I said in the October update that I laid out a schedule for the month. And until I got distracted by a Fiverr project, it went really well. I watched shows, knocked chapters and world building goals off my list, and drew. Then someone bought a Fiverr goal and that took up a lot of my time; I only really kept at the Inktober drawing schedule. But it was useful enough that I’ve decided to make one for November as well. This is not a draconic ‘you must do everything every day’, but more of a ‘if you have time to wonder what to do, here is what you’re going to do.’

Project Work

I added another chapter to the Colonel Lieutenant, but more importantly, I planned out several important plotlines for the middle section of the book. This is good because while I know the broad strokes of the ending, the details have alwyas been mush because I haven’t had them set up in the middle. Hopefully in November I can knock some chapters out and get it closer to publishing.

After a log of plotting and planning, I started the next and hopefully last re-write of Orcfyre. This outline addresses my issues with the last one, and has extensive world building thanks to the PBRG system to support the story. Now it’s just knocking out word.

I’ve added support documents to other projects, from geography work to pantheons. In November, I want to add at least one chapter for each project, so I can get a sense of the characters on the page.

November Goals

• Get The Colonel Lieutenant to 20 Chapters
• Get Orcfyre to 10 Chapters
• Get one chapter for each other project
• Publish two blog posts

Books

• Seven Basic Plots (Research)
• Bearers of the Black Staff (Fiction)
• The Cardinal of the Kremlin (Fiction; Re-read)
• War and Peace (Audiobook)

I didn’t reach much this month. I meant to, but it didn’t work out that way. Instead, I only managed to knock out a few chapters of each book without finishing any of them. No excuses not to do better in November.

November Goals

• Finish One Fiction
• Finish One Non-Fiction
• Finish One Research

Movies / Shows

• Foundation Season 1
• Star Wars Bad Batch Season 1
• The Thing from Another World
• The Thing

I finished the first season of the Bad Batch, the Star Wars animated show. This is doing a good job of showing the transition from Clone War to Imperial Army, There’s enough of a mystery to keep me interested, enough action to keep it exciting, and enough world building to keep me attached.

This Halloween I ended up doing a horror movie double feature. I’m not much of a horror movie guy, but enough of my friends love the 1982 The Thing movie that I said I would watch it this month. And my dad, being a movie connoisseur, said I should watch the 1951 The Thing from Another World, so I made a movie night of it.

The Thing from Another World is a fun movie. It’s about a US science expedition to the north pole that finds an alien life form in the ice that comes alive and tries to kill them. The movie is more than 70 years old, so there are several dated aspects, but they in no way detracted from the movie. The dialogue was fun to listen to (very fast paced and overlapping). And most of the characters were less stereotypical than I expected. I was a good movie to start the double feature.

The Thing is a different movie. The expedition (to Antarctica this time) doesn’t find the creature but encounters it. The creature is a chameleon instead of a straight up monster, and the tension of the movie is less about beating the creature than it is about the trust or mistrust of the characters amongst themselves. The effects are great. It was a fun watch, and I see why people like it so much. The only distraction was trying to figure out where I’d see so many of the actors before.

November Goals

• Watch three movies
• Finish Foundation Season 1
• Finish Two other Season of TV

Games

• Dune: Spice Wars
• World of Warships
• Last of Us 2 (Replay)
• Madden 26

I started a new game; Dune: Spice Wars, which is a RTS game set on Arrakis in the Dune universe. It’s a good mix of resource management, strategy, politics and covert actions. It’s scratching that strategy itch of mine, but it doesn’t have much of a storyline.

Other than that, I played through more of the other ones. Not much to add, really.

November Goals

• Start a PC Storyline Time
• Finish Last of Us 2 Replay
• Get back into Horizon Forbidden West

What’s Next

I’m on the wait list for several events coming up or in 2026. As things become official I will have them posted.