Lessons on Cartography, Families and Games

NaNoWriMo

So some time ago, I created an awesome map for the world of Taylin in Pixelmator. I’m very happy with it, but more I look at it, the more I want to tweak it. The thing is, I want this to look like a “real” fantasy map, but I’m no artist. So I’ve had some serious issues learning about how to draw using a mouse in Pixelmator and to create mountain ranges, hills, forests and such. It’s been difficult and very frustrating in places, but I’m starting to slowly like the result. It’s complicated and I’m sure someone who knows what they’re doing could do it far more effectively and quicker, especially since I’m having to teach myself as I go.

Here are two shots I have, one showing an enormous mountain range in the Harklanian Union, the other showing a large portion of the Coalition Wilds, including Rosan City. These are extremely rough drafts and I know I have a lot of work ahead of me (such as getting the coastlines right, adding hills, lakes and further system of rivers and jungles, but I thought you might be interested in a work in progress.

I particularly like the way the forests came out…

These mountains took way too long…

I was a bit obsessive with these, especially since time would have been better spent writing, but the good thing that came of all of this is I finally determined the distance between different points in the world of Taylin. I didn’t add a scale to these particular pictures, but the distance between Yellow Jubilation and Rosan City is about 900 miles. It’s roughly 200 miles between Rosan City and Albright. That should give you a good estimate. Ironically, I had to go back to basic geometry to figure out this distance! I had to use the Pythagorean Theorem to determine the distance, using the pixels as a guide and then converting them to distance, but only after determining how long it would take the prototype airship RCS Rose to travel between these two points (about a day and a half). That’s how I got the 900 miles, since the Rose‘s cruising speed it about 25 MPH.

I needed this, I really did. It means it’ll take about 4 and a half days to get to their next destination, Arquellia, which is almost directly west of Yellow Jubilation at a distance of about 2600 miles. And to give you a reference, the continental US is roughly 3000 miles. Yeah, this place is freaking huge.

The other bit of writing news? I’m happy to say I’m not only on track for NaNoWriMo, but I’m actually quite a bit ahead. Not like you crazy people who have actually finished (though who am I to judge, since I was one of those crazy people in my first 2 years of NaNoWriMo).

I’ve also started sporadic work on editing another story I’m going to put up on Kindle. In addition, a very understanding friend is taking a look at “Soul of the Scribe” soon and I’m praying she can give me something amazing that will unlock that story, allowing it to transform from a novella into a full novel.

Family Life

Well, the other big thing is discipline. While I’m trying to use discipline in my writing, I’m dealing with the other kind with Caitlyn. She has had some serious defiance issues lately. Hitting me, saying no, yelling while we’re talking…all sorts of things. Now for the parents out there, you know that this is pretty typical of this age…and you know that it also has to stop. The sooner, the better. So after Laura and I attended a great Parenting Workshop on Discipline Saturday, we’re going to try some new house rules. It’s going to be very hard over the next few weeks. But thankfully, we’re in it together. And I feel that Laura and I are on the same page now. And that feels great.

Gaming

I haven’t had a lot of time to play lately. Due to things that have happened during the day, I’ve been forced to do my entire NaNoWriMo after Caitlyn goes to bed around 7-8PM. Thankfully, my focus has been strong enough to let me knock it out in roughly an hour. In fact, I’ve done this so often I feel I should be working more today, but after 2100 words, I’ve decided it’s okay. After all, if I totally burn out, it doesn’t help anyone.

However, I did finally get my poor neglected mage Chyria up to 90 last night. I can’t wait to go treasure hunting on the Timeless Isle again. I do LOVE the chests.

At the moment, I don’t really feel up to a full review of the revelations of Blizzcon and the new WoW expansion, but I did want to at least show off some really cool trailers that impressed me (mostly) and I’ve decided it’s long past time for me to post a PMV. Sorry folks, but the Pony thing ain’t going anywhere…

PONIES!

Season 4 premiers this Saturday. Wow, I haven’t cared about Saturday morning cartoons in a long time. Of course, because we don’t have real TV, we’ll have to wait to see it directly online. However, we did do one other Pony thing this week. Caitlyn and I left Laura and Tali at home and headed up to Downtown Disney to the Build-A-Bear and we made some ponies! Caitlyn wanted Rainbow Dash for herself, I picked out Twilight Sparkle for myself and we got Spike for Baby Tali. Of course, I let Caitlyn play with all three occasionally, but the best part is that Twilight Sparkle, who is a librarian in the show, usually sits adopt my highest shelf over my writing desk. This seems particularly fitting to me.

