I got the second draft of my book finished.

So when it comes to my life, over the last couple of months I (once again) haven't been updating this blog. I've been busy trying to get my ongoing projects completed so that I could feel that I have managed to get real things done. 

The biggest project has been my book that I had worked on for almost eighteen months. I had worked on this 'World War 2' adventure book since early 2022 and had spent considerable amount of time making sure it would be as good as possible.

Other projects that I had included getting a degree (so that I could officially work with kids) and my piano project that I've been working on diligently. My goal is to become a solid pianist (as good as possible), which takes a lot of effort and hard work.

So when it comes to my book project, it can be said that we're very close to sending it to publishers. I finished the second draft of the book a week ago, e-mailed the draft to my 'professional reader' friend and decided to take a small break until he gives me his notes.

Length-wise, during this rewrite the book went from 90000 words (adjusted to English language) to roughly 106000. Especially when it comes to the first chapters, that's where I needed to add stuff so that the story would have a better flow and be consistent style-wise. 

Rewrite-wise, even though I didn't have to make any critical changes to the story, I had to (try to) fix a lot of things. This meant rewriting and rearranging scenes and sentences, coming up with new ideas that worked and getting rid of stuff that wasn't good enough.

Fortunately, even though I haven't completely read the second draft from start to finish, it looks that not that much work is required anymore. Hopefully I mostly have to work on some transitions (where the characters travel) and fix some minor stuff.

School-wise, the good thing is that I managed to get my degree completed so I don't have to spend energy on that once my work resumes next month. It gives me a bit more options and I can also substitute as a teacher in case someone needs my services.

Music-wise, not that surprisingly, I managed to keep my practice routine going by selecting songs that interested me. I learned to play stuff like Kate Bush's 'Running Up That Hill' on piano, which helped improve my overall technique (especially older songs that I practice). 

In that sense, when it comes to things as a whole, it can be said that things have been going rather well lately. Besides those other things, I'm finally getting the book finished, which is probably the most important thing right now (even though those other things matter too). 

Still, there's the question of what is going to happen next with the book and whether it's going to be published. Even though the story in it is rather entertaining and well written, that might not be enough - since I'm not an existing celebrity that the publishers prefer.

In that sense, if things won't eventually go my way, I should look on the bright side of things. I should do that because even though I don't know whether the book will be published, I still worked diligently on it, didn't give up at any point and managed to get it eventually completed.

Updates to my book project & music stuff.

So when it comes to my ongoing projects, during the last few months I haven't been posting any updates on this site. This is mostly because I haven't had that much energy to write about my projects and how well I have managed to make progress with them. 

Indeed, when my five week practical training period started in late January, my daily schedule was genuinely tight. This meant that I had very little free time once I had managed to get my daily things done during the day.

By that I mean is that once I came back from work at 5.30 pm, I had roughly five hours time to make dinner, play piano, rewrite the book and exercise before I had to be in bed. This didn't seem easy at first and required a lot of discipline from me. 

Thankfully, even though I had my doubts, during this period I managed to keep all my projects going. I managed to rewrite my book and play piano pretty much every day, even though I was super exhausted at the end of the work week.

Progress-wise, considering that I wrote every day, you might assume that I finally managed to rewrite the book from start to finish and have sent the manuscript to the publishers. Certainly one would think that three more months was enough to get the job done. 

In reality though, even though I've written more or less every day during these last three months, I haven't completed the rewrite. I still have one and half chapters to go - out of nine - before the book is going to be in a 'good enough' shape.  '

Rewrite-wise, during the latter half of the book I was surprised how much rewriting many of the scenes required. Even though I had the right idea about how the scenes were supposed to be written, they still required a lot of polishing. 

Indeed, individual scenes had a lot of pacing issues that really hurt the flow of the story. I had to get rid of a lot of sentences or paragraphs that didn't work (dialogue or description) and fix them in a way that would keep the reader immersed in the story. 

Fortunately, considering my patience and the hard work I've done with the book, it looks like these setbacks haven't been to severe. My estimation is that the book is going to be finished before my summer vacation starts, which is less than six weeks away. 

Music-wise, I've managed to keep my routine going too and have managed to learn three new songs. These are 'The Last of Us' theme, Tom Chaplin's 'Somewhere only we know' and the super popular 'As it was' by Harry Styles. 

The good thing about practicing advanced versions of these songs is that they've once again helped to improve my basic technique. Even though the progress is almost unbelievably slow at this point, I still get better as long as I patiently practice playing these songs. 

In that sense, when you consider all the things that I've done lately, I think it can be said that I've been pretty active with my projects. I shouldn't be too hard on myself just because writing the book has taken more effort than I had thought at first.

