the ramble dump
Friday, October 13, 2006
Some Good, Old Fashioned Silliness
Back all those many years ago in 2003 when I decided 'I want to write humour', it quickly developed into a marathon of ridiculousness, which escalated millionfold. Funny equalled absurd. Overarching plot was not a main concern.
These days, it's no longer a case of 'I want to write humour'. It's back to, 'I want to write a good story', in which, when I can manage it, humour in whatever form (be it through parody, satire, irony, surreality or whatever) is just another layer in the whole thing. Sure, the end product could have any one of those things (and that whole period of seeking to write in that way definitely made a lasting impression on my whole writing style), but they're not ends I specifically aim for.
Some of my older online stuff (i.e. pre-FMIT) really was just me being as weird, surreal or downright silly as I could get it. The best example of this is most definitely the collaborative effort Agaffa, which had a minimal plot that was really quite hard to follow, and chronicled the exploits of two pretty horrific characters with other things happening mostly as vague background noise. Although Cholesterol the fat, talking monkey will forever have a place in my heart. And then there's The Manifesting Surreal, the previous incarnation of the current Aberration, the premise of which was quite simply as the name suggests: things got weirder and weirder until everything started to fall apart.
These days, as I said before, it's a little bit different. A greater focus on story (or at least on more tangible ideas rather than just a load of random stuff thrown together) has also meant that, in an unintentional sort of way, the stories are slightly more... grounded. Probably just as surreal and odd, but in a less overtly and forcefully outrageous way.
Over the years, The Aberration has changed. Starcustard started out with a tongue-in-cheek feel to it that is still evident, but turned out quite different to anything we would have expected. City of Anarchy is still weird, but the focus is now what has grown into a fairly complex plot.
But, see, now there's Jesnails. Which will be parody, satire, surreality, irony, absurdity and, quite frankly, as much crazy stuff as the concept allows while still being coherent enough not to fall apart. We would be lying if we said we weren't, at this point, here to present the profoundly silly, freakish and bizarre in the most flamboyant and shameless way possible.
So it's all very well for me to say that I've moved on from all that silliness, and I can talk about big concepts, ideas, themes and thoughts until the cows return from their trip to the moon, but really I haven't moved away from it at all. Jesnails is a refreshing reminder of that. And it is something still present in everything I do, reminding me never to take things too seriously, because some things just aren't worth taking seriously.
Jesnails 1875, Part I.
These days, it's no longer a case of 'I want to write humour'. It's back to, 'I want to write a good story', in which, when I can manage it, humour in whatever form (be it through parody, satire, irony, surreality or whatever) is just another layer in the whole thing. Sure, the end product could have any one of those things (and that whole period of seeking to write in that way definitely made a lasting impression on my whole writing style), but they're not ends I specifically aim for.
Some of my older online stuff (i.e. pre-FMIT) really was just me being as weird, surreal or downright silly as I could get it. The best example of this is most definitely the collaborative effort Agaffa, which had a minimal plot that was really quite hard to follow, and chronicled the exploits of two pretty horrific characters with other things happening mostly as vague background noise. Although Cholesterol the fat, talking monkey will forever have a place in my heart. And then there's The Manifesting Surreal, the previous incarnation of the current Aberration, the premise of which was quite simply as the name suggests: things got weirder and weirder until everything started to fall apart.
These days, as I said before, it's a little bit different. A greater focus on story (or at least on more tangible ideas rather than just a load of random stuff thrown together) has also meant that, in an unintentional sort of way, the stories are slightly more... grounded. Probably just as surreal and odd, but in a less overtly and forcefully outrageous way.
Over the years, The Aberration has changed. Starcustard started out with a tongue-in-cheek feel to it that is still evident, but turned out quite different to anything we would have expected. City of Anarchy is still weird, but the focus is now what has grown into a fairly complex plot.
But, see, now there's Jesnails. Which will be parody, satire, surreality, irony, absurdity and, quite frankly, as much crazy stuff as the concept allows while still being coherent enough not to fall apart. We would be lying if we said we weren't, at this point, here to present the profoundly silly, freakish and bizarre in the most flamboyant and shameless way possible.
So it's all very well for me to say that I've moved on from all that silliness, and I can talk about big concepts, ideas, themes and thoughts until the cows return from their trip to the moon, but really I haven't moved away from it at all. Jesnails is a refreshing reminder of that. And it is something still present in everything I do, reminding me never to take things too seriously, because some things just aren't worth taking seriously.
Jesnails 1875, Part I.
Labels: agaffa, city of anarchy, i am the ramblemaster, jesnails, starcustard, the aberration
Sunday, May 07, 2006
The Fat Men In Tweed (A History of Development: Part 2)
So why did I choose fatmanintweed.com? Where did the fat men in tweed come from? Such things would most suitably be answered in...
Part 2: The Fat Men In Tweed
So... there is this Tesco Value notepad I have, with only a few pages filled. On the first of these pages is a list of poems that never got written, bar one.
I'd walked in on my brother playing one of the Grand Theft Auto games on his laptop. The third one, I think. He was wreaking havoc with a rocket launcher in a cybercafé. I remember seeing a fat man flying up into the air. He may or may not have been wearing tweed.
I don't quite know what happened next. But then there was this idea for a poem. I'd been having lots of ideas for poems. Well, lots of images and concepts, that I liked, and wanted to make into poems.
There are seven ideas written on that first page. Only the first one got written. The third one says, Ten Fat Men in Tweed.
I'm standing on a hill. This is the image I had in my mind. I'm standing on a hill, the land vast and green and undulating all around me. And then, over the horizon, they come running at great speed. The narrative pays close attention to how they run, how their flab moves about, how the ground shakes. I start running.
Something something something something, the ten fat men in tweed. There was a rhythm to it. I remember that being part of the reason I liked it. It sounded good. It sounded like it would make a good poem. It rolled off the tongue. The Ten Fat Men in Tweed.
I never wrote the poem. But I liked the idea. It amused me. It intrigued me how you could make something like that so inhuman, and scarily powerful. How the hideous mass made it evil and repulsive. How this could all be processed in the mind, while accepting that they're wearing something as dull and down-to-earth as tweed. There was a novelty to this image, a weird paradox.
I liked it so much that the fat men in tweed ended up appearing in all sorts of places, in all sorts of forms.
-- From the drafts for the original Agaffa.
-- From The Pterry Board Epic.
-- From my GCSE English coursework.
As an image that still amuses me, fatmanintweed.com seemed only appropriate.
Part 2: The Fat Men In Tweed
So... there is this Tesco Value notepad I have, with only a few pages filled. On the first of these pages is a list of poems that never got written, bar one.
