Author Journey (June 2020)

Is it really halfway through 2020? I have no idea what’s going to happen in the second half of the year, but let’s take a look at what I did in June. Spoiler alert, it was pretty similar to the other lock-down months!

Got any big announcements?

At the end of May, I took a good look at what I was doing and what I wanted to do to see if they were still aligned. They weren’t which prompted my Course Correction post. I also decided that I would be moving away from doing so many episodic reviews for seasonal shows. There’s a mix of reasons for this, one was to find more time to write fiction and the other was to save myself from getting frustrated about writing about a series I wasn’t enjoying. It doesn’t happen too often, but there seems to be one every season. Maybe the lock-down is getting to me. Anyhow, I’m going to only do three from Summer 2020. The first will be the continuation of Fruits Basket. The other two will be Deca-Dence and Gibiate. I’ll be watching others, but only writing up season reviews unless something particular catches my attention.

How’s the writing going?

So, the previous decision will play into this. I am going to attempt to do a NaNoWriMo style event in July which means I will try to write fifty-thousand words of a new story in thirty days. This will be the zombie novel that I’ve been thinking about for the last month and I’ve got some great scenes already mapped out in my head. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun and I’m excited to see if I can get back into the swing of things. I’ve seen/read so many zombie stories that I understand the tropes so well that it should all fit together nicely. Either way, I’m hoping to have the first draft done by July 31.

Have you done anything interesting?

It looks like this section is slowing turning into a Pokemon Go update, which is fine. I’m doing it with the kids and it’s been a great way to get us all outside. We’ve also added Minecraft to the list of games we’re playing, although my son just seems to sabotage anything I build… So, now to the Pokemon Go stats that I’m sure you’re all waiting for. It would appear that I’ve caught almost two and a half thousand Pokemon this month! Not sure how that happened, but there was a Weedle event day! I’ve been to six-hundred stops and walked almost one-hundred and fifty kilometres. Looks like I stepped up my game in June, literally!

If you play Pokemon Go and would like another friend, I seem to have loads of gifts and can’t carry many more items. My trainer code is – 8632 8817 2933.

What have you been watching?

I’ve actually finished all of my seasonal shows with the exception of Fruits Basket which should be heading into its second cour. The biggest surprise was that I actually finished Plunderer. Twenty-four episodes of just about the worst series I’ve ever seen. It was painful, but I persevered and all I have to do now is write up a series review and believe me I have a lot to say about this one. I’m actually working through all my season reviews right now and plan to get them out next week which will be the quiet week before Summer 2020 starts.

So, these are all of the shows with episode reviews that I covered this past season. It’s been a lot of fun doing episode reviews and that’s one of the reasons I’m not completely dropping them, but I will get so much more writing time by just covering three. I’ve also got my Spring 2020 awards posts to come so that’s going to be fun too. They’ll be taking over the Sunday Sevens posts for the next five weeks.

• Fruits Basket – Season Two
• Princess Connect! Re:Dive
• Shachibato! President, It’s Time for Battle!
• Shironeko Project: Zero Chronicle
• Tamayomi: The Baseball Girls
• The 8th Son? Are You Kidding Me?
• Tower of God

Do you have any plans for next month?

I am going to write this novel. I’ve completed fifty-thousand-word months several times before so I know I can do it. Hopefully, by mentioning it here and likely throwing daily word counts out on Twitter I can push myself on. I’m excited. I’m also excited to start watching anime again and not worry about catching so many screen grabs or trying to plan my posts as I watch it.

Bizarrely, I also noticed that this is my three-hundred and seventy-third posts of the year… I have already averaged more than one a day for the entire year, so everything after this is going to be gravy.

Anyhow, stay safe and thanks for reading.

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