Ok, apparently, I’ve been terribly neglectful of my blog these past few days.  I’ve actually got two entries in draft form that I just haven’t quite finished yet.  So, in an effort to catch myself up on some of my happenings the last few days, here’s a short bullet-list:

• Remember when I posted a visual writing prompt?  Well, at the time I didn’t have any takers and so I just never quite found the motivation to post up another.  The MasterKidderMinster wrote a bit of flash fiction that he told me about a few days ago.  It’s a pretty good read and a lot of fun to see the direction he took the image.  He’s requested that I continue the writing prompts, so plan to see a new one show up on Friday.
• My Dune book giveaway has been met with a somewhat lukewarm response – six entries.  I’d love to see at least a few more folks enter the contest to win this wonderful science fiction novel by one of SF’s greatest.  The contest is open until Wednesday, so there’s still plenty of time.
• Awhile back, I read Jayne d’Arcy’s lament on her blog about needing a new custom theme but having trouble finding someone who could produce one at a reasonable cost.  Well, I volunteered to build one for her for free, since I love building WordPress themes so much, so that’s part of what kept me away from here so much last week.  If you want to see the final product, head over to Jayne’s blog and check it out.
• I’ve also started a couple of new projects, which are the other parts of what has kept me from blogging much lately.  The first is called Mendicant Bias and is a repository of Halo 3 screenshots I’ve captured.  None of these shots have been modified in any way, other than to resize them down a bit.  There are a lot of creative ways of taking interesting shots in Halo 3, and it’s been fun trying to find them.  The other project I’m working on is a Halo-based comic built exclusively from screenshots.  This project is called Reclaimer and is something I’m planning on producing on a weekly basis for the foreseeable future.  We’ll see how things go on that front.

• Flashes of Speculation has relaunched and there has been a pretty good response, both in stories submitted and in readers who have commented.  I’m always looking for new writers, stories, and readers, so if you fall into any of those categories, head over there and find out how you can get involved.

  There are a few other things going on right now, as well, but I’ll announce those as they present themselves.  I’m looking forward to getting back to doing some actual writing, both blog-wise and fiction-wise.  I’ve got a great dark sci-fi piece I want to start on this week and a couple of other small pieces. 

  Lots of good stuff happening.  I can’t wait to share more of it.

Brandon Sanderson has read the final Harry Potter installment.  He had, in part, this to say about it:

Initial thoughts: I liked it, as I’ve liked all of the other HP books.  However, it lacked the charm of the books that occurred inside of Hogwarts. (Source: Brandon Sanderson)

That, for me, was probably the main thing about the last book that I disliked about it.  I missed the uniqueness of Hogwarts and the interactions with the students and the teachers.  It made sense that something near the end would have to take place away from the school, since Harry had to explore his roots in order to understand better how to defeat Voldemort.  It just would have been nice to spend a little more time at the school.  I didn’t really expect much of the story to take place there, though, since the conclusion to Book 6 made it pretty clear that Harry didn’t intend to go back for his last year. 

I’d still love to see some sequels to the series to fill in the years between Voldemort’s demise and the epilogue.  Whether Rowling decides to break her word and actually write such books, however, remains to be seen.