01.31.07
Link Wednesday: Mashup Potatoes
Technically my little deal from yesterday wasn’t exactly a “hack”– it’s more appropriately defined as a “mashup”. Also, it was pointed out to me that the Wii could use Google Reader to handle all the RSS feeds you could want, but then again, Reader doesn’t make the disc tray glow blue. And as everyone knows, glowing = better. Ordinarily I’d go back and revise it, but nobody’s seen it, so who really cares?
Anyway, speaking of mashups, I’d completely forgotten that the Mickey/Mizuguchi mashup “Meteos: Disney Magic” was going to be out next month until I saw this article about how the DS is “addictive” and an “American Obsession”. Sounds like the author is a mashup of Penny Arcade and Jack Thompson, whilst somehow managing not to annihilate himself between the two opposing forces.
Terse authors: the results are brilliant. Orson Scott Card; mixed emotions continue.
I’d link this with more zeal, if it actually let me save the images it produced, but in the vein of the Objection Maker, there’s the 360 Achievement Maker. You can get yer comedy here, folks, but you can’t take it with you.
Inconsequential Update: Over 75,000 words done and under 21 scenes to go. I added another scene to the outline, and realized that I may want to rewrite one of the existing scenes, but I’ll save that for once the draft is complete. I’m still well on track and finishing roughly six or seven three or four scenes a week, so three five weeks’ time for a ready draft isn’t terribly unfeasible. I still have yet to get up the nerve to approach an agent.
Incidentally, it occurred to me while looking through some old data the other day that in May, I will have been keeping a regular journal for six straight years (the stuff from 2001 to 2003 was done in a service that’s now defunct, but the archive of it that I have isn’t going to be released anytime soon). Odd, isn’t it? Doesn’t feel like six years.
EDITed because I suck at math this morning.
Ismail Saeed said,
01.31.07 at 7:46 am
If you complete six or seven scenes a week… wasn’t it more than a week ago that you had 25 scenes left? And now you say 21….
John said,
01.31.07 at 8:14 am
Corrected now. Sorry, early morning lapse of intelligence. Also, technically I\’ve written seven scenes since the 18th (the date I claimed 25 left)– one was added and another is currently in progress. Ah well, still messy math.
Ismail Saeed said,
02.01.07 at 1:58 pm
Regarding the terse stuff:
Some of it is great. Atwood comes to mind.
Some of it is awful.
If they were going to include “game” writers, they should have included writers from games other than first person shooters. I mean, really, Marc Laidlaw making a noob joke? Let’s see what someone who does real worldbuilding can do in six words. Someone at Bioware, or Hironobu Sakaguchi, or so on.
Hemingway still probably does better than most all of them, except for a few inspired ones. Seriously, his is crushing.
Grey said,
02.01.07 at 2:33 pm
With regards to the terse thing, I’d have to say that Atwood’s first is by far the best, and other than that there’s only really one more I liked. Most people didn’t take it very seriously, or went with some cheesy sci-fi thing (how many times did the sun go nova on that page?) Interesting challenge though, and I think Hemingway is the only one to properly use it to hint at a personal and emotional story.
I agree with Slipgate that the video game ones were… simply awful. I don’t think better calibre game writers would have done much better though - probably would have been something equally gimmicky.
Rob Browning said,
02.01.07 at 8:30 pm
Marc Laidlaw is one of the best writers in video games today. The fact that it’s mostly “show” instead of “tell” is irrelevant, and actually could be argued to prove the point.
Rob
Rob Browning said,
02.01.07 at 8:41 pm
Oh, and if you’re looking for good quotes from game writers, Steve Meretsky’s are some of the best on there. The Star Wars one had me rolling. And the worst quotes are the ones related to American politics.
“Bush a dickhead? I never noticed.”
Rob