Michael Coorlim's Blog, page 32

Killing Your Darlings: Carl Crow

“If you here require a practical rule of me, I will present you with this: ‘Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it — whole-heartedly — and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.” — Arthur Quiller-Couch, On the Art of Writing

It’s a piece of advice that has echoed through the ages, one both parroted and lamented by authors from Faulkner to King: Kill your darlings.

Good writing is efficient writing, and efficient writing is that which you’ve ruthlessly sliced away everything that you can without damaging what it is you’re trying to say. If you can cut it, cut it. If you can’t, don’t.

In a way it reminds me of one of Taoism’s truths: When you have divested yourself of everything you can eliminate, whatever remains is your true self. So it is with writing; everything in your story must serve a vital purpose. Trim the fat.

So it was with Ghosts of Shaolin

Ghosts of Shaolin was the fifth Galvanic Century novel, released in January 2015 and set largely in and around China during the early 1910s. As I’ve mentioned before, I love doing research, so I spent about a month just listening to podcasts about the era, to get a feel for the nature of the time and place.

Laszlo Montgomery’s China History Podcast was a huge help, and I strongly recommend anyone setting anything in China’s history to give it a listen. Specifically, in episode 79, I was introduced to Mr. Carl Crow.

Who was he? Give the episode a listen. Spoiler: He was amazing. I loved him. I needed him in my book, so I added a chapter featuring Mr. Crow as a supporting character.

And then I cut him

Two months later, while revising the novel, I excised him completely. Why? Well, as much historical flavor as good ole’ Carl added, his scenes were utterly devoid of conflict. He was there, he was doing things, but he wasn’t having any strong effect upon the novel.

I cut him because I could. I regret nothing. It was the right choice.

He lives on, in a sense. Almost a year on from the novel’s publication, I’ll be sharing those deleted scenes with the fans supporting my patreon. So even while cutting him out was painful, even though he added nothing substantial to the story, I was able to get some value out of the time I spent writing that chapter and doing that research: added value for the people who have invested in me.

So cut, but don’t discard. You never know when you’ll get some value from those clippings in the future.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

The post Killing Your Darlings: Carl Crow appeared first on Michael Coorlim.

Radioactive Grace 6: Snack Run

This is the continuation of a Fallout 3/New Vegas Let’s Play. You can read Part 1 here, or go to the index page.

August 18, 2277

All my life people have been telling me what a bright girl I am. Daddy. Mr. Brotch. Amata. But smart isn’t testing well. Smart isn’t remembering facts. Smart is asking questions.

Questions like, “Why does Megaton need these big-ass walls?” and “Why is everyone armed all the time?”

You’re dumb, Grace. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Yesterday I take Moira up on her offer to check out the supermarket, because hey, I can get her what she wants and scavenge some canned food to trade for caps, right? It’s not far. Hour or so walk from Megaton.

On the edge of a huge-ass city. That’s DC. My first thought was, “Why don’t the residents of Megaton move out of trash-burg and into the city?”

Then I hear gunshots and I do something stupid.

I run towards them.

To see.

It’s over by the time I get to the parking lot. A trader of some kind, I guess, shot up pretty bad. Dead or soon to be. Nothing I can do. Not too far away, two dead guys, look like they’re blown up or burnt or something.

I turn away. Makes me sick, looking at them. I almost have a panic attack. More on that, later. I don’t want to see them, don’t want to think. So I just… go inside.

Somehow, amazingly, the lights are still on.

This place is huge. The entire vault could probably fit in here. I try to imagine the way it was, before the war, seeing this place packed with people.

Most of the shelves are picked clean, but I find a refrigerated unit up front packed with food, and in the back is some kind of pharmacy, along with one of those security robots. Thankfully disabled, because I’m probably not supposed to be there.

I don’t know how long I’m back there for, just poking around, gathering medicine, looking in boxes. Still feel a little dazed, when suddenly the PA kicks on.

I hear laughing, joking. They know I’m in here. They saw me come in. They’re going to do terrible things if I don’t surrender, terrible things if I do. They want my fear, and I give it to them.

I sit frozen for a second, then get up to lock the door, barricade it, anything. My eyes fall on that robot, and the terminal next to it.

It’s a move of desperation, but it’s all I got. The encryption is simple… Amata and I have been hacking vault systems since we were ten. I boot it up, launch the maintenance program, and the thing comes to life.I let it go out there, close the door, and wait for the screams to stop.

Silence.

