NaNo, the new CoT chapter, and other various things

December 6, 2009 at 2:53 pm (Life, Meta, NaNoWriMo, Writing)
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So I made my goal for NaNo (25,000), and also got good headway on CoT. It was pretty hard to get into writing this month sometimes – I had about two weeks I was actually making my word count, and then I had weeks where I was just overwhelmed. Gabe and I are now about 7 months out from getting married, and a lot of those plans (plus job searching on my front) took out time from writing. I’ve had about three phone calls from my mother this week alone, plus emails from vendors, bridesmaids and assorted bridal spam. Writing has almost been a much-needed break from it all.
Currently, I have all of Volume 3 finished, as well as two chapter from volume 4. I’m currently working on the third. The chapter that just went up was half written before NaNo, and half during. I found the worst part about writing for NaNo was the sudden decrease in quality of my writing. I usually spend hours on a few paragraphs, agonizing over word choice, and if everything is in character, and if anything needs anymore description. Writing for NaNo, I had to let all of that go. I had to just write it out, and then worry about editing in December. I spent 3 hours all together editing Daithi’s chapter yesterday. I went through his older chapters, trying to get a feel for the characters. This is usually what I do before I write, but of course during NaNo, I didn’t have the time. I poured over the entire chapter, making sure everything made sense, had the right diction, had the right characterization, everything. In the end, I think I actually enjoyed this process of writing that my old one. It felt great to get everything out, and then when I went to edit, I felt like my writing was much less heavy. It was like the plodding way I wrote my old chapters sort of came out in the writing, making it feel burdensome, while the way I wrote for NaNo let me have really fast action, and then add in some needed description later.
On writing Daithi himself, I think he’s pretty challenging to me. He’s not the sort of person I normally write; all my characters previous to CoT were either quick-witted or comically slow, and very few fell between. Daithi is someone who is smart, but not very clever. He’s quick to act, but slow to think. And he generally is unable to see beyond the surface of people around him. Daithi is probably one of the leakiest narrators I have ever written, and it kills me to leave things out that I wouldn’t have with many of my other characters. But I think its good for me – CoT is definitely an experiment on writing limited perspectives, and Daithi is the one character right now that really is unaware of the greater scheme of things. The other narrators all have one blind spot, but Daithi is the only one I’ve felt like has a very narrow view of the world, and he will make up things for everyone to fit inside it.

Here’s where I ended up on NaNo:

27466 / 50000 words. 55% done!

I’m going to see how far my editing gets me towards my goal as well. Here’s how that’s going:

27642 / 50000 words. 55% done!

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NaNo Day 3!

November 4, 2009 at 12:46 am (Life, NaNoWriMo, Writing)
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Despite the late start, distractions, and stabbing pain in my shoulder, I managed to make my quota again, and a bit more! I have finished Daithi’s chapter, so that means tomorrow I’ll be spending some time mapping out Meri’s chapter and then writing as much of it as I can muster. Tomorrow Gabe and I have an appointment to look at tuxes, which will take a big cut out of our writing time, but I have a small buffer of words to work with, which may cover the time I spend doing other things. I’m hoping that planning out this next chapter won’t take that long, but somehow this is how I always lose time during NaNo. It usually takes about a week normally for me to really suss out the scenes for a chapter, but I unfortunately don’t have that luxury this month.
My total for today:

5296 / 50000 words. 11% done!

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NaNo Day 2!

November 3, 2009 at 12:52 am (Life, NaNoWriMo, Writing)
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I got home late from work today, after running from the basement to our floor looking for something that hadn’t been put out yet. Combined with waiting in the cold, my day has been less than spectacular. Also, Monkey Island episode 4 is pretty sad! But I’m glad we got through it — now Gabe and I just have to wait until the end of November to find out how the whole season ends. We watched some TV after, and then got started on our NaNo work — I managed to make a pretty good showing! I’m hoping to get a buffer of a few hundred words, so that when we can’t work for the normal amount of time (like this Wednesday, when we’re going to look at tuxes), I won’t be entirely screwed.
I’m hoping to have this chapter of CoT up by the weekend. It should be finished in the next two days, but I don’t want to spend valuable writing time editing during the week — so I’m saving all editing for the weekends. Maybe there will even be two posts on ficpress this weekend! We shall see!
My count so far:

3498 / 50000 words. 7% done!

