Nick Bolock's Blog: Nick's Insight to Madness, page 5

NaNo/ADAM - What do you mean I should be SOCIAL?!

To make thing easily and less confusing, I'll lump my NaNo updates an ADAM (I'm tired of typing the periods in already, told you it would happen) in joint blog posts so people don't get bored or something.

Starting with all the fire I could muster, I hammered out two fine chapters and got well into a third chapter in... Two weeks? I don't know, I lost track, but the fact is I'm sticking on it. My test reader (my girlfriend who's threatened violence on me if I forget her signed copy of Regolith once more) has read it and likes the fact that it's far less wordy than Rising Seas. Hey, I didn't think it was wordy at all! I was going for a door stopper sized epic. Wanted to be the self published Martin is all.
That leads me to wonder, most self published works I've seen physical copies of are all about 200-400 pages. Like, Rising Seas is three-seventy-something. (378 in print I THINK, I don't know, I don't have page numbers. Elias, if you read this blog post - ever - SHUT UP!)
I wonder if self published authors ever write big door stoppers like George R.R. Martin or Patrick Rothfuss do? I can't imagine many would because marketing print copies of that would be a living hell. Think about it: "Let me run the math. My book is rounding 1,500 pages, I basically pay $15 a copy, plus taxes and shipping. I guess I'll charge $20 or more to try and turn a profit? Hey, wanna buy a $20 epic door stopper?"
That's why I like Rising Seas's size. I get copies at an ok price and can turn them around at $9-$10 without having a little dude with a pitchfork stab me in the head. (One last diversion, the idea of a little red dude with goat horns and a forked tail for a devil was Dante's idea in The Inferno and he stole that from the Greek mythology of Pan, the Satyr. I learned that on History Channel!)

And I'm off track... Wordy, NaNo... Crap. Let me backtrack a moment.
Oh, oh! Jess read the first two chapters. Yeah, ok. Got it.

So, she read them an was surprised that it had a sci-fi vibe to it. Coming from her, coupled with the fact that I had little idea how to do anything besides fantasy (hell, I even worry that the romance-y parts of my books don't work) that's amusing! I'm glad I finally branched out, even if accidentally.

Basically, I get 50k words to tell the story of Adam; adding another piece to the series and getting closer to... I'm not even sure what the ending will be at this point. The Storyteller was SUPPOSED to be the end, but that was dropped when I had ideas for Story of Zero (Since dropped), The Cataclysmic Treasures (Removed from canon), Utopian, and Escapist. It all comes down to I dropped three books total from the canon I HAD and am running with these... Three, four, SIX! Six total books in all and all.
That 50k is a gift and a curse to me. The gift is that there is less space to fill, less nonsense to cook up, less waste in the words, and etc.
The curse comes from I don't get all the little diversions I get fond of from time to time. That History Channel show I mentioned, Real Monsters, had a segment on a Japanese urban myth called Kuchisake-onna. The premise is that there's this beautiful, thirty-something year old woman roaming the city streets wearing a surgical mask. In Japanese culture, surgical masks in public isn't out of place per say because when someone is sick, they wear one out of politeness to others to not transmit their sickness. So, you see her in a dark alley (what are urban myths without dark alleys? What would Batman be without them either?) and she approaches you to ask 'Watashi kirei?' or 'Am I pretty?'. You answer 'no', and she kills you. Big surprise, huh? You answer 'yes' and she takes off her mask to reveal that her mouth has been slit open from ear-to-ear (think Heath Ledger Joker, for images) and asks again.
Again, same premise. No means death, yes means she slits your mouth to look like her! Wonderful little tale.
Short end of it, I wanted to include something like that, but with only 50k works, I don't want to waste a single letter!

Another aspect of the NaNo, is that my region has a kick-off party and weekly write-ins. Will I go? No idea. I'm about as social as a can of beans. No, really, I feel off in social situations. Completely. So time will tell if I go.

This got derailed a lot today. Ah well, people will read it and realize it's another nutty author.

