Month: March 2023

I was a skinny twerp once and I wore a lot of stuff with “Ireland” on it.

Writing

Nothing this week, I’m illustrating. On that note, my schedule just changed at work. I’ll spare you the details, but dedicated creative time is about to become a regular part of my nights, so expect to see some acceleration in this space.

Reading

I finished two very big audiobooks and then a shorter one. HOWLING DARK was good but heavy. PATRICK SON OF IRELAND was better than I remembered. SPLASHDOWN will get an Upstream article.

This week I have a lot of shorter books to blast through, probably at the one-per-day rate. Monday I’ll knock out as many as three because they are very short. Like, even at regular speed they’d only get me through half a shift. One is basically a podcast episode, and I wouldn’t count it except the dude actually did a print book.

So just for tracking purposes, this week’s reading list is: NAPOLEON, a concise biography; A CASE IN OAK HAVEN; A SHORT STAY IN HELL; 47 RONIN; WARLORD OF THE NIGHTMARE REALM; CONGO; and THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY.

Drawing

I finished one of the internal drawings for SHERIFF PORTER and started on the next one. With the schedule this coming week, I expect I will finish two entire pieces, at least.

Video

Saint Patrick is doin’ numbers.

This week I’m going to do another video, I just don’t know what about.

Audio

Radcracker might be a pre-work recording and not a post-work thing, not sure. I really want to get the episodes back down to 30 minutes.

Fitness

Did a shop session, that went well. Late night Friday shenanigans deprived me of the energy to do all my pushups on Saturday, so my total on the week was 630, not 750. PectoCracker is at 5,880 for the year. Wanted to crack 6 but I failed. Ugh.

I could just add a 6th set every day this week…hmmm….

Also I was a little over on weight. Boo. The new sched might help that though. We shall see.

Get back to work.

(He said he liked it.)

Writing

Nothing this week, but that’s a good thing. I’m in the illustration phase. I did spend some time ruminating on Secret Project and my general plan for that one is to write a chapter until I lose The Thread of it, then brainstorm for a few days and figure out where to go next. I can make that work as an in-between project. Kind of fun, actually.

Reading

Okay, so I finished FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS, and then a few titles for Upstream that I’m reviewing soon. These include CATERPILLAR, UNSTOPPABLE ARSENAL, and HELL SPAWN.

This is the last week that I have HOWLING DARK from the library so I need to burn through that. Been putting it off because it’s freaking huge. You know what? I’m going to break it up over the next four days. I need to listen to about 4 hours a day of it, and then I can listen to other stuff. I’ll finish a few books that way. This includes SPLASHDOWN, NAPOLEON, A SHORT STAY IN HELL, and probably SHADOW HUNTER. I need to read some more chill sci-fi.

Drawing

This week I got a lot of drawing time before work, and I’m almost done with the thumbnails on Sheriff Porter. This week it’s my goal to get two drawings publication-ready.

Video

Published a few bangers that are Doing Numbers as the kids say. Can’t wait until my videos average 10k views/week so I can look back at this phase for my channel and just laugh.

Audio

No audio recordings other than the most recent Radcracker. I spent more time doing audio for the YouTube videos, that way I could just add photos for the videos. I’m going to re-record my Engines of Liberty summary videos so I can refer people to them before HOWLING WILDERNESS.

Fitness

Had another good weight week. I’m up to 5250 on PectoCracker. I will stick to the schedule for pushups and get to 6000 by Saturday. The weather is getting nicer so I am looking forward to more shop time. If work doesn’t run way too damn long like it did last week I should be okay, but I had too many late starts due to the warehouse. On the flipside, I used that time to get the SP thumbnails done, so…yeah.

Back to work.

Anybody know how to get sweat stains out of a hat?

Writing

Okay, so last week I was on vacation and I got a LOT done here. I set up 90% of what I needed to do for the Indiegogo campaign for SHERIFF PORTER. Now I just need to do the artwork.

In between that I picked at a new Secret Project. There is no deadline on this one and I’m not throwing too many details out there about it. Very excited though.

Reading

Since I wasn’t at work, I didn’t get any audiobooks done. I did catch up on some graphic novels I backed last year, and those have video reviews from out in the shop. I also read more of LOST TREASURES VOL 1. I’m about halfway through it, my plan to blitz 50 pages a day fell by the wayside. I really love being lazy on vacation.

Drawing

The cover is finished and I love it.