After all, even though I'm most definitely getting tired of the whole thing and that I'm also tired of getting my school work done, I need to keep pushing. I need to keep working diligently because I'm not that far from getting things finished.

In that sense, whatever is going to happen once I'm done with the book and have received my degree, I can worry about that stuff later. I can worry later about whether the book is going to be published and what I'm going to do next semester with my new degree. 

Things that I've been doing lately.

So when it comes to all those things that I've been doing during the last couple of months, it has to be said that I've been pretty busy with my projects. I've tried my best to keep my routines going so that I could get things done and accomplish my goals. 

Indeed, since I have had all kinds of 'artistic' projects going in addition to me studying and working part time, that hasn't been an easy equation to solve. I've needed to keep myself in a good shape both physically and mentally so that positive things could happen.

In any case, when it comes to me studying and working, last week I started doing morning shifts at school as a teacher's assistant (requirement for my degree). This, I thought (lasts 5 weeks) would be very tough and something that might cause me some problems. 

After all, considering that I would now do 9 hour shifts (4 hours at school, 5 hours at the afternoon club), it would be difficult to get everything done during the day. I wasn't confident that I would have the energy to do stuff like write or play piano after work.

Fortunately, the morning shifts have been easier than I had expected. Unlike in the afternoon club that can be a nightmare, here the kids (no special needs kids in my class) are much nicer and the teacher (very good) is the one who is primarily in charge of things.

So when it comes to those other things I've been doing, piano-wise, I've been actively practicing every single day. I've added some new songs to my 'catalogue' (video killed the radio star) and have tried to relearn some of the older melodies that I had already managed to forget.

Instrument-wise, it has to be mentioned that a couple of days ago I bought myself a new piano. This electric piano (Roland fp 60x) is a solid instrument that not only sounds good but has weighed keys that feel authentic and help improve my overall technique.

Writing-wise, I've also been really busy lately (hence no updates here) and have been rewriting my WW2-based adventure book that I've been writing for over a year now. I finished the first draft in early December and have been rewriting the book ever since. 

Not surprisingly, the rewriting part hasn't been that much fun. At least in my case, I get tired really fast, and considering that I initially wrote the first two chapters as a 50% novel / 50% story-based game, I had more than enough stuff to rewrite.

Fortunately, even though I have had to add content to the first half (word count up by 10%) and I've had some things that I've had to fix (pacing), it hasn't been that impossible to do. I have just needed to take things one day at a time and not worry about the project too much.

In that sense, when it comes to things as a whole and how my projects + life are going at the moment, I guess it can be said that things are going relatively well. I have stuff to do that I find to be interesting and that keep my mind busy during the day. 

After all, it cannot be overstated how much meaning and purpose these projects keep giving me. It's genuinely great that every day I know that as long as I keep my routines going and don't give up, I'm going to get better and even get to finish something potentially solid stuff.

Still, once I'll eventually get this rewrite finished (likely one more month to go) and am ready to send the manuscript to the publishers, I hope that something good is going to happen. I hope that all the hard work is going to pay off somehow.

After all, even though it's hard to predict how things are going to go, I think I have created something solid here. The book is rather entertaining and since it has aspects in it that others usually find interesting, it should have a chance of becoming a success. 

So I managed to write a 400 page adventure book.

So when it comes to my projects that I've been working on lately, I can finally say that I managed to succeed on the biggest one. I'm about to get the first draft of my historical WW-2 adventure book finished, which is something that has taken a lot of hard work and effort. 

Indeed, the reason that I haven't been updating this blog lately is because of the project. I wanted to make sure that I would spend all my energy on that project and that during this time I would not think about anything else that might distract me. 

In practice, what this meant is that for the last five or six months, I've been writing every single day. I haven't taken any days off, even though there have obviously been moments when I haven't felt good or that I would be able to meet my daily writing quotas.  

By that I mean is that every single day I have managed to write at least one full word-pad page. This translates to roughly five hundred words per day, which is something that I found to be a good pace in order to progress with the project fast enough. 

So when it comes to the story and the story beats that I've been working on, I have to say that I think I managed to come up with a plot that is fairly good. There's a lot of material in the book that is well thought out and that makes sense structure-wise.

Story-wise, the last time I updated the project on this blog, I was already working on the latter half of the story. I had written five or six chapters and was at a point where it was crucial that I had managed to come up with ideas that were solid. 

One of these ideas that I came up with (since stories & plots in general tend to get slower after the midpoint) was that I added famous people to it. I saw that having a famous person as a character instead of some random artist would give the story momentum (Henri Matisse).

In the chapter after that, I thought that based on this idea it wouldn't hurt to find a 'real person' who was a mathematician and also a resistance fighter. It didn't take a lot of research to find 'Emil Borel', a world famous math guy who fit the part well enough.

