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Skate 3 I’ve let it marinate long enough, and January marks the official start of revisions on Rag & Bone, book 3. Many changes, deletions, additions, and rewrites await. I’ve got a timetable in mind for how long it will take that I am absolutely NOT sharing for fear that I’ll disappoint by missing my own deadlines. It’s on the way, and that’s enough for now. Media I enjoyed Mufasa, though I think the music was my favorite part, especially the number about wanting a brother. I’ve rewatched Fellowship again because it’s like going home every time I see the Shire. I’ve recently been introduced to NBC’s Abbot Elementary, which has been out for a while at this point, and I’m liking that quite a bit. Cowboy Bebop continues to stand the test of time.
I’m still in Westeros in books, making my way through Storm, and I’m coming up on THAT chapter. Not looking forward to it. Miscellany Some of the notes from Wicked still keep rumbling through my head at odd times. School starts back again next week. It’s meant to be bitterly cold next week; I don’t know if we’ll get any flakes out of the deal, but I’m hoping to get some before the season leaves again. That’ll have to be enough, because I still haven’t gotten that darn weather machine working. That’s all from me, for now. Tell your story! – J. E. Ayers 
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I wrote up a list for Shepherd, a website about books by people who love them. If you're interested in seeing what authors have to say about stories and writing, you should go check it out. Here's my list! -Jeff 
obvious sequel to the movie at the end. I feel like it wasn’t necessary, and it does color my memory of the whole project as a result. Wicked… listen, I knew for years that this was huge in the stage musical world, and having seen it on the big screen, I can finally say I understand why. The music, the story, the performances – I feel like I’ve been missing out for decades for not knowing anything about this sooner. I went in totally ignorant of everything but the basic premise (what if the wicked witch from that movie in the forties wasn’t really bad?) and the fact that Idina Menzel was involved somehow in the original. Having seen the movie exactly one time, I cannot recommend it highly enough. If I had the money and time, I’d go see it again. Miscellany I got to play a card game I haven’t played in over a decade with friends, some of whom I haven’t seen in just as much time. Pies and ham were enjoyed in amounts that could conservatively be called copious. Minecraft calls again. I, like the children, do indeed yearn for the mines. That’s all from me, for now. Tell your story! – J. E. Ayers  Skate 3 I’m nearing the end of Skate 3’s first draft; I am confident reporting that my plan is to be done with the first draft before Christmas – keyword being “plan,” and we all know what Robert Burns had to say about those things. Still, it looks likely. My trip to New York slowed down progress, but not so much that we’re thrown off of that goal yet. Media I finished watching HBO’s Penguin, and let me say, the biggest of Oofs. The finale was brutal. Good, but I’m gonna be recovering from that for a while. HBO’s now got the Dune universe series coming out next week, and I can’t imagine passing on that. I’ve also been watching Disney’s Owl House with my son, and that’s been a delight. I particularly enjoy Hootie; there’s something very fun to me about a tertiary, silly character in animated movies and shows.  As far as games go, I’m back in the throes of a Dwarf Fortress season. Send supplies and well-wishes. As usual, I’ve found myself drawn – again – to Westeros and another read through of Clash and Storm, the latter of which is often called one of the crowning (ha) achievements in modern fantasy literature, for good reason. I’m also re-reading The Devil in the White City for class, and I always appreciate Larson’s prose. I’m not one for non-fiction as a rule, but he makes it entertaining to read, and that’s an achievement all its own.
