Thaddeus Nowak's Blog: Thoughts and Observations

Excited for another great Planet Comicon

I’ve been fortunate enough to attend Planet Comicon each year for over a decade now. My first appearance was in 2014 and I was so very new to the whole experience. Today I loaded in my merchandise and displays in just about an hour. I won’t say the process is old hat, but it has become familiar in the sense of something comfortable and reassuring. It is like a favorite jacket that just fits and I always want to come back to.

I’m excited to get a chance to catch up with the many creative and talented people I’ve not been able to see in person since last year. I love to hear what everyone’s been working on and re-fill my own energy banks. Too often the day-to-day of regular life steals away our time. I also enjoy seeing the multitudes of people taking the weekend to enjoy their passions and live in the moment, if only for a brief time. It is good to just experience life for a while and embrace the things that bring us pleasure. I hope you all will find time to do something for yourselves this weekend, and if that includes Planet Comicon, then I’ll see you there.

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The first book in a new series

I have had Snow Cat’s Shadow bouncing around in my head for several years now. My biggest challenge had been scaling this epic story down into novel size chunks. Over the last 12 months I’ve managed to finish the first installment of the Snow Cat Series, as well as start a new series featuring Stephenie (Queen of Ista). Both new books are releasing on the same day! (28/29 Feb 2024 depending on time zone.)

The Snow Cat Series will follow Kadia as she decides how she wants to deal with living in a country occupied by southern invaders.

While it is set in the same world as the Queen of Ista Series and Heirs of Cothel Series, the lives of the characters are separate. 

You can pre-order the Kindle version of Snow Cat’s Shadow now through my affiliate link.

If you also want a signed physical copy of the new book, I’ll be at Planet Comicon, which takes place in Kansas City this year from 8  to 10 March. It is the 25th anniversary event and there are some great guests.

Looking forward to seeing everyone there!

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A new book featuring Stephenie

The last 12 months have flown by, but I’ve not been idle. In fact, I’ve got two new novels releasing on the same day! (28/29 Feb 2024 depending on time zone.)

I have a new series, called the Queen of Ista Series which starts with the Queen of Isa. This new book picks up 3 years after the Heirs of Cothel Series ends with Father’s Legacy.

You can pre-order the Kindle version of Queen of Ista  now through my affiliate link.

If you also want a signed physical copy of the new book, I’ll be at Planet Comicon, which takes place in Kansas City this year from 8  to 10 March. It is the 25th anniversary event and there are some great guests.

Looking forward to seeing everyone there!

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My own lockpicking history

A long time ago, a locksmith once told me “Locks are only to keep the honest person honest.” I was in my early teens and don’t remember who it was that said it, but that statement has always stayed with me. It applies to all manner of security, from computers to physical protections. Too much of security has always relied on people not understanding how it works. For those who know the secrets, bypassing the protections becomes easier.

As a curious person, I have always tried to learn the internals of things. I like the challenge of it as well as just the fact that I acquired new knowledge. Some might refer to it as being a lifelong learner, but I think the drive more primal. I’m just not satisfied until I know the truth of something.

In writing

As a writer, I often imagine my characters in unusual situations, trying to use skills that I might not have. This leads to spending too much time diving into the depths of the internet. Sometimes emerging hours later with a whole new list of other things I want to learn about. Deep down, I know I can’t waste as much time as I do, but it doesn’t stop the desire.

For me, locks and lockpicking have been one of those topics. I have multiple characters in different manuscripts that have picked locks. You can see people doing it all the time on television, and based on a typical portrayal, one can easily assume bypassing locks takes only seconds. Plenty examples exist that show people only locks in seconds. The LockPickingLawyer has demonstrated that in almost 1500 videos about opening locks. However, he’s spent years honing his craft and making new tools to open locks. In video 1147, Locksmith Says My Videos are BS… Loses $75 (Maybe), he mentions that many locksmiths lack the tools to open some types of locks. He also has other videos talking about have hundreds of locks that he will sit down with in the evening and pick through them (so that he doesn’t just learn a single lock’s patterns, but how to approach any lock).

While I do not aspire to achieve the skills of the LockPickingLawyer, I do want to learn more about bypassing locks and locksport. To that end, I now have a few locks and tools from Covert Instruments (not a sponsored link) as well as some picks and additional practice locks from a couple of other sites. The tools themselves are not expensive and there is a wealth of information on YouTube and other locations on how to open locks. I’m still practicing and learning, and even getting frustrated with some locks, but overall, I find enjoyment in the activity (and I’ll never represent the skill as merely inserting a bit of twisted wire into a lock and giggling it.)

