2024-W38 EOW Report

Highlights This Week

• Digging into and trying to figure out the PROG and ARC for BECKY. Sooooo… having a well-realized MECH is obviously not doing anything for me. I picked up Spies, Lies, and Algorithms (2022) from my shelf and I’m reading it to get more clear direction, or to figure out my CDA. What do I want to say? It’s hard to pick a PROT to focus on if I don’t have a clear CDA. And I have vague things I want to say with the MECH… but nothing SOLID yet. So that’s been my struggle this past week.
• Matt was out sick, so we didn’t end up playing Hunter, so my brother and I introduced the Glausers to Pax Pamir. Afterwards, I was reminded of how I played 26 games of it on Rally the Troops in 2022, and of course how I played 81 games of Potion Explosion during the pandemic. It’s a good reminder of how I can fall into these avoidant activities obsessively as a distraction and numbing mechanism from my work life. I think one reason why this year has been its own particular flavor of difficult and exhausting is that I’m actively attempting to fight the resistance that comes with doing something genuinely proactive and to keep doing it. Writing fiction, or pushing hard to make time, and pushing myself to work through the struggle and resistance, it’s a lot of mental/emotional/psychological bandwidth. It really is about fighting your brain and forcing yourself to be vulnerable to the fact that you suck, you will always suck, and you must work through the suck to CREATE ANYTHING even if the end result sucks. And then you do it again and again and again until what you make doesn’t suck, and even then, you still might make a lot of things that suck. No wonder so few people can actually become working artists. It is living in constant self-doubt, anxiety, and uncertainty. It is a not a pleasant place to be. And that’s why this week, I did another avoidant activity obsessively…
• Discovered League of Comic Geeks. I was on Comic Book Roundup for a bit, and I’ll still use it to track an aggregate of critic ratings, but for actual inventory management (and a community), tracking your pull list (and how much you’re spending each week), and even rating each single issue… LCG really is where it’s at. But yeah, I discovered it and then I spent a lot of time transferring all my reading history over the last three months over. I find data entry is surprisingly therapeutic to me. There’s the mindless recalling and entering dates, but there’s also the journey of reflection. You recall where and when you consumed a piece of media, who you were with, what stage of life you were at at that time, things you were going through, feelings you had. I think that’s what makes books, comics, films, TV series, music, plays, musicals, events… that’s one of the reasons these pieces of media, these artistic experience… that’s what makes them so special. They’re punctuation marks in our lives. But I’m on a tangent again. The point of this bit is that I spent way too much setting up and organizing my stuff on LCG. And then I joined their Discord and met new people. And then I thought about starting another Ghost blog and monetizing comic book breakdowns. And then I kept checking in on LCG and Discord to interaction Internet points. And it was all a distraction from my goal again. And it’s so easy to fall into that trap.

Project Status Dashboard

The following are ongoing fiction writing projects broken down to what stage they’re in. Legend in footnote¹

As I mentioned above, I’m trying to crack the CDA for BECKY. Once I have a CDA, I’ll know better where I’m going and what I want to say. I think the PROT, and their ARC and PROG will come easier once I have that. I have a hard time simply throwing a PROG together. I mean, I’m pretty sure I can now and feel good that it’s structurally sound. But what would it mean? What would a sound story mean if it’s not SAYING something? Hence why I’m reading Spies, Lies, and Algorithms (2022). I’m hoping Zegart’s book will help me find my thoughts on surveillance and what I believe about it.

EOW Time Tracking

Three Sentences First Thing Streak

• CURRENT STREAK: 0 Days
• BEST STREAK: 83 Days (September 20, 2024)

Thirty Minutes A Day Streak

• CURRENT STREAK: 0 Days
• LAST STREAK: 10 Days (August 17, 2024)
• BEST STREAK: 18 Days (May 10, 2024)

Four Thousand Weeks

This week was more about exhaustion than anything else. I just hit another physical wall. Now, granted, I don’t know if it was purely lack of sleep and work. I think a large part of it was also the escapism and avoidant activties I had with LCG. I think that’s over now and I can get back to my regular programming. I think it was a good side quest, I have my account set up, and I’ll keep managing my pull list, inventory, and hop into that community to chat about comic books… but for the most part, I see it for what it is, I recognize it, and I need to get back on this RESISTANCE-FIGHTING-TRAIN.

