12.17.07
Posted in NaNoWriMo, Rants, Site News, Writing
at 5:22 pm
So maybe I lied a little when I said that I wasn’t going to type much. I’ve just been thinking a little bit about Blueberries and getting it ready for the first looks. It’s one of those strange things– I’m done with the story, yes, but there’s still a ton of work left to do with it. Even at about 114K, there’s still a few thousand words of detail that I’d want to put in– one of my original character sketches from September has the walkthrough of the house that I basically relied upon throughout the writing, but I realized last night that I sort of took it for granted that the reader would be able to visualize the house as well as I did.
It’s the strangest thing, really. The house is a composite of a number of places I’ve lived in, so I’ve never actually set foot in it. At the same time, I seem to have these strong memories of the walkthrough, and I can replay pretty much every step I’ve never taken in it. I feel like I’ve lived there for ten years. It’s quite an unusual feeling, really; I see all the details of the house– the study, the game room, the parlor and the foyer, and that’s just in the lower wing– and I realize that I will never actually see them, because they don’t exist. No other location I’ve written about has gotten into me so deeply, and it’s as awesome as it is frightening.
So now that the story’s over, it’s a little depressing to have to say goodbye to it. I really like that house. I might go back to it, might see how the characters are doing in five years or so, but really, it’s just a strange attachment. Ah well.
Speaking of the characters. I had a conversation with Rick last night about the traumas I’ve put them through. One of my big worries about the story is that I painted the events in an unrealistic light– either by having things be too rosy in the end, or by not getting into the horrible gory details of the actual troubles. I think I did a fairly good job of showing the aftermath– the main characters are really only involved on the periphery, are intervening– but I’m not entirely sure how it’s going to be received. That’s probably the crucible, in my mind– if the characters can make it through, can live through the disaster, then I’ll feel I did a good job.
Survival is not the same as living. Some characters merely survive trauma, but the most memorable ones are the ones who stay believable and don’t fall victim to becoming one-dimensional criers of woe when disaster befalls them. This does not necessarily mean they make it through the encounter with their life; some memorable characters live through their fatal encounters just by dying in a believable manner.
So what’s the next step? Obviously, I have some coding work to do that I’ve been neglecting. I intend to continue to neglect that until after Christmas. In truth, I’m probably going to hold off on the New Year’s Project until February (but will enact most of the changes on the 1st anyway). Trust me, things are gonna change around here, and hopefully for the better.
As always, new year’s resolutions are coming up, as well. I’ve already laid out a couple of them but some new ones have popped up as well, and I’m curious to see if I can accomplish one or more of them. I’ll still be keeping them mostly private, but if and when they get accomplished, you’ll know. Just as an example, Inconsequential was one of them. (It kinda still is… sort of. I figure it’s going to be like “Lifehouse”, “Duke Nukem Forever”, or “Chinese Democracy”… I keep talking about it but it never gets done.) Anyway, we shall see. It depends a lot on certain other factors, but I’ll be working towards most of these pretty hardcore throughout the year.
The only other interesting thing for the time being is my previously-stated goal of getting another Game Cleared notice up for 2007… with less than two weeks to go, the odds of that happening are increasingly small, but I could probably blast through Touch Detective 2 1/2 or maybe some other shorter DS game over the time before Christmas. We’ll see– I’m not likely to rush through a Rock Band campaign, but I do have four days alone with the 360 after I get home to hone the skillz (Guitar Solo Tour on Medium… that would count, right?). If I’m lucky– and I think I am– I might even be able to squeeze a third Clear in, bringing me to an even twenty for the year. I have no idea which one that would be, but odds are good for LocoRoco. don’t quote me on that, though.
That’s all I’ve got for this week, folks. We’ll definitely have Bailout tomorrow through until Friday, at least. Catch you folks soon.
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12.15.07
Posted in NaNoWriMo, Shameless Self-Promotion, Writing
at 5:48 pm
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.)
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12.11.07
Posted in NaNoWriMo, Shameless Self-Promotion, Writing
at 8:43 pm
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.
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12.08.07
Posted in NaNoWriMo, Writing
at 6:59 am
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.
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12.07.07
Posted in NaNoWriMo, Rants, Shameless Self-Promotion, Writing
at 5:19 am
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.
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11.30.07
Posted in Gaming, NaNoWriMo, Rants, Writing
at 5:23 am
Rock Band Return Battle Update: I kept the Twitter feed abreast of the updates to this, but the bottom line is that they’re sending the drums out (at the time of this post, they’re still not listed as “out” yet…) and they’re sending me a copy of MySims (Wii) as a kiss-and-make-up gift. I’m still upset, but for the moment I’m willing to let this slide. I’m just wondering when “two-day express” suddenly meant “two weeks before you even see it possibly maybe could have shipped”.