My First Author Event and NaNoWriMo

This past Sunday I had the opportunity to participate with an author event with a few other authors. The premise was simple: we came, customers came, we sold, we left. Easy? Yep. Here's how things went:

My girlfriend and I arrived pretty early and entered the Catlin House in Scranton. It a big, beautiful Victorian style home that has become one of the sites of the Lackawanna Historical Society. The person in charge came to see us at the door and I gave my name. That's when they realized that several people weren't showing and the table arrangements would be by first come-first serve kind of... Yeah. You get it.

So, I sat down and let Jess set up my books and help me because I have the spacial decorating skills of a cactus. After that, we realized I had nothing to really promote myself, no take aways like business cards.

Where my advantage came in was... Well, she walked through the door. An eccentric young woman was seating at my table and she introduced herself as Samantha Warren, a speculative fiction author who was far more experienced than I. She had similar materials to mine, but also came with candy, a spiderweb table cloth, and the attitude that I lacked.

Long story, short, I learned a lot from her and the other authors. Heck, I even managed to scare a potential customer off! (By over elaborating my overall plot. Jess says I'm too wordy, I... agree.) Made some says and signed some books.
Thanks to everyone who came to visit me, especially my author buddy, Catherine DePasquale. She got a new copy of Regolith and had me sign that and an ild copy of Rising Seas.

The OTHER big news is that I've decided to try and participate in the National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWriMo in short. My third novel in the Storyteller War is my submission of choice. That means I get to write a book with minimal notes in a time limit that has yet to threaten my integrity. FUN! I'll keep posting about that as I work on it.

With my participation in NaNoWriMo, my new project, and my lack of hidden info, I probably will not do anymore blogs on Regolith since it was released. I'll just move right on to A.D.A.M.
So, keep checking back for A.D.A.M. and have fun!

Regolith Part 12: My Whirlwind Week

It (is or was) Friday, October 2nd, 10:05pm when I saw down to finally blog my author (or author my blog, your choice) this week or whenever I actually do them. My time changes are amusing to say the least. And my Jack Russell desperately WANTS (in her mind, NEEDS) the mud my mom just brought me.

Anyway, REGOLITH came out this past Wednesday, September 30th on Kindle and Amazon Print. I was astonished to see that it totals almost 200 pages LESS than Rising Seas. That... Weirds me out a little.

For anyone who has been following my progress over the last year with Regolith, you know that this was my more confident venture. I had one book under my belt that that point and was revving my engine to do Regolith. The entry in the series that, at that point, barely, JUST barely had much substance to it. I built it mostly from the ground up, but there wasn't an extreme amount of ground to cover and, seeing that it lacked the sheer, years long gestation of Rising Seas, that is reflected in the work itself.
Am I saying it's a bad novel? NO! I'm saying that this lacked the holding time I had for Rising Seas. A prior blog mentioned about how long I kept Rising Seas not only as Rising Seas, but also as its prototypes. I also think my confidence is reflected there too.

So what am I doing now? Well, the next entry is A.D.A.M. It is meant to be an acronym. It won't really mean anything until the book is nearly done. I won't be working on that for a good long time. Maybe a few weeks or so, who knows? I'm still working on Dragonsbane with the same idea that I want to get this published by a tradition press, but no idea WHO or WHICH ONE.
Also the Scranton Reads Book Riot is coming up. It's a week from Sunday. It's October 11th at the Catlin House. If you're in the area, stop by, buy print copies, have me sign them. I'll have both Rising Seas and Regolith prints priced $9 and $6 respectively, or buy both and pay $14. You save a whole $2. A Sexy TWO DOLLARS.
It's worth noting, I'm running low on energy. My week has been long. I'm a lunch bro at a school where the kids make faces when I ask if they want the hot vegetable of the day like I asked them if they want cyanide with their food. I PROMISE, for any legal reasons, that THAT was a JOKE! PROMISE.
They do make faces though. Anyway, I ended up doing more work today because I subbed for one of the evening maintenance people and then... the partner person I was supposed to work with got sick or something so... Hey, Nick, if you could clean twenty-odd rooms, that'd be great. Not that I'm complaining, it was fun!

So, yeah, REGOLITH is out now. That's off my chest. I'm on writing break to deal with this hectic silly-willy stuff going on lately. So, yay!

Good News: My first author event!

