This is where old rants go to die, and where you can read their corpses.
...as it were.
...says it all, really.
Nothing much has happened over the last two months. Went ice-skating, started an intro campaign (not Champions, though; got to keep the suspense going), decided to draw more.
Speaking of watchdogs (and we are now), I've put a new piece of art up, this time of a character in something I've yet to write. Nothing partiularly special about it, but I thought it was clean enough to scan into Paint Shop Pro for a bit of experimentation. I was, of course, wrong, since the lines had more holes in them than a minigunned UT2003 character, but it worked well enough after a little cleaning. Shading continues to be an issue, but it's a lot easier with an Undo button.
The main reason I did this was because of a neat little page I was directed to by Eidolic Fringe. It's called PolyKarbon, and it has a variety of tutorials on both the analogue and digital sides of drawing. It mostly focusses on the anime style, but many lessons are still applicable to anyone starting out.
Other than that... yeah. See y'all later.
The links page has been updated. I just thought that, y'know, you should know that, even though the page is now more of a "useful to me in my checking of comics" type than a "here are some cool sites to go to" type. They are cool, though. Take my word for it.
Oh, and I suddenly realised that an unclosed tag caused most of the front page to be in the wrong font for I don't know how long. Sorry about that. I doubt it'll happen again.
That's about all I have to say.Sorry it wasn't more funny, but it really was just a site update. Anyway, I am just a facsimile. What do you expect, miracles?
(Editor's Note: While the Z-8000 swears that the above pun was unintentional, I have been forced to dismantle it and throw its parts into a vat of molten steel. You may therefore experience a slight decrease in the frequency of updates for the next few weeks.)
I have realised that the vacation had nothing to do with the recent scarcity of posts. I actually suspected the real reason at about the time that the drought began; it is the simple fact that I can't seem to find a way to update this page from the iiNet account that I use at home, coupled with the format-killing properties of Linux to Windows translation. Thus the only time that I can be bothered to update is when I dial in to Tartarus, which is seldom. This is a problem with no solution, or at least no solution I've found so far.
ADAHN still hasn't progressed, unsurprisingly, but I've been making a bit of progress on some new stories: Crossed Swords, which has at least half a chapter by now, and Trial by Fantasy, which is basically just a concept at the moment and may or may not become something more.
I have found that I tend to do one of two things when I have to think very hard about the phrasing of an idea I have:
(a) go and get a drink of water; or
(b) spin around on the chair.
The first is due to a combination of my body not having anything to do and the computer room always being too damn hot. The second option generally appears attractive when I've had five glasses of water in the last ten minutes. It's a poor substitute, since it doesn't even involve walking, but it gets the job done.
Why was I reminded of this? Well, mainly because an acquaintance of mine in an online community has just fallen in love with someone and is thinking of marrying him at the end of the year. This is the sort of thing that requires a pretty carefully worded response, especially when the lady in question is 17. So I got to spend the better part of half an hour getting drinks and spinning on my chair, but the result was good enough to post. And isn't that all I can ask for?
The answer, in case you're wondering, is yes.
Oh, and I'm back at Uni. Lectures are fairly boring, despite what looks like moderately interesting material in some of them. This may be because the lecturers are awful, or I may have developed a Pavlovian response to dislike all things taking place in large rooms with rows of seats.
...and I just span on my seat. I think I'll take that as a sign that I'm putting too much thought into this, and sign off for the moment.
Just finished writing a break-sketch for Quasispace, and my brain is dead. I've been writing for too long to have much conscious thought at this point, though that doesn't seem to impede my writing speed - the sketch in question is probably about twice as long as it should be. I'm sure that says something, but I'm not sure what.
Anyway, I managed to get both an X reference and a Call of Cthulhu reference in there. I'm happy. :)
Incidentally, Baldur's Gate wins my prize for most obscure reference today for including a map with the names of the towns translated into Espruar and Dethek. That's Elvish and Dwarvish, if you didn't know. As to how I know, the old code wheels used for copy protection on the Gold Box games can be used to translate these languages to English (oh, sorry, I mean Common). I didn't actually do this; I just recognised some of the symbols and drew the obvious conclusion. There is one other language on there that I didn't recognise (but still follows a one-to-one letter substitution with English, of course).
Oh, and after seeing Cowboy Bebop and Samurai X *glances at Jen nervously*, I now understand about five more jokes from our current MiSTing. At this rate, I might understand all of them in a year. *pauses* No, wait. I think there's a law that you can only get 95% of references in any given MiSTing.
OK, I'd better stop before my hed explody. See you all later.
What can I say? Summer vacations make my brain quiet. *yawn* I'm sure updates will get more frequent when I start noticing things again.
