Taven Moore's Blog, page 19

[Perry] Breaks in Routine

It’s something that tends to happen when you set your mind on completing something.

Maybe it’s a weekly running regiment or an exercise schedule. Maybe it’s a diet that you’re on to promote healthy living. Maybe it’s a writing habit, or a drinking habit, or a tv binge watching habit.

You come up with a routine or a schedule. And you decide that on so and so days, for X amount of time, you will do this thing.

And when you start? Filled with zest and fire, you maintain, you know? You keep it up, and you don’t waver. You pat yourself on the back because of your perseverance, and your willpower.

Rightly so. After all, there’s always more consuming to be done in this world than anyone really has time for. It’s so much easier to take in someone else’s gloriously written words, or their beautiful art, than it is to make your own.

But as time passes? The fire begins to flag. Maybe you start allowing yourself a ‘cheat day’ on your diet, just to add some variety. Maybe it’s suddenly raining one day and you tell yourself that you can skip this afternoon’s jog. Maybe you put off your day’s writing because you JUST got to the amazing climax to a book and you can’t put it down.

And it’s alright, right? You’ve been doing well so far. You’ve maintained this rigid schedule up until this point. Surely, you can afford ONE day off from your routine.

Surely.

But that first crack? Widens to a chasm.

You start with that one day. The first day. And then, you find it easier to make excuses for yourself. Maybe you can skip on your running for today because you were out in the park, running around with a frisbee and some friends the afternoon before, when you didn’t have a run scheduled. Surely that counts, right?

Maybe you can skip out on your writing for this week because you totally went 500-600 words past your regular weekly writing quota last week.

Maybe you can totally nom that slice of pecan pie because you got some unexpected exercise this morning and surely, SURELY, the calories will cancel out, right?

Next thing you know, the breaks in your routine? BECOMES your routine.

One day you’ll wake up and realize that you haven’t worked up a solid sweat in well over two weeks.

One day, you’ll wake up and realize that EVERY day this past week has been a cheat day from your diet.

One day, you’ll wake up and realize that it’s been over a month since you last completed a chapter to your novel.

Sure, there are exceptions. You went out to your best friend’s birthday party? There’s no way you’re not going to raise at least ONE glass of beer with the guy, right?

Maybe it’s been just really shitty weather for running for a month straight.

Maybe you just haven’t been in the mood for writing lately and you’d rather wait till you were fired up to ensure that what you DID get down on paper doesn’t read like garbage. That’s a valid excuse, right?

Next thing you know? Two or three months have passed since your schedule has lapsed. Hells, maybe longer than that.

And you know what you do? You decide it’s time for a change and you apply yourself once more. You give yourself a schedule again.

Then the cycle repeats.

If any of this sounds familiar to you, please, join the club. I’ve got t-shirts.

I’ve always had a problem with breaking my routines. Because once I break it? I usually find MORE reasons to break it. And next thing you know, I’m back at square one.

What I’ve found works best for me (though to be honest, my best is very much not good enough), is that whatever breaks or interruption I allow into my routine, I MUST make up for them before the week is done.

The one week timer gives me enough flexibility that I can afford to skimp out here and there when the vagaries of life necessitate a break…but it’s not long enough a time that I can let my routine lapse completely.

This is the methodology that I’ve been using for my running exercises since I’ve started and it’s worked out pretty well these past few months.

And I know that a paltry thirty minutes of exercise three times a week hardly seems like much to most folks…but damnitall, it was crazy hard for me to force myself to get out there when I started and I’m proud of the fact that I’m still maintaining that rhythm.

Lord knows what I’ll do when the winter weather hits, but I’ll deal with that when I get there.

I’m also hoping to apply this to my woefully lapsed writing habit and I’ll see how that one turns out.

What about yourselves? How do you deal with the occasional breaks to your routine?

And more importantly, how do you keep those breaks from BECOMING your routine?

 

Related posts:

[Perry] Effective Breaks from Routine
C25K – Couch To 5K
Re-Un-De-Railing

Writing Prompts x3

Bre (she of the wonderful encouragement) sent a short little no-pressure email to myself and Perry with some writing prompts.

