Jason A. Cheek's Blog, page 14
June 9, 2015
How crafting in MMO's helped to improve my real life!
By now, for most of you that enjoy keeping up with my blog, you know that sometimes I have to take time out to deal with IRL stuff that pops up from time to time. For you Indie Writers who have a full time job that has nothing to do with writing and a family on top of that to boot, you know what I’m talking about. At that same time, an old colleague called me yesterday about working on a writing idea that he had and reminded me how much he enjoyed keeping up with my blog, which again reminded me of the importance of not letting “headquarter consolidations” keep me from making my regular updates. Sometimes we all need that reminder. Yea “Headquarter Consolidations”, it’s exactly what it sounds like and is the reason I’ve been preoccupied of late, but enough of that.
I was talking with my daughter the other day and giving her a hard time about taking her phone away until she got her homework finished up, when she surprised me by saying it was a pretty good idea. The conversation ended up with “shocked me” holding two phones, while she went to study for her exams. Later when I talked to her about it, she explained to me that she knows that she needs to get ready for her college entrance exams, but sometimes it’s just so hard to focus.
This is something I think many of us share in common. I know for myself it’s something that I’ve had to fight my entire life. I was always interested in learning stuff, but I rarely found school particularly interesting, let alone confusing social interactions and clicks that made life miserable on a daily basis. Another thing I always found amazing was how even the stuff I was interested in could be made boring and a chore. Even worse, I’m one of those people who need to see the connection of why learning something theoretical is useful and practical. My resistance to this has gotten better as I’ve grown older, but that doesn’t mean that I agree with the structure that is “modern education”. Interestingly enough, I recently saw a video that proves I’m not the only one who thinks this way. Check out the attached “RSA Animate” video. It validates this feeling I’ve had over the years in so many ways!
Self-discipline is not easy. It’s something that I’ve always had to work at, but it’s really the only way to get things done. It took me a long time to learn this. Unbelievably I learned this from one of my greatest distractions in my entire life: MMO’s and computer gaming. I’d tried to get into computers before joining the Army, but I was too poor to have the equipment I needed for it to hold my attention. At that time the only thing I could afford was a tape drive for saving data, which made five and a quarter floppy drives look like “light speed”! It wasn’t until I got out of the Army and back into computers that the technology really become affordable and once it did my life was forever changed.
Computer gaming made computers fun and it was primitive enough that you had to actually learn a lot of hardware, software and networking to be able to game. In this way it made learning fun. I didn’t mind pouring over book of data, of learning about interrupts for motherboards and peripherals and how they interacted with the operating system. Whatever I needed to get my games to run and play multiplayer with other gamers was all that was important.
Over the years my addition to gaming lessoned, but the things I learned had forever changed my life and given me a career in System Administration. One was crafting in Anarchy Online and other MMO’s. Crafting is one of those parts of the game that’s not for everyone, but in Anarchy Online and even in the beginning days of World of Warcraft it was needed to access the higher content of the game. Without a fully functional guide or enough characters with specialized skills it was impossible to reach certain game content. Usually this meant months of leveling up a character and the required skills needed to get to this point. I cannot even begin to tell you the months upon months of crafting I did online. Studying any information I could find on how to access these areas and the steps needed to craft what was needed. Of watching my online character’s hands make a twisting humping movement that is the universal symbol for crafting in MMO’s. Sometimes it was just boring shit. Making the same thing over and over until your skills were high enough to get to the next level, because that was the only way to get the special key or amulet made that would allow you into this super-secret dungeon.
I don’t know when it happened. I don’t know when I made the connection between doing this online and doing this IRL, but suddenly I realized I could do the same thing in my own life to make it better. I could level up. Yea, I know just how nerdy that sounds, but none the less it’s the truth. At the time it was an incredible concept and something I started doing consciously. Something so profound that even now when I’m studying for a new certificate or learning a new language, in the back of my mind I’m standing in some virtual world with my hands twisting to craft this new item or skill.
Although it sounds cliché so say this, during this epiphany time period in my life after I’d been doing this RL translation, I came across a movie in 2011 that changed my perspective on this even further. The name of the movie was called Limitless. If you haven’t seen it, it’s definitely worth checking out the video below. Not so much that the movie itself is so incredible, but the idea that you could take a pill and overnight have access to your mind’s full potential grabbed my imagination. Although the main character in the film happens to start out as a failed writer, the film itself wasn’t what made me want to write. I’d always had the desire, but never seemed to get around to doing it.
At this point in my life the thought that hit me was that why couldn’t I do this without a pill? Why couldn’t I just learn what I wanted to do? I mean, really what was stopping me, the work of learning how to do something in and of itself? Just a few years before watching this video I’d learned German and was starting on Polish, I dropped thirty-five to forty pounds, I’d finished a college degree, picked up about thirty certifications for Information Technology and moved to Europe. Basically all of these accomplishments had been purely based on motivation and the belief that I could make my life whatever I wanted it to be. It was at this point in my life I wrote my first book Flight.
Surprisingly enough while I was getting the links for this blog on the movie Limitless, I ran into something even more interesting than the movie. It’s an IRL “Limitless Style” drug that the news is starting to talk about. The youtube video was posted March 22nd, 2015. Supposedly the drug is called Provigil (modafinil). For those of you who are interested I just linked the news article below. I had heard of biohacking. Many of us do this to an extent. If you think about it biohacking can be as simple as taking vitamins or eating healthy all the way to taking specific drugs to enhance muscle and endurance, but the articles on this drug is pretty crazy. Who knows, maybe there is a drug that can help you be a “better you”. Just remember, no matter what, bio-enhance drugs or not, it’s your choice. You really can do anything you set your mind to do.
Anyway, there will always be new and exciting things that pull your attention and distract you from things that you need to do for yourself and your family. I mean, look at the up and coming future of gaming with Magic Leap’s “Alternate Reality” glasses. The possibilities this creates for gaming are sick! While Magic Leap is not out yet, Microsoft’s Holodeck will be here soon. Soon as in possibly the end this year or the beginning of next and integrates with Windows 10! Check this article out: http://www.howtogeek.com/214395/head-mounted-displays-whats-the-difference-between-augmented-and-virtual-reality/
I was talking with my daughter the other day and giving her a hard time about taking her phone away until she got her homework finished up, when she surprised me by saying it was a pretty good idea. The conversation ended up with “shocked me” holding two phones, while she went to study for her exams. Later when I talked to her about it, she explained to me that she knows that she needs to get ready for her college entrance exams, but sometimes it’s just so hard to focus.
This is something I think many of us share in common. I know for myself it’s something that I’ve had to fight my entire life. I was always interested in learning stuff, but I rarely found school particularly interesting, let alone confusing social interactions and clicks that made life miserable on a daily basis. Another thing I always found amazing was how even the stuff I was interested in could be made boring and a chore. Even worse, I’m one of those people who need to see the connection of why learning something theoretical is useful and practical. My resistance to this has gotten better as I’ve grown older, but that doesn’t mean that I agree with the structure that is “modern education”. Interestingly enough, I recently saw a video that proves I’m not the only one who thinks this way. Check out the attached “RSA Animate” video. It validates this feeling I’ve had over the years in so many ways!
Self-discipline is not easy. It’s something that I’ve always had to work at, but it’s really the only way to get things done. It took me a long time to learn this. Unbelievably I learned this from one of my greatest distractions in my entire life: MMO’s and computer gaming. I’d tried to get into computers before joining the Army, but I was too poor to have the equipment I needed for it to hold my attention. At that time the only thing I could afford was a tape drive for saving data, which made five and a quarter floppy drives look like “light speed”! It wasn’t until I got out of the Army and back into computers that the technology really become affordable and once it did my life was forever changed.
Computer gaming made computers fun and it was primitive enough that you had to actually learn a lot of hardware, software and networking to be able to game. In this way it made learning fun. I didn’t mind pouring over book of data, of learning about interrupts for motherboards and peripherals and how they interacted with the operating system. Whatever I needed to get my games to run and play multiplayer with other gamers was all that was important.