 Absence Near the end of May, a dang ol’ tornado hit our neighborhood. Without power and down a window for a while, there’s been a lot going on at the house. That made it hard to get much of anything done, including keeping everyone informed on what was going on. Sorry about that. Things are more or less back to normal now that the school year has started, so I don’t expect to be so silent going forward. Again, sorry. I blame the tornado, and you should too. That thing was a real jerk. Skate 3 Despite it all, progress continues on Skate. I’m not going to give any dates regarding when I expect a first draft to be done, but I do have a personal date that I expect to reach that goal. We will see if I meet it or not, but I’m notably closer than I was five months ago. Media Current video game obsession: Sid Meier’s Civilization VI. I picked it up from the Switch store for ten bucks, and that was a solid purchase. I loved Civilization V, and VI has been quite fun to get a handle on. There were a lot of movies over the summer, but the one that hit me the hardest was one I wasn’t expecting, Inside Out 2. I note at this point that there are a lot of sequels in this section, a trend that continues with HBO’s Penguin, a sort of tie-in TV sequel for The Batman. It’s been good so far, and I expect it will continue. Oh, and of course, there was House of the Dragon. I am excited by good fantasy, and that show hasn’t gone the way of Game of Thrones just yet. Miscellany I went to several author events over the summer. Follow me on Threads and Instagram if you’re wanting to see pics of those places, and the former especially if you also want to see all the dumb stuff that pops into my head on a daily basis. That’s all from me, for now. Tell your story! – J. E. Ayers
Media I’ve been playing old games recently. There’s something comforting in the pixelated, point-and-click simplicity of the first Baldur’s Gate on the PC (Enhanced Edition on Steam for updated graphics and bug fixes, but still), the sprawling 4X fun of Civilization V, the blocky jumping and flying of Super Mario World – these are evergreen to me, never worth scoffing at, always fun in their seasons and times. I’m halfway through Sanderson’s Rhythm of War, and I’m fully engaged with the plot and characters. It’s been a while since I’ve visited Roshar, so it took some time for me to get reacquainted with everyone, but I’m there now. Miscellany Other projects are in the works, not just Skate. Nothing to announce there, but I’m writing, writing, writing. With summer coming on, I hope to visit some bookshops. I went recently to a new one in the region, Fox & Fable. Here’s a tip for any shop owners: Get a friendly shop dog.
 Rag & Bone 3 The work, as ever, continues. I'm about 1/3 of the way through a rough draft. After that will come revisions and then more revisions before I am ready to show anything to my publisher. Moving along, though I wish I could move it faster. Media
I picked up Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny from the library (you should always go to your library), and found the points within mostly useful in the current political climate. I've finally gotten around to Sanderson's Rhythm of War, and am enjoying it so far. It's been so long that there are a few characters I've managed to completely forget, so I keep having to go back and keep notes on them all. Video games remain a favorite past-time. Dwarf Fortress, Civilization V, and Donkey Kong Country 2 have been taking up most of my fun time recently. The boys have been into Minecraft as well, wandering through creative mode with reckless abandon. That's all from me, for now. Tell your story! -J. E. Ayers  Rag and Bone 3 Nothing more to report here, though my schedule took a hit from a round of COVID followed by a round of flu. It still goes and goes, and it will go and go a while yet before the draft is done.  Copyright NBC Studios. All rights reserved. Media I finally finished The Good Place. My lovely wife and I had gotten to the final season together and then just never found time to watch the rest. This last week, we found that time. It was good! I love the tackling of moral questions through the silliest lenses possible. There’s still The Boy and the Heron to watch, though it will probably not be until June or July that I get around to it. I look forward to Dune: Part Two as well, and that one might get me to a theater seat. I loved the first one so much that it convinced me to finally read the book, and I have high hopes for this next installment. I also finally got around to watching DC’s Son of Batman. The writers were clearly having a blast writing Damien’s dialogue, and I respect the commitment to absurdity in making sure Ra’s al Ghul’s operation absolutely refuses to invest in a single gunpowder weapon. Gatling crossbows and trebuchets holding their own against automatic rifles and combat helicopters? Delightful. Miscellany As I reread one of my favorite books that got me immersed in fantasy novels, The Cleric Quintet by R. A. Salvatore, I find myself remembering other speculative pastimes of my youth that I haven’t had the opportunity to indulge much in my adult life. D&D, LAN parties, rummy on a Friday night over cheap, bad pizza.  