Arm Cast Podcast

23rd of September 2019

Peter Germany Audiobooks, Books, Editing, Writing , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I was listening to the Armcast podcast today, I had a few episodes backed up, and aside from there being some damn fine episodes recently (it’s always good, but Armand Rosamilia has had a string of really good interviews recently), but as I was listening today it’s made me realise I’ve been slacking big time recently. I’ve got into my head that I haven’t had time to write. That I’m editing and need time to sit down and just focus on that. So, in other word I’ve been making bullshit excuses for myself.

So today I’ve put a boot up my own butt and am going to get back on track. From here on out I’m aiming for a 1000 words a day. Because of how I’ve slacked off I’m not going to be able to hit my minimum target for words this year. I can do that while editing, CS1 needs a lot of edits and rewrites and scenes added so I’ll be able to get those words added easily.

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Just over 500 words during my lunch break.

With the fanfic piece, well that’s going to be my reward when I hit the 1000 words. I haven’t done anything on it tonight because I’m wiped out. I’m going to watch another episode or two of Disenchantment and then read a little and then bed.

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I listened to Solo on audiobook last week. Mur Lafferty did a fantastic job with this novel.

I do have NaNoWriMo coming up as well, and I need to pick up my pace for November.

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And today I started The Big Head by Edward Lee once I’d caught up on Arm Cast.

 

Waterstones

Peter Germany Books, Convention , , , , ,

I needed to replace my dictionary/thesaurus recently (the kitten destroyed my old one). I was going to just pop onto Amazon and get it but I remembered I had points on my Waterstones card and decided to cash those in. It was only a couple quid and I doubt I’ll add to them in the near future simply because I haven’t shopped in Waterstones for a long time. Each time I go in there for a book I’m finding it very uninspiring. Dictionary aside, I can’t remember the last novel I brought in Waterstones. I think the last comic was the paperback of Civil War 2.

One of the reasons I don’t shop there is I never find anything I want to read. The Science Fiction, Horror, and Fantasy sections seem to be being squished into one which is dominated by Fantasy. And most of the books in the horror section are still the heavyweights in the genre, there was a lot of King.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Those books deserve to be there. Stephen King is the writer of his generation and one of the all time greats, but there should also be room for other voices in the genre. The person who served me even agreed about how much of the big names were there and that was it. I can’t speak for Science Fiction as I haven’t read any in quite some time and I’ve never been a fantasy reader.

I’m also not reading much mainstream fiction at the moment. Most of the books on my to-read list have been books I’ve brought at Horror Cons or from discovering writers via podcasts like Arm Cast and The Horror Show With Brian Keene. Some of the more mainstream ones I’m listening to the audiobooks of anyway. And to be honest, most of the books I’m hearing that appeal to me aren’t in shops, definitely not here in the UK so most of the books I’m buying, outside of cons, are via amazon. You’re not going to get extreme horror, or books by small publishers or indie authors in Waterstones or, well Waterstones is the only real bookseller here in the UK now. We’ve got places like The Works and WH Smiths that sell books in addition to supermarkets but that’s about it.

I haven’t wondered around a bookstore in awe for a long time. That excitement of searching for something to pull me into a new universe hasn’t been there for years. I get that buzz from going to the cons and finding books at those to read. That, to me, is where I’m getting the fix I need.