Over the years my addition to gaming lessoned, but the things I learned had forever changed my life and given me a career in System Administration. One was crafting in Anarchy Online and other MMO’s. Crafting is one of those parts of the game that’s not for everyone, but in Anarchy Online and even in the beginning days of World of Warcraft it was needed to access the higher content of the game. Without a fully functional guide or enough characters with specialized skills it was impossible to reach certain game content. Usually this meant months of leveling up a character and the required skills needed to get to this point. I cannot even begin to tell you the months upon months of crafting I did online. Studying any information I could find on how to access these areas and the steps needed to craft what was needed. Of watching my online character’s hands make a twisting humping movement that is the universal symbol for crafting in MMO’s. Sometimes it was just boring shit. Making the same thing over and over until your skills were high enough to get to the next level, because that was the only way to get the special key or amulet made that would allow you into this super-secret dungeon.
I don’t know when it happened. I don’t know when I made the connection between doing this online and doing this IRL, but suddenly I realized I could do the same thing in my own life to make it better. I could level up. Yea, I know just how nerdy that sounds, but none the less it’s the truth. At the time it was an incredible concept and something I started doing consciously. Something so profound that even now when I’m studying for a new certificate or learning a new language, in the back of my mind I’m standing in some virtual world with my hands twisting to craft this new item or skill.
Although it sounds cliché so say this, during this epiphany time period in my life after I’d been doing this RL translation, I came across a movie in 2011 that changed my perspective on this even further. The name of the movie was called Limitless. If you haven’t seen it, it’s definitely worth checking out the video below. Not so much that the movie itself is so incredible, but the idea that you could take a pill and overnight have access to your mind’s full potential grabbed my imagination. Although the main character in the film happens to start out as a failed writer, the film itself wasn’t what made me want to write. I’d always had the desire, but never seemed to get around to doing it.
At this point in my life the thought that hit me was that why couldn’t I do this without a pill? Why couldn’t I just learn what I wanted to do? I mean, really what was stopping me, the work of learning how to do something in and of itself? Just a few years before watching this video I’d learned German and was starting on Polish, I dropped thirty-five to forty pounds, I’d finished a college degree, picked up about thirty certifications for Information Technology and moved to Europe. Basically all of these accomplishments had been purely based on motivation and the belief that I could make my life whatever I wanted it to be. It was at this point in my life I wrote my first book Flight.
Surprisingly enough while I was getting the links for this blog on the movie Limitless, I ran into something even more interesting than the movie. It’s an IRL “Limitless Style” drug that the news is starting to talk about. The youtube video was posted March 22nd, 2015. Supposedly the drug is called Provigil (modafinil). For those of you who are interested I just linked the news article below. I had heard of biohacking. Many of us do this to an extent. If you think about it biohacking can be as simple as taking vitamins or eating healthy all the way to taking specific drugs to enhance muscle and endurance, but the articles on this drug is pretty crazy. Who knows, maybe there is a drug that can help you be a “better you”. Just remember, no matter what, bio-enhance drugs or not, it’s your choice. You really can do anything you set your mind to do.
Anyway, there will always be new and exciting things that pull your attention and distract you from things that you need to do for yourself and your family. I mean, look at the up and coming future of gaming with Magic Leap’s “Alternate Reality” glasses. The possibilities this creates for gaming are sick! While Magic Leap is not out yet, Microsoft’s Holodeck will be here soon. Soon as in possibly the end this year or the beginning of next and integrates with Windows 10! Check this article out: http://www.howtogeek.com/214395/head-mounted-displays-whats-the-difference-between-augmented-and-virtual-reality/
May 7, 2015
"Higher, higher, burning fire, making music like a choir!"
If you’ve never seen the movie Legend, you should check it out. Even though now-a-day its old 1985 graphics is somewhat outdated in comparison to the modern movies that most movie goers are accustomed to, but somehow its eighties graphics are still fresh in a time of CGI computer graphics. In its own way, it was just as incredible as Star Wars was for its innovative depiction of The Lord of Darkness and overall fantasy vibe. I’ve attached my all-time favorite scene from the movie. The massive horns and cloven hooves of the red devil stepping through the surface of the mirror in the clip touches something deep and primitive in my soul, even now when I watch the scene it still freaking rocks.
To say that the movie hasn’t influenced some of the creatures in The Last Paladin Series would be a lie. Truthfully my “nerdism” goes much deeper than that. Throw in Barsoom and the Princess of Mars Series by Edgar Rice Burroughs to present and you’d have a much better understanding of the depth of my love for Sci-Fi and Fantasy. I use Edgar Rice Burroughs in particular because it still amazes me that a story written in 1917 could have influenced modern Sci-fi and Fantasy and is still good enough of a story that they chose to make a movie from the book in 2013. Once again, this was a Sci-Fi story written in 1917! If you never took the time to see the movie, it’s definitely worth the time and the books are quite enjoyable. Not to mention, Burroughs’ writing has directly and indirectly influenced many generations of writers since 1917 to present. Unfortunately, the movie got a bad write-up and I think many people didn’t end up checking it out, which is too bad. The film was quite enjoyable, no matter if it altered the original storyline and kept itself PG13, but unfortunately that goes without saying since Walt Disney Pictures produced the film. Otherwise there would have been a lot, I mean a “FREAKING LOT”, of nudity. I’ve attached the trailer below for those of you who haven’t seen it. Too bad it wasn’t truly depicted as Burroughs wrote it. Even more amazing, is J.R.R. Tolkien’s world of Lord of the Rings that was written in 1954, which is in the top ten of the largest modern grossing film series to date, not to mention its influence on pulp fiction in general and Fantasy around the world and across multiple generations. Really, Dungeon and Dragons and the whole Fantasy MMO concept might have never developed into the incredible detailed worlds that we know of today.
Another interesting movie I finally tracked down late night by accident was Fire and Ice. One of those 80’s cartoon movies that inspired a generations of movies that came out around the time, such as: Heavy Metal movie, The Lord of the Ring cartoon movie series, The Secret of Nimh, Dark Crystal and Wizard. Huge contributors to Generation X’s mind set and the blooming of computerized gaming. Darkwolf is one of the main heroes of the film, which is part of one of the nomenclature I like to use for my characters online: aka Darkstar, Darkstorm, Darknova … If you’ve ever tried to create your own Darkxxx name, you know how hard it is to find a combo not already used. Every once in a while I watch the old anime and cartoon movies. I was actually pleasantly surprised with Fire and Ice. Another film I threw on the list is one of my all time favorites, Wizard. The movie is a story about the battle of good vs evil and elves/fairies against mutants/demons. It has some great artwork and some shockingly sorrowful scenes and some sexy ass fairies. It’s dated, but it kind of has that classic Heavy Metal following.
Anyway, last Friday I had to cut my blog off quickly, because the weekend was starting and it’s hard for me to get any writing time in once the weekend starts. I was mainly finished except for discussing the dividing line between too much detail of a particular topic in a story and not enough. Being aware of what movies have taught people to expect and knowing the reality is a tough balance. A good example of this was the movie “Final Countdown”. The actual book was awesome. Martin Caidin’s book is well balanced between military terms and information and the flow of story. Unfortunately, the director of the movie turned the film into a commercial for the Navy’s toys, which just ruined the film. I mean you can only watch planes taking off and landing for so long before you’re just like “Shoot me now!”
I had expected to get some great writing time in this week, but Richard, a buddy of mine I met from reviewing Flight, got me into a couple books. The newest Demon Accords and an Immortal Series. I ended up reading three books in three days. The good news is that the stories were great, but the bad news is that I’m still recovering from eye burnout and sleep deprivation. Thanks Richard! So back to writing on Monday, unless I can sneak a little in over the weekend.
