J Samuel Diehl

A Return From Exile

What a time to exist. Summer has been a mixed mistress. On one melty hand, we have the oppressive heat married to the stress allocated to the failure of technology. I have better grasp of a range of the cost of home appliance home repairs than I possessed back in the halcyon days of spring, and the wallet, it does burn with the summer blaze. On the other more audible appendages, we succeeded at…

Honesty and the Brain

Today’s the last day I’m on a rough medication folks, so you’re going to get only the lightest fraction of filter. August has been a harrowing month, and September doesn’t want to break the streak. Frankly, I had debated forgoing this post entirely and just scrubbing the whole thing, but we’ve managed to get a monthly post out for over almost a year now and I want to keep this as a triumph. I’m…

Monthly blog post is live: On the Upcoming Patching

Let’s pretend July barely happened and move on.

August has a lot of work ahead of it. There’s writing, there’s bonus streaming, there’s moving ahead with a project I’ve been working on for two months that just needs to get done (oh lord, oh lord, please get this thing finished), and frankly I’m excited about the whole thing.

Hi, welcome to August’s update post. We’re being casual today.

Growing and Going from June into July

June was a complicated sea of emotion, struggle, and fighting for voices to be heard. In some ways I was a part of that, in others I was secluded to my own little corner, making the noise I could but otherwise remaining consistent with what we’ve worked on. It was a month of setting personal foundations but understanding that not all projects are here to stay.

June’s focus was twofold: Lay the…

Our monthly look back on how we handled projects in May, and a look of June's work to come. Sometimes these things require changes of path.

We face a great deal of complexities in our day to day lives; what to do, what to wear, what to eat, what to focus on. Time and focus are precious things that stretch out before us in at once infinite but gradually diminishing possibilities. May was a month of wide reaching but slowly shrinking possibilities, and we’re here to take a look at what was and what wasn’t in the time we spent.

A…

That Whooshing Sound sweeps past as we look back on April and forward to the rest of the month.

There’s a quote attributed to Douglas Adams that I particularly like: “I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” It carries both his sense of whimsy and an acknowledgement of the complexity of writing, of the drive for creating but understanding the annoyance that sometimes things don’t often hit how you want them to hit. April was such a month for me, and the…

As we move into April, a look at how far the months have taken us, and hopes for the future as we complete The First Ascent.

Setting goals, keeping perseverance, outreaching to others, and accepting help; these acts are what made this happen. These acts are what have made what started as a hope into a truth. What made April 4, 2020, our founding day of affiliation. Thank you, all of you, who have helped make this possible, who have hyped me, who have watched, and who have followed. Each of these are stones that have…

March's monthly update is live. How was February for you?

This post’s music is Watsky’s x infinity. The album is an interesting combination of high-powered flows and introspective reflection. They’re powerful words that acknowledge self-doubt and then reminds us of our worth. The album has a special place in my head because of where I was in life when it showed up. I had lost a dear friend and fellow writer in late 2016, and Watsky’s poetry helped ease…

A quick review of January and a look at the promising month to come in this monthly blog post.

I sit down to write this with the sound of cool synths and drum machines on loop in my headphones. Something about listening to retrowave, chillwave, synthwave, whatever-wave feels like the future. A grungy, wonderous future perceived by so much cheesy 80’s sci-fi flicks and imaginative cyberpunk novels. Loud hair, neon lies, and the hopeful grasp of the underdog.

A retro future so bright, you…

Looking back on the decade, we spend January in Retrospec. Our monthly recap is a bit broader today.

It took me quite some time to get used to writing out 2010, and let’s not even talk about the complications of the 19 to 20 conversion ten years prior. Here we are on the dawn of a decade, getting ready to break muscle memory and set our sights forward to a new era.

At least, that’s what we culturally tell ourselves. That these sets of ten we’ve assigned in the concept of recording the time…

A look back at 2019, and a look ahead to the last 31 days of the year.

The end of the year, thirty-one days ‘till sunset. December starts the desire to look back, to see what we’ve gone through the last dozen months and wonder if we’ve accomplished goals or if we’re spinning wheels. Looking back at the first three hundred thirty-four days, I wonder where the time has gone. I wonder where I spent them and how failure and success crossed my path. These posts are meant…

On the Coming November

Time again for our monthly check in. NaNoWriMo is on our doorstep, which means it’s time to dive headfirst into the current project, FFXIV’s patch 5.1 is out and the streams are coming regularly, and we’re finally finished creating the initial Dinner First icons. A couple of things to unpack in there, so let’s take them apart one by one.

November plays host to the event known as…

About to Have Dinner First

For the first time in my gaming history, I’ve joined a raiding group working on high end content in an MMO. It has been a wonderful experience gaming alongside my brothers (one of who is leading the group) as well as some fascinating new friends who joined specifically for this content. We’re working on Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringersfirst raid tier, Eden Savage, and while we’re not completed…

We’ve been hitting NaNoWriMo pretty hard this year. Because of my involvement with an awesome group of writers, I’m hitting my goal of 2500 words a day with very little issue. They’ve convinced me writing sprints are the way to go and it shows in my word count.

Okay, let’s answer a few things.

First, what’s NaNoWriMo?

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a fun, seat-of-your-pants…

Doppelganger: Draco Artifactium Book 1 Preorders are available

After a long uphill battle, it’s finally here! The preorder for Doppelganger: Draco Artifactium Book 1. This has been quite a fun and stressful journey from conceptualization to finished product, and I’m looking forward to continuing the journey as we approach book 2.

Doppelganger: Draco Artifactium Book 1 releases September 3, 2018

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GXDCQZ7?ref_=pe_3052080_27684…

I started today with a strange dilemma. My work day typically begins with loading up a stable of programs I use in relation to writing or editing the current novel project. Word for the core writing content, Scrivener for compiling, OneNote for my world building Wiki, Excel for a few of the math world building factors. It takes a few moments to get them all situated and where I like them on my…

The Beginning of the First Drafts

In early 2012 I finished my first novel. The working project name was the Key Worlds, and I think of it as a pretty solid story in the way I like to stage my three-act tales. I learned a lot about how I outline, how I write, and how I revise when I’m stuck from that book and three years it took me to write it. Six years, two months later, I’ve completed my second First draft novels and I’ve…