Here’s the picture of Twilight and Spike together. 🙂

Twilight Sparkle: Eternal Guardian of the Written Word

It makes me happy. And that’s it. 🙂

I think that’s it for this week folks. There are a few things I want to do with -rks, but right now I want to focus on my writing. I’m curious though, how many of you read my blog through email rather than visiting the blog itself? If that’s the cast, please leave a comment at the end. I keep looking at my page views and I wonder.

Until then, let’s play with some Blizzard Stuff and some Pony stuff!

First of all…the freaking epic “Heroes of the Storm” Cinematic. Seriously, I didn’t care about this game in the slightest until I saw this.

Next, we have the announcement trailer for “Warlords of Draenor.” I’m still not entirely sure what I think about this. There are some awesome improvements coming with it…but the story is just…well, it hadn’t grabbed me.

And finally, we have the PMV “Ascension” which is just damn cool. “TheAcelps” just does freaking EPIC animations.

That’s it for this week now folks. I’m going to take the rest of the night off. It’s been a long day.

Good luck and have fun!

-rks

 

PS I almost posted this as a PAGE instead of a POST. Whoops.

Thoughts from a Tired Daddy

So, yeah. Tali’s about 10 days old now. Neither Laura nor I have gotten a lot of sleep. Not really surprising having a newborn, right, especially one that sleeps in the same room. However, I can’t blame Tali for all of it. I’ve taken the opportunity lately to do a little extra gaming when Laura, Caitlyn and Tali are sleeping. In fact, I went through the entire Siege of Orgimmar LFR raid in one week ending on Thursday night so I wouldn’t get any spoilers when we watched the Blizzcon 2013 Virtual Ticket.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but as an Alliance player, I’m happy. I feel like we finally got our due…somewhat. There are still wrongs to be righted, but we’re getting there.

Let’s see…I’m still plugging away through NaNoWriMo. In fact, I added a new widget over to the left where you can see my current progress. I hope. Assuming that’s working right. I’ll check it after posting this one. I’m still a little bit behind, but we’re talking maybe a few hundred words. I pushed myself this week to do 2000 words every day to catch up from missing the first two days of NaNoWriMo, with me being in the hospital caring for our newborn and everything. Sorry, NaNo, but newborns take priority.

As for the story I’m writing for NaNo, I don’t really have a title yet, though on the NaNoWriMo site, it’s listed as “The Acquisition of Shadows” but I can tell you for sure that’s not going to be the final name. At the moment, I’m building up the world since it takes place 3 years from the original “Soul of the Scribe” and 2 years after “Corridors.” What I’m really excited about is getting my characters out on a grand quest that will take them across the world. I’ve worked endlessly on the maps for Taylin and I can’t wait to finally visit some of these nations and kingdoms. It’s going to be sweet.

I’m also happy to share some pictures of Talissa! I’ll be adding more under the “Daddy” section to your right later. Right now, I still have a lot left to do for the night and I’m barely plugging along as it is. I did take the time to fix the cover art for Glimmer on the left hand sidebar. Hopefully it looks better now. It’s been driving me crazy for weeks.

So instead of a Pony thing, I think I’ll just have you enjoy a few pictures of Talissa J. Stansifer instead.

Cute kid eh? Apparently we’re good at making cute kids. Don’t ask me how. I really don’t know.

I’m sure I’ll have more for you next week. Until then!

Good luck and have fun!

-rks

Expanding the Family

Talissa

So, as most of you know, Laura and I expecting our second little girl, Talissa, on November 5. What you might not know is Laura believes Talissa is impatient. She’s been having very irregular contractions for some time now. To be honest, we don’t know when she’ll come, but she’s definitely coming. And soon.

With Caitlyn, Laura and I focused all our energy and thoughts about preparing for her birth. But with Tali, we’ve had to deal with my panic attacks, family issues, work issues and Caitlyn herself, which hasn’t really allowed us the proper time and thought to realize what’s about to happen.