I caved first, after which we had a waterfall of lovely little stories that I have been granted permission to share with you. If you’ve time and are so inclined, we’d love for you to join in and write your own!

Here are the prompts:

They found his diary under his bed
He hadn’t meant to scare the child
The whole family had been cursed since

Bre’s Story

They found his diary under his bed.

A raw nerve exposed to the daylight. It quivered in their hands, a live object squirming for cool shade.

It was a tattered thing, barely held together with scotch tape and actual thread sown to the sides, a patchwork of a book.

Too much like a Frankenstein’s creation, pieced together with scraps of pages salvaged from abandoned books.

A phrase from Moby Dick peaked out from under the confines of the weathered rubber band, marbled by age and abuse.

“I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.”

The words mocked the viewer, daring them to pull back the band and open the almost bursting diary.

“Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.

[Omnes relinquite spes, o vos intrantes]”

And find him inside, frozen in fragments. Moments captured in another’s images to color their memories of him.

Your mind should never exist outside of yourself.

Never left behind, under a bed to collect dust

And confuse the uninitiated.

Perry’s Story

He hadn’t meant to scare the child. Y’all get that, right? I mean, y’all are lookin’ at me all mean and scary-like as if I’m lyin’ at ya, but it’s the God’s honest truth and I’ll swear to it till the day I die.

We didn’t mean for it to be anything but a quick look-see, you know? T’ain’t everyday that we see a pack of them things wanderin’ anywhere near the town, after all.

Did y’all even see the town down the road? Gransburg is as tiny as all get out. There ain’t nothin’ to do ’round these parts, so y’all can’t be blamin’ me an’ mine from wanting to take a bit of a gander when folk start talking about there being a family of brownies or pixies or some such in the glen by the wood, alright?

What?

Oh no, y’all don’t got the right to be all judgemental and be calling us idiots or some such. In case you ain’t noticed yet, Gransburg is a pretty goddamned far off ways from New Eden. Ain’t none of you fancy city types ever lived in the backwoods before? Y’all don’t know what it’s like. It gets powerful boring here in these parts, doing the same damned thing day-in and day-out. We scratch out our living from the land and there ain’t much around that you can do to pass the time. I’m sure it’s all flowers and gravy up in Eden, what with all the sights to see and all manner of magical folk up around there, livin’ cheek by jowl with the rest of us normal folk.

No, I ain’t sayin’ that they have no right to it. What kinda damn-fool bumpkin do you take me for? I ain’t got no issue with the Folk. Some others in Gransbug might have, that’s somethin’ you’ll have to take up with them, but I ain’t got no problems with em. I just wanted to see em is all.

Jake and me, we been best friends since we was growin’ up. An’ when his parents died in the Fastingways War when he was just a babe, why, my ma and pa insisted that he come live with us.

Yeah, y’all are giving me that look again. I don’t care if y’all believe me or not. I don’t care what you city folk do or don’t do when it comes to helpin’ your fellow man like good, god-fearin’ folk should. Out here in the sticks? You learn right quick that ya either pitch in together when times are tough, or ya die separate and lonesome when it’s your turn to suffer.

What?

Yeah, I’m gettin’ to it. I’m gettin’ to it. Y’all cityfolk are quite impatient. Ain’t your parents never learned you some proper manners?

Anyway, we was close is all I was tryin’ ta say.

So when Jake told me that he’d heard from the Pell’s little brat that there was a family of wee folk that’d taken up living by the glen? He wanted to take a look and asked me if’n I’d come with him.

I didn’t want to do it, mind. But me and Jake might as well have been brothers and I wasn’t ’bout to let him do somethin’ like that alone. Besides, he would have gotten free drinks for a month at the tavern in town off’n them stories and my mama ain’t raised no fool, no sir.

So we went down to the glen. Midnight on a full moon, like’n all them stories say.

We shouldn’t have gone. We didn’t know. How was we to know?

Maybe we should’ve knowed when we saw ‘em in the moonlight. All tall and graceful and just…beautiful.

I ain’t never used that word before, but I’m usin’ it now. They was beautiful, like star people, with all the light shinin’ out of ‘em like nothin’ you ain’t never seen before. We should’ve knowed it right then and gotten the hell outta dodge, but like I said, we ain’t used to things like this out in the sticks. We wanted to take it all in.