One thing I have noticed is the sudden increase of interesting search referrals to this site. Relatively, that is; before now, all I was getting was "Elegia Eternum" and "FF8 soundtrack". Now we have...well, the usual "funny tekken fanfics" (not my department - I don't do the f-word), "monash soul calibur" (I'm sure there's a story behind that), "the bali bombing/why it happened", "Neverwinter nights romance description" and "soul Calibur official art -2" (heh, retro). Oh, and some guy looking for a 3 in Three walkthrough. Good luck; that game's even more annoying than Fool's Errand in places.
The funny thing is, though, that I don't think this site has ever given any useful information out to anyone who's reached it through a search. The Elegia people were probably looking for a review, and I never gave one (I thought it was pretty good, though, even if this might break the trend); the FF8 people were looking for a link, and I never put it here (sorry, it's dead now anyway, but there are plenty of FTP sites out there); and I'm sure as hell not doing official art for Namco (though I might suggest the official Namco site). I hold hopes that, one day, someone will actually search for something relevant. Unlikely as that may be.
And by the f-word, I meant fanfic. So stop sniggering. Of course I do funny stuff.
*Any*way, I'm not sure whether I should finish ADAHN or not. I'm not enthusiastic about writing the ending (the rest of it, anyway), and I think this may be because I have no idea what Alistair really wants. I really need to go back and add some characterisation, and I might leave finishing it off until after I do that. And I might leave all of it for a while, simply because I'm tired of it at the moment.
I have to admit that my thinking on this was influenced by a site I found while browsing the NaNoWriMo boards (yes, in January). It's called Forward Motion, and it's a site with lots of information about writing, both the technical and the practical aspects. The sections about applying and working with publishers seem especially helpful. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be working as I write this, but we can hope for the problems to clear up before too long.
The whole of Network 54 is down, too, so I can't look at the Quasispace episode-in-progress. The newest chapter is actually written in passable Lovecraftian style, but it still manages to be bad. It just looks like a lot of effort's been put in to make it bad.
Bah. I want a Radical Dreamers translation.
Right. I've updated. You can go now.
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Oh, fine. Honestly, I don't know what you're complaining about. The more time between posts, the longer they seem to be, so it all balances out in the end.
Seriously, though, I guess I haven't really felt much like blogging lately; I haven't even really thought about it. My life's been pretty routine lately, and it's been too damn hot to think.
ADAHN is still progressing slowly. When I finish, I'll be moving onto Crossed Swords, which should be more interesting. More scope for complications; face it, the characters in ADAHN had it easy. The first chapter of CS (and isn't that an unfortunate acronym) is halfway done, so it might not take too long to finish. Maybe. I've got another idea, but I have a suspicion that I might as well save it for NaNoWriMo 2003.
Speaking of titles, I recently noticed that the titles of my longer stories seem designed to allow puns in promotional material. First we had A Life Like Any Other: "Life is good." Then came Crossed Swords: "I like Swords." For ADAHN, though, the best I could think of was "Good Night."
I saw Spirited Away and The Two Towers on Boxing Day. Both very good movies, though character development was a bit thin in TTT, as the reviews stated. I wish they'd just show the extended version in the theatre; I'm sure people could take a four-hour movie, as long as they warn everyone to go to the toilet beforehand and not buy any soft drinks.
Anyway, I hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year. Mine was nice, as always, even if I did get Night Watch twice. :) One got returned, so everything worked out fine. To all those people going away soon (and to those who've already left), have a good trip and return safely. See you next semester.
*looks upwards* ...wait, that's not nearly long enough. Guess I'll have to ramble.
First point: I'd probably blog more often if someone were to invent a thought-recording device. I've forgotten too many half-complete rants 'twixt evening and morning, and I can't use a notepad or dictaphone or I'd never get to sleep. Well, not until I got bored of recording, anyway. So get to it, everyone.
Second point: There is none. See first point.
Third point: Someone once said, a long time ago, that the way I spoke was very different from the way I wrote. True enough; I certainly can't argue. I think that it's mainly due to the fact that when I have an idea or an opinion, I want to think it over for a minute before answering, to make sure there aren't any blinding flaws in it. Conversation doesn't allow me to do that, because people tend to get annoyed with minute-long pauses. Writing is a lot easier in that respect; I can set out a complete idea, which I've generally thought of some time earlier. It's like the difference between planned and improv in public speaking, I guess.
It occurs to me now, though (oh, this is still the third point), that writing differently than you talk isn't really much of a surprise. The lack of urgency combined with the lack of a dialogue would make most people differ in style. Why, then, did I bring this up?
Why, to fill space, of course. With the length of this post, I ought to have another month before I have to blog again. Until then, people.
By your somewhat belated command. That is, my obedience was belated, not...eh, you know what I mean.
So, NaNoWriMo finished, and I managed to get 50 000 words, and that was on the 29th of November. Hmm. I really haven't updated for a while, have I? Anyway, it's still not finished, but there's only one more chapter to go. I think. Then again, I thought the same last chapter before I brought something in to complicate things further.