Book Reading

• STILL NO NOVEL READING… even though I picked up ELEVEN Kate Elliott Books!!! I forget who was promoting the hell out of her on BlueSky, but all the authors were like “she’s uh-maz-ing at world building and y’all should read her” and I was like fine, I’ll go on Thriftbooks and hunt down her two main series. And I did. I have all four Jaran novels: Jaran (1992), An Earthly Crown (1993), His Conquering Sword (1993), and The Law of Becoming (1994). And I have all seven (SEVEN!) Crown of Stars series: King’s Dragon (1997), Prince of Dogs (1998), The Burning Stone (1999), Child of Flame (2000), The Gathering Storm (2003), In the Ruins (2005), The Crown of Stars (2006). That’s a lot of books, man. Also picked up Ancillary Mercy (2015) because, why not add more books to the TBR pile? And I’m not done yet. Because I also traded in Save-On points for an Indigo GC and picked up graphic novels: Rare Flavors (2023) by Ram V., These Savage Shores (2018) as well, and The New Gods (1971) by Jack Kirby. Why? Because Ram V is writing The New Gods at DC in their soft reboot. I haven’t even read a single thing of Ram V, but given the praise heaped on him, I’m taking a bet on the community being right. Oh, and also Joëlle Jones’Lady Killer (2015). SO HEAVY ON THE SHOPPING AND FILLING THE TBR LIST…
• Read Kelly Thompson’s The Cull (2023) and loved it. Read it in one night when I should’ve gone to bed. It was interesting, a lot of the fun, pulpy sci-fi PROG was predictable. I knew they had walked into a liminal space between multiverses the moment I saw the caves, I knew time dilation was something they’d have to worry about, I knew walking into the wrong universe was a risk, I knew power fantasies would be fulfilled, the hive mind weirdness didn’t bother me at all… and yet, and yet, it still worked. And when it comes down to it – this year as I am way more hyper-vigilant on how stories are put together as I build my own craft – I am reminded, over and over again, what I care about as an audience is ARCs. Now, I read a few reviews, and people were like “this is trauma porn” and “having sex in an alien forest is stupid” and “too much kissing, not enough being scared”… and I’m like, wait, am I a sucker for trauma-porn? I mean I loved EVERY SINGLE EPISODE of This is Us (2016-2022). And I love me my romcoms and cheesy romances. So am I simply more suspectible to this stuff and put up with it even if it’s not “realistic” given the situation? I dunno. End of the world, we could die, might as well have sex as teenagers seems entirely plausible to me. And yeah, giving one of the prots a fridged little brother is easy convenience for drawing up grief-empathy. But so what? Those are the tools a storytelling have for their ARCs right? Without dead wives, missing siblings, lost parents… how else can we shortcut the audience into being empathetic to the protagonist quickly? LOL. seriously. You have 100-110 pages in a 5 issue miniseries or first arc to make them like your characters, be interested in the MECH, and want to read the next issue or arc. I’ll take my trauma porn over straight up superheroes-beating-up-supervilalins in a clever way and/or with clever MECHs action any day.
• Others. Was talking to my PT about Warhammer. I forget why. So I read Kieron Gillen’s miniseries that Marvel had licensed. Not bad. What a profoundly stupidly built world, but I think that is what you buy into when you walk into this world that’s nearly always veering on the brink of promoting facism. LOL. And then I dipped my toes in a lot of things. Kelly Thompson’s Hawkeye (2016) run – I’m basically catching up on as much Kelly Thompson as I can because I’ve been gone for over a decade and damn if there aren’t a lot of amazing female writers in this present time. Gail Simone, Kelly Thompson, Stephanie Phillips, Eve L. Ewing. Need to revisit G. Willow Wilson’s stuff.
• As for ACTUAL floppies this week from my pull list. I’m going to restrain saying negative things. But there are titles I’m tempted to drop and not see them through. I dunno. The completionist in me is like… let’s just finish it because on the other hand, I am re-reading them and breaking them down to LEARN from them, and the worst floppy this week has a LOT OF TEACHABLE moments. Plus, when I re-read, I do pick up on new things which changes my mind. For example, I’m coming around to X-Factor. I thought it was too naff and on the nose with the first issue… and I had the same feeling again with #2… but on my second read, I’m starting to “get” Russell’s humor. It’s a little more subtle than I previously thought. Do I love it? No. Do I appreciate it? Yes. And then I read something like Mutant Nation (2024), and it’s great storytelling, and I’m asking myself. Why. The more I break down stories, the more I’m convinced that it really comes down to one, having a clear PROT with WANT defined early, two, dripping information as needed for pacing, and three, SUBTEXT SUBTExT SUBTEXT. On the nose and expository dialogue is just… embarassing. Saying stuff that’s already visually on the page. Saying stuff that no human being would say in real life. Saying stuff just to “catch the reader up”. Saying your feelings like you’re a musical number. MOST PEOPLE DON’T OPENLY SHARE THEIR FEELINGS… ESPECIALLY WITH THE PEOPLE THEY’RE CLOSEST TO. Because those are the people who know you best and know how to hurt you.
• Next week is looking prety exciting. Super woke NYX #3 comes out. Loving this series. ANOTHER Gail Simone UXM already??? AND Stephanie Phillips Phoenix? So spoiled. Not looking forward to Wolverine: Revenge. Just found out Hickman used the Marvel plotting method to write this, hence why Capullo has free range to draw whatever… and I dunno… I hope this picks up. I really do. I want to enjoy Capullo’s art in a good story. And another X-Force!

Comic Book Issues Tracking

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