the website of author and local favorite blake michael nelson | about | contact: theblakeshow@gmail.com
|
NEWS AND VIEWS - AUGUST 2019
WRITING NEWS Just cracked 78,000 words on my latest novel, an epic flintlock fantasy called The Demon in the Metal. The final word count is probably going to be something like 95,000-100,000, so I'm well on my way to finishing this one; I still think I've got a pretty good chance of wrapping it up by the end of October. * * * * * * * * HARDY SCANDINAVIAN STOCK I sometimes watch the videos this Laura girl posts on YouTube. She seems like kind of a spaz, but she's a pretty girl who likes ThunderCats, so there is that. Anyway, she posted a video recently where she opens up a bit about her frequent migraine headaches, and how they affect the quality of her life. It got me thinking about how lucky I am (knock on wood) to have never had any serious health problems. I've never spent the night in a hospital. I sometimes go five, ten years without seeing a doctor, except for physicals. I get colds, and I get the flu, like everyone else, but I've never caught anything serious. Probably the worst I've ever been sick was when I got strep throat a few years ago. That was nasty -- three days of swallowing molten lava every few seconds, plus my uvula swelled up so much it actually started touching the back of my tongue, making me gag. But that's probably the worst I've ever had it. And I seldom get injured, despite having a job that can sometimes be dangerous. I haven't broken a bone since I was twelve years old (fractured my hand in a car accident on the last day of school). I've only got a few little scrapes and scars on my hands. Lost a toenail once, by stupidly dropping a battery drill on my foot. And a few years ago I hurt my back lifting a 375-pound band saw in an awkward kind of way, but I was over it in a day or two. I have had several strange little maladies over the years, though. Four years ago I had a visual migraine, also called a scintillating scotoma; this was frightening. I was sitting in my bedroom, minding my own business, when I suddenly realized I had a blind spot in my left eye. It started small, but then it got bigger, and bigger, and then I started seeing colored, flashing lights, like a sparkling, crescent-shaped rainbow, and it got so bad that after a minute or two I had almost no peripheral vision in my left eye (and it seemed to be bleeding over into my other eye, too). It was like I was seeing a rotating fan of flashing lights or something, even with my eyes closed. But it went away after a few minutes (there was no pain) and I haven't had one since. (I later learned that my dad gets these, too -- he's had seven or eight of them, over the last twenty years. It happened one time while he was driving; it got so bad that he had to pull over.) I also get frequent ectopic beats -- usually one or two a week, but there have been days where I've had twenty or more over just a few hours (and sometimes I go months without getting one at all). These can be pretty scary, too -- it feels like your heart is stopping for a second, and then kicking in again. But I'm so used to them now that I barely notice them. Generally, though, I'm pretty healthy, and watching Laura's video reminded me that I really shouldn't take that for granted. * * * * * * * * WHAT I'M READING I finally finished Richmond Lattimore's excellent translation of The Illiad around the beginning of the month. Also finished The Republic of Pirates (a great overview of some of the most famous Carribbean pirates) and a short Harry Greb bio by Springs Toldeo called Smokestack Lightning: Harry Greb, 1919. This one focuses on Greb's incredible run of victories throughout 1919; he fought an amazing forty-five times that year, facing off against middleweights, light heavyweights, and heavyweights, and won every single fight. And I'm still working my way through this collection of Tomb of Dracula comics. They're pretty hokey, but they're fun, and the art is good. * * * * * * * * DROUGHT I usually buy an average of about ten to twelve new video games a year. I don't have time to play through that many games in a year, so most of these just end up sitting on my to-play shelf for years (I've got over fifty games in my backlog now), but that's how many I usually buy. This year's been different; it's already August, and I've only bought four new games: Etrian Odyssey Nexus, the Resident Evil 2 remake, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom. This is partly because I've been trying to save money, but also because I just don't have any interest in a lot of the games that have been coming out lately. I tend to gravitate towards Japanese RPG's, oddball titles like 428: Shibuya Scramble, and games with unique narratives, and it feels like these kinds of games are becoming harder and harder to find. And there's not a whole lot coming up on the horizon, either. I'm looking forward to Trails of Cold Steel III (hopefully NIS America doesn't screw up the translation) and I'm looking forward to the Grandia remaster that's coming out for the Switch, but those are the only two games I can think of that I have any real interest in. My two favorite Western developers, Bethesda and Naughty Dog, are both in a weird place right now: the Fallout franchise has been hit hard by Fallout 76, and the next Elder Scrolls title is probably still years away; meanwhile Naughty Dog has been spending the past three or four years working on The Last of Us Part 2, a totally unnecessary sequel which, I suspect, is only going to tarnish the legacy of the first game (and which probably won't be released until late 2020 anyway). So those two are MIA. Too bad. But hey, at least I've got that backlog to, uhh, fall back on.
|