me all these years later and I've never rewatched Last Jedi...

It's a good show with a really stellar cast.  Big Matthew Rhys fan and I loved to see Tatiana Maslany back on my screen again in a post Orphan Black (aside:  if you haven't checked it out, check that out over Perry Mason, its pilot is probably only surpassed by LOST and WESTWORLD) show.  Once Perry was...you know, a lawyer around episode six it even got really good.  Looking forward to season two a whole bunch, since...ya know...he'll be a lawyer at the start that time.

But starting with Perry Mason blackmailing someone, a drinking problem, a deadbeat, AND a shitty father...kinda not fun for the audience.

HARLEY QUINN:  So there's the whole "Joker is abusive and Harley needs to strike out on her own and kick men in the balls" aspect that's pretty played out--or maybe I'm just still recovering from how bad BIRDS OF PREY was--but I dig this for all the obvious reasons like...curse words and smart, witty foul mouthed jokes.  Also King Shark has total T-Bone vibes...if T-Bone occasionally went mad with rage and started biting heads off.  Halfway through season 1, looking forward to the rest.

UMBRELLA ACADEMY:  Blah.  They just repeated season 1 in the 1960s.

FOOTSOCCERBALL:  5 teams with a realistic chance to win the Champions League and a possible Inter-ManU Europa League final where Lukaku can throw Harry Maguire around like a little boy?  Yes please!

THE BOYS:  GET HYPED REWATCH FOR SEASON 2 NEXT MONTH BABY!!!  THE DOLPHINS WILL HAVE THEIR REVENGE AND I'M NOT TALKING DAN MARINO!!!

==PLAYING==

FOOTBALL MANAGER 2020:  I'm not addicted, you're addicted.

CRUSADER KINGS 2:  So I haven't really done a run of this for a couple years and the last expansion was HUGE.  Clicked on my favorite 900ish start date and never realized that the Kingdom of Arles has this guy called...Welf...as king, so...I could not help myself.  Two hundred years and a lot of Heinrich Welf's later I've shattered the Byzantium Empire and refounded the Bloodline of Alexander the Great, tons of fun!

CONTROL:  one of the games I just didn't get around to with all my health troubles.  Great gameplay, interesting mystery, tons of style, and it's only about 20 hours long, which is perfect (granted I'm looking forward to spending 200 hours on Cyberpunk at the end of the year, but...this is nice too!) for where I'm at now, especially since focusing on something like that for longer than an hour can still be a hassle for my surgery recovering ass.

==READING==

COLD DAYS BY JIMMY BOY BUTCHER:  It's been like...*checks watch* 6 years since the last Dresden novel and I both needed a refresh but also don't feel like going through all bajillion of them, so Cold Days looked like the smart restart point.  Seems like the new book is "half a story" so I have the time.  Granted if there's enough story for there to be fun theories to go over in the intervening months that can be fun too, but I'll be caught up soon enough.  Ya'll are going to be losing your minds at the FM7 halfway point BTW...just FYI...

THE PLANTAGENETS BY DAN JONES:  The book that made me decided to give Crusader Kings another go!  Nice overview of the time period, but...I like a more personal history book and this isn't it.  Granted without a large number of sources that kind of inner look is very difficult and we're talking about a thousand years ago, not like people were writing every little thought or had blogs back then, did they?

Now...what have you all been up to with your media consumption?

One Week In

Today I get to upgrade to a full liquid diet.  Means the end of the Broth Purgatory and goodies like tomato soup, protein shakes, and apple sauce can be consumed and boy did I never think I'd miss that stuff, but here we are.  My energy levels are still really low, obviously.  I'm basically in bed by 6PM and sleeping at least 10 hours.  Plus there are points during the day where the most I can do is sit at the TV and rest.  Probably have about 4 hours of laptop/gaming time in me a day.  Pain is mostly gone, but there is some slight lingering soreness and all my incisions are itching now.  EOE hasn't reared its head, so here's hoping they did what they were supposed to and the new plumbing keeps it at bay.

Still no writing, or close to it, but everything is looking very promising for SOON.

Still Kicking

So far, so good.  Shockingly good.  I was the first person discharged in my little group to go through.  I have very little pain, which I'm able to handle with liquid acetaminophen and gas, lots of gas, but glory be to Mylanta and Gas-X.  Got five little incision points on my stomach that are draining correctly and they are plenty sore, but...again, just shocking good so far.

