Hello everyone! Welcome to a brand new week and a new entry in my ongoing series of Monday Musings. I’ve been very busy last week, helping a friend get his life back on track and well, this weekend took a bit of an unexpected turn as a result. But life has been getting a little bit better. I still mourn for the loss of my beloved cat Bobbie, but I know she wants me to pick up my life and do the things I set out to do in the first place. And so, life goes on and we keep the memories of her close to my heart.

On Writing

There is no lack of inspiration these days, but being stuck between feeling quite down because of the loss of Bobbie and some other important matters in life right now, I haven’t taken the time to really sit down and write. This week will mark a change in all of that as I vow to write more than I have these past few months. Besides getting my life back on track after all the changes in surrounding I’m ready to get creative and write some good stories, as well as more Stoic wisdom blogs! 😉

On Reading

I finished “Zij en haar kat” a Dutch translation of a Japanese book about four women and their cats. Although at first these stories don’t seem overly attached to one another they merge at the end into something I thought was really beautiful. There’s just something about Japanese literature that I really love and I’m very keen to adopt a few unique style elements from such books into my own story about our cats as well.

My next read is a manuscript from a dear friend of mine. I’m on about one third of the way already and I hope to finish reading her manuscript somewhere in the next few weeks, now that I finally feel I’ve got the time and more importantly the energy to do that.

On Gaming

Oh Fire Emblem, how I love you. I am very invested in my current playthrough of Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes. It’s amazing how well Fire Emblem lends itself to a Musou type game and I am loving the alternate story this game tells on Fire Emblem: Three Houses. I really feel that the game will last me a long time, given that I have only finished Part I of the Scarlet Blaze storyline. After that there’s two more to go, so it’ll be a long time before I finish this game.

I’ve also made some progress on Death’s Door, but I’m starting to feel that I’m losing my interest a bit in this game. I can’t really put my finger on it, but I feel that this has to do with the bland colour palette the game uses. The lack of a map and the very zoomed out view also don’t really help for me. So while I definitely want to finish the game, I know I won’t be going for the 100% finish on this one. Still it is a fun experience, but one that is starting to feel a bit stale, because the surroundings just don’t feel extremely different from one another. I’ll tell more about it in my review, which is due as soon as I finish the game!

Upcoming Blogs

Last week I said you can expect a new Stoic Short, but I failed to deliver. Instead I will focus on writing one this week, so stay tuned for some more Stoic wisdom! Also, I’m busy making a new character profile for my upcoming Kevar novels and I really want to introduce you to the main protagonist of the first book in the series. Besides that I want to offer some insight into my character creation process for stories. They are not simply cardboard figures acting out a play. They need to feel alive as much as the reader (and writer, haha).

Have a great week!

~Jeffrey