I have to admit, so much energy has been building up over time (and from multiple directions) for so long now, I’ve felt quite hesitant to put a lot of it into words of late. But the time has truly come, and I can put a date to the podcast launch.
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Adventure Hook
And so, Aaron and I have decided that we’ll launch the Adventure Hook podcast on May 14th, and the 21st a week after I’ll debut both my Introduction to and the first episode of the Blackspire show.
So yeah, it’s really… finally… happening.
Aaron’s also been hard at work on the Adventure Hook front. He’s continued to tweak the awesome banner art we’ll be using for our sites. We plan to announce Adventure Hook next week on the 30th to try to drum up initial interest, and so our Twitter page (@adventurehook) and Facebook will be up by then. We should have our Patreon page and the final rewards there sorted by launch as well. I’ve even gone ahead and resurrected my Twitter page so I can be socially media driven, or what have you…
Of course all this means I’ll need to have all that same stuff that Adventure Hook has sorted for Blackspire as well, but as of today I have just under a month to get all that sorted as well, and I feel confident I can get to a good spot. The first matter of business for this week was getting the content sorted first.
Aaron had also done a fine job of editing our re-recorded intro, and so it fell to me to cobble that together with our original episode talk, and so, I buckled down and managed to finish up with a pretty solid edit of our pilot episode: “Rats in the Cellar” which we managed to get in at just under an hour and thirty minutes.
I also feel like I’ve really started to gain a better proficiency with both my new recording equipment, as well as the sound engineering tools in Audacity (to say nothing of the added detail listening even with a cheap pair of headphones makes…) and as such my final products are really sounding better.
So much so, I’m really feeling the need to try and go back and remaster my already edited Blackspire Episodes to see if I can get them sounding anywhere as good. However, this week I also finished up my re-takes (which were kinda hit or miss in places) and my final edits on my Blackspire Season 0: Episode 1 “Welcome to Blackspire”… which I managed to get in at just under one hour. While I take way more liberties with editing my voice tracks to fit the music when it’s just my voice talking (as opposed to the totally synchronicitic au-natural way it happens with the actual-play stuff) nevertheless, there are quite a few places where the Introductory recording (again totally unintentionally) get the same sort of “random” thematic line-ups.
There are parts that when I listen now I get frision.
And while I continue to be focused on the production side of things, I still had another session of Blackspire to run and record this week. I’m not sure yet how I feel about how things went, and I haven’t gone back and listened to the recording yet, but all my players report that they’re having a great time. Jim in particular is really enjoying my setting and play style, and is really getting invested in his character… which is great! I even sprung the new miniature (about 90% finished) I’d been working on for him to serve as his new “animal companion” in this game.
BISHAMONTEN and Kipa (still in progress)
He loved my idea of a Shikigami taking his stone golem samurai character as its ward… and taking the form of a little “chibi” ninja… and this recording he really ran with it… bestowing his loyal little companion a host of names, but the one that’s gonna be used most commonly is “Kipa”.
I think it’s some pretty golden content. Jenny (who commonly listens in during our game-play) commented she though she heard the other players talking a lot more this session, which is a good sign they’re getting more invested. I really miss having Jenny at the gaming table with us though… though I’m working things back in that direction eventually as well.
As of now, I have (at least the raw) recorded content of eighteen episodes worth of the main story-line, and likely enough for at least a half dozen Patreon episodes as well. In theory I’ve got the resources currently to create the next nine month’s worth of content (not counting the rest of the Season Zero stuff I’ve yet to make) and so… focus on the terrestrial/business-related needs to be my concern during these countdown days. I need to touch base with my friend who got me started with doing this blog in the first place, and really pick her brain as to the best ways to capitalize on all my content and structure this site around it. She’s asked to to create a list of my short and long term goals for the site, and at this point I think I have a pretty solid one.
And, on the New Moon last week I hinted I’d started something new… something I’ve been putting off for ages now, so much so I’ve been hesitant to even write about it. As of last Sunday I no longer let myself smoke cigarettes in the house, and as of Thursday I’d given up cigarettes altogether. At this point I now am only using my vape (the Aspire Zelos + Nautilus set-up) and as someone who’d quit cold turkey once many years ago, I was surprised how (relatively easy) the transition 100% tobacco turned out to be.
I’m not saying I don’t still have my cravings (smoking my last cigarette Wednesday night was somewhat heartbreaking) but it doesn’t even compare to what I was expecting no cigarettes to be like. I was expecting it to be hard enough that I was worried to even mention trying, and it’s not that I’m ungrateful (far from it), but it’s turned out to be so much easier than I’d anticipated… I’ve almost become suspicious.
It was then I remembered I’d filled out and signed that contract for the Energetic Equivalency spell I’d written all those many months ago. Essentially it’s supposed to kick in (like “life insurance”) if the subject of the spell is even removed from the magician’s life… and I love smoking… so I’d insured it for a lot…
And it’s possible my anguish at giving them up is what kick started this whole thing… because that same week an offer fell out of the blue to pay off the remainder of my school debt, and The Friend swung by to drop me off a check for the painting (which I hadn’t been expecting), plus she’d been led to leave us an unannounced gift near my “protective gargoyle” which wouldn’t make sense to explain here, but to me that was a sign related to our overall Abundance.
But the thing that perhaps is the most telling is the mildness of my cravings. One the the factors of the spell is a “Pain & Suffering” clause, meaning if the practitioner is reminded of their loss in a painful way, the Universe pays out a small bonus. It’s possible circumstances are such that the Universe can’t find a way to “pay out” in the manner, so the energetic equivalency is to make it so that I just don’t experience the suffering in the first place.
Maybe I’m overthinking it, and vapes really are that great, but I’ve had mine for quite a while now, and it’s never taken the edge off a nic-fit before. At the end of the day, I don’t really care how it worked or why…
I’m just grateful to Spirit that it worked.
Being free of the stinkies is reward enough, but let’s see if there is any huge pay-off in the next three months. According to the spell, that’s when a big windfall of “compensation for my punitive damages” should manifest by.
And Jenny and I are excited… we’ve decided to through another of our semi-legendary BBQ bashes at out home in June. They’re always a good time, and our network of awesome friends always make them memorable. Lots to do before then, but that just means I’ll have more to celebrate.
Sunday 4/22/18-
Sun: Taurus–
Moon: Leo (50 % Waxing)
If you’d like to start from the “beginning” of all this… you can read from my first blog post.
For my disclosure on this or any of my posts or pages… please visit my Disclosure page.