State of the Dread: Jan 22-28

Sup. I drive a Durango. We get after it.

Writing

DONE! The beta draft of HOWLING WILDERNESS is in the wind. Getting feedback already and it’s productive. I’m not touching the draft again until after February. If you want to read the first chapter, it’s up on CrackerStack. Subscribe while you’re there, I’ve moved book reviews to that site.

This week I’m planning/outlining scripts for a new series of videos, the old Tales from the Road series I did on the podcast. It’ll cover the same material but I’m punching it up for fun. Feels like I’ve talked about that before, it’s my actual focus right now.

Also, fun thing: my friend Savannah was passing through Texas and saw this on a shelf at a gift shop, she said it reminded her of me, haha. I laugh because that’s more or less what one of my main characters looks like, from a book she hasn’t read yet.

Reading

I finished a couple of things. GHOSTS OF ZENITH by Larry Correia was great, the review is pending at Upstream. Started reading MAXIMUM BOB by Elmore Leonard, but didn’t care for the content so I punted. THE OLD GODS WAKEN by Manly Wade Wellman was entertaining, the review is on CrackerStack. Ditto for my reread of THE QUICK AND THE DEAD by L’Amour.

I’m currently reading WARLORD by Doc Spears. It’s almost exactly a rewrite of A PRINCESS OF MARS, which has me concerned, but I expect there will be a twist or revelation to justify it. Should finish it Monday, that review will be on Upstream.

Once that’s done, I’m reading THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER. If I finish it, I will start my third reading of EMPIRE OF SILENCE by Christopher Ruocchio. Still picking through AMERICAN MUCKRAKER when I have time. Very good book.

Drawing

Still working on the personal project, it’ll be finished this month. I’m having fun.

Video

New one here, and I’m very grateful for the responses. I had an announcement to make.

Also, instead of doing a “what I read this year” video in December, I’m going to do a monthly breakdown. As of right now I’ve finished 11 titles (thanks, audiobooks, haha) so that’ll be more manageable.

Audio

Normal thing, new episode of Radcracker dropped.

Fitness

I’m at 1500 pushups for the year and feeling awesome. The hard part is avoiding the temptation to do more too soon. Every week it gets easier to blast out a set of 20. This is my final week at 20, once Feb 1st rolls around I switch to 25, and keeping count will be more intensive. Big thanks to the bois in the Fat Chat for helping with that.

But once again I missed the second PE session with my kids. I resolve to hit that one this week. So easy to be lazy on a Friday.