A Turn-Up of Books

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My festivities have ended early this year, and I’m now back at work — but with the benefit of a restful holiday, and a relaxation of other commitments to come over Christmas.

And, overall, a nicely productive fortnight. In this one, I have:

  • Got to sleep 1 hour and 11 minutes after midnight on average, for 7 hours 27 minutes of typical sleep. The holidays have helped with this, for certain.
    • But I’m also trying out a clock radio — not so much as an alarm, but as a distraction to keep me off my phone while getting dressed. So far it’s seeing me arrive at work (and therefore home for dinner) about 10 minutes sooner than previously. Early days yet, but promising.
  • Worked on 9 evenings’ worth of projects:
    • Four bits of D&D prep,
    • Three chunks of discussion for a potential Pathfinder campaign after this one,
    • One evening of work on my budget,
    • And one small piece of poetry.
  • And I finished reading or watching several things:
    • Ghost Legion, by Margaret Weis. This is the book I kept thinking I’d finish and not managing — not that it’s bad, but somehow I couldn’t manage to get back to it. But I read just the last page of this years ago, and I’ve always wanted to see how it got to [spoiler] the last of the paladin-like Guardians, defying an apparently-benevolent god.
    • Uprooted, by Naomi Novik. Between premise, setting, detail, and the subtle-but-terrifying villain, I couldn’t help but finish this.
    • And Wicked (Part 1), which I saw with family in the cinema. The musical Wicked is lighter than the book, and I thought this was going to be lighter still. But actually the film uses its extra detail (and length) to bring a lot of book elements back in.
      I’m curious to see the second half, as I think I spotted this one foreshadow a different ending to the musical.

D&D this week was (possibly) the last session this year, and a few of us were a little tired and stressed, but not enough to cause issues. I want to focus on my framing a touch more, as I had a few combats run longer than they needed to; and I did put my thumb on the scales of plot once or twice.

But overall it went well enough, with a nice cliffhanger to follow up on next time.

The Zombie Army in the Next Room

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I was aiming to write every day this month. Between family visits and other commitments, that hasn’t lasted long.

And in fact I missed posting 2 weeks ago.

Despite that, over the past 4 weeks, I have:

  • Got to sleep at 1:25 a.m, for about 7 hours of sleep on average.
  • Worked on 11 evenings of projects (5.5 per fortnight):
    • Seven scenes of writing, across a couple of projects,
    • Five evenings of D&D prep – most of them printing out and assembling a bigger-than-I-thought dungeon map,
    • One bit of prep for a potential future game, and
    • Three miscellaneous projects: a bit of programming, a Lego build, and a meme.
  • And I finished reading through the Alexandrian Remix of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. The physical book I’m trying to finish continues, slowly.

The issues of this month have prompted some reflection on my goals. I’m really not changing anything about my sleep, and the reading goal isn’t exactly working out. But overall I think these are still the right goals.

Even if I never get above 7 hours a night, I could at least improve the even-ness of my sleep rather than catching up on weekends (which these stats don’t show – maybe I need to measure variance or something?). And that, and reading more, are basically a matter of gradually changing habits.

I know what to do; I just have to consistently do it.

In other news, D&D this week went well: the PCs easily defeated one boss, then stopped to discuss the zombie army in the next room. Then, due to things ticking behind the scenes, they faced and fled from that very army.

More, of course, to come.

The nature of “RR”, revealed

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The mysterious RR from last week turned out to be the Ruby Retreat, which I was actually attending as I wrote the previous post. Not sure how I missed that!

Despite forgetting its name, the event was well worth it: software, sea cliffs, and lupine intrigue aplenty. The trip back, however, has had something of an aftermath.