I’m a bit nervous…more so than when Caitlyn came to us. It’s strange…

But don’t worry, you’ll know when it happens.

Writing

Thankfully, our new bedroom configuration has helped a lot. In fact, I’ve made a few records lately in my writing. Yesterday, I managed to do 1,000 words in 30 minutes. And today, I did 1,000 words in about 45 minutes. To my surprise, Laura said she was okay with me trying to do NaNoWriMo this year. I wasn’t expecting that, but you know me, when I focus on a writing goal, I do it. Deadlines are wonderful things for me. And I think I even have some ideas on what to do.

So yes, I will be doing National Novel Writing Month for 2013. I’m under the name Makkus, so feel free to add me as a friend.

I’m hoping I can finish the draft of “Sun Eagle” by the end of October, which is just a few days away. I’m not sure though. A lot depends on Tali.

Oh, I decided to add something kinda fun. Today, I needed a rough sketch of Ari’Dennlier’s town square for the scene I was writing. In this story, there’s an impromptu festival going on there, celebrating the arrival of a Wandering Arbiter.

This is an extremely rough diagram as to major areas. But it’s an interesting little tidbit from this story. Since you’ve been hearing about it for a while, I decided you might like a glimpse. I’m also working on a revised version of the World Map for the Dreamscape universe. And I’m happy to say that I finally have a name for the planet: Taylin. I wonder if you’ll be able to figure out where it’s from. Heh.

Gaming

Star Wars: The Old Republic

I’ve played a lot of games lately. The nice thing about both Laura and I being on leave is that we actually have evenings together where we can play games when we want to. Laura’s been really enjoying SW:ToR as we’re both playing Counselors, me a Jedi Shadow, her a Jedi Sage. She’s enjoying it though, actually asking to play.

I also finished Chapter 2 of the Jedi Knight story quest line on Jedi Knight Lyssinna. Wow…now that’s a serious ending. I’m not going to spoil it for you, but it’s damn good. The excellent storytelling they’ve done with this means I’ll probably end up playing one character of every class. I remember once reading that SW:ToR was the best KOTOR sequel ever…even if it isn’t much of an MMO.

However, there are plenty of things SW:ToR does right…and plenty it does wrong. Someday soon, I’ll be adding a personal review, even though I know a million people far more qualified may have done the same thing.

I’m hoping someone will eventually care though. 😉

Mass Effect 3 (Warning: Minor Spoilers for the end of ME3 ahead)

Mass Effect and I have…quite a history. I was a diehard fan of the original and I was three times the die hard fan of Mass Effect 2. I was at midnight release for Mass Effect 2 and actually drove all the way to West Hollywood for the official Mass Effect 3 midnight launch. But with all that, the ending of Mass Effect 3 emotionally devastated me. In truth, part of that was because I was playing it during the time of Caitlyn’s seizures, when both Laura and I took time off to care for her after the first of her seizures. Because I couldn’t really handle the emotional impact of those events, I refocused my emotional energy on ME3…which I could control…or so I thought.

I managed to play a bit more after seeing the end with Lisa-Anne Shepard…but eventually…the thought of coming back was just too painful. However, a few days ago, I decided to say screw it and find out what the best possible ending for the extended cut could be. And with that knowledge…even though it’s not considered ‘canon’ by Bioware, I decided to come back. And I have with a vengeance. I’ve recently finished the Leviathan DLC (which was pretty damn good) on Lisa-Anne and Laura and I are playing Omega DLC on her character, Adra Shepard. I’m waiting to do Citadel until I’m done with everything else, since I know that’s the last big bang.

But today, I also decided to get into multiplayer, remembering hearing about all the improvements (and how I actually wanted to improve my “Galaxy at War” score so I could get that perfect ending). I had to redownload some of it, but when I did, phew, that was a great battle. Gold with Hazard Ghost Base. I love sending my Salarian Infiltrator against Geth. It’s so damn fun. And I am a holy terror with the N7 Valiant Sniper Rifle. I love that gun. In fact, after I’m done here, I’ll probably head back in.

Dues Ex: Human Revolution

For this part, I’d like to just post my thoughts I wrote in my journal:

Just finished Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Intense game, especially for someone who likes to play it non-lethal. But it was very good. However, the choices at the end definitely are ones to think about. What is the ultimate purpose of technology? Should we push ourselves forever forward? Should we use it to control the darker elements of society? Or should we realize just how dangerous it can be?