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Quick NaNo Start Post!

November 2, 2009 at 12:51 am (Life, NaNoWriMo, Writing)
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Gabe and I have embarked on the unwise pasttime of trying to complete NaNoWriMo this year, despite our rapidly declining amount of freetime, what with work and the wedding, and random inconveniences, like eating and sleeping. However I managed to make my word count tonight (After spending the entire day gallavanting around 6 Flags with Gabe and assorted friends!), mostly due to unending cups of cider. I will be entirely happy if I manage 25,000 words by the end of November, but I am aiming for 50,000, because I like diappointment. In any case, here’s my progress so far!

 

1769 / 50000 words. 4% done!

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A Minor Update, with a few thoughts about Monkeys

October 12, 2009 at 8:09 pm (Geekery, Life, NaNoWriMo, Writing)
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No, the next chapter of CoT is nowhere near done. It is, however, fully plotted, and I’ve made good headway on the first scene. I’ve been behind mostly due to work, or exhaustion from work, as well as from the application process while I try to jump ship. I think I’m pretty close to leaving the awfulness behind me, though I haven’t had any official offers yet. My last set of interviews went very well, and hopefully they’ll get back to me in the next few weeks.

Another set back was that fact that I made a mistake in the previous Daithi chapter, or at least now it rates as one. I think I spent only about two months trying to figure out what I was doing, and then another two rewriting the first few lines of the new chapter every few days. Finally, this month I snagged some paper at work, and then wrote out the first half page. During our vacation last n, I wrote the rest of that page in my writing notebook. I’m hoping to get this chapter done before NaNo, but Gabe and I have a busy few weeks ahead, filled with work, wedding-related things, and enjoyable things with friends.

We have, however, had plenty of time to work our way through a few games! Gabe was the child of a Mac house, and I never played on any console besides Atari jaguar  and 2600 until I was about 14 (except for a few times around age 10, when I played Sonic poorly with a neighbor on the Genesis), so he has been playing through some PS2 games and such, while I’ve been introducing him to the magical world of computer gaming.

We spent most of the spring and summer working through all four Monkey Island games. Monkey Island 1 and 2 were staples of my childhood, and 3 is my favorite game besides The Longest Journey/Dreamfall (which we also played through), and 4 is a travesty that I play because the commercialization of the Tri-Island area is still hilarious. And I love Murray with a love undying. So, of course, when TellTale released Tales of Monkey Island, I had to have it.

We played episodes 1 and 2 on the wii, and then episode 3 on the PC. We then promptly bought the whole season for the PC. The game did not translate well to the wii, and although its nice when you play with others to be able to sit on the couch and watch, the PC version is of much, much higher quality. That being said, I was filled with geekish glee when I played the episodes, and TellTale has not yet disappointed me with the quality of the humor and storytelling. I have read the lukewarm reviews of the three episodes, and I have noticed one thing — none of these people played any of the other Monkey Island games.

Um, what?

If you are new to the Monkey Island franchise, play them in order. It won’t take long. It’s necessary to understand why these new games are so great. The puzzles will see random and overly hard if you haven’t ever played one, and this is reflected in the reviews I’ve seen. The answers to puzzles are often “trivially simple”, in that it is usually an outlandish or childishly literal solution. This is how Monkey Island works. That’s the humor. Trying to find some elegantly derived solution is a waste of time. In Monkey Island 3, you make syrup of ipecac my combining and ipecac flower with maple syrup. Honestly, this is made so kids can play.

That being said, the humor in it is decidedly adult at times. I think of it as the muppet effect: below a certain age, no child will understand the suggestive themes, and instead laugh at the literal joke. Everyone above a certain age will get the innuendo and laugh, and then wonder if the kids understood it. The humor is Tales is decidedly much more kid-friendly, but still, there are moments where Gabe and I have gone “I didn’t think you could make that joke”.

