This week has been a blur and tomorrow is the first day I can actually settle down with a notebook. That means there’s going to be very little writing-based stuff in this post. I’d do a day-by-day, but I can’t remember exactly what happened Monday or Tuesday beyond the appointments. Think there was rain, so we hung out inside for a bit. Don’t quote me on any of that. Geez, what in the world happened this week?
A big part has been that my son has a lot of evening events. Martial arts is Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evening and swimming is Tuesday evening. He’s really into them and swimming ends in early September, which means it’s going to be martial arts 3 times a week. Hoping to keep that going even when he has school since the Saturday morning option won’t be around when he gets back into gymnastics. Keeping my eye on the clock and rushing around might be what’s got me worn down. Maybe the early part of the week really was a wash because of rain and fatigue.
The big day was Thursday though because we did a full day at the aquarium. Saw all the animals and even sat in on an introduction to hedgehogs. This was cool because one of them was an albino. Lunch did have a wrinkle because we were planning on ice cream, but everything was contaminated with nuts and the soft serve machine was busted. My parents had gotten their stuff before we learned all of this, so my son and I had to go hunting for ice pops. He found one and I had some dippin’ dots, which really didn’t hit the spot. That was the only wrinkle before my son decided that he didn’t want to go home and declared that he should be allowed to live at the aquarium. The parking lot is two blocks away, so I had the joy of escorting a trudging, mopey child along the sidewalk. This began a long ride back where he ‘hated’ everything and brought all of us within a hair of our patience. On the plus side, he isn’t having the eating problem that he had last week . . . The little guy is trying to make up for lost time in terms of snacks. Thankfully, bananas are in the mix there.
As I stated, I haven’t done any writing this week. By the time I reach the end of the day, I’m drained because I’m only getting 4-5.5 hours of sleep. This gets combined with chasing and wrangling an 8-year-old in the heat. Probably shouldn’t have tried to get biking into it too. I still have 2 acts to set up for another Sin story and I’m really hoping these characters work. Since I put zombie girl back on Earth, I removed her from this series and put a golem worker in her place. There’s also a Windemere spy who uses a six-shooter, which is a highly restricted and magically protected tech. If he works out then I’ll give him a series, but I’m worried about putting a firearm in Windemere. I want to try a super spy in a fantasy setting and this comes with an interesting subplot where the tech being abused means the Gnome God will take it back. At least for his series because he’s supporting cast for Sin, which also means he’ll be using his gun sparingly when he goes out of his jurisdiction.
Speaking of future ideas, I’ll be starting War of Nytefall: Loyalty in a 1.5 weeks and I’m not sure if I’m excited or scared. My brain is already moving toward the early ideas on how to make Clyde work and what to do about the early chapters. He’s not going to be anything like Luke Callindor or any other heroes. Clyde is fairly monstrous in both power and aggression, which is why his series will be predominantly vampires. I can’t think of a good way to explain him. Maybe comparing his to Luke? In a situation where Luke tries to save innocent bystanders, Clyde might be inclined to make some of them a snack or ignore them completely due to be focused on the fight. When I played him in a table top game, he was a destructive bastard that softened a bit because I couldn’t play him that way for long. The books don’t have that restriction since his gang are other Dawn Fangs instead of mortals. We’ll have to see how things go. It’s definitely going to be a change and I should really look over a test scene I posted long ago.
Feel free to give it a glimpse!
What are the goals?
- Finish setting up the Sin story to get it off my plate.
- Entertain the child
- Get sleep apnea device checked
- Martial arts and swimming escort
- Watch ‘The Tick’ on Amazon tomorrow night. Probably won’t get through it all.
- Continue trying to explain Freddie Mercury and Queen to the kid.
- Look over outline again.
- Read more ‘Black Cat’.
Stephanie Collins 
