Hello readers! I’m back!
“Was I ever gone?” some of you might be wondering. Well … Remember how I got that Covid-19 vaccination on Monday? I noted as such in Being a Better Writer that day, then after I finished my post went right to work and chugged along. Well …
Let’s just say I got walloped. By late that night, I was shivering with fever so bad I was almost dropping things, and I ended up swiping every blanket in my apartment and piling them high on my bed to stay warm that night. And then, of course, in the tradition of fevers, having wild dreams and waking up way too hot … and then being way too cold once more. The fever broke by morning, but the fatigue and stiffness stuck, and the next night I slept until 2 PM the following day …
Yeah, no writing was had in the last two days. My brain was not in a place where writing—good writing, anyway—could happen. Just looking at the errors I made and had to correct posting online was proof enough.
This all said, do not take this as a recommendation against the vaccine. No, instead it’s the opposite. Get the vaccine, but plan ahead. This will probably knock you on your butt for a while. Plan accordingly, and don’t let your boss tell you that you can’t take time off to recover from the vaccine (in fact, if they tell you that, your boss is sadly a deadbeat skag-licker, and should be acknowledged accordingly).
But seriously: Do your part. Get vaccinated. Better a few days of discomfort than a week, or a month, or worst of all, transmitting the virus to someone who won’t survive it.
Now, other news! I would like to point out to all you readers that the Dragon Award Nominations are open again once more, this time for the period of 7/1/2020 to 6/30/2021. You can nominate here, but before you click that link and get to it nominating your favorite works from the above time period, I would like to note that Axtara – Banking and Finance is eligable for nomination in the “Best Young Adult/Middle Grade Novel” category. Am I going to recommend that for a nomination?
Well duh, yeah. I’d be a fool not to. Especially after seeing so many other posts from authors promoting their own book for spots.
Now I’ll be real, despite Axtara breaking into the global market (by the way, hello Italy!), I I know I don’t have much chance of winning a nomination. It’d be fantastic, but it’s unlikely.
But even so, I’d still ask you readers who have loved it to consider giving her the nomination for Best YA.
And with that … I’ve got two days of sick to catch up from when it comes to working on Starforge. Not that my time was totally lost. I watched The Adventures of Tintin once more (currently free on YouTube) and played Into the Breach, a title I literally bought several years ago just to get my hands on its soundtrack (a good chunk of Starforge has actually been written listening to it) and found it to be just as good as people claimed. And blisteringly hard. Oh, and grim. It is, however, one of the more clever Sci-Fi uses of time-travel as a mechanic. There’s little to spoil here, but basically it takes the idea that the moment you go into the past you create an alternate timeline and runs with it. The result is that in a war of desperation where mankind is being wiped out, every time they lose, these time-travelers jump to another timeline. Oh, and every time they win. They just keep going to alternate worlds where things are a little different, but always the Vek are there, wiping out mankind. And so they fight until they die … or lose or win, jump to another timeline to start all over.
Simple, and sweet, but still a clever premise.
And with that, I’ve got Sci-Fi of my own to write!
Unusual Things 