2007-09-28

Writing Experiments

Filed under: Games,Programming,Writing — Tags: , — D. Moonfire @ 21:11

Long day, very long day. I had trouble sleeping, which I knew I would, because of the 4E6 contest. I got the basic idea of the game sketched out in my mind but I still need to strip off the clouds part of it to get the things I can do in a reasonable time. It doesn’t help that I’m going to be taking 1-2 months off of a 6 month project for NaNoWriMo.

I also heard about a romance writing contest that is due at midnight on Sunday, September 30th. It was only 750 words, and while they didn’t say I had to have a completed novella, I submitted it with only the 750 words written. Yeah, I’m bad, but I always feel bad when I submit things that aren’t finish, or I don’t have enough time to do it properly. Well, they probably have a couple hundred entries, so my odds of winning are low to start with, I’m the wrong gender compared to all their authors listed (though I have no trouble writing with a female alias, I know its been done and I’m sure Fluffy would lend me her picture), and it is a last minute entry, but… well, you can’t win anything if you don’t try. Plus, it was a fun little time to write.

Summer Biking: (281.7 of 400.0 km)
Change of Honor (3 of 4 rounds)
Another Werewolf’s Tail (3 of 4 rounds)

2007-09-27

Ponies, Accountants, Crystals, and Explosions!

Filed under: Games,Programming — Tags: — D. Moonfire @ 17:19

Well, today the elements for the 4E6 contest were announced. To much of the horror of a bunch of people, but to my amusement, they were:

  • Ponies
  • Accountants
  • Crystals
  • Explosions

I’m going to have so much fun with these. Now, I got until April 3 to actually write up the game. I’m going to keep it relatively short, probably a game that will take me two hours to finish (the judges take 20-40 minutes to judge). If I have more time, I’ll make it more, but I’m already excited about this.

Summer Biking: (271.2 of 400.0 km)
Change of Honor (3 of 4 rounds)
Another Werewolf’s Tail (3 of 4 rounds)

2007-09-26

Epiphanies in BooGame, plans for CuteGod and writing

Filed under: Games,Programming,Writing — Tags: , , , — D. Moonfire @ 15:06

Apparently, I was one epiphany away from figuring out BooGame. Last night, I realized what I was doing wrong and moved things around and got both a SDL and FreeGlut version working almost identically. I managed to clean up the font rendering so it works a ton better than the old one and allows you to use the full Unicode character set instead of just 128 of the most common letters. It also handles spaces slightly better and sizes over 100 pixels that the other method didn’t.

I think there are a couple little things left, mainly to clean it up a bit more, and I think I basically got BooGame updated for what I had in mind. That is just perfect since 4E6 elements are going to be announced tomorrow. CuteGod will probably be put on hold a bit more, or I’ll work on it while doing the “design document” for the game I’m planning on writing 4E6. I think my hesitant plan is:

  • October: CuteGod and Design Doc
  • November: NoNoWriMo and Case of the Morning Zombies
  • December: Getting Morning Zombies edited and submitted to Wizards, start working on 4E6 game
  • January-April: 4E6

Yeah, the plan won’t last, but that is my hesitant goal at this point. I want to succeed.

Summer Biking: (260.7 of 400.0 km)
Change of Honor (3 of 4 rounds)
Another Werewolf’s Tail (3 of 4 rounds)

2007-09-25

Into the Reach by Alana Abbott

Filed under: Reviews,Writing — D. Moonfire @ 02:28

Finished Into the Reach by Alana Abbott yesterday during Fluffy’s Tae Kwon Do tournament And I like talking about the books I read. So, guess what, I’m going to talk about it. I heard about the book when browsing the links of people who comment on my blog. Yeah, I’m pretty shallow but I’m also interested in reading what other people read, not only for seeing how real authors write thing but also for tips myself. At GenCon, I wandered past the booth, where I made small chat.

… it was two days later that I got to my list of “must-visit” booths and realized that I was already there. So, I picked up the first book of hers and put it on my to-read list.

