Tonight’s the night of magic, folks. In order to prepare for that, though, I think it best to just do a great big thought-dump and have all the stuff cluttering my mind just out. So, here we go.
Tabula Rasa starts up this week– pre-order folks are already enjoying the game. I logged in last night and intend to do so again tonight; the quick verdict is that I’m really excited. I hadn’t played the beta much– well, at all– since about early July, and that was due to the fact that it was a beta, and I was sort of impatient. I’ve since learned my lesson that I’m not exactly the kind of person suited to being a beta tester, which makes sense now, but disappointed me initially. Regardless of my own perspective, though, I can honestly say the game has made significant improvements over what I saw in June and July. It’s rock-solid and fantastically engaging, and many of the issues I’d had with performance are completely gone. Yes, it is still a level treadmill, but it’s a fun one. I’ll probably be playing it off and on through November, while the last mass-access bugs are kinked out and while the majority of my time is spent writing, but in December, things should heat up on that front.
Speaking of games, I’ve been quite reluctant to play The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, but I did finally swallow my pride and set the game on my rental queue. It should arrive tomorrow or Friday, and likely won’t be touched for weeks. But I’ll at least make an effort. The thing is, I haven’t really gotten over my distaste for Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker just yet, but I’m hoping that the new rendition will be worth a look. It’s the same thing with the Final Fantasy games; some of them have been less than stellar, but I’ll more than likely always give them a try to see if the next one will be good. Though I will say this, actually, about FF: the WiiWare-exclusive game, something about the “small king”, looks really interesting.
Continuing a little bit with yesterday’s random incursion into “More Posts About Writing And Food”, I had to get Halloween candy this morning, because I completely forgot about it up to this point. I wound up getting a bag of Smarties. Now, I realize that some of the non-American readers might wonder at the bile I have for relatively inoffensive candies. What are called “Smarties” in, say, Canada, are chocolate bits covered in candy shells; Americans know those as “M&Ms”. I like M&Ms. What Americans know as “Smarties” are in fact small, button-sized multicolored discs of pure, flavorless tart sugar. Outside of the US they’re known as “Rockets” or “Fruit Tingles”. Presumably the different colors indicate different flavors but they all taste like pure concentrated citric acid to me; I actually have a hard time taking vitamin C pills because they remind me of the taste so much. They are the single most vile candy on the face of the planet, and I despise them unequivocally. So, naturally, when I was a child and I went trick-or-treating, I would invariably wind up with a ton of them in my bag. So, yes, I willfully bought candy I would never even consider eating myself, for two reasons: One, at least I’m not the jerk who hands out raisins or pennies or something silly; and two, if I had to eat those nasty things, then by God, the kids of today are going to eat them too. I also bought a bag of Dum-Dum pops because I actually like those, and because I am a pretty big jerk, in point of fact.
GMail is nice, and I’m pretty much pot-committed to it– it’s got the better part of four years of email in it now. There are, however, some minor issues I’m shocked to note are still in the service. Primarily, the fact that there’s no “Mark as Read” action that can be applied to incoming messages via filters. Good Lord, this is something that’s been in Outlook since day one! I am a bit of a pack-rat, admittedly, so I keep every non-spam email I get, but I don’t need to have my Receipts label permanently bolded because I haven’t taken the time to read the receipts that pile up in there. There’s reports that a new version is coming soon, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the filters get improved as much as the contacts tool did.
Unrelated: Kotaku’s comments system is just plain broken; I tried making a remark on this bit of Pokemadness but the login button didn’t respond for me in Firefox. While I was able to log in using IE6, I then couldn’t actually submit my comment. I am irritated.
Back to food, I went on a neat little rant about blueberries this afternoon and I’m thinking it has a place in the novel. You know, establishing the nature of the kids. I’ll save it for the book, where it will be expanded.
I go now to frighten and mildly irritate children who dare pass my threshhold. Catch you all in November.
Just a quick lunchtime note. I’ve been a fan of Clif Bars for a few months now– actually, since about December or so– but I’d been limited to only the kinds I could find in stores nearby. I took a trip down to an organic grocery store last night and came across a handful of flavors I hadn’t seen before. Prime among them was “Carrot Cake”.
