Tag: Steve D

September Write Day: Return to Normalcy… I think

On By Steven D'AdamoIn On LifeLeave a comment

School has officially started, and at least one of our neighbors has already started preparing their Halloween decorations. We need to start planning ours.

We took our boys to Boston and Salem just before school started, a much-needed trip that was hectic, but enjoyable. We rode the train from Baltimore to Boston (and overall had a positive experience), toured Boston for a couple days, visited the Lego Discovery Center (our four-year-old’s favorite part of the entire trip), stayed in Salem for a few days, and had dinner with an old college friend and her family.

Now we’re figuring out our school-year routine and making plans for the autumn, primarily in our garden and cleaning out the house before we’re inundated with new toys for Christmas. I’m not ready for any holidays, but I’m glad September has arrived.

Last Month’s Goals

  1. Finish three books.
  2. Survive until the start of school.
  3. Enjoy our last big trip for the summer.
  4. Try to exercise and stretch.

Finish three books?

I finished the final book in Manda Scott’s Boudica series, Dreaming the Serpent Spear, which I obviously reviewed already, because it was fantastic. That’s it. I’ve made some good headway on another novel, which I’m excited to review, for very different reasons.

I’m doing alright on my Goodreads reading challenge: 13 of 24 books completed; less ambitious than last year, which has turned out to be a good thing. I’ll need to finish almost three books per month to hit it by the end of the year. Time to find some shorter novels on my To Be Read list.

Survive ’til school & enjoy our last trip?

Success! See above.

Try to exercise and stretch

Success! After aiming low and just trying to figure some basic stuff I could do for August, I ended up picking a couple of calisthenics type exercises to do after my main stretching routine. These I counted as 10 minutes of “stretching” in my fitness tracking app, just to make it easy to count up how many times I did it.

10 times throughout the month of August, plus one brief weight-lifting session in a hotel fitness room, and a whole lot of walking on our trip.

The brief stretching/resistance routine has definitely helped me feel like I accomplished something on those days. What’s missing is longer yoga sessions or weight-lifting sessions.

But progress is progress, and with a more normal routine at home, I feel like I can make some more happen this month.

Goals for September

  1. Finish three books.
    • Current reads: I, Jedi by Michael A. Stackpole; A Promised Land by Barack Obama; The Essential Tales and Poems of Edgar Alan Poe, by Edgar Alan Poe and Benjamin Franklin Fisher (editor)
    • Likely next reads: The Map of Salt and Stars by Zeyn Joukhadar for fiction. I’m not close enough to finishing Obama’s memoir to consider my next nonfiction read.
  2. Stretching & exercise. I’d like to continue with this basic stretching and resistance routine just as a filler for my busier or lazier days. What I need to work back in is longer yoga or weight-lifting session. I’m thinking 20 minutes at minimum, twice per week.
  3. Organize around the house. Build shelves in my shed and get shit off the floor. Get rid of old clothes and toys we’ve collected. Organize the new shelf in the basement.
  4. Community resilience. I’ve alluded to this and related themes in many of my haiku of late, but it’s been pressing on my mind all year. I need to find ways to contribute more directly and proactively in my community. I know there are lots of options out there, so I think I just need to pick one and start doing it.

Steve D

Book Review: BOUDICA: DREAMING THE SERPENT SPEAR lands an epic saga

On By Steven D'AdamoIn On Storytelling, ReviewsLeave a comment

What a series.

Manda Scott’s fourth novel in the Boudica series, Dreaming the Serpent Spear, was a fantastic ending to an epic saga about Boudica’s rise and rebellion against the Roman Empire in Britannia.

Where book one primarily covered how Breaca, daughter of the royal bloodline of the Eceni, rose to become a warrior and leader of her people, books two and three dove into the characters’ their internal struggles and the manifestations of their various choices on and off the battlefield, casting some of them far afield, with no apparent hope of ever reuniting.

Dreaming the Serpent Spear managed to bring many of the main characters’ arcs colliding back in a final clash to decide their individual fates, and that of the Celtic and druidic peoples of Britainnia.

Author Manda Scott treated the lingering trauma of Breaca and Graine with care while demonstrating their growth as individuals and in their relationship as mother and daughter. Other characters, like Cunomar, Sigve, Valerius, and Corvus also stretched and grew into their own – at times surprising – fitting ends.

