It’s a flex day, not a vacation day

Yeah, really, what’s the diff. I am out of the office until the Second of January now. Technically, today is part of my ending work week, and is my assigned flex day. Beyond that, there is no difference except I don’t have to use vacation hours today.

I want to keep a few projects moving forward, and I want to do some writing of my own too. I refused to hit it too hard, because I wanted some me time in the mix.

I started my day with a beta reading project I took on for some friends. I don’t know how many chapters I worked through, but I’m about 1/3 of the way finished. It’s a fun story so far, and I want to get it finished before I have to report back to the office. I know what it’s like at the other end waiting for the report, so I also don’t want to keep the authors hanging.

I scheduled one blog post for Monday. It’s nothing too fancy, but it’s also out of my hair now too. Then I went over what I have so far for my 2017 wrap up post. I’ll share it sometime prior to the new year. It may need a bit of polish, but it’s pretty close.

Finally, I received what I think is the final version of The Hat from my formatter. I’m waiting for one more email from her, but I have a few weeks before I want to publish it. One of the important things to dedicate my time to will be some blog tour posts. They don’t have to be long, but it would be nice to be ready for a whirlwind tour of the blogging world when I publish it. Gotta say, I’m pretty excited about this one.

On the goofing off front, I binge watched a television show I’ve wanted to see. I deserve some goofing off time on occasion, but I also studied the story line as an author. Our daughter loaded her Netflix account on our television and invited us to try it out. We’re probably old timers, and this is really new to us. Hey, I got my first X-Box for Christmas last year and it’s taken me months to get comfortable with it.

Anyway, about the show. See once upon a time, I had to choose what to watch and there was a conflict. I really wanted to check this one out, but it was either The Flash or Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD that conflicted with it. I watched a couple of seasons of The Flash and gave up on it. I never really connected with the characters even though Flash was one of my favorite comics. SHIELD is still fun and I want to get this posted before it comes on tonight.

The one that got left out is called iZombie. It’s on Netflix and it’s wonderful. I watched about six episodes today, and can’t wait to get back to it. This has more of a superpowers vibe about it than other zombie tales. The premise is a nearly finished medical student with a bright future get’s turned into a zombie. We jump forward and she’s taken a job at the morgue so she has access to a supply of human brains to eat.

Eating the brains gives her a limited view into the person’s life and some of that person’s skills and quirks. One example is that she developed kleptomania for a period of time. She uses her newfound insight to fight crime by passing herself off as a psychic. She helps solve the murders of whoever provided her last meal.

There is also a visible transformation that happened and the producers made sure it was dramatic. The fun part is that Liv, the zombie coroner, is really hot as a zombie. Her style and hair reminds me a bit of one of the Research Sirens I named Wiki. Wiki isn’t nearly albino and has a bit of color in her cheeks and her hair is red, oh and she’s a siren and not a zombie. I’m talking style here, not status.

Episode one includes a great character arc and some nice revelation and acceptance at the end. You can bet I’ll be watching more of this one. Even my wife started paying attention. I laughed out loud at a couple of points, so it’s one of those with drama and comedy mixed in. I love stories that do that.

We’ve also been watching Stranger Things and it’s been a lot of fun too. It was recommended by someone who read Will O’ the Wisp and said my style reminded them of this. Heck, gotta check it out after something like that, right? It’s fun, but I feel Stranger Things is getting kind of tired in season two. It seems kind of repetitive on many fronts now.

Gotta run, SHIELD will be on soon. Probably beta reading and my own writing tomorrow.