Last night was another productive writing session; I hit about 2800 words and actually finished that ‘half’ a plot point I mentioned yesterday. So, yeah. Still a long way to go, and I still think I’m targeting on the order of 120-150K words. I’m likely to break 80K without really trying tonight; but, to be completely honest, even if I take the night off from writing, I’ll be happy with an almost 80K month. Particularly given that I set out with the nominal goal of only having a 50K word one.
I had a poison-pen rant in progress yesterday during lunch, in addition to my other coding duties. It was lost when the power randomly went out. I consider that to have been for the best, really.
Tomorrow, I’m likely to make an excuse as to why I’ve not yet written my usual, thoughtful, insightful holiday-season post yet and also issue an empty promise that I’ll have it up soon. If I instead blither on about writing, then, consider this equivalent to it. December’s going to be a month of reflection as it stands, so we’re gonna be thinking about endings soon anyway. Later, folks.
EDIT: I had a lot of reasons to like XSeed Games before this– prime among them that they were very nice to me when I asked for some additional information for the Brave Story review– but to wake up this morning and learn that Wild ARMs XF is being brought over to the US, well… let me put it this way. I like strategy RPGs, and I adore the Wild ARMs series. It’s all I can do to remind myself that it’s still 5:30a and that my cries of joy on high might not be appreciated.
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11.29.07
Posted in Anime, Gaming, NaNoWriMo, Rants, Writing
at 5:13 am
So. The first thing of interest, really, is that I took some time last night to go back into “hardcore writer” mode, and managed to pull a 2,000 word night. This was in addition to managing to get the outline written for this final stretch of the story. ( Writing drivel behind this cut. » )
Anyway. I’m also on a little bit of an anime reclamation binge, collecting a couple of series boxes for later consumption once I’ve got the draft in the can. We’re honestly maybe a week or two away from that point– barring a huge rush of productivity– so don’t expect me to be able to comment on that too publicly just yet. The big series so far are Ai Yori Aoshi and Fullmetal Alchemist. I realize I’m late to the party on both of these, but in my defense I’m a cheap bastard and I waited until the lower-priced boxes came out. I’ve also got my eye on the Evangelion Platinum metal box set; apparently that claims “full extras”, so I’ll have to see if it’s as advertised. Perhaps if it is, I’ll look into the Nadia box as well. Incidentally: The Reclamation List stands at 53% reclaimed or set to “will not reclaim” (62/117; 39 reclaimed, 24 disapproved). Most of what’s left are older PS1 games and the better movies. Then, of course, there are the Holy Grails that I lost… but those, I think, are going to take a long time to reclaim.
The Rock Band Replacement saga continues! Last night I finally got the tracking number situation straightened out, and discovered the most magical, wonderful thing about how the UPS tracking system works. Here it is: it doesn’t. ( Gaming drivel behind this one. » )
So, that’s about it. There’s likely to be more writing news as things progress… I’m hoping that I can at least break 80K before the end of the month. We’ll see. Catch you cats tomorrow morning.
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11.27.07
Posted in Gaming, NaNoWriMo, Rants, Writing
at 5:50 pm
Though the last week’s relative lack of linguankery may have fooled you, I am indeed still alive and still capable of typing out the words that makes the peoples smile. I just really, really needed to do some gaming. Three cleared games in four days is a record for me, even if two of those were just the formailty of finishing up stuff I’d had hanging over me for a while (Ontamarama and Portal). I know I counted Portal as being only four days, but that’s because that’s the amount of time that the game was in my hands; I’d rented it initially, and it arrived via Gamefly over the break. Oh, and for some reason it didn’t auto-save after destroying GLaDOS, so I get to go through that again– not that I’m complaining; that was probably one of the better final boss battles I’ve played in years. I actually felt kind of bad throwing Curiosity into the incinerator. Anyway. We’re likely to have one or two more notices here before the end of the year, but we shall see. I’m getting back into Touch Detective now, which is good– I really missed that style of quirky humor.
Incidentally, after a full week of begging, I finally managed to wrangle a tracking number out of EA for the Rock Band replacement drums. I’ll likely have to pick them up in the evening at the UPS hub. As has been stated before, I hate UPS.
As for writing: Yeah, I’ve kind of slacked off on that. I was planning on continuing with Blueberries last night, but after finishing Portal, I noticed it was late. More than that, I’d completely lost the cadence of the story. I’m thinking that November might not be the best time to do any kind of heavy noveling… but then again, all I really need is a good 3,000-word run to get me back into the story. This Friday there’s a final rush at one of the bookstores in Monroeville, and I’m thinking I might be convinced to go for it. I think I’m going to spend some of tonight writing; right now this evening is wide open, and there’s little to dissuade me from doing just that.
I’ll so be there. For personal reasons, mostly, but I will be there.
There’s more to detail, folks, but for right now let’s let that slide for later. I’ll make sure that I have something up on time tomorrow morning. I promise. Really.