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Burnout

A little more than three years ago, I started to suffer from burnout. Unfortunately, I didn’t fully recognize it and probably felt a bit too proud and invincible to try and prevent it. As a Gen Xer, my first instinct does not include getting help, but instead to suck it up (an approach I don’t recommend). The stress definitely came from the day job. My hours gradually increased from the 50s to stay between 60 and 80 a week. A lot of the creative things I liked to do fell to the side due to a lack of time and then the impact of the pandemic. Initially, I thought working from home full time would free me up to do so much more, but instead it trapped me further into my day job and contributed to me working way too many hours.

Depending on who you ask, job burnout might not be a real medical diagnosis, but it definitely has real symptoms (Mayo Clinic: Job burnout: How to spot it and take action). I ended up struggling to be creative and spent my downtime as a zombie watching TV and scrolling through my phone. It wasn’t pretty, but I continued to try to keep myself engaged until finally I couldn’t.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom. I managed to lose a fair amount of weight that first year and dropped to almost 165 pounds (I’ve found my nemesis: eating out). The neighborhood had a nice tree covered path and I would try to get in 3-5 miles of walking/jogging on most days. Honestly, that time outdoors helped to fight a lot of the symptoms, but it really wasn’t enough. I tried forcing some creative activities, but my mental tank had run dry.

Not having consistent writing time hurt me the most. When I don’t get time to write, it impacts me at so many levels.

The start of recovery from burnout

So a little more than two years ago, I changed jobs, and at the end of 2020, I made a post about some of the struggles I had the prior year. I just had a three week break between jobs and I felt real excitement for the first time in a while and had a whole list of things I had planned to do in 2021.

However, recovery from burnout turned out harder than I had expected. The new day job remains a thousand times better than the old one, especially with work/life balance. The problem is I spent more than a year developing bad habits and allowing my mental health to spiral (the impactful stories go back more than half a decade—I should write a book).

The truth: my optimism exceeded the reality of what a short break and a new job would magically cure. Add in some natural anxiety about a new role, mental energy spent to learn and adapt to that new existence, and my already empty tank did not fill up very fast.

On top of that, we had new challenges with the health of a family member and circumstances that prompted us to start the process for having a house built (not expected to be finished until fall 2022). Before we knew it, 2021 evaporated into the ether.

With 2022 on the horizon, and the fact that I decided to just go to Planet Comicon in the fall of 2021 as an attendee, I had a strong desire to enter 2022 with gusto. I did throw myself into expanding on my creative activities and started building things like the model of Stephenie’s Tower. I had to race to make progress on that as I wanted to bring it to Planet in the spring of 2022, which I did manage to bring at least the first floor to the convention. Planet 2022 treated me great and I am thankful for everyone that attended and stopped by my table.

However, I was still not out of my funk. I still felt lingering traces of burnout (I still feel some today). We still had to deal with the medical issues in the family and the effort to have the house built. Even though we had months to go, we started to consolidate things, put things in boxes, move things into storage, and take care of a million things.

During that time, I didn’t get much of a mental recharge. I think I pretty much just existed. And worst, my writing continued to suffer.

The next phase of burnout recovery

In Aug of 2022, we finally moved into our new house. I have a third of the basement dedicated to a maker’s space and moved my 3d printer out of my office into a back room in the basement. The family health issues came to an end, not in the way we wanted, but in a manner that was not wholly unexpected. And as 2022 came to a close, we’ve finally settled into our new space, where it feels like home.

There are still a few things left to deal with, I again have about 15 pounds to lose (eating out is addictive), I don’t yet have the spray booth I need in order to use my airbrush, there are a handful of household projects, but what is most important to my recovery: I’ve been able to make more consistent time to write again.

I could talk more about the psychology of entering, living through, and recovering from burnout, but I’ll save that for another post, as this one is already too long and I want to get back to working on my novel.

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We are what we do

A habit, according to Merriam-Webster, is “a settled tendency or usual manner of behavior.”

In general, habits make up who we are and what we do. They are shortcuts that allow us to function without overwhelming our brains. They make up our personalities and influence our view of the world because they become ingrained in our day to day life. The choices of what you eat in the morning, the types of movies you watch, the genre of books you read, these come from a lifetime of previous choices that culminate into who you are now.