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2007-09-24

Feeling a bit down…

Filed under: Family,Games,Writing — Tags: , — D. Moonfire @ 19:55

This was a very busy weekend, but not that much on the productive side. I worked on my commission most of the weekend (with frequent “don’t wanna work” breaks to various places). And got pretty much up to a first draft. On Sunday, Fluffy and Fightertype entered into a Tae Kwon Do tournament They are both Hapkido students, but they must enter a tournament before their black belt, so they went in for board breaking only. Fluffy got the gold medal in her minor division but didn’t get grand champion. However, it was awesome to watch her elbow strike three boards at the same time, twice. I was stunned by the price involved: $10 for me to watch, $60 for her to participate, $3/board (she broke 15-18, I don’t remember). Everything cost money, money, and more money–about $132 this time.

They are finally announcing the Four Elements VI contest and elements in four days. I’m annoyed at myself for failing to finish CuteGod in time. I’m also upset that I should have been able to finish, but got lost in the trees and never managed to pull myself out. It doesn’t help that Steam Punk Magazine #3 just came out. I didn’t get a rejection notice, but I wasn’t in it. It’s a great magazine, but it makes me wonder if I just don’t Get It™? At this point, every story and novel I have sent out has come back as a rejection. I’m probably going to wait to sending out Wind, Bear, and Moon and Muddy Reflections again, but after I get feedback from the other Dylan and Scienceprincess respectively.

Summer Biking: (260.7 of 400.0 km)
Change of Honor (1 of 3 rounds)
Another Werewolf’s Tail (2 of 3 rounds)
Commissioned Work (4,885 of 5,000 words)

2007-09-22

Randomly Cool Things

Filed under: Games,Writing — Tags: , , — D. Moonfire @ 17:14

On occasion, I find randomly cool things on the internet and in life. One of them was just a thank you from Fightertype’s mother. I helped her move furniture, a friend asked therefore I did. As a thank you, she gave me a book on medical gynecology. Now, before you say “WTF?” or its spelled out version, I love learning things and it is amazing what you can learn from a book that covers everything from exams to directions on how to perform surgeries. Muddy Reflections, and the short story that started it, Murder on Piscrest, were written when a coworker gave me three books on death scene investigation. No, I don’t have any plans of writing about a gynecologist who moonlights as a detective, but it is still neat reading about the various procedures, clinical descriptions, and well, things I didn’t know.

The other neat thing I saw was an oil-cooled computer. I haven’t gotten into the casemoding or overclocking computers. While I’d be pretty reasonable at the casemod thing, it still hasn’t really appealed to me (just like I think I’d be kick-ass at Second Life, but won’t touch it). But, I saw this image of a fishtank filled with mineral oil and thought, “damn, that’s cool.”

Other than that, struggling to finish the first draft of this commission and getting ready to run a Changeling-inspired game but ran in the Hero System. Most of the players don’t care about the system, as long as they have fun. I want to have fun, plus I like having tons of options. Lot of work, running two games, but I’m still looking forward to it.

Woke up dreaming about computer games. Well, writing computers game, partially for the 4E6 contest and other reasons. I really should finish CuteGod before I do this, but my time is rapidly running out with the ton of other projects I have on my boat. I really need to finish some projects. At least one of them just got off the fire, I have to wait about 2.5 months until the next step continues.

I really need to send out Muddy Reflections and Wind, Bear, and Moon out again.

Summer Biking: (260.7 of 400.0 km)
Change of Honor (1 of 3 rounds)
Another Werewolf’s Tail (2 of 3 rounds)
Commissioned Work (2,105 of 5,000 words)

*bounce* Someone likes my writing!

Filed under: Writing — D. Moonfire @ 00:47

I won! A free copy of a book, but it was still cool that I got near the top of a list of short stories. The contest was a flash fiction of 750 words or less dealing with fey, ideally both the magical kind and the cross-dressing/gay kind. It was run by mroctober. Very cool. The invitation to expand on it and submit it to the next (potential) collection was even nice of an egoboo.

