Skip to main content

2024 - Week 45

Arts & Crafts

I did do a little cross-stiching, but not enough to make a lot of progress. It's been hard to do anything this week.

Decluttering & Minimalism

I wish I could say I was surprised at the results of the US election. To get through the aftermath, I finally did my bookshelf reorganization. Well, I got through all but the handful of illustrated books I own. I decided I would move them with my drawing and art history books since I don't have room for either on my main bookshelves. My body was tired and couldn't quite get it all done.

Gaming & Streaming

Saturday's Starfinder session was a lot of fun. We didn't get a lot done, but it was a good time. We added a 4th player and did maintenance from the previous session. Then we cleared a lady's restaurant basement, disarmed a junk tornado, and killed a ferrous ooze. All in a day's work.

The Pathfinder session went well, but it was a fake boss that we fought. We also had to kill a previous ally who turned on us. It was totally in his nature to do so, but that doesn't make it any less sad. I tried to give him one last chance, but it was a bad time to do so as I forgot he was still choking a friend. RIP Skurge, you weird little creature. We left the dungeon and went back to town then had to deal with a bunch of undead in the cemetary. It didn't look good, but the living prevailed.


I also cleared out an area below the candy themed castle I'm building in Minecraft. It will be a dungeon and an area for animals. 

Goal Setting & Tracking 

Arts & Crafts: Royal Blue on Fairy Cross-Stitch (61%)
Decluttering & Minimalism: Bookshelf Reorganization (90%)
Gaming & Streaming: Starfinder & Pathfinder (100%)
Lifestyle & Sports: Curling (0%) and Massage (100%)
Music & Songwriting: All Voices Choir (100%)
Reading & Writing: Coverfly Career Lab (100%)

Lifestyle & Sports

Tuesday was back to work and I wished I had another day off to focus on other things. I skipped curling because I was still recovering from the weekend and I have so much to do at home that I felt overwhelmed. I also skipped it because these constant weather changes are physically painful.

On Friday, I had an osteopath appointment. It's like the massages I've been getting. Anyway, the arm & shoulder are around 95% there. I'm still trying to get a little bit of range back. She also gave me things to do for my shins. They are feeling a little like they have been overworked from all the running at softball. Trigger point releases on them are so incredibly painful, but there's nothing else I can do but endure it and then not let it get like this next season. Gentle walking and qi gong are recommended.

Movies & Television

I caught up on Grey's Anatomy this week. We need more doctors like Meredith Grey. Maybe then the health system wouldn't be so entirely screwed up.

Music & Songwriting

All Voices Choir was on Thursday evening. I was nervous about it as it had been several decades since I was last in a choir. It was such a wonderful thing to be doing, especially given recent world events.

Reading & Writing

Because I'm silly, I signed up for another day of writing panels. Coverfly had an entire day of screenwriting panels for $15 that I could attend from home. It was on Monday and I had the day off. I've found it really good to take the day after a convention off. The panels were:

- Writing Short Scripts that Stand Out with Kimberely Browning, Julia Morizawa, and Sam Baron
-  What Acclaimed Producers Are Looking for in a Feature Screenplay with Dan Jinks and Sophie Lovell Anderson
- Navigating the World of Managers and Agents with Robert L. McCullough and Suzanne Herrera-McCullough
- Marketing & Pitching Your Script with Cody Smart
- Turning Your Screenplay Into a Novel with Jeanne Veillette Bowerman, Ciara Duggan, and Matt Joseph Misetich
- Receiving Notes: Fuck You, Fuck Me, What's Next? with Meg LeFauve and Lorien McKenna

After the first panel, where I learned it's practically unlikely to get a short made without being more involved in making it than just writing it, I considered not bothering with the rest of the panels, but one never knows where life will lead them. I know I vastly prefer just writing. I've been on movie sets and it's not something I want to be doing. In some ways, it's freeing to know this. I can just focus on fiction writing. I can put the stories out in formats I know better and feel more confident in. Having IP out that can be turned into a film or TV later isn't a bad thing at all. And, at this stage in my life, I'm not likely to want to sacrifice almost half of my wage to join a writer's room anyway.

This isn't to say that I'm not going to write screenplays anymore, but I think writing the novel, novella, or short story first is the answer for me. I can take it later and reformat it into a screenplay. This change in direction has been very helpful in focusing my effort. Now I can focus on my novel and one short story anthology. 
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

2020 Vision

Mostly, I’ve been planning for the new year, but I discovered I know Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. It was a recollection under the influence that brought this to light. I also discovered I still suck at drawing, but I’m okay with that. I used to think I had to be good at everything, and I’ve realized that’s just not so. Some friends and I recently hit up a local board game pub. It was a pretty fun night. The first game was Balderdash and I was terrible at it. Because I was the writer in the group, some of my friends thought I should be more embarrassed about it and hide the fact that I don’t spend all my free time learning advanced vocabulary. But I’m not upset about it. Why? Two reasons: 1. I now know what I don’t know. 2. If one takes a close look at the top selling novels on the market, the level of the language used is not the level of many of the words in Balderdash. Not that I’m comparing my own work to those, but audience is what matters in writing. To me, it is far better to e...
Read more

Warrior Wednesday - Cross-training

[caption id="attachment_11040" align="alignright" width="300"] Image created using Bitmoji[/caption] Martial arts are a great workout, but it can be easy to forget that we need to do other exercises to ensure total body fitness. That being said, it doesn't have to take a lot of time or be a miserable experience. One of my Iaido mentors, 8th Dan Hatekenaka Sensei, does hot yoga when she isn't practicing Iaido. She practices Iaido every day whether there is class or not. Now Iaido is great for many things. Swinging a sword about takes *some* strength, so it works the upper body. It's important to mention that we try to get a sword that is a reasonable weight. Many are only a couple of pounds because they are a giant razor and don't need to be heavy in order to cut things. Also, a light sword should be able to be swung as thought it were heavy and a heavy one as though it were light. It also is helpful to prevent repetitive strain injuries. W...
Read more

Change is in the Air

I've been making a lot of changes lately around my home and some of them might seem a little odd, but they're making me happy. One thing I've done is taken apart my dining table. I never eat in there or have people over to eat. It was just another horizontal surface that would collect things like receipts, odd screws from various projects, and countless piles of paper. I had been frustrated because of the clutter it encouraged, but also because I didn't have a space for my Yamaha keyboard. I had been trying to use my keyboard in the living room, but it felt too cluttered and it wasn't sitting at the right height. With it now in my dining room, I was able to relocate my storage bench, which happens to be the perfect height to sit at while playing my keyboard. I now have much more breathing room. There is still a lot of mess to handle here yet, but I'm making solid progress. A lot of people suggest the bedroom is the place to start when decluttering, but I haven...
Read more