Hello folks, it’s time once again for the Weekend Wrap-Up, in which I blather on at length about what I’ve been writing, reading, and doing. Not really a complicated or novel concept.

Anyway, let’s get to it, shall we?

What I’ve Been Writing

It took several restarts, but I finally completed my first short story of the year, which I’m calling “Bone-Deep Grief.”

This was a surprisingly tough story for me to write because it is sort of a romance. That’s not something I’ve ever written before, and getting the pacing correct was tough. Whether I was successful or not will depend on whether it gets accepted for publication, I guess. I did submit it last night, so now the waiting begins–at least, for that story.

In the meantime, a new month means a new story. I already have an idea. It came to me a few nights ago as I was falling asleep. I don’t have the full scope of the idea fully fleshed out, but I think it’ll be fun.

What I’ve Been Reading

Still working on Zeroes, currently roughly halfway through it. It’s a lot of fun. In anticipation of Vultures, the last of Wendig’s Miriam Black books, I’ve been rebuying the series in their new formats. I fell behind on the books due to financial issues, so the last one I read was The Cormorant, so I plan to reread those and then dive into the rest.

Slash of the Titans has been a slower read. I find I have a hard time reading things on my phone because it’s just as easy to pop onto Facebook or Twitter or something. I need to fix that habit, though. There’s several books I bought on Kindle that I want to read, like Dread Nation by Justina Ireland and Rosewater by Tade Thompson.

What I’ve Been Watching

The trailer for John Wick Chapter 3 dropped recently. We watched and loved the first in the theater, but we missed out on the second one due to financial and time issues, so we decided this was the perfect opportunity to catch up on them.

John Wick is exactly as good as I remembered it. It sets the stakes and tone early and then pursues its end goal with relentless intensity and pitch perfect pacing. It’s a masterclass of a movie.

John Wick Chapter 2 did what everyone said they wanted, which is to add to the worldbuilding done in the first one. The problem, for me at least, is that I had a hard time connecting to roughly the first act.

Wick has an old debt called in. They want him to kill someone very important in John’s world to create a power vacuum. He has virtually no choice in the matter and no way to dodge the debt. It’s a great setup and leads to a fun romp into further unexplored aspects of this weird assassin underworld, but the setup left me a little cold.

The external stakes were set up very well. The favor and the likely repercussions feel well established and given proper weight. But it stumbled with the internal stakes. I knew, intellectually, that John was reluctant to do the job, but it seemed more like an inconvenience for him and not something that he had any emotional or moral problem with. Where the first film was built on themes of grief, rage, and indignity (wife dies, dog killed, car stolen), in this movie, John’s motivation for the first act is essentially, “Well…I guess if I have to.” It’s the cinematic equivalent of the shruggie emoji. I would’ve appreciated a bit more of Wick struggling with the task and what recommitting to the underworld means before ultimately seeing it through. I’m not saying that’s not there…just that it feels quickly ushered aside to get to the shooty bits.

The rest of the movie was as fun as the first one. Lots of fascinating world building, and the implications of John’s actions have me very interested in Chapter 3. I just hope that they do a little more to make the stakes personal to John, not just inconvenient.

What I’ve Been Doing

We’re preparing to make some medium-sized changes in Casa del Dow. We’re hoping to pay off some debts, reduce our monthly spending, and move to a bigger place–sadly, not as big as we’d hoped, but whaddayagonnado? In going through our bills and examining our outgoing money, I realized that I almost have my student loans paid off! I didn’t have much anyway, which is lucky for me, but still, it’ll be nice to have essentially an empty expense gone.

In reducing monthly spending, we ended up cutting a few subscriptions and patreons. However, after seeing that Kameron Hurley was laid off, and knowing how much medical expenses can gut a paycheck, I signed up for that. It’s not much, but I know every little bit helps.

We also had our first D&D meetup for the new campaign. I know there was no campaign diary last week, but there’s nothing really to report yet. We just met up and discussed the world, my general expectations for the game, and I worked with everyone to create characters. It looks like it’s going to be a mostly monstrous party again, with an Aarakocra bard, a Tabaxi rogue, and a Halfling ranger.

I’ve gone from a lot of magic users to very few. Ah, the wayward winds of D&D.

Finally, my diet has been going well. I’ve gone back to using good ol’ MyFitnessPal to track calories and have been doing…well…okay with keeping to my goal. I keep getting put in a position where I have to eat out, and then I eat way too much. I know I shouldn’t, but I have a very hard time stopping if there’s still food in front of me. Still, I’ve lost 5 lbs so far, so nothing to sneeze at.

One thing I wish I had more time to do is exercise since the goal is to get healthy, not just lose weight. Unfortunately, the weather has been against me–the polar vortex may not have hit Arkansas as hard as the rest of the country, but it’s still been too cold to go out for a walk–and I don’t have the time to go to the gym, unfortunately. Plus I’m cancelling my current membership anyway as part of our expense-cutting for the move.

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And that’s the wrap up for this week. I’ll try to have more on the blog than only these in the near future if I can find the time.

Speaking of the blog, you may have noticed that it underwent a redesign. I got bored with the old layout, and I wanted something that looked a professional while being low maintenance. I’ve also added contact information to the right side panel because I realized that was apparently missing? Possibly since I moved over here from Blogger??

Feel free to drop me an email or hit me up on Twitter to chat, or drop a comment below. I’d love to hear from y’all. I’m still on the lookout for beta readers/critique partners, so if you’re interested, especially if you read horror, reach out.

Stay warm out there, folks.