To say that the movie hasn’t influenced some of the creatures in The Last Paladin Series would be a lie. Truthfully my “nerdism” goes much deeper than that. Throw in Barsoom and the Princess of Mars Series by Edgar Rice Burroughs to present and you’d have a much better understanding of the depth of my love for Sci-Fi and Fantasy. I use Edgar Rice Burroughs in particular because it still amazes me that a story written in 1917 could have influenced modern Sci-fi and Fantasy and is still good enough of a story that they chose to make a movie from the book in 2013. Once again, this was a Sci-Fi story written in 1917! If you never took the time to see the movie, it’s definitely worth the time and the books are quite enjoyable. Not to mention, Burroughs’ writing has directly and indirectly influenced many generations of writers since 1917 to present. Unfortunately, the movie got a bad write-up and I think many people didn’t end up checking it out, which is too bad. The film was quite enjoyable, no matter if it altered the original storyline and kept itself PG13, but unfortunately that goes without saying since Walt Disney Pictures produced the film. Otherwise there would have been a lot, I mean a “FREAKING LOT”, of nudity. I’ve attached the trailer below for those of you who haven’t seen it. Too bad it wasn’t truly depicted as Burroughs wrote it. Even more amazing, is J.R.R. Tolkien’s world of Lord of the Rings that was written in 1954, which is in the top ten of the largest modern grossing film series to date, not to mention its influence on pulp fiction in general and Fantasy around the world and across multiple generations. Really, Dungeon and Dragons and the whole Fantasy MMO concept might have never developed into the incredible detailed worlds that we know of today.
Another interesting movie I finally tracked down late night by accident was Fire and Ice. One of those 80’s cartoon movies that inspired a generations of movies that came out around the time, such as: Heavy Metal movie, The Lord of the Ring cartoon movie series, The Secret of Nimh, Dark Crystal and Wizard. Huge contributors to Generation X’s mind set and the blooming of computerized gaming. Darkwolf is one of the main heroes of the film, which is part of one of the nomenclature I like to use for my characters online: aka Darkstar, Darkstorm, Darknova … If you’ve ever tried to create your own Darkxxx name, you know how hard it is to find a combo not already used. Every once in a while I watch the old anime and cartoon movies. I was actually pleasantly surprised with Fire and Ice. Another film I threw on the list is one of my all time favorites, Wizard. The movie is a story about the battle of good vs evil and elves/fairies against mutants/demons. It has some great artwork and some shockingly sorrowful scenes and some sexy ass fairies. It’s dated, but it kind of has that classic Heavy Metal following.
Anyway, last Friday I had to cut my blog off quickly, because the weekend was starting and it’s hard for me to get any writing time in once the weekend starts. I was mainly finished except for discussing the dividing line between too much detail of a particular topic in a story and not enough. Being aware of what movies have taught people to expect and knowing the reality is a tough balance. A good example of this was the movie “Final Countdown”. The actual book was awesome. Martin Caidin’s book is well balanced between military terms and information and the flow of story. Unfortunately, the director of the movie turned the film into a commercial for the Navy’s toys, which just ruined the film. I mean you can only watch planes taking off and landing for so long before you’re just like “Shoot me now!”
I had expected to get some great writing time in this week, but Richard, a buddy of mine I met from reviewing Flight, got me into a couple books. The newest Demon Accords and an Immortal Series. I ended up reading three books in three days. The good news is that the stories were great, but the bad news is that I’m still recovering from eye burnout and sleep deprivation. Thanks Richard! So back to writing on Monday, unless I can sneak a little in over the weekend.
May 1, 2015
sometimes you have to ask yourself "How real is too real?"
From my previous time serving in the Army overseas during Desert Storm and my current “day job” working overseas, I’ve had experience, one way or another, with many of the different Military Branches of the United States Armed Forces. Between “my own experiences” and watching movies like American Sniper, The Hurt Locker, G.I. Jane, Navy Seals, Lone Survivor or Strike Back, I tend to have a pretty good idea of how military units operate and communicate, which for writing is a good and bad thing.
A work colleague of mine is a retired Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel. A cool guy, if he likes you and, besides having some of the most interesting stories I’ve ever heard, the man is one of those people who you wouldn’t take a second look at walking down the street in civvies, but he could kill you fifty different ways in the blink of an eye. Yea, pretty kick ass. Anyway, he has a lot of ex-special forces friends who try to write books about their experiences. While the stories are extremely accurate and realistic, most of these Special Forces writers’ books simply do not sell.
My buddy and I have discussed this point a lot since I’ve written Flight and one of the things we constantly come back to about this odd phenomenon is that many of these writers do not have an “entertaining story” and/or a “feel good” message to their writing. Both of which are important for sales. A good example of this is “Starship Troopers” from Robert H. Heinlein, one of the few Science Fiction books that is considered “required reading” on the United States Marine Corps Reading List.
Another common mistake I think many writers make is not being careful when they know too much about a topic they are writing about. When you know too much of any one field it is easy to start going into details that most readers are just not interested in hearing and before you know it your story dragging out into monotony. A good example of this might be an entertaining book on a hacker. Do I want to read pages and pages of code while I’m reading the story or get the gist of what the lead character was doing. Another example would be a story on a Tanker’s experience in War. Do I want to know all of the details only true Tanker on an M1A1 would know about? Would that knowledge add to the story I’m reading or my enjoyment?
This is something I am trying to be aware of in my own story. Destiny has some huge battle scenes I’m working on with modern day units. Dealing with all of the military units makes me want to keep the details as accurate as possible, but there has to be a point where I either allow some things to not be 100% accurate to keep the story moving and fun, improve my story to fit as much accuracy in or possibly turn out a boring climatic scene. I’m choosing to allow some things to not be 100% accurate to fit my story, but I am struggling to keep the units as realistic as possible and still have a good story for my readers to enjoy.
Anyway, have a great weekend and catch everyone on the flip side.
A work colleague of mine is a retired Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel. A cool guy, if he likes you and, besides having some of the most interesting stories I’ve ever heard, the man is one of those people who you wouldn’t take a second look at walking down the street in civvies, but he could kill you fifty different ways in the blink of an eye. Yea, pretty kick ass. Anyway, he has a lot of ex-special forces friends who try to write books about their experiences. While the stories are extremely accurate and realistic, most of these Special Forces writers’ books simply do not sell.
My buddy and I have discussed this point a lot since I’ve written Flight and one of the things we constantly come back to about this odd phenomenon is that many of these writers do not have an “entertaining story” and/or a “feel good” message to their writing. Both of which are important for sales. A good example of this is “Starship Troopers” from Robert H. Heinlein, one of the few Science Fiction books that is considered “required reading” on the United States Marine Corps Reading List.
Another common mistake I think many writers make is not being careful when they know too much about a topic they are writing about. When you know too much of any one field it is easy to start going into details that most readers are just not interested in hearing and before you know it your story dragging out into monotony. A good example of this might be an entertaining book on a hacker. Do I want to read pages and pages of code while I’m reading the story or get the gist of what the lead character was doing. Another example would be a story on a Tanker’s experience in War. Do I want to know all of the details only true Tanker on an M1A1 would know about? Would that knowledge add to the story I’m reading or my enjoyment?
This is something I am trying to be aware of in my own story. Destiny has some huge battle scenes I’m working on with modern day units. Dealing with all of the military units makes me want to keep the details as accurate as possible, but there has to be a point where I either allow some things to not be 100% accurate to keep the story moving and fun, improve my story to fit as much accuracy in or possibly turn out a boring climatic scene. I’m choosing to allow some things to not be 100% accurate to fit my story, but I am struggling to keep the units as realistic as possible and still have a good story for my readers to enjoy.
Anyway, have a great weekend and catch everyone on the flip side.
