Good morning, Readers!

I'm over at my other blog, talking about my current leather working projects.

Good morning, Readers!

Today, I'm over at Black Gate, musing about InuYasha.

​Look, I'm obsessed, okay?

I have been, for the past week and a bit, binge-watching InuYasha (English subs, as I much prefer the voice acting in Japanese). It is a series I began long ago, then just stopped watching. When I saw that Netflix had it, I decided to give it another go. After all, I had vaguely fond memories of it. Let me tell you, I am finding it absolutely delightful, even though it is choc-full of all the tropes that I generally despise. I’m struggling to figure out why I like the series so damned much. Make no mistake. I do. I have finished all the episodes in the original seasons, watched all of the movies, and am not far off finishing The Last Chapter, where the story is finally, after a long break to permit the manga to catch up, coming to a close.

There is so much about this show that I shouldn’t like. Yet somehow… well, I absolutely love it. To the point where I’m considering buying the whole lot on Blu Ray to binge whenever I please without fear of my streaming services dumping the series after a while (as they so often have with various shows).

First, let’s start with the trope I despise the most in any medium. The love triangle.

Good morning, Readers!

Image by Alejandro Piñero Amerio from Pixabay ​

I have finished my marathon watch of InuYasha. I've watched all o  original seasons, all the movies and all the episodes of The Final Act, which finished out the story. Now I'm sad. I'm sad because I had so much fun in that world. I'm sad because it's over.

Being a fairytale of sorts, the ending was happy. Everyone ended up in a good place, though I do feel badly for Kagome's family, who must surely be missing her. It was a satisfying ending, too, which can be difficult to do.

I am dreadfully in love with Sesshomaru. Not, like, a crush or anything. I just mean that he's an exceptionally written, contradictory character, and I find myself fascinated by him as a character. I might do a piece later analyzing why I personally find him so compelling.

Needless to say, I'm a fan. So much so that I'm contemplating buying the entire series, movies and all, on blu ray. I even might look into getting the manga. Of course, this is all contingent on whether or not I manage to get a job in the next little while. I can't be out here spending unnecessarily with my future funding so uncertain.

Still, I had fond memories of the series, which I watched piecemeal a number of years ago, and I'm really happy I watched it through. I will miss it.

Oh, and for the record, I watched it with English subs; I found the voice acting far superior, though I freely admit that may be bias since English subs are the way I watched the original episodes back in the day, and it might just be a familiarity thing.

Today's agenda is to make a start on the other manuscript too edit, do some exercise now that I'm not dying in a puddle of my own sweat just from sitting, and finish tooling that leather piece. And also, work on a pitch for a thing. It's a full day. I ought to get on that.

While daydreaming about InuYasha.

Right, I'm off.

​Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

Image by Evgeni Tcherkasski from Pixabay ​

I feel like I haven't blogged here in ages. Of course, it's been the usual three days away from the blog over the weekend, but for some reason, I feel like I've been absent for a while. What to say for myself?

Well, I've finally finished editing the first manuscript for a friend. I have to send that along to them today. That's good. That means I can make a start on the next manuscript. Once that's done, I can return to my own writing, which I put off because I was juggling too many things all at once for a while there.

My leather working stuff is coming along. I have used up all the soft leather I had, and am now moving to the stiffer leather. It's still too thin to really carve, so I'm just tooling. It's a good project that uses my hands, and I was missing that a lot. It will take me a lot longer to do than the soft leather ones, obviously, as there are designs to stamp in, but I've done more than half of it already.

I've been binging InuYasha of late. For more than a week, in fact. I'm almost finished the entire story, and I have thoughts, people. I'll probably discuss them in my allotted blogging spot on Black Gate magazine.

I'm hating the weather, of course, and I am thanking my lucky stars that I have some air-conditioning in the house. I'm sad we don't have functioning air-conditioning everywhere in the house, because leaving my bedroom when it's miserably hot and humid like this is not fun. Though, with the sound of cicadas, the heat and the humidity, I've been getting Christmas carols stuck in my head.

Because, you know, this is Christmas weather in Australia.

Frankly, though, Australia, I'd like you to take it back.

Oh, I had to buy a new keyboard. The old one used to get the 'a' key stuck all the time, which was frustrating. Whenever I wanted to write something, there'd just be a whole bunch of random 'a' in between letters of words, making it look like some sort of secret code or something. Not how I want to be writing important emails and such. It got worse this weekend. Not only was the 'a' key sticking. But so too the 'n' the 'y' the spacebar and delete buttons. Which means if I wanted to his space bar, it would go on not just the once I tapped it, but ad infinitum. Unless I pressed another key. If I happened to press the delete button, the same thing would happen and everything I had written would bet deleted. It was frustrating and boy did I let my vexation out in a string of very blue words. Still, I have a new keyboard now. It was an expense I didn't really need at the moment, but there was no helping it. I wouldn't be able to get my work done if I didn't.

Grumble.

And that was my weekend. Right, there are a couple of pitches I have to prepare, and there is also a whole lot of job hunting I need to be doing. I'm off to go do those things. Have yourselves a great Monday.

​Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

I'm over on my other blog, talking about my first failed attempt at a new project.

Good morning, Readers!

Image by Richard Norris from Pixabay ​

Isn't the photo beautiful? It's from Cornwall in the UK. I just think it's lovely.

Anyway, I am utterly exhausted today. I stayed up quite a bit later than I usually do, working on a project, trying to figure out how to do a thing. It turned out okay. Not great, but okay. I think I can do this thing. I just need to get it refined. Leather is not a cheap thing to practice on, so I'm kinda annoyed at myself for screwing up as much as I did. It's not all a loss, though. The project works and I can use it for my own stuff, so if nothing else, I've made myself a thing.

I had intended to write a huge long blog post examining why a show I'm watching right now works for me, despite all the things in it that would normally irritate the hell out of me, but considering I almost put my coffee grinds in my breakfast bowl instead of my French press this morning, I'm not really up for any real thinking. I'm not going to examine reasons for anything today,

Today, I'm just going to write my blog posts, edit that manuscript, do some exercise, and then do my second attempt at that project, and then sleep for a hundred years.

Right, I'm off.

​Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

My excellent publisher Renaissance Press is putting on another virtual convention!

The last one this summer was a great success, so they're doing it again. Which I think is great.

Of course, they need volunteers to help them out. Some of the things they're looking for are:

• Panel Ideas
• Help with close captioning/subtitles
• Panel moderators
• Help with the website

I'll let you read all about it here. Please lend a hand if you can.

Right, editing to do. I'm off.

Ciao!