Well, I finally did it. I completed a 2nd draft of my novel. While there are still gaps that I am aware of, the basic structure is reasonably solid and it ended where I think it should have. The effort though did cause my sleeping habits to become a bit off just because the stress of completing it and fighting ideas had put my mind into a trance-like state for the past few days.
One thing I realized is that I need to step away from the book for a few days and let the ideas sit and mellow a bit. Then I can return with fresh eyes to have a second glance at how things turned out. I plan to make a ton of notes as I re-read everything and figure out just how to fill in some of the known gaps.
In the meantime, I wanted to try and finish The Eye of the World novel. It’s very dense and I’m around 300 pages away from finishing. It’s taken me way too long to push through but I think clearing up my main task of my novel will allow me to slowly refocus myself.
What I realized though is that my reading speed has dipped a lot. Normally, when I’m pushing through a novel, around the midpoint, I start reading around 100+ pages a day. Of course, this novel is thick and not exactly at a high pace of writing (with small font too) so it hasn’t been to my liking. Not to say that the book is hard, just very word-dense and a lot of details you need to sift through which easily can get lost.
Once I complete this novel, I still have two others lying around that I would like to chomp through. A Murakami book and a Thomas Pynchon one. Both are also thick but they should give me more samples of style to mull in my head if I can pound through fast enough.
I’m hoping that I can get back into tech. I guessed around this time is when I planned to start brushing up my tech skills. I’m looking at Kotlin as becoming my main gun. However, there’s a lot of python on the market as well as Node. But if I think about where the future is heading, Kotlin looks like the best choice. I could return to Go but I’m hesitant as the language has issues.
Gaming-wise, I saw the patch notes for Path of Exile and I’m quite disappointed. I might not play the upcoming league at all given the number of nerfs and the direction of the content. It honestly looked as though a schizophrenic with a bunch of dials went in and started randomly twisting things then hit a red button which produced that crap.
That said, in getting my chops back, I’m hoping to parlay that into making my own game since I have rough ideas of a system that I had been putting together on paper for a number of years. I’m thinking of trying out some NoSQL databases like Mongo to house the models I’m thinking about. That along with using an Android front end (maybe some React too) I can start getting back into the thick of things.
Boom Beach has been slow but steady. I finally managed to get a chest on my main account through Warships. Man, that was awful. I don’t think I managed to pull much out of that. If there’s one lesson from this though, it’s that just trying to get the highest item on the tech tree is not the best idea.
I am working on a Boom Cannon for my main account. In the end, I felt it was worth it. The rest of my defenses are in a reasonable spot where I could start pushing my last major Boom Cannon towards the maximum level. It still will take some effort due to the higher cost but I feel it’ll be worth it shortly.
My secondary account is on the fringe for a Cannon upgrade. I tried using my resource boats but fell short. Certainly, when I get up, I should be able to pull through enough resources for my first maxed out Cannon. It was either that or upgrading each remaining defense one by one. But I liked the idea of just being done with my upgrades one at a time for now.
With my novel being done temporarily and my sleep schedule off, I hope that I can hit the market tomorrow. I’ve been itching to try a crab corn chowder recipe for my Instant Pot. Of course, I need to wash it and do a little cleaning. Nonetheless, I’ve been eating out too often again and need to get back in the kitchen and work on my meal prep game.
Other than that, everything feels odd at the moment. World issues aside, I just feel that with the novel being done, my plate feels a bit empty. Sure, I have other tasks that I can do but not as pressing by comparison. I would like to treat myself a bit next month since it’s my birthday coming up. But until then I need to find other ways to keep myself productive.