No April Fool’s Day joke this year, so we’ll get right to the agenda for this month.

I am pleased that Gettin’ Real with the Reels is back and on a consistent schedule. Some plans did fell through already but I hope to keep the weekly schedule going as long as I can. Be on the lookout for more episodes in the future.

Moderate progress has been made on Rise of the Adept. Over the past month, I’ve spent time writing and editing the story. Overall, I have written three chapters over the course of eight thousand words, bringing the total word count up to twenty-three thousand. I hope to keep this progress up and get to a point where I can begin final edits and making plans for publishing the sequel soon.

That’s all for this month’s agenda.

Until next time.

So, it’s another month and with plenty of the year left to go. What’s on the agenda for this month?

Writing for Rise of the Adept continues even if progress has slowed down since January. I have written another chapter that’s about 3,600 words long for a total wordcount of a little more than 15,000 words. I’m still keeping my writing skills sharp but know that I need to pick up progress a bit more. I have actually started a writing group with my friends that meets a couple times a week. I am hoping that will increase the amount of words I write a month.

Finally, after a short break, Gettin’ Real with the Reels is back on this month. The next episode will be released around two weeks, give or take, after the Best Picture at the Academy Awards is announced. Be on the lookout for that.

Hopefully March is when things will start picking up for me.

Until next time.

New month, new agenda.

So, as some of you have seen by now, a new episode of Gettin’ Real with the Reels has been posted. Right now, I am currently on break waiting for the best picture reveal but will spend my time watching movies and preparing a decent enough schedule for the series moving forward.

I also want to be more transparent about my writing for Rise of the Adept as well. Throughout January, I’ve been writing and editing the opening chapters of the book, which currently consists of 11,000 words. I hope to keep moving forward with progress at a steady pace.

That’s all for this agenda. It’s a short month so we have a short post.

Until next time.

It’s officially 2023 which means its time to discuss what plans to expect for the next twelve months.

This is also a time to serve as a reflection over last year’s goals, and to be completely honest, I failed a lot of what I promised in last year announcements. The time it took to adjust to a post-college life was longer than I thought and in some ways is still happening. I am taking my failures as a chance to learn about myself and hope that these goals are more reasonable.

Books

As I may have mentioned in previous posts, I’ve been dealing with an on-and-off case of writer’s block. Progress has on my works has been slow but I do want to talk about some of the projects that are on my mind.

Regarding Rise of the Adept, I am taking the time to rethink what I have for the story. This comes as a result of looking back on The House of Virgil. To be upfront about what this process looks like, I have made a separate post found here that I encourage you to check out. Once more progress is made, I hope to post another preview.

Towards the end of last year, I announced that I was working on a new project tentatively called The Kucia Chronicles. While progress has slowed down since then, I believe it is best to discuss what to expect regarding that as I believe it to be my next big writing project after Rise of the Adept. More details on what to expect can be found here.

Finally, I have a disappointing update regarding the Vigilant spin-off I talked about last year. I am choosing to work on other projects at this time and am moving the spin-off to the backburner. It isn’t cancelled but until I get caught up I have to decide what I want to focus on.

Podcasts

If there is one area I struggled in after I graduated, I have to say that it was releasing new podcast episodes. During my time in college, I typically was able to have enough time for my projects and had a quiet space for recording. Now, I have to decide what to devote my time to and I can’t always guarantee that my recording space will be quiet enough.

I’ve been thinking about my different podcasts, starting with Gettin’ Real with the Reels. It is unfortunate that I have fallen behind in the amount of movies but I think that this is a chance for change. I am hoping that by implementing the changes discussed here that I’ll be able to get back on actively posting new podcasts.

As always, I will be thinking about new ideas and hope to one day get back to making episodes for Running Curse of Strahd. However, at this point, I feel best to focus on Gettin’ Real with the Reels.

Videos

In the last monthly agenda, I mentioned that I was working on a new idea that I was keeping under wraps until I could get it posted. That idea was a return to creating video content. Although I haven’t posted a video last month, this is still something on the back of my mind. Be sure to be on the look out for any videos that I may post in the near future.

Writing

While I have stopped posting the journal entries of my Dungeons and Dragons characters, I am interested in posting more of my writings on this website. I believe that doing so would let me keep my creative writing skills active even if there are times I am unable to focus on my big projects. More details about what to expect will come when I figure out what this will look like.

I am also hoping to post another chapter preview of Rise of the Adept. That can be expected after I get more writing done.

Website

So, I’ll be the first to admit that the website hasn’t changed at all. Updating it is a priority, but since it gets the job done as it is, it isn’t a priority. If the website goes under changes though, that’ll be great.

Conclusion

I hope that this is the year that I do better when it comes to my ideas and projects and that I can finally say that I am finally adjusted to life outside of college. For those of you who have stuck around this long, thank you very much.

Be sure to check out the monthly agenda as well, found here (even if there isn’t a lot to be covered in it).

Until next time.

Before I wrote The House of Virgil, I had a different project in mind. The summer before I left for college, I had finished the first (and never to be titled) book of a four book series called the Sherwood Chronicles. The story I had come up with was an epic fantasy tale of a start of a revolt against a tyrannical kingdom. By the time I had finished, I had written over three hundred pages befitting of the idea I had in mind.