April 26, 2015
I'm down to the last few chapters and the climatic ending to Destiny
Last month was crazy, but I’m back writing once again after our quick trip into France to see the Maginot Line. My daughter was sick and my wife didn’t want to leave her at home, but she begged us to go anyway. By the time we made it to Schoenenbourg it was too late to catch the last tour, so we’ll all end up heading there again in the future. I did see some parts of the line and took a picture of the main entrance. Not to mention a cool pre-World War II flier of the whole defensive idea about the line. It’s posted below. I just love the old World War I & II artwork.
About a month ago I came down with something nasty. Between being sick, throwing my workout program into overdrive and work going into overload with projects and work, we’ll let’s just say I’ve been coming home at night and just crashing. Last week things started to get better. I finally recovered from whatever bug hit me, my body finally got adjusted to the intense work out I’ve been putting it through five days a week and have been getting back into the swing of writing regularly. Work has been too tough to do anything but run around with my head chopped off, and when I get home at night all that I want to do is work on Destiny. Unfortunately, that means my blog has been left without my normal updates for a month, but sometimes that’s how life goes. Things should be getting back to normal, so expect regular blog updates once again.
The climatic final scenes in Destiny are huge. This last week I started writing the beginning chapter that goes into the scene and it took me all week to get it straight. I swear I rewrote the intro chapter four times before I felt like it was write. Even so, I still need to tweak pieces of it to get the full feeling I want, but at least the meat and bones are in place. Trying to make sure all of the elements are in place, makes sense, and will work for the following book series is a juggling act. Sometimes I feel like Destiny is a little bit like Game of Thrones for the fact that there are a lot of characters running around in the story. I’ll post a link below from Honest Trailers about the number of characters in Game of Thrones. It’s pretty funny!
I introduced a lot of characters in Flight, but it was easier to follow what was happening because I killed off so many people off in book one. In my mind this was necessary to make the evil truly evil. You have to hate the protagonists in a story. I didn’t want the evil to be just a little bad or annoying, but to be so horrible that you wanted everyone who was a part of it destroyed to make the world a better place and because they deserved it. In book two the evil is still there and I refer to past deeds they’ve done and current actions being taken, also many of the new characters I introduce make it through the story alive, and I don’t go into as much gory detail as book one. Notice I say “as much”. I mean this is a story with swords, guns, Werewolves, Demon Hordes, Minotaurs, a Paladin, Marine Rangers, Navy Seals and more, so you know there’s going to be a lot of action going on, which also means blood and explosions. I’m just keeping out some of the heart wrenching details that were in Flight, like when the Werewolf pups were slaughtered in front of Novastar Ironwolf.
I struggled over how much detail to put in the story about the evil in book one. Was it any more terrible than some of my favorite writers such as R. A. Salvatore’s Dark Elf Trilogy? I’ve run it past my friends and coworkers who are into Sci-Fi and Fantasy. Not people who love horror, but typical readers who share the love of a good story. They didn’t think my dip into the dark side was too much, but said that it fit the overall story quite well. I did get some people who didn’t like the grittiness, because they were expecting something light and airy like the Twilight or Teen Wolf Series. As long as a number of my readers enjoy my story, that’s okay. It all takes different strokes from different folks.
Driving home on Friday I ran into a six hour traffic jam. Yea, I said six hours. Luckily a friend of mine had given me her left over fajitas to take home with me. I ate them while waiting for the accident to clear up. The good news is I was able to take some cool pictures. The best is the Hell energy drink advertisement that I passed plastered to the side of a tractor trailer. I’m still laughing about it. Anyway, I’ve added them below.
About a month ago I came down with something nasty. Between being sick, throwing my workout program into overdrive and work going into overload with projects and work, we’ll let’s just say I’ve been coming home at night and just crashing. Last week things started to get better. I finally recovered from whatever bug hit me, my body finally got adjusted to the intense work out I’ve been putting it through five days a week and have been getting back into the swing of writing regularly. Work has been too tough to do anything but run around with my head chopped off, and when I get home at night all that I want to do is work on Destiny. Unfortunately, that means my blog has been left without my normal updates for a month, but sometimes that’s how life goes. Things should be getting back to normal, so expect regular blog updates once again.
The climatic final scenes in Destiny are huge. This last week I started writing the beginning chapter that goes into the scene and it took me all week to get it straight. I swear I rewrote the intro chapter four times before I felt like it was write. Even so, I still need to tweak pieces of it to get the full feeling I want, but at least the meat and bones are in place. Trying to make sure all of the elements are in place, makes sense, and will work for the following book series is a juggling act. Sometimes I feel like Destiny is a little bit like Game of Thrones for the fact that there are a lot of characters running around in the story. I’ll post a link below from Honest Trailers about the number of characters in Game of Thrones. It’s pretty funny!
I introduced a lot of characters in Flight, but it was easier to follow what was happening because I killed off so many people off in book one. In my mind this was necessary to make the evil truly evil. You have to hate the protagonists in a story. I didn’t want the evil to be just a little bad or annoying, but to be so horrible that you wanted everyone who was a part of it destroyed to make the world a better place and because they deserved it. In book two the evil is still there and I refer to past deeds they’ve done and current actions being taken, also many of the new characters I introduce make it through the story alive, and I don’t go into as much gory detail as book one. Notice I say “as much”. I mean this is a story with swords, guns, Werewolves, Demon Hordes, Minotaurs, a Paladin, Marine Rangers, Navy Seals and more, so you know there’s going to be a lot of action going on, which also means blood and explosions. I’m just keeping out some of the heart wrenching details that were in Flight, like when the Werewolf pups were slaughtered in front of Novastar Ironwolf.
I struggled over how much detail to put in the story about the evil in book one. Was it any more terrible than some of my favorite writers such as R. A. Salvatore’s Dark Elf Trilogy? I’ve run it past my friends and coworkers who are into Sci-Fi and Fantasy. Not people who love horror, but typical readers who share the love of a good story. They didn’t think my dip into the dark side was too much, but said that it fit the overall story quite well. I did get some people who didn’t like the grittiness, because they were expecting something light and airy like the Twilight or Teen Wolf Series. As long as a number of my readers enjoy my story, that’s okay. It all takes different strokes from different folks.
Driving home on Friday I ran into a six hour traffic jam. Yea, I said six hours. Luckily a friend of mine had given me her left over fajitas to take home with me. I ate them while waiting for the accident to clear up. The good news is I was able to take some cool pictures. The best is the Hell energy drink advertisement that I passed plastered to the side of a tractor trailer. I’m still laughing about it. Anyway, I’ve added them below.
April 5, 2015
a quick trip to le fort de schoenenbourg and the maginot line for easter
Happy Easter, I hope everyone is having a great holiday and taking time to relax with your families. Since no one else came up with a plan for our quick trip for into France for a day, that left me at the helm. HA HA HA! (Picture an evil triumphant laugh here!) Usually my ladies plans revolve around shopping locations and I have to squeeze my tourist activities of historical sites and museums in-between TK Max and other shopping attractions wherever we travel, but this time it’s all me.
Luckily my new place is only about an hour and a half from the border of France, which gives us some neat options for taking day trips. Today I remembered I’ve always wanted to visit the Maginot Line. Fort Schoenenbourg and a cool portion of the Maginot Line is less than two hours away. How cool is that? Here is some links for the location: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maginot_Line and http://www.lignemaginot.com/accueil/indexen.htm
If you’re a gamer like me or into Sci-Fi and Fantasy, then I expect you’ve seen movies like Princess Mononoke, Nausicaa Valley of the Winds or Castle in the Sky. Hayao Miyazaki is right up there with Mamoru Oshii for me. Mamoru Oshii is the creator of the Ghost in the Shell series along with other fine movies. Anyway, a lot of excellent Sci-Fi and Fantasy movies have taken the Maginot Line and made complete worlds from the concept, aka Castle in the Sky.
Just looking at the fortifications and the concepts behind helps one to understand the world at the time they were created. World Wars, the Industrial Revolution, massive mechanization and weapon buildups. It just gets my gears running in my mind!
