Learning is Fun, Daunting, and Frustrating!

This week has been a bit of a learning experience. I did mention in my previous blog I was going to change things up a little… I am still going to be writing up the New Mutant Monday creatures for Gamma World and Mutant Future, but I am also statting them up for Pathfinder.

As of right now I have created a total of four Pathfinder creatures, and it has been a very interesting time.

I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but the more I create for Pathfinder, the better I will become. As you might have expected, the entries are significantly longer now, and taking care of all the little bits and pieces is really what takes the time.

And of course there are going to be a LOT of mistakes. I already learned about a couple of the mistakes I made and I am doing what I can to fix them.

I also will be posting these creations on the Pathfinder FB page in order to get some assistance in the design, and I really hope the folks will be helpful and not assholes, although I do expect more than a few of those types.

It is human nature to be a dick towards someone who is just learning the craft. I see it all the time.

After making my first two creatures, it took me about two and a half hours each, yesterday and today I found it took me about an hour each to create the two entries. I hope as time progresses it will get shorter and shorter.

At least creating magic items will be a little easier for me to handle! The rules are not quite as complex as they are for creating monsters, so it will take less time for me to do so.

And as I mentioned last week, I have begun a new weekly article which I am calling Wednesday’s Wondrous Works, and last week I wrote up an item called ‘Ring of the Mercenary Commander’.  I do have this week’s item written up, although I will be making a single change which will drop the creation cost from 56,000 to only a fraction of that cost! 

See - I am learning!

Oh and here are the creatures I wrote up last week: Flamekin (click here for Pathfinder version), and Psistalk (click here for Pathfinder version).

I had wanted to get in on this week’s D-Infinity live podcast, but there were simply too many people for me to join. I don’t know how it will be in the future, as I don’t know what my training schedule is going to be like. I might be going back to Monday’s and Thursdays from here on in. I won’t find out until tomorrow.

If I have Thursday off, I hope to join the crew on a weekly basis.

Work has also kept me hopping, as I have wanted to take the time off for lunch, but I’ve always had somewhere to go and something to pick up and that has prevented me from writing during my lunch break. I had one break last week.

I’m not bitching, but shit… I’ll never finish ‘One Night’.

I could try and write during the evening, but sometimes I just don’t have the will power to sit down and do so – and my wife needs attention.

And as I mentioned before, I have three additional stories I want to write on top of the un-named novel.

I’ll figure out the time to get these completed.

I did finish a couple of books last week. The first was a rather long novel, called Abaddon’s Gate, book three in the expanse series by James S. A. Corey.

This is excellent space-opera, which finds James Holden once again caught up in the events surrounding the gate constructed by the Protomolecule at the end of the second novel.

More deaths, and what appears to be a seemingly insurmountable mystery, but one which could open up opportunities for humanity, such massive opportunities as which have never been seen before.

Great read!

The other novel I read… nowhere as enjoyable. I finished Orbs by Nicholas Sansbury Smith. This novel takes place around 2061, almost ten years after the Earth was ravaged by a solar flare. Humanity is still struggling to survive, and is looking towards the stars.

The problem is a group of aliens decide to invade and in the space of a single day, these creatures have all but wiped out humanity.

A small group of scientists in a biodome try to come to grips with what has happened and wish to find a way to survive.

It wasn’t the best. At least it wasn’t as bad as the Purge of Babylon series, but I certainly did not enjoy it. Rarely will I ever not bother to continue with a series, but this is one of the few exceptions.

The book was simply not something I enjoyed, although I am certain there are plenty who have – considering the series is three books in length (I’m pretty sure it was meant to be a trilogy) and there are at least two additional novella’s written for it.

Maybe you will enjoy it, as everyone has different tastes. I can recommend it far more than the Purge of Babylon books.

I also managed to get around to watching Cell, based on the same book by Stephen King. It certainly was intense during some of the scenes, but it really deviated from the novel, and as you would expect, a great deal.

And I was not happy with how it ended.

If you have Netflix, then watch it, otherwise, don’t waste your time and money renting it through any of the numerous streaming services which are available.

As any of my regular readers will already know, I loved Rogue One: A Star Wars story. And Chirrut Imwe portrayed by Donnie Yen was my favorite character in the movie. Well I will be dressing up as him for the upcoming convention season, as I found his costume (a knockoff, at least) on Ebay. I’m also considering getting contact lenses so I can have the same ‘blind’ look as he did in the movie.

It won’t be here until most likely late March, but as long as I can get it before the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo at the end of April, I’ll be happy.

So here we are at the end of another blog. I hope you are managing to stay warm and dry, as some of the places in the states are getting hit by snow and heavy rain.

As always, try to be happy and do what you can to endure the weather and the political situation!