Art Update & Impossible Goals

I completed the Ballistic Knife, and I've posted it. Unfortunately, March has been a very difficult month for writing, but I've made some progress on the World Building (which has become a project for designing a new Role Playing Game that takes place in the fantasy world I've created). I'll continue working on that, but I'm going to schedule in more time for other projects, such as Devil Dog.

I haven't posted much lately because I've been spending all my computer time compiling information and researching. I'm trying to get in as much research for Devil Dog as I can before completing the final rewrite. I have no intentions of writing this book again once it's done this time. One thing I've learned is that if you keep digging, you'll always find something to fix or change. I'm not changing anything else, just getting it written the way it should be and then fixing all those typos and all the grammar and content editing that comes after that. Cross your fingers or say a prayer for me, I'll need it. I set these goals and planned to complete them, but as a realist, I knew I'd never actually make these deadlines. I have done a lot more in the last couple months than I have ever have in that time span, so I will continue to make new Impossible Goals after I eventually complete the tasks I'm wading through now.

Here's the picture I did up for the Ballistic Knife post. It's not an ancient weapon, but it is a blade and it's really cool. Check it out if you haven't already. Next, I'm drawing the Kanabō and a redo of the Hwacha. That was one of my worst early drawings, and now that I've gotten halfway decent with my art program, it's time to update some old ones as well. I'll be writing up and posting the Horseman's Pick for the monthly weapon post on Monday. See everyone then!

The Ballistic Knife by TL Jeffcoat

Update! The Aspis, the Tomahawk and Writing

Click here to check out the post for the Aspis

I have completed the art for the Aspis, it looks pretty simple, but even with an art program drawing circles are a pain. I spent more time the last couple weeks on world building than I did with anything else so I haven’t finished the Tomahawk art, or the Weapons & Warrior post that was supposed to go up this week on the Tonfa. I’ll be focusing on that this week and have it ready by Friday. I’m also going to try getting that Tomahawk drawn up and ready before then too.

Now for an update on those impossible goals I made:

Task 1: I have 108,000 words in the World building book, which is still short of the 120,000 word goal, but that’s huge progress compared to all the words I wrote last year not including the blog. I may have written 50,000 words in all of 2013. I spent the year reading and editing.

Task 2: I did not get any chapters of Devil Dog written, but I edited the first chapter a little. I’ll need to get that back on track after this coming week. I want to send it back to the editor by June. Clock is ticking!

Task 3: The D&D campaigns are waiting on my world building to reach a certain point so that I can use my own settings. I’ve also been toying with the idea of creating my own Role Playing Game game like Pathfinder did when D&D veered off into the 4th edition abyss.

Task 4: I almost succeeded with 5 drawings a month. I got in about 3, 4 if you count the Aspis.

So that’s where I’m at, and see you next week. June is coming fast so I am going to dive right back into these tasks. Have a great week!

Writer Ramblings: Impossible Goals

After a recent conversation on Facebook with the witty Anne-Mhairi Simpson about setting goals that can’t be achieved, I am going to jump on that challenge. She already began her impossible goals, so I am going to do something similar.

Photo from Kristin Nador on WANACommons

My first impossible goal is to finish the book of notes I’m currently writing. My first intention was to just gather all my two decades worth of notes into one location so that I can pick up my old fantasy series project again. I wanted to write both the Devil Dog series, which is not a fantasy series, alongside an epic high fantasy series. Since late November, I’ve been compiling notes, trying to uniform ideas, and basically make some sense of the chaos twenty plus years of daydreaming has created. I’ve been world building. This task in itself would normally be what I call my life’s work, but I have a lot of other series, like Devil Dog, that also needs to be written. So, I’ve decided to create a “guide” to the fantasy world which describes everything from religions, cultures, races, magic, creatures, maps, history, etc. I’m currently at 30,000 words, and I’m anticipating it to reach close to 150,000 words (approximately 500 pages). The easy part of this book is it is for my own personal use as a guide to this huge fantasy world. I won’t have to edit it for grammar or anything else. It’s just massive and full of pictures. I want to finish the entire thing by March. That’s my impossible goal. That’s a month and a half away.