Anyway, we might not make it today. Everyone in the family is sick, except for me and the boys (aka my dogs), so the trip might get pushed back until Monday. I just hope that doesn’t mean next weekend I’m sick as a dog too. For now I’m going to link Castle in the Sky & Ghost in the Shell down below. If you’ve never seen either of these films then I recommend checking them out. Awesome storylines and some great artwork. Hayao Miyazaki is more like a cool Disney. Masamune Shirow is a famous artist that did most of the work for Ghost in the Shell, and both of my tattoos are based on his work.
Luckily my new place is only about an hour and a half from the border of France, which gives us some neat options for taking day trips. Today I remembered I’ve always wanted to visit the Maginot Line. Fort Schoenenbourg and a cool portion of the Maginot Line is less than two hours away. How cool is that? Here is some links for the location: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maginot_Line and http://www.lignemaginot.com/accueil/indexen.htm
If you’re a gamer like me or into Sci-Fi and Fantasy, then I expect you’ve seen movies like Princess Mononoke, Nausicaa Valley of the Winds or Castle in the Sky. Hayao Miyazaki is right up there with Mamoru Oshii for me. Mamoru Oshii is the creator of the Ghost in the Shell series along with other fine movies. Anyway, a lot of excellent Sci-Fi and Fantasy movies have taken the Maginot Line and made complete worlds from the concept, aka Castle in the Sky.
Just looking at the fortifications and the concepts behind helps one to understand the world at the time they were created. World Wars, the Industrial Revolution, massive mechanization and weapon buildups. It just gets my gears running in my mind!
Anyway, we might not make it today. Everyone in the family is sick, except for me and the boys (aka my dogs), so the trip might get pushed back until Monday. I just hope that doesn’t mean next weekend I’m sick as a dog too. For now I’m going to link Castle in the Sky & Ghost in the Shell down below. If you’ve never seen either of these films then I recommend checking them out. Awesome storylines and some great artwork. Hayao Miyazaki is more like a cool Disney. Masamune Shirow is a famous artist that did most of the work for Ghost in the Shell, and both of my tattoos are based on his work.
April 3, 2015
a quick update on the final scenes of destiny, spring break and a quick side trip to france
I decided to take a few days off for Spring Break to spend with my family during Spring Break. My wife always takes some vacation time around this time of year so that she’s home with our daughter. I took Friday and Monday off, which gives us enough time to make a few fun side trips. The plan right now is to swing by France and maybe the Black Forest. My daughter wants to go back to Heidelberg, since the weather sucked so bad the first time we visited. It all depends on how the weather holds out. The last two weeks have been crazy. Two weeks ago it was in the seventies with lots of sun and this week has been sleeting rain and in the thirties.
Supposedly Sunday and Monday are supposed to be decent, but today oddly enough has been relatively nice. I really want to check out the Normandy D-Day exhibit http://www.normandy-france.net/D-Day/D-day.htm , but I just don’t know if it’s too far out of our way for a quick day trip from Germany. I’ve always been a fan of World War I & II. If you’ve ever played the Call of Duty 2 series then you’ve experienced the Normandy Beach storyline. The intensity of the invasion scene was scary intense, especially if you’re an old school gamer like me who tends to hike the game settings up to the hardest levels. I think it took me an entire day to finally survive the landing. I almost had to lower the game settings to get through that battle scene. I’m attaching a link to it below from Youtube.com
Even to an ex-soldier like me the scene is unbelievably realistic. It definitely gave me an appreciation for the accomplishment of the invasion like I never had before. Anyway, this will be my first time in France, which is super cool. I’ll be updating my Trip Advisor maps to show my new country. Looking at all of the areas I’ve been around the globe, it’s cool to see where I’ve been. Although I’ve circled the globe several times now, all of my visits so far have been near the same longitude. Sometime I’m going to have to take a trip to a polar cap to spread out my points a little more.
I’ve been working on the final action packed scenes in Destiny and it’s intense. There is so much going on. Of course I’m doing my best to leave several intense cliff hangers for everyone to be bugging me about when the next book to the series is coming out. I keep on going back to the fight scenes and adding in more detail and story to them. I had initially planned to kind of skip through the scenes quickly, but that is proving to not be possible. It really goes better with the storyline I’ve planned out to have the detail, but it’s a lot of work. Every time I look down at my word count there’s several more thousand words added and still so much left to tell before I get to the final scene.
Anyway, for those of you who are free for Spring Break I hope you have a great time off. Do something fun and memorable.
Supposedly Sunday and Monday are supposed to be decent, but today oddly enough has been relatively nice. I really want to check out the Normandy D-Day exhibit http://www.normandy-france.net/D-Day/D-day.htm , but I just don’t know if it’s too far out of our way for a quick day trip from Germany. I’ve always been a fan of World War I & II. If you’ve ever played the Call of Duty 2 series then you’ve experienced the Normandy Beach storyline. The intensity of the invasion scene was scary intense, especially if you’re an old school gamer like me who tends to hike the game settings up to the hardest levels. I think it took me an entire day to finally survive the landing. I almost had to lower the game settings to get through that battle scene. I’m attaching a link to it below from Youtube.com
Even to an ex-soldier like me the scene is unbelievably realistic. It definitely gave me an appreciation for the accomplishment of the invasion like I never had before. Anyway, this will be my first time in France, which is super cool. I’ll be updating my Trip Advisor maps to show my new country. Looking at all of the areas I’ve been around the globe, it’s cool to see where I’ve been. Although I’ve circled the globe several times now, all of my visits so far have been near the same longitude. Sometime I’m going to have to take a trip to a polar cap to spread out my points a little more.
I’ve been working on the final action packed scenes in Destiny and it’s intense. There is so much going on. Of course I’m doing my best to leave several intense cliff hangers for everyone to be bugging me about when the next book to the series is coming out. I keep on going back to the fight scenes and adding in more detail and story to them. I had initially planned to kind of skip through the scenes quickly, but that is proving to not be possible. It really goes better with the storyline I’ve planned out to have the detail, but it’s a lot of work. Every time I look down at my word count there’s several more thousand words added and still so much left to tell before I get to the final scene.
Anyway, for those of you who are free for Spring Break I hope you have a great time off. Do something fun and memorable.
March 29, 2015
a quick comment on easter in germany and poland and how it's influencing the minotaur culture in my story
Growing up in Florida, Easter was one of those strange holidays. It was never one of those holidays you had a day off for, but it was pretty widely marketed. Why having a day-off from work makes a holiday more “real” makes no sense, but none the less that is how the day always hit me. While there always a Sunday church day associated with Easter when I was very young, the main memories I have is of the Easter bunny and looking for colored eggs, dressed in my best clothing and getting chocolate. My child mind always struggled with the concept of how eggs, chocolate and a bunny went together. Not that being an adult has changed that confusion, but I do understand the incredible marketing feat the holiday was made into. The days leading up to Easter was filled with coloring eggs, an activity that should have been filled with family fun and togetherness, but wasn’t the case from the family I came from.
When I was older the holiday lost its importance to me, except for the chocolate peanut butter eggs that always came out at that time of the year. In no way is this meant to disrespect those people that look at this holiday as the day Christ rose from the dead, but please understand not all of us hold the same beliefs.
Moving to Europe to be with my wife, the importance of Easter became much more prevalent in my life. Although some of my wife’s family is Catholic (aka Poland), the importance Easter plays in my life is different on two different levels.
For German people, the holiday plays an important religious role and working adults have two days off, while children get two and a half weeks free from school. Not only that, but the small and large cities prepare for an Easter Fire two weeks before the holiday. In the small village I live in of about five hundred homes, the people at this time of year trim all of their trees and bushes before the holiday. Besides playing an important role in keeping the small village looking clean, it always is the fuel used in the massive bonfire that the village does for Easter along with a little festival. I’m including a video from the group Wolfsheim. In the song Blind there are a few of these strange small festivals with tractors and fireworks in a small village. I ran across it on my trek to learn to speak German. Listening to music and watching movies is a good way to speed up your language comprehension skills. When I saw the music video it always made me wonder if Germans actually do strange little festivals like that. The answer I found out is that they do. The bonfire that is prepared for the holiday is currently thirty yards in diameter and about twenty-five feet high in the middle and there is still one more week for the people in my small village to pull more wood to the massive bonfire. Interesting enough, it’s the one time of year Germans are allowed to have a bonfire.
