Volume Seven Status Update: Can't Blog, Reading

As mentioned in the previous Volume Seven Status Update from a month ago, I am in the final polishing stage, which is where I read the manuscript over and over again until my eyes bleed before turning it in for a line edit.

I also said that March 7 was the date when I am scheduled to do said turn-in. And since I've been averaging one full read-through per week, that gives me just about enough time for, well, one more full-read-through. And maybe an extra day or so for proofing.

I'm feeling pretty good about where things are at. I've plugged plot holes and generally tightened up the overall story while also trimming excess words and shortening run-on sentences. Still, though, I want to devote most of my focus and energy to completing these final checks, so I'm just going to stop this blog post here.

P.S. That is, after telling you that the cover art is also coming along nicely!

P.P.S. Don't be surprised if next week's blog post is just a cat haiku

Minor Inconvenience Note

I once said that "I would never want to find, much less use, an actual Death Note. I would, however, more than welcome a Minor Inconvenience Note."

In case you're not familiar, Death Note is a manga/anime about a teenage genius who discovers a supernatural notebook that, in a nutshell, causes the death of whoever's name is written in it. It was one of the first shows I watched when I first really started getting into anime back in 2018. I became such a fan that not only did I issue the above quote (as an attempt at a joke at a music industry gathering) but I also drew one page of a parody comic based on the manga:

Anyway, the reason I bring this up* is that I've recently come across the term "micro-stressors," which are the minor inconveniences, problems, annoyances, etc. that occur in everyday life. Alone, they seem harmless and trivial, but they can add up over time and, if not properly dealt with, cause serious mental health issues (I don't know, I'm an author/musician, not a mental health professional, but that sounds about right).

There are different ways to deal with micro-stressors, but my personal favorite technique is to use the "identify-and-transform" method. This is where I identify exactly what the stressor is ("that person cut me off in traffic") and then think about why the stressor provides an opportunity for gratitude, thus transforming it from a negative into a positive ("I'm thankful that I have a car that helps me get around," "I'm glad we didn't get into an accident," etc.). You may have or require a different method (again, I'm not a mental health professional), but this is what works for me. And that's your unsolicited advice for the week.

* Actually, the reason I bring this up is that I just wanted an excuse to publish this cartoon in my blog

Random Thought Thursday

Random thought: this is the first Random Thought Thursday post since March, 2019, aka "The Before-Times."

Siding repair: worse than I expected, but not as bad as it could have been. So I'm grateful for that.

In that last Random Thought Thursday post from 2019, I complained about my local Fred Meyer occasionally running out of pre-cut broccoli florets. Since then, they went through a period where they basically never had any at all, but recently they've done a 180 and now have tons, all the time. More importantly: I can't believe I've been eating pre-cut broccoli florets every day for four years (and probably more) now.

Also in that last post, I gushed about the "new powder blue Spring Training uniforms the Seattle Mariners are wearing." Well, they are no longer new, and they are also no longer, having been axed along with the road gray jerseys.

Super Bowl prediction: Eagles 28, Chiefs 24. I mean, have you seen that Philadelphia offensive line play? At one point during one of their playoff games (I forget which), I said to my TV, "I bet even I could run through that hole."

The most recent episode of My Hero Academia said that we are entering the "final chapter" or something like that. But then when I looked it up, I couldn't find any indication that Season 6 (the current season) is the last one and that the manga itself is still ongoing. Does anyone know what's going on?

Genius cooking hack: the Grill Mates Montreal Steak seasoning. Seriously. Hat tip to Second Player Score drummer (and cooker extraordinaire) Kyle Gilbert.

Talking To My TV

If you've been reading this blog for some time, then you know that I occasionally (often) talk to my TV. Usually it's to say things like "what the (heck)??" when plot twists occur or "good job, show," when the story beats line up with my expectations and make me feel stuff. Recently, however, I've caught myself saying other things, like:

Netflix: Hey

Me: What

Netflix: You know we have Season 2 of Demon Slayer now

Me: I know, you keep showing me the thumbnail

Netflix: So why aren't you watching it

Me: Because Hulu's had it for a long time now, along with Season 3

Netflix: You have Hulu?

Me: Yeah

Netflix: Oh

Me: Don't be jealous

Netflix: I'm not

Me: Then why did you cancel Warrior Nun

Netflix: uhh

(While watching the new season of The Legend of Vox Machina on Amazon Prime)

Me: This episode is just like Avatar! The bending one, not the Pandora movies

Amazon Prime: Right?

Me: And Keyleth's dad is even named Korrin, which is kind of like Korra

Amazon Prime: You're so observant

Me: And the show is called "The Legend of...", like "The Legend of Korra"

Amazon Prime: Wow

Me: You're just humoring me, aren't you?

Amazon Prime: uhh

(While watching the new season of The Bad Batch on Disney+)

Me: This episode is just like Breath of the Wild!