I don’t normally post this type of thing on this journal, mainly because I avoid the topics of sexuality, religion, and politics in my writing. Imagine that, the three thing I was told not to talk about, I don’t normally write about. For some reason, I don’t feel comfortable posting them in a place a job recruiter might find. Specially for the white collar jobs I aim for (management); it’s a bit hypocritical of me, if you know me, but I’m always afraid of writing down the wrong thing and having it haunt me 10-20 years later.

But, I’m damn proud of my writing and I write anything. One of the strangest things is that people pay me to write anything. Still trying to figure that one out. Well, here is the story. I’m throwing the behind a cut, just because I know some of you may not be comfortable with it. It isn’t graphical or anything, but it seems appropriate.

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2007-09-18

Projects to do before I sleep

Filed under: Games,Graphics,Writing — Tags: , — D. Moonfire @ 21:28

I’ve been having a couple really miserable nights. Mainly I think I finally killed my edge of the bed and I’m stressed about the number of projects. Sunday night, I couldn’t sleep because I just had to work on some side project. That itself is annoying, but I hate it when I can’t sleep unless I put in a couple more hours of work. On the other hand, I’m learning a lot more about laying out game books and magazines (DTP) on Linux; by doing it with something that doesn’t exactly need it. Obscure, I know.

I started winding up for the Changeling campaign that Fluffy wants. From appearances, it will be based on Changeling but might actually be using the Hero system instead. Depends on what people want, I guess. Fightertype already said she won’t touch Hero with a two meter pole, but she’s been hemming and hawing about playing anyways, so I’m kind of discounting her claim. Plus, I want to run Hero System again. It is a good system, at least in power balance, and while it can’t do everything, it is as close to a RPG that I want without writing it myself (at this point).

Started reading Into the Reach by Alana Abbott. Naturally, it would be a lot easier to finish if I read for more than five minutes in a night… if I’m in the mood. Drawbacks of too many projects and a two meter high reading list. Speaking of reading, some of the writers I listen to on various groups have grouped together into an interesting collection called League of Reluctant Adults. Got to love a name like that.

Finally, I got some really good feedback on Glorious Saber from an artist I respect. So, I’m going to redo the “voices” of GS starting with #11. Not sure how, but this is my current plan: (more…)

2007-09-17

Two Letters

Filed under: Writing — Tags: — D. Moonfire @ 23:18

Got two letters today. The first was from the Bates Township asking us not to throw our garbage in the camping dumpster. Since we have no clue what they were talking about, we looked up and realized the closest we’ve been to the Bates Township was close to five years ago and we were still an hour away.

The other was a rejection letter for Wind, Bear, and Moon from Mirrorstone. Sadly, they didn’t give anything other than “not what we are looking for.” Pretty letterhead, but I’m still sad that it happened. Each time, I keep hoping that the next place will finally say yes.

I know I’ll keep going, keep on submitting, but still hurts.

Summer Biking: (239.6 of 400.0 km)
Change of Honor (1 of 3 rounds)
Another Werewolf’s Tail (2 of 3 rounds)
Commissioned Work (493 of 10,000 words)

Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy edited by W. H. Horner

Filed under: Reviews,Writing — D. Moonfire @ 18:55

Yesterday, I finished reading Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy. It has a subtitle of “Humorous Tales of sword & Sorcery!” It is a collection of twenty-four short stories, edited by W. H. Horner and illustrated by Chris Chua and published by Fantasist Enterprises. The stories were short, less than ten thousand words, and I found myself reading 2-3 at a time before bed each night, kind of like popcorn. Some of them were hilarious, some of them really enjoyed flipping cliches over, but a few of them were “eh” to me, mainly because I couldn’t really get into the story.

Now, I like reviews. I like honest opinions, even they aren’t of praise. When I was at GenCon, I asked the authors if I could do a review and if they would like it and I got an overwhelming “yes.” Actually, I was surprised that one author appreciated what I felt was probably my most negative review ever. But, maybe honesty is a good thing. That said, I absolutely love it when people do this same thing for me; I’ve found a couple surprise reviews of my stories in places and re-read them like 10-20 times.

I’ve never done a review of an anthology, but I’ll do it as a bullet list. Seems appropriate, since I can’t really give 5-10 paragraphs per story that might be shorter than that. :)

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