I'd walked in on my brother playing one of the Grand Theft Auto games on his laptop. The third one, I think. He was wreaking havoc with a rocket launcher in a cybercafé. I remember seeing a fat man flying up into the air. He may or may not have been wearing tweed.
I don't quite know what happened next. But then there was this idea for a poem. I'd been having lots of ideas for poems. Well, lots of images and concepts, that I liked, and wanted to make into poems.
There are seven ideas written on that first page. Only the first one got written. The third one says, Ten Fat Men in Tweed.
I'm standing on a hill. This is the image I had in my mind. I'm standing on a hill, the land vast and green and undulating all around me. And then, over the horizon, they come running at great speed. The narrative pays close attention to how they run, how their flab moves about, how the ground shakes. I start running.
Something something something something, the ten fat men in tweed. There was a rhythm to it. I remember that being part of the reason I liked it. It sounded good. It sounded like it would make a good poem. It rolled off the tongue. The Ten Fat Men in Tweed.
I never wrote the poem. But I liked the idea. It amused me. It intrigued me how you could make something like that so inhuman, and scarily powerful. How the hideous mass made it evil and repulsive. How this could all be processed in the mind, while accepting that they're wearing something as dull and down-to-earth as tweed. There was a novelty to this image, a weird paradox.
I liked it so much that the fat men in tweed ended up appearing in all sorts of places, in all sorts of forms.
ZimmaZoom™ flew across the conveyer belt, which was one of many in the massive network that ran throughout Tokyo. Of course, there were faster forms of transport: bean-shaped aircrafts flew around in the air above them, weaving their way through skyscraper tips (of which were neatly rounded as part of the Tokyo Sky-Safety Act of 2215).
Agaffa, Tokyo's notoriously grouchy elderly pensioner, sped up ZimmaZoom™ (zimmer frames were so outdated) and knocked over a dozen business people and a fat man in tweed. 'Muahaha!' she chuckled, patting her loyal machine. As Zimma (the name she gave it sometimes) slowed down, the conveyer belt passengers started to return to normal.
So Agaffa decided to reverse.
The fat man in tweed got his arm caught in the propellor in the back and he was spun round, making odd whimpers as he went.
-- From the drafts for the original Agaffa.
Not even evil horses could withstand such immense evil as this. It would break their backs and then poke their corpses mockingly. This evil: the Ten Fat Men In Tweed, forever drawn to the power of a new item of magical clothing: the Whatever Waistcoat. Tweed hats, jackets, trousers and black shoes so shiny you could see your reflection in them. Lord Winterseeson didn't know what he was getting himself into...
-- From The Pterry Board Epic.
Meanwhile, a hologram in the form of a portly man dressed in tweed appeared. He plodded over to the dead body which was sprawled untidily across the ground, sat down on it, and smoked his pipe. He had nothing to worry about.
-- From my GCSE English coursework.
As an image that still amuses me, fatmanintweed.com seemed only appropriate.
Labels: a history of development, agaffa, excerpts, fat men in tweed, i am the ramblemaster, the aberration, videogames
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Bananas and Laxatives (A History of Development: Part 1)
My Big Orange File, or BOF, is something of a personal artefact. It spans roughly a year's worth of writing, starting from the end of 2002 to the fruitful backside of 2003, and contains the beginnings of such, er, well-loved creations as Agaffa, Master Beef, and the G'raffe Song. This, along with a mostly-empty Tesco Value notepad containing only a list of strange poem titles and the single one that actually got written, is my starting point, as I attempt to answer... a question.
In almost every interview with an author I've read, the author gets asked, 'Where do you get your ideas from?', which has always struck me as a rather stupid thing to ask. But, whereas most authors will answer vaguely, 'Oh, from all over the place, really...', and while I make no claim to being a 'proper', published author, I'm going to attempt to answer it properly. And I'm going to do it through The Aberration, because doing stuff through examples is the best way, dudes.
Alright, yes, this is just a bad excuse to waffle at length about a lot of my old stuff, and probably the only person it's remotely interesting to is myself, but I'd rather procrastinate on a grand scale than do any kind of proper work, and as this is my blog, I can do what I like. And anyway, there are some answers to such vitally important questions as, 'Why "Master Beef"?', 'What made you pick Fat Man In Tweed as your website name?', and 'Why does Amelia call you "muffinkid"?' in there somewhere. And also: pretty pictures.
Note: this won't be in much of a coherent order, as ideas don't have a habit of forming coherently. Be warned: random tangents abound.
Part 1: Bananas and Laxatives
(From the Fod conception scripts. Olli went over the green writing to make it more legible, using an illegible font.)
Fod, started in February 2003, was another attempt, after a long line of them, at a collaborative website with friend Olli Smith. My first idea for it was a spoof of the video game Halo. I named it Bananas and Laxatives, and it was the first time I'd really put any of my writing online. It was consciously bad quality, containing gratuitous swearing and all the character mutilations and twisted ways to mess up the Halo universe that my fourteen-year-old mind could think of. The Covenant, the main enemy, became the Convent: an alliance of nuns, prostitutes, politicians and pro-wrestlers.
(Random aside: on page 299 of The Fall of Reach, one of the official Halo novels, 'Covenant' is actually typo'd as 'Convent'. Well, I laughed.)
Most chapters were accompanied by a screenshot from the game, beautifully transformed in Microsoft Paint. (Ironically, Cortana ended up with long hair in Halo 2 anyway. They obviously modelled her on her B&L equivalent, Bore-Tana.)
The line of thought when I wrote this was 'What rhymes with "Master Chief" that would be hilarious?' Of course, 'Master Beef' was the spectacular end result. His pink rabbit costume was just another result of the mounting ridiculousness...
And so it continued...
(I later used the muffin on the right of the image above as an avatar on a message board. Eyebrows were raised, questions were asked, and, well, the muffin became an integral part of my dazzling persona. That, ladies and gentlemen, is why Amelia calls me 'muffinkid'.)
343 Salty Mark, also known as The Microwave, was the result of a conversation with my brother as I was playing the final level of Halo, jumping around and throwing grenades into things. He commented on how he thought it was all very unfair on Guilty Spark and the Sentinels, because they were just trying to protect themselves. I asked how the machines had formed, not really knowing the background to the game in much detail. He replied, 'I don't know, they evolved from microwaves or something.'
We laughed.
Bananas and Laxatives was never properly completed, although I did start writing the sequel, Bananas and Laxatives 2: Fragmentation Memories, supposedly the 'third person' diaries of Master Beef chronicling the events that took place after Beef returned home. It was to feature the return of such characters as the Convent, Sam and Salty Mark, along with new characters such as Lara Schmoft, Captain Knees, a talking walrus taking residence at WarrenWorld themepark, and Master Cheese. Most of the ideas I had for the sequel were jotted down on several post-it notes that I still have. A third story was also considered, a Matrix parody in which Beef wasn't even the main protagonist, but was to die spectacularly at the end.
