Friday Update 9/28/23

This week has been packed full of paranormal romance research. Years ago I stopped reading the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter books by Laurell K Hamilton because life just worked out that way, but now that I’m creating this larger paranormal world for my London penname, I went looking for other PNR books in series to binge. I found the Anita Blake books at my library and realized there are a lot of books I’ve missed in the last several years!

First, I had to figure out where I left off. I knew for sure I’d read The Harlequin, but I read the back cover copy on Blood Noir and didn’t recognize it, so I picked up there. That’s book #16. Turns out I think I have read Blood Noir, but I remembered so little of it, it was like reading it fresh. I plowed through the series and I’m now on book #24 Dead Ice, so I’ve read about 9 books this week, taking a lot of notes along the way about how Hamilton handles her relationship scenes and character introductions.

I’ll finish up the books the library has in the next week and that will put me up to the current release for the series: Smolder, which is #30. Let’s hear it for the library!

At the same time, I’ve been expanding my paranormal world, taking a lot of brainstorming notes I’ll need to sort through later, and letting the outline of my next prequel novella unfold. It always takes longer to create something new coming off the heels of a big study session as I try to incorporate what I’m learning into what I already do well. Thankfully this prequel doesn’t have a deadline until next year so I can take my time.

Aside from writing, I’ve figured out that I’m not really the target audience for the Souls-like games. I’m glad I checked Elden Ring out at the library instead of buying it. I also checked out Demon’s Souls. They are just not my thing. The story and controls are fine, it’s the structure of game play that forces me back to the beginning of a level as soon as I encounter a minor boss that I hate. It takes me a lot of repetition to figure out a new enemy sequence/boss battle. Being forced to play the entire level just to have the boss’ first hit kill me three times in a row isn’t my kind of fun.

I also checked out Like A Dragon! But it has combo sequences of buttons to memorize which is also not my thing. I think I need to pull Horizon Forbidden West out of my collection and continue that instead.