It has been several months since I made a post. It’s been a rough year and I just couldn’t keep up with my pre-pandemic pace of weekly blogs. Not to mention I haven’t been going to Amtgard weekly since things have opened up. I still go of course, but It’s more like 60% instead of 95% of the time.
On top of that I’ve been nursing a pulled arm muscle for several months now, making it impossible to use my left arm at Amtgard. That means I haven’t been playing the game for months now. I tried not using my left but I instinctually switch hands and swing and it hurts. I don’t want to unlearn that habit so I’m choosing to wait till I’m healed before I go back to fighting. The rust is settling in before it even had time to be shaken off.
New Tool, New Skill
That being said I’ve still been recording videos and thanks to my Patreons I was able to buy a gimbal for my phone, which I’ve been practicing with. There is a learning curve but I think I’m getting the hang of it pretty quickly. At the moment the quality of the videos isn’t as good as hand held, but I had years of practice of holding it level and still. I’ve only used the gimbal for maybe 2 or 3 total hours. Once I get the hang of it, I think there will be a noticeable difference.
If you look at Amtgard Fights: Sploob vs Odin Part 1 you can see my first attempt at using the gimbal. If you look at Amtgard Fights: Sploob vs Critias 2 you can see my second attempt. While not perfect I think there is marked improvement. I have another video I’m working on, my third attempt, where I filmed 45 minutes of ditching. I did some experiments with angles and moving around so I’m excited to see what that looks like. It’s fun learning a new skill.
Amtgard Projects
I’m slowly getting back into streaming again on my Twitch Channel. It started last month when I restarted Baelnorn and Friends: October. Baelnorn and Friends is a monthly chat stream where I invite some of my LARP friends on to chat and drink. We talk Amtgard, LARP, games and general nerd things. The next one is actually this weekend, November 20th at 8pm PST (Facebook Event Page).
I also have some upcoming video projects. One, an interview series, is almost finished. I hope to make a trailer for it soon, however I’ve been putting it off because I want to tie it into my next project. My next project is a narrative LARP video series centered around a gladiator origination set in the world of Shattered Kingdoms.
I’m excited for the my second project and I can’t wait to get started, but I know it’s a long term project. I need to get at least 8 dedicated fighters who are willing to participle in cooperative story telling. There is a lot of pre-production work to do for both myself and the fighters.
My goal is to use the interview series to hype up a Kickstarter campaign to help pay for the narrative LARP video project. I’d like to run a production campout where most of the filming will take place. I have some pretty grand plans. If you want to be a fighter in the project, shoot me a message and we’ll chat.
Writing Stuff
I’m also still writing! I’m starting to get back on a weekly schedule for my writing streams. I’ve missed the last two weeks due to real world issues, but I hope to continue it next week. I stream from 11am to 1pm PST. Sometimes I’ll go longer but I’m trying to go for at least two hours. It feels good to get back to writing.
Speaking of which, I’ve once again wrote in my Philip Clowes novel. Over the span of a week I spent 3 days working on my novel and finished 19 pages of new material, on top of doing editing work. I haven’t put out this much work in a long time. It’s been crazy.
Coffee Please!
In an effort to give additional ways to help support me I finally set up a Ko-fi page. This does not take the place of my Patreon page. That’s still my main vehicle for my supporters to support me, but I thought that having the option of a one time payment might appeal to some.
On top of being a one time payment, I can tell you exactly what it will be used for, coffee. At this point all the proceeds raised from my Ko-fi page will go towards paying for coffee at my local café so I can have a fun, but distraction free, work place. You can rest comfortably in the knowledge that your $5 will be put to good use, renting a public office for my writing. On top of that you’ll get a special discord role, Coffee Patron, on my discord server!
If you want to donate you can click on the support me button floating on the bottom left of your page; I added a floating button. Or you can click on the following button
Don’t forget you can become a Patron too!
If you like my content consider becoming a Patron on Patreon. You can see my Tier 2 (Rock Gnomes) and 3 (Tinker Gnomes) supporters on my Patreon Supporters page as well as find out how to become a Patron yourself.
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