And the results are out

Head on over to the results of the Search Term Challenge Round 2. The results are out. I didn’t win, Merrilee did. But then her entry was a powerful and well written entry. Not toooo surprised that she took the crown for the second time. I managed to get myself second place with my little entry Wooing Zadie. It was a good bit of fun. It’s good to kick out challenges like this every now and then. Thanks to everyone who voted for me!

And on the subject of writing, of course I didn’t write today. Nanowrimo is well and truly done for me at the moment. I’m still assessing what I want to do with my writing, but at the moment, I’m happy sort of coasting for now. I’m comfortable with coasting on neutral until I sort out what I want to do.

I guess when I think about it as the most basic levels writing to me is a creative outlet. If I’m not writing, I need something else to act as much creative outlet. Sometimes that’s programming, sometimes it’s writing interactive fiction that I have no hope of completing. As long as I’m creating, that’s me happy. For the bulk of the time though, the most effective way for me to get that creative outlet is writing.

So I’m not writing at the moment. But that’s ok with me for now. I know I’ll write again soon, just not at a Nanowrimo rate. Or even maybe a normal and good rate. Last count though, I had written around 170,000 words for the year to date. That’s still good.

More soon. For now, I’m gonna relax after a long days work.

Great Scott! (base)

I can’t remember how long I’ve been spying on one of our countries illustrious installations, but it’s a curious mix of wonder and voyeurism I guess. I’m talking about Scott Base, which is down in the Antarctic.

They have moved their camera recently, and the weather has been pretty crap, but this view, I think, gives the entire base, rather than just the main building.

The first thing that hit me about Scott Base was that (at the time) it was almost continuously dark. Of course, I knew that about the Antarctic. But just like seeing the base itself, it filled me with a sense of strange wonder. This isn’t something that I was reading about, or seeing on TV. It’s a direct feed from the place itself, proving that yes, it’s cold as hell, unforgiving in its landscape and has weird day/night patterns.

Another thing that strikes you about the base, not so much now its a wide shot, is that it seems almost entirely uninhabited. You would see trucks had moved between shots, but little other sign that there was anyone there. I did once see something that I thought was a person. I didn’t get a grab of image. Pity. Cause the next frame proved it was. The small black smudge was gone.

Then again it’s currently about -17c there, and I’ve since learned the whole base is connected by tubes.

Why not check in on the base each time you log in, if it hits you with the same curious wonder that it does me.

Grim gaming

It seems curious that today Wikipedia’s entry of the day is Grim Fandango, given that I was just thinking about the game a few days back!

For me, Grim Fandango represents the end of a classic age of gaming. Probably the last PC game I ever bought, before I gave up PC gaming for the console world instead. It’s also widely considered to be the last great adventure game, in a genre that died a death to fast paced first person shooters. Who wants story and puzzles when you can have stuff to shoot?

Released in 1998, Grim Fandango was, like all good games, a flop, and put the final nail in the coffin for Lucas Arts who canned making adventure games altogether. Only now is the genre starting to get something of a resurgence, with Monkey Island being spruced up and released on consoles, along with the Monkey Island Episodes.

But if it was a flop, when why is it a good game? And even worth a mention? Well, like all good games that flop, they usually end up with a cult following. Grim Fandango was something very different on the gaming landscape, following a grim reaper called Manny Calavera as he works off his debts in the Land of the Dead. To do so, he sells travel packages to the recently deceased, as they make their way to eternal rest.

Of course, nothing is what it turns out to be, and our good guy Manny discovers that something is rotten in the Department of the Dead. What eventuates is a noir style, epic tale of greed, betrayal and murder befitting any 1940s type film!

And epic it was. Covering 4 years in game (in 4 parts) it came on more than a few CDs. The style was almost cartoony, and 3D in a genre that was for the most part 2D up to that point. I had heard about this game a long time before I actually bought it, and when I did, it was for about 20 bucks. It’s well worth hunting out if you can. I found the puzzles challenging, but not so hard that I got stuck for any length of time.

Great voice acting, a very cool setting and idea, stylistically, the game just rocks. There is still a pretty large following for the game, and general hope is that with the rerelease of Monkey Island for the consoles, Lucas Arts might try again with this unique little gem.

Why don’t you check out the trailer, and the opening, which for the time was pretty sweet, given that the cutscenes were done all in game. Something that wasn’t overly the norm at the time.

Finally some decent television

History was one of my better subjects at school, so by the time the rather large glut of Elizabeth I films, series and all manner of things came out, it was all old hat to me. I could watch them for the costume and period drama, but I knew who was gonna get the chop and what was going to happen.