Disney+: Um, no it's not

Me: Yes, it is! With the traps and the large mecha creature that shoots a laser beam from its mouth and everything

Disney+: It's a totally original idea, I assure you

Me: I think somebody was like, "hey, I want to do an homage to Breath of the Wild" and so they wrote this episode

Disney+: We are Star Wars. People copy us, not the other way around

Me: Whatever

(While watching Ant-Man and the Wasp)

Boots (sitting in front of the TV): Why are you watching this again

Me: Because I want to get prepared for the new Ant-Man movie next month

Boots: Haven't you seen this movie like, a million times already

Me: No. Now please move

Boots: No

Me: C'mon, man

Boots: Feed me

Me: It's not feeding time, and you know it

Boots: Pay attention to me. Not this movie

Me: I pay attention to you all the time

Boots: No you don't

Me: Yes I do

Boot: No you don't

Me (sigh): Fine

Yes, I also talk to my cats.

Things I'm Looking Forward To In 2023 That I Did Not Realize I Was Looking Forward To Three Weeks Ago (An Addendum Post)

For the original post from three weeks ago, click here (I won't rickroll you, I promise), or just scroll down.

- The Last of Us on HBO Max. Wow. So good. Two episodes in so far, with seven more to go, lasting through March. I've been hearing about the video game that the show is based on for years now, but I have to admit I've never played it, as I live in a Playstation-less, Nintendo-exclusive household. That may need to change. Anyway, when the show debuted, I figured I should give it a shot, even though I'm pretty burnt out on the whole zombie apocalypse genre in general...and I was not disappointed. Maybe it's the single dad thing? Who knows.

- Speaking of the single dad thing, how I could have forgotten to include season three of The Mandalorian (coincidentally starring Pedro Pascal from The Last of Us) and the rest of the Star Wars slate in my previous post? There's season two of The Bad Batch (which started the day before my previous post - again, how did I miss that? I literally just watched it), season two of Star Wars: Visions (the anime collaborations), Ahsoka, and Skeleton Crew.

- The fifth and final (boo) season of Aggretsuko, dropping February 16

- Season two of Invincible, coming "late 2023"

- The Harley Quinn Valentine's Day Special, dropping February 9

- Having siding repairs done to my house. Yes, I know, boring. But it wasn't something that I had expected or anticipated three weeks ago, and then all of sudden I saw a spot of what is probably dry rot on the side of my house as I drove past it. It was bound to happen sooner or later. Frankly, I'm pleasantly surprised that it's taken this long (I've lived in the house for over 21 years, and the house itself is around 27 years old). Getting it fixed is nowhere near as enjoyable as watching a new episode of a fun TV show (and will be way more expensive than a streaming service), but I'll be glad to have it done.

Volume Seven and Eight (?!) Status Update

More than a couple of months have passed since the last Volume Seven status update. During that time, I did what I said I was going to do and stepped away from the manuscript for a bit while I turned my attention to other projects (namely, the Spring Suite of Four-D) as well as the holiday season.

I did return to it sooner than expected, however, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it didn't need as much fixing up as maybe I had originally thought. I was happy and satisfied with the overall story itself, which is huge. There was just a medium-sized list of things that needed tweaking, and after I crossed them all off, I put the draft away again for a little while.

At that point, since I didn't have a next volume to work on (more on that later), I started a complete read-through of the whole series (well, actually not complete, I started at Volume Two) to make sure everything flowed nicely into Volume Seven and that I hadn't forgotten or misremembered any important details. This process culminated in a read-through of Volume Seven itself, during which I made little changes and edits as I went along.

Now I'm in the final polishing stage, which is when I read the thing over and over again, making tweaks until I reach the point when I can do an entire read-through (or two) without changing anything. At that point, I'll know it's ready to be shipped off for a line edit. I'm not sure exactly when that will happen, but I'm guessing sometime within the first half of this year, which sets us up for a launch in the late summer or early fall. (Editor's note: it's going to happen by March 7, which is when I've arranged with my editor to send her the manuscript. Also, I think I might shoot for a launch date in late July, which is 11 years after the launch of Volume One and also Joel and Felicity's birthdays.)

As for any subsequent volumes, if you've been following along, you know that while the main story arc of the Joel Suzuki series ends with Volume Seven, I've long been considering writing four additional volumes that would be sort of "post-adventures" or stories set outside the main arc (more details are in this post from six years ago). I have a few pages of notes for what these stories could possibly be, but I'm not really set on any of them at the moment, and I've also been considering taking a break - maybe even a really, really long one - before I embark on that journey. We shall see.

Anyway, stay tuned for more updates!

Anime Roundup: Attack On Titan Edition

Okay, normally I wait until I've seen all or most of five or six different anime shows before I write one of these roundup posts. But this time, I had to make an exception and talk about this one while it was still fresh in my mind. And which one is that, you ask?