In Poland the villages don’t follow suit with what the Germans do. While for many Polish people it is an extremely important religious day, for my wife’s family it is more about traditional food and family time. Polish people do get as many holidays as the wealthier countries do like France and Germany, but they do get that Monday free from work. It reminds me in many ways of the American Thanksgiving Day. One year I did a traditional Thanksgiving Day Turkey for the holiday. The twenty-one pound bird barely fit in their apartment’s small oven. It was quite the hit and my wife’s sister usually does a Turkey every Easter following my recipe.
I would kind of like to add something like this into my book series, since religion plays such an important role for many of the societies I’ve created on Irlendria. It could be neat adding in my own twist by “borrowing” ideas from my time in Europe to enhance the story. I’ll just have to see if I can make some great battle fall on a major Minotaur holiday. When I made my Minotaur culture, I had to form their whole society in my mind before writing about them. Although I based them on Romans, they are a different species and from another world, so some of their culture needs to reflect that difference. In my world Minotaurs’ are mostly a rural farming people. They do have large cities, but still culturally they are setup in Clan farming communities. Their God is Akras, based off the Finish God Akhras. They refer to Akras as the “White Goddess” and she is a female. The symbol for Akras is a hand sickle used in their farming, they use the human “peace sign” as a sign for their horned goddess. An idea I had from the numerous rock videos. I’ll probably get zinged again in reviews for using this “horned” symbolism, but whatever. Some people will find insult in anything you do.
When I was older the holiday lost its importance to me, except for the chocolate peanut butter eggs that always came out at that time of the year. In no way is this meant to disrespect those people that look at this holiday as the day Christ rose from the dead, but please understand not all of us hold the same beliefs.
Moving to Europe to be with my wife, the importance of Easter became much more prevalent in my life. Although some of my wife’s family is Catholic (aka Poland), the importance Easter plays in my life is different on two different levels.
For German people, the holiday plays an important religious role and working adults have two days off, while children get two and a half weeks free from school. Not only that, but the small and large cities prepare for an Easter Fire two weeks before the holiday. In the small village I live in of about five hundred homes, the people at this time of year trim all of their trees and bushes before the holiday. Besides playing an important role in keeping the small village looking clean, it always is the fuel used in the massive bonfire that the village does for Easter along with a little festival. I’m including a video from the group Wolfsheim. In the song Blind there are a few of these strange small festivals with tractors and fireworks in a small village. I ran across it on my trek to learn to speak German. Listening to music and watching movies is a good way to speed up your language comprehension skills. When I saw the music video it always made me wonder if Germans actually do strange little festivals like that. The answer I found out is that they do. The bonfire that is prepared for the holiday is currently thirty yards in diameter and about twenty-five feet high in the middle and there is still one more week for the people in my small village to pull more wood to the massive bonfire. Interesting enough, it’s the one time of year Germans are allowed to have a bonfire.
In Poland the villages don’t follow suit with what the Germans do. While for many Polish people it is an extremely important religious day, for my wife’s family it is more about traditional food and family time. Polish people do get as many holidays as the wealthier countries do like France and Germany, but they do get that Monday free from work. It reminds me in many ways of the American Thanksgiving Day. One year I did a traditional Thanksgiving Day Turkey for the holiday. The twenty-one pound bird barely fit in their apartment’s small oven. It was quite the hit and my wife’s sister usually does a Turkey every Easter following my recipe.
I would kind of like to add something like this into my book series, since religion plays such an important role for many of the societies I’ve created on Irlendria. It could be neat adding in my own twist by “borrowing” ideas from my time in Europe to enhance the story. I’ll just have to see if I can make some great battle fall on a major Minotaur holiday. When I made my Minotaur culture, I had to form their whole society in my mind before writing about them. Although I based them on Romans, they are a different species and from another world, so some of their culture needs to reflect that difference. In my world Minotaurs’ are mostly a rural farming people. They do have large cities, but still culturally they are setup in Clan farming communities. Their God is Akras, based off the Finish God Akhras. They refer to Akras as the “White Goddess” and she is a female. The symbol for Akras is a hand sickle used in their farming, they use the human “peace sign” as a sign for their horned goddess. An idea I had from the numerous rock videos. I’ll probably get zinged again in reviews for using this “horned” symbolism, but whatever. Some people will find insult in anything you do.
March 21, 2015
It's not easy being an indy writer
Writing, just like anything you want to be good at, takes hard work. Don’t get me wrong, just because something takes a lot of work doesn’t mean it’s not fun. When I was in my twenties I found computer gaming when I was working sixty plus hours a week as a waiter and taking a full time class schedule in college. There was no time in my life to add something more onto my plate, so I nixed out sleep. I’d sleep four to six hours every two or three days a week. I did that for a year and a half to two years. Yea I had a full-fledged addiction going at the time, but even though I was addicted, I was a functional addict. I always took extra shifts at work to make the money I needed to live and pay my bills and kept my grades at a solid 3.8 GPA. Heh, what could I have done if I weren’t working so hard to live? At the time I’m sure many people would have questioned the sanity of choosing to nix out sleep, deeming it an unwise decision on my part. While that might have been true for many different reasons, life has an interesting way of changing your life.
At the time computer gaming and participating in a LAN party took a lot of work. If you were supporting a LAN party you had to learn networking, computer support and the foundations of IPX/SPX and TCP/IP networking, how to setup your own DHCP or STATIC network and even how to lay cable for a network. To play online was even tougher in many ways. There wasn’t any automatic gaming servers and playing over the internet took some skills to get things to work out, even with an amazing program named KALI that came out a few years after I started. Mostly if you weren’t playing at a LAN party, you were playing via modem. You’d think a direct modem connection would be pretty straightforward, but with Windows 95 and peoples issues with computers and compatibility between games and hardware, modems were a nightmare too. Lastly, to play any FPS, your hardware had to be bleeding edge or as close to that higher end gaming system as possible. This need taught you hardware, building your own systems, installing software from scratch and even building servers to host the games so that your own system wasn’t being slowed down hosting the game for so many people.
Remember, this was my hobby and although it was incredibly fun, it was also a lot of work. At some point in this process I learned that I knew enough to be a system administrator. The funny thing is that I’d started a COTA AS program because I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but the job was decent money. When I ended up getting my first corporate job it was as a system administrator. When I think back to this now and compare it to what I’m doing to become a writer, it lets me know that I’m on the right track. I might have ended up working over a seventy hour work week, but I did get some good time in writing on Destiny to finish it up. While every time I think I’m closing to finishing up, I suddenly realize that more detail is needed for this last part I’m finishing up. The changes I believe will make the difference between a good story and a great story, and is needed for it to tell the story I want. Even though I want to get it out sooner rather than later, I can’t let it bother me that it’s taking longer than I’d initially planned.
I was looking up Elliot Kay yesterday to see if he’d released anything about having a new book for his Good Intentions Series and saw he’d been picked up by a professional Publishing company. I sent him a quick congrats. His Rich Man / Poor Man series is rocking. I’m going to have to check it out since he’s not going to have another Good Intention’s book anytime soon. Reading Elliot’s blog and hearing about his hard work and life learning to write reminds me a lot about myself. I have such huge respect for him after he was kind enough to just talk to me about writing and was just a real person. Seeing success like that happen to an Indie Writer is awesome. It’s all about being willing to work hard for your dreams.
Anyway, for those of you who are aspiring writers or are looking to make a change in your life for the better. Hard work goes a long way to making those dreams a reality. Have a great weekend!
