Hey all, Sam and David here.
Once again we are at the middle of the week, so welcome back to WIP Wednesday. If you’re new here, each week we like to take time to wrap up everything we’ve been doing, whether that’s books we’ve read, shows or movies we’ve watched, games we’ve played, what we’ve written, and what we’ve done and created.
It’s partly because we do a lot of stuff, but it’s also because if we didn’t keep track of it somewhere, we would probably forget as things all start to blur together.
Oh, and feel free to share what you’ve been up to in the comments. We’d love to hear about all of it. Well, let’s go ahead and get started, because we’ve been up to an awful lot recently.
Sam
I have a pretty big week of things to talk about, so I don’t want to waste any more time, and just jump on into it.
Reading: You are Home by Catana Chetwynd, The Dragon Knight’s Beloved Volume 1 by Ritsu Aozaki and Asagi Orikawa, I Got Caught Up in a Hero Summons, but the Other World was at Peace! Volume 1 by Jiro Heian, Toudai, and Ochau, I Got Fired as a Court Wizard so Now I’m Moving to the Country to Become a Magic Teacher Volume 1 by Rui Sekai and Kyou Kitazawa, The Great Cleric Volume 1 by Broccoli Lion and Hiiro Akikaze, A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers, Into the Windwracked Wilds by A. Deborah Baker, Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher, What We Devour by Linsey Miller, A Witch’s Guide to Fake Dating a Demon by Sarah Hawley, Spear by Nicola Griffith, Spring’s Arcana by Lilith Saintcrow
See, I knew I was going to have a big reading update post this week because of having Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon this past Saturday/Sunday…and I was basically as successful as I would have hoped. I read and finished 10 books in the 24 hour period and started an 11th book, although I fell asleep while in the early stages of that last book. It was a great time, and I’m now like 20 books ahead on my Goodreads Reading Challenge, which is pretty darn great.
Watching: “Bones” Season 5 (in progress), “The Marvelous Mrs Maisel” Season 5 (in progress), “Arrow” Season 3, Season 4, and Season 5 (in progress), “The Party” web series Season 1, “Pitch Perfect”, “Critical Role” Campaign 3 (episodes 54-56)
The re-watches continue, as does the slow slog through the final season of Mrs Maisel. It just isn’t as fun as previous seasons. Honestly, season 4 even felt a little slow and off to me, and season 5 just continues to feel off. And the reason why I’m watching so much “Arrow” so quickly is because I want to catch up to where I am with “The Flash” and watch the shows together, because I never watched the end of Oliver’s story, and Barry’s story is wrapping up soon. Actually I need to finish up “Legends of Tomorrow” and “Supergirl” as well. It’ll be nice to finally wrap up some of these stories that I stopped watching before they were over. I’ve had a habit of that when it comes to shows. I don’t want to see them end and so I just stop before watching the final episodes/season.
Writing: Writing has slowed down a little bit, but that’s because I’m doing some planning and plotting and thinking about what I need to do instead of just sitting down and trying to write without a road map of the next leg of the journey. Sometimes when I get to a point where I realize I’m basically just writing for the sake of word count and the words are more rambling filler than anything else, it’s time to close the laptop and just daydream a little bit.
I’ve figured out my plotting/pacing issues with Tale of Blood and Mourning, so I’m going to keep working on it now that Camp NaNoWriMo is over, and hopefully I’ll be able to get a workable rough draft finished by the end of June. That is my current goal with that project so that I can spend July-December writing the rough draft of the sequel.
I need to get back into the editing and revising for my Project Death books, because I would love to have the first book ready for publication by August, so I can have copies for sale at Cincinnati Comic Expo in September.
But I’m feeling most motivated to work on Roll for Romance at the moment, and I’ve realized that I’ll have a much easier time with this one if I basically divide it up into basically two intertwined novellas…This means that for right now I’m just focusing on the in-game fantasy adventure tale, and I already know that I’m going to end up writing more than what I’ll include in the overall book. I’ll pull out the scenes that make the most sense to highlight and emphasize the out-of-game romance story. But…I don’t want to waste all the extra words that I’ll be writing down…so I think my current plan is a couple months after Roll for Romance is released, I’ll probably release the in-game fantasy adventure in full as a bonus novella, so anyone interested could see the whole campaign.
There’s still a long way to go before any of that happens. I need to get back on my writing groove and get writing.
Other: David and I had a little bit of a board game night the other day, and we played “Mouse Trap” and “Happy Little Dinosaurs,” but we also looked over the Starter Set for the Avatar RPG and it looks pretty cool. Oh, and we went bowling, and spent some time at the arcade attached to the fun center that also holds the bowling alley. We also did some more 3D printing, but I’m sure David will talk about that more in his portion of today’s post. And we’re having another game night tonight, so we’ll probably talk about that a little bit next week when we know what we played.
David
Hey guys sorry about not having a super long post on my part last week, a lot of stuff happened but I am back this week with everything I have been up to. Let us start with the biggest pain in the but lately , printing.
