Weekly Update 01/26/24

 Weekly writing progress: 

I finished the rough of the third short story and I'm now in a limbo of sorts where there's no "book tasks" for me to do. 

I'm bottle necked. 

I have a second paid beta looking at my second novel before I can do my final, personal, pass on it. I'm waiting until I finish my last pass on book two before I start the long job of editing book three. The cover artist got me a sketch that I've approved for book one, and now I'm set to wait for them to color/shade and finish. Most of my behind the scenes stuff requires the book cover to be completed before I should get started on them (Amazon upload, book funnel for my short). 

So I'm on a writing "vacation" of sorts which feels odd after going almost two years without. I could do more research on ads, but I feel like I've learned as much as I'm going to be able to until I start actually trying to do them.

What I've been up to:

TV 

I started Love Death + Robots, and I'm enjoying that. As with all shows like this my enjoyment can vary from episode to episode, but most of them are really cool. And thus far ALL of them are visually amazing.

Finished Reacher. I fear it's going to be just like Jack Ryan in that it will always be something I watch, but never something I really like all that much. The acting is good and some of the fight choreo was pretty dang good too.

Third episode of RuPaul's Drag race was great. Very entertaining ball episode and I loved a lot of the looks the queens made. 

The husband and I have started Hazbin Hotel and it is amazing. The voice acting is wonderful, the animation style is whimsical and somehow manages to be both saccharine AND dark. Thoroughly enjoying it so far.

Books

I finished the fourth book in The Wheel of Time, The Shadow Rising. I feel like I hear a lot of chatter about how it's one of the better books, but I have to say I only thought it was ok. It's like I remembered, overlong with some serious pacing issues. The book is almost 400k words which is the equivalent of 4 other books.

I've just barely started A Monster Calls, and it's nice to read Patrick Ness' prose again so shortly after reading More Than This. I really love the way he writes. 

Games

Shadow Gambit took a back burner to Pal World which has now eaten a bunch of my time. The game lacks serious polish, but it's still a fun playground to run around in.

Against the Storm did indeed end up being too crunchy for me. I may approach it again later, but I doubt I'll spend serious time on it. 

I will be on vacation next week, so no update. Not that anyone is reading these, yet (or ever), but I'm gonna keep doing them to build the habit of focusing on social media stuff every Friday.

Want to chat? Comment here or email me at mjlindemann@mjlindemann.com. I try to respond to everyone :)

Weekly Update 01/19/24

Weekly writing progress: 

4000 words in the last week on the third short story. I have maybe 1k more words to finish it which I will get done this weekend. I've spent time brainstorming solutions for wrapping things up in the third novel and pondering changes to the blurb for the first book which has distracted me from working on the short. 

Initial concepts for the cover of the first book are coming along. I've sent back for a second revision of the initial sketch and I'm pleased with how it's looking. 

What I've been up to:

TV 

I finished Hilda (Netflix animated series), and It was so so so good. If you have a child and you have a Netflix subscription you should absolutely sit down and watch it with them. It's a beautifully drawn world with a focus on exploration and growing up. 5/5 stars.

We finished The Brothers Sun, and it didn't end as good as it started, though Michelle Yeoh is great throughout. The plot just gets a bit too messy and wraps up too cleanly with a lot of things overlooked for me. The script is both weak at points and extremely strong in others. Every once in a while they'll hit you with a line that's excellent. The action was pretty solid throughout as well. It's a pretty dang good show.

Reacher report: Meh. The actors are trying to hold it together at this point, and they're doing a decent job. I did like the fight sequence in the most recent episode, but some of the cheese in the script is beginning to go bad. Some of the moments just feel very, very forced.

Second episode of Ru Paul's drag race was entertaining, but I don't think Megami will last long (though she seems like a wonderful person) and Plain Jane is someone I want to go home right away, but she is drama and the show loves that (who am I kidding, I love that) so she will probably be there for quite a long time. She definitely has the polish, but there is no rudemption arc that can occur which will change my mind that the way she's treating the game and her fellow queens is anything but terrible. I don't tune in to watch people screw each other over. The contest, IMHO, is supposed to crown the most deserving queen, and when you let the queens decide winners/losers the process selects for assholes, not talent.

Books

I'm almost done with The Shadow Rising, the fourth book in The Wheel of Time (WoT), and I'm right at the climax. I'm still enjoying it, but the length of the book is... I mean one WoT book is an entire trilogy from another series. They're a lot, and it's a very long time to wait for the climax of the novel. That said, there has been plenty of action and intrigue. I'm thinking I'll read A Monster Calls next, and then Nettle & Bone before hopping back into the fifth book.

Games

I'm in act 3 of Shadow Gambit. Mimimi games proved with this one that they are the absolute masters of stealth tactics, though I don't like that you can only take three characters on a mission (though there is basically no way to balance the game with more than three). It's a shame the developer is going out of business.

A friend bought me Against the Storm on Steam and I'm enjoying it so far, but I fear it's going to be too "crunchy" for me the further I get into it. We'll see.

