This is my two-hundredth post on this WordPress. Let’s ignore that I took several month-long hiatuses, and that my posting is spotty at best, and focus on how awesome this sort of milestone is. The only major disappointment I have is that this isn’t also day forty-two of my One Hundred Days of Blogging. Oh well. I’ll just have to celebrate like a hitchhiker traveling the galaxy in tomorrow’s post.

Now I could very easily talk numbers about Misadventures In Fiction, but that would be a pretty short and sad post. And it would interfere with my vacation prep week posts. Can’t very well let that happen. Mostly because my viewing figures are actually on the same level as some reality TV shows, and that’s a little soul-deadening.

Quick update to the intro before I continue (I have methods to my madness and I don’t like deviating from them) – Apparently, as part of the contract I won through Cary Press, I’ll be having a book release party? So that’s mind-blowingly exciting stuff. I have no idea how to react right now other than “Oh wow, holy shit”. Probably the appropriate reaction, right? More details on this, and Joshua Harkin and the Wicked Nightmare King‘s release, as possible. So exciting!

Day Forty-One – Packing: it’s quite the process

Hi. My name’s Phil, and I’m a terrible procrastinator. However, I’m also guilty of over-planning. The two don’t mesh very well, as if that needed saying. It’s especially awful when I’m packing for a trip. Yes, I’m aware that the essentials consist of making sure I have enough clothes for however many days I’ll be gone, bathroom supplies, and a phone charger (yes, a phone charger is essential and don’t you dare try to say otherwise). However, I can’t just pack clothes, bathroom stuff, and my phone charger and be done. There has to be more to the packing for a trip than that. I’m pretty sure science confirms this as fact.

My ideas on what constitutes the essentials include at least one notebook, at least one good pen (I have to be picky about this, people), one handheld video game (3DS or Vita are the two choices presently), a charger for said video game system, a car charger for my phone, and my laptop or Surface 2 tablet. These are all, as far as I’m concerned, essential items to a trip’s success.

But Phil, why are video games listed in essentials but not books? Excellent question, device-used-for-moving-my-post-forward. While traveling, I want to be able to enjoy what I’m doing, but also have a little downtime. Video games trump books in that regard because I have an easier time putting video games down than I do books. I could very easily waste an entire day, at least, reading. Noteworthy and note helpful to my not spending entire days reading when I should be enjoying the sights, etc: I have a Nook app on my Surface 2. So there goes that reasoning.

I typically like to have a suitcase, depending on the length of the trip, but I have been known to use grocery store bags for shorter adventures. I also pack a bag of things to have in my passenger seat for easy access, should the need arise. Important things like snacks, drinks, and so on.

At this point, I’m pretty much just counting the hours until I leave for vacation. It’s great, but it’s also not packing. Odds are that I’ll be stuffing a suitcase with all my things for this trip on Wednesday night (I work Thursday morning and plan on getting on the road as soon as possible after that). At least I accept that as an inevitability instead of beating myself up for it.

Fifty-nine days remaining.