Late Night Blog Post #4

Haven't done one of these in a hot minute. Good to be back.

I've got this annoying as feeling where I've pretty much planned the whole story in my head, but I can't get the words to paper. It's less writer's block and more that I'm not satisfied with literally anything I've written. I get a few paragraphs in with some dialogue, a solid start to the chapter, but then I look at it and hate it all and in a fit of rage...

Ctrl+A, Backspace

It's really frustrating. That's why it took me so long to get Chapter 7 of Textbook Soldier out. Literally just the part in the middle where Sunset and James talk on the bench. No joke, I'm fairly sure I wrote and rewrote that part over a dozen times. It was awful. There was a full month between Chapter 6 and 7, and it was definitely not out of me not trying. I was writing the whole time, but literally, none of it made it out the other side. I finally got something I was happy with less than a week before I released it. Once I got that done, it took like two days to get the rest done. Which pissed me off, but it is what it is.

As for chapter 8, I started planning that out before Rhawkas had even given me the go-ahead to publish Chapter 7. Just for reference, I've got around 1300 words written so far. My hope is to not take a month on that one.

ANYWAY. I'm gonna move on before I spoil everything about Chapter 8 because I inevitably will. Also, Textbook Soldier is now my longest story by quite a bit. Blue Moon had more chapters, but fewer words by a significant margin, since most of them were somewhere between 3k and 4k.

Side note, I temporarily unpublished my New Years chapter. I figured it's not something that really makes sense in the context of things, and I can work it into the story better, just not right away. The story currently takes place in November, so New Years isn't too out of the way of things. It's a way down the road, sure, but still.

Anyway. Update on reenacting stuff that literally no one asked about, I'm gonna be taking a qualification test for the Civilian Marksmanship Program which will let me buy an M1 Garand through them. Then I've gotta blank fire adapt it. I may, God forgive me, convert it to .308. The original rifle is .30-06, but the only blanks they make for those are brass and pretty expensive. If I can convert it to .308, then I can use these plastic ones they make that are so ridiculously cheaper. Like, a hundred bucks for a thousand rounds cheap. That's like ten cents a pop. Also, a cartridge belt holds eighty rounds. Add onto that that I'm probably going to run a bandolier and/or an M1 ammunition bag at this large-scale event I'm going to this summer. And if I ever do a tactical, I'll probably also need a lot of ammo.

Setting all that aside, I also don't need to blast through all the ammo in one event. Eight rounds an event, something like ten events a year, that's like eight hundred rounds. Eight bucks a year ain't too bad, eh? But more realistically, I'll be spending like two hundred bucks a year. I like shooting blanks. Literally, no recoil, given how heavy a Garand is. It's fun.

What was this even about? Oh yeah, I'm getting an M1 Garand.

Yeah, so if that ever happens, I might put up a video of me field stripping it like James. I will not get it down that fast, but I know it's possible. I met a WW2 veteran at one of my events that said he was able to tear down and rebuild a rifle in ten seconds total. It was wild. One of the other riflemen handed him his Garand, too. The guy just stared it it with this look on his face. It was a cool sight.

I'm gonna end it here now. Probably should actually go write something. Or to bed. I've gotta get up at like six in the morning and it's already almost midnight, so...

Bye.