Want to chat? Comment here or email me at mjlindemann@mjlindemann.com. I try to respond to everyone :)

Weekly Update 01/12/24

Weekly writing progress: 

6100 words in the last week on the third short story. I'm not certain how long this one will be, but I suspect more than the ~10k of the previous two, which would push this into novella territory, but we'll label that bridge when we cross it.

Still waiting on the initial concepts for the first cover. Once I have the cover, my plan is to have a very simple cover made for my first short story, The Eye, and book funnel that to people while setting up some ARC readers for the first book, The Will of The World. 

What I've been up to:

We started The Brothers Sun on netflix and we're having a really good time with it. It's a fun blend of comedy and entertainingly choreographed fight scenes. Michelle Yeoh is great in anything I see her in, and this is no exception.

We continue to watch Reacher which is also fun, though the part about finding someone's IP address from their gamertag seemed like a stretch. The show is a cheese fest, if I'm being honest, but one that holds our attention, so we'll keep watching it. There's something to be said about relaxing into a simple story with almost no moral ambiguity. Also, big man punch things good.

Lastly, the new season of Rupaul's Drag Race is out and it's shaping up to be an entertaining cast. Dawn is my favorite so far, but we'll see. With Canada wrapping up here and UK vs The World starting... there is rarely a week where we don't spend at least an hour and a half on some iteration of drag race.

I'm 70% of the way through The Shadow Rising. The fourth book in The Wheel of Time (WoT). My strategy was to read three, then take a break, and then read three, and then take a break... but this book is significantly longer than the ones that came before. So I'll be taking a break to read 1-2 other books before moving right on to the fifth book. Despite Jordan's character work being significantly better as the books go on, they all still come off a little wooden. Also, everyone in the story has this very, very strong impulse to contrast men and women as if they are different species, and it's a world view I find tiresome and boring. Conflicts that arise out of it are so annoyingly simple to solve, that to watch characters struggle interpersonally because of it is more aggravating and frustrating than entertaining. Even with that, though, there are moments of really clever dialogue and, despite how long the book is, the pacing is better than the previous books (though still not great).

Outside of Overwatch, the game I'm currently playing is called Shadow Gambit. It's a pretty niche title that's all about stealth tactics and setting up Rube Goldberg machines of violence in order to achieve your goal. I play it with a heavy heart, however, as the company that makes these games (there's three of them) is shutting down. As high quality as the games are, they don't have mass appeal.

Want to chat? Comment here or email me at mjlindemann@mjlindemann.com. I try to respond to everyone :)

Weekly Update 01/05/23

Current state of things:

Third book rough: done

2nd short story and book out to paid beta readers in preparation for final revisions.

Weekly writing progress: 

Finished the final, for real for real, pass on the first book.

Waiting on initial concepts for the cover which should come in today or next week sometime.

More attempts at the blurb for the first novel. I'm mostly pleased with it, but it's hard to tell. I've spent most of my life trying to isolate myself from marketing, and so tasks like this are hard for me to judge quality.

Today, I started the final short story to be released via mailing list around the same time as my third novel. A little over 700 words which is a low word count day for me, but I also spent time on making sure the timeline of all three novels works out with character ages AND I'm spending time doing this weekly update, which I plan/hope to continue doing with regularity.

What I've been up to:

We finished the first season of the Skull Island animated series. It was... ok. Definitely not something I'd strongly recommend, but it was a fun romp. If someone is looking for animated series to watch on Netflix I'd recommend Kipo and The Age of Wonderbeasts, Blue Eyes Samurai, Arcane, or Hilda before I'd recommend Skull Island.

Speaking of...

I started watching Hilda season 3. I cannot recommend it strongly enough. The script, the voice acting, the animation, the choice of color, the world building. It's all very, very impressive and I'm only sad that this is the last season. Three seasons and a movie is more than a lot of animated series get, though, so I'll enjoy the ride while I can. As a disclaimer, it is 100% a children's show. An excellent children's show, but it's not going to have any adult themes or situations. So if you're looking for anime blood/gore, try out Blue Eyes Samurai. It's excellent.

I continue to work my way through the fourth book of The Wheel of Time. So much of my interest in fantasy came from that series, and while I feel like it has major, MAJOR pacing issues, I have a visceral urge to finish it even after dropping it in my youth. I do genuinely enjoy my time reading it, but it is not something I would recommend to people without a barrel full of caveats. Last time I only made it through the fifth book.

In the way of gaming, I continue to play far too much Overwatch, but I've been revisiting Super Mario RPG when I want to do some single player games. The remaster/remake/whatever they are calling it did an excellent job, and the game holds up surprisingly well after all these years. I still find myself laughing at the humor. Though I must say, the timing mechanics in SMRPG are... well, they're really easy. It's a game for children, after all. Sekiro, it is not.

Lastly, I scored my first sanctioned 600 series in bowling league this week. A 638. *dusts shoulder off*

Want to chat? Comment here or email me at mjlindemann@mjlindemann.com. I try to respond to everyone :)