I creep out, trying to guess which way it went, so I don’t have to see any of the bodies. I’m so preoccupied about this that I don’t see the raider until he’s shot me.

It feels like a fireball exploding in my stomach. As I fall, the gun I don’t realize I’m holding — the one Amata gave me — goes off.

I’m not dead. The armor protected me, dulled the impact so his shot was painful instead of mortal. He wasn’t so lucky.

I stand and I stare and I go all cold inside. And I remember, running through the vault, escaping, running past guards and radroaches. I remember Officer Mack interrogating Amata at the behest of her father, I remember rushing in to stop him, I remember beating him with my baseball bat until he was red and still and barely human looking.

The panic wells up in me until I’m full and there’s nowhere else for it to go and it just… stops. No, it’s still there, but it doesn’t bother me. Like I have an intellectual awareness of my trauma. I killed a man. Two men. Activated the robot that killed… I don’t know how many more… and I feel nothing.

I take his gun. I take all their guns. And their caps. And then I head outside.

It’s dark. I find the dead trader and take everything I can find in the dark, then walk back to Megaton.

The air is still. The night is silent.

Craterside is closed when I get there, and I should be tired, but it doesn’t matter. I walk through the empty town to the common sleeping area where non residents congregate.

Eventually I fell asleep. No dreams. None that I remember. Too tired to dream, maybe. Just 24 hours before I was going to bed in my room down in the vault, and now my whole world is gone, and I have to learn the rules of this new one.

Now it’s morning. Almost noon by the light coming in through the window. I eat some of the food I’ve found… I don’t even know what it was, I wasn’t paying attention… and write this down, before I forget. After this, I’m off to Moira’s.

Technical Notes:

Some of you who are familiar with the game may notice me taking a few liberties here and there for the sake of story flow. I don’t do it often.

I’m liking Fellout’s visuals, but nighttime is too dark to really do anything. Will look into mods to fix this.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

The post Radioactive Grace 6: Snack Run appeared first on Michael Coorlim.

Patreon Audiobook Bonus

Audible gives me a number of promotional credits I can use to gift people copies of my audiobooks for promotional purposes, and I’ve decided to use them as a sign of gratitude to those who support me through my patreon.

What’s Patreon?

Patreon is a way you can support your favorite artists and creators directly.

How it works:

Your Pledge is how much you donate every time I finish producing a book, short story, game, or other project.
Rewards are what you get for pledging at a given level. This makes you a Patron.
Milestone Goals are the total amount that everybody is pledging.
Milestone Rewards are given to all Patrons when a goal is reached.

So, sign up. You’ll get the free audiobook, a digital copy of what I release, and access to exclusive Patron-only production diaries… right now I’m writing one up about the next series I’ll be working on.

And sign up soon! Copies of the free audiobook are limited. I only get so many free copies to distribute!

 

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

The post Patreon Audiobook Bonus appeared first on Michael Coorlim.

Iron Horses Can’t Be Broken paperback

Iron Horses Can’t Be Broken is now available as a paperback through Amazon dot com. If you’ve been waiting for a hardcopy of the book, you can now pick it up for $13.99.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

The post Iron Horses Can’t Be Broken paperback appeared first on Michael Coorlim.

Radioactive Grace 5: Moira

This is part five of an ongoing Let’s Play series telling the story of a Fallout 3 and New Vegas playthrough. You can find the index here.

A hundred caps. Is that even a lot? I don’t know, but I needed it, or Moriarity wasn’t going to tell me where dad went.

After I finished feeling sorry for myself I went and hit Craterside Supplies, a sort of general store run by this cheerful woman named Moira.

See that behind the counter? Under the lights? It’s a vault suit, only someone’s added protective covering and patches to it.

I asked the proprietress, Moira, about it. She told me about someone else who’d come out of the vault a decade ago – she’d made it to protect her, but the vault dweller never returned for it. Funny thing, I absolutely do not remember anyone disappearing from the vault when I was nine.

She offered to give it to me… just straight up give… if I helped her with a book she was writing. Needed a prologue about life in the vault.

I gave her an earful. Guess I might still be bitter. And, true to her word, Moira gave me the suit. I guess not everyone is utterly selfish. Gives me a little hope, maybe.

Moira went on to offer me more pay if I could help her with her research. Stuff that will help her write this Wasteland Survival Guide.

I could do that. Maybe learn how to handle it out here myself.