I like games with a message…even if it is only really a question. Considering my line of work, it’s definitely something to think about.

It’s also slightly ironic that I’m updating Odyssey (My 27″ iMac), Normandy (My 15″ MBP) and Excalibur (Laura’s 21.5″ iMac) to OS 10.9 tonight.

Good ending. Though I haven’t gotten into the “Missing Link” DLC either.

World of Warcraft

To my dismay, it appears that my WoW guild Saga on Wyrmrest Accord is closing down. Not actually disbanding, but just going inactive. A lot of players have become burned out I think…and 5.3 didn’t help. 5.4 has some cool stuff, but the Timeless Isle (especially if you have a lot of alts) is really easy to burn out on.

I’m not leaving the guild. Frankly, I haven’t been playing all that much anyway, even with all this extra time. And with Tali coming, I’ll have even less.

In Conclusion

I ended up finding a new therapist recently, since the previous one made some odd comments…and frankly wasn’t all that good. But the previous one also made some negative comments about the whole Brony thing that upset me somewhat. About how it would have limited my career potential, such as different paths my life could have gone in like the Navy or becoming a Pastor (both of which I considered in the past).

I remember driving home from that and while I was listening to Everfree Radio, this song came on. And while I know you are sick of My Little Pony stuff…as usual, I challenge you to watch this. It might make you think.

And that’s it for this week. Most likely, next week will be about a baby named Talissa. 🙂

Good luck and have fun!

-rks

Writing to a Different Beat

So the good news is that Laura and Caitlyn are doing well. No further issues with anyone, aside the annoyances of being 36 weeks pregnant. Eep.

I know I’m almost out of time until baby Tali arrives, so it was long past time to get set up so I had a place of my own to work…and to retreat to when the need arose.

Ironically, it was a disagreement with Laura that prompted a complete rearrangement of our bedroom. Not only did we fully configure it to work with the coming baby (adding in the baby swing and the bassinet), but we set it up so I can actually use my desk for writing!

Behold my new writing station!

Before you say a thing, the large Pinkie Pie and the six Plush Ponies are actually Caitlyn’s. She’s been misbehaving a lot lately so they were taken away and put in our room where she’ll get them back when she earns them. I just decided they needed a home until then. As for the small plastic Rarity and Fluttershy…those are mine. 😛

What I really like about this is the second display. That display is what I used to use to make Normandy, my 15″ MBP, into a desktop before I got Odyssey, the 27″ iMac. This display been sitting in our bedroom collecting dust for months. And it was the other night (and ironically, the cause of the disagreement) when I came up with the idea of using the screen with Normandy. I can keep story bibles, quick reference panes, word counts, whatever I need on there as I write so I can reference them easily! What you’re seeing there is one of my maps for the Western Reaches, one of the continents for the Dreamscape world. (I don’t have a name for the planet yet).

Anyway, I’m really excited about this. I finally have a space to write to myself that’s organized and doesn’t have a ton of clutter to distract me. As long as I start up my new Network Location called =LOCKDOWN=, I can’t access the Internet while I write. I do that to prevent the distraction of the evil interwebs. I can’t tell you how much time I’ve wasted on there when I should have been writing.

Rediscovering Writing

So in the last few days, I’ve learned a few things and relearned a few other things. First, I’ve learned that if I keep to a writing schedule and make sure I take my meds properly, I can write a 1,000 words a day. I’ve done it for most days this week, in fact. I’ve also relearned that I tend to type faster the more I write per day. I’ve noticed I can type and think far quicker during my journals than I could a few weeks ago. Doing all this writing trains my hands and brain to work together better.

But the most important thing? I’ve found where my “hurtle” is. I used to make goals for 500 words a day. That may sound like a lot, but it’s puny. And I used to struggle with it a ton, being completely unable to string together anything coherent or just metaphorically spinning my wheels. But I started to realize that when I reach 1,000 words, I’m not staring at the word counter every other paragraph. The alert actually comes as a bit of a surprise.

What’s it all mean? It means that if I can usually surpass 700 words, I can go much farther than that. I’m actually looking forward to testing this tomorrow at the Mission Viejo Library. I’m going to spend a couple hours there tomorrow and just focus on writing and writing alone.