Printing: So I had a big oops and I had to take down the 2 printers that were up and running. I keep having things breaking on at least on of them lately, Printicus O’Sullivan, my oldest printer, finally had a break down and I need to replace the whole hot end and I will need to replace the wiring attached to it as well.
Percival Frederickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III, is basically being used for spare parts while I wait to be able to buy new parts. I have needed to switch out a motor and feeder so far. He will be what I get the hotend and bits I need for Printicus. Percy is usually very picky and I am constantly having to make adjustments so we will see how it goes.
Alphonse I have had to replace almost every part on and is the reason I have to wait to buy more spare parts for the others. This one is currently running and I am working on some Gemstone Tadlings on at the moment. I had an issue where my filament had a weak spot and stopped the last print but thankfully that was an easy fix. I missed out on that print but the last one was a success anyways.
Melinda had the hot end replaced not too long ago maybe a week or so and the first filament I decided to test in it was a new one. Well that was a mistake. The filament kept jamming up so I figured it required I use a larger nozzle. I decided to switch from my usual .4 size nozzle to a .6 size nozzle and the nozzle broke inside the hot end. So a new hot end Melinda will need yet again.
Hawkeye has been a pretty good trooper so far except for some reason the filament is not wanting to flow properly during printing and I cant figure out if it is actually the filament or if I do not have good enough settings for the print set up. Its a big process of trial and error at this point that I hope does not mess up one of the 2 out of the 5 I have running right now.
Watching: I ended up re watching The Daily Life of the Immortal King. I also started a couple of new ones that are in the middle of their respective seasons and started watching the next season of Dr. Stone.
So the Daily Life of the Immortal King is based on a Manhwa and I happened to try it out after watching a clip that showed up on my instagram. It was a fun watch, which was why I had to watch it again now. Basically the ‘Chosen One’ was born into the world and his power was so great that his dad made a special amulet that will keep his powers in check. This seals away not only most of his powers but also his emotions. If the seal breaks the energy unleashed all at once could wipe out all of humanity. Of course the series happens when the main character is a teen, so the worst possible time to have issue with the amulet. Will it last until his dad is able to make a new one, or will he become slayer of the world. You will have to watch and find out.
Summoned to Another World for a Second Time is a fun one so far, it is an isekai but when the hero Setsu is caught in a trap in the fantasy world he was summoned to, he was reborn in his original world as a baby with all of his memories intact. Years pass and by chance or by destiny his class is summoned to another world, which happens to be the same world he was summoned to before. With all his magic powers and knowledge still intact he begins to investigate a way to end a war brewing between the kingdoms of humans and demons. He heads of alone to try and figure this out not wanting to put any of his classmates he cares about in danger. With a second chance and with his old allies can he stop impending war and keep his classmates alive by doing so?
I Got a Cheat Skill in Another World and Became Unrivaled in the Real World Too is a mouthful but I liked the concept once I got into it. So the main character Yuya is an overweight, short and timid middle schooler. He has been bullied his whole life and even his own mother, father, and siblings want nothing to do with him because of how he looks. The only one who cared about him was his grandfather who recently passed away. His grandfather left everything to Yuya and his parents decided to be done with raising him and kicked him out of their home so he could live in his grandfathers. At the end of his middle school school year the bullying was especially bad and he broke down and punched the mirror of his home only to unlock a door to a secret room filled with things his grandfather collected during his travels. One of which ends up being a door to another world, and his door to opportunity for a better life.
Dr. Stone is one of my favorites mostly because it explains all the science behind everything the main character does. They may be 3700 years after the fall of humanity, but being able to create a clunky cell phone or instant ramen in a primitive world is really cool. I am watching the third season of the series at the moment. As Senku and the Kingdom of Science journey forth to not only catapult humanity back into the scientific discoveries they used to, but to try and figure out what or who caused the calamity that brought humanity to its knees.
Gaming: I have not been playing as much as I would have liked but I am playing a couple of games on and off. I tried the 2 hour trial of Hot Wheels Unleashed on my PS4 which I think I might end up buying the full version of the games down the road just not right now.
I started to play Dragon Quest Heroes a little bit and I am liking it so far. It definitely plays differently that Dragon Quest Builders and some other RPGs that I have played recently. It is a good game so far. I cant say that I have played too many games of this series before, but I know Akira Toriyama had a part in it and one of my favorite games Blue Dragon as well so I am going to keep giving it a chance for now. I will tell you how I feel once I have had to grind a bunch to get passed certain parts of it. I know that is going to happen sooner or later.
Well we have a game night to prepare for and I am getting hungry again, Boo Berry Cereal does not sustain me long apparently. Hope you all have a nerd filled day, and may all your dice rolls be natural!
Well that is all from us for today. Feel free to tell us what you’ve been up to recently in the comments, because we’d love to hear all about it. Thank you so much for stopping by, and we’ll be back soon with more geeky content.
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