30 countries and 30 blog posts [FU1]

Fortnightly update 1: 09.12.2019 to 22.12.2019

While I’ve kept a crude text file diary for a few years now, I’m now going to summarise the happenings of my life in fortnightly blog posts like this one and share them to both Facebook and LinkedIn. This will allow me to be consistent with how I share my progress as a writer and editor, while also improving my reflection process. I’ll post the fortnightly updates on either Sundays or Mondays, though if anything dinosaur-huge happens, I may still make separate posts about it; these fortnightly posts are more about my fortnight-to-fortnight triumphs.

Chad Gerber Photography

As for this first fortnight, it’s actually pretty dinosaur-huge. My good friend Chad Gerber finished writing his 30th and final blog post on his 2019 photography trip around much of the world. I was there with him the whole way, in spirit (over the internet), and edited all 30 of his blog posts. The featured image of this post is a shot of Chad’s from Iceland, the last place he visited and the subject of his last blog post. This was an ambitious project, and I think we executed it beautifully. I’m looking forward to working with Chad again. We certainly have creative chemistry

See, I really should have made my own post about every blog post Chad and I worked on together, but I didn’t. This illustrates just how useful these fortnightly updates will be to me.

For your convenience, here are links to every one of the 30 blog posts I worked on with Chad over 2019:

The Front

For those of you who don’t know, I’ve been writing scripts for the popular YouTube channel The Front since October this year.

In the first week of the fortnight, we uploaded the first video in a six-part series about the worst casualties to military units in World War II.

In the second week, we uploaded the second part.

On top of that, I wrote the script for a video on Canadians in World War II, two scripts for a two-part video on the most heroic pilots of World War II, and started another script on the “shadiest” brands/companies involved in World War II.

fiction_shots

Again, for those who don’t know, fiction_shots is both a writing community and a platform to share and post flash fiction and its derivatives (microfiction, vss, etc.). I’ve been maintaining it on Instagram and for a few months now, but this fortnight I made a Twitter profile for fiction_shots. I intend to grow both of the communities over 2020 and beyond. Right now, I’m putting most of my energy into creating content.

The first week’s piece was about a cemetery, I guess.

We drifted hand in hand between the cracked slabs and weathered headstones of the cemetery. The wind trawled the clouds over the church spire between the old section and new, bleeding sunlight onto our souls. I read epitaphs aloud to her as we neared the church, and she lifted her chin to let the sun strike her white collar and throat.

“All of us before and all after,” I read.

She smiled, and her golden hair flashed across her face. She then ushered me passed the church to the marble and granite stones of the new section. I preferred the broken, faded headstones, but I continued to read epitaphs all the same.

“Here on the meadow fair.”

After a minute or month, we halted by a headstone with a marble angel curled around it. The woman I was with released my hand and stepped back into a shaft of light, and I couldn’t on my life recall her name. When I turned to ask it, she was gone, and I was left with the angel-graced headstone which had carven into it my own name and my own epitaph.

“You need only let go.”

The wind ceased, and the clouds gave way entirely.

The second week’s piece was about my very good friend tinnitus.

Speakers pounding, he thrashed his hair and fists in the mosh pit.

On the way home, he laughed off the shrill ringing in his ear.

But laughter couldn’t rid his new companion; it chirped and whistled, tormenting him till the end of his days.

If you’re into it, don’t forget to follow along. It’s only going to get bigger and better.

Project Bronze

I also finally got some time to work on the secret-ish Dungeons & Dragons project I’m working on with Roderick Fernandes. I’ll release more information on this soon, though I can tell you that it’s influenced by Greek mythology, sort of.

Conclusion

This fortnight was as busy as any other, though it was all about wrapping up projects and setting the pieces for new ones.

Thanks for reading, and thanks again to Chad for the editing opportunity and for letting me use your image in this post.