I mostly picked at thumbnails for SP drawings. I need to to five or six more, and then I’m ready to roll on the next phase. I anticipate being done with those by the end of April.

After that it’ll be a full blitz summer to do the drawings for HOWLING WILDERNESS. In order to get that book out on time, I think I’m going to have to limit myself to two types of art that will go fast: first, individual profile drawings of each racer. Second, maps with updates on where the race goes. Third, a few action pieces (three at most). If I take too long on that, I’ll miss getting it out for October, and it’s got strong Halloween potential.

Audio

No new Radcracker. That show pretty much exists in the Durango, and while I ran a few errands by myself this week, I didn’t want to record anything. Instead I put all that effort into…

Video

This was a big week for the channel! I finally posted one of my audiobooks to YouTube. I suppose I should post it to Rumble now too, if their upload interface has decided to work.

But yeah, I got about an extra 50 watch hours, which is huge for me. Right now I’m sitting at 190 in 28 days. I need to average 334 per month for a year in order to get monetized. I’ll figure it out. (Subscribe to my channel here, I talk about reading, writing, and drawing.)

By far my most popular video this week was this one:

Fitness

Ha ha oh BOY did I mentioned I was on vacation? I only did 125 pushups. That brings #PectoCracker up to 4,825 on the year. This week I will cross the 5,000 mark.

I now have to make a difficult choice, since we’re in March: do I increase to 150 a day? And if I do, shall I take my reps from 25 to 30, or my sets from 5 to 6? This is why my life is hard.

I suppose I shall have to man up and do the 30-rep sets, but I will ease into it on Monday and Tuesday, and do 6×25. I’m 38, I can’t just smash the gas pedal like I used to.

Anyway, that’s this week. Very productive. Get back to work.

UPDATE: The publisher wrote back! There will be an eBook out in April on Google Play (I don’t really use iTunes anymore but it’ll be there too.) Also check out the comments, it looks like another reader can help me out with shipping on a physical copy. This is cool!

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Not because I speak a lick of Czech, lol. I had this random idea and it seems completely doable, so here I go.

This looks awesome.

From Larry’s Facebook post about the antho:

A new MHI anthology that only a handful of you will be able to read. 

This is an anthology of all new stories from Czech authors, set in the MHI universe, featuring the Czech monster hunting company, Fantom. (My stuff is really popular in the Czech Republic!)

My Czech publisher approached me about doing this, and I gave them my blessing, and sent them a short story about Owen Pitt in Prague.

This will probably never be officially translated into English. Sorry.

Larry Correia

Yeah, so that is really exciting. I seem to remember him taking a tour to the Czech Republic several years ago because of how popular he is over there. That popularity extends to the desire to create a Czech-only anthology.

But my desire to be an MHI completist compels me to find a way to read this book, and the chances that I learn Czech in the very new future are quite low. Fortunately this is the age of technology. Google Translate is free, and I’m a Speechify user. It may be clunky, but this is doable.

And I kind of want to prove as much.

Right now here’s where I’m at. I’ve found the Czech publisher’s page, and they have a contact portal. I typed a message to them in English, ran it through GT, and sent it over.

“Ahoj. Jsem Američan a používám překladatelský software, abych to napsal ve vašem jazyce. Mám zájem o sbírku “Lovci Monster Fantom”, která vyjde pouze v češtině. Je možné si objednat digitální verzi této knihy, abych ji mohl přeložit do angličtiny? Toto je pouze pro osobní použití. Děkuji. Moje e-mailová adresa je [redacted].”

“Hello. I am American and I am using translation software to write this in your language. I am interested in the “Lovci Monster Fantom” collection, which will be published only in Czech. Is it possible to order a digital version of this book so I can translate it into English? This is for personal use only. Thank you. My email address is [redacted].”

This was their reply:

Díky za zprávu. Náš tým je zrovna offline. 💤 Odpovíme vám hned, jak budeme zpět🙂

Thanks for the message. Our team is currently offline 💤 We’ll get back to you as soon as we’re back 🙂

That’s where it’s at right now. If they have a digital edition, that would be easiest. If I can only get it through print, that will be harder.

For one, I expect the book will cost around 300 Czech Koruna, equivalent to $13.50. I don’t know what shipping will cost. Let’s assume at least ten bucks.

Then I’ll have to photograph each page individually and scan it into Speechify. This will take a very long time.

Either way I can get a copy. I’ll read each story and post a summary here, not the entire story itself.

But first I need FantomPrint to get back to me.

More to come.