Hello from the end of another week. My left eye popped a blood vessel due to stress, brought about a multitude of things I won’t be bogging this entry down with. My wife lovingly refers to this state as “Destiny Eye,” due to the fact this used to happen to me regularly when I played the PS4 version of Destiny.
I don’t play a lot anymore…
Baby C is coming in hot. Less than a month until his due date, actually.
If you ask either my wife or myself how we’re handling this information, we would both scream, throw out all the bins of office supplies inhabiting the room that’s supposed to be a nursery from a 5th story balcony, before tying baby bottles to our ear lobes and telling you calmly, “Not well.”
There seems to be more to prepare this time, which feels backwards considering we’re only having half as many babies as the first successful pregnancy. I’d like to say these feelings of panic and anxiety will all end after the baby is born, but I think I heard my wife’s left eye blood vessel pop just typing that.
We’re going to watch a lot of DuckTales when this little guy arrives, that’s for sure.
I changed up my work schedule this last week.
Right now the priorities are: freelance work (because you always do paid work first) and editing up the 3rd draft of Project: DEED, which involves taking all of the red pen edits I made and typing them in, while fixing more things I might have missed along the way.
I like this method because it ensures you’re reading your work in a few different formats, so you can catch different mistakes or accentuate parts you liked that you may not have noticed in initial typing.
Anywho, I used to wake up at 6am to do my freelance work then do my personal writing when the boys took their naps. This meant I had about 2 hours of freelance writing in the morning and anywhere between 1-2 hours of personal writing during nap time.
Since we bough their toddler beds, meaning escape is all the more feasible and no barriers can keep the little monsters in place, I now do my personal writing in the morning and freelancing during nap time.
Why, you ask? Because when the boys wake up there’s nothing keeping them in their beds. They can open doors, climb down the stairs, announce they’re here, then demand breakfast like the little kings they think they are. It feels wrong to stop freelance (reminder, PAID work) than it does to stop something that’s not immediately paying me now or has a due date the following day.
This can feel tough, because you want to prioritize your fanciful passion work, but if there’s someone willing to give you actual dollarbucks, allowing you web presence to grow, and increases your practice in the field of publishing and hitting deadlines, then you have to do that.
[I just realized this year will be my 6th year anniversary of writing for Mr. Takei and his slew of websites, which is as long as I taught in the classroom [before starting my private tutoring business] so that’s a little example of how time works and is an enemy to us all.)
Current Page of Project: DEED 3rd Draft Edits: 59/375
Due: February 28, 2022
Strange Adventures, by Tom King, Mitch Gerards, Evan “Doc” Shaner, Clayton Cowles
“My husband and I came here because we believed our enemy, these Pykkts, were too powerful.
That only the united tribes of Rann could defeat them.
We put ourselves completely at your mercy in the belief that only your mercy could save us.
What fools we were.
You see, I know now, as I knew before but denied to myself for reasons I’m only just beginning to understand…
…just as Adam and I defeated your pathetic invasion…
…Adam and I will defeat these new invaders.
If you choose to help us, we will do this togehter, and after it is done we will celebrate together as daughters and sons of Rann.
If you choose not to help us, then we will do it ourselves, and after it is done…
I will celebrate by coming here and killing you. All of you.
Where once there were stones, there will only be dust.”
Alanna, Princess of Rann, questionable person
Tom King and co. should stick to these maxi-series, as they offer the best way to get to a central core of a character, have a defined beginning, middle, end, and don’t necessarily rely on pesky things like “continuity” to take you out of the story. (Good-bye, Phoenix.)
That’s all I’ll say on it. Ever wondered what it was like to be the hero of two worlds and have both of them question you? Check this out.
Speaking of Tom King, sign up for his and artist, Elsa Charretier’s, newsletter here, which also includes their free comic about love and dimensional time hopping crises, Love Everlasting.
I’ve become more open to idea of subbing to authors I enjoy on Substack. I still stand by my stance that it is in now way meant for writers like me, who have a little (if any) following, which kind of makes it feel like Twitter in the olden days. You’d sign up for Twitter and just follow whichever celebrity or author or artists was already on there, watch them interact, then call it a day.
The story is off to a solid start, the tiers are all reasonable if you have the extra income, and, above all, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with the Substack model for pro creators.
Yet.
Happy Day of Birth, Mewtwo. We will never not live down the mistake of creating you for the remainder of this series’ existence.
I don’t like sharing a lot of pictures of myself, especially now with my unkempt hair and January Beard, but maybe I should if I think I look okay.
This is “social” media, after all. Seeing other’s faces is considered sociable, I hear.
I always hate when Arizona is in the news. It’s never for a good reason.
Voting to ban Critical Race Theory in the classroom? Because that’s what’s wrong with education in this state? Not the lack of funding or the teacher exodus that seems to be happening?
Like the great Sarge from Red vs. Blue said:
“I mean it’s all so damn inconsistent! What would you do if they stabbed me in the toe? (fade to black) Rub my neck with aloe vera?” (H/T: here)
That’s what this is. Rubbing aloe vera on a neck for a toe stabbing. Ridiculous.
I never had the pleasure of meeting Brian Augustyn. My mother met him at Tucson Comic Con a couple of years ago, and got him to sign a copy of Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, to this date the best of all the Elseworlds titles DC ever did (and should continue to do.)
A hard-working editor and, by all accounts, one of those guys in publishing that everyone had a great thing to say about. His most notable work, the aforementioned Gotham by Gaslight, will stand as a testament to the brilliance of what you can do with these characters.
And I’m out. Hopefully I can be more responsible about keeping up with this throughout the week, but like I said, schedules change, and that means you have to be open to changing with it.
Drink lots of water, sit quietly for a few minutes with your eyes closed, and let everything else fade away. I promise that helps. Just did it last night when my eye decided it wanted to pop.
Stick around. Things will get better.
Thanks for reading,
Follow me:
Twitter: @robacosta
Instagram: @robacosta
Contact: robertmichaelacosta@gmail.com
Fifth Draft 
Leave a Reply