Saturday Status Post: 17 August 2019

It appears I had a bunch of good ideas back in February, many of which were derailed by life rolls and complications far beyond my control. One of these was the regular STATUS POST as a lead-in to the Sunday Circle, and I’m going to try and back into the groove of such things.

HAPPIEST MOMENTS OF THIS WEEK: I finished the redraft for Short Fiction Lab #4, handed it off to Brain Jar’s resident beta reader, and put it up for preorder at the usual suspects.

BIG THINGS ACHIEVED THIS WEEK: After rocking the whiteboard as an organisational tool earlier this week, I’ve actually succeeded in getting a bunch of things on-track. Aside from the aforementioned development work on Brain Jar’s next release:

• I hit my writing quota for the thesis for the first time since June, and actually started buying down the word-debt I owe that project.
• I progressed a fiction project every day this week–not quite back to the 1,666 words a day i think of as “cruising speed” as a writer, but close enough to make me happy.
• I’ve written a bunch of blog posts ahead of time, because I’ve missed the routine fo regular blogging and would like to get back to it.
• I got my reading mojo back, devouring three books in the space of seven days.
• Consolidated everything I need to do into a single work space, instead of shifting around the house.

It doesn’t quite tick everything off my list from last week, but I’m starting to see the shape of my routines again and that gives me the space to start hacking them to add new things.

CURRENT EARWORM: Emile Autumns It’s Time for Tea, particularly the line ‘Revenge is a dish best served…now.’

CURRENT READING: The Penguin Book of Hell, compiled by Scott. G. Bruce.

I don’t actually remember picking this book up at any stage, although it definitely looks like the kind of thing i’d grab because it’s likely to be useful. Bruce compiles a bunch of writing about hell and its denizens, starting with ancient greek writing about Hades and progressing all the way through to some 20th century authors.

It’s fascinating to trace the literary origins of some particular beliefs and tropes about hell that we naturally assume to be biblical, but actually come from secondary sources.

BEST SCREEN MEDIA OF THE WEEK: I raved about this in my newsletter on Wednesday, but the Stallone/Schwarzenegger team-up film, Escape Plan, caught me by surprise with its ambition and storytelling. It was a film custom-built to coast on nostalgia and the promise of seeing Sly and Arnie team up for the first time, and it didn’t.

INBOX STATUS: Two emails remaining at time of writing, although I haven’t checked in this morning.

WHAT AM I LOOKING FORWARD TO RIGHT NOW? Next week!

Partially because I’m feeling on top of things for the first time in forever, and I’m excited to see how I can adjust what I’m doing and start building upon it.

Partially because my partner got some news about a health issue that’s been frustrating her for a while, and I remember what it was like when I went from having-sleep-apnea-and-nobody-really-knowing-about-t to having-sleep-apnea-and-treating-it.

And partially because my friend Nic is running Call of C’thulhu next weekend, and it’s always a good weekend to poke your nose at things that man is not meant to know and go mad as a result.