more and more done

I've created crosswords (based on Substack grammar material) and a word find (based on my latest walk blog, Kevin's Walk 9) for The Entertaining section of my paid Substack, so I now have enough The Entertaining material to last through February 18. Just one more game/puzzle to go, and I'll have covered February. Think about joining the paying subscribers to try out the crosswords and the word find. Another word find will be completed by Wednesday evening. Where things stand right now:

1. The Superficial: Material through February is done.
2. The Profound: Material through January 19 is done (work, slave!).
3. The Creative: Material through February is done.
4. The Entertaining: Material through February 18 is done. One more to go.

Material for The Profound always takes the longest. Once I finish the last word find for The Entertaining, I'll devote all my energies to finishing up The Profound. Once that's done, I'll have a few weeks' breathing room to work on video projects, cartoon projects (many of which will appear on The Creative), book projects, etc. 

Most immediate book project: the dead-tree printing of a new round of my homeschooling book, with the manuscript now including the full Korean translation. This will mean using up another of my precious ISBNs; Bowker (the ISBN-issuing company) sells them in batches of ten, and every time you make a change to your manuscript, you need to use a different number. The manuscript will also go online as a Kindle ebook on Amazon. Printing the dead-tree book in Korea can be done at least two ways: (1) the way I did it last time, by creating a PDF version of the manuscript and printing it at that print shop by Seoul National University, or (2) by using a totally different publishing company whose gigantic sign I happened to pass by during my walk last year; I need to go visit those people and ask them whether they'd be a good fit for me. If yes, and if they're willing to help with marketing and selling the book, I might lean on them to also help me publish EFL textbooks for Korean students for elementary, junior high, and high school students. Of course, I haven't created those textbooks yet, but that might become a priority depending on what they tell me. My other book projects include a book about my long walks, a movie-review book (probably a series) and other books based on ideas that are currently still vague and amorphous.

On the video front, I have several ideas burbling in my head, most of them random and jumbled right now, but the point is just to start doing them. You can't get better at video-making if you never try to do it, just as the wolf never gets to eat if all he does is circle the fire. As for cartooning: I've had several ideas, recently, for comic strips. Whether I'll be able to maintain the creative energy necessary to produce interesting stories and scenarios is a huge if as I've never done that before, but I'm planning to leap before I look.

So—lots of stuff happening, lots of plates being spun. And I've got only a few months to see whether any of this effort will pay off.