What do you want from me? A post?

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Look, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m in the middle of writing the Baron short story for Edge of December yet, having found my inspiration, muse, flow, what have you. Its coming along well and I want to have the first draft done by the end of the week. Right now, I’m writing this post instead of writing my story and, really, I’m kind of resentful. I know, its not your fault, but I have work to do.

Anyway, Edge of December is currently experiencing technical difficulties which is making the Glenn sad. Hopefully we’ll be back online soon because we’re getting ready to close out the current saga which is going to lead to awesome things. I’ll let you know when we’re back up. In the meantime, I’m out to get to my writing. Maybe I’ll think of something to get down here later on. I wouldn’t hold my breath though.

Not a 25k month

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Yeah, it’s been a while since I’ve updated the ol’ blog.  Truth be told, I haven’t been very good about writing in general for the past month and a half or so.  I don’t have a good reason for you other than life has been freakin’ busy and the games have been a major distraction.  But, saying this and then signing off seems like pretty bad form, so I’ll tell you a bit about what’s hanging me up.

Some of it has definitely been gaming.  I’ve donated an inordinate amount of time to Dungeon Defenders over the past couple weeks.  The game is crack.  I’m bad enough with RPG’s anyway, but this one is a combination of Tower Defense and RPG that has really gotten to me and my friends.  I think the clincher is the loot and the desire to always be looking for, getting, and upgrading the stuff that you have.  They’ve also been running a kind of treasure hunt in the game for the last week or so that I’ve gleefully participated in as opposed to writing.  Is this an excuse?  Yes.  A good one?  Probably not.

Another contributing factor is that my fiance and I just got done with … or rather close to done with a move.  Our new apartment is now pretty much set up and looking good, but there’s still some work left to do.  One of the changes that affects my writing is that I’m not entirely sure where my writing area is anymore.  Oh, I’ll get my writing spot figured out, but I had really good spots back at the old place that really let me get into a rhythm.

One of the bigger things though, is that I was trying to write.  Trying really hard but it just wasn’t working.  I’m sure none of the authors who I follow know anything about this blog but if they did I’d ask them to comment on this.  Ok, quickly, Glenn and I are working on the next book (OK, Glenn is working on it mostly since he does all the artsy stuff) and I was supposed to be writing a short story from Baron’s point of view for it.  Its on the time he spent in the Ukraine that had only been briefly alluded to in the comic.  I had good ideas for the plot, villains, some characters and more than a few false starts but none of it was gelling in my head.  It all felt forced and wrong.  I spent just about as much time writing as I did trying to figure out what was going wrong and I think I discovered what was going on.

I realized that in my mind, Edge is just about completely visual and intimately hinged to Glenn’s art.  There just isn’t a Baron in my mind if he isn’t attached to one of Glenn’s drawings.  I was writing, and I just couldn’t make it match the style and evoke the feelings of Edge.  We’re talking about a world where we leave Baron being chased by tanks and its a funny thing, not a dangerous thing.  Where Kieron and Trife are jumping from rooftop to rooftop evading helicopters wearing fake mustaches and eye-patches like nothing was amiss.  Thinking back, I was making the story I was writing too serious, which isn’t something that I have to worry about when writing chapters, because usually the images in my mind aren’t that different from what Glenn produces… but I’ve got a block when I’m writing the text in that story.  I’m considering some options to get it to flow better…but given how serious that part of the story is… I’m uncertain how I’d go about it.  I haven’t written anything like that before and I’ve got to do some exploratory work to even get the voice down.  Is all that bullshit?  Maybe.  I’m not sure.

And above everything else, I’m GETTING MARRIED IN A MONTH AND A HALF AND OH MY GOODNESS I’M GETTING EXCITED!  So, maybe the excitement isn’t keeping me from writing, but there’s enough to do that writing days don’t happen quite as often as they used to.  I’ve kind of got this feeling like I can sit back and relax on my writing until after the wedding and then pick it up again.  Well, that just isn’t going to fly at all.  So, even though I don’t think that I’ll be doing the 25,000 word month in April (or June for that matter) I will be going back to my 500 words a day minimum routine.  If I can stick to that until after the wedding it will be much easier to jump back into the routine I’m trying to set up.  So, even though the Edge project might be on hold, barring creative problems, I’m going to get Impervious up and running again.  The last 25k month saw most of the first third finished, and that’s just waiting for me to write out the end of the first arc.  So, if you read this, stay tuned.  Things will be happening again.  Assuming that Diablo 3 doesn’t eat me whole.