First task was easy. She wanted to know about radiation and its effects on the body. Growing up with my father… he’s taught me enough to be able to answer Moira’s questions without getting irradiated, and in exchange she gave me some Rad Away. I was tempted to sell them back to her, but… honestly, if I’m going to be running around out here, I’ll probably end up needing them anyway.

Feel the same way about the armored Vault Suit. Gonna hang on to that for now.

But I did sell her the few things I brought from home. My old BB gun. It’s sentimental, but… but I need the caps. Need to find dad.

So on to another task for Moira. She wants me to check out some old supermarket for her, see if they have food and medicine. Might be a good opportunity to do some scavenging. I do this, she pays me, maybe I have enough caps to pay off that bastard Moriarty and get on out of Megaton, and away from that bomb.

Technical Notes:

Again, in-character choices are leading to suboptimal gameplay. The title of this series may be Radioactive Grace, but the protagonist isn’t going to irradiate herself when she can simply explain how radiation works to Moira.

A quick note on the epistolary format. These entries are written by Grace only when she has a moment to spare, some quiet time to relax and break out her pen and paper. That’s the primary determinant as to how much gameplay goes into a given episode.

Rather than a play-by-play, you’re getting documented memories.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

The post Radioactive Grace 5: Moira appeared first on Michael Coorlim.

Radioactive Grace part 4: Megaton

Radioactive Grace is a Let’s Play epistolary narrative of Fallout 3 and New Vegas. You can find the index here or go back to part 3.

 

The sun might be hot, but the Outside is a cold, cold place.

I caught sight of Megaton, and I could scarecely believe my eyes. It looked like a fortress made out of trash, a castle of junk. Something right out of the Grognak the Barbarian comics.

Crazy, right?

As I get closer I see this old man on the ground, just sitting there. First Outsider I’ve seen.

I ask him if he’s okay, and he tells me he needs water. Pure water. He’s so weak from the irradiated stuff, that it just makes him sick.

Guess the Overseer was right about that. Can’t drink the water. But he’s alive out here. People are alive out here. They survive somehow. That means that, maybe, I can survive too.

I tell him I don’t have any water and he just gets this resigned look on his face, like he’s accepted that he’s going to die.

I move on. A little ways past him I see this thing.

It’s huge. Way bigger than a RadRoach. Bigger than me. A giant mutant ant.

Nobody said there’d be monsters. This thing freaks me out and it’s dead, I’d hate to see it when it was alive. And ol’ Thirsty didn’t kill it. What did?

This guy. Some kind of greeter robot standing guard out front. Played a recorded message, then opened the junk-gates so I could go inside. Has some kind of energy weapon on its arm. Makes me think of the pistol at my hip. Wonder if I could kill one of those giant ants with it.

So I go inside this place that has robot guards and is letting a man die of thirst on their doorstep.

Look at this place. A whole town, made of junk. It’s amazing, what people can do. What people will do, to survive. They’ve been out here with the radiation and the giant ants and everything for two centuries while we’ve been cooped up in that vault, safe. What kind of people does a place like this make?

I’m standing and staring and suddenly realize that someone’s talking to me.

A goddamn cowboy tin-star sheriff. Lucas Simms.

He recognized the vault jumpsuit. Apparently they’ve had visitors before. So much for the Overseers “no one ever leaves” garbage. I asked him about dad, and he said that the owner of the Saloon, Moriarity, might know about him. He points it out, I thank him, and take a walk through town.

Halfway there I run into this:

Yes, that’s a bomb. Atomic, I think. I run back up to the Sheriff and ask him about it.

Simms says it’s safe, that it’s been there since the town was founded, that they built up around it. Apparently there’s some cult that worships the thing. I don’t know. I’d ask if anyone has thought about disarming it, but how would they know how?

Dad taught me a lot about science, but even I wouldn’t know how to disarm a nuclear device. I might have some schematics in my PipBoy, but… yeah. Not going to risk that. I figure I’ll just find dad and get out.

So I go back around the long way to the saloon.

Again, amazed at what they’ve managed to build out of garbage and posterboard. They even have a working radio. Semi working. But hold up, the guy banging on it?

Yeah. The corpse looking guy. Gob. Apparently he’s what’s called a ghoul. I admit I freaked out a little because I had no idea that that was a thing, but apparently it’s a fairly common mutation. They look like zombies and age really slow… he said some ghouls had been around since before the War, but I don’t know if I believe that.