Habits come from the mountain of prior living that lets you function. Disrupt those habits and chaos flows in. The scope of the life changes impact the amount of disruption.

Over a year ago

In 2018, after we lost our horse, we sold our house that we had lived in for fifteen years and moved into an apartment about 30 miles from where we had been living. Our intent had been to move out of the area in the near future (mountains and trails were calling to us). However, external circumstances arose that force us to move into a townhouse only a few months later. In 2021, a slew of events necessitated another move, and so we started the process of having a house built (though still not near mountains).

While these activities were disruptive, most of the habits we had formed in those years held. We could walk to a number of nearby restaurants, the stores we liked to shop at were in easy distance, and even though my creative space was cramped and overrun with the day-job office, I knew were to put my keys and glasses.

In Aug 2022, we moved into the new house and that is when chaos broke. Even though I knew what to expect, I no longer had my computer set up as normal, my things were scattered over three floors, my glasses were never where I needed them (and I hate needing them). The habits that got me through the day no longer worked. No matter how hard I tried to forced my old habits to function, they rebelled and worked against me. What should have taken seconds was taking minutes and minutes turned to many minutes. 

New habits

The good news, habits and behaviors can change. Not always easily, but with enough determination, I now have a place to put my keys, my makerspace in the basement is coming along, and as of last night, I completed the cable management of my desk (no more rats nest of wires).

While we still don’t have mountains in our backyard to trek through, we definitely will create a habit of visiting them more. And while having the house built didn’t destroy my habits, it did consume way too much time and energy. Now that I am unpacked and settled, I’m anxious to be back to creating.

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The process of building things

No matter how many times I get to the end of a project and reinforce the notion of trusting the process, I still get that terrible feeling of having just ruined hours, or even weeks, worth of effort because an intermediate step looks absolutely terrible. I am certain that imposter syndrome plays a factor in this mindset that I fall into. I have suffered from that my whole life, and still do. Perhaps that explains why the Fake it Till You Make it TED Talk by Amy Cuddy appealed to me so much: I always think I am faking it.

However, I remind myself I am not alone in those feelings and that if I trust the process, the end results will look good. And, even if they don’t, I’ll have learned something along the way and can refine my process for the next time around. Constant learning, refactoring, and building reinforce and cycle of improvement. That principle applies to so much of life, not just building models or writing books.

The tower

The primary focus of this post is Stephenie’s Tower. As you can see from the image at the top of the post, I’ve nearly finished with the first floor before Planet Comicon. Yeah!!!! I will be at tables 2245/2247 in the Artist Alley and will have the model with me. Anyone who wants to get a closer look will have the chance. However, for those who cannot make it, as well as to document what it took to produce the above model, I’ve included a bunch of photos I took while getting there.

What has gone into the model

Later this year I hope to have a much bigger, and dedicated, maker space. Having to tear down lighting and equipment after use eats up time, and as a result, too often I simply skip doing it. Which led to the brevity of blog posts (A Tower of My Own) and the one video Tour of Stephenie’s Tower. I am looking forward to having a permanent space to do the builds and shoot more video.

So, from the beginning of the build process to the end, I have done the following high-level tasks:

Built the frame for the modelUsed styrofoam and SculptAMold to fill in the base and set the basic ground structure (Amazon affiliate link)Started cutting the XPS pink foam into blocks and gluing them down to the base (I didn’t want to just texture the surface of a large sheet of foam)Designed and 3D printed a support ring so that the walls could support the weight (big round white circle with four posts)Tried to level the wall, though my work table is not entirely level, which made this hardFilled the interior with excess form parts and SculptAMold (that took a while to dry)Glued down the support ring when I got the base to the proper heightPoured a thin layer of Plaster of Paris to try and get a level floor (didn’t work exactly as planned)Cut an EVA foam circle for a floor underlayment to cover some of the wavy floor issues (Amazon affiliate link)Continued to work on cutting and gluing blocks for the walls, also poured in Plaster of Paris to the middle of the walls to strengthen them (generous infill of foam rubble as well)Designed and printed a jig to do the front entranceBuilt the external stairs using pink foam and EVA foam, created and printed some jigs for cutting the foamBuilt the entrance out of EVA foam and pink foam and made it removable so it would be easier to paint and install a doorDecided that manually creating the stairs was too much work, and designed and printed a set of stairs for the interior wall (it made getting the curve in the wall much easier since I already had the white circle in FreeCAD)Found the stairs were too steep, so I modified the design and printed a new setFound I didn’t like the stair going all the way to the floor (I’d been arguing with myself on how to handle it) so I used my Dremel tool and cut off the bottom of the stairsContinued cutting, fitting, and gluing blocks (the inside was hard to do because of limited space and a reverse angle)Designed and printed a jig to cut the EVA foam stair supports (first design was bad and I cut myself)Designed a new jig to avoid combing flesh with sharpened steel (much better results)Designed the fireplace  out of EVA foam and glued it togetherCut out the back wall to make room for the fireplaceDesigned and printed anther jig to cut the floor tilesCut and then used the Dremel tool to sand the tops and edges of all the floor tiles to give them characterGlued and fitted the floor tilesUsed very watered down Plaster of Paris as groutCovered everything with a few coats of black primer using my air brush (I love my Iwata brushes) (and that is another Amazon affiliate link, it does help)Put on a coat of grey paint with normal paint brush on the wallsPainted several bricks with various colors (blues, tans, yellow/browns and this is where things start to look weird)Dry brushed on some tansDry brushed on the grey againDry brushed on limited white highlights (downward strokes only)For the floors, put down a couple of coats of cream paintPainted some tiles with various colors (purple, yellow/browns, tan)Added some purple stripingDry brushed on the creamDry brushed on a limited white highlightDry brushed on some soot and smoke stains to the fireplaceCoated the model with gloss varnish so the oil wash will flow better (back to the air brush)Mixed up black and brown oil washes (little paint, lots of thinner) coated everything with black and some select places with brown (e.g. the floor)Let the oil wash dry, then removed with small makeup sponges soaked in thinner (went through a number of them)Let everything dry and then added a coat of matte varnish Let it dry and then got out the Scenic Cement, ballast, and various ground covers; loaded down the surface with the glue, added a mix of ballast for ground cover (light and dark brown) then added grass and foliage (affiliate link)Dosed everything with more cement and let it dryStarted working on the second floor using the support ring and cut dowels to act as floor joists, which I had to drill holes in the ends so I can insert nails to hold the dowels in place as the glue wasn’t sticking to the plasticFor the fire, take dust from sanding, put it on a plastic square for easier removal, add black and brown ink, Scenic Cement, and then mixGlue small strips of wood scrap and cotton to the top Paint yellow, orange, red, and grey with airbrushRemove fire from plastic and glue in place

So, with the long list of steps done, below are some pictures of the process.

Tower Construction

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Not everything is a nail

Tools come in all shapes and sizes and purposes. If you are outside of a given field of knowledge, you might not realize just how specialized some tools can be. For example, until I took those blacksmithing classes, I never could have imagined the number of tongs and hammers that existed. And this limited belief existed even when I had previously taken some blacksmithing classes (the skill and background of an instructor is really important).

When I start something new, too often I fall into the trap of thinking everything is a nail and I just need to find something to bludgeon it into place. For example, I needed long strips of 5mm x 5mm EVA foam cut on a diagonal. These are to go under the interior stairs to offer support. My first attempt involved using the utility knife and a ruler to cut the strips by hand. Which I then tied to turn on its side and slice into a pair of triangle shaped pieces.

As you can imagine, that did not work well. I knew I needed better tools. So I printed the small block that had one edge that was a 5mm x 5mm corner and the other side, a channel with 5mm x 5mm opening on the diagonal. I cut my foam pieces to length, then used my fingers to tension the piece as I sliced it in half. This tool failed on three fronts:

It was too short and when I cut the long strips, it left marks every time I repositioned it to resume cuttingMy finger pressure when cutting on the diagonal could not remain consistent enough to hold the piece in place to get a straight cutThe utility knife is sharp and flesh is weak Why I love 3D printing

The 3rd issue prompted version 2 of my tool. Until that point, I still wanted to bludgeon things into place. So I jumped back on FreeCAD and designed a couple more tools. The more I play with the software, the faster I get at putting things together. And my Prusa printer kicks out the 3D models quickly enough that I can remain productive.

I fixed issue 2 and 3 by making a pair of interlocking pieces that included space for a channel for the utility knife. No more cutting off part of my finger and the pressure on the top and bottom of the EVA foam remained consistent because it could not move in the channel. I also printed up a long tool so that I could get straight cuts without having to reposition the jig multiple times. The long jig I later printed with various sized edges so I could also make the stair steps in an easier and more consistent way.

