Jackdaw, Learning to Stay: Oops! All Poems!

Sunday, 22 November 2020

Oops! All Poems!

Yaaaaa apologies for the fact that every single dang post since like September has been as a poem; I queued them early on expecting to have other content to post in between, and then... life. Y'know. Everything.

So I figured I at least owed an update on everything, if nothing else than at least to space out the ding-dang poems.

Except not really. 'Cos y'know. My life is kinda private and stuff. So just some things. We'll see how it goes.

Poetry Corner

I recently performed in a poetry event organised by the awesome Sierra Moulinié, of Poems from My Hospital Bed. Check them out on Facebook and Youtube; I adore their work and had missed seeing them perform regularly at my local poetry evenings, so it was great to reconnect. Their Poetry Corner event also features a bunch of other great writers! I perform first in the video below:

Massive thanks again to Sierra and to everyone who performed that evening (and Chris, for being on tech).

Sylv

Ooooooh he do be coming!

It's been a while since I actually did an update on where he's at, so I figured I'd clarify. At the moment, I have a physical paperback proof copy, the first, of Sylvestus Vol II: The Rise. That means that the bulk of cover design, formatting, etc. is done, as is the majority of major reworks following the first beta-read I recently talked about. It's weird having him be... fully back in my control again. The stage I'm at right now is two-fold: picking through Vol II in detail for typos or formatting errors present in the paperback that might have been missed, or might not appear at all, in the digital drafts; and quick-reading Vol I and then Vol II, effectively trying to cram them in as short a time as possible to make it more likely that I'll pick up on plot holes or inconsistencies that are harder to catch when you're as zoomed-in as you have to be at other points in editing. My brain is struggling with the latter at the moment, because it's drained from work and personal things, but I'm still enjoying the process.

Next, I'll fix up everything I find in those reads, as well as doing final rework on any major points following discussions with beta-reader and others. Controversial plot points, character arcs the satisfaction of which are a matter of personal opinion, things that you need that input for. There's also some changes to be made to the cover and formatting.

When those are done, a second proof will be printed, which I'll go through with the red pen again, looking exclusively for final typos and printing errors. Changes and amendments. Then, a hopefully-final proof copy... Which I'll go through again. At that point I will hate every word on every page with a fiery passion because it will have been the at least ninth time I will have read that book cover-to-cover in the space of two months. And then, if nothing is amiss and no major life happens... It'll be go-time. Which is still aiming for early 2021! Just not one hundo percent able to give an official release date yet.

Media

Okay even tho I only had two things to really talk about it felt weird to make subheadings and only use them twice. So I guess time for another update on things I'm watching, playing, and listening to...?

Most of my non-work, non-Sylv, non-D&D time is currently occupied by the Mass Effect trilogy. Actually my second playthrough. Idk, it's very good, they're doing a remaster, I'm excited. I also played Andromeda (haven't actually finished it but logged like 80 hours) and while I see the faults I have enjoyed it a lot. I played the first few hours of the new Amnesia but it was too spoopy so I took a break while I play Mass Effect - very good tho. My first horror game! Being a brave boy.

The only things I'm really watching at the moment are old Taskmaster series and... no, no, that's it actually.

I read VE Schwab's new book, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, in about two days, the first book I'd even touched in months, and it was awesome, because of course it was, she's great. The first half was much more enrapturing than the second I felt, but it still rocked. Vicious will always be the best, but no book of hers has ever let me down yet.

On the podcast front, the only new one since the last time I did a media update is Court Appointed. It's fairly good, decent background noise, but my main favour in the past few weeks lies with Hello from the Magic Tavern, Wonderful!, and the ever-present Sawbones. Oh! And I watched the Sawbones/MBMBaM live virtual show... an hour ago. It was really good. I laughed so hard I cried at one point, at least in part thanks to being able to watch it (eventually) on call with one of my best friends.

Those are my recommendations, I guess...? I'm sorry they're not especially exciting. Life has been A Lot recently; four days a week I do pretty much nothing except work, travel there and back, cook, and sleep, and all of my energy on the remaining days goes into D&D and Sylv, to the point that there's nothing left of me to actually read cool new books or try out unfamiliar shows and games. I don't anticipate it chilling out any time soon; I kept saying it would so I'd be able to write a better post than this, but it hasn't, hence the massive build-up of poetry posts instead. At least I get two weeks off work over Christmas.

This is all I have to say. It is only 8pm but I must retire to my bed now as I am so very tired in both body and soul. God be with ye, good reader.