So once I had solved the 'story slows down' part, I still had to come up with a finale that would be interesting and that would feel like an actual climax. I had to write something that would make the reader feel satisfied when we'd reach the end of the story.

Fortunately, I managed to come up with a sequence of events, in which the girls prevent the Germans from delivering the stolen art from Montpellier to Paris. This is a finale that takes place in a train and was something that took a lot of creative effort. 

Challenge-wise, not only did I need to set up the chapter well and motivate the characters to take a big risk, the execution part had to be good too. I couldn't just autopilot the stuff and think that it wouldn't matter that much how I would write it.  

Thankfully though, once I managed to write the chapter and make some changes to it (better exposition, pacing and more content), I think it turned out pretty well. The stuff is fairly well written and should likely keep you entertained. 

In that sense, now that I more or less only need to write the epilogue to the story, I think it's safe to say that - perhaps against the odds - I managed to finish this project. I managed to write a new book, even though I was fairly sure that I wouldn't be able to do that.

After all, once I my previous book didn't get published, that didn't make me feel optimistic about my chances. I didn't think it would be realistic that I would be able to come up with an idea that had enough potential and that I would actually spend all that time writing the book. 

In that sense, considering that the book is twice as long as the last one and is easier to sell, things look pretty good. Things look solid and even though there are no guarantees about anything, I think there are at least some chances that something good might finally happen.

Update to my ongoing projects.

So when it comes to things that I've been doing lately, during the last month or so, it has to be said that I've been rather busy. Once my job started again in August, I've had much less spare time than I did during my summer vacation. 

Indeed, when I was on a vacation for 10+ weeks, it wasn't that difficult to progress with my artistic projects. Since I could slack most of the day, I didn't have a strict schedule about when I needed to write or when I needed to practice playing piano. 

So once my work was about to start again, I wasn't that confident that I would be able keep my artistic projects going. I wasn't sure that I would find the energy and the time to practice playing piano at least one hour per day and also write every day for an hour.

Fortunately, having now been back to working for roughly a month, it can be said that I've managed to keep my routines going. I haven't been slacking at all, even though I also started studying to get a degree on the side and that I've been having a cold for some time. 

Music-wise, one of the big things that happened was that I asked some of my colleagues whether they wanted to hear me play some songs of their choosing. I thought that this way I would have to challenge myself and not play it safe all the time. 

Naturally, once one of my colleagues wanted to hear 'Clocks' by Coldplay, that turned out to be a real challenge. This intermediate to advanced version of the song was pretty difficult to master and I had to spend at least 50 hours on the song to be able to play it well. 

Technique-wise, the way you have to move your hands is so demanding that it felt like I had to learn play blindfolded. This song has greatly improved my basic technique and it's clear that it was a good idea to let others choose songs for me to learn. 

Writing-wise, it can also be said that I've been rather active with my book project (WW2 adventure story). I've managed to write every day too, which has meant that slowly but steadily I've progressed with the story and have reached new chapters. 

After all, even though I had my doubts, I've managed to write at least one full wordpad page per evening. This has been a pace that is good enough and doesn't require too much of my attention especially if I'm not having a good day. 

Quality-wise, I obviously can't make any promises, but this relaxing pace has given me time to assess things and come up with new ideas. I've been able to come up with ideas that I think have been pretty solid and have made sense both thematically and structurally.   

In that sense, when it comes to the rest of this year and things as a whole, I think things are looking pretty good at the moment. I've managed to find some much-needed balance in my life and these projects have helped to keep me relatively happy lately. 

After all, even though playing piano and writing a book do take a lot of your energy, I don't get too obsessed with either of the projects. They kinda even themselves out stress-wise, so when I have met my daily quotas, I don't have time or energy to worry about them too much.

Still, when it all is said and done, there's no guarantee that the book is going to be that great or published, but it looks it's going to be finished. That alone will be a solid achievement, so whether it's good enough to be a success story or anything else, that is almost beside the point. 

Things that I've been doing this summer.

So when it comes to my vacation and my activities, I have to say that project-wise I've managed to be rather active this summer. I've managed to surpass my expectations that I had with my book writing project and me becoming a better pianist.

After all, once my vacation started in early June, I wasn't feeling that confident that I would manage to do these things. The idea that I would start writing every single day and that I would also practice playing piano was not something I would necessarily bank on.

Yet, as I'm about to get back to my 'real' job in less than two weeks, I can say that I managed to do both these things surprisingly well. My book project progressed considerably and it can be said that my piano playing skills got better too. 

So first, when it comes to my book writing project, in my last update I had only written the first chapter and was starting to write the second one. I had gotten my character on a journey that took her out of the 'starting zone' in Paris to the countryside. 

Currently with the project, a couple of days ago I started writing the fifth chapter in the book. This means that story-wise my protagonist and her partner have already managed to experience quite a few interesting things in their adventure. 

