There are times when I hear a YTMND and I can’t stop laughing. This is one such time. More Peter Chimaera incoming!
http://fanfictionredux.ytmnd.com/
http://quarterliferedux.ytmnd.com/
Posted in Micro Fiction, Short Story, Video Games, tagged doom, funny, halflife, hilarious, horrible, peter chimaera, writer, writing on February 26, 2008| Leave a Comment »
There are times when I hear a YTMND and I can’t stop laughing. This is one such time. More Peter Chimaera incoming!
http://fanfictionredux.ytmnd.com/
http://quarterliferedux.ytmnd.com/
Posted in Comics, For Sale, Freelancing, Future, Micro Fiction, Novel, Short Story, Tax, Thoughts, Video Games, tagged Ascendant, comic books, dreams, For Sale, freelance, graphic novels, perfection, projects, reviewing video games, sale, video game reviews, Video Games, writing on January 27, 2008| Leave a Comment »
It’s been awhile since I’ve done anything with my WordPress blog. I’ve been so busy lately that my time on the computer is really only limited to working on projects and responding to email. I haven’t even gotten around to doing some of the things I’ve been meaning to do.Freelance Work
On Monday, I purchased the first game I’m reviewing and spent the last week playing through it, taking notes, and everything else needed to review it. I’m pretty satisfied with my review process but, like everything else, I’ll revise my method as I continue.
I spent a lot of my time this time around just taking notes on anything that popped up. I’ll revise that into a different approach for next time and note things in steps: Controls/Interface first, Story next, Graphics/Sound/Overall Polish last. Doing it this way will give me time to focus on the first thing you’ll notice when you play (besides graphics, which is how it plays), so on and so forth. We’ll see how that method works and revise it accordingly.
I feared that I wouldn’t have any time when I started doing freelance work but I find that there are more hours in my day than before. I think it’s mainly because I cut out all of the fat and stay focused on my projects, instead of drifting off and doing random things. I may be able to take on a few more freelance projects as I get further into freelancing as a career.
Comic Books
I’ve also been hard at work on my comic book series. I don’t know whether to say they’re comics or graphic novels or what have you but… visual storybook is too cumbersome. Whatever you want to call them, I’ve been devoting at least a far chunk of my time to writing.
Awhile back I decided to abandon writing out the panels and focus strictly on the dialogue. Once the dialogue is done, I’ll go back and do the panels. Thus far, Chapter 1 is complete and I’m taking a short break to let it mature. I’ll come back to it and revise what I’ve written and start fleshing out the panels the rest of the way.
This is definitely a story I’ll have to do in chunks, though, because of how large it is. I’d like to do 2 chapters per book (if it’s a graphic novel), as the first chapter in the arc will be the “gear up” and the second will be the climax. Either way, nothing will be set in stone or decided until I snag an artist interested in drawing for me… and that won’t happen until at least the second chapter is finished and ready to be paneled.
Other Projects
At the moment, I’m waiting on responses on “Ascendant Dream”, my first Crystalline Beauty novel. Until then, I’m not doing anything major with the series. Jen Lightfoot is working on Randel Gaylin’s portrait and I’m excited to see how that turns out. I might make some Emeraldwind wallpapers or icons.
I have a few short stories that I’m interested in writing and now that I’m done with the first chapter of the E.N.T.I.T.Y.O.X1 series, I’ll finish two of those before working on anything else. I’m pretty excited about them and I’m considering submitting them to magazines and podcasts, in the hopes of making a small bit of cash and getting some exposure. Of course, sharing the story is the ultimate ambition, but who wants to talk about that when FAME and FORTUNE are in the picture?
Other Real Life Matters
Taxes, taxes, taxes. I’m probably not getting as much back as I’d like to this year, unfortunately. I wasn’t really letting Uncle Sam have anymore than I’d let him take from me. I needed that money, and it helped us out a lot. I am excited about the rebate though. If it comes early enough, I might be able to start working on my office with some of the money.
I need to get around to actually selling this stuff that’s sitting in my storage area. I already photographed it and researched some of it… I just haven’t had any time to actually set up a craigslist listing for any of it. Not enough hours in the day and too many people/things that want my full attention for hours at a time. Maybe sometime this week I can whittle this list down without adding anything else to it.
Other than that, there’s not much else going on. Just trying to stay as productive as possible and not lose my mind. Well, I’m off to work on my review.
Posted in Freelancing, Journalism, Thoughts, tagged agent, article, compulsion, editor, Freelancing, journal, lyrics, Novel, obsessive, obsessive compulsive, perfection, story, writing on January 21, 2008| 3 Comments »
There’s something about editing that I both love and hate. I guess all writers feel this way. It doesn’t help that I’m a perfectionist… to the point that it’s probably unhealthy.Whenever I finish writing something, be it a manuscript, lyric, or article, I always feel a burning need to re-read it. I’m ego-centric, I admit, and have a desire to see what my thoughts look like on paper. But once I start going through it… I end up re-writing entire sections for no reason other than to make myself “sound smarter” than I really am. Or maybe it’s for readability… Either way, I hack through anything I’ve written and destroy it before I’m done.
This generally leaves me with about 1/5th of what I originally wrote and the now burning desire to claw out my own eyes. Why? Burn out. Just as I’m a perfectionist, I’m a completionist… once the editing process starts, I can’t… just… leave it. I have to finish. In one sitting. This is a pretty tiring process.
So what does a perfectionst/completionist writer do? Write novels, of course! Since that’s what I’ve been “writing” my entire life (ed: I’ve finished a number of them but I’ve started/nearly completed at least 30 or 40; I’m just now seeking to publish one, though), it seems only natural that my idiot self would want to edit my work. Unfortunately, it means I’ve spent the last two years editing (after I finished writing in a little over a month and a half).
I think I am an agent/editor’s worst nightmare. It’s not that I don’t finish projects, because I do, it’s that I’m such a perfectionist that since they never feel finished to me, an agent has to rip the manuscript out of my cold, dead hands.
Any other writers feel this way? Have you finished something and had it published that you wish you could go back and re-do completely? Or add sections in?
Posted in Micro Fiction, Short Story, Thoughts, tagged beauty, center, moonlight, return, writing on January 13, 2008| Leave a Comment »
In that eternity with her I stayed and like no other time that my mind could remember, I was happy. I was whole. I was one. We spun in that field for hours, not saying a word, letting the music surround us, lost in its beauty, its majesty. And as the moon set, her light fading behind the tops of the trees, our dance ended and we parted. With a kiss to her fingers, she pressed the ends to my lips, stepping away from me, into the trees. The sun rose, letting soft glowing fingers creep along the field, the tree tops, me. And I watched where she had disappeared. And then I turned, and stepped back where I had been…
My eyes opened and I sat up to look around my dark room. There was nothing but the slitted light coming from partly opened shades on the window. But there was a feeling there now that had not been there before. A craving. A yearning. Something I had not felt in years. Something, I knew, that was my true center. And I pulled it, twisted it, caressed it. Wanting to know, I came fully awake, reaching for my notebook. And I let the ink spill from my pen, and I let my thoughts spill from my mind. And, I knew, what I had found. I had found the truth of what I am. And I let it free, let it transcribe between the hollow blue lines on the paper. And when I finished, I looked at what had become. And I came to find it was more than I had truly known before. It was my center, my all, my everything. And when I looked outside my window, between the slits, she stared down at me from the moon. And she smiled. I had returned to her… and she was always inside of me.