The plot is great — I won’t spoil them, since you have to play them to really get how amazingly executed it is, but suffice to say, I was not let down by the Morgan Le Flay reveal. I was worried that they would not continue the excellence 1-3 had with strong female characters, but besides a still slightly disappointing Elaine (3 was the best, 4 was the worst, and the Elaine of Tales falls decidedly in the middle somewhere), it has kept up the tradition with flying colors. They also return to the naive Guybrush of 1 and 3, not the jadedly stupid Guybrush of 2, or the flat out moron Guybrush of 4. I think TellTale is doing an awesome job of keeping true to the Monkey Island brand, and they have certainly gone back to the experts in order to get it right.

The only real problem I’ve had is the art style; although much better than 4, I still think the more 2D, cartoonish style of 3 fits better than the 3D stuff they’re doing now. Still, it rendered much better on the PC than the wii (the wii made it look almost as bad as 4). The puzzle solving is definitely much more difficult on the wii, not because of any ramped up puzzles, but simply because the art is so bad, you can’t tell what’s what, and when you can, the hit boxes on the items are skewed. The PC version has better art, and everything answers correctly when you click on it. Some of the puzzles are a bit of a reach, but we haven’t had to used a walkthrough all that much during the playthrough, and we haven’t had to read the deisgners’ minds in order to make it through the game. Out of the three released episodes, number 3 is certainly the best, and it really seems like TellTale is coming into their own with each new episode. I am looking forward to playing the last two of this season when they come out.

If you are a fan of the Monkey Island series, I would definitely invest in the season. If you’re a newcomer, I’d play at least 1-3 first, then maybe go to Tales. And maybe play 4. Maybe.

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On the Beast: the new CoT chapter…

May 25, 2009 at 11:45 pm (Life, Meta, Writing)
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So, for the first time in nearly 6 months, I’m posting a brand-new chapter of CoT. Trust me, I’ve actually been working like a demon on it — my commute to work is nearly 2 hours long (making 4 hours of total commute in a day) and I work more than 8 hours a day, which is a completely different beast than writing when unemployed. To start with, you have a lot less time to actually write. But, on the upside, it becomes the thing that occupies your mind, because it is no longer your only semblence of work besides, perhaps, applying and interviewing for jobs. This schedule should be ending soon — Gabe and I have leased an apartment much closer to my work, cutting my travel time down to an hour. This hour is also spent on the piece of the transit system that is most easy to write on, although I may nto always have a seat to do so. It depends, really. In any case, I am expecting an influx of time and creativity, so hopefully the next chapter won’t take so long.

This chapter was mostly written in a small notebook of actual paper; something I have not done since I was maybe 12 or 13. Maybe 14. I made the transition to MS Word quite quickly once I realized how easy it was. Also, it was the first time I had a computer in my room, and I felt like I could write all of my pubescent drivel on it without anyone finding it so easily. So, writing in this new, tiny notebook has brought back some nostalgia with it. Basically, I wrote the first few scenes over my Christmas vacation, then started my job and promptly forgot to even look at it for a few months. But I thought about it. I came up with ideas that really made me excited. And then, sometime in March, I came back to it.

It is unbearable strange to write in a notebook after writing so long on the computer. There is no thesaurus. No spell check. No easy removable of words. Just you, your pen, your paper, and your thoughts. I learned very quickly to view the notebook as a sort of “sketchbook” for writing. It isn’t final, everything can change when I transcribe it to my computer, and that I just need to let go. It took about a month to get there. I got into the rhythm of writing during the week on the train, then transcribing when I could over the weekend. I didn’t catch up until today, when I ran full-stop into the place I ended, unable to go further without the old scenes I had written in the firt draft to draw from. And then I decided at about 2 o’clock that I would finish it. I had only a little left — a scene and a half — and I figured I could power through it.

Gabe slept through a portion of my writing tornado and woke up about two hours later, to my furious typing. I then took a two-hour-plus break to play Fire Emblem as I had promised, and returned to writing. By the time Gabe finished dinner, I was two paragraphs away.