A New Path

So I’ve started to make some new goals for myself. I realize that writing and editing are two very different things. And while I can smash my head against the keyboard trying to write…

(seriously, who doesn’t do this when you have writer’s block?)

…editing I tend to psych myself out far more. I loathe editing, though I know it’s imperative to do. One of these days, I should post the first version of “Ashes over Stormwind” alongside the original just so you can see what editing actually does. (Funny story, while cleaning out my desk, I found at least 100-200 pages of printed drafts for Ashes over Stormwind with notes from both Laura and I. I probably went through that story at least 20-30 times).

Anyway, my original drafts are usually dreadful.

And while I’m editing, there’s a voice in my head that tells me I’m not writing, so I’m not doing it right.

Therefore, I need separate times for writing and editing.

So now, I have a schedule.

During Caitlyn’s nap, I will do my 1,000 words minimum (unless I’m at writer’s group or the library). And when we first put Caitlyn down for the night, that’s when I’ll spend about an hour editing something. My first goal is going to be “Waterfall Steps.” I want that published by the end of October. Yeah, that’s a good goal. It’s already been well edited, so it shouldn’t take too much time.

There, it’s in my Writing Reminders list. And I’ve also put dates on finishing the updates to the new -rks pages, most of which are still blank. I’ll do one a day for a week and that should take care of things. Along with editing and along with my writing.

Yeah. That should be fun. 😛

Okay, I’ve rambled on for…holy…almost a thousand words. So I’ve done 1,000 words in “Sun Eagle,” 2,175 words in my personal journal, and another 1,000 in my blog. Over 4,000 words in one day.

Yeah, I wish writing fiction was as easy as doing journals or blogs. Then I could do novels in two weeks.

Pfft.

I think that’s it for this week folks.

Let’s see…what sort of Pony videos should I leave you with tonight…

*rummages in YouTube video history*

Oh yes…something to help you sleep tonight. Try it out. You’ll like it.

I promise.

Would I lie?

Heheheheheheheh. Sweet dreams.

Good luck and have fun folks!

-rks

Back to Normal…Sort of

Medical Stuff

First and foremost, Laura’s home. She got some sort of bug that was making her throw up just about everything to the point of serious dehydration. She was in the hospital from 1AM on Sunday morning to about 4PM on Tuesday afternoon. I spent most of my time making sure Caitlyn was taken care of (thanks to my mother, father and a neighbor for watching her while we dealt with all of this) and just trying to be there with her. Ironically, I ended up playing a ton of Civilization V. It’s a perfect game for situations where you need to walk away at a moment’s notice.

She’s fine now, though the last few days have been hard. My short-term disability for stress has been extended up to Tali’s birth, so the good news is I won’t have to go back to work until at least December at the earliest. Laura’s OB/GYN extended her own leave to start a week early too. So that means we’re both at home now.

Ironically, this has become a bit complicated. You see, Laura and I have had opposite schedules for almost 3 years now. It’s an accepted part of life since we had Caitlyn. Caitlyn had become used to this as well. But now that all three of us are home, I don’t think any of us really know how to react. Caitlyn’s acting out a bunch, fighting me for almost everything. And even Laura and I have had our issues, but we both recognize they’re caused by stress with everything that’s going on.

We’re starting to make it work though. It’s a challenge, but it’s worth it, as always.

Writing Time

Another unexpected benefit of this situation is that I was able to attend the OC Writer’s Group for the first time since the first meeting way back at the beginning of the year. It was nice to get to network and socialize with fellow writers and I plan to make a habit of it until Tali is born. I managed to do over 1,100 words there, which was pretty impressive. I normally don’t do well writing in social environments as I tend to get distracted rather easily. So it’s still a big accomplishment for me.

“Sun Eagle” is going pretty well. I’m having a bit of trouble with the middle. It’s okay though since I know the endings. There are two in the story, for two different plot lines. But I’m happy with it so far.