Anyway, Gob freaked me out but I was trying to keep my cool, and that impressed him… apparently mostly we “smoothskins” treat his kind like shit. I can understand finding them unsettling, but that’s no reason to be a bitch. Just talking to him without being insulting… he was almost pathetically grateful.

I don’t think I like it Outside. And when I met Moriarity, it got even worse.

So.

First off, yeah he remembers Dad. From before. From when he brought me to Vault 101. According to this guy, I wasn’t born in the Vault. Dad wasn’t. We came from Outside, somewhere.

I don’t want to believe him, because why would Dad lie? The Overseer? Agnes? Jonas? Everyone old enough to have been around would have to maintain this lie. And they’d have to know it was possible to survive outside.

They killed Jonas because dad left, and I can’t forgive that, but I can understand it if the Overseer thought the Outside was a deadly wasteland… but if we came from Outside, then he’d know that people live out here.

And he killed Jonas and tried to kill me for no reason.

Makes me angry just thinking about it.

But I got bigger problems. Moriarity said dad had come and gone, and he knew where… but it’d cost me. 100 “caps.” (They use bottle caps for money.) I have zero caps. Guy wouldn’t budge, but said I could track down some junkie outside and get the money he owed her.

How the hell am I supposed to do that?

So now I’m sitting here, writing in my diary, in the bar. No money. No friends. In a place where they’ll walk around you while you lie dying of thirst on their doorstep.

What am I going to do?

 

Technical Notes:

Big obstacle here is the Bomb quest. Grace doesn’t have the technical know-how to disarm the bomb, and doesn’t have a strong motivation to do so because she doesn’t plan on staying. That means no house.

I anticipate missing out on a lot of the best quest rewards. I know what to do as a player, but it’s not in Grace’s character to do those things. Should make for a nice challenge.

I’ve also started using the Fellout mod, because I was getting bored of the green tint.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

The post Radioactive Grace part 4: Megaton appeared first on Michael Coorlim.

TWIK post-mortem

Back in January I set out to start a podcast, That Which is Known.

The format was simple: five minutes during which I’d ramble on a narrow topic from the research I’d been doing for my book. Since I’d already taken the notes, the only time investment was recording, editing, and post-processing, and the only financial investment was podcast hosting.

How it went

I found small success, with a few hundred downloads every month and a few listener emails, but there was almost no conversion to sales of the books that inspired the episodes.

That was a little disappointing, but I learned some broadcast techniques, gained mic confidence, and learned rudimentary post-processing clean-up. Overall, a net positive.

Conclusion

The experiment is done, now. 33 weekly episodes is enough to evaluate its effectivity, and while I learned a few cool tricks, it hasn’t been effective as a form of marketing.

My time is better spent writing new books, my money is better saved for editing, cover commissions, and more effective marketing.

I’ll be leaving TWIK live until the end of the week if you want to check out a few episodes, but I won’t be paying for the hosting beyond that, so if you want to give it a listen, now’s your chance.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

The post TWIK post-mortem appeared first on Michael Coorlim.

Radioactive Grace part 3: Escape

This is the continuation of a Fallout 3/New Vegas Let’s Play. You can read Part 1 here, or go to the index page.

I had to stop for a bit. My hands were shaking. I can’t believe Jonas is dead.

He was my father’s assistant, but it’s more than that. I had this huge crush on him growing up. He was so cool, being older, even if he was a goofball. Always making these lame jokes, but he was kind. Nice to me.

And now he’s dead. They killed him. No radroaches around. It had to have been security. And Amata… did she get away? Did they kill her?

I have to know. I need to go back to the pictures.

There she is. Looking the way I feel. I think this is her living room?

That’s her dad’s office. How did I get in here? Did she have a key? Did I take it from the Overseer by force?

Next photo is of the vault door.

That’s Amata. She was there with me, at the end. She’s alive. Has to be. Still inside. Why’d she stay? Did security catch us? Did I leave her behind? Or did she refuse to come out with me? Why can’t I remember?

Hold on.

I hear music.

 

Okay, I’m back.

I heard this loud cheerful music, and I hid. Soon enough this weird flying radio came by, piping out first music and then what sounded like a prerecorded message from the President of something called the enclave.

It didn’t look dangerous, so I crept out to take a look. Got a picture.

For scale reference it’s a bit bigger than a human head and flies around at 6-8 feet off the ground. I tried talking to it, standing in its way, everything short of hitting it with my bat, but it just continued on its merry way.