Elizabeth – The Golden Age was ruined for me. I knew what was going to happen with the Spanish Armada.

The reign of Elizabeth I was my starting point in history, then James, then Charles, and Cromwell. So stuff had to go backwards for me to not know the plot.

Hello the Tudors, a rather sumptuous Showtime series that is currently about to end it’s third season here in NZ. I rather think they are playing two episodes a week, so we have rocketed through and its almost over as quickly as it started.

At the moment, Henry the VIII is nothing like the guy we see in history. He’s strapping, handsome and getting it on with almost any female who moves through the incredibly designed sets of the series. The acting is top notch, and the twists and turns delightful. It really feels like being stuck in a court where intrigue rules, and the King is the absolute head of the country and church with power of life and death.

It also paints a great picture of someone who, yes, perhaps deserves the reputation that he’s known for, but also someone who lives and grieves and deals with the problems of rulership as well.

I watched most of season 1, missed season 2, but are well hooked for this season. Pity it’s going to be over so quick. But, it’s too much of a drawcard for TVNZ not to grab the next season as soon as its available. The series is definitely proof that history can be sexy and dangerous and fun, and not just a dusty text book.

The road (again) to writing

Well, I haven’t written since my last post. I just don’t have the heart, soul and drive to keep at my Nanowrimo effort, hence this not being a Nano post. Tear my Nano badge from my shirt and toss it in the dirt! Bah. Well, I managed SOCNOC this year. What went wrong with Nano?

Not entirely sure there. My writings suffered a lot of late. Adapting to my new job, and routine has taken a lot out of me. My volume has dropped somewhat as well, but I’m not sure that my want to write has. The mind is willing, but the body just hasn’t followed. I’m not sure that pushing myself through Nano is the best thing for me, when I’ve stuffed it up already on a few counts.

Call me a piker if you wish, but I shan’t listen.

Instead I am attempting to get myself back into the mode of writing again. I need projects, things to write. Something to focus on. Without AP to focus on, I really have nothing. I need something to work towards and new goals. What that is, I’m not entirely sure yet. I wonder how many people are not doing Nano right now? I’m rather the odd one out.

NANO 09: Day 10, “Disaster strikes”

Today was not a good day writing wise. I had a block while writing. A total block. I stopped writing, stared at the screen and couldn’t even see where I was going. I did what any good Nano writer should do in this situation, I wrote crap. I kept writing anything, waiting for the train of thought to kick back in so I could write on with the story.

It never came.

I’m not sure what’s up recently. Maybe pushing myself through Nano isn’t the best idea for me right now. I’m eternally disappointed in myself, because I’ve never really had a block like this before. But maybe it’s my brains way of telling myself to ease up a moment. It’s not like this trouble is a new thing. It’s been plaguing me a bit of late.

I certainly haven’t made it any easier on myself by swapping projects midstream. Of course I’m not going to have flow when, really, I’ve just started. I should have been writing a 50k novel, not 50k of serial. And second to that, I shouldn’t have changed. Even though I figured it might help out.

So, what am I to do. I’m not entirely sure. If I quit Nano and give myself a break from writing for a week or so, what do I come back to? Not entirely sure there either. Without AP on my plate, I have no major projects on the go. Maybe I need to do something fresh. Maybe enter a few competitions. Maybe build some worlds and brainstorm on ideas.

Tomorrows write-in day, but not doing Nano sorta nixes that idea. Bah. Sleep on it, I guess. See where I go from there. Welcoming any thoughts or suggestions.

NANO 09: Day 9, “A new project begins”

I’m still about 2,000 words behind the game, but it doesn’t matter so much. I’m averaging near 2,000 words a day. When I write. And I wrote today, starting on a new project entirely. I’ve taken the setting of my Glimpses of Heaven and Hell novella (listed there on the right side as free fiction) and dumped a few characters into it, and will see what happens.

At the moment, it’s a little of a limp start, but I have no expectations, other than getting the words down on paper. We’ll see what happens. And I think if I attend the write-in on Wednesday I aughta be back ahead of the target, and back onto a trouble free 50,000 words.

In other news, the Search Term Word Challenge has closed, and voting is now in progress. Why wouldn’t you want to go over and check it out. And vote. There’s some rather juicy short stories there, given the strange terms that we had to include into the challenge. Go check em out.

I shall be back tomorrow with another update!

I was promised cake; good games come in small packages

Ok, so I have to admit that I’m rather behind on the game with this one. Everyone else played Valves lil tech demo turned cult game a long time ago. It wasn’t until only recently that I spotted it on XBox Live and decided to download it for a test play.

It only took me a little while before I decided to shell out the Microsoft Points to buy the full game.

