At least for me, it isn’t. I have two irons on every burner on the stove. But I like it that way. What am I working on? Let me tell you.
“But I Digress…” Returns (Again)
I recently did a livestream with fellow author and content creator Ryan “The Omni Viewer” Collins, and it got a surprising amount of traction. I even garnered a few more subscribers. I heard from someone last year who wanted “the show “But I Digress…” to come back with more topics. So, I’m going to give that a try because I have to take my writing career as seriously as I do my podcasts (more on those later). My goal is to have a monthly livstream on the channel that discusses a topic and gives updates on projects, among other things. The first one will be titled, “The Importance of Escapism.”
A Regular Contributor to Kaiju United
I’ve been sending articles to the website Kaiju United, and now I’ll be a regular contributor to them. It’s likely I’ll be published there at least once a month.
A New Podcast
My kaiju podcast, The Monster Island Film Vault, will continue, but my other podcasts, Henshin Men and The Power Trip, will fuse into a new podcast later this summer. It will pick up where the other shows left off. Stay tuned for more details.
My First Audiodrama – “Origins: Rito Bandora”
I’ve been part of Karl Dutton’s stable of actors for Scyther Podcasts. While I’ve played Deadpool and soon the Human Torch in his fan-made Marvel productions, I’ve most popularly played Rito on Power Rangers: The Audio Drama. While (SPOILER WARNING!) the character was killed off recently, I’m producing a one-shot episode that chronicles his darkly funny origin. The script is finished and production has started. I hope to release it this summer.
Books, Books, Books
A few months back, I made a ten-year timetable for my writing projects, which included finishing the book series I’ve been working on for far too long. My current one is a standalone urban fantasy romance called There Sleeps Titania. I hope to market that to potential literary agents. Then I want to complete sequels and tie-ins to Pandora’s Box and Ninjas and Talking Trees. Then once I’ve tied up those loose ends, I want to launch the space opera I’ve had in my head for years.
EDIT: I’m editing another collection of unpublished short stories that is tentatively titled The Worlds of Nathan Marchand, Vol. 2: Tales of the Lost and Lonely. More details are forthcoming. In the meantime, check out my finally updated “Books” page.
As you can see, I have more ideas than time. Haha!
(I intended for this to be set as a premiere on YouTube, but it didn’t work. Oops).
I’ve been sitting on this video for a while now, and I finally got around to editing and uoploading it. In this, I unbox a new anthology from Onward and Upward Media, A Time for Everything, which is a collection of short stories to which I contributed. Each of the tales within is based on a line from Ecclesistes 3. I chose “a time to dance” because I’m a ballroom dancer in my spare time. Enjoy this fun little video!
As an FYI to my readers, I have removed several of my speculative fiction stories from my website. These include “Bow to Your Sensei,” “Baptized in Fire,” and several others. I did so because they’ve been published in my short story collection, The Worlds of Nathan Marchand. You can always read them there. I appreciate your readership and support. Thanks!
This past Sunday, I was interviewed by Kaiju Kim, who makes the most wholesome kaiju content you’ll see on YouTube. It was Father’s Day, so the chat was relatively quiet, but we still had a good time discussing kaiju literature–including books and short stories I’ve written and published myself. Give it a watch!
Most of these speculative fiction books I haven’t read yet. Don’t judge me! (I’ll let you guess which ones I have read). 😛A big reason I need to downsize is I have a bad habit of buying books on impulse, especially when they’re on sale. As it stands, I have several shelves full of books I haven’t read but intend to. I want read them so I can eliminate them from my collection since I doubt I’ll want to keep them all. Unfortunately, I’m a self-described “story junkie,” so I enjoy multiple forms of media, including video games, TV, and movies. The problem is I can’t keep up with all of it. For example, I’ve lamented several times that there are so many superhero shows on TV, I can’t watch all of them.
I hear friends talking about the video games they’ve played this year, and many of them I haven’t even touched. People rave about TV shows I’ve never even seen. On Goodreads, people make yearly goals for how many books they want to read, some going as high as 100 books (that blows my mind!). Meanwhile, I’m surrounded by screens bombarding me with images and ads about the latest movies and countless other things, many of which I want to experience, but I’m already buried. It’s to the point where I’m finding creative ways to allow myself to be able to listen to audiobooks of some of the books on my shelf despite my car’s sound system being problematic (I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get it fixed).
Should I even bother mentioning that I also enjoy listening to music and podcasts?
It’s no wonder many people nowadays seem to be hyperactive: their brains are constantly being stimulated. I’m reminded of the Grinch from Dr. Seuss’ classic book: “All the noise, noise, noise!” The human mind can only take so much. There comes a point where it gets overloaded. I can’t spend my entire day consuming media just to get some notches on my belt. Nobody can. It’s unhealthy. Even if I try to say I’m “socializing” by, say, watching a movie with family and/or friends, it’s not the same as focused attention on those people. It requires meaningful interaction and conversations to foster intimacy. I’m not saying it’s impossible to create that while consuming media (I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have some great chats with friends while playing video games), but too often media is a distraction. And that’s just one way it can be a hindrance.
Another is that people consume it mindlessly without taking into consideration what they’re consuming. We all know people who just lounge on their recliner and flip through TV stations while complaining there’s “nothing on,” yet they don’t turn the TV off and do something else. I’ve never understood that.