But...it wasn't to be, and Bananas and Laxatives was abandoned after a rather nonsensical final chapter for the original story was posted on a message board and completely ignored, revealing Halo and the events surrounding it as a huge conspiracy staged by a massive laxatives company.
And, well, I quite liked writing about the character of the hilariously named Master Beef. And so I continued to do so.
In almost every interview with an author I've read, the author gets asked, 'Where do you get your ideas from?', which has always struck me as a rather stupid thing to ask. But, whereas most authors will answer vaguely, 'Oh, from all over the place, really...', and while I make no claim to being a 'proper', published author, I'm going to attempt to answer it properly. And I'm going to do it through The Aberration, because doing stuff through examples is the best way, dudes.
Alright, yes, this is just a bad excuse to waffle at length about a lot of my old stuff, and probably the only person it's remotely interesting to is myself, but I'd rather procrastinate on a grand scale than do any kind of proper work, and as this is my blog, I can do what I like. And anyway, there are some answers to such vitally important questions as, 'Why "Master Beef"?', 'What made you pick Fat Man In Tweed as your website name?', and 'Why does Amelia call you "muffinkid"?' in there somewhere. And also: pretty pictures.
Note: this won't be in much of a coherent order, as ideas don't have a habit of forming coherently. Be warned: random tangents abound.
Part 1: Bananas and Laxatives
(From the Fod conception scripts. Olli went over the green writing to make it more legible, using an illegible font.)
Fod, started in February 2003, was another attempt, after a long line of them, at a collaborative website with friend Olli Smith. My first idea for it was a spoof of the video game Halo. I named it Bananas and Laxatives, and it was the first time I'd really put any of my writing online. It was consciously bad quality, containing gratuitous swearing and all the character mutilations and twisted ways to mess up the Halo universe that my fourteen-year-old mind could think of. The Covenant, the main enemy, became the Convent: an alliance of nuns, prostitutes, politicians and pro-wrestlers.
(Random aside: on page 299 of The Fall of Reach, one of the official Halo novels, 'Covenant' is actually typo'd as 'Convent'. Well, I laughed.)
Most chapters were accompanied by a screenshot from the game, beautifully transformed in Microsoft Paint. (Ironically, Cortana ended up with long hair in Halo 2 anyway. They obviously modelled her on her B&L equivalent, Bore-Tana.)
A violin tune that sounded like a strangled cat (if they make any noise) played as Captain PLEEEAAASE gave Bore-Tana the bad news the Convent was rapidly approaching. Bore-Tana had a tantrum. 'But I don't wanna be a nun!' she wailed.
Reveille It Up!
Meanwhile, in the cry-o-tube place thingy, Master Beef awoke. He started crying as he got out and a small man rushed to him. It was Pitri.
'It's OK, sir,' he said. 'We'll have you warmed up in no time!' He handed Beef a hot cocoa with marshmallows as he sniffled. He slurped at it.
'Why's he crying?' asked Sam, calling and leaning on the very big fragile glass window on the wall.
'It's a cry-o-tube, Sam, you dumbass!'
'Sorry Pitri. I'll just bring his health online then.'
'I suppose you should.' said Pitri.
'He needs his shield, Pitri. Give him that, if you can manage.'
'Dumbass!' Pitri handed Beef a silver tea tray. 'It will come in very handy, sir!'
'Thank you, Pitri.' said Beef. 'Thank you, Dumbass!' he called up to Sam.
'Sir, my name isn't Dumbass!'
The line of thought when I wrote this was 'What rhymes with "Master Chief" that would be hilarious?' Of course, 'Master Beef' was the spectacular end result. His pink rabbit costume was just another result of the mounting ridiculousness...
There was a knocking at the automatic door (is that bloody possible?). Dumbass...er...I mean Sam...opened it. Then they flooded in; ghostly figures in black that glided across the room and surrounded him. 'We come in the peace and the harmony of the Universe,' one sang in a high voice. 'Stay calm as we melt your...BRAIN!!!' The last word was particularly high and screechy and the huge glass panel smashed, causing Sam to fall to his doom. What a dumbass...
Luckily, the few nuns that fell through with him ended their lives with a sticky splat, but Pitri and Beef were running out of time. 'Quick sir!' said Pitri. 'This way!' The two of them ran through an automatic door (which apparently you can knock) and Beef knelt down to tie his bootlace. Pitri ran on ahead, but the nuns' echoing voices made his head explode.
'Bugger!' exclaimed Beef. Now he had no weapons and, because Pitri was gone, no shield either. The nuns had probably engulfed his tea tray. He looked back through the door window. NO!! They were using it to have a tea party! They had those cursed china toy cups and saucers too!
'Would you like some tea, Maggie?' one sang. 'Yes please!' chirruped another.
This whole thing was a disaster! Maybe if he looked into his new costume he would find help. NOOOOOOOOOOOO! It was a fluffy pink bunny costume rented from WarrenWorld Theme Park! The best thing he could do was to take a sharp turn left and go through the girls' bathroom.
And so it continued...
'Beeeeeef!' came a deep, irritated voice from one of the other cubicles. Beef plodded through the cubicles following the voice until he opened the final cubicle door and there was a head sticking out of the toilet. 'Beeeeeef! You made it!'
'What the fuck are you doing in there?'
'It's a long story,' said the captain. 'But I'll bore you with it anyway!'
After some confusion, Bore-Tana and Master Beef found themselves stuck in Gecko 4-19 with Poo Whammer and five mindless Marines. One, called Billy, had a perpetual smile and wouldn't take his eyes off Beef. 'I have new socks on!' he grinned, revealing red socks with some balloons on.
'Right, you motherfuckers, get off my Pelican! I have work to do!' The metallic ship suddenly went on a slant and the seven of them slid out of the cargo bay and hit the sandy ground hard. As Gecko 4-19 flew off, another Pelican landed and dropped off five more Marines.
'Wahoo! All right! Let's party!' The ten of them started doing the conga as Master Beef and Bore-Tana watched in dismay.
Beef armed himself with his assault rifle and followed them, keeping his distance.
He rubbed his hands together. 'Oohoohoo, this'll be fun!' He climbed in and made doubly sure that he found the turret switch while Sam got in beside him. 'Here comes Master Beef, protector of the universe that's not even worth saving!' He laughed loudly. 'Ooooooooh, it has machine guns, too!'
The tank, in all its half glory, rolled over and crushed the landscape, proudly and merrily. The three comrades sang true patriotic songs ('The wheels on the tank go round and round...') as they aimed for nowhere in particular.
'Brghgeehfghe!'
'What was that?'
'What?'
'Brhghefhghe!'
'The door, it's...opening!'
'God, no! How can this possibly be?'
