Mid-year pulse check

Obviously, my attempts to blog more early in the year didn’t last very long. As usual, the greatest hindrance to it is myself. I’m sure I will always have something to write about, after all. I’m still sitting on photos from the winter to share, not to mention those from a trip to Banff a few weeks ago.

So what have I been up to while not blogging? The big news is that I have two new books that pretty much only need cover art to release, including Sisters of Chaos book 2. There may still be some final tweaking to that one, so I can’t give a release date yet. I’m also currently working on a short story which is a bit different from my usual fare, though that one’s not going to see print until next year (if it goes well).[image error]

Also, because I clearly can’t stand the thought of having a manageable workload, I’ve begun narrating audiobooks for Brain Lag. I’ve recorded two so far; the first, J. R. Dwornik’s Green Light to Paradise, came out last fall, and the newest, Innocent Earth by Dale E. McClenning, has been submitted for distribution and is making its way into catalogues.

It’s a lot of work; Innocent Earth took 100 hours total. That doesn’t sound like a whole lot in the context of 40-hour work weeks, but with my rather reduced work days and other projects going on at the same time, it took me about six months to finish it. However, voice acting has turned out to be a lot of fun. (I particularly enjoyed voicing a flamboyant preacher from Kentucky in Innocent Earth.) I also get a chuckle while editing now and then, say, when my cat decided to chip in. While I’ve decided to take a little break from it for the moment, I look forward to recording my next audiobook.

As for my 2019 goals, according to Goodreads, I’m three books ahead of schedule for beating my best year of reading. So a few of them are graphic novels; I didn’t specify that for my goal! Regrettably, I haven’t been doing as well with playing guitar in the past couple months. I think I was doing better than the last time I ‘seriously’ tried to learn before my practice time dried up, so I would like to find time for it again. I enjoyed playing.

However, I am happy to report that I have continued an over 150-day streak on Duolingo learning Japanese. I’m far from holding a real conversation, of course, but I’ve learned a few hundred words so far, am beginning to understand the idiosyncrasies of the language, and continue practicing reading hiragana and katakana whenever I see it. It’s been fun and maintaining an unbroken streak for so long (okay, so I’ve had two cheat days) certainly motivates me to keep learning every day.

I also just finished refreshing the design of the Brain Lag website, which involved learning how to make a responsive web design, or one that will change depending on the size of the device viewing it. Aside from that, I’ve managed to uphold some other personal goals, so it has been a productive year for me so far.

Now let’s see if I’ll actually fit blogging in to the rest of that.