Author Journey (August 16, 2021)

After a year and a half of not taking any vacation time, I now find myself staring down the barrel of two weeks off! Don’t worry though, I’m not completely switching off. I’ll still have my phone on me… for some stealth editing!

August 16, 2021

#AmWriting

One of the annoying things about taking a vacation is that you have to prepare for it. At least in my job I do. So, two weeks off isn’t really two weeks off as you spend the last week cramming in twice as much work and then you probably have to make it up when you come back. I also have to schedule my vacation around the monthly reporting cycle or things would get even worse.

I’m also a creature of habit and being away from my computer for extended periods of time throws everything out of whack. Now, I know I shouldn’t be complaining, there are many people who don’t have the luxury of paid vacation time. Even seeing the difference between England, New Zealand, and Canada was quite a shock. So, yeah… vacation.

Of course, it’s not like a real vacation in the sense that I’m not going to Hawaii or anything awesome like that. No, we’re staying in the province and driving to visit family and friends that we’ve not seen in a while. That too has eaten into my writing time as I’m writing this post on Friday before we head out on a two-day road trip to get to said family and friends.

So, my time has been split between the day job, preparing for the vacation, and actually driving to the destination. That means I have done no writing whatsoever. I can’t see myself doing too much over the next two weeks either, but I will be reading and possibly doing a little editing on the fly. It’s worth noting that the last time I flew to this destination was when I got the idea for my supernatural rom-com that I’m currently working on, so I might get some new ideas for future stories.

#Blogging

On Saturday, I published the final post in my series of Otherside Picnic reviews. This one was the full season review where I try to pull together all of my thoughts from the episodic reviews. I had a lot of fun watching this series, even though there were some continuity issues due to some structural changes from the light novel. And talking about the light novel, I recently finished the first book and would you believe it, but it went into more detail than the anime. Shocking, I know!

That means I can pick up another light novel for my vacation. I think I’ll swing back to Goblin Slayer as that was probably the most enjoyable read of late. I will continue Otherside Picnic, but I need to get back to following Goblin Slayer as he kills more goblins. Good times!

I’ve also been working my way through season two of Heaven’s Lost Property and have everything scheduled up to Halloween. I don’t think it’ll take me much longer to finish that series off. Of course, I forgot to say anything about the show that will be picking up from Otherside Picnic. It is completely different, so it’s going to be quite the tonal shift. The clues for this series are – it’s ten episodes long, a sequel season, and I loved the first season… Any guesses?

After breezing through Jujutsu Kaisen, I’ve managed to develop a bit of a need for some more shounen anime. There’s a number of the bigger shows that I’ve never got around to seeing as they aired in a period when I was moving around the world. Most are now really long which has been a bit of a stumbling block to entry, but I’m going to start working on one of them.

That will take on the form of a new challenge in 2022. I know, I like to plan ahead. As it’s a longer show, I’m going to experiment with a shorter review format and will work as a trial for potentially jumping back into seasonal anime. I love the idea of getting back into it, but I’d need to find a way to be able to do that and not suck up too much time.

The shorter format will also help with a show that I’m not enjoying as much. There’s nothing quite as soul-sucking as having to keep watching a show after you’ve checked out, especially as I don’t like to drop shows and even less so if I’m reviewing it. So, we’ll have to see how this works out.

By the time this post goes live and you’ve read this far, I will have made it to my vacation destination and should be in the middle of relaxing after the long drive. Hopefully, things will be pretty chill for the next couple of weeks and I can do some reading, but also visiting family so who knows how much actual downtime I will have.

Next week, I’ll let you know how it’s gone. Anyhow, thanks for reading and stay safe.

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