I think, perhaps, that I have the hardest time writing Eldari because she is very close to my personality around age 13 or 14. Very self conscious, very few female friends, and completely wishing books could guide her. Secretly, I think I must consider myself very boring, and I drag my feet about writing Eldari. She has possibly the most rewarding arc, but she’s a stubborn mule ( by design) about getting there, and I try to make it as realistic as possible. Make no mistake, she is not my Bella Swan or some such — she is very much divergent from me, and I consider her flawed. Most of her gifts keep her from being able to interact with other in a normal way — her bookishness, her gifted mind, every ‘advantage’ she was given actually sets her back any place that isn’t the battlefield. Of course, she’s far too timid to be anywhere near a battlefield, so she sort of comes off as useless to her people. It’s only when she’s out of her comfort zone where she can make friends. She has what SC calls an “aura of romantic complication”. She has a tendency to attract those she doesn’t like and become invisible to those she does. And when confronted with this, she is happy to be the object of attraction until it becomes serious — she isn’t unfair, just a bit silly, and when she can no longer ignore what is going on, she deals. Not overly well, I think, but she does it.

Eldari’s story ended up being more adolescent than I thought. When I started writing her, I thought she would come out sort of fully realized, self-actualized and totally in-control. And then Andar came along, and I realized that no, she is actually sort of young when it comes to romance. And angsty. And that all of that would have to come about in her arc. Getting over her unattractiveness to her own people, realizing that not everyone perceived her that way, and then realizing that she didn’t need a leading man. She’s hit the first two, sort of, but I’m looking forward to actually getting on that personal journey of hers. Also, she meets some of the most interesting side-characters. So yeah, that too.

Next chapter should be more with the ranger, Daithi, and his bard cousin, Elishaveth, who I have been dying to get back to. They also have a very intersting plot line (but then, I think all my characters do), and it’s far more fast paced than say, Muirinn or Eldari’s. Hopefully I’ll be able to start and finish it within a few months, but until then, I should be attempting to post every week or so.

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Light at the End of the Tunnel…

May 17, 2009 at 11:47 pm (Life, Writing)
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….So. It’s been a long time. Hopefully, within the next month, I’ll get better at upkeeping this (and ficpress). I have been writing, just mostly for other people or on group projects (see Gabe’s blog for more of this), but I’m gradually reaching the end of the next CoT chapter. Most of this is a complete lack of time due to working all day and having a two hour commute in and out of work. This is also all on public transportation, so you can image the level of energy I have after a normal day. Our weekends barely are restful — we’ve either had a game or two to go to, or a family/wedding engagement. It has been a long few months. And I’ve had no days off from work that weren’t jury duty until this last Friday.

Lately, though, I’ve finally gotten back into doing my hobbies, such as writing and cooking. I don’t really have a sudden influx of time, I’ve just been managing it better. Gabe and I have been playing an hour or two of a game after dinner (or during, depending on whether it’s on computer or Wii). Our current darling is Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, since it’s a tough game that can be played pretty casually if you’re into it. The plot’s been awesome, Gabe and I have picked our favorite units that we personally cheer for, and we’ve been making our way through about a battle a night pretty steadily. We also have a few games in the rotation: Wizardry 8, Baldur’s Gate, and Fable; plus he’s been watching me play the more open-ended Black & White and Spore. Also, I shameless play Sims 2, and sometimes Gabe likes to laugh at the animations — like the ghost pirate you learn a shanty from.

On the cooking front, I’ve been making dinner nearly everynight, but lately I’ve been adding a few more dishes to our weekly rotation. I’ll talk more about this in a later post, but I’ve found some pretty good & new favorites I’ll be making much more often. I recently made desserts for mother’s day; chocolate cupcakes filled with white-chocolate whipped cream and strawberries that were made with my mum in mind, and mini-triple citrus cheesecakes for Gabe’s mother. We ended up giving a plate of each to Gabe’s mom (lucky too, since we walked right into mother’s day brunch), and a half-plate of each to my mum, since neither me nor my brother are home and my father hates strawberries and cheesecakes. This Friday I made monkey bread, much to the joy of Gabe and J, who had never heard of the thing before. Gabe has dubbed it “Original Sin: The Dish” and has made me promise to make it again. I’m doing a very nice, big dinner for his friends at the end of the week to celebrate his graduation from grad school, so we decided to make that the dessert.

