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In Like A Lion 2023

My future Son-in-Law will be glad to know that today is National Peanut Butter Lover’s Day .

Hot N Cold

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade. ~Charles Dickens

We’re running out of Winter pretty quickly, so it’s a great time to start my new exercise program.

A1C is trending in the wrong direction, work’s getting hella stressful and I feel like month-old crap, so it’s time for a change.

Fortunately, my costochondritis hasn’t been an issue for a while because it’s time to finally work on an old goal.

Katy Perry – Hot N Cold (Lyrics)

Which goal is that? It’s tornado kick time, folks.

The only exercise I particularly enjoy is martial arts.

I was never one for going outside, sports or expending energy on anything but my overactive imagination.

When I was working on getting fit enough to get through USAF Basic Training, it was Tae Kwon Do that did the trick.

So, naturally, it’s time to go back to what works.

A few years ago, I wanted to perfect a tornado kick, but the twisting involved exacerbated my costochondritis.

I think now is the time to circle back to that goal in pursuit of a leaner, meaner me.

The real trick is finding the time. I’m so busy these days, I can barely get up to refresh my cup of coffee.

I just finished one of my medium-size projects, but the big ones are really time-intensive.

I’ll be working on the weight loss and the work-life balance issues that made yesterday’s doctor visit into a wake-up call.

Marching In

Warm March Jazz Music & Cozy Coffee Shop Ambience Relaxing Jazz Instrumental Music to Relax, Study

As for the whole Peanut Butter Lover’s Day thing, my preferred brand is Smucker’s Natural Chunky. It’s nothing but peanuts and a tiny bit of salt.

I wonder if my future Son-in-Law would like this kind. He’s not a fan of PB in general, but this might actually suit his tastes better than the usual, mass-market goop I used to eat.

Actually, it’s better if he doesn’t. That’s all the more for me.

Since it is the First of March, it’s only fair that I find you a decent march to bring this month in like a lion.

Scotland the Brave by the Massed Bands on the march after the 2019 Dufftown Highland Games in Moray

Do Or Do Not, There Is No Try

Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things. ~Ray Bradbury

I generally don’t think when I’m writing. When I get into a proper flow state, it’s like I’m transcribing a movie that I’m watching in my head.

Do. Or do not. There is no try.

The drawback is that in longer pieces, I tend to paint myself into a corner.

As such, I need to do some thinking while I’m not writing so that the writing is given some direction.

This is what has helped me get 4 Holiday Season Serial Romances done and published already.

The The Sentinels is another thing altogether. I want to have a massive arc like the ones in the comics and the movies. That’s how I originally envisioned this series.

In order to do foreshadowing correctly, you need to know where the payoff is.

One of the things the MCU does brilliantly is setting something up and paying it off years down the road.

Iron Man and Captain American – Argument. (2012)

I’m Inevitable/I Am Ironman – Avengers: Endgame (2019)

For instance, in the clips above, you’ll see Captain America arguing with Iron Man. The thing that Cap throws in Tony’s face is that he’s not the guy to sacrifice himself for others, that he’s not the guy to lay down on the wire. Tony says he’d cut the wire.

That’s paid off at the end of the same movie. The shadow council that oversees Nick Fury and SHIELD decide to launch a nuke at NYC to deal with the alien invasion. Iron Man grabs it and drags it through the hyperspace portal to launch it at the Chitauri fleet. It’s clear that he feels it’s a one-way trip. Fortunately, it’s not.

The second clip is the real payoff. Over the course of several movies, Tony has been through enough trauma and processed it sufficiently to be the guy who “makes the sacrifice play“.

The Hulk has already brought back everybody who had been snapped out of existence in the previous movie, so the big play was to stop Thanos from doing it again.

Tony not only tricked Thanos into believing that he had won again, but also took the Infinity Stones for himself to snap Thanos and his army of baddies out of existence (and good riddance, anyway). In doing so, he exposed himself to devastating energies and ultimately died.

That’s a seven-year arc from smug smartass to the guy who sacrificed himself to save half of all life in the universe.

It’s plot points of that sort that make you look back at the foreshadowing and think, oh, that’s what that was about.

I want to have that level of continuity, but I’m not what you’d call a “planner”. I am, typically, a “pantser”. I play it by ear. I go with the flow.

But, you can’t really do long form content that way if you want to have end-to-end continuity, Easter Eggs and interwoven plotlines.

Somehow, I have to figure out how to marry the two.

The same applies to Tales Of Olde Auringia and even Far-Flung Reaches. The superhero series spans about a decade, but the other two span millennia in their respective settings.

In order to pull that off, I’ll need to figure out how to hybrid these two approaches to creating. Should be an interesting ride…

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That’s it for today. I’ve got to get up and work on that Tornado Kick so my A1C can start trending down again. If I get that one nailed down, I can even try for the 540 or the 720…