So we watched em for a while is all.

Ain’t no one told us that the Folk and the Sidhe are two ‘tirely different breed of animal.

What? Did we know?

Are you off your gourd? You think we would have stayed watchin’ ‘em if we knowed they was some blue-blooded nobles from the Winter Court? What kind of damned fool idjits do ya take us for?

We was gettin’ set to leave, alright? Gettin’ set to leave without botherin’ nobody when we turned and there was the kid, just standing there, starin’ at us all goggly-eyed.

Jake just wanted to make him jump a bit, he wasn’t goin’ to hurt him or nothin’, I swear. Jake wouldn’t hurt no fly. Why, back when we was kids and his horse done broke his leg, Jake couldn’t even–

What? Oh fine, if y’all are in some fired up hurry, I s’pose I can get on with it.

Jake just wanted to make the kid jump a bit. Just wanted him to have a story he could tell his fairy friends and all when he got back to wherever home was. ‘Bout the time he met some scary humans and got away without no scratch on ‘im.

The kid just screamed and next thing I know, they was all ’round us, coming down from the trees and outta the bushes. Lord as my witness, there was more of ‘em than I even thought possible.

The boy ran to his parents, and they was the tallest and most fair lookin’ of a pretty tall and fair bunch, let me tell you. And he babbled to ‘em in that moonspeak that the Sidhe got.

She looked as us all cold-like, an’ I shiver to think of it even now. I ain’t never seen nothin’ like the look on her face when she looked at Jake and told him that since he liked scarin’ folk so much, she’d see to it that he could spend the rest of his life scarin’ things. Looked to me next and said somethin’ I won’t never forget. Told me that since I liked watchin’ em’ while they was stealin’ time away from the Court, she would steal time from me and see how I liked it.

Course, she said it all nice-like, nothin’ like what I just said now, ya know?

Next thing I know, she points to me an’ Jake and there was a light…

Bright light. Like nothin’ I’d ever seen before. Like nothin’ I’d ever seen since.

When I came to, I was back at my farm. Jake was here too, out in the field, just like you see him now. All frozen stiff and not movin’. I tried to pull him inside but he won’t budge. I guess that Sidhe lady thought it’d be some kinda funny, turnin’ my best friend into some sorta human scarecrow.

But then, the Sidhe ain’t never really had much of a sense of humor.

As for me, I still dunno what she meant by stealin’ time away from me. Everything on my property looks just like I left it, so maybe she ran outta steam once she finished with Jake and had nothin’ left for me?

Anyway, I’m gettin’ tired of jawin’ at ya. Y’all think maybe I could lie down for a spell? It’s my ma’s birthday today. Her and my pa live just down the road. It’s a fair walk, to tell the truth, but you gotta visit your parents, at least on their birthdays when they start gettin’ up in the years, you know?

Ain’t no tellin’ when they’ll kick the bucket so you need to squeeze in all the time together that you can, while you can.

Still…I think back to that night? And I just want it on whatever record you folks are jottin’ down. Jake didn’t mean no harm, wouldn’t hurt a fly, like I said…he just wanted to scare the boy a mite, no more’n that, that’s all.

Say, I know you folk are from New Eden and that city-folk have got a lot more interesting things than us livin’ in the sticks do…but that’s a mighty odd carriage y’all pulled up in.

Where do y’all hitch up your horses to on a contraption like that?

Tami’s Story

The whole family had been cursed since great-uncle Armin decided he was a dragon slayer instead of a cobbler. Oh, sure, he slayed the dragon. Hometown hero, the whole shebang. Wasn’t till he started going through the dragon’s treasure that he found the lead-stoppered vial tucked between a rusting shield and an old tapestry.

Turns out, the magical community had (at one point or another) started stoppering really dangerous stuff with lead. It was a good magical deterrent and just odd enough that hopefully someone would think twice before prying the cork out.

Great-uncle Armin was neither a member of the magical community nor particularly prone to thinking more than once about a thing.