'Shut up, Jenkins!'
'Brhghegfhdgfdgehghe!'
'Argh! It's on my face! It's small and brown and tasty and it's attacking me! Argh!'
'Haha!'
'Shut up Jenkins and fire your weapon! No, Jenkins, don't pick your nose again. What the--argh!'
'Hello, Mr Small Round Person! Wha? Get away from me! I don't like you! Argh!'
>>>UNEXPECTED HALT X. BLOCKBUSTER NOTICE: DAMAGED TAPE FINE $10. PLEASE VISIT US AGAIN SOON.
The Crud
Beef took his helmet off. 'That was odd.'
'Brhhghgefhehhghe!'
'What the--'
'Brghghghfhfhghfhfgmmmmmmmmm!'
'Uh oh...'
Suddenly, small, round, brown creatures came oozing through the doors.
'M...M...' Beef stuttered.
They crawled and bounced closer towards him; he armed himself with his assault rifle.
'Muffins!'
One of them lunged at his mouth and exploded in his fur.
'Oh my fuck, they're double chocolate!' He fired rapidly at them; dozens of chocolate explosions alerted more of them, and soon all six doors became muffin entrances.
He turned to the door he had originally come through. There, stood the Sarge of the previous gang, but he wasn't the old Sarge. He was...one of them. There was a strenuous fart, a constipated sounding wheeze and the mutated Crud-form Sarge lunged himself at Beef.
The shotgun was always the answer to everything.
Beef escaped while he could, running through the continuous waves of Crud, who had conveniently starting appearing since they were introduced to the storyline. Beef encountered countless muffins, Crud-Marines and even Crud Nuns. The most horrific of all, though, were the huge muffin-headed ones that stupidly fell over and exploded, scattering dozens of new muffins.
(I later used the muffin on the right of the image above as an avatar on a message board. Eyebrows were raised, questions were asked, and, well, the muffin became an integral part of my dazzling persona. That, ladies and gentlemen, is why Amelia calls me 'muffinkid'.)
Suddenly, a microwave started to hover over his head. 'Greetings!' it said in an accent that was supposed to be English but you could tell it was American. It pinged, its door flung open and a pie went flying into a huddle of nearby muffins. 'I am 343 Salty Mark. This has got out of hand. I ask you to come with me, but in the end you haven't really got a choice, because I'll just teleport you anyway. Come.'
There was some yellow ambience and the two of them disappeared.
'Beef?' came the voice of Poo Whammer on the radio. 'Beef, I've lost your signal! Beef? Beef! Haha, sucker.'
343 Salty Mark, also known as The Microwave, was the result of a conversation with my brother as I was playing the final level of Halo, jumping around and throwing grenades into things. He commented on how he thought it was all very unfair on Guilty Spark and the Sentinels, because they were just trying to protect themselves. I asked how the machines had formed, not really knowing the background to the game in much detail. He replied, 'I don't know, they evolved from microwaves or something.'
We laughed.
Then Salty Mark remembered that the Crud were lurking closely. 'We must avoid the you-know-what,' he said. 'I am not a public cafeteria and do not have enough pies for all of them!'
Beef took a book off one of the shelves.Salty Mark Snacks
The Definitive
Salt Snack Guide
'You're an author?' Beef asked.
'I prefer to think of myself as a chef, but yes, if that's what you want me to be.'
'Actually, I couldn't care less.' said Beef. 'I'm just trying to make small conversation for the hell of it.'
'Debt Reclaimer?'
'Yeah?'
'You are an ass.'
''K.'
Bananas and Laxatives was never properly completed, although I did start writing the sequel, Bananas and Laxatives 2: Fragmentation Memories, supposedly the 'third person' diaries of Master Beef chronicling the events that took place after Beef returned home. It was to feature the return of such characters as the Convent, Sam and Salty Mark, along with new characters such as Lara Schmoft, Captain Knees, a talking walrus taking residence at WarrenWorld themepark, and Master Cheese. Most of the ideas I had for the sequel were jotted down on several post-it notes that I still have. A third story was also considered, a Matrix parody in which Beef wasn't even the main protagonist, but was to die spectacularly at the end.
But...it wasn't to be, and Bananas and Laxatives was abandoned after a rather nonsensical final chapter for the original story was posted on a message board and completely ignored, revealing Halo and the events surrounding it as a huge conspiracy staged by a massive laxatives company.
And, well, I quite liked writing about the character of the hilariously named Master Beef. And so I continued to do so.
Labels: a history of development, agaffa, bananas and laxatives, excerpts, halo, i am the ramblemaster, the aberration, videogames
Friday, November 25, 2005
Agaffa
Agaffa will not be appearing in the Fat Man In Tweed launch, and Gnome Milk has gone into hibernation indefinitely. Nothing's been happening. I can only assume nothing will.
Labels: agaffa
Monday, November 14, 2005
SCENE 58. EXT. BLOG - NIGHT.
So, I went ahead and wrote my own sitcom episode. It's very short, so it's probably more of a sketch. I might post it if anyone's interested. I really like the script format, though. It's much quicker than regular prose. It's also strangely addictive. I'm now trying out making another coursework idea, already typed up as a short story, into a script. It isn't really the right type of story to translate directly (i.e. without making any changes to it), so I don't really know how it's going to turn out, but so far it's working quite well.
But it made me think... it'd be great to write a proper film script one day. To direct it too would be even better, only I know next to nothing about that.
Coming soon to this here blog...
Excerpts! Of previously unseen material! (See, I'm getting the hang of this film business already.) Agaffa, Starcustard, City of Anarchy and The Aberration!
And a few months ago I mentioned these ideas for a novel I've been having. More info on that is on its way.
But it made me think... it'd be great to write a proper film script one day. To direct it too would be even better, only I know next to nothing about that.
Coming soon to this here blog...
Excerpts! Of previously unseen material! (See, I'm getting the hang of this film business already.) Agaffa, Starcustard, City of Anarchy and The Aberration!
And a few months ago I mentioned these ideas for a novel I've been having. More info on that is on its way.
Labels: agaffa, city of anarchy, starcustard, the aberration
Sunday, October 09, 2005
I'm On A Roll...
Right, a general where-things-are-at update for today...
The equivocal Project CAM is now moving foward at a good speed after a newsgroup was set up for the five of us to post ideas and sort things out, which seemed to get things going.
I also set up one for Gnome Milk. I still need to upload all the old versions of the first few chapters of Agaffa ready for drastic editing, and then everything will be in one handy place. Whether or not this will encourage any significant activity remains to be seen.
I've nearly finished the first part of Starcustard Chapter 5. (I'll get typed that up and send it to you during the week, Melia.) That means I'll be able to scribble out the first of my priorities for this month. Then I can get to work on The Aberration Chapter 2 and City of Anarchy Chapter 3. Woot.
