About a year ago or so, I had a few projects a bit different from what I have now; namely, there were a few small role-playing games I wanted to write. While the majority of them have been co-opted into writing in some way, a few exist as nothing more than notes in a forgotten .txt.
Today, I finished my first draft of The God Machine. Originally conceived of as a meta-game or idea generator for player characters, in its completed-ish form, it has obvious utility in the creation of character traits and concepts, as well as being a pretty decent brainstorming exercise. I won't get too much into it, but it is nothing more than a spreadsheet with some special borders and annoying formulae.
So that's really cool. Also, I'm bleeding on my K's and I's here, having had a rough time of stringing my brother's guitar earlier tonight.
Last of all, this character - æ - what the heck is it called? I can't quite remember. Wikipedia says it's an "ash", but I seem to recall hearing a different name for it at some point in my studies (though whether it was while reading Middle English, studying morphology, spelling with the IPA, I really can't recall.)
-jd
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
MARCUS: Berserker! [Marcus lunges]
It's Script Frenzy, boyos. And it's me.
While I'm holding out a bit on the exact details over there, nobody in the whole wide reads this, so no worries. SOMNAMBULANT is an ensemble television drama about a group of people with psychological afflictions of some kind. The stranger the better (not a bad descriptor, that phrase). A young man, a single mother, and an aged Jew - all patients together at one time - hit the road, fleeing what the eldest insists is a murderess with her sights set on the all of them. Their afflictions - some of which are physical - color the way they have to live, and living together on the run makes things difficult. Throw in a needy daughter, a hypochondriac sister, a well-to-do delusional friend, and some very special appearances by Jesus Christ; you've got SOMNAMBULANT.
I capitalize my working titles now, primarily out of a very poor filing system.
Filing systems. I've been trying to digitize what notes I've made over the last year and change (pain in the ass), and recently started trying to convert what digitized notes I did have into a personal encrypted wiki. This has been super-helpful not just for writing but for filling out settings. I'm digging it.
I've also just tonight heard about the AlphaSmart. I'm wondering how useful one of these types of gadgets might be. Instead of scribbling notes furiously at stoplights and only getting maybe 17WPM, I could be typing and getting my 110WPM. Not only that, it would save on all this time having to go over the notes again just to digitize them.
While I'm holding out a bit on the exact details over there, nobody in the whole wide reads this, so no worries. SOMNAMBULANT is an ensemble television drama about a group of people with psychological afflictions of some kind. The stranger the better (not a bad descriptor, that phrase). A young man, a single mother, and an aged Jew - all patients together at one time - hit the road, fleeing what the eldest insists is a murderess with her sights set on the all of them. Their afflictions - some of which are physical - color the way they have to live, and living together on the run makes things difficult. Throw in a needy daughter, a hypochondriac sister, a well-to-do delusional friend, and some very special appearances by Jesus Christ; you've got SOMNAMBULANT.
I capitalize my working titles now, primarily out of a very poor filing system.
Filing systems. I've been trying to digitize what notes I've made over the last year and change (pain in the ass), and recently started trying to convert what digitized notes I did have into a personal encrypted wiki. This has been super-helpful not just for writing but for filling out settings. I'm digging it.
I've also just tonight heard about the AlphaSmart. I'm wondering how useful one of these types of gadgets might be. Instead of scribbling notes furiously at stoplights and only getting maybe 17WPM, I could be typing and getting my 110WPM. Not only that, it would save on all this time having to go over the notes again just to digitize them.
Monday, December 8, 2008
H-E-Double Hockey Sticks
Don't act like you don't know the word I'm talking about. You know exactly what I'm talking about.
November has come and gone. I don't have an excuse.
Oh wait: I suck.
Comics and short stories are the ficción du jour, and it shows. The original blog post here has been cut/pasted and subsumed into a greater work. I began again, and then once more performed literary double-bypass. So you get this, meta-quickfic blog-trickle criticism/editorial/c.v.-in-retrospect.
Take it or leave it, my friend. Because I'll be cut-and-pasting that jazz, too. Keep close watch (with the non-existent eyes in your non-existent head; no offense, but I know that only imaginary people read this, and while I don't want to hurt your feelings, you only count as 3/5s of a vote in a jury of my peers) for alerts/notices/catcalls in the near future. As the random guy quoted in that Beck song says, "Things are gonna change, I can feel it."
*spin-spin-spin*
-jd
November has come and gone. I don't have an excuse.
Oh wait: I suck.
Comics and short stories are the ficción du jour, and it shows. The original blog post here has been cut/pasted and subsumed into a greater work. I began again, and then once more performed literary double-bypass. So you get this, meta-quickfic blog-trickle criticism/editorial/c.v.-in-retrospect.
