October was a good month. I figured out the last few big hurdles for my big projects and read a lot. I also completed the Inktober challenge, one drawing a day for 31 days. My drawing is getting better (though it’s not great), but the big thing is comfortable I am with showing some of it off. It kind of reminds me of my writing group preparing me for publishing a book, in that getting used to a small audience prepares you for a bigger one.

Book Projects

The third book the Renaissance Army series (tentatively titled The Colonel Lieutenant) is at just below 20,000 words. The good news is I figured out one of the subplots and worked out the events of the book, the last few hurdles I was dealing with in terms of preparation. A few minor things I’ll have to puzzle out, but I can at least get a lot of writing done.

The big re-write of my first fantasy novel (Orcfyre) is coming along. I wrote the ending chapters of the book earlier this month, because I needed to know what characters I had to introduce and what themes to play up. Maybe it’ll change, but for now I’m working up to it.

As for short stories, I’m still working on a couple. Want to have the first Tales of the Templars collections out next year sometime, so I’m trying to work out what stories to put in. If you’ve read Templar Scholar, feel free to head over to the voting page and chose which ones you’d like.

Movies and TV

Haven’t watched too many new things recently. Still working through What We Do in the Shadows, the vampire comedy show, about an episode every two or three days. I do like it, but I’m well into the second season and I’m wondering if the characters are going to stagnate. Since it keeps getting renewed, I don’t think it’ll be an issue.

Reading

Managed to get through four books in October. Reread Dune in preparation for the new movie. Started a new series, ‘The Plantagenet and Tudor novels’ by Philippa Gregory, a set of historical fiction novels working through the War of the Roses and the following histories. Reading them in chronological order, I got through Lady of the Rivers and The White Queen. Also read through the book 2034, a novel about the next world war and the impact of cyberwarfare on its outcome.

Gaming

Finished off Black Book, a video game set in Russia in the 1870’s. The main character is a witch, but in Slavic mythology that means something different than what we’re used to in western practices. Her quest to gain power to retrieve her dead fiancé delves into eastern mythology, and the company that made the game (a Russian studio) took efforts to help the translation to a western audience. The gameplay itself is pretty good, combat being done as a card game where new levels unlock new combos. There wasn’t a single fight I got into that I couldn’t figure out with what I had on hand.

Started up Horizon: Zero Dawn as the next story game. An adventure game with the same feel as a Farcry game but far sci-fi. I’m maybe a tenth of the way into the game, but it managed to pull a fantastic surprise on me. I don’t want to spoil it, but the introduction game was setting me up for a very different game than the one I found myself playing. It was fantastic.

In the Future

I’ve got a Books and Beer event coming up in December at AZ Gallery, so at least a chunk of November will be set aside to deal with that. No other events planned, but I expect to get into a couple in 2022.