At the same time, story-wise, just because so far I've managed to write 180-200 solid pages, that doesn't mean that I'm close to finishing the book. I still have probably 150 more pages to write before we're done with the story (might even be a series of books). 

Another thing to keep in mind is that since I haven't structured the story beforehand, I don't know how the whole thing is going to end. I still have to come up with tons of story ideas and beats (chapter by chapter) that are hopefully character based, organic and plausible.

Music-wise, even though playing piano is not as important as writing the book is at the moment, I've also found time to keep my routine going. Over the course of the summer I've managed to learn to play some new songs that I've found to be worth my time.

Indeed, these new songs and melodies include stuff like Queen's 'Don't Stop Me Now', 'Uncharted', 'Blinding Lights', 'Transformers' movie theme and 'Mission Impossible' theme song. There's been a lot to work with these songs and they've kept me busy.

Progress-wise, the good thing about many of these songs is that they have helped to improve my overall skills. Especially when it comes to playing octaves, 'Blinding Lights' and 'Mission Impossible' have been really useful at making me better. 

In that sense, when it comes to this summer and my activities as a whole, I have to say that things have gone pretty well. I can't say that 'artistic-wise' I could have realistically speaking done that much better than I've done over the last eight or so weeks.

After all, even though the total amount of time that I have spent on these activities hasn't been more than maybe 2-3 hours per day, that's not all there is to it. That kind of daily routine requires consistent effort and isn't something that should be taken for granted.

Still, especially when it comes to the book project and considering that luck plays a part in the process, I hope that I continue to get lucky. I hope things go well, because in the end, writing good stuff isn't easy and isn't something that you can completely control as a writer.

Amazon Prime's 'The Terminal List' review.

Last week, after seeing some ads for a new action series called 'The Terminal List', I have to say that I got somewhat excited. Since I didn't really have anything better to do during my vacation, I knew that I was going to give this miniseries a chance. 

After all, even though I had read that the series hadn't gotten particularly good reviews from the critics, the fact that it had Chris Pratt in it was enough for me. There was a good chance that I would be able to enjoy the series and not be too critical of it.

Having now watched 'The Terminal List', a series about 'a navy seal veteran avenging the deaths of his team mates', I have to say that I have a bit mixed feelings about it. The series managed to be rather entertaining, although there were some problems with it too.

So the premise here is that Pratt's character is on a covert mission in the middle east trying to kill a terrorist leader. However, as they try to infiltrate the premise where the leader resides, his team gets ambushed, which results to most of his platoon getting killed.

Later on, as he returns back home, it doesn't take long before he notices that something more sinister is going on. The surviving team members end up dying under suspicious circumstances, which makes him think there's a conspiracy to eliminate him too.

Not surprisingly, as things get worse when he gets framed in a incident in which his wife and daughter are murdered, he's out for blood. He thinks that those who were behind the conspiracy must be punished, so he comes up with a 'terminal list' to eliminate them.

Quality-wise, when it comes to the overall quality of the series, I have to say that story-wise, the first two episodes are easily the best in this eight episode miniseries. This is when the episodes are full of suspense, easy to follow and the focus is on the main character. 

However, as we get to episodes three and four, we're introduced to a whole list of new characters, that doesn't work that well story-wise. More or less out of nowhere the series changes its focus - to bad guys - which leads to the story losing pretty much all of its momentum.

Indeed, as the series 'reinvents' itself, I had difficulties in being interested in what was going on. The fact that series also gets needlessly violent at this point and that Pratt's character's kill list targets aren't well explained bothered me quite a bit.  

Fortunately, as we get to the latter half of the season and we get to know what the 'big picture' is about, the focus comes back to our main protagonist. This is when I got interested in what is going to happen and the story is more entertaining again.

After all, as Pratt's character goes survival mode and flees from law enforcement & special forces (episode 6->), you can't help but to root for him. This part and the finale episodes, in which he unravels the conspiracy successfully is something that is worth watching. 

In that sense, when it comes to the season as a whole and whether I would recommend the series, I guess I can't deny that there were a lot of solid aspects about the show. There no question that since I managed to finish it, it cannot have been that bad.

After all, among other things, the series admittedly looks pretty good and does have solid production values. The cast is also pretty high quality and even though people have a lot of opinions regarding Chris Pratt's acting abilities, he does an okay job here.

Still, in the end, the real issue with the show has to do with its writing, that especially in episodes 3-4 is questionable at best. The poor exposition in these episodes, the lack of focus and the excessive violence is something that cannot be completely ignored. 

In that sense, whether one is going to enjoy the series as a whole depends. There's a solid chance that you'll find 'The Terminal List' watchable and enjoying, but there's also a chance that these flaws are too much and prevent one from liking the show.