Take it or leave it, my friend. Because I'll be cut-and-pasting that jazz, too. Keep close watch (with the non-existent eyes in your non-existent head; no offense, but I know that only imaginary people read this, and while I don't want to hurt your feelings, you only count as 3/5s of a vote in a jury of my peers) for alerts/notices/catcalls in the near future. As the random guy quoted in that Beck song says, "Things are gonna change, I can feel it."
*spin-spin-spin*
-jd
Monday, November 17, 2008
Wreath of vagaries\ Spinning too fast to forgive\ The house boiled again
As much as I hate for it to seem like I just have a different excuse for everything, I really think the wedding planning and travel may have interfered with this year's November novel. I will labor to my best whilst on the road this weekend and the next, though I get motion sickness. A barfy manuscript is a manuscript nonetheless; Kipling doesn't disqualify it.
I leave for Mississippi Saturday. The writing will commence if possible. I'll return next Saturday. That will leave me, worst case scenario, with two days to write 48,500 words. The very thought of such a feat (and my predilections for procrastination and last-minute cramming) is nearly reason enough to forget my notebook.
There will be no internet on the moon. My veins will run dry of pointless information, and my body of knowledge will begin to consume itself. Expect me to, sans wireless, wax historic in the mode of trivia. I don't think Commodore Perry ever goes unmentioned when I get in those sorts of frenzies.
Also, I recently discovered that I'm still in love with Tina Fey; it wasn't just some weird high school nerd crush.
It's a less time-specific nerd crush.
Expect a snippet or two from the Mercury Project here on the blog in the coming days, legal worries be damned.
I leave for Mississippi Saturday. The writing will commence if possible. I'll return next Saturday. That will leave me, worst case scenario, with two days to write 48,500 words. The very thought of such a feat (and my predilections for procrastination and last-minute cramming) is nearly reason enough to forget my notebook.
There will be no internet on the moon. My veins will run dry of pointless information, and my body of knowledge will begin to consume itself. Expect me to, sans wireless, wax historic in the mode of trivia. I don't think Commodore Perry ever goes unmentioned when I get in those sorts of frenzies.
Also, I recently discovered that I'm still in love with Tina Fey; it wasn't just some weird high school nerd crush.
It's a less time-specific nerd crush.
Expect a snippet or two from the Mercury Project here on the blog in the coming days, legal worries be damned.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Jeez oh pease.
Scratch that earlier post about having eight book ideas, twelve short stories, etc. I've got a shoebox full of ideas on post-its, a box that gets two or three sticky notes added a day. I went through it this last week, and it is by and large full of really good stuff. I can't even guess how many short story ideas and comic book ideas I have.
NaNo is not going well, and I've come to a conclusion on why (though I'm still going to try, even if I'm only 1% done.) I don't do plots. I do words, dialogue, thoughts, ideas. I can't crank those out like nothing, as they require work. If it were poetry, we'd have a different story. So I'll do what I can, but it's slow going for me.
I know it sounds strange, not doing plots. I don't know. Check with Vonnegut or something. Also, happy would-be birthday to him.
NaNo is not going well, and I've come to a conclusion on why (though I'm still going to try, even if I'm only 1% done.) I don't do plots. I do words, dialogue, thoughts, ideas. I can't crank those out like nothing, as they require work. If it were poetry, we'd have a different story. So I'll do what I can, but it's slow going for me.
I know it sounds strange, not doing plots. I don't know. Check with Vonnegut or something. Also, happy would-be birthday to him.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Frozen Meat Ponds
November began just a few days ago. I had rather a long weekend, and so didn't have the opportunity to start the alleged novel. Tonight was my first night on such efforts, and I've nailed down--I think--my premise. I've had some sci-fi stories bumping around in my head (the old-fashioned kind, rather than your run-of-the-mill space fantasy,) and also an idea for a sort of pulp action novel. I'd intended to put it in graphic novel form, but I think that shoving it into a novel might do it some good.
I used to be a freeform-or-nothing poet, until I met some good forms. Fitting ten pounds of crap in a five-pound bag really made my prose shine, though. Much like shoving a recurring dream of burning garbage and impossible suicides into a sestina, turning this pulp action idea into a novel could do it some good. I expect that a story hailing from such a visual medium (dear Lord, I'm talking shop today) would face some challenges when funneled into text. Since I have a tendency to make the simple unfriendly and the straightforward verbose, the results will be entertaining. Plus, I suck at imagery.
Or I might just use my secret weapon. If things get tough, I have a project from this last summer. I wanted to use an idea conceived in November, but I'm willing to compromise. Plan B, Codename Mercury.
