And Breathe...

I might be good at multi-tasking at the day job, but not so much when it comes to writing, so I decided to set my WiP aside for the time being while I chipped steadily away at the revisions for The Dubious Commode. That's done and sorted out now, and I can move on to the next stage, which is easier. That's how things go with me, anyway: writing (hardest) -- revising (less hard) -- editing (easiest). So I'll be back to working on Voices in the Briars next weekend, and I've got a three-day weekend planned after that, too, which means even more time spent writing. Yay!

Not much really needed to be done in the revisions -- mostly fleshing out a few passages per chapter and following the notes I have in my writing notebook (while discarding or ignoring others since they don't work). This book turned out to be a blessedly easy one to end the series with, and while I've done my time grieving, I'm now really, really thrilled to give Ghosts and Tea a good, happy sendoff. And I know I mentioned before that I'll forego a celebratory video (which was a tradition of mine whenever I finish a book's draft), but you know, FUCK IT. I'm celebrating and feeding off the energy of the soundtrack to my favorite superhero series (movie series, anyway).

Yeah! Can't wait for Beyond the Spider-Verse to come out, finally. Across the Spider-Verse is still on Netflix, and God knows how many times I've watched it (did the same when Into the Spider-Verse was there, too). Blown away by the animation, of course, and especially the storytelling. While Captain America: The Winter Soldier is still my top MCU flick, this one is my overall favorite of all Marvel-related movies, and I thought I was done with Spider-Man (didn't bother to watch any of the earlier live action adaptations). 

So I'm celebrating a Victorian epistolary book with a 21st century animated film soundtrack, and I'm milking this for all it's worth.* Next weekend will be a full return to Voices in the Briars, and with any luck, I'll run across more random stuff to be inspired by for future books (like Loom and Mirror).

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In other random news, I just started watching Dead Boy Detectives on Netflix, picking away at it one episode per sitting. I'm not posting any detailed reactions at the moment other than a more generalized "Hey, I'm really enjoying this!" Once I get through the entire season, I'll share my thoughts on it, but so far it's a pretty fun show to follow. 

Love the aesthetics (of course) and the dry, snarky humor (with the occasional f-bomb dropped for spice). Truth be told, it's pulling me in way more than Lockwood & Co. did, which was a show I had to set aside after the first episode because I had a hard time getting into the story (not to mention empathizing with the characters). But since it's a Netflix production, it's on that platform forever, and I can always go back and start over with a clearer head.

For all I know, I just started watching it on a bad day, or my mind and mood were both pretty blah. I do find that to be the case when I restart a book I DNF'd or a show I abandoned after one or two episodes. I understand Dead Boy Detectives is actually part of the universe of The Sandman, and I read somewhere that there's a chance some crossing over might take place between the two series. I never read the graphic novel and haven't tried the series at all, so this would be an interesting direction to take Dead Boy Detectives down the line. We shall see. For the time being, I'm going to watch and enjoy as a total noob (we all gotta start somewhere, eh?).

* thought I'd mention this particular track does an incredible job actually presenting four different character plots / conflicts (the Prowler, Earth-42 Miles, the Spot, and Gwen with her newly formed "band" -- all in that order as the track progresses)