Hi, friends and readers. January was exhausting, between work, writing, winter and ICE. But we made it through to the shortest month of the year. Yay us.

Overall, January was still pretty good. My suggestion schedule continues to be a valuable tool in keeping myself going. That being said, I want to be doing more with it. Not just scratching at a project to mark it off for the day, but getting real work done.

Hopefully, come March 1st, I can have some real advances to announce.

Projects

I advanced in every project this month, adding scenes to the text or entries to the world building. I gave myself permission to jump around the projects, not just writing from the front but hitting the end and middles as I wanted to. Anything to make sure that I was adding to the project.

And I did, just not to any great extent. As much as I got done, a lot of it felt like picking at the edges. I need, NEED, to get major work done.

February Goals

• The Colonel Lieutenant: Finish One Major Section: Before the Campaign, The Campaign, or After the Campaign
• Orcyfre: Finish Two Acts
• 1st Minnesota: Finish Three Chapters
• Minor Projects: Finish 20 Things

Books

• The Great What-If’s the American Civil War (Non-Fiction)
• Bearers of the Black Staff (Fiction)
• Seven Plots (Research)
• War and Peace (Fiction, Audiobook)

I read a lot more this month than I did in December; still didn’t manage to finish any titles. I was tempted to start some new ones just to add to the list, but that felt like it’d just overload the list.

February Goals

• Finish Great What-If’s
• Finish Bearers of the Black Staff
• Get Past Chapter 25 on Seven Plots

Movies and Shows

• Final Countdown
• Troy (Director’s Cut)
• Stargate SG1
• Foundation
• A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
• Starfleet: Academy
• Wonder Man

I watched a movie that several people were surprised I hadn’t seen before: The Final Countdown, a film about the US aircraft carrier Nimitz time traveling from 1980 to the day before the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was a fun movie, that had some intriguing debates about responsible actions for time travelers. But by the end of it, I was surprised how little actually happened. Still, fun.

I also watched the Director’s Cut of Troy (2004). Now, Troy has always been a movie I’ve really enjoyed. Not top-ten, but close. This edition added a lot of background, nudity and violence, particularly during the sack of Troy itself. While some of the scenes added to the story (especially the discussions amongst the leadership of Troy), most of it I understand why it was cut.

Started a few new shows this month. Wonder Man, an MCU show I know nothing about, but it has Ben Kinglsey so it’ll probably be good. There’s a Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, a Game of Thrones show of limited scope that I’m enjoying immensely.

And finally, Starfleet Academy. My first reaction to the first fifteen minutes was very negative: I was very upset at the main character. ‘A guy who doesn’t want to be here, who can overpower a shuttle of guards without too much effort, oh come on.’ But by the end of episode two, he’s eased up on whatever bugged me about him. And the fact that episodes three and four followed different students really endeared me to the show. Lets see how it ends.

February Goals

• Two Movies
• Finish Three Seasons

Games

• Horizon: Forbidden West
• Hogwarts: Legacy
• Surviving Mars: Relaunched

I continued to play through all three games. Slowly, though, as quite frankly, as much as I enjoy video games, binging them for more than a few hours just makes me feel like crap. So, I have to be careful, because if I don’t pay attention, I can inadvertently spend an entire day doing just that.

February Goals

• Finish ONE GAME

What’s Next

I’ll have a table at Minicon 59 on Easter Weekend; I’ve got feelers out for other events, but it might be another few months before I can add more to this list.