Yet, as I finished typing the final page, I realized that the story I had wasn’t going to be published. I didn’t know what was off but there was this feeling that I knew that what I had written wasn’t good enough. I was initially discouraged after having spent so long on the Sherwood Chronicles that I took a small break from writing, one that would end when I wrote The House of Virgil my freshman year.

I moved on from the Sherwood Chronicles and focused on new ideas. Eventually, there was a story that I came up with about two brothers ending up in a fantasy world on going on adventures that helped shape them to be heroes when they return home. When I thought about what this fantasy world would like, I realized that I had done plenty of worldbuilding for a setting like this before.

Although the Sherwood Chronicles would never be published, there was nothing stopping me from taking what did work to create a spiritual successor.

The Kucia Chronicles

The Kucia Chronicles is the tentative name given to a trilogy planned about two brothers from Santiago’s Shield, William and Percy Marshall. During a trip to their grandfather’s, the two accidentally activate a magical gateway that leads to another world called Kucia. To return home, William and Percy will meet new friends and learn new tricks as they find themselves caught in the middle of a brewing war while learning the secrets of their family.

That may not be a lot to go off of but I hope to have more to provide as I write more. As it happens, I feel a desire to write this story, hence why I am giving it priority over the Vigilant story previously talked about. I hope that this provides an understanding of what I was hoping to accomplish.

Until next time.

I’ve been working on Rise of the Adept, the sequel to The House of Virgil, for a long time by now. Yet, progress has been slowing down, and after some thought, I think I realize what the issue is. As I move forward to address this issue with changes, I’d like to share some thoughts on the writing process right now and what may change moving forward.

Although this is about Rise of the Adept, I had to go back to my thoughts on The House of Virgil to reach the conclusion I had, so I will share those thoughts here as well.

How have my thoughts on The House of Virgil influenced Rise of the Adept?

I wrote The House of Virgil as part of National Novel Writing Month. I managed to get to the 50,000 word goal in a single month, and happy with what I had, I decided to move forward to eventually publish. I was happy with how the story turned out and managed to get the help of some friends to edit the piece.

However, in my rush to publish the book, I had overlooked a crucial flaw. Looking back on The House of Virgil, I was disappointed with how many of the side characters turned out. Rather than make them their own character, they felt like parts meant to fill a required part of a story. Character building is one of my favorite parts of storytelling, and while I had little time to do that during November, should have seen the error and fixed it in editing.

I want to ensure that each major character, from those first introduced in The House of Virgil to newcomers in Rise of the Adept, have a story to tell and that they are not just filling a role in a plot.

How has this influenced the story of Rise of the Adept before now?

Rise of the Adept continues the story of Simon Crowley but there is more to be told. It was my idea to have several side stories that interweave with the main plot that help culminate with the ending of the book. These stories focus on the goals and ambitions of the other characters of the story.

When I had finished my first outline of the story for Rise of the Adept, I was pleased with what I had. Aside from the story of Simon, the outline saw that Phoenix, Alvin, and Scott progressed as characters as they pursued their own goals. Archmage’s development will continue but I wanted to continue the story of several other magicians, such as Cassandra and Solomon. I’ve even taken time to flesh out Darius’ character better to provide a better understanding of his motives.

I managed to write a third of the story from this outline when I started to slow down and think. It was then I realized that I had much to do.

What changes are necessary to improve on Rise of the Adept?

I’m not going to go too deep into spoilers, even though most of what I’m about to talk about is how the first outline draft looked like and what I need to change. I was pleased with what I was able to do for most of my characters but realized that there were two important characters whose stories I’ve failed in Rise of the Adept.

Where we last left Morgan, she had been possessed by her ancestor Virgil, who is now in hiding. There is no denying the significant role Morgan played in The House of Virgil as one of the major characters of the story. However, my first outline for Rise of the Adept gave her a diminished role. In the outline, she doesn’t return to the story until about two thirds of a way through without much happening with her afterwards, including facing the possible consequences of her betrayal of the group.

While it was always my intention to give Morgan in the finale of the trilogy that would address many questions, I realized that I needed to do a better job of her return to the story and that it needed to happen sooner. I’m working on ideas for how it will happen but there’s very little room for Morgan to return in the first story outline, hence the need for something new.

The second character I’ve failed is one of the new entries into the story. Some of you may remember from the end of the Rise of the Adept preview I previously posted a character named Caz. Although his role in the preview was short, he has a bigger role to play in Rise of the Adept as the story’s deuteragonist. While his story went pretty well, I eventually realized that Simon and Caz only interacted three times in Rise of the Adept, including the interaction that started in the preview.

In theory, I may not need to have more interactions between Simon and Caz as more was planned for the end of the trilogy. However, I figured that I could do a better job of setting up how the ending works out by including more scenes in Rise of the Adept that build up to what I have planned.

It was with these ideas in mind that I knew I had to change the story of Rise of the Adept?

What is my plan moving forward?