I had a sense, even then, that those times were not going to last, as people left for college and work and life. The realization struck me my senior year of high school that our time was running out, and I took to these times almost every weekend with feverish intensity, determined to strain every drop of fun from each night that I could. I miss it, sometimes. Not that I would trade my life now to get it back – the magic of fatherhood and marriage is too much to even dream of trading for anything else – but the loss is there. I fear that’s going to be a consistent theme, moving from one season of life to the next knowing that it won’t be permanent, and never being able to do anything to stop it. Ah, well. That’s all from me, for now. Tell your story! – J. E. Ayers
Media Books, movies, shows. Too much to see, too much to read. I read through Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics: the Invisible Art, and enjoyed it immensely. I'll keep it on my shelf in case I ever make the insane decision to work in visual media or (more likely) find someone who already works in it who might want to work with me. I also picked up Scott Moore's adaptation of Marie Lu's Nightwalkers book, and that was a lot of fun. I hope Lu does more with this, and that Moore can continue to adapt the work. Watching Fellowship again (yes, yet again), and I'm consistently blown away by the movie. It's all good -- the acting, the pacing, the sets, the costumes, the score -- and I genuinely don't know if we'll ever get something like this out of Hollywood again. It's not perfect, but it may be as close to it as such a movie ever can be. I've also been watching CNN's The Seventies mini-series, which has been interesting enough to get me wanting to watch their retrospectives on the other decades when I'm done with this one.  I want to watch Miyazaki's Heron movie, as I've heard nothing but praise for it, but I'm afraid I may have to wait for it to come to a streaming platform in ... June? Ugh. Oh well. Miscellany We've had snow days and sniffles, dogs and storms. The day-to-day creeps in at its petty pace and moves on. On the whole, everyone is healthy. Snow days meant lots of games and blankets and a deep longing not to return to work and school for everyone, but we'll move past it. Eventually, I'm sure. That's all from me, for now. Tell your story! - J. E. Ayers  Rag and Bone book 3 Work's begun on the first draft of book 3. At this point, I'm roughly 1/3 of the way through the manuscript. There will be endless revisions afterward, I'm sure, but I am hopeful to have something in the hands of the publisher before the end of summer. Don't hold me to that; if I miss that deadline, you can bet that I'm going to go ahead and pretend I never set it. Media There's quite a lot out there I haven't watched or read yet, and I'm trying to come to terms, on an existential level, that there's just a hard limit on what I'll ever be able to see and read. I finally got around to reading George R. R. Martin's A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and it might be my favorite thing he's written in Westeros. My current TBR pile includes Sanderson's Rhythm of War, Danielewski's House of Leaves, a reread of The Stand, and something by Erik Larson -- either The Splendid and the Vile or In the Garden of Beasts, I don't know which. I started a re-watch of Jackson's Lord of the Rings, which will take me another month of snippet watching to get through, no regrets. I need to watch The Boy and the Heron," but I'm afraid I will probably have to wait until it comes to streaming service (MAX, I think?) before I will get a chance to see it. My boys and I have have been playing a lot of Kirby these past few weeks on the Switch, and I'm overjoyed to be able to share this with them. Gaming's been such a big part of my media diet since I was a boy, and they're finally of an age to appreciate it alongside me.  This is the cover art for Kirby and The Forgotten Land. The cover art copyright is believed to belong to the distributor of the game or the publisher, Nintendo or the developers, HAL Laboratory. Miscellany The website still needs some updating. That's on my list. Reviews continue to come in for both books, and they're always welcome. I'm over on Threads, so go find me there if you haven't already. It's mostly nonsense, every day. What fun! That's all from me, for now. Tell your story! -J. E. Ayers |
AuthorJeff Ayers writes books that are pretty good. Archives
January 2025
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