I caught COVID on the train. Recovery proceeds; isolation ends; but a little more sleep would probably help it along…

What I did get, was:

  • To sleep, around 1:24 on average, for about 7 hours and 9 minutes a night.
  • To make, 7 things:
    • 4 evening’s worth of progress on my budget. This was my project for the Retreat, and needs some more work to put it online — one or two people did ask me to share it, though it may yet disappoint.
    • A bit of socialisation at the Retreat,
    • Another notebook indexed,
    • Some house paperwork, done;
    • And some decisions that came upon me around web and email hosting.
  • I didn’t finish anything this week, despite many hours of train travel. The lure of the phone, I must resist!

I was, just, well enough for D&D last night. A little flatter than I’d like — the villains were a little behind the 8-ball, so the PCs spent much of the session having a relaxing bath. But the game remains afoot!

And speaking of feet, a footnote: I have, at the last moment, committed to write every day in November. We’ll see how that turns out.

Revenge of the Homework Dog

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The busy-ness I mentioned last fortnight was a roleplaying convention, which was fun … but also very intense.

I’m travelling again this weekend, and to my chagrin I forgot to bring last week’s torn page. So my stats are incomplete.

In the interest of keeping to a schedule, the figures I have show:

  • I got to sleep around 1:30 a.m. on average. I also lost an hour of sleep due to Daylight Savings, but had lots of chances to sleep in to make up for it. Overall, 7 hours a night.
  • I made 7 things:
    • Two nights of D&D prep, now I’ve sorted out the printer;
    • A small piece of writing;
    • Repairs, to some literal loose ends on old clothes;
    • Emails, for metaphorical loose ends ordering new clothes;
    • And I talked to people at the con, which is an activity I need more practice in.
    • Plus, something called “RR” in my notes. I don’t recall what this was, but presumably I thought it was important 🙂
  • Finally I finished reading two things:
    • Exit, by Belinda Bauer, which had some quite pleasant wordplay (and more Pixar references than I expected).
    • Worldbuilding Pasta’s “An Apple Pie From Scratch” series. I’d hoped this would help one of my current stories, and it was super interesting. But I’ve realised what I need to world-build right now is language, which the series hasn’t reached.

D&D continues well.

The PCs, once again, nearly managed to lose all their accumulated clues. But they recovered well, got their bearings, and are now on track for their next target.

The Dog Ate My Homework

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The page I tracked my goals on tore out of my notebook and got lost, and I’ve only just found it. That’s my excuse for now.

I was also busy for other reasons, but those properly belong in next week’s post.

As my torn and crumpled notes show, I:

  • Got to sleep at 1:30 AM, on average. This got me about 6⅓ hours of sleep a night, after losing some sleep for one rather early start for work.
  • Made 9 things:
    • 5 pieces of D&D prep, counting two evenings fighting with printers (they won, for now);
    • 2 evenings of budget progress,
    • 1 piece of writing, and
    • a reply to a letter I’d been putting off.
  • I didn’t finish anything this week, mostly due to a focus spread too thin.

Despite the lack of sleep, D&D did run and went off fairly well, even without the stuff I was supposed to print. I may need it next game, though.

For now, rest.

Nothing Much to Say

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To quickly summarise this fortnight, I have:

  • Got to sleep at 1:07 AM, on average. This makes about 7 hours, 9 minutes of average sleep.
  • Made 9 things:
    • 3 evenings of progress on my budget. I got sick of the bank view-spending tool and am now writing my own, which is less efficient but much more motivating.
    • 2 evenings on house-ownership-related paperwork,
    • Planned my visit to a convention next month,
    • Wrote a scene of fiction,
    • Prepared some D&D content, and
    • Organised myself to vote in the local election.
  • And I finished ASA’s Guide to Getting Published, by Juliet Rogers. An interesting and enjoyable read, but it was clear I don’t need that advice quite yet. I particularly need to improve my social media savvy first — of which this post is a shining anti-example 🙂

No D&D this fortnight, due to illness and scheduling issues.

A Better Class of Distraction

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This fortnight, I rediscovered Questionable Content, remembered how much I liked it, and re-read a bunch of it. This doesn’t count as a “finished”, however, as I’ve skipped a bit in the middle.