So the other day my mom hands me the newspaper and points out a small cube of an article that states when the Lackawanna Historical Society of Lackawanna county would be holding their annual Book Riot. It advertised local authors being there and had a date and location, but no time listed.
Long story, short: I poked the bee nest and sent an email asking about the time and how a local author would be able to throw their name in the hat to be there. At this point, I had ASSUMED the positions were filled and I was really just inquiring for next year or so.
Monday or so, I got a reply and a personal invite to be one of the local authors at the event. So... yeah!
My first author event! Right now, honestly, I'm mostly fretting what to wear. Yeah, I know I have to wear clothing, but WHAT KIND?!

I am really excited to be doing this and it's one of the things I was really looking forward to as an author.

Here's the run down:
The Scranton Reads Book Riot is Sunday, October 11th from 2pm-4pm at the Catlin House somewhere in Scranton! I'll be there to sign books, talk my head off, take photos, and whatever else I get to do! Maybe I'll be in the paper!

I will have copies of both Rising Seas AND Regolith. So far, I know Rising Seas will be $9 a copy with free signature in your choice of color pen (WOO!). I don't know the exact pricing for Regolith, but I WILL be doing a 2 for a reduced price if you buy both Seas and Regolith.

If anyone who reads this is in the area of Scranton, PA come out and finally attach my name to an ugly mug like mine! Fantastic!

Regolith Part 9 or 10 or 11?

The title says it all, I've kind of lost track. When I was aiming to do the blog title, the auto-fill reminded me that I've done eight Regolith based blogs AND one Rego-Bane combo blog that was 'part x'. Simply put, there is no 'part 9' yet, X is technically the Roman numeral for the number 10, and so this is part 9, or 11, or something. I'm off track already, just with the title. Aren't I something?

To get down to the gritty details: Yes, Regolith is on schedule to be released on September 30th; yes, it has a cover artist (WOO!); yes, Rising Seas is on sale in anticipation; no, there will be no pre-orders because that didn't work out last time; and yes, Rising Seas will be regular priced after October 1st! Grab it now! (The digital version that is.)

There was a funny thought that dawned on me earlier as I drove home from work: I've been going at this for over a year now... And I have two more books in The Storyteller War to work out. Yikes.
It really is an incredible thing that I haven't caved in and stopped doing any of this. I found something I can do! Woo!

So far, the editing of Regolith has very, very, very few actual rewrites to do. I'm up to chapter 15 and I think I can do this easily still. It's mostly grammar issues at this point, but those are fixable.

THIS time, I'm taking special care in order to keep everything neat and tidy. Hopefully, THIS time I don't have to mess up the cover art to make it fit to the cover measurements. I made sure of that! But I also have to fix Rising Seas's cover art sometime soon... Oye...

Anyway, everything's going smoothly, I'm not dead yet. That's a plus, a great big plus.

Well... I'm starting to trail off pretty badly here so I'll let you go. I promise my next blog will have a fun little surprise, but I need to learn something else first.
Sayonara and good night everybody!

Regolith/Dragonsbane Part X: The Mysterious CD

Two weeks ago or so some relatives came to visit from Virginia. For driving all that mileage, they chose to rent a rental car, and in that rental car's CD player was a mysterious CD marked "The Sub Par Mix". Short end: relative gave it to my mom, I had to explain what "sub par" meant, and now I'm sitting here listening to each song and trying to figure out what song it is.
Out of the twenty songs that are on the disk: 3 a I knew by name, two I recognized, and the rest I had no idea. Google and Rhapsody matcher helped a lot.
The one song was that creepy Intro song by Nyari. When I heard that I thought it was one of those horror story moments where by listening to the CD I cursed myself or something.
Doesn't seem to be the case. Oh well.

Anyway, I wanted to do a double update today on both of my projects.
Regolith, with the added parts I had to rip out of Dragonsbane to separate it from the canon as a whole, is coming along better than expected. I like the direction, the tone, and the final product more than I did before. I'm much more confident in it now. I was able to move into and adapt the extra parts very fluidly and they work. Then everything goes into the third book and then I don't know where then. Ah well.
Dragonsbane is coming along nicely as well. Some minor changes for the future as some characters change and come out more to the front of the story. That one I expect to have done by the end of the year, then off to the publisher! Woo...

Otherwise, I'm still alive. Nothing to report. I was tempted to write about another video game and how it gave me the option of watch the world fall or conquer it. Got to love those real time strategy games.