Gaming Time

I’ve found that Civilization V is one of those games that’s great to play while playing other games. I’ve been playing it on the sidelines while playing SW:ToR and WoW. I’ve also finally gotten to the Timeless Isle in WoW and found I really enjoy it, especially the whole hunting for treasure thing. And for SW:ToR, I just played the Maelstrom Prison flashpoint. And that was amazing. I don’t want to ruin it for anyone who hasn’t played it (though I suspect anyone who’s reading this either has already done it or doesn’t care much) but the finale was perfect…though I wondered about the identity of the other character for some time. I didn’t see the identity of the entity though…but it makes sense. I also love that it was the second time matching wits with the Grand Moff. It gives the series a great sense of continuity.

I also just purchased Bioshock: Infinite last night. I’m looking forward to playing that. The first two Bioshocks were dark and seemed to have next to no replay value (at least to me), but I’ve heard such great things about Infinite that I just had to try.

Oh yeah, and trying to get Mods to work on the Mac Steam Civ 5 was a pain in the butt…but worth it. I found it strange that the code itself actually demonstrates how to reactivate the mod system within the game. It was strange. Very strange. It’s like the porting company expected people to do it.

That’s all for this week I think. I’m going to continue working on “Sun Eagle.” But right now, I’m tired. So nothing else super deep.

Today’s Pony Videos are two really good ones.

The first is a silly but ADORABLE like half animation/half music video/half who-knows-what? Caitlyn loves it. And the second…you simply must watch. It’s a great crossover between MLP and another rather famous creation by Lauren Faust currently on Cartoon Network…

Anyway, enjoy them!

Good luck and have fun folks!

-rks

Rebooting the Dawn

A New Look…and a New Idea

So I’m planning on redoing Storming Dawn. And I think I might drop the Storming Dawn title. I haven’t come up with anything catchy yet, but I’m going to rebrand this more as a writing/personal blog based about my own name. As you can see, I’ve already worked on a new design theme. I’m liking this already.

First of all, you’ve probably already noticed that the links have changed. I’ll be fiddling with this later to perfect this and hopefully it will make more sense. I actually have some really cool ideas that I would like to try, based somewhat off of a few Brony PMVs I’ve seen lately. (That’s Pony Music Video in case you’re curious. Took me forever to figure out what that meant). But that would take far too much time and a whole lot of work. Not to mention learning how to code CSS and other sort of crazy things. So that’s probably not going to happen.

I don’t know when these changes will be going live, but I hope soon. Especially since I did a Google Search (unintentionally, ironically) for Storming Dawn and some odd things showed up. However, when I search for my own name, I’m happy to see that I’m actually all over. A vast majority of them is reprints of the winners list for the 2011 Blizzard Global Writing Contest, but I’m okay with that. Heck, I’m even in a WoWWiki article. That’s shiny. 🙂

Derailed

I’ll just say it. Caitlyn had another seizure this week. I really thought we were over this. And I’m sick of this entire ordeal. It seems to be Breath-Holding Spells, but the strange thing is that she’s having postitical periods–AKA periods of lethargy–after each incident. However, this isn’t consistent. In truth, they don’t know what’s going on with her and neither do we.

Before you ask, she’s just fine. She was fine within a few hours. But it looks like we get to do ANOTHER EEG and MRI. Whee. I can barely contain my excitement.

Now, time for a little personal confession. I don’t deal with these incidents well. When Caitlyn’s first seizure happened, it started around the time Mass Effect 3 launched. I was playing that a ton during that time and instead of dealing with the emotions of what was going on with Caitlyn…I focused my emotional energy on that game. And if you’re reading this, you probably know that Mass Effect 3’s ending was…controversial, to say the least. For me, it was emotionally devastating. Because without that focus, both things crashed down upon me like tidal waves and I wasn’t ready.

Well, I’m a creature of habit, so that same thing happened this week. I ended up hyper-focusing on various things…primarily Pony-related. And it was like a lens that just amplified my emotional states. *Sigh* So it’s been a hard week. Though the instigators of these issues were ironically two of the most beautiful MLP:FiM things I’ve ever watched.

I’m not really good at the whole “dealing with emotional states thing.”

Well, either that or I’m stark raving mad.

It’s probably the second.

Writing the Future

I’m still on track for publishing one of my stories at the end of the month, despite the derailment of Caitlyn’s last seizure. Either “Glimmer of Perspective” or “Beyond the Waterfall” will be out on Kindle by the start of September.