Short answer: I have a new favorite kind of the bar.
EDIT: Believe me, I know this is boring news, but let’s be honest here. It’s carrot cake. What kind of a reaction were you exactly hoping for it to elicit out of me, revulsion? It combines two of my favorite foods. The only way it could be better would be if it were chocolate covered, but let’s not get overly silly.
Whenever I get a rejection letter or something similar with regards to my writing, the people around me who hear about it react with some sense of wonder. “You’re so creative,” they say; “How do you come up with that kind of stuff?” I always tend to shrug it off– or, more likely, point to the rejection letter as proof that I’m not nearly as ‘creative’ as they or I seem to think I am. But to be honest, I’ve been giving a little bit of thought to it, and I might have a little insight into it.
First, though, I did want to share this link, 110+ Resources of Creative Minds, which actually got me thinking about it. There’re a lot of things in there which I feel are pretty universal– that is, stuff that applies to everyone, regardless of whether they are creative or aspire to creativity. I encourage everyone to give it a look (and 110 is really such a small number, actually…).
A few weeks ago, Pez said something that got to me– he said that I was a “naturally creative person” (and I hope he’ll forgive me if perhaps that’s a slight paraphrase. I’m pretty sure that this was in regards to Incon, or a different project (which got shot down recently). Anyway, it did trigger me to wondering just why I was so creative. My ‘natural ADD’, as I’ve put it, makes me predisposed in some cases to looking at multiple projects at the same time, and finding parallels and similarities in them that often would not be seen. In all honesty, my creativity is just taking advantage of perhaps an overactive pattern-recognition engine somewhere within my head.
That’s actually the majority of creativity in general. You’ve heard the concept that “two heads are better than one”? It’s the same way with ideas. Just because someone else has taken a look at an idea and come to a conclusion, doesn’t mean you can’t. More to the point, it’s entirely possible that you’ll add something to the discussion. At the very least, you’ll be agreeing with somebody. That applies not just to blog posts or matters of opinion, but to fiction ideas, too. If you accept that gamma radiation makes the Hulk… Hulk-y, then write about that! If not, then tell your story of why the Hulk is green and upset! It’s all a matter of perspectives: yours and your reader’s.
Creativity is, at its core, opinionatedness junctioned onto fearlessness.
Anyway, I have some words to say about Tokyopop’s novel line… but I’d rather not actually say them right now. Not until I’m sure that what I’m going to say is actually accurate. Though this hint is pretty obvious: the incident with the Slayers novels does not look to be an isolated case…
I’ll likely have Bailout tomorrow or something brief.
In case you didn’t see below, I managed to complete my little Poketoberfest project successfully. I’m still rooting for RJ, who I believe is still participating, but for now I’m just glad I finished. But, throughout all of the chaos that I put myself through, I realized one thing: too much of a good thing doesn’t change the fact that it’s still “too much”.
Oh, and with regards to School Rumble. This is the most freaking hilarious show I’ve seen in months. This is what I’d kinda hoped Strawberry Marshmallow or Lucky Star would be… randomness with a plot. A plot, damn you! Not just “randomness with no real/interesting plot”, not just “hey look at the moe and don’t think too hard”, but “hey cool we’ve got a setup and now we can has teh cute”. I’m actually wondering what leads up to that Bailout clip I showed you all the other day… ah well. Just a few more discs to go.
Also, you might notice the lambda symbol up there in the Gamercard. Yeah, I decided to rent Portal. Only problem was that it comes with two other really crappy games on the disc. Couldn’t find any other way to get it for a reasonable price, so there you go. I’m really digging it, and if it weren’t for the godawful delivery system (seriously, it’s good, but it’s not “$20 and you have to use Steam” good) I’d recommend it to everyone. As it stands, I’d suggest everyone put it on their “must rent” lists.
EDIT: Relax, I’m not liveblogging anything. Just wanted to say that if you happen to be a fan of Parasite Eve, first, why do you exist?!; and second, there is actually a third installment in that now-not-really-failed series coming (you guessed it) to Japanese mobile phones. You can set up your Folding Chairs of Misery over there next to the ones for Mega Man Legends fans; we have punch and cake. (But the cake is… no, no. I won’t make that gag. Yet.)
