June's done. We're celebrating the nation's independence tomorrow (Happy birthday, America!), and things are moving along in my writing life. Peter is doing well (the potty training hasn't gone over very well, unfortunately), Gayle is spending a lot of time relaxing and painting murals, and all in all we're very content. I look forward to the school year somewhat reluctantly—I love my job, but I love my summers, too. It's hard to say that I'm ready to go back. We'll see how I feel in a month.
Writing Update
So here's the scoop for my current projects:
I still haven't finished Martin's Storm of Swords, nor commenced Warbreaker, though I'm eager to do both. I picked up Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, which is exciting for me. I like YA stuff because it's quick, fits in with the reading interests of my students, and often has memorable stories. I did begin reading David McCullough's 1776, a fitting read for this time of year, and I have been picking at 50 Philosophy Ideas You Really Need to Know, by Ben Dupre. It's a great book—easy to read, fascinating ideas, and though I can pick up a tiny bit of a bias within it, it's easy to see that every philosophical idea is being treated as fairly as possible. Good stuff.
Writing Update
So here's the scoop for my current projects:
- Words of the Silenced: I have been doing heavy rewriting (expected, pleasant, but time consuming) in version 2.0 (how do you decide what gives it a new number, anyway?) and am really enjoying the way the story is flowing now. It makes more sense, and just seems better. The downside is that I should be at least a dozen chapters through by this point, yet I'm only finished with chapter 9. I can see the rewrite actually merging with original text fairly soon here, but it's not coming as quickly as I had hoped.
- Press Start: I blogged about my success in finishing Baudrillard, and I'm grateful to those few who have suffered through my first draft posts for the different essays. I'm most interested in (and frustrated with) the latest one, On Violence, because it strikes the kind of tone that I want for the book as a whole. Yet none of the other essays reflects that voice, so I'm afraid I may have to completely rewrite it. Well, I'll worry about revisions later. As it stands, I have 16,856 words in PStB. That's exciting for me, since I've added nearly 7,000 words since I last mentioned it. Even though I've finished Baudillard, the essays haven't flown (or flowed) out of me yet. I'm every hopeful, however.
- Tales: This one is the real disappointment, though I think it's more my own fault than the story's. I just set the bar too high. I wanted 100k by the end of June, but right now I have 80,786. That puts me at about 66% completion of the goal, which I shifted to the end of July. The biggest reason for missing this goal? The two books outlined above. They definitely rear their heads unexpectedly. The problem is this: I was expecting WotS to be a simple edit, the kind of thing that could take, at most 45 minutes of my day. Instead, since I've been doing full-fledged, 2,000 words plus on new chapters for it, I haven't had the ability to write new material for Tales. This is disappointing to no one save me, since my writer's group is about 10 chapters behind where I'm writing and my wife refuses to read my stuff if it isn't printed out and handed to her. Still, this is a valuable experience because I'm learning not only how to discipline myself as a writer, but also how to manage multiple projects. I don't foresee finishing any of these this summer, which is sad, but I will always have Saturdays during the school year.
I still haven't finished Martin's Storm of Swords, nor commenced Warbreaker, though I'm eager to do both. I picked up Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, which is exciting for me. I like YA stuff because it's quick, fits in with the reading interests of my students, and often has memorable stories. I did begin reading David McCullough's 1776, a fitting read for this time of year, and I have been picking at 50 Philosophy Ideas You Really Need to Know, by Ben Dupre. It's a great book—easy to read, fascinating ideas, and though I can pick up a tiny bit of a bias within it, it's easy to see that every philosophical idea is being treated as fairly as possible. Good stuff.
Comments
I had a sleepover at Stephen's last night and watched him beat MGS3. Now I know what I'm going to get into. And yes, now I know what scene you are talking about where you have no choice but to shoot your superior in the head. Stephen didn't hesitate XD However, he let Oscelot (however you spell that) go after the round of Russian Roulette. it was a very different game for me, seeing as how I'm the kind of gamer that runs into a room with a machine gun to git 'er dun.
Alexis let me borrow Final Fantasy VIII, and I beat the first disk in 2 days! That was a few days ago, and I haven't played it since with friends' parties and the Fourth, but I hope to resume once this week ends.
I went to San Diego last week, and I got the Dissidia Final Fantasy soundtrack. The ending credits for that game have to be the most magical thing ever. It's a medley of all the Final Fantasy ending themes combined. Sure gave me butterflies.
Good luck on finishing your books!
Fortunately, seeing the end of MGS3 isn't as hard to follow as the end of MGS2 or 4, so at least you saw a 'safe' one. The games are remarkable, but they definitely have some more mature content (torture, shadowy conspiracies, a little frog thing that you're supposed to shoot...), so consider yourself warned.
I'm excited for the new FF games coming out. My wife just beat FFX a couple of nights ago, and we're working through FFX-2, which she hates because of the way X tends, and so X-2 picks up. It frustrates the hopeless romantic in her.