WIP Wednesday – Aug 9

Hey all, Sam and David here again today.

After the lengthy post from yesterday, I think we’re going to try our best to keep today’s post a little more short and sweet…because obviously most of the past week has been spent at Gen Con. Basically we’ll be covering anything that happened last Wednesday after we finished our last WIP Wednesday post, and then whatever has happened Monday and Tuesday of this week…which hasn’t been a whole lot as we’ve been recovering from the excitement of being at a convention.

But that doesn’t mean that today’s WIP Wednesday will be a bare-bones one. We still have plenty of reading, watching, playing, writing, and doing to discuss, as we do each week. There’s not much else to say, except that we’d also love to hear what you’ve been up to, so let us know in the comments (here or on social media: David is @freestateofgeek and Sam is @SamRushingBooks). We’d love to chat with you!

All right, let’s get started.

Sam

Reading: Santa Claus: Private Eye by Jeremy Berenstein, Michael Dorman, Rob Schwager, Phil Smith, and Steve Blackwell, Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher, Strength Check by Katherine McIntyre, and Wisdom Check by Katherine McIntyre

Oh gosh, I didn’t really get much reading accomplished while we were at Gen Con, sadly. So I don’t have a whole lot to talk about here. But I made up for it a little bit after getting home. Although I guess that’s because I read one graphic novel and one novella. But the novel I picked up, I ended up devouring and immediately moving into the second book of the series. So, I’m a decent chunk into Wisdom Check, so I’m going to go ahead and include it in the finished category, because I think I should be able to finish it later today.

As for current and upcoming reads…

I’m actually in the middle of the Soul Screamers Vol 1 bind up, having finished My Soul to Lose and being a few chapters into My Soul to Take. This is a re-read for me, so I imagine it won’t take too long to finish it. And then I’m trying to balance the rest of my reading between cute fun romance and romantasy and cozy fantasy with some of the bigger adventure fantasy stories and such.

Obviously a couple are for NetGalley reading and reviewing, but I’m also trying to balance that with other books I just want to read. So, for the moment I have Face the Night by Lani Forbes and The Midnight Kingdom by Tara Sim as NetGalley reads, and Soul Screamers Vol 1 by Rachel Vincent and Forged by Magic by Jenna Wolfhart as my other reads.

And I imagine that I’ll be trying to pick up the rest of the Dungeons and Dating series very soon. I’m just a little bit obsessed with them at the moment.

Watching: Haha, nope…still not talking about stuff. Pay the writers and the actors for their work and for repeated use of their work/likeness.

I will say that because of some of the games at Gen Con, I have started a re-watch of a childhood favorite…well, a childhood obsession really…and I’m enjoying the early-mid 90s graphics and shenanigans.

Writing: I am writing. I guess more specifically I’m editing and re-writing…but I have actually started a deep dive into making one of my books better than ever. This particular book, Project Death: Resurrection was one that I started writing in high school, finished shortly after grad school, and then did a couple rounds of edits before self-publishing.

I’ve learned a lot more about writing and editing since then, and I still like the story and the characters, but I know that the book can be a whole lot better. So I’m doing a major overhaul to the whole book, polishing it up, and expanding on it to make the story a bit fuller and richer. Then I plan to re-release it, probably with a new cover and everything.

I’ve only made it through a few chapters so far, but thanks to the panels at the Gen Con Writer’s Symposium, I’m feeling ready to take on the challenge, and I’m already seeing where I can make some smaller changes in the beginning to make a huge impact on the story, in terms of description and action, and most particularly more showing instead of telling, and rewriting some of the info-dumping to better introduce the information.

Other: See the Tabletop Tuesday Gen Con Wrap-Up post for all of the stuff that would typically go in this category. For here, I’ll just say that we played and then picked up a whole bunch of games and TTRPG books and supplements, so we’re not running out of material for Tabletop Tuesday anytime soon, which is pretty awesome.

I don’t know if we have any “other” plans for today. David and I have today off together this week, but it’s supposed to storm off and on most of the day…plus we went a little wild with our fun and our purchases while at Gen Con, so we might just be staying home, playing board games, and putting something to watch on the TV as background noise.

David

Electronic fishies swimming in a small pool

So, on a whim I bought these fishies and a small pool, wanting to see if the cats would have fun with them. Well…the pool is a lot bigger than I thought. Didn’t really pay attention to the measurements, I guess.

We decided to try it out today and the cats don’t seem to want anything to do with it, at least not yet.

Playing: Ive been trying to play a bunch of the card and board games that we got at Gen Con and have been slowly working my way through that.

Tears of the Kingdom I have only managed to find and finish a few more of the shrines. I have been having trouble doing the ones where the shrine takes away all of your gear and only lets you use what is inside.

Painting: I have started on a bit of a painting binge and managed to re paint a bunch of my old painted figures. I painted two more of the Oathsworn and a few of the Druhkari from my Kill Team army as well. I am reorganizing the paint desk and the game area in the dining room a little but other than that not much has gone on since Gen Con.

All right, well that is all from us for today. Please feel free to tell us what you’ve been up to lately, because we’d love to know. Thank you so much for stopping by, and we’ll be back soon with more geeky content.