Soul of the Scribe is getting a once-over by a friend of mine. She’s studying it and looking for any way to expand the story from 42K to 60K. I have a few ideas playing around in my head. I’m kinda annoyed I’m going to have to work on it again. I want it to be done. I want people to be enjoying the darn story. But novellas are damn near impossible to publish traditionally.

And I don’t want to self-publish. From what I’ve seen, it’s not worth it.

Dreamer

Okay, that’s pretty much it for this week. But I’ll be continuing my posting about Pony-related videos. I’m sorry folks, but I have come down with a terminal case of Brony. You’ve seen my own posts about it in the past. I’m actually making some tentative plans to get involved into the Brony community, because I like what I see. Before you throw a fit about that, remember there’s always the vocal or crazy minority that never represent the whole. What I see is something new…and something that celebrates love and tolerance.

I don’t know about you, but when I look at the state of the world, I think we need some more of that.

So here we go. Have some Love and Tolerance.

You’re going to take it and you’re going to enjoy it, darn you.
Closer (Pony Music Video)

Children of the Night (Original fan-made animation and song)

((By the way, I ended up just crying at the end of it because of how beautiful the song and the animation was. There’s an enormous amount of subtext going on here, but you’d have to know the show to get that. 😉 ))

Okay, that’s it for this week. I had some thoughts about the direction Blizzard is going with World of Warcraft (namely that they’ve just given up on giving the Alliance any meaningful story progression), but that’s for another time.

Good luck and have fun!

-rks

Affirmations, Internal and External

Some of you probably know about the “Five Love Languages.” I read it a few years back and I really liked it. Not because it gave me any new information, but more because it helped me put things I’ve always felt into words. Now I could go on about this at length, but I what I want to talk about is one specific kind, which is the most important kind to me. It’s “Words of Affirmation.”

I don’t think I need to explain what that actually means, so we’ll skip that part. But what I will say is that lately, those words of affirmation about my writing has been coming up in my head. Part of that is because I’ve been having a rough time at work. To add difficulties, Caitlyn has not been nice to Laura and I lately and it’s taking it’s toll on us.

So these words of criticism have been building up in me and I’m desperately trying to fight them back. And a recent commenter happened to drop another one on me at just the right moment. And some of my other thoughts…

I won Honorable Mention in thousands of entries for the Blizzard writing contest. I’ve committed my life to raising an awesome child. I protect my wife even when all logic says back off. I’ve been told from COMMUNITY COLLEGE that I should be a pro writer. Even when the rest of the world is going to hell around me, I stick to what I believe. I got Genius after fighting for FIVE YEARS.

And you know what? You can never take my imagination from me. I can do things in my mind and with the written word that makes every paltry sales goal look like a dim shadow forgotten in a new dawn.

((That last part is actually an excerpt from my personal journal))

Why am I stating this? It’s not to be prideful. Because for every success, there’s a thousand failures in the shadows. But that’s where I want them to stay: in the shadows. I’ve found myself focusing too much on all the pain and misery and not enough on the positive aspects of life.

I have an odd sort of memory, a memory that is sporadic at best. It’s why I keep a journal so religiously. Because if I don’t, I know I’ll forget the stuff that matters. I often regret not starting it earlier. I could have used it to process the stuff that happens in my life. My journal actually started August 3 years ago when I got a very bad review for the original “At the End of All Things.” I did it to process my emotions, since I was so devastated by it.

I wonder if it’ll come easier in time, getting critical reviews of my works. Huh.

Anyway, to try and bring this long rambling stream of consciousness to a head…

Why am I going through all of this? To fight back.

Owl City’s “Shooting Star” says it pretty well:

Way up in the air, you’re finally free
And you can stay up there right next to me
All this gravity will try to pull you down
But not this time

So my challenge to myself? Not to let gravity pull me down. The only problem with that is it’s a second-by-second battle. And it’s very easy to lose ground. So very easy. I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to pull it off, so I think I might ask for some divine help.

Writing News

Now that you’ve glimpsed my brain, let’s talk about writing shall we?

Laura finished her readthrough of “Soul of the Scribe” and I’m about halfway through. It’s still a powerful story for me and I think it’s the best story I’ve ever written. I can’t wait to do something with it. Originally, I was going to work on some WoW short stories/flash fiction as a little side project, but I haven’t had the focus or motivation for that right now. But I’m going to change things up and stop doing my journal on all my breaks of the day. 15 minutes isn’t long to write, but I learned in NaNoWriMo that those 15 minutes do add up over time.

