It’s a strange world out there right now. Plague, civil unrest, probably alien invaders before too much longer if the current trend holds. (Or are we already here?) In the context of all of this worldwide chaos and (because I’m a writer) ickiness, this blog post is going to seem self-serving… and that’s putting it nicely.
And I don’t care.
First off, I hope everyone in the United States had an enjoyable Independence Day. I’m speaking to you from the past, so it hasn’t happened for me yet, but I’m sure there were many inconsiderate jerks who kept up the festivities and fireworks long past a reasonable hour. They always do. It’s 2am, you’re drifting away into oblivion, and then it sounds like a war zone right outside your bedroom window.
Every. Single. Year.
For the rest of the world, I hope you had a nice weekend. In some places, the only part of the “strange world” scenario will be the aliens. Maybe some residual caution regarding the plague. I don’t know. I’m not where you are. At the time of this writing, we are seeing a record-setting spike in COVID-19 cases where I live. So much for “safe” reopening of the area. By the time this goes out, we may even start to see things closing again, which would mean all those months in pseudo-lockdown will have been for nothing. And all because people couldn’t keep it on their faces.
As much as I don’t like to get political here, I honestly don’t understand the resistance to wearing face covering when you’re out dealing with people. I agree it is almost impossible to breathe, especially when you have trouble breathing on a good day. But a bit of inconvenience for the sake of keeping everyone around you safe is not too much to ask. Why has this issue become as divisive as everything else? I just don’t get it. (Much like almost everything else.)
Anyway, tangent over.
In personal news, my oldest niece is now a married woman. Due to the plague, I was not able to go home to witness it, but the happy couple is doing well. They are planning to have a huge to-do next summer so they can share their happiness with all the rest of us.
Meanwhile, in hobbyist news, I am in a library somewhere! In May, a library bought an ebook copy of Comedy of Terrors – and this is where I wish I had slightly more access to purchase data. I am dying to know which library has the book. I’m also curious as to which brain-damaged patron requested it. Either way, it’s incredibly exciting news, and my high-pitched squeal when I found out about it shattered windows in a three-block radius.
One of the main reasons I release wide is so libraries have access to my books. I love libraries. They were a major source of entertainment when I was wee. (I have an older brother who controlled the television back then, but he could not control what books I got from the library.) The idea that someone might accidentally find me because they browsed the horror ebooks in their local library is – to overuse the word – exciting.
WRITING IN PUBLIC
It’s good that I have a reader on this blog, and one who will nudge me on the first day of the month asking where that month’s entry is. Otherwise, who knows how my annual goal would be faring? (Well, it would be faring about like it is now, only without Cheater Blog Posts to boost it up from zero.) My tracking spreadsheet shows that I have not written a single word since my last blog entry. That was written about two weeks before it was posted. (This one is being written about a week before posting.)
Shameful.
(Wanna hear my excuses? Too bad. I don’t have any. I’m just lazy.)
There was a tiny wrinkle in my quest for what to write next. I had decided to do a quick read-through and spell check fix of my 2019 unfinished piece of crap so I could give it to the folks who donated to last year’s NaNoWriMo fundraiser. Along the way, I realized exactly where I went wrong. I also spotted a plot thread that was originally intended to end up being the main story – and then it dropped right around the “it went wrong” place.
So why is this a wrinkle in the grand scheme? Well, I’m thinking I might try to actually finish this new (the original?) version of the story, cutting out everything that happened starting with the line where it all went wrong. Yes, this means I have to re-solve the mystery of a ghost’s death, but it may end up becoming something I don’t hate with a sheen of scarlet when I think about it.
Maybe for Camp NaNoWriMo in July? (Shh… don’t tell my writing group. They don’t think I’m doing it this year.) I am still officially undecided.
Other than that, I got nuthin’ for this segment.
GAMING THINGS
On the gaming front, three out of the four of us in the monthly group have gone (mostly) biweekly. For the past couple of months two of us have been meeting every other Saturday evening to play a game or two. As of a couple weeks ago, a third person joined us, while the holdout has told us he is not likely to play in a virtual setting. Not gonna fault him for that. Hopefully he will rejoin us when in-person gatherings are a thing again.
Hold on a moment while I check last month’s entry…
OK, I had mentioned the test games. Since then we have had three other sessions. First friend and I finished our game of Marvel Champions. Somehow we won the scenario after narrowly escaping a loss at one point. (Seriously – if there had been one single boost symbol during a round where the villain was scheming against both of us, we would have lost.) During that second session, I introduced him to the Tabletop Simulator version of Pathfinder ACG. If we could have talked our fourth into joining us, we could conceivably have continued our Rise of the Runelords campaign.
In session 3, our third member joined us for the fun, and we played Joking Hazard and a weird game called Chomper. (There is no BoardGame Geek link; this may have been created for TTS.) We all agreed that it would have been funner with a board and actual dice and meeples. Or at least easier to manipulate, since the premise is that your meeple is a Chomper that goes around the board eating all the dice it can until it runs out of energy. Score points based on colors and face values of the dice in the Chomper’s belly. It’s a pretty nifty idea, though the rules could be tweaked to make certain things more clear. We had to House Rule a couple of ambiguous things.
And then in our most recent session, we intended to start with We Didn’t Playtest This At All and move into other things. Unfortunately (or fortunately) the other two decided to play with the Chaos expansion. The Chaos card we got involved dealing out ALL cards and discarding cards when a player would win or lose, ending only when there is one person left in the game. It took nearly two hours to play, and we were on a shortened time because we had to start late.
We may have a session 4.5, but it is a school night (we all JOB together). We can’t be up super-duper late.
WRAPPING UP
While things in parts of the world continue to spiral out of control, at least I have a safe haven inside my brain. Such as it is. While I’m not likely to write a post-apocalyptic pandemic novel anytime soon, I have the caricatures and cardboard cutouts running around trying to give me guidance on what stories I want to tell next. I just wish they’d make a final decision soon. I’m itching to write something.
Stay safe out there. Be good to one another. And do something fun!