POP went the cork and POOF went a djinn and KAPOW went our entire family future. Normally, you’d expect a djinn to just outright kill whoever was dumb enough to release him, but that’s only if he’s loosed between two and five hundred years into his his isolation.

This particular djinn had been bottled for over a thousand years, so he got to invoke a little-known clause in the djinni handbook which allowed him to curse all of us.

I can see from the slack-jawed look on your face that you’re neither a member of a magical community nor particularly prone to thinking yourself, so I’ll just lay it out for you, plain and simple.

That lead cork in your hand? Was a bad, bad idea. I’ve only been in this bottle for 250 years.

And I’m hungry.

Related posts:

KT Literary Writing Prompts
In Which Writing Is Not Entirely Unlike Baking
[Perry] The Bad Writing Challenge

[Perry] To Be A Rock Star

It was a fairly random occurrence, but I caught a concert at the Air Canada Center with a friend last week.

Jack White was in town, playing a few shows. My friend scored a few tickets and asked me if I wanted to check it out.

I wasn’t too familiar with Jack White, but a little research and a little listening showed that he’s one of those artists that I hear all the time, I just never really knew their name.

And, it turns out that a song that I’d heard a lot and fallen in love with in the last little while, Love Interruption, was done by him as well.

So I agreed.

Once the end of July rolled around, we met up downtown to check it out.

It had been quite a while since I was last at a concert.

I’d forgotten what it was like.

The show was suitably awesome. Lot of flashing lights. Good music. Great crowd. Jack White puts on a good show. He wasn’t one of those ones who just got up on stage, played his sets and bailed.

There was a lot of audience interaction going on as well.

And as I watched this man gyrate and dance on stage, wailing away on his guitar…I couldn’t help but wonder, you know?

What must it be like?

To be up on that stage?

Gods, it must be some kinda thing, you know? I mean, being a well-known writer is something I aspire to…but from what I saw at that concert? Being a rock star must be some completely different level of fame altogether.

What must it be like?

To step out on stage and to hear over ten thousand people just losing their goddamned minds?

To be the object of all that adulation, praise, lust, and frenzy?

Gods, what must it be like to be the object of ALL of that communal energy? And to not just take it in, you know? Not just bask in that energy, but to take it in, transmute it into energy of your own and to reflect it back to the audience? To hear them take that amplified energy and feed it right back to you?

To be caught up in that cycle of recursive feedback, frenzy feeding creation, feeding further frenzy?

What must it be like?

To have SO many people so familiar with your body of work that their combined voices, bereft of amplification can fill the entire stadium? To hear them, singing your words right back at you whenever you give them half the chance?

What must it be like?

To command an audience of thousands, of thousands of people? Where all you need to do it clap over your head once or twice and get EVERYONE clapping in time with you as you launch into your next song?

Where all you need to do is zing that last chord change hard, beckon to the audience in a big “come on!” gesture and to HEAR them singing along the next line or two of your song?

Where you can cut off the guitar playing and hear the entire goddamned audience, chanting the choral accompaniment to the song you’re on?

Gods…what must that be like?

It’s art and creation…but it’s art with goddamned violent feedback. An audience of thousands, wrapped up in paroxysms of excitement at the simple fact that you’re standing there, playing the music they’d fallen in love with…

Thousands of people, hanging on your every word, hanging onto every note.

To be so overcome with that energy that you can’t help but dance about on stage as you play, taking the briefest of breaks to step up to the mic and spit out the next line of your song before you start bouncing.

To get to that point where you can’t HELP but to move. To bounce. To jump as you play. Just so much energy that you can barely contain it…that you can’t deal with it.

That you have to explode it out of you with your voice, with your fingers slashing down on guitar strings, with your legs propelling you round and round the wide expanse of the brightly lit stage like a drunk after last call.

…God, what must that be like?

Related posts:

[Perry] Wherein Perry Goes Rock Climbing
[Perry] Evil Dead: The Musical
[Perry] Juggling to Avoid Guilt

[Bre] The Short and The Long

The Short and The Long

(or how small pieces fuel your writing drive)

I have been writing. A lot(like over 50,000 words since mid-May, and for someone who’s annual average was 6,000 that is a big jump). But how I finally developed a sustainable writing habit took me my surprise. And as someone who had been stumbling and groping for productivity the last twenty years, I felt I had to pay it forward.