The equivocal Project CAM is now moving foward at a good speed after a newsgroup was set up for the five of us to post ideas and sort things out, which seemed to get things going.
I also set up one for Gnome Milk. I still need to upload all the old versions of the first few chapters of Agaffa ready for drastic editing, and then everything will be in one handy place. Whether or not this will encourage any significant activity remains to be seen.
I've nearly finished the first part of Starcustard Chapter 5. (I'll get typed that up and send it to you during the week, Melia.) That means I'll be able to scribble out the first of my priorities for this month. Then I can get to work on The Aberration Chapter 2 and City of Anarchy Chapter 3. Woot.
Labels: agaffa, city of anarchy, project cam, starcustard, the aberration
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Hilarious Hair, the Fab Four, and Confessions of an Obsessive Fandom
Now that I've turned my attention to the second chapter of The Aberration, I've been thinking about the character Mike, and how he'll be changing. Then I started thinking about how he came about in the first place, and how he's 'evolved' so far to become what he is now.
August, year 2003. I was reading the blog of a Mr Michael Gerber (the guy who wrote the Barry Trotter books), and on this blog he had provided an email address. So I emailed him. Oh yes, email him I verily did.
I asked him if he would answer some questions for a certain website called Kommingle, which didn't actually exist yet. There were twelve questions in all, only two of which were what would be considered conventional in an interview of this kind (although 'Have you ever been attacked by an old lady? If so, how did you cope?' was one I was particularly proud of). To my astonishment, he actually replied, answering every single one of them. Which was probably a mistake on his part, because I then went into Creepy Fan Overdrive and the consequent emails didn't stop. He was always really nice and friendly about it, but I must have annoyed the hell out of him.
In October, as an act of both creepiness and boredom, I wrote a short and very pointless story, which featured him, his recently released book (The Unnecessary Sequel), and a certain rabbity individual who'd been in several equally pointless short stories since I'd stopped writing the Halo spoof, Bananas and Laxatives. To summarise: Master Beef browses the shelves of the music and biography section of a bookshop looking for books on the Beatles*, and comes across The Unnecessary Sequel. He appears to take offence at its very existence, and then exits the shop, avoiding the roaming Potter fans as they cast spells on various things. He tracks down the location of the author: the Atlantic Ocean.
Michael Gerber is sailing across the Atlantic Ocean on a sofa, attempting to sell a drug called the Essence of Whoot to a pair of pug dogs. The sale is successful, and the pugs sail away in a large boot. Then Beef arrives, having got there by being fired out of a cannon. Beef's infuriation gives way as he then asks if he can be in Mike's next book. Then it ends.
The character Mike in The Aberration borrows from MG his general friendly demeanor, and over time this morphed into a non-confrontational, very polite character who'd really prefer it if everything that was happening to him wasn't doing so (a bit like MG remaining friendly even though I kept sending him emails). I made him a stand-up comedian based on an idea that he had been exiled from his home country for writing controvertial material (toilet-humour filled parodies, like MG), and his stand-up name, Mr Mike, is how I occasionally addressed MG when sending him my latest exciting message. I discovered a few months ago that the name Mr Mike has already been used by comedian Michael O'Donoghue, so that's not going to be reappearing in the rewrite. (In a second 'interview' I did with MG last year, I asked him if he would ever consider doing stand-up. He replied, 'God, no. I am much too shy.')
It was in this short story that the whole idea of Mike having crazy hair originated. I gave him long, purple hair as a joke because, as I stated in a footnote, I had no idea what the author actually looked like. In the court case in the Kommingle version of Chapter 3, Judge Tubby addresses him by his full name, Michael Jerblarg, which is just a hasty mutation of MG's name because I needed to give him a surname and couldn't think of anything else (I haven't decided yet whether or not to keep this surname for the new Fat Man version).
So anyway... Mike in The Aberration isn't a fictional version of Michael Gerber, although that's sort of how the character started out. Less so now more than ever, as his character continues to 'evolve' as time goes by, and, as I may have mentioned once or twice, there are going to be quite a few changes made in the near future too (least of all his nationality change, from American to British). But it just goes to show, characters and their various quirks can come about in so many different ways. This is probably one of the more unusual.
* Beef's supposed Beatles fandom came about when I was planning the sequel to Bananas and Laxatives. I'd recently heard the song I Am The Walrus, and wanted to include a talking walrus (that introduced itself with that very song name) in it. Making Beef a big Beatles fan just followed naturally. It just so happens, by complete coincidence, that Mike Gerber is a huge Beatles fan.
One of the early ideas I had for The Aberration was Mike and Beef staging a huge Beatles tribute concert as a massive diversion, allowing the others to sneak into the bad guys' headquarters and cause lots of trouble. I don't know how that would have really worked, but it seemed a good idea at the time. Agaffa's Miss Darley, having made a cameo appearance in the Kommingle version of Chapter 2 as an unpopular stand-up comedian, was going to return as the hilariously dreadful performer occupying the stage until Mike and Beef arrived and took over. Why so many people would have come to see her in the first place is something I hadn't quite figured out.
I didn't continue with the two characters' Beatles fandom in the end, mostly just out of forgetfulness. I think the song I've Just Seen A Face would fit perfectly at the end of the first chapter, though.
August, year 2003. I was reading the blog of a Mr Michael Gerber (the guy who wrote the Barry Trotter books), and on this blog he had provided an email address. So I emailed him. Oh yes, email him I verily did.
I asked him if he would answer some questions for a certain website called Kommingle, which didn't actually exist yet. There were twelve questions in all, only two of which were what would be considered conventional in an interview of this kind (although 'Have you ever been attacked by an old lady? If so, how did you cope?' was one I was particularly proud of). To my astonishment, he actually replied, answering every single one of them. Which was probably a mistake on his part, because I then went into Creepy Fan Overdrive and the consequent emails didn't stop. He was always really nice and friendly about it, but I must have annoyed the hell out of him.
In October, as an act of both creepiness and boredom, I wrote a short and very pointless story, which featured him, his recently released book (The Unnecessary Sequel), and a certain rabbity individual who'd been in several equally pointless short stories since I'd stopped writing the Halo spoof, Bananas and Laxatives. To summarise: Master Beef browses the shelves of the music and biography section of a bookshop looking for books on the Beatles*, and comes across The Unnecessary Sequel. He appears to take offence at its very existence, and then exits the shop, avoiding the roaming Potter fans as they cast spells on various things. He tracks down the location of the author: the Atlantic Ocean.
Michael Gerber is sailing across the Atlantic Ocean on a sofa, attempting to sell a drug called the Essence of Whoot to a pair of pug dogs. The sale is successful, and the pugs sail away in a large boot. Then Beef arrives, having got there by being fired out of a cannon. Beef's infuriation gives way as he then asks if he can be in Mike's next book. Then it ends.