I do have a lot to say about my struggle with this chapter and well as my job, but I’ll save that for another post. This one is really to say: I’m not dead, I’m still writing, and I’ll post more soon.

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Merry Saturnalia, All!

December 27, 2008 at 6:25 pm (Geekery, Life, Writing)
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My family is throwing a Christmas party today, but I figured I’d throw up a quick post for an update before Gabe and his boys drop by, since he’s been nagging me to post for the past four weeks (and I finally agreed that I needed to). Christmas went well, save for a small accident at the mall, where someone hit me at cruise-speed from behind. There was no damage – in fact, nothing that even said there was an accident besides Gabe being absolutely sure that no, it was not inertia from breaking. The people who (may or may not have) did it sped past us though, so any sort of resolution didn’t really occur. except for, of course, my mother flipping her lid and my brother “helping”. Still, the holidays went well – I got a few computer games, plus some books, a slow-cooker, and a few movies – as well as some stuff on cake decorating, which has been a skill i have been dying to learn, since I currently decorate cakes like an epilieptic five-year-old. My mother is convinced that it’s him my genes, though – what with her, my brother, and my grandmother being artistically as well as culinarily inclined. I, howevere, am convinced that I got all the baking genes, while skipping out on all the artistic ability (I once was asked if my cat-playfully-laying-on-its-back drawing was of a dead pikachu. It was not my proudest moment).

Gabe got me a whole bunch of stuff for the game, as well as Fallout 3 for Christmas, and I spent most of Christmas Eve after he left playing Fallout. I got through the beginning (after restarting, since I finally had to admit that not having external speakers was setting me back an obscene amount, and I had to go salvage some from my parent’s computer in the loft) and now I am running around Megaton, trying not to get in over my head. I am enjoying it – espevcially VATS, since I am awful at FPS in general. I plan to play more, since it’s OMG ABOUT SOCIAL EXPERIEMENTS, which, as anyone who knows me is aware, is reason enough for me to play anything. I like to play games, however, with a walkthrough handy – I know, lame, but I play for plot and no amount of help can make you get through a battle if you don’t have skill – but I’m having issues with the ones for Fallout 3. Why? Because I play as a girl – which apparently is UHEARD OF. For ladies do not play games, right? COME ON GUYS. I’m hoping it’s because it’s relatively new, but I have a feeling its due to men who write Fallout walkthroughs being a MANLY sort of man. A MANLY man cannot play as a lady. That is UNMANLY. Ugh, whatever boys. I’m halfway tempted to write my own for ladies, who get completely different dialogue options.

In addition to that, I also got Oblivion and Black and White 2, as well as a Sims expansion (and I went out the next day and bought the next one). I haven’t gotten to the first two games, but I have been playing Sims 2 – I know, I know, not everyone’s cup of tea. But I’ve got latent OCD and meglomania burning a hole in the back of my brain, and man, does playing the Sims ease that. Also, it is hilarious. After replacing all the defaults in the game, its become very interesting to do my best to create Sims after people I know – and somehow, the game completely nails some people. For instance, Sim-Gabe keeps rolling fears about his FEAR OF MEDIOCRITY, OMG. He is terrified to write a bad novel, paint a bad painting, lose a contest, etc. If he does so, his aspiration meter goes headfirst into the red and he has a TOTAL BREAKDOWN OMG. When this is brought up to real-Gabe, he only makes a face and tells me I’m banished.

In other news, the very first game of the CoT RPG is tomorrow, which is totally exciting and also mind-numbingly terrifying. We still have a few more things to do on it, and we’ll be down a player, but I think it should go well, if only because flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants is the normal status for me when I deal with anything CoT related. Still, J is a D&D purist (excpet when its his character that’s broken) and I’m worried about keeping him somewhat happy, because his character does not have the plot armor he seems to think it does. Which I’ve tried to explain, but he’s so sure his character is godly. Which, uh, it’s not. Not really. Better than everyone else’s situation, but really….it’ll be a toss up whether his HP is gonna keep him up long enough to make any difference.