At it’s base, Portal is a curious little thing. It’s probably best explained as a First Person Puzzler. You wake up in a small chamber, and quickly find that you are a test subject, testing out a brand new portal device. Quickly learning all the things you you need to know, you embark on more and more complicated tests that involve opening portals from point A to point B and using them to rather unique advantage.

It’s a rather hard game to explain, other than to say it’s rather cool, even if rather short.

I’m sure no one else is old enough to even remember this, but it’s almost rather impossibly this-way-is-up and dizzyingly weird layouts had me recalling an old c64 game called Deactivators. The Goblin King from Labyrinth has nothing over the orientations in this game.

Other than the addictive use of the portal device and the not tooo hard puzzles you need to solve with it, the true beauty of the game is it’s atmosphere, I think. Where you start as a happy person delighted with a rather cool toy, that turns into an even cooler toy once you can open two portals, and a whole new world of possibilities, you quickly find yourself thinking differently. There’s shades of Cube here, and something far more sinister. You really start to feel like the lab rat you are, jumping through hoops.

The only real companion you have in this strange and lonely surrounds is the computer voice who guides you on, known as GladOS. Keep going, she tells you, and for all your hard efforts you’ll be rewarded cake.

What happens in the end is something I couldn’t spoil, it’s well worth experiencing for yourself. I’m surprised for such a short game that it could cause such feelings of attachment, when really the only other character than yourself in it is a disembodied AI.

Will there be more? Who knows. I almost feel like there shouldn’t. It’s short, yes, but its a cool and quick ride. I’m yet to play through the challenge levels, and I’m only half way through playing it again with the commentary on (rather cool idea that). We see hints of the Half Life world, just slight glimpses. It even ends in a place where there could be more. But I rather like it ending where it does.

So, why not give it a try yourself, and get your just reward of cake?

NANO 09: Day 8

It took a bit of planning, but I managed to write near 2,500 words today. Putting myself about the same again behind the official Nano total for this part of the race. Doesn’t matter. I think that I will be able to pick it up. This week, maybe I’ll even make the write in.

I managed to get out some pointless, fun words for the Search Terms Writing Challenge. It closes tomorrow sometime, the 8th, GMT. My entry is a bit stupid, but hell, it was still fun writing, and that’s all that I’m really worried about at this point. I want to do fun writing stuff again! Or at least as close to fun as I can get with writing. Head on over to the site, and vote! Well, when the contest closes.

Tomorrow, I’m going to start on something entirely different. This does sort of break the ethos of making a 50,000 word novel for November, but I don’t much care. They’ll be getting 50,000 words of something for November, and be happy for it! Anything to get myself across the ending line. Although I think that I’ll be sticking to the same project for the next 40,000 words.

More to come tomorrow. I’m wondering if my last Nano was this messy …

NANO 09: Day 7, “Troubles ensue”

Bah. Not too sure whats up at the moment, with myself and writing. The new job is taking up a lot of energy, and maybe that’s why. I can probably muse on the excuses for not writing for a long, long post, but I shan’t. Needless to say, the end result is the same.

AP is peeving me off no end. It was fun when I was writing it on a part time basis, but now that it’s my Nano project, it’s driving me utterly batty. I’ll still let the series run it’s course with what’s available, but it’s got about a month or so before I have to decide what to do with it. Until then, the series is sitting in the writing equivalent in my head of the Tower of London.

Yes, you sit up there and ponder what you’ve done to anger me.

I guess when something isn’t fun to write, then that itself becomes a block too. That and the series is becoming hard for even me to follow, I must admit. No rash decisions just yet. Let it run. I guess if nothing else it’s been a rather grand experiment. There are a lot of things I would do differently, if I was to do it over again.

So, that’s my problem with AP sorted for now. Trouble number who-knows-what is whether or not I should continue writing when I could be doing other stuff. I think of a line from one of my fav rappers Xzibit, who said ‘I’ve flirted with the idea of quitin’ the game’. I guess I’m a little the same, in that I’ve considered giving up writing, but I think I’ve been doing it too long to really give it up.

As much as I hate writing sometimes, I don’t think I could really ever totally quit. I need a creative outlet, whether it’s writing, or something else.

So, I’m not writing today, mostly because my day is totally blocked up with other stuff I need to do. Come Sunday, I’m going to be behind by quite a bit. About 3k or so. Not totally unsurmountable. I’m not continuing with AP. I do have a few options though, and I’ll talk about those when I get to Sunday.

Technically one isn’t meant to come across these problems in Nano. But for me, Nano is 50ks of words.

Oh, and behold the pretty new banner.