Ramblings and musings of John Zeitler.
At 5:46p, I completed the first draft of Harvesting Blueberries. The final word count for this draft is 114,037 words according to OpenOffice’s word count tool. (A substantial blog post for the day is still forthcoming… just wanted to get this out.)
Within the past few days, as I have been winding down from writing with the occasional anime episode and round of Uno, I’ve come to a few strange and startling revelations.
One can be kicked from a match and cited for “trash talk” if one does not have the webcam attachment. Like it’s my fault I don’t want to spend money to let people see me and subsequently open myself up to seeing other folks’ crotches. Yes, that happened already; it is why I have always shut off incoming video since then.
One can also be cited for trash talk if one does not actually speak. Actually overheard: “You’ve got a mike, f$@#tard, use it!” News flash: you are the reason I do not speak often, either because I can’t get a word in between your incessant chatter, or because your speech is so profanity-laden– honestly, your mother is in the next room yelling at you and she ignores this?– that I feel no need to dignify you with a response.
The “Torchwood” gamerpic is easily confused for one from Harry Potter. I can see why there would be that confusion, I mean, they’re both British. Common mistake. In other news, the word “no” is often confused for “yes” because, like, duh, they’re both in English.
Everyone assumes everyone else is 12. The problem is that when other people make that assumption about me, it’s wrong and mildly annoying, but when I make that assumption about anyone else, I’m usually right, and it’s still mildly annoying.
I wouldn’t really be complaining about this much if some of the achievements didn’t require one to go into Pandaemonium and win games of whatever is being played. Now, I’m a pretty decent Uno player myself, and I respect those folks who are luckier than I am at the venerable game. That’s not why I’m upset. What bothers me is that I have actually heard someone say “if this was Halo, I would so be teabagging your asses right now”.
Lesson learned: I am not a “multi-” player.
Some shots of the new KITT were released, and I have to admit that I’m a bit conflicted. I have fond memories of Knight Rider from when I was very, very young, and I still remember the sleek profile of the Pontiac Trans-Am that was the series’ signature. Having the new car not be a Pontiac is a bit disappointing, but there aren’t any current Pontiacs that have the really distinctive appearance that would make the car stand out. With this in mind, I can understand to a certain extent the decision to make KITT a Mustang/Shelby GT500 (new version), a car that in general I like. The problem is, though, that a lot of what I like about the style of the GT500 comes from the iconic double-stripe coloring that’s endemic to the Shelby. In solid black, KITT 2008 seems to be a little too nondescript. Of course, if it has the sliding red LED effect on the front, that might make up for it. Maybe.
Which reminds me, I do know someone who did put the LEDs on his car. It was truly awesome and geeky.
Right, I’ll stop pretending I know anything about cars now.
While that title would certainly lend itself to a discussion of church seating, I’m sad to say that this day’s diatribe actually revolves around the Wii Zapper peripheral. It’s been a couple of weeks since I completed the Zapper’s pack-in game, Link’s Crossbow Training. I haven’t touched it since; not because of a lack of quality in the game– certainly not, I would not have ripped through it as ravenously as I did if the game was anything but stellar– but due to lack of time. Similarly, I’ve meant to have a write-up on the Zapper itself at some point, but again, I’ve been kinda busy. The recent 1up.com review of the chunk of plastic did finally prompt me, partially because I agree with it– sort of.
For those unfamiliar with it, the Wii Zapper is a plastic “cradle” of sorts in which a single Wiimote and Nunchuck are placed, and allows the combined device to be wielded like a gun (without actually looking anything like a gun, of course, as it’s bright white, plastic, and has no discernible barrel). To say it is unwieldy in practice is a polite understatement; Nintendo made the device a little TOO unique-looking. Rather than having a solid ’stock’, the stock is split into a wireframe-like configuration, with the Nunchuck positioned at the far back. The cord attaching to the Wiimote is stored in a hidden compartment, but the overall effect is that the weapon appears to have three grips. It makes the thing look almost like an overly-long light assault rifle, with too much space in between the “left” and “right” hand positions to really be comfortable. I suppose, really, it might be more comfortable for, I don’t know, bow-hunters, maybe? The effect is really, really noticeable in games that require the use of the Wiimote and Nunchuck at once, such as the free-roaming aspects of LCT. (I didn’t try it with Twilight Princess mostly due to the fact that there’s motion controls there that require independent movement.)
Now, that said, it does have some good points. It’s well-balanced for using as if it were a pistol. In LCT, on the stages that did not require the use of the Nunchuck’s controls, I held the Zapper with both hands on the trigger-grip, as if it were merely an elongated revolver, and found that my accuracy improved dramatically. Furthermore, on the few occasions where I did need the Nunchuck, switching back to it was far easier than it would have been if I had spent an equal amount of time holding it in my off-hand for no reason. On the whole, if players simply adapt a little bit to the device, it can be usable. I still think it’s too long, but that could be overcome with practice.