At 7:06pm, I defeated League Champion Steven in Pokemon Sapphire on the Game Boy Advance. This is the fourteenth game cleared in 2007. The next game that is closest to completion is Brave Story: New Traveler (PSP), followed by Touch Detective 2 1/2 and (nothing else started). Final clear time is 37:01 over 29 days.
Today’s posts are going to be a little bit of an experiment… See, I don’t want to leave you guys hanging, and I don’t want to risk having an empty day. So I’m going to just dump my progress on the day’s Pokemon leveling in this post. So, let’s do this– here’s the status as of 11:30am: All team members at Lv 40. I’m also flat broke in-game, so I’m going to fight trainers mostly. As a side note, I (censored) hate the Trainer’s Eyes system. I suppose I’m just spoiled by the Vs. Seeker. Right, I’m off to work… ( Cut for the Liveblogging. » )
Sorry folks, I’ve been levelling all day and didn’t even get around to finding some timely Bailout for you. Maybe tomorrow. In any event, I’m feeling a bit better about being able to finish Sapphire before the 1st. I’m still behind in levels, partly due to deciding that I needed two different critters than I’d been working on, but I still have all day tomorrow plus Monday through Wednesday evenings. I’m committed to finishing this; I’ve come too far to give up now. Catch you all tomorrow.
EDIT: Taking a break to rest my eyes and focus on something bigger, I put in School Rumble… and now I’m hooked. This is awesome.
I picked up the first disc of School Rumble a few weeks ago but have not yet gotten around to watching it. I’ve been hesitant because I’d been burned so badly on Pani Poni Dash, but this weekend sometime I’ll put it in and see how it is. If it’s anywhere near as funny as this clip makes it out to be, I’ll be quite fascinated and satisfied indeed.
In the meantime, this is about the last weekend I have available to work on Pokemon Sapphire, and I’ve got most of my responsibilities for the weekend cleared away. Thus, let’s make with the catching and leveling.
We’re just about a week away from the start of November, which is National Novel Writing Month. I’ve harped ont he event for a while now, but at last I’m really ready for it. I’ve done the kind of preparation that, in 2005, led to the creation of Inconsequential and its ultimate completion. That’s right, I’ve completed a full outline of the story. Two and a half pages of solid text that wind up being a complete and concise retelling of the story. Unlike Incon, however, I’m hoping that I actually stick to this one rather than veering ridiculously off-course and having to arbitrarily make up plot points some ten months after starting. Actually, no, scratch that. Unlike Incon, I’m hoping that I actually finish this one in a reasonable timeframe.
It’s been tricky, of course. I had the genesis of the idea back in the beginning of September, and I tried to keep the story within my head and ‘live’ throughout these past eight weeks, but it wasn’t to be. See, what happens to me is that I tend to have stories running in the background, and I flesh them out internally during times when I’m otherwise not mentally engaged. I can usually keep the stories running for a week or so; oftentimes they go for the better part of a month, but once they’re gone, or a newer tale replaces it, they’re gone. I was lucky in that when the current story was germinating, I started making tons of notes so that I could sort through it later and hopefully restore it. After today, I think I’ve succeeded. It’s not my ‘current’ story, actually– for some reason I’ve had trouble figuring that one out– but it’s fleshed out enough that I can get to the work of actually sitting down and writing it. The weekends of November are going to be spent like the day I first found this story– stashed safely in a Panera Bread, frantically typing on the MacBook, dumping as many words as will come to me as possible. Though unlike those marathon sessions, I have an idea as to what I’m working towards before I get there.
Inconsequential was initially written from beginning to end, but I started jumping around about 33,000 words in. I intend to write this book sequentially, as I’d done with “A Game of Lords” and as I’d planned for “Metal Rogue” (which is now officially on the back-burner). To be completely honest, I still have no idea what I want to call this one. I’m sure a title will come to me, but for right now I’m thinking that I might want to go with the ‘working title’ of “Five Hundred Prayers”. Even though this story has absolutely nothing to do with the concept that had initially spawned that title. As always, we’ll see.
Also as always, wish me luck, folks. One week to go.
