Between the Lines of History and Fantasy: My Obsidian Exploration and Elan Field Notes.

Overall, the past week has been quiet. As I look over my notes, so little “progress” was made. Is that a uniquely American concern—that I did not do enough in my spare time—or am I one of those odd types?

I said I would give writing with Obsidian a whirl. As whirls go, it was not as dizzying as I hoped. But I started in on a scene. I connected my old GitHub-based PDF/ePub compiler and shook some of those cobwebs out. It felt good. For a brief time, I felt productive. At least as productive as I would be with Scrivener. I need to spend more time to settle in. That’s my project for the week. I’ve opened the compiler repository, but will share when things are working.

My entertainment is a bit more intentional. I finished Masters of the Air. I love history, and this was history adjacent. They did a better job with storytelling than I think they did with The Pacific, which I think is a shame since those in the Pacific Theater had a much tougher fight and was overshadowed by the European Theater. After reading Ian Toll’s Pacific War trilogy, I commented to a friend, “did you know the Navy had a role in World War 2.” She was a formal Navy officer, and it was a fun way to get her goat. Speaking of, I’ll have to read his Six Frigates book. Right now, I’m listening to Stalin’s War.

I said “intentional,” but geeking out on history is not that. While I continue to cruise through my Postal Marines series at a snail’s pace, I’m looking at a bit more fantasy. While I should read the books, I’ve started with watching The Witcher series on Netflix. I watched a few fantasy reader influencers to pick up on what might be some interesting trilogies or series to read/listen to. I’m amazed that there are fantasy series that run over four million words. But I now have a backlog of several series and trilogies. That one series took the influencer six months to read is not encouraging. I need to watch less TV and read more. To that end, I’ve added a Books to Read backlog on Basecamp for you to follow along.

I must admit, I’ve fallen in love with a notebook, so here’s my Elan’s 6x9-inch Field Book review. I’ve long liked the 6x9-inch form factor, having used them at work for over a decade. The Moleskine notebooks are too thick, though. I’ll invariably get halfway through before I ground out. Field notes have 80 pages, about four times fewer than a Moleskine’s 280 pages. Now I can break the book into topics. They are also easier to carry.

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Ben Wilson, Author