WIP Wednesday – June 28

Hey all, Sam and David here today.

There has been so much going on over here at Free State of Geek, both individually and together. We normally get up to quite a bit of stuff, but it seems that since we are on opposing work schedules, we get even more done when the other person is at work. Yes, we’d both love to have more time together, but we’re taking advantage of the free time we do have when we’re apart.

Anyway, welcome back to our mid-week check-in post series, which we call WIP Wednesday. It’s a place to talk about everything we’ve been reading, writing, watching, playing, printing, doing, and more. Basically it is something we use to keep track of all of the things we get up to each and every week so we don’t forget things, particularly when it comes to the big end of year wrap-ups and all that.

Oh, and feel free to share what you’ve been up to lately in the comments, because we would love to hear all about it!

Okay, that’s enough chit-chat from us. Let’s get started with the weekly breakdown.

Sam

Reading: The Bridge Kingdom by Danielle L Jensen, Unpainted by Dan Fitzgerald, Dark Water Daughter by H.M. Long

I have reviews for Dark Water Daughter and Unpainted coming in the next few days, so stay tuned for those.

Basically, I didn’t do as much reading as I did last week, or I did a bunch of reading but I was having some focus issues that meant not completing as many books. I had one 600+ page book that I was hoping to read in a couple days and review last weekend, but the beginning was so world-building and info dumpy that I was really struggling to find that draw into the story like I was hoping to find. So I set it aside to read something a bit faster. I’m not saying that the chonky fantasy isn’t good, but it wasn’t good for me at that moment when I was trying to read it. That happens sometimes, and it’s fine.

I still have a number of in-progress reads in varying stages of completion: Garden of the Cursed by Katy Rose Pool, Duel with the Vampire Lord by Elise Kova, Gods of the Wyrdwood by R.J. Barker, Wolfsong by T.J. Klune, A Crown of Ivy and Glass by Claire Legrand, The Valkyrie’s Daughter by Tiana Warner

Hey, is it obvious that I’m really into a fantasy romance/romantasy mood right now? Because I am. Sadly I have to balance that with my desire to keep as on top of my NetGalley reads and reviews as I can, and I have work to think of and all that, so…I’m not necessarily reading as deeply and quickly as I’d like to, but that’s fine. The point is that I am finally back on my read-lots-of-books-all-the-time groove, so I’m just going to go with it.

Watching: “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” Season 3 (in progress), “Secret Invasion” Season 1 (in progress), “Charmed” Season 1, Season 2, and Season 3 (in progress), “Critical Role” Campaign 3, and BookTube videos.

Writing: Camp NaNoWriMo starts this weekend, and I think I’m as ready as I can be for it. I still have a little more research I want to do for the Cozy Vampire Fantasy project, but that’s easy, and I can do it during the month of writing if I need to.

So I have my goal set at 30,000 words written in the month of July. Now, while I’d love to say that that means writing 15,000 for Harbingers of Death and 15,000 for Sink Your Teeth Into Some Good Books, I’m not going to restrict myself in that way. If while I’m writing, I feel the draw to one story over the other, then that’s what I’m going to focus on, and if that shifts day by day, then that’s fine. For my writing updates through the month, I’ll try and give rough word counts for both stories, just in case anyone is curious about my writing focuses.

Other: We got to play a little bit of Diablo IV again the other night. We’re in the middle of the Act III quests and all that, but then we have plenty of side quests still to do, and plenty of areas still to explore in order to complete all the tasks for the regions so we can max out our renown and everything. It’s going to take some time, especially since we can’t manage to play more than an hour or two at a time.

The only other thing of note for me in this section is that one of our friends went out of state for a convention, and David and I got to puppy-sit for a few days, so we went over to our friend’s house a couple times a day to check on the dog, let him outside to go to the bathroom, and then play with him for a bit and check on his food and water. I’m glad we’re in a position to be able to help our friends out with simple things like that. Plus, it gets us out of the house for a little while…and we get to spoil some cute puppies and kitties, and that’s always fun.

David

Watching: The rewatch of FMA:Brotherhood continues. I am almost done with it and I will need to pick another anime to watch through or rewatch. I think preferably one I have already seen so I can paint miniatures while it is playing in the background.

Sam and me have also been watching some more of Star Wars: Clone Wars. Its kind of cool to watch everything that was going on during the period between Episode II and III. I think Kenobi’s level of sass is amazing. I did notice Asohka seems to be stuck repeating the obvious. Like saying “The lights went out.” When everyone present can see that. Reminds me of Galaxy Quest “I got one job on this ship, its a dumb job, but Im gonna do it.”

Painting: I painted a small female figure that was a test print for the resin printers. I am painting a sexy Mirko right now, and because I have a hard time finishing one thing before starting another I have also started painting the 3 Troggoths from Age of Sigmar. When I got those ones along with a bunch of others they were partially painted so they should not take long to finish. So far I am happy with my progress. I have my base coat on them and now for both Mirko and the trolls I can start adding all the little details. I will share pictures next week when I have a few more done.

Once I finish these trolls I have the Oathsworn figures next on my list to finish. After those I want to get started on the Witcher: Old World figures. I am looking forward to it and hop I can take plenty of good pictures for you all next time.

Printing: The printing is going well overall. Have a couple of new machines being added to the arsenal. I am printing a bunch of little bone rats. I think they are going to be a nice surprise for those who find as at GenCon. I am thinking of printing some of my coins and stuff to hand out as well. Just handing out Bardic Inspirations like the bard I am.

I am also looking into maybe doing some can holder cups and seeing how they do. The ones I am looking at are suppose to not need supports so that will be great. Depending on the colors I use to make them I wont have to do anything extra to them. I do have most of the machines going right now

Gaming: I put a little more focus on to my Barbarian on Diablo 4. Going for the dual wielding build and seeing how it goes. I am not getting a lot of super cool gear yet as I am still at the lower levels and Halfway through the First Act. It has been fun so far to just got deep into enemies and just start swinging.

I am probably going to try putting some time into Tears of the Kingdom again. I was taking a break for a bit since all i have been doing is trying to find all the shrines I can and then I will start seeking out better armor and ingredients to upgrade them. I think my favorite armor is the gliding armor. I was told if you upgrade it high enough you will no longer take fall damage.

Well, that’s all from us for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and we’ll be back soon with more geeky content.