At the time computer gaming and participating in a LAN party took a lot of work. If you were supporting a LAN party you had to learn networking, computer support and the foundations of IPX/SPX and TCP/IP networking, how to setup your own DHCP or STATIC network and even how to lay cable for a network. To play online was even tougher in many ways. There wasn’t any automatic gaming servers and playing over the internet took some skills to get things to work out, even with an amazing program named KALI that came out a few years after I started. Mostly if you weren’t playing at a LAN party, you were playing via modem. You’d think a direct modem connection would be pretty straightforward, but with Windows 95 and peoples issues with computers and compatibility between games and hardware, modems were a nightmare too. Lastly, to play any FPS, your hardware had to be bleeding edge or as close to that higher end gaming system as possible. This need taught you hardware, building your own systems, installing software from scratch and even building servers to host the games so that your own system wasn’t being slowed down hosting the game for so many people.
Remember, this was my hobby and although it was incredibly fun, it was also a lot of work. At some point in this process I learned that I knew enough to be a system administrator. The funny thing is that I’d started a COTA AS program because I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but the job was decent money. When I ended up getting my first corporate job it was as a system administrator. When I think back to this now and compare it to what I’m doing to become a writer, it lets me know that I’m on the right track. I might have ended up working over a seventy hour work week, but I did get some good time in writing on Destiny to finish it up. While every time I think I’m closing to finishing up, I suddenly realize that more detail is needed for this last part I’m finishing up. The changes I believe will make the difference between a good story and a great story, and is needed for it to tell the story I want. Even though I want to get it out sooner rather than later, I can’t let it bother me that it’s taking longer than I’d initially planned.
I was looking up Elliot Kay yesterday to see if he’d released anything about having a new book for his Good Intentions Series and saw he’d been picked up by a professional Publishing company. I sent him a quick congrats. His Rich Man / Poor Man series is rocking. I’m going to have to check it out since he’s not going to have another Good Intention’s book anytime soon. Reading Elliot’s blog and hearing about his hard work and life learning to write reminds me a lot about myself. I have such huge respect for him after he was kind enough to just talk to me about writing and was just a real person. Seeing success like that happen to an Indie Writer is awesome. It’s all about being willing to work hard for your dreams.
Anyway, for those of you who are aspiring writers or are looking to make a change in your life for the better. Hard work goes a long way to making those dreams a reality. Have a great weekend!
March 14, 2015
when you're stuck, sometimes you just have to write it out to get back on track
When you’re an Indie Writer it means you’re always trying to write in-between your normal life and regular job. Sometimes you have no problem fitting in your regular writing times, while other times the time you’ve set aside to write is taken away with life’s emergencies. Then you find yourself squeezing in your writing time whenever you have a moment to actually sit down and write. While that is well and good, it can make it difficult to keep your train of thought going. To help with this fact of life, I have learned a few tricks to make sure I can keep on writing.
The first thing I do, beyond my normal outline that I’ve created, is make chapter notes of what I plan to write next. These notes for the current chapter I’m writing and/or the next chapter are very detailed in the sense I understand the flow of the scene, but not to detailed that I basically have written out the story.
The second thing I do is visualize the scenes for the chapter whenever I have a moment to myself. I find driving in the car to and from work is a great time to do this visualization. Also, when I’m running during my gym time, I usually visualize the up and coming scenes. I’m an angry runner, which I find very helpful when I’m working on the point of view of the Werewolves, Minotaurs, or Startüm Ironwolf. I wonder sometimes what my fellow treadmill runners think of me when they look over and see my face set in a snarl as I work out some battle sequence. I mean, I see the looks I get at times when I’m really worked up on a scene, so I’m sure that my face reflects the rage of my characters at times. Thankfully I don’t care what people think of me at the gym, heh.
The last and most important thing I’ve learned to do, is simply to write it out when I feel stuck or not sure of the scene. Sometimes you just can’t see how it’s working until you’ve written everything down on paper. Normally this works out quite well for me and I don’t have to write out the scene again. This first writing doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to get your general thoughts down on paper. Once you have the general scene you can work at tweaking what you have to make it better. I’m doing that now to great effect.
The end scenes in Destiny are super complex. I really need to focus on all of the action going on, but to be honest I haven’t had much time to just sit and work on the scenes without interruption. There is so much going on between the fight scenes, the inter-relationships between the characters and Startüm. I just can’t catch everything going on the first time through, but that’s not a problem. The technique I’ve been using is to go ahead and write the scene the way I see it in my mind. Then while I’m busy throughout the day I think about everything going on in the scene. As I’m picturing everything I will realize there are additional points, characters and other things going on that if I were a reader I would want to have this additional information in the scene. I might or might not make notes throughout the day, but usually I’ll shoot a quick email to myself to remember what I just thought of (very helpful – you think you’ll remember the scene, but once you get home to write the idea is gone … so write it all down). The next time I sit down I tweak the scene filling in those parts I missed and extend the scene out further, repeating this process until it’s finished.
Anyway, I hope this is helpful for those of you struggling with your own stories. I see so many blog posts about people running into blocks about what to write next. Hopefully this advice helps. For me life is still full of excitement. Work is crossing over into my personal time yet again as I’m responsible for supporting another off-site conference in Wiesbaden, Germany. I’m supposed to head out on Sunday to prepare everything and then work the conference to its end on Thursday. Many of these conferences are just busy even after normal work hours, so I don’t expect I’ll be back into my hotel room until 1900 or 2000 hours. I probably won’t be able to actually sit down and begin writing until 2130 hours, but at least I should get some writing time in. In one way it’s cool to get out of the office, but on the flip side it still messes with my writing schedule.
On a more personal note. One of the things I greatly enjoy in Europe is the saunas. (A subject whose relevance comes from the hotel I'll be staying at having an European sauna.) Even though I enjoy the saunas here, the varying rules of appropriate dress between the American and the European sides can be somewhat confusing at times. (I partake in both kinds here due to my unique situation in country.) On the European side, clothing is NOT allowed in the sauna. You’ll see people coming up from the sauna and going to the hotel restaurant with only their bath robe on. Some people bring in a towel to cover themselves somewhat, but normally its “naked” event for everyone. The Europeans think it's unhealthy to wear clothing in a sauna and that might very well be true. After being in a sauna "European style", I have to say I prefer it. I'm sure that being from Florida helps to make me more comfortable around skin then it might be for Americans from other states. To be honest, I find it more difficult when I'm on base using the sauna. We Americans can be so funny when it comes to skin, even same-sex skin. On base a lot of people wear clothing, which I find very humorous in same-sexed faculties. Some people are fully dressed, some have a towel, while some are naked or just have their towel laying over bare-bits. I had a lady friend tell me how she was just sitting naked on the bench inside and a woman entered with her daughter and left when they saw her with only her towel laying across her lap. I’m married to a European, so between that and being raised in South Florida I just missing the point.
Anyway, I’ll write more next week. Again sorry for the sporadic posts, but hopefully in two weeks things will get back to being more normal.
The first thing I do, beyond my normal outline that I’ve created, is make chapter notes of what I plan to write next. These notes for the current chapter I’m writing and/or the next chapter are very detailed in the sense I understand the flow of the scene, but not to detailed that I basically have written out the story.
The second thing I do is visualize the scenes for the chapter whenever I have a moment to myself. I find driving in the car to and from work is a great time to do this visualization. Also, when I’m running during my gym time, I usually visualize the up and coming scenes. I’m an angry runner, which I find very helpful when I’m working on the point of view of the Werewolves, Minotaurs, or Startüm Ironwolf. I wonder sometimes what my fellow treadmill runners think of me when they look over and see my face set in a snarl as I work out some battle sequence. I mean, I see the looks I get at times when I’m really worked up on a scene, so I’m sure that my face reflects the rage of my characters at times. Thankfully I don’t care what people think of me at the gym, heh.