My one real, substantial gripe is that it basically “eats” a Nunchuck. Installing one into the plastic housing isn’t difficult, but it is time-consuming. It’s easier to remove the Wiimote from the upper portion of the cradle than it is to extricate the Nunchuck once placed. I’ve thankfully not needed to use the second Nunchuck since owning the Zapper, but I know other folks are not in the same situation and may only have enough. Pulling them in and out of the Zapper housing will undoubtedly damage one or both on a long enough timeline. I’m willing to leave it in there, actually, as I’m willing to see how a title like Ghost Squad works for the Zapper (it’s on the rental list, somewhere down the line).
If the Zapper was being sold stand-alone, I would not have even given it a second glance. But, I justify it by looking at it as having bought Link’s Crossbow Training, which came with the Zapper. (Which, ironically, makes it the opposite of how I justified Wii Play: $10 extra to get a Wiimote with a crappy pack-in game, during a period where the ‘motes were hard to come by.) For the $20, the package is a good deal just for the game; just don’t feel obligated to use the Zapper with it.
This evening, the total word count for Harvesting Blueberries reached 100,600 words. This makes it, officially, the longest single work of fiction I have written to date. In comparison: The sum total of my completed fan fiction (14 stories) is approximately 158K words. The initial draft of Inconsequential, counting author’s notes, is 98.7K words. And the sum total of all of my blog posts between January 1st and November 30th, 2007, not counting comments, is 114K words. The Blueberries draft is still in progress; I expect it to be finished before the end of the week, with a final word count around 110-120K.
If anybody asks, this is what’s been keeping me from obligations:
Well, no better sign than to start off with the now-obligatory Harvesting Blueberries Update: The Twitter feed is a lie. 96K words is correct, yes, but now I’m up to 10 scenes left to write. Given an average of about 2,000 words per scene, this works out well. I just have to remind myself to take my time and let the conversations flow naturally; there’s no longer a real rush, story-wise or externally, and skimping now will just make it harder later.
I take that back, there is sort of an external rush. Anyone who ever tells you being a writer is easy work is lying. I’ll be in dire need of a vacation once this draft is finished. Fortunately, I’ve been trickling through a couple of anime series here and there in order to have a rolling start once the draft is done… but that’s still at least a solid week of writing away. Maybe. Depends on how much I can manage these next few evenings and this coming weekend– the last weekend I’ll have before Christmas break, actually. But, well, I’m this close. I’m not going to give up now.
I also want to try to manage one more Game Clear notice before the year is up, but that might be something I do over the break itself, or more likely over New Year’s Weekend. Two long binges are incoming, and I’m really looking forward to them.
Ciao, folks. We’ll probably have Bailout tomorrow.
So. I’m normally in support of any experimentation with regards to existing properties being taken in different directions, mostly for the sheer novelty of it. But after reading the headline to this announcement from Del Rey and Marvel, my immediate reaction wasn’t just “no”. It wasn’t just “hell no”. It went even beyond “excuse me wtf r u doin”. No, this pretty much is the epitome of “what are you smoking, why haven’t you stopped, and for the love of crap please don’t share next time because that way someone might be able to stop you from carrying this idea to its end”.
Really. “X-Men Meets Fruits Basket”? And then they go ahead and try to explain it further, in the hopes that it won’t sound so dumb. It doesn’t work. Mark my words: This Will Not End Well.
Harvesting Blueberries Update: Had a good, 4000 word night last night, which jumped me across six plot points faster than I would have expected. In my defense, I’d mangled the outline to a point where those six points were really only me trying to stretch out two points’ worth of conversation to make up the Big Twist Conflict. By going back to it, however, I’ve realized that I’ve got ten or so left. I’m at 92,000 words, and I’m taking my time with this ending, pacing it naturally and keeping things moving along smoothly. There’s a handful of additional scenes being added in– I have to make up a final outline here to map out everything that I want to get into the ending together, but overall I think I’m about on track for maybe 110K, or 120K if I get really lucky with the Twist Fairy bringing me more wonderfully unexpected scenes of character interaction.
Of course, GASP is today, so I’ll be doing that. I might get home in time to do some more writing– I don’t want to lose too much momentum, especially given yesterday’ post– but we’ll see. Besides, I ought to leave slightly early anyway due to the Parkway West having some nasty construction late tonight. Catch you folks tomorrow, hopefully with an update.
Here we are, a week past the end of November, and I’ve yet to have made any real mention of just how the whole NaNoWriMo experience went down. Now, granted, this might be because I spent 90% of November detailing, almost painfully at times, what I was doing with regards to Blueberries. Still, I think it’s important to have come to some conclusions and discovering exactly what I really actually did and what I learned as a result of those mistakes.
( Seven simple rules for writing a novel that might not suck after a few revisions or so. » )
To confess a secret, I’ve only put down about 8000 words since the end of November. But, I’ve progressed enough in that time that the last 16 outline points could still keep me on target for my initial estimate of about 120K. More than that, though, I’ve cleared the big physical action-movie climax of the story, and can now focus on the final emotional climaxes and the ending. I’m going to have to take another couple of days as a writing rush to ensure that it gets finished before the end of the year, but it’s a priority. So, that’s probably going to be Sunday; we’ll see. Catch you folks tomorrow, likely with Bailout.
