July was very productive…but unfocused. Most of what I accomplished was on my tertiary and quaternary projects: world building or writing test scenes. It felt good to stretch my mind and get words on the page, but I didn’t get a lot of things off my primary or secondary projects done, or my blog posts. So overall, I’m kind of disappointed with myself.  Not in a ‘beat myself up’ about it way, more of a ‘if you want to be serious about this, do better’ sort of way.

Projects

The good news about Book 3 is that the printed copy works wonders for revising and development. It’s great to have that copy available, and to have the space to spread out pages of tracking notes, character bios, and whatnot. The first half-dozen chapters are well streamlined, and I’ve got a good view on several fixes for future errors and plot points. Now to sit down an do it.

As for all those other projects, I’m not kidding when I said I got a lot of work done. I puzzled out the pantheon for the human cultures of Orcfyre and the geography and politics of Genevieve’s spin-off from Champion Bold. I started structuring another Light Star novel and I’m ready to start putting words on the page for a historical fiction story. All good work. Just…not my primary goals.

August Goals

• Advance The Colonel Lieutenant
• Figure out The Colonel Lieutenant maps
• Complete Orcfyre Act 1
• Finish ten items off to-do list
• Finish Last of Us Pt2 and Writing Process 8 Blog Posts
• Come up with a better ‘Weekly Work’ process

Books

• War and Peace (Fiction, Audiobook)
• Patriot Games (Fiction, Re-Read)
• Red Rabbit (Fiction, Re-Read)
• The Seven Basic Plots (Research)
• The Elves of Cintra (Fiction)
• The Gypsy Morph (Fiction)
• Ashen Light (Fiction)

Continuing through the books. War and Peace is a glorious monstrosity of a piece. The audio book file is a public domain free project which clocks in at 365 files; I expect it’ll take well into 2026 before I’m done with it, but who knows. Maybe I’ll make finishing it by new year’s a goal.

In my Tom Clancy re-read, I finished Patriot Games and moved onto Red Rabbit. If you don’t know, Red Rabbit is a book Tom Clancy wrote well into his series, but set back earlier in the narrative. I read it once in college, and I remember not being too impressed. This time around, though, I’m enjoying it a lot more. Not sure why yet; I’ll have to reflect.

I also moved from Elves of Cintra onto Gypsy Morph, and I’m not really enjoying the story. I’m hoping it picks up soon. Once I’m done, I’ve got two more books before I hit the series I first read in Middle School. So…slog on. Not what you necessarily want to hear from a book series, but here we are.

August Goals

• Finish Gypsy Morph
• Finish One Research Book
• Finish One Other Fiction Book

Movies and Shows

• Bad Batch
• Foundation
• Thunderbolts
• Fantastic Four
• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3

Got to see two moves last month, including my first movie theater outing in a good amount of time.

First, Thunderbolts*. This is an ensemble MCU movie that I wasn’t too excited for, as it’s cast is a bunch of secondary characters from other movies that are assembled for whatever reason (probably covert or illicit). Which was right. But the movie turned out to be a lot more exciting and enjoyable than I expected. I really liked it.

Then, Fantastic Four. I made a point to go see this in the theater, and man it was worth it. It avoided the problems of the other two Fantastic Four attempts. And it told a great story. I’m excited to see where these characters go, and after two successful MCU movies in a row, I’m kind of excited for the MCU again.

And finally I started Foundation, a TV series based off the Isaac Asimov book series. Now this isn’t a direct translation from page to screen; it’s adding a lot of characters and storylines that don’t exist in the book. I’m not far enough along to know if its better or worse, yet. It is a beautiful series, though.

August Goals

• Finish One TV Show
• Finish One Started TV Show
• Watch One Best Picture Winner
• Watch One Other Movie
• Start One Longer TV Show

Games

• Horizon Forbidden West
• Last of Us (Replay)
• Anno 1800

Continuing through Forbidden West and Last of Us Replay. I don’t really sit down to just play for hours on end. With Forbidden West I try to finish one or two quests; with Last of Us I set myself a narrative point and play until I get there. It keeps me from spending too much time as a couch potato.

Anno 1800 has made a reappearance; a RTS resource game. I beat the campaign some time ago, but now I want to try to build to the end of the tech tree and see if I can really get the city going.

On a similar note, a friend and I wrapped up a game of War in the Pacific: Admiral’s Edition that we started in 2019. This iteration of the Pacific War of World War 2 ended in May of 1946 with a draw. Alas, what a fun game. We’re already looking for our next one.

August Goals

• Finish Anno 1800
• Start new narrative PC Game

What’s Next

Nothing right now. I’m looking for some fall and winter events to partake in. Some things on my radar, but nothing on the books.