Compared to the EOE flare I went through earlier this year, this is nothing.  If during the EOE flare someone would have walked up to me with a baby seal and told me bashing its head in would make the pain go away, I'd have done it and told them to bring me another just in case.  This...hasn't even been 48 hours since surgery and I'm sitting at my bedside typing to you lot.

Main goals for the next week are to keep fluids in, not to push myself too hard, to sleep well, and to have heaps of burps and a gaggle of farts.

Diluted apple juice...yummy!

Oh, I get to take a shower in 12 hours, yay!

Small "War to End All Wars" Sneak Peak

So, all the pages have finally been typed up.  I'd say the percentage on the progress bar is pretty accurate and we're a little under 1/3 of the way done with the book.  Also...100k of progress split across 4 projects, not including the outline work I've been doing on THREE super secret projects; nice one, Raley!

Who's been distracted?

This fucking guy!

Anyway, "War of End All Wars" will very much be the longest school story ever told, will be a nice send off to that timeline, and merits it's own novel.  Still a lot of plot to work through, but I'm hopeful.

Surgery is still a go.  Pre-Op on Wednesday.  Also some testing, including a Covid test, so...yay!  So much fun!  Get to have my brain molested by a q-tip.  Have to be at the hospital by 6AM on Friday, so super early fun time for all that.  Paperwork said I should be out in a couple days, but we'll see.  Also they don't seem to want to give me any of the fun pills, so I'm hoping the pain shouldn't be too bad.

Other than that...well, I have all this typed up work, and you've all been very kind and considerate, so I thought I'd throw you some pages, even in a very incomplete state that they are.  All rights reserved by me, Richard Raley.  Please do not copy and paste but link back here.  In a very early draft and subject to change.  Yada, yada, yada, most of you already skipped ahead...

“My name is King Henry Price.  I…am a Hep.  Which means I am in my seventh and last year at this here Institution of Elements, Learning Academy and Nature Camp.  As such, it is my duty to waste a significant amount of time keeping you lot from killing yourself as your student-advisor.  In case it hasn’t been made clear to you, you are Ultra Class 2015.  Which means you’re just a tiny bit special.  Get to live in this nice dorm all together.  Get me cleaning up your mistakes.  Maybe.  No promises.  Probably depends on my mood or how big of an asshole you are.

“See, even if you are a tiny bit specially, you’re still Singles.  Which means you don’t know shit.  Yes, even if your daddy or your mommy is someone important.  You.  Don't.  Know.  Shit!

“Some of you do know me, or at least know of me, I can tell it by your terrified expressions.  I do love making me some juicy rumors, oh yes I fucking do!  Guessing me popping up is a bit of a surprise, ain’t it?  They put the Foul Mouth in charge of us, what were they thinking?!?!

“For you uninitiated in this one-in-a-million world:  yes, you heard right, my name really is King Henry Price.  Yes, my nom de guerre really is the Foul Mouth.  Really tall, blond Nazi Asshole just couldn’t help himself and the title stuck.  Don’t worry, ain’t one of those Voldemort situations like the fucktard on the TV.  I am perfectly fine with you calling me Foul Mouth.  It’s my being.  It’s my mantle.  It’s my fucking crown and a King I am, a King I say, yes I am!"

“So…you can call me King Henry, Foul Mouth, or Your Majesty.  Do not call me Mr. Price or I will punch you in the dick.  Oh…about the curse words.  You’re probably thinking:  adults aren’t supposed to talk like that!  Guess what?  I don’t know about the adult part, but I fucking talk like this.  So get fucking used to it.  I changed a whole lot these last six years, but the curse words ain’t something I’m letting go.”

Class 2015 looked extremely cowed and overwhelmed, even the Old Mancy kids.

So far, so good.

And everyone thought I’d suck at this!

Surgery Coming Up

The Rona might be wrecking face again, but so far it looks like elective surgeries in California might just hold out.  So we're a little under two weeks until my surgery.  Major surgery, obviously, so no idea how long it might take for me to get back and focused, but...I'm feeling more focused than I have in the last couple years, so here's hoping the pain isn't too bad.  Granted they are cutting up and stitching together a bunch of my stomach and intestines so...