That seems to be the way I make my stories. I start with an old plot - a "fish out of water" story, say, or a battle between light and darkness - and then complicate things by, for example, making the "fish" an evil overlord. Maybe this is why it's been compared to fanfiction, though that's probably more to do with the overt anime influences.
The stories I like most, though, seem to involve a strong element of foreshadowing; the sort of thing where, on your second read-through, you think, "Huh. So that's why he did that." That's certainly why I like Dirk Gently so much, and I've heard that B5 has similar elements. That requires a lot of planning, though; certainly more than I did in ADAHN. I think my next project will have a bit more attention paid to the characters and background before I start writing the plot.
In other news, my avatar is getting into the theatre in Quasispace next episode, along with the Magical Wrench Fairy (another character I created, in somewhat unusual circumstances). One of the fics we'll be MSTing is a Cardcaptor Sakura SI, so I have to thank Liz for giving me some chance of making series-specific riffs.
That's about all for now. I should be updating ADAHN soonish, so look out for that if you want to see the ending. Or you could wait until I rewrite it. It won't be *that* long, I'm sure.
To get it out of the way, 46 367, and updated again. I quite like the resolution of the penultimate fight.
I was looking at the author listings, and I decided, for a lark, to search for "Stefan Gagne" (you know the one, he wrote Sailor Nothing and has one of the coolest writing styles EVAR), and someone else actually had him listed. Huh. And the novel excerpt was good enough that I want to read the whole thing, damnit.
Apart from that...nothing much, really. Reread Sailor Nothing, read Dragons of a Lost Star (quite good, but the plot twist was a bit disappointing), shifted furniture. Made new rants page, since the old one finally ran out of room.
I feel like I should philosophise...but I have a challenge. Back later.
(Now there's an image. "Here comes a new challenger. ...WRITE!")
You guessed it, still writing. Word count: 36 536, and still not up to the ending. My exam set me back a bit, but I'm still fine to reach fifty thou by mid-Friday if I write 4 000 a day. I have to say, though, that I feel I've copped out somehow by including a night out on the town.
Jen: Wesley could write the notes because...well, just keep reading. You'll find out. (I could say that I've pulled back ahead, but that would be competitive.)
Speaking of which, the novel has been updated again. Go read.
Hmm. Not much of an update, really, but it'll do for now. Must...write...more...
Yep, still writing. At the moment, my word count is 26 877. I fell slightly behind the last two days, but I've written more than 4 000 words today already, so I'm catching up. (And more importantly, I'm back ahead of Jen, at least officially. Not that this is a contest. Nope, not at all.)
At the moment, I'm less worried about my writing speed and more worried that I'll run out of plot at about 40 000. I have a nice little ending (well, all right, it's not very nice...or very little), but stretching it out to 20 000 words might be asking a bit much.
Writing this has certainly been an experience. I started out with a vague idea of the twins and a quick plot. Along the way, I've added several twists, some of which haven't even been hinted at yet, and changed the characterisation something chronic. (And I think chronic is the right word - it just won't stop happening.)
I have to say that I'm not sure I would have done as well without the inspiration and occasional motivation that a soundtrack provides. Good thing I had the foresight to get one. :)
In other news: just read comments on Elegia Eternum. Must get, even if it will suck a day out of my writing. Maybe I'll play it on Friday; I'd pretty much written that day off anyway.
Finally, I've actually updated the novel-in-progress. Fear, but not in a leet manner.
Yes, so I'm updating while the webserver is broken. It's not like you'll care, and it means I can edit without technically cheating. Right?
I'm currently procrastinating rather than continuing my NaNoWriMo novella (14 027 words and counting), so I figure I might as well talk about it for a while. Some random thoughts:
The fact that I chose the story's title in large part due to its acronym is rather scary.
My four main characters (my only characters, unless you count ones who are only referred to) are named Alistair, Alice, Alex...and Zeruel. This is entirely accidental, except for Alice/Alex.
Speaking of which, I keep on getting Alice and Alex mixed up. That would be really confusing for the reader.
And for the first few chapters, I kept on thinking of the main character as Jack. I even wrote it once, but fortunately I caught it.
I almost broke out laughing at the thought of Alice saying, "That was not us. ...we are so screwed." I must be suffering from sleep deprivation, or possibly have just been writing for too long.
The thread "I dare you" in the Off-Topic forum is one of the coolest things possible. Not only is it funny, it's inspiring!
My efficiency goes way, way down whenever I'm on the net. If nothing else, the forums are big enough that I could spend the rest of the month looking through them.
And finally...I can't look at ellipses without thinking that they reduce my word count by one, damnit. (Hey, that's a contraction. I should split it into two words.)
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