Briefs
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I’m at the cusp of finishing Dungeon Runner, and maybe that’s the problem. I’ve never finished a series before. I’m so excited to be done, but I’m also a little sad to be writing the last words.
I love these characters, and I want to have more fun with them as they go on new adventures.
But the end of one thing is often—definitely in my case—the beginning of another. I just need to finish. Why is that so hard? Haha.
Dungeon Runner 3 is 151k words and needs about 10k more. It has four epilogues… I like epilogues! The books will be coming out in the last three months of the year. :)
Onward to finishing things!
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Added 20,000 words to Dungeon Runner 3 this week. I was hoping that 25,000 words would be enough, but it just needs a bit more time. There are about ten more chapters to go, haha.
In other news, it looks like I have three audiobooks coming out next month. Crazy!
Alright, back to work. ;)
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Another week and a new writing record. Woot!
Added 26k words to Dungeon Runner 3, bringing it up to 115k. Back when these were novella episodes, 26k would be an entire book. It’s interesting to look at where this series has come from and see where it’s at now. :)
Based on this speed and loosely where I think the book will end, I could finish it next week. After that, I might drop in some new PoV chapters in the first book to round things out a bit better.
All and all, it was a great week. Onward to the next!
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Despite failing to hit my word-count goal most days of this week, I still ended with 23,293 words, which is the most I’ve written in a week since I started tracking.
I think.
What day is today?
Where am I?
So, life feels like a blur, but it’s a good blur. Lots of fun things happen in the blur. For one, I bought a piano I don’t know how to use. That’s normally fine, but it’s the third one. I think I have a problem.
I vow not to buy any more pianos.
Someone hold me to that.
Let’s see. Dungeon Runner is just shy of 90k words. I believe it’ll be 120k words once it’s done. I’d prefer 100k, but there’s just no way to get everything to fit into 10k at this point. In fact, 120k might not be enough. I shall make an offering to the muse god and ask for mercy.
Have a fantastic weekend. :)
/Blurs away/
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I helped a friend move yesterday and was asked, “How did you learn to write?” And my answer was, “I ran a writing community for six years. After that, I studied every book I could buy—over 200—on craft for half a decade, writing as often as I could. I’m constantly learning.”
I kind of felt like the question was . . . not stupid but a question that had an obvious answer. How do you get good at anything? You study a lot and practice a lot.
Then I got home and watched this guy on YouTube play Ghibli music on the piano. I’ve been wanting to compose my own music for decades, which starts with the piano. I thought, “How did he learn to play?”
This made me realize that we all find what others do well, kind of magical. But the answer is the same for pretty much everything. If you want to do something, study everything you can and practice lots.
This week, my practicing—as every step you take toward your goals is also a learning opportunity—resulted in 15,193 new words on Dungeon Runner 3. It’s officially 50% done, which is unfortunate.
I’m not making enough progress toward my goals. As such, I did the totally Dustin thing to do; I came up with a new schedule! I’m on Plan 23, which increases my 50-minute writing sessions to eight from seven.
We’ll see how this goes for the next week or two and adjust if needed. The day, if you asked me, needs a few more hours in it.
With that, I bid thee farewell. Have a wonderful week!
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First off, happy Father’s Day to all you dads out there. :)
They call me Daddy of Books. Yes, I have troublesome kids that never do what they are told. They take me for wild adventures and try to make me laugh. It’s so cringe. But I do this out of love, so it is what it is. . . .
Alright, on to this week’s update. I added 18,148 words to Dungeon Runner 3, which brings it to just over 50k words. This mostly concludes the first two Parts of five.
Parts 2 and 4 are interludes, which are about 10k words each. I have to say, I love my interludes. The stories just write themselves and end up being my favorite in these books. But this is unique to Dungeon Runner and its odd structure. I’m probably not going to write interludes in my next series.
Besides that, I got my new computers: a Mac Studio M2 Ultra and a 15" MacBook Air M2. I’m still organizing my office while busily doing a billion other things. At some point, expect a lengthy article about my whole setup. :)
I hope you have a wonderful new week. Do something amazing and have fun!
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This week was full of distractions! But I still added 40 pages to Dungeon Runner 3 and finished everything on Dungeon Runner 2. “Finishing” is the hardest thing in the world, haha. It’s easy to get to that 80% mark, but the last 20% always rears its ugly head and vomits surprises.
Who doesn’t like vomit?
Anyway, the distractions came from WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference). It’s an Apple event where they talk about their new hardware and software. Despite tech journalists’ predictions, saying a refreshed Mac Studio wouldn’t happen, it happened. Woot! And I snatched one up before my brain could process how much they were. ;)
Dumb brain is always trying to curb my spending…
The new computer will be here on Wednesday. This will be a serious upgrade to my main office and will handle just about everything I want to do outside of gaming.
In other news, I’ve looked over my records for the last few weeks and found that my last three writing sessions per day almost always underperform. I thought this was due to poor sleep, so I stopped working in bed and went to sleep 30 minutes early. Of course, my dumb brain wakes up 30 minutes early to account for the change.
After some research, I think I’m exhausting my focus. You can only focus for so long before your brain needs a break. This week, I’m giving myself a 35-minute break before the last three sessions to meditate or sleep.
We’ll see how it goes. That’s it from me. I hope you have a wonderful week!
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Happy Sunday!
I’ll be phasing out the Projects section of my site because, moving forward, it doesn’t make much sense to have it.
The section is for readers to see my progress on the next book they are waiting for. But, in the future, once the first book has been published, all books will be done and available for preorder.
Instead of posting updates in the Projects section, you’ll see them here in Briefs and as full articles. :)
This week was all about preparing for next week (and killing demons, #DiabloIV). I went back to Dungeon Runner 2 and finished the three chapters I left incomplete. They were hard chapters, which is why I didn’t finish them in the first place, haha.
This book is so fun and crazy. I love it. It’s my favorite book yet. And now I need to make the magic happen for the last Dungeon Runner. That’s a tall order, but I have some ideas that will push the envelope.
That’s it for this week. I hope you have a nice weekend. :)
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I slept terribly last night.
The demons of hell haunted my dreams!
Today, I seek revenge. Starting at 5:00 P.M.!
(As an adult, you get that kid-on-Christmas-morning feeling rarely. I’m such a kid today, and I love it, haha.)
#DiabloIV
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Diablo 4 comes out in four days!
I have lots to get done before the game is released, then I’ll be taking Friday off to slay the demons of hell. I’m beyond excited. :)
In other news, I started watching Ted Lasso. It’s hilarious. If you like comedy, you should check it out.
Lastly, Dungeon Runner 3 is about 1/4th done. I’m enjoying the story and am excited to write the rest of it. My progress this last week has been a bit slow, but that should pick up a lot in June.
Have a great week!