The character Mike in The Aberration borrows from MG his general friendly demeanor, and over time this morphed into a non-confrontational, very polite character who'd really prefer it if everything that was happening to him wasn't doing so (a bit like MG remaining friendly even though I kept sending him emails). I made him a stand-up comedian based on an idea that he had been exiled from his home country for writing controvertial material (toilet-humour filled parodies, like MG), and his stand-up name, Mr Mike, is how I occasionally addressed MG when sending him my latest exciting message. I discovered a few months ago that the name Mr Mike has already been used by comedian Michael O'Donoghue, so that's not going to be reappearing in the rewrite. (In a second 'interview' I did with MG last year, I asked him if he would ever consider doing stand-up. He replied, 'God, no. I am much too shy.')
It was in this short story that the whole idea of Mike having crazy hair originated. I gave him long, purple hair as a joke because, as I stated in a footnote, I had no idea what the author actually looked like. In the court case in the Kommingle version of Chapter 3, Judge Tubby addresses him by his full name, Michael Jerblarg, which is just a hasty mutation of MG's name because I needed to give him a surname and couldn't think of anything else (I haven't decided yet whether or not to keep this surname for the new Fat Man version).
So anyway... Mike in The Aberration isn't a fictional version of Michael Gerber, although that's sort of how the character started out. Less so now more than ever, as his character continues to 'evolve' as time goes by, and, as I may have mentioned once or twice, there are going to be quite a few changes made in the near future too (least of all his nationality change, from American to British). But it just goes to show, characters and their various quirks can come about in so many different ways. This is probably one of the more unusual.
* Beef's supposed Beatles fandom came about when I was planning the sequel to Bananas and Laxatives. I'd recently heard the song I Am The Walrus, and wanted to include a talking walrus (that introduced itself with that very song name) in it. Making Beef a big Beatles fan just followed naturally. It just so happens, by complete coincidence, that Mike Gerber is a huge Beatles fan.
One of the early ideas I had for The Aberration was Mike and Beef staging a huge Beatles tribute concert as a massive diversion, allowing the others to sneak into the bad guys' headquarters and cause lots of trouble. I don't know how that would have really worked, but it seemed a good idea at the time. Agaffa's Miss Darley, having made a cameo appearance in the Kommingle version of Chapter 2 as an unpopular stand-up comedian, was going to return as the hilariously dreadful performer occupying the stage until Mike and Beef arrived and took over. Why so many people would have come to see her in the first place is something I hadn't quite figured out.
I didn't continue with the two characters' Beatles fandom in the end, mostly just out of forgetfulness. I think the song I've Just Seen A Face would fit perfectly at the end of the first chapter, though.
Labels: agaffa, halo, the aberration
# posted by
Chris @ 10:25 PM 
Sunday, August 21, 2005
Breakthrough
I've set up an identity on Thunderbird and synchronised it with my AOL account, so any email I get now should be sent there and saved locally. Hopefully the problem of the disappearing emails is now solved.
I also thought I'd mention that the title and description of the Gnome Milk blog change every once in a while, and that although more often than not they have nothing to do with anything, just occasionally, there'll be a hint as to what's coming up in Gnome Milk projects, Agaffa and otherwise. This extremely clever idea is the product of two things: wanting people to keep visiting the blog even though there are hardly ever any updates, and also boredom.
'It's all very well putting together trailers and messing around with blogs,' I hear you cry, 'but have you actually done anything productive?'
To which I smugly reply, 'Why, yes I have!'
It's been a bit of a mental block for me figuring out exactly how I'm going to start The Aberration Chapter 5, but I've finally cracked it, and last night I wrote almost a page (A4)! Woot woot woot.
Also, I've been talking to Amelia about the site design, and apart from one or two specifications, I'm leaving her to do whatever she wants and then I'll see what she comes up with. This is mostly because I don't know what the hell I want, but feel free to see it as an act of generosity.
I also thought I'd mention that the title and description of the Gnome Milk blog change every once in a while, and that although more often than not they have nothing to do with anything, just occasionally, there'll be a hint as to what's coming up in Gnome Milk projects, Agaffa and otherwise. This extremely clever idea is the product of two things: wanting people to keep visiting the blog even though there are hardly ever any updates, and also boredom.
'It's all very well putting together trailers and messing around with blogs,' I hear you cry, 'but have you actually done anything productive?'
To which I smugly reply, 'Why, yes I have!'
It's been a bit of a mental block for me figuring out exactly how I'm going to start The Aberration Chapter 5, but I've finally cracked it, and last night I wrote almost a page (A4)! Woot woot woot.
Also, I've been talking to Amelia about the site design, and apart from one or two specifications, I'm leaving her to do whatever she wants and then I'll see what she comes up with. This is mostly because I don't know what the hell I want, but feel free to see it as an act of generosity.
Labels: agaffa, the aberration, webtechnical
Saturday, August 20, 2005
Trailer
A flock of spacesheep waded through the weightless atmosphere, free and wild.
* * *
IT ALWAYS HAPPENS... WHEN LIFE IS AT ITS MOST NORMALEST...
* * *
Miss Darley sat at her desk, scanning for things to whinge about. A small pile of envelopes caught her attention. 'Ooh, fan mail!' she exclaimed, grabbing the topmost envelope. Using a diamond-encrusted letter opener, for no good reason as it would be just as easy to rip it, she tore it open.
A small, brightly coloured letter fell to the desk. 'YOU'RE OUR ONE MILLIONTH CUSTOMER!!!' it read.
Tears began to swim past Miss Darley's eyes. She decided to try again.
* * *
Winnie was currently driving as slowly as her car would allow her to without stopping altogether. The traffic behind her was starting to build up and, judging by the honking horns, was also becoming quite frustrated.
She decided that she was much too elderly to notice this, and continued to happily crawl along, positioning herself carefully so that any overtaking would be an extremely difficult task.
* * *
Shaking her head, Organza smiled a hideous smile at her husband and replied, 'You like it disgracefully untidy and you know it.'
He grunted and after a moment, said, 'What is the kid good for, eh?' Gen appeared in the doorway at that moment, standing unhappily, watching her stepparents. 'What is the kid good for,' her stepfather repeated, more loudly, 'if we can't order her pointlessly around? Eh, honey? Water the plants, Hydie. And then mop the ceilings. All of them.'
Gen looked around the room and thought to herself, they are fake plants.
* * *
SOMETHING HAPPENS WHICH NOBODY EXPECTS...
* * *
'Er...is this Miss Darley?'
The addressed woman took her turn to snort. 'Of course, for this is my phone!'
'People with money and brains hire secretaries,' mumbled Agaffa.