Rise of the Adept will be written and published; it’s just taking longer than I expected it to. I want to tell the best story I can which means scrapping the overall idea I had and taking what does work alongside my fixes for the issues I’ve seen.

You might be expecting me to say that I am currently working on an outline but that is not the case. I never had any problems with the overall story of The House of Virgil, which didn’t had an outline. All it had was a beginning, a rough idea of what happens throughout the story, and an ending. I already know how Rise of the Adept begins and how it ends as well as what happens in the middle. I just need to write, keep the lessons I’ve learned in mind, and take a second look during the editing phase for any issues.

Do these changes retcon the preview previously posted?

The chapter preview I’ve made before will remain in the story. As I’ve said, I’m happy with how the introduction has turned out and don’t feel the need to remove it. No content that I have shared with you, the reader, has gone to waste so far.

I would like to finish with an apology over the delays. I sincerely hope that these changes are what’s necessary to finish Rise of the Adept.

Until next time.

For as long as I can remember. I’ve always enjoyed going to the movies. The experience itself is magical and something that allows me to feel emotional, an aspect I have struggled with in the past. Gettin’ Real with the Reels has been one of my favorite podcast series to record but even I’ll admit that I’ve been slacking in uploading new episodes.

I want to take this time to look back on what was accomplished and outline my new plan for Gettin’ Real with the Reels.

What is the current status of Gettin’ Real with the Reels?

Despite the inactivity, Gettin’ Real with the Reels hasn’t been cancelled. The lack of episodes can be contributed to adjusting to life outside of college, even though releases had been slow before due to schoolwork. I have a list of movies that I have watched since the end of 2021 to make episodes about but that brings up something on the back of my mind.

I’ve studied mass media and journalism for years and I know that emphasis is given to what’s out right now. Timeliness is an area that I have fallen behind, which is something I want to change. However, at the same time, I would love the chance to talk about past movies that I’ve enjoyed even if their time has gone by.

How will Gettin’ Real with the Reels look in the future?

To start off, I am going to make an episode on Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Yes, it has been over a year since it came out, but in my last episode, I said that would be the next movie I review, and I intend to keep my word.

However, once I upload that episode, I will go on a short hiatus until March. It is my intention to get back into Gettin’ Real with the Reels in a soft reset, starting with whatever wins Best Picture at the Academy Awards this year. From there, I hope to release three to four new episodes a month, preferably once a week.

I am going to keep the list of movies from the last year I have on me for whenever I can’t find the time to see a movie in theater. That isn’t the only rule I hope to change. Although it was never mentioned, I tended to avoid sequels of movies I haven’t already covered. For sake of keeping up with the movies that are coming out, I am opening myself to review new movies, regardless of any series.

With these changes in mind, I hope to revive Gettin’ Real with the Reels. It may be ambitious but I really want to follow my passion with movie reviews in this matter.

Until next time.

New year, new month, new monthly agenda.

A lot of what I have to discuss was covered in the 2023 New Year Announcements. There really isn’t too much to add here other than a few things.

There are changes coming to Gettin’ Real with the Reels but I’ll give an idea of what to expect immediately in this post. There’ll be one episode posted this month followed by a short hiatus until March. I hope that these upcoming changes will let me frequently post more episodes in the future.

There may be other forms of content posted if I can think of what to do but it isn’t something I am requiring of myself.

Let’s start the new year off strong.

Until next time.

This time, I’m not forgetting to post the monthly agenda on the first of the month.

So, for those of you wondering, I did complete NaNoWriMo on time. It was close due to a bad cold and work keeping me busy but I’m happy to have finished it again for the fourth time, third year in the row. I feel as though the experience will get me over my writer’s block.

I intend to focus primarily on preparing for the announcements for the new year over the month. I’d rather focus on new projects coming up than look over the past year. It was tough finishing college and then adjusting to adult life which kept me busy from what I promised at the start of last year. I hope that now that I’m adjusting to this next chapter of my life I’ll be able to better deliver on what I promise.

Just because I’m focusing on the announcements doesn’t mean there will be no content. I intend to get back into making podcast with Gettin’ Real with the Reels. Expect more episodes over the month as I desperately try to catch up with the movies over the past year or two.

Also, I may or may not be trying something new. If I do, expect to hear about it on the yearly announcements. It’s a secret until I actually give it a go.

Let’s finish off the year strong!

Until next time.

Only two more months to go, meaning it’s time for the start of another monthly agenda.

Let’s address the issue that’s on all of your minds: the fact that I posted the agenda for November a day late. It was bound to happen sooner or later given my memory and I do apologize for my tardiness. I was caught up with the start of NaNoWriMo and working at my job that it slipped my mind.

Of course, there are people who are likely more concerned that I didn’t do anything I said in the last agenda. Everything is going alright on my end, it’s just that work is keeping me busy. It is my intention to return to what I promised after NaNoWriMo. I intend to get back to podcasts during December and post the updates on my new project and the ebook version of The House of Virgil at the start of 2023.

Finally, joining the announcements of the new year is more information on Rise of the Adept. I intend to meet with one of my editors to discuss the story and figure out any changes that I need to address. I will put this out with the other announcements as I do not want to rush any messages I have to say given their importance.

Back to writing.

Until next time.