Whatever it is, the technology is as rusted as everything else out here, but way more advanced than the service robot we had down in the Vault. I followed it for a bit, then came to this sign:

Paint’s not new, but it’s not ancient. A sign means people. Maybe they’ll be friendly, maybe they’ll kill me. The robot flew off on the other direction, into the open wasteland, but I’m going to take a chance on this Megaton.

I can’t just go running off blindly. I need answers. Why my father left. Why he didn’t take me. He’s only got a few hours lead on me… maybe he’s still there.

Notes:

That’s the end of our little flashback.From here on out, each episode will represent one retrospective writing session where Grace reflects on the day’s events.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

The post Radioactive Grace part 3: Escape appeared first on Michael Coorlim.

Radioactive Grace part 2: Gathering Wool

This is the continuation of a Fallout 3/New Vegas Let’s Play. You can read Part 1 here, or go to the index page.

 

It’s later. Almost noon, and the sun is getting hot overhead. The air is much drier than it was down below, but is fresher somehow. Never noticed before, but there’s a certain… metallic or chemical taste down in the vault.

Did a little self inventory as I walked down what was left of the road passing in front of the vault. I’m sore, but that’s probably from all the running I was doing. Musta grabbed a few things when I left… some stimpacks, the BB Gun dad gave me for my tenth birthday, old baseball cap… and the bat. There’s blood on the bat, and it’s not mine. I don’t… what did I do?

Some other stuff. A pistol. Where did I get a pistol? Loaded. Feels heavy in my hand. And a Tunnel Snake leather jacket.

The Tunnel snakes were this lame gang Butch came up with when we were kids. Considering that there were five kids our age in the vault, that meant that everyone was in it except for me and Amata. No girls allowed. Ha.

All they ever really did was give us trouble. The bullying got so bad that one day Amata rigged our PipBoys to automatically snap pictures whenever our heart-rates increased, so we could get evidence of them trying to push us around without it being obvious.

When I got to the houses… it wasn’t as helpful as I was hoping. Nobody lives here. There’s no shelter, and little shade.

Still, enough that I can stop and go through the pictures the PipBoy took. Maybe piece together what happened.

Okay, first picture. Shot of one of the security officer’s pointing and yelling.

Can’t tell who. I sort of remember that? Given what I remember Amata telling me about the Overseer and the fact that they were after me because of my father, I’m guessing that running was a good idea. Those guys… sometimes they get rough.

Next. Radroaches. What the hell?

That’s Butch’s mom they’re attacking. Three of them, holy crap. We’ve had a few problems with them in the past, but it’s never been worse than a bite here or there. Three of them ganging up on someone… you can die from that.

But the blood on my bat isn’t Radroach ichor.

Oh God, is that Agnes?

She was such a sweet old lady. She didn’t deserve to die like this. Is this my father’s fault? Did he let them in when he was escaping? Or did he use the infestation as an opportunity to get out?

The clinic. It’s been trashed.

Roaches didn’t do this. It had to have been security.

Oh my god. Amata in the interrogation room, with a gun, pointed at her father. They had to have been questioning her. That’s… that might be the gun I have. How’d I get it? Is she okay? If anything happened to her, I don’t know if I could go on. She’s… the only friend I’ve ever had.

Jonas. Oh, God, Jonas. No. No no no.

They killed him.

The fuckers killed Jonas.

Notes:

As you can see here, I’m presenting the intro to the game as a flashback using screenshots I took during the playthrough. I rushed through it because that’s what Grace would do – she’s a traumatized girl who’s never really had to deal with life and death conflict before, never seen death up close, never been in more than a fist-fight.

I came out of the Vault with little more than what I’d taken from my room at the start, and after that it was just rush-rush-rush through, though I did divert to help Butch with Beatrice and the roaches.

If anyone’s wondering, I’m using FRAPS to grab the screenshots, and I’m setting them up with console commands to remove the GUI and reposition the camera.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

The post Radioactive Grace part 2: Gathering Wool appeared first on Michael Coorlim.

Iron Horses Can’t Be Broken released

The sixth Galvanic Century book, Iron Horses Can’t Be Broken, has been released.

This book brings Alton Bartleby to the American Southwest, where he’s forced to confront the sins of his past in the persons of the sisters he exiled there almost a decade ago. Can he find redemption and forgiveness while trying to protect them from the dangerous thug his sister Sarah jilted at the altar?

$3.99 from Amazon.com and iBooks. Coming soon to Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Google Books.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

The post Iron Horses Can’t Be Broken released appeared first on Michael Coorlim.