It is two parts: The Short and the Long.

The Short

The idea is simple enough. You have a prompt. In this case a word or phrase, like “Into the wild.” Then you write, but here are the rules:

• You have to write, edit and POST the work in 60 minutes or else.

• You also should not see the prompt until you are ready to write, because as soon as you see the prompt you are on the clock.

This prompt exercise is done once a week with a new prompt coming around the same time-pick a day-mine is Sunday.

Okay, you may say, so what? But here is what why this exercise worked so well for me and why it can also help jump start your own writing*.

These prompts can be anything, but I have been doing them for a specific fandom and have been writing fanfiction for these prompts.

• A time limit: You have a beginning and an end. This isn’t the Iliad. It is a fun, quick and timed piece.

• It don’t have to be perfect. You can’t be, not with a time restriction. You have to be quick and brutal in your edits because you don’t have time to go back and second guess.

• Production. So far there have been eleven prompts. I have done all eleven.

• Getting to know your characters: All the prompts deal with the same set of people, but each of prompts take different spins and scenarios. It has really taught me how to explore my characters voice and motivations.

• Accountability. I post all my prompts both on Tumblr and AO3 (like fanfiction.net but SOOO much better). I know I need to post it because I actually have people asking for me to post. It is a wonderful and scary feeling to know you are writing and someone else is actually waiting to read it. Which brings me to the next point.

• Community. Too often when you are writing long pieces or the never-ending WIP, we are too isolated. Find yourself a community. A writers’ group, or people on a site who share the same passion. Write and post and share. Writers need an audience. Otherwise, we are just writing to the void, which can sustain for a small while, but often it lonely and you wonder, “What is the point?”

• Freedom. I am playing in someone else’s playground. No one expects anything but a good time. The pressures and expectations I have placed on myself over the years disappeared here. It isn’t my universe and as such I could play in the sandbox and do crazy stuff I would be too nervous to do with my original projects.

• Satisfaction. Nothing is more amazing than the two words, “The End.” Finishing things does something for your psychic. Accomplishment is a heady motivator to help drive you. These small pieces are excellent for this purpose. Start. Write. Finish.

What did I find after I finished a prompt? I wanted to write more. I then started looking for other things to write, which then leads me to the next part.

The Long

To keep the drive going, I started a long project. One I knew would span months. But unlike before, I developed a schedule of sorts. I gave myself a deadline of a chapter a week (don’t alway met it but I do try). If I am frustrated with a chapter or I don’t know where to start, I go to a scene I have outlined and try to write one-even it is isn’t in the chapter I am currently writing.

On those days when I wasn’t in the mood to work on my WIP, I would still write by going through my list of unfulfilled prompts- other prompts sent to me outside of the weekly challenge- and write one of those.

The important thing was to write. Just write and like momentum on a bicycle, you just keep going.

Weave between the short, quick pieces and the longer on going projects. Try to always have something, both large and small you can work on-regardless of the time you have. By do this, you remove the guilt of not having a much time on day to write more than a few minutes, to being able to write hours the next. Going, back and forth between them, keeps your head fresh and your guilt level low.

Tldr: Vary your writing pieces, always have something to write about. Be passionate about what you are writing about, and finish. Finish all the things.

If you don’t want to write random pieces and want to stay in your WIP universe, write prompts about your own characters in different situations. Hell, even take them out of your universe-write it like fanfic based of your own creation. You may be surprised what will come out!

Related posts:

New Short Story : Theodore’s Adventure
On Short Stories – Part 1
KT Literary Writing Prompts

Scent Magic: Dead Heat, Part 2

The Next Installment can be found HERE.

In Which Rose Decides To Nope The Hell Right Out of There (aka: LOL, as if she has a choice)

Related posts:

Scent Magic: Dead Heat, Part 1
[Perry] Three Parts Dead
[Perry] Evil Dead: The Musical

Wecomics Worth Your Time

I am going to keep this list very, VERY short.

