Progress Report: Week 3, June 2017

I had a bunch of things I wanted to do this week, but I’m still trying to find an even keel. Stuff got done, despite me changing things around, though, and I found my feet on Babes, but it's been slow, progress-wise.
 

June Progress

New words produced: 6,626

Outlines and Notes: 0

Works completed: 27 (22 poems, 5 flash fiction)

Works edited: 1

Covers created: 0

Works published: 0

Works submitted: 0

Competitions Entered: 0

Bloggery: 1,552

University Prep and Assignments: N/A

Writing News

This week, in addition to working on getting my fitness and languages back in line I returned to writing a poem and a piece of flash fiction each day. It’s a lot harder to get into this habit than I remember, but I like the unexpected turn of each piece. For the flash fiction pieces, I tend to write into the dark, not knowing what I’m writing when I lay down the first few words. The poetry is much the same, although I will often choose a poetry form if I feel stuck at the start.

I should also remember that the Kindle version of my fantasy short story, This Year’s Starfish, was released on Amazon this week.

June-July Challenge: Babes in London

Now that I’ve reached the writing stage, Babes is coming along a little more slowly than I’d like, but the more I write, the more it comes together. I’m putting this down to the usual slow-down I experience when writing the end of any project—regardless of whether or not I have it plotted out.

This week I discovered that I’d plotted out what had happened to Set—at least, the Set of this campaign—and that helped a lot. I also began work on relevant bits of crunch, which slowed down the adventure writing, but also made it possible to progress the adventure writing. So far, changes are as follows:

Identified and began adding 6 new sires;

Added 2 new spells;

Refined Scenes 3-3D;

Updated blog entries out to July 21;

Continued with Scene 3D… slowly.

NOTE: This adventure is not sanctioned in any way, shape or form by Fantasy Flight. It is not an official product, and I am in no way affiliated with them or they with me. There is no relationship between us. This adventure is mine, for fun, and for you, because some of you asked me to finish it.

Also, if you like this adventure and want to play it, please go buy the official rulebooks from somewhere where the original creators and publisher of the setting will be paid. I got mine from a Melbourne game store, but I’ve found PDF versions of the Player's Handbook and the Gamemaster's Handbook are now available from DriveThruFiction. If you enjoy their world, this is the best way to thank them.

Ingress Updates

I’m working towards my black Spec Ops medal, and my black Trekkers. Each level of the Spec Ops medal is awarded for completing a set number of missions, and levels in the Trekkers medal are awarded for completing a set number of kilometres. Platinum, the Spec Ops level below black, requires 200 missions, but black is the final level and requires 500. This week I reached 366. Likewise, Trekkers platinum only requires 1,000 kilometres, but black requires 2,500, and this week I reached 1,857. Progress on Trekkers has slowed down a lot with the coming of PokemonGo and the need to walk to hatch eggs.

This week, I completed 10 missions for Spec Ops. The first four were stand-alone missions because I needed to complete a row of six before beginning on a series of six that would form a picture. The only way to have a number of series and pictorials display nicely on the scanner is to start each one on a new line—and, even then, they will be pushed out of order with each new mission completed, until you complete a new row, when they will all line up and display properly, again.

These were my first four missions, one was in John Knight Park, a short walk around from Belconnen central, where the other three were located.

This was my series of six. I did it because I thought the picture was kind of cool.

The series and two of the singles were created for the Magnus Reawakens event, and I couldn’t complete them on that weekend, because I came down with the flu. They were a good way to make those of us who couldn’t attend the anomaly, feel like the wider Ingress community.

Next week, I’ll have to manage my time a lot better, as completing the series ate a lot of writing time on the Tuesday, and I just can’t afford to give that much time. I need to walk more efficiently… if that’s possible.

PokemonGo Updates

This week, I finally reached the first tier of the Skier medal, which was pretty special, given that there are so few ice pokemon here in Canberra. What made it even more special was the fact it was the hatching of my third lapras which got me over the line.

And, yes, the lapras was another keeper. Perhaps that’s the advantage of belonging to Team Yellow—our hatchlings rarely disappoint. I might also note the irony of the hatchling and the badge occurring the day before the Solstice event.

In addition to the hatchling, I also evolved three new ones to fill some of the gaps in my pokedex:

 

Fitness

As you might have guessed, I’ve started back into my walking. It’s been… interesting trying to fit it in with my writing. I’m looking forward to the days becoming long enough for my walking to occur first thing, instead of later in the day.

Languages

I also started very slowly back into my languages this week. I think I’m still going to have to divide them up so I’m only doing one a day, and then roll through the days, but I’m at the stage where I can translate the other three into Indonesian, even if I can’t do the reverse.