Making the move

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Not much writing news for this week. The fiancé and I have spent the last week moving. I feel bad, but its really hard to want to do anything besides collapse after you’ve gone up and down three flights of stairs a dozen times carrying heavy boxes. I’ve had a short story for Edge of December that I’ve been trying to get work done on, but I’ve been making less progress on it than I’d like. To add to the general mess and business I’m trying to find a new job, a situation that I hope will be resolved soon.

I know, this sounds like a lot of excuses for not writing, and truth be told its just that. I didn’t set any writing goal for the month; no word count that I had to hit or project that I would absolutely have done. I think that’s a large part of why I haven’t actually been accomplishing anything in terms of producing a word count. That being said, April is coming, and I’m going to be so poor from paying double rent that I won’t be able to afford to do anything other than sit at home and write for the first two weeks or so.

While I haven’t been making time for my writing, I have been making time for reading. You can usually keep up with what’s in my queue with the little Goodreads widget on my homepage, or by following me on Goodreads. Once Impervious is ready to go, I’ll need a few followers to spread the good word. That’ll be a while, but it will happen, sometime next year I’m hoping. Anyway…books! I just got done with the Dragonflight, first of the Dragonriders of Pern series by the amazing Anne McCaffrey. I haven’t read this one since I was in high school and now I remember why I loved them so much. I’m not even going to bother anything like a review of Dragonflight, because I can’t possibly say anything that hasn’t been said before. Its a sci-fi classic for a reason. If you haven’t read them, do. Now, I’m reading The Hunger Games, because just about everyone I know is telling me that its worth my time and so far I have to agree with them. Coming late into the game though its hard to avoid spoilers, but I’m doing my best.

While we’re on the subject of books, I noticed on the Twitters today that the Harry Potter eBooks are FINALLY on sale. I mean…really. Publishers, you can’t complain that the HP books were the most pirated in the world. Do you know why? Because it was impossible to buy them before now. I would have thrown money at you the instant I got my Kindle if they would have been available before now…so, this fail is on you. For the record, I didn’t go out and download them, as I have them in physical form…just saying. If you want my money, then make it easy for me to give it to you and get the product that you want me to buy in the first place. Alright…now that I’ve spent a little time on the soapbox, I should actually get to writing. I’ll let you know how that goes next week.

Moving pains

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Just a quick status update so you don’t think that I’m neglecting my blog again.  I’m alive and well…ok, mostly well.  We’re currently in the process of moving between apartments, and the one we’re moving to is on the third floor.  My legs are protesting this move and threatening rebellion, and the rest of my body is leaning toward joining them.   Long story short, we have way too much stuff, and its a pain in the tookus to haul it all.  Regular updates will resume once we’ve got everything up there and we’re all settled in.  Until then anything that isn’t moving related or resting from the moving related activities is strictly on hold.  I’ll come back soon, hopefully with a post on why I’m reading Dragonriders of Pern again and why its better than ever.  Ok, catch you all later.

Yeah…so about that…Mass Effect 3

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So, it’s been much more than a week since I updated the ol’ blog here, and I apologize for that. All I can say in my defense is that things have been a little busy around here…and yes, I got Mass Effect 3. Look, there’s a galaxy in dire need of saving and I don’t have very good self-control when it comes to actually putting down the controller once it’s been picked up.

I’m thoroughly in love with the world of Mass Effect. Its just good sci fi. Well written, awesome characters and some real good emotional engagement. I’d pre-ordered the game, but I was committed to doing another play-through of 1 and 2 before I dug into 3, just so I was ready and had what I thought was the “correct” story progress when I started. I should never have opened the package. From that point on it was a lost cause and FemShep was on the job again, meaning that I was no longer on the job.

In non-video game related topics, I made it out of February with 23,000 words finished. While that fell a little short of my 25,000 word goal I still feel pretty good about myself. Impervious has 16 full chapters completed, which is more than I’ve ever written on one story before. Ok, I may have written way more words, in total, for City of the Sorcerers, but most of that was rewriting things that I’d already written. Impervious continues to make steady progress at a pace that makes me think that at least the 1st draft will be done by the end of the year.

Right now, I’m focusing most of my efforts on Edge of December. We’ve got a new chapter starting in a week or so, and a new Saga shortly there-after. We’re getting into material in the comic that’s been born completely in my fevered imagination, so I’m getting really excited to see it play out visually. Also, I’m working on a short story that will be exclusively available in the third eBook as an extra. That’s proving more of a challenge than I originally thought it would since its a story that’s following a character that is only secondary at this point. Keeping everything in canon, interesting, and leaving enough for future volumes is a huge challenge.