Not because there aren’t a ton of amazing webcomics out there (believe me, there are!) but because I only have a very small amount of time I can dedicate to reading a webcomic, so the list of comics I follow are short.

Not only are they short, they’re stories. Because much as I love CTRL+ALT+DEL (and I do!) I just don’t feel that same sensation of fulfillment for having read them.

My list:

1) Nimona

I loved the character of Nimona from the very start. Then I loved Ballister. Then I got wrapped up in the story. And now? Now the story is winding up for the big climax, and even though I know the end is coming, I cannot wait for each new installment to be unveiled.

A comic with great characters, an engaging story, and it FINISHES. (or will finish, as it’s still got a little bit left to go, according to the artist/author).

Start Nimona’s Story Here

**

2) JL8**

A cute, fun ongoing story of our favorite superheroes in kindergarden. (I think it’s kindergarden, anyway)

Surprisingly witty and deep for being mostly episodal, but it has story arcs and as a comic-book fan? I got nothing but love for this.

Start JL8 Here

3) Spindrift

This one has the least amount of content and is updated the least often, but the story has me utterly engaged and the art absolutely blows me away.

Set in a fantasy world with winged folk and demonic folk, with gods and secret babies and mystery.

And the art. Did I mention the art?

Start Spindrift Here

4) My Milk Toof

The adorable story of two tiny teeth in a great big world. The adventures of Ickle and Lardee never fail to bring a smile, and the real-object artistry that goes into making each panel is fascinating to me.

Start My Milk Toof Here (you’ll have to scroll to the bottom to get the first adventure)

Your Turn!

Please recommend up to 5 webcomics you think other folks should look into if they have the time.

Related posts:

Spindrift – A Fantasy Webcomic
Kickstarters Worth Funding
Serial Fiction

[Perry] The Wildstar Update

So a few months have passed since the game was released, so where is it now? How does it fare once you’ve reached the level cap?

Most importantly? Should you invest your time and money in this game.

The “endgame” of Wildstar will basically come down to a few things, or a combination of those few things. So let’s break this down.

Raiding

If you’re interested in raiding in Wildstar, you’re in luck because you’ll have plenty to do. Maybe even a little TOO much to do. The attunement process is long.

I wouldn’t say it’s arduous, I mean, it COULD be knocked out the same week that you pick up your Genesis Key (you equip it then have to complete various tasks to get attuned), but it can be difficult.

The difficulty of the game has been one of the advertised selling points, so it should come as no surprise that the step that requires you to attain a silver medal in each dungeon tends to be a bit of a sticking point.

It’s hard. The time limit is tight, there isn’t much room for error, and it can be infuriating to get to the last boss of a dungeon, on track to complete your silver medal…only to have a group member die to a clearly marked mechanic, AGAIN, which wastes the time you’ve spent in the run and you have to start over now.

I haven’t even set foot into an actual raid instance yet, but if the well-designed dungeon encounters are any indication, I know that I’ll have a blast in them…provided that you adventure with people you get along with.

PvP

There IS a fair share of PvP in the game. Open world stuff if you’re on a PvP server. Two battlegrounds (with a third to come), and arenas.

There ARE warplots…but they require such largescale organization that I’ve yet to see one in person, or even talk to someone who has, to be honest.

But I’ve heard a lot of negative things about the PvP system as well. Issues with how the matchmaking works for the more serious rated arenas and battlegrounds.

Also, the lack of variety in the stages sets it up for tedium pretty quickly. Unless you really dig the combat against other players in Wildstar, the PvP scene doesn’t seem like the sort of thing that will hold your attention for long.

I haven’t really been able to get into the PvP in this game. It all seems a bit of a jumbled mess to me. But to be fair, I’ve never really been a fan of PvP-ing in ANY MMO I’ve played. So take that with a grain of salt.

Completionist

If you’re into having one of every class or if you’re into world completion, there’s a lot of fun to be had.

Your alternate characters will generally travel up through the same leveling path as each other, so unless you roll a character for the opposing faction, you’ll see a lot of the same scenery.

Luckily, there are a lot of little collectible things sprinkled throughout the zones. Data cubes that are like little audio logs from previous explorers. Little notepads and clipboards that present you with some flavor text about a monster, the area, or hazards. If you’re a Scientist? Many things to scan to reveal more information and flavor text.

