Sharpening the Saw

And Recharging My Battery

Hello fair subscribers and followers!

As I mentioned last time, I have been in the throes of trying to finish up a pair of big projects in my day job so I haven’t had a ton of spare time to write lately. But never fear, you can’t keep me out of your inbox for long!

Just kidding, it’s really easy to keep me out of your inbox. But here I am, back from my little break with a short note this week. And just in case you WANT me in your inbox for some reason, here’s an easy way to subscribe!

With everything that’s been going on—day job craziness, travel, baby, and writing deadlines—I’ve been feeling a little fried lately. I’ve not written much the past couple months, although I have a lot of ideas and have been thinking through how things will go on a couple of projects. But I got to the point a few weeks ago where I needed to take a break and not cram more work into my evenings.

When I decided to step back for a bit, I remembered an episode of WriterDojo titled Sharpen Your Saw. The premise is that we all get burnt out with work or just regular life every once in a while and we need a reset. It’s worth a listen if you have time.

So I decided to take Larry and Steve’s advice and sharpen my saw a little. Instead of writing in the evenings or cramming in more work, I took some time for myself to read, play a few video games, and do one of my favorite hobbies: build legos.

I LOVE legos. And yes, I am a grown man (allegedly), but I still love them. They are ridiculously expensive these days, but still a lot of fun. So I sat down a couple evenings in a row, turned on Star Wars, and built me some Star Wars legos.

I bought this TIE Fighter and X-Wing Mashup set (Set #75393) when it came out at the beginning of August. It’s from a new animated Star Wars show on Disney Plus called Rebuild the Galaxy. In the show the universe gets all mixed up and the main characters have to fix it before the universe is destroyed. The show’s ok, my kids liked it but I wasn’t that entertained.

But what I really wanted out of the lego set was this: a lego Chir’Daki.

They don’t call it that in the show. They call it an X-Fighter or something. But to me, this will always be a Chir’Daki from the excellent Michael Stackpole novel X-Wing: The Bacta War. In the novel a group of Twi’lek pilots from Ryloth have slapped together a bunch of spare parts into one of the deadliest light fighters in existence.

Called the Chir’Daki, or Death Seed, the craft uses the cockpit section from a TIE fighter mated to the engines and wings of an X-Wing. Getting the best of both worlds, the craft is fast, nimble, and deadly, and I love it.

Building this set made me happy and helped recharge my battery a bit. Now I get to sit this set in my office (somewhere among all the clutter) and it’ll remind me to take it easier and remember why I enjoy doing what I do.

What do you do when you get burnt out? What works for you to recharge your battery? Let me know in the comments.

Until then, take care!