Hey all, Sam and David here.
Hello and welcome back to another weekly check in! That’s right, it’s time for WIP Wednesday, which means it is time to go over everything we’ve been reading, watching, making, writing, and doing in the past week. Because, let’s face it, most weeks we actually do have a lot going on…some weeks it’s actually surprising how much we’ve accomplished.
Doing these weekly check-ins means that there’s less of a chance for us to miss things when it comes to monthly or yearly wrap-ups.
And there is a lot to talk about…so let’s go ahead and jump into that. Oh, and feel free to share what you’ve been up to in the comments (or tell us on social media @freestateofgeek and @SamRushingBooks). We’d love to hear from you too!
Sam
Reading: That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon by Kimberly Lemming, The Valkyrie’s Daughter by Tiana Warner, One Piece Vol 4 by Eiichiro Oda, One Piece Vol 5 by Eiichiro Oda, One Piece Vol 7 by Eiichiro Oda, The Jasad Heir by Sara Hashem, and The Bookshop and the Barbarian by Morgan Stang.
Well…as you can see, I’ve been up to quite a bit of reading. I’m actually surprised by the fact that I’ve read 7 books in the past week, especially since a couple unplanned reads just happened to sneak in there. And funnily enough, for the novels at least, most of them I already either have reviewed or the review will be posted soon. I’m trying to keep as up-to-date as I can on everything. Most of the manga reviews will be coming in the next couple months.
Speaking of books and reading, there’s also what I’m currently reading or will be reading very soon…
There’s a lot of books on my Currently Reading/Reading Very Soon list too…Ghosted by Amanda Quain, Dragonfall by L.R. Lam, Silver Under Nightfall by Rin Chupeco, Bonesmith by Nicki Pau Preto, One Piece Vol 7 by Eiichiro Oda, One Piece Vol 8 by Eiichiro Oda, One Piece Vol 9 by Eiichiro Oda, and The First Binding by R.R. Virdi.
Actually, right now it’s looking like July is going to be my most successful reading month in the past year or so, which is pretty awesome. I’ve actually kept up with my new and upcoming releases for NetGalley reviews, and I’m starting to fit in some of my outstanding reads/reviews as well.
I do have a few books that I still need to make sure I read before I go to Gen Con, so hopefully I’ll be getting them on my reading list in the next week or two…because Gen Con is in three weeks.
Watching: “Secret Invasion” Season 1 (in progress), “Charmed” Season 4 and Season 5 (in progress), “One Piece” anime Season 1 (in progress), “Critical Role” Campaign 3 (in progress)
I’ll be honest…in the past week I have not had a lot of free time outside of work and sleeping. Trying to adjust to working a full-time job again has been a little more difficult that I expected…and the job itself isn’t even all that difficult. But having to go to bed and wake up at specific times and needing to factor in the commute to and from work again…it eats up at the limited free time available. I haven’t even been able to watch a lot of TV lately.
Writing: Based on a goal of 30,000 words written for the month, by the end of today (the 12th) I should be at 11,216 words…I am not there. Actually I’m basically at half of that. Okay, so I have fallen a little bit behind on my Camp NaNoWriMo goals. I’ve just been so tired in my time away from work that I’ve basically just wanted to be lazy…watching TV, taking naps, and not really doing much more. Most of my reading has been at work too, so I don’t know. I need to get myself focused a little bit more.
I know it won’t take long to get myself caught back up. When I’m focused and everything I can write around 1200 words in like a half-hour, so if I just carve out a little bit of time and make myself write, I can definitely get where I need to be.
Other: Okay…so now the reason I’ve managed to read more is something I’m putting here in the “Other” category, because it technically applies to both the “Reading” and “Writing” categories…and that is the fact that I bought a Kindle Scribe. I’ve been wanting an e-ink tablet for when I’m on the go and don’t want to carry around notebooks and pens and all of that. But I didn’t want to get something that was primarily for writing; I wanted something that would be decent at reading as well. After a lot of looking at different products, reading reviews, comparing storage space and capabilities, I decided on the Kindle Scribe…and it arrived last Wednesday.
I can read all of my NetGalley books on it, and can even write little “Post It Notes” that stick to the page, plus being able to highlight passages that stand out to me. But, I can also just create a Notebook document and start writing. The “pen” perfectly picks up my handwriting and I haven’t detected any lag between what I’m writing and what is appearing on the screen. It’s honestly fantastic.
Plus…since I got this during the Prime Day deals and all of that, I ended up getting a 3 month trial of Kindle Unlimited as well, and I definitely plan to try some small press and self published Romantasy books over the next couple of months.
And I have a cool case for it that also folds into a stand/easel set-up so it can prop up the Kindle while I’m reading without me needing to hold it up the whole time. Oh, and I think the battery life on this is pretty great. I fully charged it once I opened it, and then I was able to do some serious reading on it for almost a whole week before it got low enough to warrant charging again. And I was reading like 3-4 hours or so every day. So, I’m honestly impressed with that.
The other point of note for this “Other” category is that we finally, FINALLY, were able to get enough time to hang out with friends and have a game night…our first one in a couple months. We did video games this time around so we played Mario Kart 8 and Super Mario Party, and they were both a lot of fun.
All right…passing it over to David.
David
Printing: Been busy printing goodies this week guys. Have a bunch of small trinkets to hand out to folks at GenCon this year. Keep posted on our Instagram and Facebook and keep an eye out on us at the main convention center.
I am also done with the building of the Green Goblin mask, I am just working on making it all nice and smooth and then painting it right now. Hopefully I can figure out how I want to get the eyes on it and making the mouth easy to breath through.
I finally have the goblin slayer helmet in pieces and am hoping to print the rest of the 3d printed parts I need to make. My goal is to have this done by the time Halloween comes around.
Speaking of I also started printing tiny little bats and I have means of making tiny spiders. I think I am going to hide them in random places wherever I go just to spread some spooky season joy.
Playing: I am taking up playing Tears of the Kingdom and Diablo4 again some more but I have just been trying to upgrade equipment and making lots of recipes in Tears of the Kingdom.
Workshop Work: I will have some update photos on this but I am cleaning and rearranging the basement workshop. I might even actually have all of the printers plugged in and ready to go for all the nerdy ideas I got coming up. Mostly looking to get a bunch of cosplay props done for fun.
Also putting up more shelving in hopes that I will be able to stay better organized this time. I think the new layout will work much better and keep the resin printers in a good temperature control spot. Hopefully next time I have a bunch more stuff to talk about. I will also try to actually have some photos to post next week as well.
Well, that is all from us for today. Let us know what you’ve been up to 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.
Free State of Geek 