In CoT story news, I’ve finally been going over it, and hopefully I’ll be able to make some headway on it after the holidays. I’ve also been working on Toxicity of Susan’s first chronological episode, but holidays have been keeping me from having much time to write anything. And when I do have time, I’m generally either gaming to relax, or baking with my mother. Monday through Wednesday I’m also supposed to be baking the goodies for Dan’s family and and friends, which is my christmas gift to them.

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So Uh, About That NaNoWriMo…

December 1, 2008 at 5:30 pm (NaNoWriMo, Writing)
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Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
20,969 / 50,000
(41.9%)

So, I ended up losing steam in the middle of the month – first due to a near-ninja escape from my house, then due to OMFG NEW COMPUTER BROKE WTF, and then holidays. I had originally been picking up speed – I had a good week where I wrote between 2000 and 3000 words a night, but it was not to be! I ended up having issues with things at home (namely: I am related to crazy people) and jobs (re: I CAN’T GET EXPERIENCE IF NO ONE HIRES ME). After that I got my new compy – the beautiful, custom-built EVA, but she came with a dead back fan, and in three days my drool-worthy beast of a GPU crapped out. In the middle of a writing session. I lost an entire scene of almost 800 words. After that, I basically couldn’t bear to write CoT for at least a week, and then job stuff and holiday stuff snuck up on me and yesterday was the first time I had time to write. Only to discover – I had lost every word of that scene, save for the original first sentence – which I had re-written before the crash! I tapped out a few words, trying to recover the lost scene, but…well, that didn’t go so well.

In any case, I truly enjoyed writing for NaNoWriMo so I decided I’d try doing a monthly word count of 25,000 for CoT. I like keeping track of how much I’m writing, and hopefully it will point out the problems I have with my word count. Also, it should keep me in enough practice to easily double what I write normally for NaNo next year. Also, it will give me great incentive to keep updating the blog!

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NaNoWriMo: Day 11

November 12, 2008 at 2:20 pm (Life, NaNoWriMo, Writing)
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Day 11

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
14,641 / 50,000
(29.3%)

I’ve started to institute some semblance of a schedule on myself – I get up, job search, write the blog post about the day before, then I have time free for whatever, followed by stopping whatever at around 9 to get ready to write by 9:30 or 10. Usually, with the two hours until 12 (plus about a half hour since I always start late), I can get over my word count done. Which is my aim, since I am something like 3,000 words behind, and I’m trying to slowly pare it down until I’m back on track. Most nights I get somewhere near 2000 words, which means I’m taking off about 400 words from the 3,000, so I’m making good time. I think I will throw myself a one-lady-party when it finally gets down to 2,000. I include the 3000 in my daily goal too – so whenever I look at my goal, it is some obscene number in the 5,000 range. It will be a fine, fine day when that finally gets back to a normal amount.

This current chapter is a beast. Each scene is taking up by word count each night. It looks at other novels and thinks it could take them. It eats Volume 1 chapters for breakfast. It is like the Jabba the Hutt of chapters, only without the dancing slave girls and Han Solo in carbonite. But the best thing about it is that I finally have broken out my pirate playlist – Drunken Sailor – on seeqpod. I’ve been writing with it on for the past few days – ever since I got past the kiss scene, which was the second scene in this chapter. I believe I’ll be starting the sixth scene tonight. The pirates have not officially shown up yet – they will technically be in the last two scenes, but we won’t have a true pirate chapter until volume 4.

Snippet:

Teja heard a splash behind them and jumped off his lap, racing to the rail. She was enthralled by the merfolk that dogged the ship – the front end caused her great confusion, but one glimpse at the tail caused her to mew in excitement, as if she thought there was a great tuna swimming below, just waiting to be her dinner. The reappearance of the human end distressed her, and she hissed in fear, looking over towards Arduus to see if he could come save her, should she get into a mess she could not handle. He laughed, and she haughtily turned her kitten face away from him to let him know he had fallen into disfavor.

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