There are also many challenges to complete in the zones, that can be scored from bronze to gold medals. If you’re into little mini challenges as you go around collecting things, there’s a lot to do.

Housing

The housing is flat out awesome. Will consume your life if you give it half a chance.

And some of the housing projects people have come up with? Are completely beyond the pale.

It’s FASCINATING to see what people can do with the limits in place.

How this all comes together

If you’re a die-hard raider? Or you enjoy experiencing some of the best MMO encounter design I’ve seen in all my years of gaming? Wildstar will hold you and it’ll hold you hard.

I can’t imagine going back to other MMO’s after this.

I mean, look at this boss’s attack. Or how about the lovely Mordechai from Skullcano?

If you’re only ever interested in the PvP scene? I don’t think Wildstar has enough to hold you. They’re trying, for sure…but it definitely feels a lot weaker than their raiding scene.

Likewise, if you’re a completionist and you just enjoy questing and taking in the lore and the sights? If that’s all you’re into, the game will hold you for a while. The backstory’s rich and the story that you run into throughout the game itself is pretty interesting as well…but once you’re ‘done’ exploring, there won’t be too much to do.

If you’re into housing? If you get into housing in any way at all? You’ll be lost.

LOST.

Currently, I’m pushing pretty hard into the raiding scene and am completely enamored of the housing system and the sheer possibilities available to me using it.

These two elements are definitely MUCH more than enough to keep my attention for the foreseeable future…but that’s just me.

What about you? Anyone still playing out there? What keeps you hooked to the game? What’s turned you off from the game enough to drive you away?

Related posts:

[Perry] Wildstar Wednesday
My Wildstar House
[Perry] Card Hunter

Scent Magic: Dead Heat, Part 1

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Scent Magic: Dead Heat, Part 1

A webserial I’ll be working on — I need to get back into the realm of deadlines, grease my rusty writing gears, and do SOMETHING while we’re rebuilding the foundation of the Zonduth story. Expect somewhat-regular updates.

Dead Heat is one of Rose’s adventures — a modern-day Texas witch who wears an eyepatch to cover the eye that can pierce the veil into the land of Faery. She gets suckered into a deal with a Leprechaun (definitely a trap) and finds herself well out of her league investigating claims of magical cheating at the horse races. The question isn’t whether or not there’s cheating — it’s who is cheating, how they’re doing it … and whether or not she’ll survive poking her nose into a mystery that is well above her pay grade.

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[Perry] Three Parts Dead
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[Perry] Magic Systems: The Bait and Switch

Kickstarters Worth Funding

I’m not a HUGE kickstarter(er?) but I’ve funded a few projects and been delighted to do so.

I don’t really troll Kickstarter looking for new projects, though, and that means I miss out on some pretty neat stuff.

I’m going to link to a few kickstarter projects here, but I’d LOVE it especially if you guys either find or know of some projects worth mentioning in the comments.

Bicycle GORILLA playing cards

The face cards are HILARIOUS and I really love the little details of the bananas woven into the back pattern.

Not funded (and not looking promising for being funded) but still awesome. LINK HERE

Utter Nonsense Card Game

Combine a ridiculous accent with random cue cards and get a HILARIOUS result. Looks like this has shades of Cards Against Humanity going on here, and I think it looks pretty awesome.

LINK HERE

Kaze: Winds of Change Audio Drama

I loved the original short that came out a few years ago, and this kickstarter just draws upon that beauty to offer something even more. Taking an idea and a story into another realm is something near and dear to my heart, and this really seems interesting and beautiful.

LINK HERE

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[Perry] Amnesia

I’ve been thinking about the uses of amnesia in a story lately. This is likely triggered with a conversation I had with Tami upon the completion of the Paradox trilogy.

While we both enjoyed the novels to a very large, and sometimes ecstatic, extent, we both agreed that the use of amnesia in the middle of the story left a lot to be desired.

So let’s take a bit of a closer look at this device.

What It’s For

Amnesia can be used for many things. But generally speaking? It’ll boil down to two uses. It can be used as a way to info-dump mid-story, or it’s used as a plot device.

