Weekly Waffle #349 – Jackanory
5th October 2024
This has been something of a weird week for me on the hobby front. Which is where the title for the blog has come from. Work has continued to be really busy so I set out to make the most of what little hobby time I had. I came out of the blocks flying with the mojo levels running in full and everything I was trying on the painting front seemed to be working. This made me a bit greedy and I had a couple of projects on the go at the same time. All was going well until all of sudden it wasn’t. I have no explanation as to what happened but one minute I was happily painting away knowing exactly what I wanted to do next. Then all of a sudden the mojo simply deserted me and I had no idea how to progress.
Now I have to say that at the time I was painting a cloak and whilst I knew exactly what I wanted to do it wasn’t necessarily going to plan. It wasn’t going wrong per se but wasn’t going as smoothly as I had hopped. But I’ve been in this sort of position before with a similar issue and I knew it was just gating to take a bit of time. And there was a very good chance it would look worse before it got better. So nothing I was prepared for. But out of the blue the mojo simply vanished and I have spent what feels like an eternity with paint brush in hand just not knowing how to get going again. I’ve had umber of sessions where I’ve sat down to paint and achieved absolutely nothing, I’ve not even managed to get paint on the brush let alone on a model.
Now to put that into some sort of context I’ve managed to make it ten months into the year with updates every week. My little planed breaks not withstanding. But this week has been a real road block for me. That is not say that I don’t have anything for you it’s just that I was hoping to have a lot more for you. Instead all I have to share this week is another addition to my grot squad. This one is from Wargame Exclusive and he looks like he is the one giving out the orders. Orders to do what I have no idea but he is certainly making himself heard. This has so much character which is why I think I managed to keep the mojo going. Although when you see what else I was painting, hopefully next week, there is no shortage of character there.
Anyway here we have this week’s hobby output for you.
You can see more Ork miniatures at my gallery here.
Which leave me a few hundred words short of a proper update. So this is where the title for this week’s update comes in. If you don’t understand it then it simply means you are either a lot younger than me or you don’t come from the UK. Or both. But was a kids TV show where they tell stories over the course of a week. Not really what I’m doing here but it was a very loose connection into what I’m reading at the moment. I’ve mentioned it a few times in past posts that I tend you use my computing time to either try and write content or I while away the time on my kindle.
Now a slight deviation whilst I love my kindle I don’t want any of you real book lovers to hate me. I still buy real books it’s just that a kindle is convenient when traveling or commuting. My book selfs continue to groan under the weight of real books.
So that aside I’ve just finished reading the latest offering my Raymond E Fiest, how is one of my all time favourite authors, and was struggling to decide what to read next. When up pops a pre order notice for a new Terry Brooks, Shannara novel. I have a soft spot for Terry Brooks and it has to have been twenty or twenty five years since I last read the original Sword of Shannara. So I got all nostalgic and downloaded it.
Now this is a book I have read a few times and if you had asked me to summarise it I thought I could have given you a very good walk through of the story. But as soon as I started reading it the first character you are introduced to suppressed me. Not that I had forgotten about them but just that didn’t remember that first part of the story. It’s amazing how your mind can play tricks on you. Which ties in nicely with loosing my mojo.
Something else that stands out reading this again now is the writing style feels very different to a lot of things I have been reading lately. That is probably just a fact of how old the story is, I think it was first published in 1975. And no I haven’t looked it up so I may be doing a correction next week. But I am really enjoying it, a bit like watching an old film where you know the story but there little bits that you had forgotten about to delight you.
It’s a book that I would be happy to recommend to anyone who hasn’t already read it. I would say that it leans heavily on The Lord of the Rings, but to be fair so do a lot of books. The unwitting hero, the stalwart part, the quest into danger. All seem to be taken straight out of the Tolkin play book. But it’s different enough to be it’s own story and if you do like there are a lot more in the series. Along with a whole host of prequels that would happily keep you entertained for a good while.
In fact if you get them audible, or some other spoken book service you could have them on whilst you are painting. Which is something I like to do. Now that I’m writing that down maybe that is what I should have done to distract myself enough to get over this mojo hump. Always good to come up with a good idea late so it’s really any use to you . Maybe I just file it away for next time I get stuck. Assuming I can remember where I filed it.
Anyway i’m begging to really waffle along here so I’m going to draw things to a close. I hope the grot is enough of a hobby update to keep you interested. And I am working something at is certainly a first for me and quite literally dwarfs the grots. So with a fair wind I will have that for you next week. It may not be just how I want it to be but I’m not going to let this cloak hold me back. I’m going to just do it and if I need to come back to it at a later date so be it. But I will have it finished.
Keep safe. Enjoy whatever plans you have for the weekend and week beyond. I will be back here next week and I hope you catch up with you all again then.