Tools for support

Some of the tools I created for the tower are just for support. The stairs and the large circle are there to remain in the tower’s structure. The circle piece I will use for each floor as a flat base in the outer wall. The stair support I designed in FreeCAD to allow for variable depth, width, and height of the stairs. Each floor could end up with a slightly different number of steps and I found printing the part much easier than cutting pink foam by hand (which I did for the outside stairs). I’ll talk more about that in a separate post.

The odd rounded shape I used to build the entry into the tower. I needed something to act as a support structure while I place foam blocks over it to create an arch. This is not dissimilar to arched stone passages are made at full sale, only in real life, the tools used might be wooden supports that are later removed.

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Axes and Blacksmithing

As I mentioned last year in a blog post on 3D Printing, I planned to take some blacksmithing classes from The Blacksmith Shop in Omaha. I had enrolled in two classes on back-to-back weekends. The basic blacksmithing class the first weekend and the axe class, taught by John Thompson of Dwarf Mountain Knives the second weekend. I finished both classes at the end of January and I made the axes above with John’s very helpful instruction.

I’ve known John, and his wife Trena, for a number of years now because I’ve bought a fair number of blades from them at the KC Renaissance Festival. It was great having a chance to meet up with them both weekends and really made the experience so much better. Nothing tastes better than dinner with friends after a long day at the forge.

Learning at The Blacksmith shop

I had taken a set of blacksmithing classes a number of years ago, but using a gas forge in an enclosed shop has some advantages to working with coal outdoors. Elmo, the owner of The Blacksmith Shop, has a huge room full of tools. There is a wall of hammers, racks of tongs, many anvils, and lots of power tools (only a few of which we used). I never realized just how varied, and specializes, hammers could be.

The basic class teaches you to use the hand tools to move metal. We made leaves so that we can learn how to direct and shift metal, we drew out and thinned square rods, create twists, and learned a better way to make 90-degree bends. That first weekend, I came home with a wall hook, a plant hanger, and a fire poker. As well as a fairly sore body.

The axe class occurred the following weekend and we made a throwing axe and a hatchet over the two-day period. I was the only one foolish enough to do classes back to back. Most of the people who use The Blacksmith Shop will only use it for a couple of hours per week. Rarely will anyone ever do a full day’s work hammering away by hand, let alone two days in a row. It really made me appreciate those blacksmiths of the past who had no access to power tools.

Making the axes

John really did a good job in walking the class through the process of making the axes. He learned a lot through trial and error, and all those years of experience makes huge a difference. It highlights why it is important to pay a crafter a proper amount for their work, the raw materials of a product are only a small part of the price.

The throwing axe is my favorite. We took a high carbon steel bit and sandwitched it inside mild steel. The first weekend, when working with the mild steel only, we could quench our work regularly to cool it when needed, but you cannot do that with high carbon steel. We when drew out the blade with hammers and when we got something thin enough and in the general shape, we moved to sanders to get the profile to the desired shape. I also learned why there are so many types of tongs. Even small differences in the size of a piece can require a different set of tongs.

The hatchet used a similar technique, but we had a much smaller bit and made the eye in a different fashion. Due to time constraints, I didn’t take many photos of making the hatchet. I also opted to do a forge finish on the hatched instead of polishing it. Below are pictures of both weekends.

Cart of tongsThe ForgeCutting off a piece of steelCleaning up the sharp edgesPlant hanger and hookFire poker with twist and wrapSpot welded billet for axeThe forgeAxe billet ready forge weldingFluxing the billetDrawing out the axeQuenching the axeThrowing axe ready to shapeAxe head shapedReady to clean up the eyeFinishing the axe surfaceThrowing axe completeHatchet complete Previous Next What's next?

I had a ton of fun doing these classes and would definitely go back to do the blade class. I may look for a makerspace in the Kansas City area that has a forge and tools, as it is not something I would be able to get away with at home. However, I have other projects and tasks to complete, so it won’t be something I do right away (and the classes for 2022 at The Blacksmith Shop are full or getting full, so if you are interested, sign up early).

I did get what I wanted out of the classes. I got to learn a bit more about blacksmithing and working steel, which I will try to incorporate into my writing somewhere. I ended up with a couple of axes. I got to hang out with John and Trena (I highly recommend Dwarf Mountain Knives). And most importantly, I had a lot of fun!

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