October 2015 Update
Updates! Oh my, where to start? There is a ton of things going on in life right now. I guess I should start with the least important.
Dreamscape
Because this is a site dedicated to writing and reading, I’ll start here. Dreamscape is coming along nicely. The outline is done and writing has begun. I’m roughly 13,000 words through what I expect to be a 110,000-150,000 word manuscript. At least, that’s what I’m expecting the first draft to be. I haven’t given much information on this, and I don’t intend to talk about the plot, but I will give you this: Dreamscape revolves heavily around professional video gaming carried out in a digital world.
In a lot of ways, Dreamscape has been much harder to prepare for than any of the previous books and stories. In addition to creating characters, plot, and drama, I had to create a video game from scratch, and make it interesting to read. We’ll see if I can pull it off…
New Job
I started a new job about six weeks ago. I no longer clean up oil spills for big oil on the east coast. Now, I’m an air quality engineer for Linn County Iowa’s Department of Public Health. I feel that I’m settling in pretty well, and I am working with some great people. This has been a positive experience across the board, and I have learned more about the Clean Air Act in the past few weeks than I even thought existed. Needless to say, it’s been pretty awesome.
New Car
I sold my 2005 Jeep Wrangler. I know, I know. Judge me all you want. But it was time to make a change. Because…
Baby!
Katie and I have a baby on the way! We’ve known for a long time, but it’s just recently become “internet” public. The past weeks have been a whirlwind with the new job, preparing for the baby, and occasionally writing. The nursery is painted, furniture is put together, and now the registries are started. 2015 is shaping up to be a renowned year for my family. Maybe “infamous” is a better word?
The thought of being a father is both exciting and terrifying to me. One day, I may try to sit down and put my thoughts into words, but today isn’t that day. This is definitely not a topic to approach without some forethought.
Book Reviews
I still plan on writing book reviews. I have about 6 books on back log that I haven’t written reviews for. I’ll be trying to get caught back up in the coming weeks, as time permits. I’m not planning on sacrificing writing time to write book reviews, though, so be patient.
Video Game Reviews
This is something I’ve been kicking around. I probably won’t do this unless I get bored AND I figure out how to do video capture to my satisfaction on my PC and Xbox One. In the meantime, if I can convince other folks to let me use their videos or photos, this may be a possibility. We’ll see. This is definitely low priority.