Physically, writing is pretty simple, even if I have to lie in bed and scribble on some paper for awhile.  Mentally...well, that's always been the whole ball game, hasn't it?  Never been able to write very well when I was worried or anxious or even when I had a cold or the flu (looking at you, Dread Fortress Flu Ridden Editing Session!).  Like to feel pampered and happy and entertained by copious amounts of good media.  My anxiety problems are, oddly, the best they've been in a long while.  Really feel like I've passed through the eye and I'm out the other side.

Right now, my goal to stay inside and keep safe and also I've just started typing up the last 25 or so handwritten pages I had left on War to End All Wars.  After that, we got surgery, then recovery, then I'm back to writing mad scientist style for the first time in a couple years.  Granddad is gone, I've grieved and grieved for a long while now, so time to take all the emotions and experiences I've endured and put them to good use entertaining people and hopefully touching a few hearts.

If I have to hand write some more then I'll focus on War to End all Wars.  If I can sit at a computer I'd like to take a run at finishing the Vicky novel before the end of the year, although...again:  major surgery so no promises.  Could leak, could get backed up, lot of ways to end up in emergency after this, so...no promises just yet while I figure out my new normal.

If I could do it all over again, I'd probably never let myself take a vacation following FM6.  Or that might have made it worse, since I was already in rough shape following that thousand-pages-in-a-year sprint.  Still...this has all been bungled and, the toughest truth of writing is that nothing happens instantly and it's going to take awhile to unravel the webs and get us back to where we should have gone immediately.  No more side novels after the Vicky one.  No more school stories after War to End All Wars.  Just the main story.  If I go Galactic Brain Mad Scientist maybe I'll work on some other series, but...really want to get back to King Henry in a bad way.

Just typing up these pages I'm already laughing at my own jokes and chuckling at what comes next...

Grandpa Passed

Later I might write up an emotional post on my feelings and memories, but...right now I'm just really tired.  Um...so on the 15th he started to have blood in his urine.  This has happened before, usually having to deal with all the lovely plastic tubing the poor man had to deal with, and he went to emergency just like he also has before.  This time, however, they couldn't completely stop the bleeding since it wasn't a tubing issue, it was a cancer-eating-your-body issue.

When he left he was still my grandfather, if exhausted and spending most his day in bed and needing a walker to get around the house.  By the time he returned home last Friday, he was bedridden, in massive amounts of pain, unable to really speak, and all those tubes were gushing out a steady amount of blood as his kidneys failed.  By Tuesday he was unconscious and he finally passed Thursday night.

So far, I seem to have gotten most of my grief out of me over these last couple years and I'm just trying to be there for my mother and grandmother and all my family.  Still hurts, still tired, but...I'm handling it.  Funeral is next week, we have to keep it small because of Covid, so...that's not going to be fun.  Thinking I might be the asshole who yells out "No hugging!" every few minutes just to keep us all alive.

After all this, we have an estate to deal with, a house to sell since grandma is moving in with my aunt, and I have major surgery on July 31st.  Which is exciting, but also...god what horrible timing.

Assuming they don't cancel all the elective surgeries again because wearing a mask is just so fucking difficult for the American people!

Anyway, stay safe everyone.  After this month, everything should start coming together and clearing up for me.

Thank you for all the kind messages you've been leaving on the blog and sending to my email.

Still Sick FYI

On the tablet, so will be shittily written and brief!

Life's not as bad as the April update, but still very up and down.  I am typing my written pages for FM7A into the computer, so some small progress is being made (actually really like what I have, just wish there was more of it!).  Feel better now that they have me on a swallowed steroid inhaler this last week if still not anywhere near normal, so there's that...

Surgery looks like it could be happening in July, it's also supposed to help with the esophagitis, so there's that too...

Grandpa's finally losing the fight and the cancer is spreading rapidly.   They dont think he'll make it to the end of the year...but he's beaten those odds before and there's Nascar to watch now, so dont bet against him!

Will probably be switching to work on the Vicky novel post surgery.  Its the most finished and shortest of the stupid amount of unfinished projects I got going at the moment, so...makes since to start there after the reset.

Plus I need to get away from all the teenager characters or my head is going to explode!

Been Really Sick (Not Covid)

So I was diagnosed with this thing called EOE back in January.  It's basically a type of allergic esophagitis where your system starts pumping out ungodly amounts of white blood cells in your throat (where they aren't supposed to be to begin with) and it can lead to trouble swallowing and heartburn and stuff like that.  My GI didn't seem overly concerned about it since he prescribed a pill and never really bothered to explain it to me in detail and I only got to talk to him for like 5 minutes in three months.  So, why should I worry, right?

