2025-W47 EOW Report

Anti-Goal Cycling

• More development on prj:WHEEL. Needed to develop the BKST more in order to feed the present storyline. Might have to drop this as well like prj:LOOSE with the MRK SSC starting. It’s going to be more intensive and a forcing function to get more raw stories out faster. Both WHEEL and LOOSE took too long to dabble and didn’t get to the story proper.
• Saturday was the Short Story Intensive with MRK SSC. Met new people, wrote a short story: prj:NIFTY. Because of the speed in which we were moving, I managed to get a structurally sound story with a clear resolution to the PROG and ARC by the end of it. HOWEVER – I don’t like it. While I still love the MECH – which had been kicking around in my head since 2022 – the ARC and PROG I attached to it, I’m not thrilled with. The ARC is now overshadowing the MECH so much that it’s more about the ARC then the MECH. It’s a new and interesting problem I haven’t experienced before. I think this ultimately progress and a net positive (because I now know what I clearly do NOT want for this story to be about). That said, when I asked MRK at the end of the 11 hour session what I should do with it, she said I should put away the MECH for now and come back to it another time.
• MRK’s updated her training from two years ago to include tools that are new and helpful in ways I didn’t experience the last time. But also, given how craft progression is multifactorial, it’s hard to say if it’s my experience after two years informing it, or the tool itself. Either way, doesn’t matter, growing and learning, more confident, less insecure, more steady, more reserved, less defense mechanism, less ego.
• Still burning through The High Middle Ages (2001) by The Great Courses with professor Philip Daileader. Still learning tons. I now know how the Franciscans and Dominicans came about. Actually… no, I’ve mostly forgotten what the Dominicans are about now. Dammit. But the Cluniacs and Cistercians… wait. Fuck. I don’t remember what all the differences are either. Hmm. Maybe I need to listen to the whole religious section again. I do recall what being a mendicant means. I do recall how abbots have total control over their underlings. I do recall how Frances of Assisi was batshit insane and chaos. I do recall how the Waldensians were declared heretical – not because of their teachings, but because the Church didn’t want them to talk to the townsfolk? But then because the Church didn’t give them permission to keep preaching, they did it anyway, and they had a whole secret network where people hid them?

Four Thousand Weeks

• Monday night, drive out to Surrey to have dinner with JM. Have not seen him since pre-Pandemic. He’s in the thick of raising a young family and working a good job. That evening had similarities to the one BJC and wife invited me out to a year ago. Or was it two years ago? I feel out of place at these reunions, but then again, when my kids were younger, it wasn’t exactly a topic of conversation I dwelled on. I had my thoughts and opinions which I converted/condensed into quips and quick anecdotes, but I didn’t want to share further than that.
• Bought more Iroshizuku ink. Still waiting for my M809 to come in. Using fountain pens more. Saturday’s marathon on MRK SSC was… something else. Refilled twice. Not sure why the Sailor 1911L is refilling just above 50, maybe 60%. Is that air gap supposed to be there? I can’t fill it up more? During the 90m rush to write the entire thing, aiming for 1500-2000 words, my handwriting definitely corrupted to a mess as my hand cramped. It’s a speed I’m not used to. It’s a speed I need to get used to.
• Friday was a lot. Eldest ended up not needing a ride, so I thought I could cram more work in, but was being unrealistic with Client B stuff. Then Costco. Then BBQ Korean Chicken. Then shower and sleep. Felt a little sick on the way to Costco. Jammed in a lot of vitamin C before bed. Would’ve been extremely mad if I had fallen sick before the MRK SSC marathon on Saturday. Survived. Might need more Vitamin C again. Make Me Write sessions on Sundays are back on.

Story Introspection

• Blitzed through the Arkangel Production of Henry V (1599). A lot of it is nonsensical when you’re paying half-attention and I need to supplement it with reading it with the annotations. But there is some odd pleasure in just listening to it and grasping the general overall story when I do pay attention. I’m playing this on osmosis. I want to have the characters in prj:WHEEL speak in iambic pentameter and I’ll just let this seep in. It’s fine. I’m reading it anyway. I might just run it on repeat again a few times.
• Finished Worms of the Earth (1932). It was a good fetch quest and dungeon crawl. Of course, when Robert E. Howard was writing this in the thirties, they weren’t called fetch quests nor dungeon crawls, the guy pioneered the entire Swords and Sorcery genre after all. It was enjoyable enough. It did feel a bit like OTAA at a lot of times. Which… TBF, that’s what a lot of adventure pulp fiction is. It’s a fun frolic of an adventure where the character is your ride through the funhouse or whatever amusement park ride you want to call it. I guess Pirates would be a better fit. You sit in a boat, it has rails, you see exotic and interesting things, the ride ends. The “things” are often super-original concepts that make you sit in awe and wonder and spectacle. But ultimately, there’s no emotional resonance nor lingering emotion of… wow. That was something that will make me think about that character’s arc much later. It might even invoke intellectual interest (savage barbarian as an antithesis to corrupt civilization and magic is technology which is evil)… but again… no emotional resonance. Which makes me wonder if OTAA pulp fiction could be elevated to have more of an ARC so that the story “stays” with you more than “wow, that was a cool gee whiz idea or MECH”.
• Finished To the Lighthouse (1927). Such beautiful beautiful prose and interiority. Comments here. I/R/T my notes, I have never journaled so personally in reflection to a novel before. To the Lighthouse is a novel that – through the eyes of the characters, with such rich and real introspection – really forces you to reflect on parallels in your life.

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