That’s all I really have story-wise at the moment.

Oh yeah, and I have brought my Twitter Account to full “writer” feed now. I’ll only be posting writerly updates on it, so if you’re interested, follow me! It should be on the side of the page. 🙂

Now, I think I’ll leave you with something positive to enjoy.

(For the record, I felt this song had a lot more potential as a music video than this, but I’m no music producer)

Good luck and have fun!

-rks

Kanrethad Down!

Lyssinna Starfall before the banished Kanrethad Ebonlocke, Leader of the Black Harvest.

This one is just for the World of Warcraft people! After 50-60 attempts at this insanely difficult boss that requires an intimate knowledge of the warlock cast, I finally got him today at around 2:15PM. The reward? All of my red/orange fire spells are now green! It may seem like a small and silly thing, but it’s one of the most difficult fights I’ve ever done in WoW and I’m delighted to have finally defeated this guy. 🙂

Scrivener Experiments and Exceeding Word Counts

So my new challenge with this story for the OC Writer’s Anthology is to write the short story entirely in Scrivener. And I’m starting to adapt to the program. And I’m starting to see the worth in it. I think for my major stories, like Orion and Dreamscape, there could very well be some advantages to using it. The idea of having a central part for characters is wonderful, along with consistent information on settings and such.

I’ve realized that a lot of my writing habits have to do with format, margins, text and style of the page, rather than actual mechanics with the word processor. I still don’t like the fact that I can’t really use anything as effective as Word’s autocorrect, but having built-in word count goals (and word counts that are not limited to 100,000 words) is really nice.

The bad news? I’m already passed the maximum word count for “Beyond Waterfall.” The target was 3,000 words. At my request, the head of the program said the max is 4,250. I already hit 4,500 and I suspect I have another 1,000 words until completion.

The plan? Finish the story. If I can “compress” it, then I’ll compress it. But I tend to leave holes in stories rather than have sections that can be easily cut. The worst cast scenario is that I come up with something different. I still have a couple months until it’s done. And considering I’ve busted out a 4500 word short story in a few days, another one shouldn’t be too hard.

Maybe I should look at my other short stories and recognize the common elements that work so I don’t go so far over.

Nothing else really new here. We’ve decided to cut down on Caitlyn’s TV and add more play time. I’ve also decided to try and have more conversations and less “do this, don’t do that.” And I’ve started doing Old Raids with my Guild, Saga, in WoW again. I really missed doing these. We managed to down 10-Man Heroic Ragnaros & Al’kir too with the Feedback Achievement.

Anyway, that’s it for now. See you next week!

Good luck and have fun!

-rks

A Quick Hello

I’m a bit pressed for time, but since I couldn’t make my Sunday deadline, I wanted to still do one this week.

I had a really good time at the other Apple Store. The commute was great and the people were just fantastic. I felt totally welcomed and was very happy with the entire thing. I was sad to leave, but it’s not permanent. Not yet anyway. I’m hoping I can work something out, but I’m going to continue doing my best.

My experiment by doing all of the coming short story in Scrivener is going well. I’m finally starting to adapt to the program. I like the Compose mode where I have nothing on the screen but the notes I want and the main document. It’s working well for me.

I did have to ask for a word count extension though. I just can’t seem to write anything short! The goal was about 3,000 words, but I’m already at 2,500 and I’m about halfway through (I think). But I think I can end it by 4,000. As long as I don’t get distracted within the story. But so far, I’m pretty happy with it.

And that’s about it! Let’s see…I’m excited about the new 5.3 Patch landing today in WoW. Really excited about that. And I was looking into the Xbox One a bit. Disappointed about the lack of backwards compatibility, but I think there’s a lot of potential there. I won’t be a day-one adopter, but I rarely am for consoles.

The only other thing is that I’ve started listening to Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson. Fantastic so far, though I’m not the biggest fan of Michael Kramer’s audiobook voice. But he’s making it sound more raspy than he used for the Wheel of Time series and he doesn’t sound so blasted bored, so that’s helping.

Okay, time’s up!

Good luck and have fun!

-rks