Robyn Paterson's Blog, page 26

Five Nights at Freddy’s

While I’m not a gamer, I do enjoy watching play-throughs by other people from time to time because a good game really is a work of art. Case in point is Five Nights at Freddy’s, which is a jump-scare independent horror game that manages to be really good at what it does. The short version is that you’re a night-watchman at an animatronic-filled restaurant where the robotic entertainers get a little…mobile…at night, and if they reach you then well…Why not watch this playthrough by Youtube game...

5 Reasons Why You Should Visit Taiwan

RIP Robin Williams

When I was growing up, people would always say “Robyn is a girl’s name.”

I would answer- “No, it’s not. There’s Robin Williams.”

Now there isn’t.

Thank you Mr. Williams, for being there from a fellow Robyn. Even if your name was spelled wrong.

Rob

Batman: Assault on Arkham

I just finished watched the new DC animated “movie” Assault on Arkham, and I have to say that to date it’s probably the best of the direct to video animated films DC has done. This might be because the main character, despite the title, is actually Deadshot (who is leading the Suicide Squad) not Batman. Batman is more of a presence/antagonist to the main characters, and this provides a nice change-up of the usual roles that makes the story kind’ve refreshing.

This is also the most “adult” of t...

America’s Bad Romance with the Middle East

The last 50 years of US/Middle East relations summed up in a single powerful music video to Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance.

Amazon’s “Secret” Kindle Category Passwords

Being a self-published writer is never an easy thing, it requires you to be half-writer/half-marketer to succeed, and the ever changing self-publishing world is full of all sorts of little tricks and traps. The traps are mostly about people trying to take your money for “services” you may or may not need, and the tricks are all about getting your book seen by the largest number of people. (And thus improving your chances of people buying your books!)

It doesn’t help that Amazon’s Kindle Direct...

End of the Month/Camp NaNoWriMo Report

Well, July 2014 has now come and gone. How did it go for writing?

Well, I dedicated myself to participating in Camp NaNoWriMo and writing 50,000 words of fiction in July.

What was my total for July? 19,872. (Average 595 a day.)

Verdict: Crash and burn!

So what happened? I’m a writer who has done 60,000 words in a month before (2000+/day) and it’s not like I haven’t finished a novel. (I’ve finished two, so far.) I should have been able to pull this one off handily, right?

Well, I made a few mistake...

Structuring Your Story

Today I came across the blog Storyfix, and author Larry Brook’s 10-part Story Structure Series. In it, Brooks lays out his take on the 4-act structure, and presents it in a straightforward and easily useable way for writers of screenplays and novels to make use of when planning their work. Here’s a sample:

Introducing the Four Parts ofStory

Some writers like things in nice little boxes. Others, not so much. Either way, you can look at your story like a box, of sorts. You toss in all kinds of st...

Strange Hero Yi Zhi Mei

I’ve just started watching Strange Hero Yi Zhi Meion YouTube and I have to say I’m really enjoying it so far. Despite the odd title, this is a good old fashioned swashbuckling action series about a Robin Hood type character in old China that seems to be an adaptation of a Chinese comic book. The tragic but gifted hero and his three assistants do their best to right wrongs and kick the butts of scheming officials and other villains using their good ole WuXia martial arts skills.

Having seen a f...

Why Kindle Unlimited is Doomed to Fail

Amazon has just announced their new “Netflix for Books” called Kindle Unlimited. You pay US$9.95 a month and you can download and read all the content you want to your heart’s content. For readers it sounds like a great deal, but for writers it’s a mixed bag. Either way, it’s doomed to failure or at least in for a lot of hard times.

Why?

Well, the first thing you need to understand is that Kindle Unlimited (KU) is part of the Kindle Select program for writers. Kindle Select is a bundle of incen...