Miss Darley ignored her.
The caller respoke, after being momentarily confused by the argument. 'Um... I was wondering... would you be interested in obtaining... the Elixir of Life?'
* * *
Gen was clutching at the railings on the left, gazing down at the struggling mass below that was apparently her stepfather. She gasped.
He was spinning madly around, swinging his great tail dangerously and flailing his pathetic, tiny, useless little arms. Two slaveboys clung to his thick skin, tugging and tearing viciously at it, and at his sticky clumps and clusters of hair, pulling it out. Fluorescent green, viscous liquid oozed from his layered folds of fat. He was bleeding.
The slaveboys looked crazed, insane. Their eyes were wide and bloodshot, their teeth bared. Gen could tell that they were extremely tense just by looking at them: their muscles were stiffened, the veins in their small temples bulged, their hands extended like claws.
* * *
'Behold,' mumbled Phil, vaguely.
'Aren't shadows fun?' said Beef conversationally, as some more gum hitchhiked his fur. 'I can do the rabbit thing. Y'know, with the ears...' He made a strange gesture with his arms in an attempt to clarify his point, and promptly collapsed face down onto the ground again.
'Behold,' insisted Phil.
Beef finally managed to get himself up, relying heavily on the support of a wall. He squinted and fancied he saw something looking out from the darkness at him.
'Rahahahaha!' declared Phil, waving his arms about madly.
* * *
AND BEFORE YOU KNOW IT...
* * *
The porcelain girl fell from their grasp and slid down the roof, grating nastily against the tiles. As the two men flung themselves in the direction she travelled, somehow still on top of each other, they too rolled down not far behind, struggling madly to get a hold of something. They left the roof...
* * *
...THINGS... WELL...
* * *
The dark, grey sky cracked with streaks of yellow light and rain fell. The great balloon that was the dirigible stood as a tall, haunting silhouette against the clouds.
It was all very dramatic.
Miss Darley appeared on the scene. Still in her silk pyjamas and tired (because it isn't clever to have adventures at midnight), she plodded towards her vehicle of escape.
* * *
'Look out!' someone shouted. Slavekids rarely spoke, and Gen had never heard any of them shout before. Her companion ducked and pulled her down with him. She turned her head to see one of her stepsiblings trying to skateboard up the curved wall of the corridor, perhaps in an attempt to overtake the rushing slavekids. It wasn't working.
* * *
...GET A BIT OUT OF CONTROL.
* * *
'Emby, these men are ruining my house,' said Winnie, as Beef re-entered the room. 'I'd like you to do something about it.'
Beef rushed over to the original intruder and began to poke his flab with a fork. After the third or fourth stab, it stayed there, moving around a little before being dragged inwards and disappearing altogether.
'That didn't work,' said Beef. 'We may have to try something else.'
* * *
The Captain, simultaneously trying to steer, slammed his fist down on a fluorescent green button. For a moment, the lights on the ship dimmed, flickered and then restored. There was a jolt as energy surged across the surface of the ship.
* * *
'Ah, monkeys,' said Miss Darley. She stepped smartly forth. 'Which one of you is the one I spoke to on the phone?'
'Seize them!' hissed Kadaverus.
'Aaah,' cried Agaffa. 'It's a trap! It's all been a terrible trap! We were lured here so they could cook us over a spit and then eat us alive!'
'How would we still be alive after they've cooked us over a spit?'
'Mysterious are the workings of the evil,' said Agaffa, darkly.
* * *
There were about eight of them now, and they tumbled and swept through the street like a tweed tidal wave. Lampposts snapped under their weight. One of them planted a foot directly on top of a car. The metal body strained under the pressure, and the entire vehicle bent in two, folding up like a deck chair.
* * *
Stat entered the cockpit. 'This is mad,' she told them, having figured out what they were going to do.
''Course it is,' said the Captain. 'You're all mad. Mad, crazy and insane also.'
* * *
'Oh my f-'
* * *
FATMANINTWEED.COM. COMING TO YOUR SCREENS AT SOME POINT IN THE DISTANT FUTURE.
* * *
'Whorebag!'
IT ALWAYS HAPPENS... WHEN LIFE IS AT ITS MOST NORMALEST...
Miss Darley sat at her desk, scanning for things to whinge about. A small pile of envelopes caught her attention. 'Ooh, fan mail!' she exclaimed, grabbing the topmost envelope. Using a diamond-encrusted letter opener, for no good reason as it would be just as easy to rip it, she tore it open.
A small, brightly coloured letter fell to the desk. 'YOU'RE OUR ONE MILLIONTH CUSTOMER!!!' it read.
Tears began to swim past Miss Darley's eyes. She decided to try again.
Winnie was currently driving as slowly as her car would allow her to without stopping altogether. The traffic behind her was starting to build up and, judging by the honking horns, was also becoming quite frustrated.
She decided that she was much too elderly to notice this, and continued to happily crawl along, positioning herself carefully so that any overtaking would be an extremely difficult task.
Shaking her head, Organza smiled a hideous smile at her husband and replied, 'You like it disgracefully untidy and you know it.'
He grunted and after a moment, said, 'What is the kid good for, eh?' Gen appeared in the doorway at that moment, standing unhappily, watching her stepparents. 'What is the kid good for,' her stepfather repeated, more loudly, 'if we can't order her pointlessly around? Eh, honey? Water the plants, Hydie. And then mop the ceilings. All of them.'
Gen looked around the room and thought to herself, they are fake plants.
SOMETHING HAPPENS WHICH NOBODY EXPECTS...
'Er...is this Miss Darley?'
The addressed woman took her turn to snort. 'Of course, for this is my phone!'
'People with money and brains hire secretaries,' mumbled Agaffa.
Miss Darley ignored her.
The caller respoke, after being momentarily confused by the argument. 'Um... I was wondering... would you be interested in obtaining... the Elixir of Life?'
Gen was clutching at the railings on the left, gazing down at the struggling mass below that was apparently her stepfather. She gasped.
He was spinning madly around, swinging his great tail dangerously and flailing his pathetic, tiny, useless little arms. Two slaveboys clung to his thick skin, tugging and tearing viciously at it, and at his sticky clumps and clusters of hair, pulling it out. Fluorescent green, viscous liquid oozed from his layered folds of fat. He was bleeding.
The slaveboys looked crazed, insane. Their eyes were wide and bloodshot, their teeth bared. Gen could tell that they were extremely tense just by looking at them: their muscles were stiffened, the veins in their small temples bulged, their hands extended like claws.
'Behold,' mumbled Phil, vaguely.
'Aren't shadows fun?' said Beef conversationally, as some more gum hitchhiked his fur. 'I can do the rabbit thing. Y'know, with the ears...' He made a strange gesture with his arms in an attempt to clarify his point, and promptly collapsed face down onto the ground again.