Well, as the title of this post suggests, it's Attack on Titan.

Believe it or not, I actually tried watching this show years ago, even before I had signed up for Netflix and my anime fandom really took off. As I said in the very first Anime Roundup post back on May 31, 2018, "I managed to get through about ten episodes before the momentum just kind of petered out." At the time, the whole thing just seemed pretty bleak and basic: creepy zombie giant eats a kid's mom, kid swears revenge and signs up for a quasi-military group that kills said zombie giants, training montage ensues in which kid seems mostly incompetent. I mean, where could this possibly go, right? Kid will probably get better with the help of friends, then will kill the giant in some huge climactic battle thus saving the whole town, yay everybody's happy the end.

As you know, though, if you've been reading these posts, after a while I learned that sometimes you just have to stick with a show, give it some time, and your patience will eventually be rewarded. I found this out with stuff like Kill la Kill and Gurren Lagaan, both of which became huge favorites of mine after I had initially given up on them. And so, a few years after my initial foray, I gave AoT another shot, and boy was I pleasantly surprised. As I said in this Anime Roundup post from February 25, 2021, "like a Titan eating humans, I consumed the whole 25-episode first season (which is all that's available on Netflix) in a matter of days. I now see why it's so popular, and I may have to sign up for Hulu just so I can watch the rest of it, dangit." It was much more layered and nuanced than I had originally thought, with several moments where I literally said "what the heck??" out loud to my TV (except I didn't actually say "heck," I used a different word that cannot be printed in a family blog).

So then after that, the months went by, during which time I actually did sign up for Hulu, but being distracted by other shiny shows (My Hero Academia, Spy x Family, and non-anime offerings like Letterkenny and Solar Opposites), I somehow forgot about my plan to hop back aboard the Titan-attacking train. Then one day a few weeks ago, Hulu recommended for me, as it does, something called Attack on Titan: Junior High.

Listed as "comedy," I was instantly intrigued, given how the original show is so NOT comedy. So I checked it out, and sure enough, it was a hilarious spoof on the original, with chibi (small and cute) versions of the characters attending a "real" junior high school in modern Japan (in case you don't know, the original is set in a fictional world) facing problems that have less to do with Titans (although they're still there) and more with mundane, everyday situations (instead of eating his mom, a Titan eats the main character's bento lunch). Even better, the same voice actors from the original show voice their chibi equivalents, and the show retains the solemn next-episode preview narration style to great ironic effect.

Anyway, after I breezed through Junior High, I was like, "oh, wait - didn't I want to watch the rest of the original show, which is supposed to be on Hulu?" So I checked and, sure enough, it was - at least, until the end of Season 4 ("the final season"), Part 2 (at the time I had been watching Season 1, I was aware that the show was still ongoing, but I thought it had already ended since then). And thus, I picked up where I left off, at the start of Season 2. At first, it was enjoyable enough, despite my having to read a Wikipedia article to catch myself up on exactly what was going on, but then something strange started to happen: I couldn't stop watching.

As you may know if you've been reading these posts, I do most of my TV-watching during my morning and afternoon exercise sessions - one hour in the morning and half an hour in the afternoon, enough time for three episodes of your standard anime. Normally, I fill those slots with one or two shows in the morning (not always with anime, sometimes - a lot of times, in fact - with hour-long stuff) and a different one in the afternoon, and I'll rotate each day. So for example, on Wednesday morning I'll watch the new episode of Willow, and then Romantic Killer in the afternoon, and then on Thursday morning it'll be the Japanese sports dramedy Sumo Do, Sumo Don't, followed by Uncle From Another World in the afternoon. Well, at first AoT got placed in the afternoon slot, but then it quickly spread like wildfire to the other slots, eventually becoming All Titan, morning and afternoon, every single day. It even consumed my non-exercise free time, like the day after Christmas when I spent three hours binging twelve episodes in a row (something I almost never do).

I can't quite explain why it's so compelling. I mean, I guess the layers and the nuances and the "what the heck??" moments (which included numerous instances of rewinding and rewatching periods of expository dialogue) start to pile up so much that you just can't help but press the "play next episode" button in an effort to find out what's really happening, only to get even more questions than answers. Seriously, not to give anything away, but it goes way, way beyond the simple revenge tale that it starts out being (I remember late one night, long before I started watching the second season, when, after being woken up by cats, I stumbled upon a Season 4 episode on Adult Swim and thought it was a completely different show).

Does all this mean that Attack on Titan is now my new ichiban (#1) favorite anime of all time? I mean, I don't think I binged twelve episodes in a row of My Hero Academia or Food Wars or K-On! (although I did watch K-On! all the way through more than twice, so there is that). Hard to say. Check back later.

And so anyway, I cannot wait for Part 3 of Season 4, which is supposed to be The End and is scheduled to come out some time this year. In the meantime - manga readers, don't tell me what happens!