It’s November! (Go vote.)
Oh, yeah, and National Novel Writing Month began yesterday. I guess that’s a thing.
That I have been doing for fifteen years.
Of course, since I am writing this ahead of time, I do not know how my first day went. I hope I wrote a bunch of many words. If you are doing NaNoWriMo, I hope you have also written a bunch of many words. (That’s my tip to you if you are just starting out. Say things like “a bunch of many” to get those extra words. It will make revisions hell, but it could be worth it in the short term.)
I am also planning to dig deep into the archives of my old podcast flick-a-brac (with all its outdated “news” and contact information) and post the NaNoWriMo-related episodes. Who knows? Maybe the enthusiasm of DB in his thirties (plus his listeners) will be somewhat more inspiring than DB in his forties (sans listeners). I have to check the archives, but I might be able to do two episodes a week — the pre-NaNo episode and post-NaNo episode of each year we covered it. (The show lasted three years, and I think we even did an “Unscripted” set after the show was over.)
Anyway, that’s something you can dread starting this week.
In personal news, there is no personal news. Still reporting to JOB every day. Still struggling to write (pre-November, at any rate). But there is one thing that’s been happening that I think I am ready to talk about.
ANNOUNCING A THING
Comedy of Terrors* is coming out in AUDIO! This is the announcement I have been sitting on. I didn’t want to jinx it by talking about it too soon, but my narrator has finished the book. I have sent back a few notes for fixes. As of this writing, they have not yet come back, but I love what she’s done with the thing overall!
She even read it like it’s not a steaming pile of dog poo. That’s a plus.
Because I don’t have the corrections back yet, I cannot give a definitive release date, but I am aiming for November 19. If I have things back by then, I will put up a pre-order. If not, then I will have to push the date back and set up the pre-order from there.
WRITING IN PUBLIC
No news here, but check back next month. There should be some NaNoWriMo stats then. Based on the goal I came up with (don’t hold my breath), there should even be some neato bandito stats.
Meanwhile, the only writing I have done in the last month is this blog entry. Insert sad trombone here.
GAMING THINGS
PATHFINDER! Oh, my stars and garters, did we have some good Pathfinder Adventure Card Game last month. We managed BOTH scheduled sessions; the person who had a schedule conflict worked it out and was able to join us that week. Kyra has a brand-spanking new spell I love very much. I want to kill all the undead things!
Ironically, it was our fighter who managed to obtain the spell. Since I was at his location, he gave it to me on his next turn. Then I got to fight one of the three villains, and lo and behold it was undead!
d12+4 for my spell ability (Divine). 2d12 for the spell’s power because the thing was undead. d8+1 for my character power against undead. Valeros was at my location, which added another d4+3. (“d4+3 for no reason!”) Then Lem used his power to add another d4+3!
For a fight against a Villain critter which required a combat roll of 25, I rolled THREE(3) 12-sided dice, an 8-sided die, and two (2) 4-sided dice, with a total bonus of 10.
Math it up. I had a possible roll-range of 15-62!
And three of the dice rolled 1’s. But I still beat the critter with a roll of 37!
Alas, that villain escaped into the other open location — but ours was thus closed.
The game ended the next turn, because the scenario rules said that characters at a defeated villain’s “old” location could immediately move. So we both went to the final open location. I played Scry to suss out any monsters. That same villain was in the top three cards. I moved it to the top, explored again, and fought the critter a SECOND time (this time without the benefit of that amazing spell but with the help of my teammates).
I realize I’m getting into game mechanics here, for which I apologize, but it was incredible! I was useful in a way OTHER than merely healing everyone else.
The end of the tale involves the final location being not yet closed (because the scenario had three villains — if there is more than one villain in a location, when the location WOULD be auto-closed, what actually happens is that the rest of the location is banished (back to the box) and the other villain(s) now comprise the entire location deck).
Last villain was defeated on Ezren’s turn. And we won, because we work so well together, except when everyone is spoiling all my grandiose plans — but that’s another story entirely.
I know I have mentioned before that PACG — Rise of the Runelords specifically — is my favorite game… and there’s a major big reason for that. It’s a fun game, and if you have the right group (which I do), it’s fun even when the odds are completely stacked against you. Which, once you get up to Adventure 5, they are.
The only downside to this game is that it can take a mega-long time when you’re blind as a bat (which I am these days), and there is no time for other fun games in the session. We battled five times to defeat the three villains in this scenario. Twice the villain was able to escape to another location. We fought the human thing twice (Valeros once and Lem once). We fought the undead one twice (Kyra both times, woot woot!) and the final human thing once (Ezren for the win).
It ran way late, and we were all exhausted by the end.
Currently we are scheduled to complete Adventure five this coming weekend. I will let you know how it goes, hopefully without all the play-by-play this time.
Then again, that’s one reason I have the headers: So you can skip (or skim) the parts that don’t interest you.
WRAPPING UP
National Novel Writing Month is upon us! I hope you are furiously typing words in your quest to defeat the 50,000-word beast. Let me know in the comments or on Facebook or even email or phone message — there are links to those somewhere — how it is going for you. And, of course, if you’re in my writing group, I wanna hear how it’s going when we get together on Discord.
Take care of yourself. Be good to others. Wash your hands. Wear your mask. VOTE!!! (If you haven’t already.)
And we’ll see you soon.
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