May was busy. In addition to getting Champion Bold off the ground, I took a week-long trip to eastern theater Civil War battlefields, presidential mansions, and cultural sights of Virginia and DC. It was a fun trip, but I made a point of not bringing my laptop and taking a clean break from creativity for one week. Then I came back and hit the ground running.

Projects

I’m advancing through the editing process for Champion Bold. So far it’s been mostly commas and hyphens. There are a few minor section re-writes I have to do, but that’s to be expected. I’ve plotted out the supplement books and I’m getting into the writing bits. I keep reminding myself that the first draft doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to be done.

I did get a draft of The Colonel Lieutenant to some Alpha Readers. The initial feedback is good: the story is interesting, and the issues that I’ll need to address are so far minor and expected. I’m looking forward to knowing that out when I get done with Champion Bold.

And as expected, all other projects are on the back burner. I’ve done a few minor bits here for there, but most of my creativity is going to Champion Bold.

June Goals

• Finish editing Champion Bold
• Complete Alpha Drafts of Supplement Books
• Knock 10 things of minor to-do list

Reading

• The Buried Dagger by James Swallow (Finished)
• Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Audiobook)
• The Siege of Washington (Re-read)
• Shogun Book 1 (Re-Read; Finished)
• Shogun Book 2 (Re-Read; Started)
• Story of a Regiment (Research; Started)

During my trip, I have a lot of time to read, which helped me add to my reading list. I re-read the Siege of Washington because we were in that area, and I have been itching to re-read it for some time. Started re-reading Shogun, as I’m watching through the series now. I haven’t read it since high school, so I’m re-learning so much that I had forgotten, or was too young to grasp the first times.

Also started Story of a Regiment, a non-fiction book about the 2nd Minnesota. Part of this is research for another writing project, and part of this is just fun.

June Goals

• Finish two fiction books
• Finish one re-search book
• Finish one audiobook

Movies and Shows

• Shogun (In Progress)
• Witcher Season 3 (In Progress)
• The Expanse (In Progress)
• Morbius

Watched a few more episodes of each, but I did knock a movie off my list. Morbius, a MCU-adjacent movie that was….bad. I mean, I knew little about the character beforehand, and I have little reason to learn more now. I don’t know how this fits into the overall MCU story, or if its part of the Sony Venom-verse. And I kind of don’t care.

June Goals

• Finish three seasons of TV shows
• Watch two movies

Games

• Red Dead Redemption 2 (In Progress)
• Gears of War Tactics (Finished)
• Frost Punk (In Progress)

Finally finished Gears of War Tactics. Other than just not playing many video games these days, the big problem with this game is that between the story missions, you have to play a bunch of minor missions just to level characters and find equipment. The story missions are great, but the forced slog didn’t do much for me.

I got into the Frost Punk game, which I’ve really enjoyed the few times I’ve played it. I’ve lost the main campaign twice now, but that’s to be expected. I’m still enjoying it, and that’s what counts.

RPG-wise, most of the games continue one. My Atonement game just finished chapter one, and the party got to choose where they’re going for chapter two. My characters are all still alive, though a new one in a short interim game seems to be trying to die. We’ll see what the dice say.

June Goals

• Next chapter of Red Dead Redemption
• Finish Frost Punk Main Campaign

What’s Next

No public appearances right now, though I should be sending out some more Books and Beer emails to see if I can get an event set up for August or September. And at some point, I’ll need to plan a launch party.

Until then, keep writing.

Cheers!

Michael