Seriously, I’m probably already at Barnes & Noble with my birthday money.  All I really wanted was a paperback copy of ‘Ready Player One’ since I loved the movie.  I highly recommend people see it, especially if they were growing up in the 1980’s and still have some nostalgia for the time.  I mean, the big race had the Delorean from ‘Back to the Future’, the Akira motorcycle, Stephen King’s Christine, A-Team Van, Bigfoot the Monster Truck, and I’m sure I missed others.  Aside from that, it was just a really good story that I thought had more heart than everything else coming out these days.  There’s a part near the very end that actually hit home because I think a lot of people who grew up loving video games and not being very social can relate.  Actually teared up a bit there.  I have to buy this movie when it comes out because I need to watch several times to catch the other hidden characters and items.  That was the big birthday present, which I’m glad I went through with because I was getting rather melancholy leading up to it.

For anyone who remembers, I published War of Nytefall: Loyalty last weekend and then settled in for some low key activities.  I did a bunch of promos when they came up, but I think I’m starting at the beginning again.  Praying that this isn’t another ‘Bedlam’ thing where people seem more excited to talk about it than buy.  I can’t figure out how some authors get so many reviews out of the gate unless it’s all free copies, which I thought Amazon cracked down on.  Honestly, I’ve been so exhausted that I could barely think about such things.  I’ve checked numbers when I could, but I’m falling into a mindset that I simply want to write and do my best.  People have put too much pressure on me over the years to make a fortune, get a contract, or research the numbers that I feel like I’ve lost my author center.  That would be joyfully writing and sharing it with people, which is the most important part for me.

As far as accomplishments, I don’t know what to say.  My birthday was Monday, so I rested and did more promo stuff before taking my son to martial arts.  Then it was a few drinks with my friend and this led to conversations about the future.  Tuesday was a big parent/teacher conference, which was interesting.  Errands after that ended up sucking up the last of my day, but I finished the promos I had.  Wednesday is when I finally got to settle back and relax.  Working on one of the Sin stories and put on an anime called ‘GetBackers’, which is entertaining.  I’m starting to realize how much I’ve worn myself down too.  I had 9 characters to design and it took me all week to do that, but now I’m up to locations and the 4 Acts.  There was a lot of food shopping too because I kept finding that we were missing things.  That was my week in a nutshell.

Next week is going to be a little stranger.  I don’t have any appointments, but I don’t know if I should dive into War of Nytefall: Temptation (Volume 3).  It’s too early to edit War of Nytefall: Lost (Volume 2) and my alpha reader is still working through Quest of the Broken-Hearted.  Feels weird editing something that is being read at this time.  I have Derailing Bedlam that I can look over even though it’s not going to be published until next year.  That’s only if I can keep this going and not succumb to the army of people demanding I stop.  Yeah, we’re back in ‘I think you have played around as an author long enough’ territory.  Anyway, another option is to finish working on the Sin story outline since the notes I have are terrible.  It could take a whole week to piece it all together and it means I won’t leave it unfinished.

As far as my plan to finish all of the 2018 release first drafts before summer, I only have one book to go.  I can probably take all of April to edit books and I’ll still have the time to write the other book.  It would only put the Dawn Addison finale at risk, but I can still work on that during the summer at night.  Honestly, that story is still kind of shaky, but it’s a blog only for October, which means I can be experimental.  If I do get that done then I can use the summer to start writing the next Ichabod Brooks collection for next summer and do an edit on War of Nytefall: Lost.  Guess it’s nice to be ahead.

So, I don’t know if I can do a goal list this week since I have no idea what I’m doing.  Maybe I’ll just list options:

1. Finish Sin story (Walker of the Blood Groove) outline.
2. Edit War of Nytefall: Lost
3. Edit Quest of the Broken-Hearted
4. Finish watching GetBackers
5. Go over outline for War of Nytefall: Temptation
6. Get some extra sleep