Well...40 pounds later (20 of which was lost in the last week), 3 emergency room visits, a proof positive allergy to milk, a new diet that consists of removing every major allergen for the time being that's like half vegan hell and the other half with a distinct lack of pizza or tacos for my tastes, it's being pretty fucking horrible.

Imagine having heartburn that is the worst heartburn you've ever had and no antacid or pill or anything anyone on this entire world can do about it and you're stuck like that for a week.  Plus no eating.  Plus no sleeping.

During a fucking pandemic.

And oh yeah, I made the mistake of wheezing on the way in the second time--cuz Asthma--and I got sent to the HOLY FUCKBALLS scary part of the hospital that day.  Oh, all the doctors are in outbreak suits all of sudden, look at that.  Oh, people stuffed into dark glassed off rooms.  Me, sitting there in the middle of it, in shorts and a t-shirt, little tiny cheap ass mask, asthmatic, overweight, high blood pressure, THIS IS JUST SO FUCKING SAFE, ain't it?

"Don't worry, dude, if we actually thought anyone had it in here, they're be in there own room."

You're in an outbreak suit!

You have a handlebar mustache!

Why is there a homeless guy walking around in here with two different shoes on?

Why can I see that nurse's asscrack?  She's in an outbreak suit and somehow still her asscrack is showing and no one has bothered to tell her?

Why is that glass door open three inches?  Anyone?  Why do you all keep going inside of it and yelling at some poor old lady?

I just wanted a GI cocktail so the pain would stop for an hour!   One fucking hour!

WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON IN THIS TIMELINE?!?!?

So...no writing has been done.

Just FYI...

I might be able to eat corn flakes tomorrow.

Yay!

With coconut milk...

:(

Important Update:  oatmilk > coconut milk, at least in the cereal-soaking-yummy-yummy department.

Quick Notes: Forced to Write Edition By State Order Edition

1.  Writing has improved to a couple pages a day at the moment (we're talking handwritten pages so they're quite a lot bigger than word processor btw).  At this rate, one of the books I'm working on will eventually get finished months and months from now, so...there's that!

2.  The scene I'm working on is KH meeting Class 2015 for the first time, so I'm pretty much doing 29 character (since he already knows one of them technically) introductions at the moment, one after another and trying to make it work.  Adding to the difficulty is the fact that all 31 people are talking on and off.  Very chaotic so far, hope you all keep up with it...

3.  How is it that I used to be able to write 90k novels with two storylines and now I'll be lucky to wrap this school story business all up in just 150k?  It's definitely going to be an indulgent book, no question about that.  For those that like twenty pages of Val, KH, Welf, and Miranda eating breakfast or KH spending multiple scenes attempting to prank the Lady or learning more about Welf family trees...

4.  But it's the last school story, and once it's finally done we can move to the new era of 24/7 CRAZY WEIRD MANCY SHIT.

5.  Health wise, everything is completely on hold.  Don't have an appointment until May and we'll fucking see if that actually happens, right?  No COVID so far...Fresno seems to be doing a really good job (California as a whole really), unless the Plague I had late February was COVID, but I'm pretty doubtful about it.  Did catch it from a hospital and was super, super sick even with a flu shot, but probably not.  The weirdest part was that Sherbert and the other cats caught it, which they say COVID can do, but no way to know until someone starts mass producing antibody tests...so...stay home and write, Raley.

6.  Can't believe how much I'm missing sports.  Other than the Football Manager addiction making me watching the occasional soccer game over the last couple years I really haven't been into much for the last five or so years, what with the books to produce and all.  Yet it's weird not have the general background noise that the sports leagues are going on, highlights on reddit and youtube and what not.

7.  Final Fantasy 7 Remake is great so far, about 14 hours in, having a blast.

8.  Anyone else having trouble focusing enough to watch television shows?  I find it so nerve wracking for some reason, I keep watching 2 or 3 episodes of something and then switching across to another the next day, where usually I'm a complete binge machine.  I just don't enjoy tension and conflict at the moment.   Wonder if there's money to be made in tv and movies where everything just goes the character's way and it's all nice and pleasant?  Probably why people turn to HGTV and Food Network and the like...