When it comes to that first usage, it’s the same as using the fish-out-of-water character to follow the other characters around so that they can ‘explain’ to him what’s going on and how the world works.

It tends to be a bit of a ‘cheat-y’ way of getting information across but in all honesty, that’s not always a bad thing.

If you can disguise the usage of that as such under clever veneer, it can actually turn into something marvelous fun.

Take The Rook by Daniel O’Malley, for example.

It’s a story with its fair share of flaws, to be sure, but O’Malley’s chosen method of sharing the details of his world with the reader through the use of amnesia was, I thought, inspired.

This was a way of using that tried and true tactic and adding just enough of a twist to it that it became something else entirely.

In fact, O’Malley manages to turn Myfanwy Thomas into two distinct characters through the clever use of amnesia and some pre-written letters.

True, it didn’t always make logical sense WHEN the letters were read in terms of story timeline…but still, the idea was excellent enough that I just glossed over it blissfully until Tami pointed it out to me (angry shaking fist).

Another Thing It’s For

Amnesia can also be used as a very effective plot device. And with the right events or character interactions to highlight it, it can have quite the emotional punch to it.

Take a look at Small Favor by Jim Butcher.

I don’t want to include any spoilers as I know some folks are still slowly making their way through it coughcough, but in general terms? Harry is made aware of the fact that he’s been inflicted with a slight, selective amnesia about something later in the book.

That’s not the good bit.

The good bit? Is where he’s completely oblivious to this fact and only figures it out when he confronts an ally about why they don’t seem to trust him fully.

It’s in that confrontation, with the emotional weight of all that hurt and feeling of betrayal piled up that we get the reveal and it’s one hell of a sucker punch.

That’s a good plot device. It’s a way to use the amnesia in a way that the main character is completely unaware of it to introduce a plot twist.

By necessity? This tends to work better in stories where the reader is tied a little more tightly to the main character’s perspective. That way, it shocks the reader just as much as the character when it’s revealed.

A Usage I Didn’t Agree With

In the Paradox trilogy, I felt there was a bit of a sagging middle section to the story and it focused almost entirely around the main character’s enforced amnesia.

And there’s a strong chance that I wouldn’t even have thought anything of it except for the fact that the plot to the trilogy moved along at a wondrously frenetic clip. On the bounce, from one plot point to another, gleefully entangling the characters in one crisis after another…

…And then? Plot device. “For her own good”, Devi is afflicted with selective amnesia. And the plot comes to a grinding halt, stalling out from its breakneck pace to trundle along for a bit.

I think my less than favorable impression of the use of amnesia in the story stems from the fact that it didn’t seem to have any overall impact on the plot.

I mean, yes, Devi goes along for a little while a little bit confused as to certain things that had happened?

But NOTHING seems to come of the little episode of amnesia.

A little while later, she gets her memories restored and then things continue on from there, building back up to a breakneck speed and blasting toward the finish line.

If you sliced out that entire amnesia segment? I don’t think the story would change in any significant way. The exact same things would have happened, just…it would have happened a little sooner.

The other issue with this use of amnesia comes from the way the other characters treat her. Devi doesn’t realize anything’s wrong, but everyone around suddenly seems to have a bit of a “poor thing, tsk tsk tsk” attitude for a while until she regains her memories.

And that?

That was a bit frustrating to read through. Frustrating because Devi is ANYTHING but an object of sympathy. She’s a hard-nosed, tough-as-nails, ass-kicking, defiant force of nature crammed into the shape of a tiny, well-muscled woman. And to have her going around, oblivious that anything’s wrong while a former love interest makes mopey eyes at her, and other members of the crew seem to exude “poor thing” vibes at her was just…just frustrating.

Parting Thoughts

Be careful with the use of amnesia in your stories.

I’m not saying not to use it, not by any means. Amnesia can be a wonderful way to introduce certain plot elements, or to lend a scene that emotional impact that it was missing.

But the potential for misuse is high, and the last thing you want to do is give your story a saggy tummy that’ll take an endless amount of torturous exercise and dieting in the editing process to get rid of.

 

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[Perry] First Person Perspective
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