The last and most important thing I’ve learned to do, is simply to write it out when I feel stuck or not sure of the scene. Sometimes you just can’t see how it’s working until you’ve written everything down on paper. Normally this works out quite well for me and I don’t have to write out the scene again. This first writing doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to get your general thoughts down on paper. Once you have the general scene you can work at tweaking what you have to make it better. I’m doing that now to great effect.
The end scenes in Destiny are super complex. I really need to focus on all of the action going on, but to be honest I haven’t had much time to just sit and work on the scenes without interruption. There is so much going on between the fight scenes, the inter-relationships between the characters and Startüm. I just can’t catch everything going on the first time through, but that’s not a problem. The technique I’ve been using is to go ahead and write the scene the way I see it in my mind. Then while I’m busy throughout the day I think about everything going on in the scene. As I’m picturing everything I will realize there are additional points, characters and other things going on that if I were a reader I would want to have this additional information in the scene. I might or might not make notes throughout the day, but usually I’ll shoot a quick email to myself to remember what I just thought of (very helpful – you think you’ll remember the scene, but once you get home to write the idea is gone … so write it all down). The next time I sit down I tweak the scene filling in those parts I missed and extend the scene out further, repeating this process until it’s finished.
Anyway, I hope this is helpful for those of you struggling with your own stories. I see so many blog posts about people running into blocks about what to write next. Hopefully this advice helps. For me life is still full of excitement. Work is crossing over into my personal time yet again as I’m responsible for supporting another off-site conference in Wiesbaden, Germany. I’m supposed to head out on Sunday to prepare everything and then work the conference to its end on Thursday. Many of these conferences are just busy even after normal work hours, so I don’t expect I’ll be back into my hotel room until 1900 or 2000 hours. I probably won’t be able to actually sit down and begin writing until 2130 hours, but at least I should get some writing time in. In one way it’s cool to get out of the office, but on the flip side it still messes with my writing schedule.
On a more personal note. One of the things I greatly enjoy in Europe is the saunas. (A subject whose relevance comes from the hotel I'll be staying at having an European sauna.) Even though I enjoy the saunas here, the varying rules of appropriate dress between the American and the European sides can be somewhat confusing at times. (I partake in both kinds here due to my unique situation in country.) On the European side, clothing is NOT allowed in the sauna. You’ll see people coming up from the sauna and going to the hotel restaurant with only their bath robe on. Some people bring in a towel to cover themselves somewhat, but normally its “naked” event for everyone. The Europeans think it's unhealthy to wear clothing in a sauna and that might very well be true. After being in a sauna "European style", I have to say I prefer it. I'm sure that being from Florida helps to make me more comfortable around skin then it might be for Americans from other states. To be honest, I find it more difficult when I'm on base using the sauna. We Americans can be so funny when it comes to skin, even same-sex skin. On base a lot of people wear clothing, which I find very humorous in same-sexed faculties. Some people are fully dressed, some have a towel, while some are naked or just have their towel laying over bare-bits. I had a lady friend tell me how she was just sitting naked on the bench inside and a woman entered with her daughter and left when they saw her with only her towel laying across her lap. I’m married to a European, so between that and being raised in South Florida I just missing the point.
Anyway, I’ll write more next week. Again sorry for the sporadic posts, but hopefully in two weeks things will get back to being more normal.
March 7, 2015
sharing my birthday and a quick update of where i'm at with completing destiny
Life is so amazing and so full of surprises, many of which require your complete focus. This is a thought that always comes to my mind when I think on how I live in Europe as an American and find myself speaking German and Polish were I’d never spoken a foreign language before. Not to mention, Germany is a great location, geographically speaking. It is perfectly positioned in the middle of Europe, allowing for easy access to France, Spain, Italy, Poland, Belgium, Switzerland, England, Ireland, Scotland, Austria, Luxemburg, Poland, The Chez Republic, Denmark, Norway and Hungary are just a few hours away by driving or a cheap Ryan Air flight, hell even Turkey, Africa, Romania and Russia are not too far away. It just makes me love my job even that much more. On the flip side, Germany is more like Washington State weather wise, which takes a little getting used to for a Florida boy such as myself.
Anyway, I’ve myself hunting for a new car to replace my dying hoopty that I’ve been driving around with. One of those unexpected emergencies that come up in life, which has also stolen another two weeks away from my writing. Not to mention, Wednesday was my birthday. My family and I didn’t celebrate it really until Saturday. A friend of ours, Dorota, took us out to dinner. Normally I’m not impressed with the Italian food I’ve had in Germany, even though the restaurants are Italian owned, but this one small hole in the wall in my city has the best Italian food I’ve had so far. Tonight I had something I’ve never eaten before, Gnocchi Rossi con Vongole. I’ve added a picture of the plate. Yes I know the picture is Spaghetti Rossi con Vongole, but I ate the food too quickly to take a picture of the special. Although serving in the Army helped my picky eating habits, I still can’t believe what I’m eating now a days. My Polish wife has a lot to do with that, but as I was eating my birthday dinner with fresh squid, mussels, shrimp and clams I could only chuckle. My birthday dessert was a piece of Tiramisu and a coffee latte.
Even with everything going on, I’ve still managed to sneak in some time to work on the last few chapters of Destiny. My friends are waiting for the rough draft to be completed so they can check out the story and help me get the editing finished up. Trust me, I’m doing the best I can every night. I’d thought these last few chapters were going to be quick, but that’s totally not the case. There is so much action going on battle-wise, relationship-wise and story-wise that it’s taking me longer than I’d initially expected to get everything written correctly. I have ran the story line past two friends of mine, Leslie and Deanna, they both like the direction it’s going and the interpersonal relationships I’ve been working on between the characters. I won’t lie. There are times I want to rush the story through in one way to get the book finished, but I just can’t do that. I’m not going to let the story out until it’s ready.
Anyway, that’s it for now. Luckily my wife is letting me work on the blog over the weekend, since I just didn’t have time to do that Thursday or Friday night. I think that’s because our seasons of Arrow & Flash are on hold, thankfully Gotham & Blacklist is still running.
Anyway, I’ve myself hunting for a new car to replace my dying hoopty that I’ve been driving around with. One of those unexpected emergencies that come up in life, which has also stolen another two weeks away from my writing. Not to mention, Wednesday was my birthday. My family and I didn’t celebrate it really until Saturday. A friend of ours, Dorota, took us out to dinner. Normally I’m not impressed with the Italian food I’ve had in Germany, even though the restaurants are Italian owned, but this one small hole in the wall in my city has the best Italian food I’ve had so far. Tonight I had something I’ve never eaten before, Gnocchi Rossi con Vongole. I’ve added a picture of the plate. Yes I know the picture is Spaghetti Rossi con Vongole, but I ate the food too quickly to take a picture of the special. Although serving in the Army helped my picky eating habits, I still can’t believe what I’m eating now a days. My Polish wife has a lot to do with that, but as I was eating my birthday dinner with fresh squid, mussels, shrimp and clams I could only chuckle. My birthday dessert was a piece of Tiramisu and a coffee latte.
Even with everything going on, I’ve still managed to sneak in some time to work on the last few chapters of Destiny. My friends are waiting for the rough draft to be completed so they can check out the story and help me get the editing finished up. Trust me, I’m doing the best I can every night. I’d thought these last few chapters were going to be quick, but that’s totally not the case. There is so much action going on battle-wise, relationship-wise and story-wise that it’s taking me longer than I’d initially expected to get everything written correctly. I have ran the story line past two friends of mine, Leslie and Deanna, they both like the direction it’s going and the interpersonal relationships I’ve been working on between the characters. I won’t lie. There are times I want to rush the story through in one way to get the book finished, but I just can’t do that. I’m not going to let the story out until it’s ready.
Anyway, that’s it for now. Luckily my wife is letting me work on the blog over the weekend, since I just didn’t have time to do that Thursday or Friday night. I think that’s because our seasons of Arrow & Flash are on hold, thankfully Gotham & Blacklist is still running.