I’m tempted to go back and catch up properly, but reading it on my phone at night wasn’t great for sleep. I may need to shell out for the books instead.

As to the stats, I have:

  • Got to sleep an average of 1 hour 41 minutes after midnight, averaging a touch over 7 hours of sleep.
  • Made only six things:
    • Three evenings of D&D prep,
    • Two pieces of writing (a poem, and a story scene), and
    • One afternoon putting in a garden. Sadly it wasn’t a partridge in a pear tree!
  • I also finished Samantha Shannon’s The Mime Order. This series is keeping me nicely engaged (with a bit less loss of sleep than QC). There were some interesting hints about the magic system in this book, which I’m looking forward to seeing play out.

D&D was actually last Wednesday due to some schedule issues, but it went well. The PCs did nearly burn down the dungeon with all the essential clues still inside, but wiser heads prevailed, so the adventure shall continue.

Things better left unsaid

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This fortnight began under the shadow of some nasty mental health and loneliness stuff, of which the less said here the better.

Moving on, I have:

  • Got to sleep around 1.57 hours late on average. Despite this I did average 7 hours of sleep, though it doesn’t much feel like it.
  • Made about ten things:
    • … it to my cousin’s engagement party, organised and with a gift,
    • Four nights’ worth of D&D prep,
    • Mended some clothes, and a bag I needed to carry the inevitable stack of RPG paraphenalia,
    • Two poems
    • And the beginning of an attempt to deal with the mental stuff.

I didn’t finish reading or watching anything this week (blame social media). But the D&D game did make good use of the prep (and bag), so the fortnight ended on a high note.

A good fortnight for the wakeful

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This fortnight, I have:

  • Got to sleep about 1.3 hours after midnight on average, for about 6.7 hours of sleep a night. An improvement over last fortnight, at least.
  • Made ten things:
    • Four evenings of progress on my Lachisis Weaves project. Mostly this was testing and CI setup, so I’ve got no cool diagrams to show for it, but it does bring me closer to such demonstrations.
    • Two evenings of D&D prep.
    • An afternoon of gardening, cutting back a tree. Again, not work that’ll bear any fruit (or vegetables), but necessary to get light for them to grow in.
    • One decent chunk of fiction writing.
    • And two bits of boring life-admin stuff: getting my oven repaired, and sorting out (finally!) the other clothing order.
  • And I finished two books: Iain M. Banks’ Excession, and Peter Swanson’s The Girl with a Clock for a Heart. Excession, at least, reminded me how many of Banks’ books I still need to read…

Overall, a good outcome for everything except sleep. The D&D session went off nicely, although the PCs threw my plans slightly for a loop by running into their enemies at the shops.

Sleep is for the week, but this was a fortnight

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This fortnight has also been disrupted by laptop issues. Hopefully, they’re fixed now I’ve bitten the bullet and replaced it (touch wood). That isn’t necessarily enough to explain these figures, though. I:

  • Got to sleep an average of 1.72 hours after midnight (a score of minus 1,395 points), and slept for 6.5 hours a night on average. I suppose it’s possible measuring this is just making it worse, but I don’t want to throw out the idea just yet. I have been getting up earlier, which is nice.
  • Made five things:
    • The effort to sort out a second clothes order I had issues with,
    • Two solid sessions of writing towards a short story.
    • The decision to replace the laptop, and
    • A small amount of D&D prep (mostly printing documents.
  • And I finished reading The Bands of Mourning, by Brandon Sanderson. I’ve heard this described as one of the weaker Mistborn books, and I can see some merit in that. But it is cool to see the Investiture-related Feruchemical powers finally show up and mean something.

D&D ran on schedule this fortnight, for once. After levelling up, the PC’s faced a moral dilemma, a tax audit, a film-noir dwarf, and the old staple: “a band of pirates jump through the window!”.

Next fortnight we roll initiative.