Legend of Mana: Why I Cry

Earlier this week I scrolled down the Facebook feed of my personal page and saw SquareEnix was running a sale on certain games that they publish that are on the PS Store. One of those happened to be Legend of Mana, my favorite game ever. (I mean EVER because that will never change. It hasn't since I first played it many, many years ago.) I bought it right away, downloaded it, and hit play...

As soon as I got to the opening cinematic, tears welled up in my eyes. While I do have a working copy for the Playstation One, I was playing this for the first time on my PS Vita. This was also the first time in years that I was starting a completely new play through and not a secondary run with my old file.

There was so much nostalgia and adventure to a game that's held up decently for all these years.

I went through the motions of the first few minutes of game play and placed the first world on the map.
Unlike other video games, the levels aren't already in the game on the world map. Different characters give you what are known as artifacts, simple objects that contain the memories of the people who've been there and lived. You then place the artifacts on the world map and they spring to life. Things like "Colorful Blocks" make the town of Domina where you begin; the "Trembling Spoon" creates the Underworld, where one of the major quests starts and ends; and "The Wheel" makes a Highway where one of the first boss fights happen.

For years, this concept has resonated with me because your character is essentially an author in their own way. They create these worlds, visits them, and receives bits of a story within them and is then sent to resolve the story themselves. You save an entire race, fight demons, stop the resurrection of a dark emperor, and then can do something as simple as reunite two best friends. The stories are limitless.

Despite having seen most if not all of the stories captured within that one game, I still love to replay it and re-experience everything within.

One thing I have taken noticed is how the stories have aged with me all this time. For example, one quest has you help two star-crossed lovers sell homemade lamps to Dudbears (think mole people). In the process you learn to speak their language which, in the pre-internet days of the my youth, I HAD to write down every single time to make sure I could advance properly. Once completed, the star-crossed lovers gaze into the night sky and realize they aren't meant for one another.

How has this changed with me? Easy. When I was younger, this was always a chore for me to do a quest that had NO combat, NO exploration, and NO comedy (the game is pretty devoid of that anyway.) I always hated writing down the Dudbear words, repeating them, and then having to watch a cutscene about the lovers. *BLECH*

But today was different. I did the quest today and actually sat through the un-voiced dialogue. I read it carefully and fully, and watched the scene truly unfold to me.
I realized two things now in my time:
Gilbert was a flippant jerk for saying he 'loved' someone and then trying to trample their dreams. He wants to treat Monique, the girl he 'loves', like a statue: well taken care of, but without emotion or dreams or cares.
Monique was more dedicated to her artwork of making lamps rather than actually loving Gilber, and she was happier for her artwork. She was appreciated for what she did and what she was rather than what she could be.

The second hit me more than anything considering all the struggles I, or any artist living for the art, goes through.

In the end, I look forward to fully realizing more of the stories in the game and seeing how they've change now that I'm ten years older.

Life is Strange: STOP TOYING WITH MY EMOTIONS!

One of my guilty pleasures for the past few years is partaking in, and playing, video games that are more and more about the story and emotional impact than the actual game play.
I've played great games that had great stories and game play (Tales of Symphonia), games where I could skip the story for some reckless fun (Grand Theft Auto), and, of course, games where the story is griping and emotionally driving.
Right now, I'm working through a game that falls into the last category there: Life is Strange.
The basic premise is that you play as a teenage girl at an elitist boarding school for arts and sciences. One day, after witnessing the murder of another girl, you discover you can rewind time to the effect of a couple seconds to a couple precious minutes. Using this, you and the girl you saved try to uncover the greater mysteries that plague the campus and all your choices have some kind of lasting impact. Rewind time so that one girl doesn't get hit with a football? AAAAANNNNDDDDthe football breaks a window instead and a day later you see the window boarded up.

To put this lightly, this game has been jerking with my emotions!
No, really, there are five chapters (Four of which are out as of this blog post) and I have completed three. The third chapter has you go back in time to prevent a disaster that happens to your best friend's family, but instead the end of the chapter reveals it happen to her instead! UGH!
Another game that I've become more and more invested in the story than the game play is the point-and-click horror game Five Nights at Freddy's. There is an interesting lore there and I give the creator major props for building such an awesome and haunting lore as he did!