The sense of dread throughout this read forced me to a slower pace. Knowing that Rome occupied Britannia for another century-plus after the timeframe of this novel meant that I did not expect a happy ending. I didn’t want to see beloved characters die in battle or languish in imprisonment.

However, I think Scott deftly navigated the brutality and desperation of the final battle and brought the characters’ stories to worthy resolution.

This series is absolutely worth a re-read and will sit among my favorite novels on this historical period.

Steve D


August Write Day: Nearly There

On By Steven D'AdamoIn On LifeLeave a comment

Our summer took an unexpected turn when our oldest son, through absolutely no fault of his own, was kicked out of daycare. The daycare messed up and had too many kids for the summer.

We’ve been scrambling to find things for him to do during the week for a month, and we’re now just two weeks away from the start of his schoolyear. I have never in my life been this excited for school to start.

We have one more family trip ahead of us, which is greatly needed for all of us, perhaps most of all just to break us out of our week-to-week schedules for some quality time.

Last Month’s Goals

  1. Finish three books.
  2. Small acts – Exercise.
  3. Small acts – Writing. 
  4. Continue daily meditation/affirmation.

Finish three books?

I finished two books in July. I’ve already reviewed Boudica: Dreaming the Hound by Manda Scott here, and I finished Star Wars Legends Collection: The Empire, Vol 1 what feels like ages ago. That was not my first entry into Star Wars comics, but I appreciated the deeper focus on Vader and his conflicted state of mind in the early years of the Empire.

I don’ think I’m ready to jump head-first into the vast back-catalogue of Star Wars comics and novels. It’s too much to even think about wading through, to be honest. However, I have enjoyed the smattering of stories I’ve picked up as one-offs.

Perhaps I will take a similar tack with the Warhammer 40,000 novels. I had tried to get into The Horus Heresy series some years back, and found it overwhelming in its lore depth.

Small acts – exercise, meditation, writing?

Not much to say in any of these categories. I’ve been active in different ways, but no real routine to speak of.

I think I’ve done okay with posting haiku each Sunday, mostly. I’m starting to think that until I really start writing fiction again, I will probably stick to book reviews for my Wednesday posts.

I would like to start writing regularly again. I’ve just been pre-occupied. My sons have started playing video games a couple times per week – Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and Mario Kart 8, primarily. This has reignited my love for casual gaming, so that has been my hobby of late.

No regrets. It just means I’ve spent evenings doing that than almost anything else.

I will have some downtime while we’re traveling for our upcoming trip, and I’m optimistic that I can write in my journal a bit.

Goals for August

  1. Finish three books.
    • Current reads: Boudica: Dreaming the Bull by Manda Scott; A Promised Land by Barack Obama; The Essential Tales and Poems of Edgar Alan Poe, by Edgar Alan Poe and Benjamin Franklin Fisher (editor)
    • Likely next reads: No idea.
  2. Survive until the start of school. It will be camps for us next summer.
  3. Enjoy our last big trip for the summer. We’re taking the train to Boston. It will be the boys’ first real train ride, so we’re excited.
  4. Try to exercise and stretch. I stretch just about every day. Still looking for the right motivation to exercise consistently.

Steve D

Book Review: BOUDICA: DREAMING THE HOUND

On By Steven D'AdamoIn On Storytelling, ReviewsLeave a comment

As expected from my earlier goals post, I finished Boudica: Dreaming the Hound, the third book of this series by Manda Scott, and am well on my way with the fourth.

I’ve already reviewed books one and two.

As book three of a four-book series, it was not too surprising to find that Dreaming the Hound had a minor case of middle book syndrome. The plot dragged a bit more than its predecessors, and both the characters and the reader are left waiting for momentous changes to happen: the Roman invasion of Mona, for instance.

Even still, there was some interesting character development in this story, particularly for Valerius and Cunomar. Valerius steps into his redemption arc, while Cunomar finally takes some initiative to become the warrior for which he has always overreached.

The ending of Breaca’s time with the Eceni, under Roman rule, comes swiftly and shockingly. I will spare the details, but the confrontational sequence towards the end of this arc is brutal and traumatic. Its purpose in the story is to portray what little historical evidence there exists for these events, as explained by Scott in the afterword. In the moment, though, it left a poor feeling.

I am still definitely enjoying this series overall, but I was somewhat relieved for this book to be over. Given Scott’s deft plot development and skilled character building, I was also optimistic to begin the fourth and final installment. That optimism has already paid off, and I’m greatly looking forward to seeing how this epic series ends.

Steve D