PaWriCo Bookish Bootcamp July 25-July 31 Check-In

Hey all, Sam here.

It’s the final check in (I totally just thought those words to the melody of “Final Countdown” — I was in marching band for too many years; that was a standard stand tune). Today is also my birthday, so hopefully as this post goes live, I’m having a great day, but I’m sure I’ll tell you all about it when the Gen Con Wrap-Up post comes next week.

July 25

Most of the time my Fridays and Saturdays are not at all productive when it comes to reading or writing, and that’s just because those typically are some of the busiest days of the work week. I always spend time daydreaming, but I decided when I took on this Bookish Bootcamp that my writing progress couldn’t be just daydreaming; it didn’t count unless I had stuff written down, so there was proof of me actually making progress on my D&D novel.

July 26

I have almost finished my second writing craft book for this challenge. I did get a little bit of reading time while at work, so I think I will be able to finish this one just in time, because I do have the book in both paperback and e-book, so even if I have to read it on the way to Gen Con or after we’ve checked in at the hotel, I’ll still be fine.

July 27

Today was a reading day…just not a writing craft book reading day. David and I are doing a re-watch of “Solo Leveling” and I realized I had only read the first couple volumes of the Manhwa, so I decided to start reading that….and read the first four volumes before/during/after work.

I should’ve probably spent some of the time today doing some writing, plotting, etc on my D&D novel, especially knowing that the rest of the week is probably going to be busy, but I did want to do some more reading, because it didn’t feel like I had read all that much in July (but then I checked my wrap-up and realized I have actually read a bunch this month).

July 28

My July reading wrap-up just got a whole lot better, because my binge-read of the Solo Leveling Manhwa has continued to before/during/after work today as well. They are just so captivating. I’m drawn in and I don’t want to stop reading. I do need to think about getting my writing goal in for the week, but I’m at least certain that I’ll be achieving the Learn and Explore goals without issue.

July 29

Welcome to the day before leaving for vacation. You know, that day where you spend a lot of time doing things like any chores or errands that should be done (like laundry, dishes, etc), as well as packing since you put it off until the last minute. Add all of this to the fact that we also only slept like 4 hours last night because we are trying to adjust our life/sleep schedule from 2nd shift to something more like 1st shift—-you know, wake up around 7-8 am instead of noon, and go to bed more like 11 pm instead of 4 am. It’s an adjustment.

Sadly, all the last minute scurrying around and getting everything ready for an early wake-up to drive across a couple states meant that I didn’t really spend any time at all focusing on my stories or writing at all. It’s kind of funny that I have reached the last week of this Bookish Bootcamp and now I’m basically failing at getting words on the page.

July 30

Today was a travel day, because we left home in the morning and headed East towards Indianapolis for Gen Con. Then we had to wait in the Will Call line to pick up our badges and event tickets, grab a quick bite to eat, and then check in to our hotel. What made this day extra fun (and that should have been read with heavy sarcasm) was not being able to sleep last night and only managing about a 20 minute nap in the car. Needless to say, there was not a lot of reading or writing happening today.

And when we did get to the hotel, I wanted to try and build my own character for a TTRPG we’re playing on Day 1 of Gen Con, so I needed to pull out the blank character sheet, the Player’s Guide rulebook, and of course dice and pencil to get to work on that, something that was made far more difficult by the fact that I was exhausted and kept wanting to nod off while reading over character options.

July 31

It was a busy first day of Gen Con. I could probably actually count today as a bonus day for both my Explore goal and my Learn goal, because we got to try out some new stuff, but I also went to several panels at the Writers Symposium. It was a good time and I actually made a couple new writing acquaintances/buddies.

On the other hand, I definitely didn’t have much time in my busy schedule to actually do any writing, and since I hadn’t worked on any writing things the rest of the week, I actually needed to get 2000 words on the page to succeed in my writing goal……and I did not do that.

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Week 6 Overview

Write: I failed this week, but I guess succeeding 5 out of 6 weeks is still overall pretty good, so I’m going to celebrate this win, even if it was kind of a failure at the finish line.

Learn: It took me way too long to accomplish, but I did manage to reach my goal of finishing 1-2 writing craft books. I’m kind of annoyed that I finished a book the first week and then didn’t get around to reading/finishing the second one until the final week of the 6 week Bookish Bootcamp.

Explore This was definitely a success. We got out of the house to drive from Iowa to Indiana, visited some restaurants, walked around the convention center, and participated in a lot of fun events for the first day of Gen Con. So yay, I did manage to get out and do something every week. Now I”m just hoping that the heat and humidity (well, mostly the humidity) will drop a bit so I can actually enjoy a walk down to the riverfront park back home. I haven’t been there much this year, and it’s just a pretty nice place.

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All right, well that is all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.