To be fair, it is very, very rare that a game or book gets me emotional. I don't mean like the disgust I felt when Darken Rahl in Wizard's First Rule was found to have been sacrificing children. I mean, like the big reveal that your 'quick fix' for your BFF actually made her situation worse! (Better yet, I've read spoiler free comments that it gets much, much worse!)
I've cried for books and games, I've gotten mad at characters, I've cheered with them, and I've nearly stuffed a paperback into my own mouth while reading a particularly heroic and epic moment.
But... I can see these story-driven games becoming more of a guilty pleasure for me. Ever since I devoted myself to putting my ideas down in writing I have found myself more and more consumed by the premise of a story. One of my dreams one day is to be able to do one small action to aid someone and, if they ask how they can repay me I'd reply that all I'd want is them to tell me a story. I haven't even come close to doing it, but some day I will! I'm determined.

Anyway, I have chapter 4 of Life is Strange ready to play and c5 is due out in September. (Yay(!)(?)) So I'll just play 4 and question everything until 5 shows up! Hopefully it's not delayed.

Bigger news, change of plans, and walking around and staring?

After wrestling with the decision and at the behest of friends, I am removing Dragonsbane from the Storyteller War cannon (for the time being). When it is ready, I will actively pursue the traditional publishing route with an actual publisher. Yay? Maybe. I just hope this goes over well. I'll still post about Dragonsbane here, like the progress and stuff.

Meanwhile, because of that decision, Regolith is going to be altered to include bits and pieces from Dragonsbane to wrap up Vladimir's arc and move things forward. Simple enough (I HOPE).

I'm keeping the release date for Regolith. That won't change. It may seem like I have a lot to handle with the proofing and the new writing, but I can handle it.

Otherwise, I'm out this weekend. Going on vacation, in fact! I'll be back in action Monday (or Tuesday) to post and write and stare at the wall. No, really, most of the time my blog - if I don't plan it ahead of time like this one - involves staring at the wall like I'm stone. Ah well.

Have fun! Peace out, rainbow trout!

Rest Well, Master Iwata

I read the unfortunate news yesterday while on a day outing with my parents.

Mister Satoru Iwata, the CEO and president of Nintendo had passed away at the age of 55.
Normally, I wouldn't write about the passing of someone in my blog, but, as I thought about it more and more - and saw various tributes to him - I decided to do my own little thank you.

A bit of background. Mr Iwata was the fourth president of Nintendo, once a former programmer and (masterful) designer. There are many stories of him swooping in to save the day on various projects like Earthbound and Pokemon Gold and Silver. Perhaps the most interesting is how many have remarked that he led the company through its highest peaks and darkest valleys - the Wii and DS, and the Wii U and Gamecube respectively. He had a major hand in the company. Over the last few years, when the company faced its valleys, he chose to slash his salary rather than see a single employee get fired.

Regardless if I mentioned it before, but many of the games that influenced my writing style were Nintendo games. I don't mean older classics like Metroid of the original Legend of Zelda. I'm talking about more recent role playing adventure games like Tales of Symphonia, Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Pokemon, and the fighting game, Super Smash Brothers.

All of the adventure games were, when I was younger, very liberating to me. Tales of Symphonia had great characters, good humor, kick-butt action parts, great narrative twists, and, my favorite part, a HUGE open world with lots to discover.
It was all so dizzying to me as a child. Similar to when I played Legend of Mana (PS1) and faced the large number of plot lines, I now faced a large, open world filled with monsters, fear, and a boy playing god. To this day, I still adore that game as a close second favorite behind Legend of Mana. Zelda: The Wind Waker has a similar premise behind it, but the story wasn't super griping for me. It was mostly the wide open seas and the freedom! (Yarr!)

I never really thought about it much until today, but how different could that all be without Mr Iwata?
Similar to how I hold the song 'Storytime' as a major inspiration, I hold those Gamecube games near and dear.

Without trying to ramble much - and I think you get the point - I just want to extend my sympathies to the friends and family of Mr Iwata (despite that they may never read this.)

And... Thank you, Mr Iwata, for all your years of service to Nintendo. Thank you for all the memories.

Thank you for all the fun. :)