What’s my point in all of this? It’s good, perhaps even necessary, to unplug. Shut off the noise and enjoy people. Take some time for yourself. Your brain needs opportunities to slow down. Yeah, maybe you won’t binge watch season two of Daredevil on Netflix as fast as others, but you may be a more well-rounded person because of it.
What are some ways you overconsume media? Have you cut back? What are some ways you could cut back?
Forgive me, True Believers, for my delay in completing this series. I do my best to post blogs on Tuesday and/or Thursday, but that doesn’t always work out. I lead a busy life.
The siege of Cardhalla.
Before I continue with the last day of Gen-Con 2015, I neglected to mention that I witnessed the fall of Cardhalla on my way back to the hotel that Saturday night. Cardhalla is a massive display created by con-goers using cards from the many popular games at the convention (though most seemed to be from Magic: The Gathering). Essentially, it’s a “city” consisting of houses of cards. On Saturday night, con-goers throw coins at the card towers to topple them and the money is collected to be donated to charity. I didn’t throw any coins since I didn’t have any, but it was fun to watch. One large tower refused to fall despite everyone’s efforts. A guy even tried throwing a Zip-loc bag of money at it, but he missed. I kept joking that any towers left standing should be “destroyed” by Godzilla cosplayers. Because why not?
Now on to day four…
The day did start with a bit of frustration. I ended up being late to the Christian Gamers Guild/Fans For Christ worship service because Jarod and I had to pack up the car and check out before it started at 9AM. We had to be out by 1PM, and since I was going straight from the service to the vendor hall at 10AM, we had to do all of that beforehand. Eric and Jarod went ahead of me while I took the last of our stuff to my car in the parking garage below. I had about fifteen minutes to get to the service—but realized I left my 10th Doctor costume in our room’s closet! I rushed upstairs, got a new card key, rode the elevator up, and got to the room, and grabbed my costume. By the time I returned to the car, I had only five minutes to get to the service. It was fairly close by in another hotel (in fact, it was held in the same room as the Five Year Mission concert the night before), but I still ended up being five minutes late.
Derek White the “Geekpreacher.”
Regardless, I found Jarod and sat with him. Eric was helping with the service. The worship leader (whose name escapes me, unfortunately) was dressed as a bard (gotta love cosplay in church). After singing and communion, the message was, as usual, delivered by Derek White “The Geekpreacher.” He came dressed in what I’d call “LARP armor” (minus the sword) and preached on Ephesians 6:10-18 (the “armor of God” passage, naturally). He said he conducted a poll on Facebook for the title of his message: it’d either be “The Power of Fairy Tales” or “Here There Be Dragons.” The latter won, obviously. The highlight for me was hearing him get the entire crowd—the largest ever for this event—to recite the most famous line from the original Conan the Barbarian movie. He asked, “What is best in life?” The crowd replied, “To crush your enemies and see them driven before you. And to hear the lamentations of their women.” (I left the last part off unsure they’d say it. It’s a Christian service, after all).
EDIT: Here’s a video of his sermon.
The bard who led worship (I didn’t get her name, unfortunately. Sorry!)
I was surprised by how many people attended the con on Sunday. It was different sort of crowd, too. The usual 4-day attendees were there, but since Sunday is “family day” at the convention, many new people came. While I wouldn’t say it was as busy as Saturday was, it was still very active.
Here I am with Arthur, one of my most avid fans.
Regardless, I myself didn’t do as many exciting things that day. Eric left by early afternoon. I mostly interacted with some amazing cosplayers and sold my books. I even found I had returning fans! One guy even came by saying he remembered me from last year, having bought and read Destroyer and The Day After, and wanted more. I barely said two sentences before he grabbed both volumes of Children of the Wells and Pandora’s Box. It was the easiest $35 I’ve ever made.
The big highlight for me was meeting Marina Sirtis, an actress most famous for playing Deanna Troi on Star Trek: the Next Generation. While I wasn’t smitten with her like I was Summer Glau the day before, Mrs. Sirtis has had a greater influence on me since I’d been a Trekker since age three and was reared on both the original Star Trek and TNG. I didn’t have to wait long to see her since the line was short. Because of that, though, Mrs. Sirtis spent a few minutes with each fan talking with them as they got photos and/or an autograph. Like with Mrs. Glau, I intended to give Mrs. Sirtis one of my books. In this case, a copy of 42: Discovering Faith Through Fandom since one of my entries is about Troi. I wasn’t sure if she’d accept something with such strong religious overtones, but I thought I overheard her say to someone in line ahead of me that her husband was Catholic, so I thought I might have a chance.
Representing GameChurch while meeting the amazing Marina Sirtis.
When it was my turn, I got a photo with her and had a wonderful chat, telling her that I’d realized that one reason TNG resounded with me as a child was because Picard reminded me of my Dad and Troi reminded me of my Mom. “You must’ve had an awesome Mom,” said Mrs. Sirtis. “I did,” I replied. I seized the moment and gave her the book, explaining that it was a devotional for geeks and nerds. She was noticeably surprised by this. I then said I wanted her to have a copy as a thank you for coming since I wrote about Troi in an entry. “Let me read it,” she said. I turned to that page and she read it. “So, you use stories like this to illustrate the Scriptures?” she asked. “Yes,” I replied, simultaneously nervous and excited. “Thank you so much. I’ll read this on the plane back to England.”
I walked away a happy fanboy.
Safe to say when 4PM tolled, I was sad Gen-Con was over. Not only was it the four best days of gaming, it was four of the best days of my year. 🙂
A Man from Another Time Exploring Another Universe
Year’s resolution to downsize 