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11.20.07
Posted in Gaming, NaNoWriMo, Rants, Site News
at 7:30 pm
So, we’re heading into Thanksgiving weekend, here. This is going to be a rough couple of days for output, folks, so wish me a little bit of luck and timing. I’m trying to get some content together for the days ahead, but I thought I’d just take a look at what I’ve done so far.
I didn’t realize, actually, that in addition to being National Novel Writing Month, this was also National Blog Posting Month. I’m a little surprised to note this fact, because quite frankly, it’s not like I had to try very hard at all. As it stands, this is the 324th day in a row that I’ve had something up. I hate to post about it while I’m doing it, but I’ll be honest, I think it’s an accomplishment worth noting. Now, I don’t think it’s worthy of huge amounts of adulation, or even really that much recognition. But, for one guy with no readership to speak of to commit to a daily schedule is either a sign of dedication or insanity.
Add to that the fact that I finished a draft of a novel, started another, and all the other miscellaneous stuff that happened this year, and it edges ever so slightly into the “insanity” department.
Every year in December I make at least one post detailing just what this time of year means to me. I’m working on that one, actually; I tried to get it out of the way here, but I’m just coming from too dark of a place to really contemplate a concept like that properly. (It’s a long story, and one I’d like to keep private.) In any event, I’m hoping to have some more brightness to my mindset after this weekend.
As I mentioned on the forums this morning, I picked up Rock Band and Link’s Crossbow Training before work (and was damn lucky to get my hands on teh rawqk, let me tell you). Rock Band has some slight issues… but I’ve complained enough about those to other people and in other venues. Let’s just say that after Thanksgiving I’ll be able to put some time and thought into the game. And I certainly won’t be, y’know, singing. Because that would be cruel to the people in the rest of the building. …who the hell am I really kidding here? Oh, and LCT is awesome. I’m not sure how I feel about the Zapper, but for a $20 game, getting the closest thing to a Zelda FPS as we’re likely to is worth the slight discomfort and awkwardness. I can see how this will work pretty well with Ghost Squad, as it feels like an assault rifle, almost, but without the heft.
I’ve not really put too much time into gaming of late, as most of my attention has been devoted to Blueberries, but I’ve basically set myself to a challenge. If I can hit 72K words between tonight and tomorrow at lunch, I can slack off for a while and play through Touch Detective 2. I don’t really want to risk losing the momentum that I’ve had going, but for the time being, I’m starting to get a little burned out on it. Given that I’ve had a pretty good streak to this point (seriously, nearly 20,000 words in the 8 days since hitting 50K) I think I could afford a little break, so as to not completely destroy my enthusiasm. The story’s hitting a nebulous point, but I’m thinking it through and taking some of the elements into account.
In any event, I’m going to get back to doing whatever it was that I was doing that was so awesome. Because I am awesome like that. And you all wish you could be me. (Hey, I said it wasn’t worth adulation from you guys… I think I could be entitled to some tongue-in-cheek self-aggrandizement once in a while.) Catch you tomorrow.
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11.19.07
Posted in NaNoWriMo, Rants, Shameless Self-Promotion, Writing
at 5:07 am
As noted on the Twitter feed last night, I came up with a title for the current NaNo, here at about the halfway point through the plot. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the name of my next work (until I decide something else works better): Harvesting Blueberries.
The title came about due to blueberries coming up on two separate occasions in the course of conversation within the book, as well as having some relevance to a handful of plot elements (to give the most obvious one, troubled children = “blue berries”, but that’s a superficial connection– there are more, now that I think about it). Also, some interesting facts about true blueberries: they’re native to the northeast United States (the story’s set in Pittsburgh), they’re harvested throughout summer (the story takes place in late August), and the plants resist fire well, regenerating quickly after wild burns (the story centers on the recovery of a handful of abused gifted children in an experimental foster home). There are other species of berry that are indeed blue, which are native to Europe, but a genuine blueberry has white flesh with blue skin, while other species are blue throughout. It might seem a little pretentious to try to assign too much meaning to the title at this point, but it just fits, based on what I’ve written and what I have planned.
Besides, I like blueberries. And the title doesn’t seem to have been used for a fiction book yet anyway. So, hopefully, this will work out.
I’m trying to make sure it doesn’t turn out to be too sappy or overly saccharine; it’s really, REALLY easy to throw easy pitches to the protagonists in a story that centers on child abuse. Someone I spoke to yesterday afternoon remarked that it was unusually dark subject matter for me, and to be completely honest, it really is. I’d just finished the description of the extent of the abuse on the primary victim, and it made me uncomfortable even writing about it. That’s a fascinating thing about being a writer; I can see such a horrifying thing in my mind, and I know that I have to work through my revulsion and document it as clinically as a coroner and as poetically as a reporter. Knowing that that’s what I have to do doesn’t make it any easier, mind you, but it does give me the resolve I need to actually do it.
And it also inspires me to beat the f#%$ out of anyone who would dare raise a hand in true anger against a child. Which can’t be a bad thing, really.
Aaaaaanyway. That’s that, really. Catch you gys tomorrow.
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