Oh, and since I just noticed the jobs tag: crap. I've been rejected on two fronts already. Though they were polite and even hopeful, it's been painful. I imagine since I'm still here that I'll get over it. I continue on at my sub-par job (with a new boss, who has just left for a couple days!) while I soldier down this literary path.
Might get there faster if I rocket jump instead.
-jd
I used to be a freeform-or-nothing poet, until I met some good forms. Fitting ten pounds of crap in a five-pound bag really made my prose shine, though. Much like shoving a recurring dream of burning garbage and impossible suicides into a sestina, turning this pulp action idea into a novel could do it some good. I expect that a story hailing from such a visual medium (dear Lord, I'm talking shop today) would face some challenges when funneled into text. Since I have a tendency to make the simple unfriendly and the straightforward verbose, the results will be entertaining. Plus, I suck at imagery.
Or I might just use my secret weapon. If things get tough, I have a project from this last summer. I wanted to use an idea conceived in November, but I'm willing to compromise. Plan B, Codename Mercury.
Oh, and since I just noticed the jobs tag: crap. I've been rejected on two fronts already. Though they were polite and even hopeful, it's been painful. I imagine since I'm still here that I'll get over it. I continue on at my sub-par job (with a new boss, who has just left for a couple days!) while I soldier down this literary path.
Might get there faster if I rocket jump instead.
-jd
Monday, October 20, 2008
The Title I Have in Mind is a Whistled Tune
Got the mass e-mail for NaNoWriMo last week, and I signed up just this morning. I'll be participating again this year, hopefully with more success.
I've done some decent short stories recently, and also I (HI I AM ENGAGED NOW) threw together a compilation of many of my more recent poems and gave it to my (then-)girlfriend.
Anyways, that is all. Expect more updates in the coming weeks, as I will probably escape from NaNoWriMo to here (or perhaps to pl_goldrush.)
I've done some decent short stories recently, and also I (HI I AM ENGAGED NOW) threw together a compilation of many of my more recent poems and gave it to my (then-)girlfriend.
Anyways, that is all. Expect more updates in the coming weeks, as I will probably escape from NaNoWriMo to here (or perhaps to pl_goldrush.)
Monday, August 11, 2008
Boxes of boxes.
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
It speaks volumes about me that I find that actually interesting.
I drew up a list last week and it turns out that I have over eight novel seeds, roughly a dozen short stories in progress, and (at the time) twenty-six comic book premises. That number has increased to twenty-seven since, however. Sheesh.
Finished a short story a few days ago. We'll see what happens there. Pitch hasn't moved much for the past month or two - other novels came along and took precedence. Since I'm not focussing on writing any novel at the moment, that's fine. Pitch will get its turn. Right now, it's time for short stories, poetry, graphic novels, and their respective submissions. I'm also learning a bit of screenwriting, getting back to my newswriting roots (so to speak,) and learning ASL - which contributes not at all to my preferred career, so far.
You better believe I don't have time for World of Warcraft anymore.
Turns out that come December (at the stroke of midnight) I'll be magically transforming into a real live boy. I'll be getting a job beyond my current low-interest, low-benefit, writing-accomodating job. 'Course, they've been increasing my hours, and, coupled with some suspicious timing surrounding my health insurance and yearly raise, give me cause to consider my options early.
See that crazy icon over there? That's totally in preparation of this coming NaNoWriMo. Totally.
Printing costs suck.
-jd
It speaks volumes about me that I find that actually interesting.
I drew up a list last week and it turns out that I have over eight novel seeds, roughly a dozen short stories in progress, and (at the time) twenty-six comic book premises. That number has increased to twenty-seven since, however. Sheesh.
Finished a short story a few days ago. We'll see what happens there. Pitch hasn't moved much for the past month or two - other novels came along and took precedence. Since I'm not focussing on writing any novel at the moment, that's fine. Pitch will get its turn. Right now, it's time for short stories, poetry, graphic novels, and their respective submissions. I'm also learning a bit of screenwriting, getting back to my newswriting roots (so to speak,) and learning ASL - which contributes not at all to my preferred career, so far.
You better believe I don't have time for World of Warcraft anymore.
Turns out that come December (at the stroke of midnight) I'll be magically transforming into a real live boy. I'll be getting a job beyond my current low-interest, low-benefit, writing-accomodating job. 'Course, they've been increasing my hours, and, coupled with some suspicious timing surrounding my health insurance and yearly raise, give me cause to consider my options early.
See that crazy icon over there? That's totally in preparation of this coming NaNoWriMo. Totally.
Printing costs suck.
-jd
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