9.  Grandpa turned 90, fuck you cancer!

I've Sold 1 Book in 9 Days

:(

And it's not like my sales ranks have dropped much either so I'm guessing I'm not the only one...

:(

Good News:  I mean, I guess from your point of view, from mine, slightly annoying, but for obvious reasons my surgery won't be happening for quite a while now and all my doctor appointments have been wiped out or will be over the phone, so...I guess I'm just gonna spend my shelter-in-place doing some good ol' writing.

And probably playing the Final Fantasy 7 remake next month...but...yeah, expect productivity to finally increase somewhat.  Whether I release anything while no one has any money except for blackmarket toilet paper is another story, but we'll cross that bridge when I actually finish anything...

Not that any of this is very important right now.

Stay safe everyone.

Plague!

Been sick on and off since Valentine's Day.  Am grabbing a page here and there when I feel better or don't have doctor stuff or Grandpa stuff to do.

Lots of crazy shit going on out there, so everyone stay safe!

Sherburt has realized he's adorable...it's very problematic...

Cyberpunk 2077 Delayed, Woe! Woe! Woe!

Guess I'll have to actually get some work done in April now...

Small Update:  my current pace of work would be called...distracted, I guess?  I am occasionally jotting out a handwritten page or two for "War to End All Wars" when I can find the time and also started a reread of the last 4 chapters of FM6, Dread Fortress and Glassbreaker Goes Home to re-familiarize my brain with what I was planning for the Vicky novel.  Once that's done I actually have to do some rewrites on the Vicky material I already have, since it was originally taking place the same night as Glassbreaker (as half of Glassbreaker's story if you'll recall), but will now be taking place several months later, in the January Winter party season for the Old Mancy families.

So, this year is off to a much better start than the last, but still not on 2016 crazy mad scientist writer pumped out a whole 1000 page book form.  Granted each of those were the extremes and I'll be extremely please with just a normal 200k words year from me this go around.

Surgery News:  have completed an endoscopy and psych evaluation in the last three weeks, plus had my second nutritional class.  Nothing life-threatening found so far and apparently I'm not a crazy person (luckily they didn't read my novels, right?), though I do have some allergy problems with my throat causing inflammation and such that we're going to have to work out (the whole lisinopril trying to kill me thing still causing trouble no doubt).  Still have two more appointments this month, 3 in February, and 2 in March at the moment.  Big two are an abdominal ultrasound and an exercise stress test which might eventually turn into an echo-cardiogram.  Given my BP spikes while stressed/anxious they want to make sure there's nothing crazy happening I guess.

Grandpa Fighting Cancer News:  still alive, still fighting to make his 90th birthday in March.  Is having surgery to replace some stints and poke around his bladder and prostate in February that has us all worried.  He's looking old now.  Not his age still, but...breathing heavy, needing a lot of naps, crouched over.  Can't tell if he's actually losing his hearing or just pretending to to fuck with people.  Really grumpy about there being no NASCAR the last few months, so hurry up Daytona please!

New Kitten Update:  Sherburt is a crazy orange ginger devil who loves kneading soft blankets, is already addicted to Temptation treats (they really need to investigate those things for crack), can't understand why my 16 year old kitty doesn't like him lying right on top of her, and can watch water go down the drain for hours (especially if dad does that magical thing where it turns into the puddle and then goes down all at once).

Other than that, I really need to start reading more in addition to writing more, since my TO BE READ list includes a Sanderson novel, 4 Malazan novels, an Abercrombie novel, a whole Fitz trilogy from Robin Hobb I hate myself for not having started yet, I see Ilona Andrews just released ANOTHER Innkeeper novella because of course she did, and about a dozen other authors and newbies I really should try.  How have I not read Anthony Ryan or Mark Lawrence yet, right?  Bad fantasy fan, bad!

Starting Off 2020 Right

Let's make some new fans!

First three books in the series "Fanged Lady", "Cat Killing Coyotes", and "Troubled Boomworm" are free on Amazon for the next few days (Jan 2nd to Jan 6th).  So if you have any loved ones or friends who are still stubbornly resisting the call of the Foul Mouth, maybe they even got a shiny new kindle for Christmas, point them towards the light.

Or maybe less light and more like a dark hole....

With noxious fumes wafting about....

And every few seconds you hear someone inside the hole mumbling about fucktards...

.
.
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Point is:  get in my hole.