'Behold,' insisted Phil.
Beef finally managed to get himself up, relying heavily on the support of a wall. He squinted and fancied he saw something looking out from the darkness at him.
'Rahahahaha!' declared Phil, waving his arms about madly.
AND BEFORE YOU KNOW IT...
The porcelain girl fell from their grasp and slid down the roof, grating nastily against the tiles. As the two men flung themselves in the direction she travelled, somehow still on top of each other, they too rolled down not far behind, struggling madly to get a hold of something. They left the roof...
...THINGS... WELL...
The dark, grey sky cracked with streaks of yellow light and rain fell. The great balloon that was the dirigible stood as a tall, haunting silhouette against the clouds.
It was all very dramatic.
Miss Darley appeared on the scene. Still in her silk pyjamas and tired (because it isn't clever to have adventures at midnight), she plodded towards her vehicle of escape.
'Look out!' someone shouted. Slavekids rarely spoke, and Gen had never heard any of them shout before. Her companion ducked and pulled her down with him. She turned her head to see one of her stepsiblings trying to skateboard up the curved wall of the corridor, perhaps in an attempt to overtake the rushing slavekids. It wasn't working.
...GET A BIT OUT OF CONTROL.
'Emby, these men are ruining my house,' said Winnie, as Beef re-entered the room. 'I'd like you to do something about it.'
Beef rushed over to the original intruder and began to poke his flab with a fork. After the third or fourth stab, it stayed there, moving around a little before being dragged inwards and disappearing altogether.
'That didn't work,' said Beef. 'We may have to try something else.'
The Captain, simultaneously trying to steer, slammed his fist down on a fluorescent green button. For a moment, the lights on the ship dimmed, flickered and then restored. There was a jolt as energy surged across the surface of the ship.
'Ah, monkeys,' said Miss Darley. She stepped smartly forth. 'Which one of you is the one I spoke to on the phone?'
'Seize them!' hissed Kadaverus.
'Aaah,' cried Agaffa. 'It's a trap! It's all been a terrible trap! We were lured here so they could cook us over a spit and then eat us alive!'
'How would we still be alive after they've cooked us over a spit?'
'Mysterious are the workings of the evil,' said Agaffa, darkly.
There were about eight of them now, and they tumbled and swept through the street like a tweed tidal wave. Lampposts snapped under their weight. One of them planted a foot directly on top of a car. The metal body strained under the pressure, and the entire vehicle bent in two, folding up like a deck chair.
Stat entered the cockpit. 'This is mad,' she told them, having figured out what they were going to do.
''Course it is,' said the Captain. 'You're all mad. Mad, crazy and insane also.'
'Oh my f-'
FATMANINTWEED.COM. COMING TO YOUR SCREENS AT SOME POINT IN THE DISTANT FUTURE.
'Whorebag!'
Labels: agaffa, excerpts, starcustard, the aberration
Friday, August 19, 2005
Bother and Blast
I'll start this entry with a bit of a mystery. Even though I've checked my AOL email preferences over and over again to try and make sure that it doesn't happen, every once in a while, the emails that are automatically 'saved on my PC' disappear. At first I thought it might be something AOL did every few weeks for some reason or another, but checking the main family account, this hasn't happened there.
As a result, I've started sending any emails I don't want disappearing to a Gmail account. I thought I'd done this with Agaffa Chapters 6 and 7, but it turns out I'd only done it with the latter. I asked Olli if he could sent me Chapter 6 yet again, but apparently he doesn't have it anymore either.
Shit.
I started a frantic search through every single folder in my account hoping to find it, which gave me nothing, and then I tried looking for anything of the chapter in my entire harddrive. All I got from that was a paragraph on Emporer Pseudonym's exercise machine. It looked like we were going to have to write most of the chapter again.
Thinking it would just be in vain, I then started to look through the computer's AOL files, looking for some kind of back-up. I found the files that manage emails. The relevant one didn't appear to have a filetype, so I tried opening it with Notepad. It was mostly just unreadable code, possibly encrypted or in a language only AOL could read, or probably just random characters because you're not really supposed to try and open it as a text document, but occasionally there were dates, email addresses and subject titles visible. I realised that some of these were emails that had disappeared from the 'saved on my PC' folder. Unfortunately, most of them didn't display the contents in anything other than the unintelligable code, but I looked for any Agaffa-related emails anyway.
To my surprise, I found parts of previous chapters of Agaffa, from when we'd done email relays (write a bit, send it, other person writes a bit, sends it back, etc) in readable text, even if it was often filled with HTML tags. I don't know why only these few emails weren't unreadable... there were also some early drafts of Starcustard and some other emails that were prepared in Word, so that might be why. It took me a while to scroll down through the whole text looking for Chapter 6, with the previous chapters slowly building up to completion as I progressed, but eventually, luckily, I found it... or at least, most of it. It has all the emails for Chapter 6 and therefore all of that chapter, but the final few emails' contents are just code, which I have no idea how to convert into English.
I've been trying various things all day... trying to get it so I can view the email in the AOL email window, searching for a decoder on Google, and even trying out some frequency analysis (replacing the most common character with the most commonly used letter in the English language and working my way down to the least common from there, stupidly hoping that whatever encryption there is will be that simple), but that got boring after about ten minutes. It's all been a waste of time.
So, like I said, we have most of the chapter, which is lucky. We've lost roughly the last third of it, possibly less. Now I'm just trying to remember everything I can about it...
The moral of this story is: don't use AOL.
I think it's odd that I've been putting more effort into avoiding having to rewrite it than we'll now have to do actually rewriting it. Oh well.
As a result, I've started sending any emails I don't want disappearing to a Gmail account. I thought I'd done this with Agaffa Chapters 6 and 7, but it turns out I'd only done it with the latter. I asked Olli if he could sent me Chapter 6 yet again, but apparently he doesn't have it anymore either.
Shit.
I started a frantic search through every single folder in my account hoping to find it, which gave me nothing, and then I tried looking for anything of the chapter in my entire harddrive. All I got from that was a paragraph on Emporer Pseudonym's exercise machine. It looked like we were going to have to write most of the chapter again.
Thinking it would just be in vain, I then started to look through the computer's AOL files, looking for some kind of back-up. I found the files that manage emails. The relevant one didn't appear to have a filetype, so I tried opening it with Notepad. It was mostly just unreadable code, possibly encrypted or in a language only AOL could read, or probably just random characters because you're not really supposed to try and open it as a text document, but occasionally there were dates, email addresses and subject titles visible. I realised that some of these were emails that had disappeared from the 'saved on my PC' folder. Unfortunately, most of them didn't display the contents in anything other than the unintelligable code, but I looked for any Agaffa-related emails anyway.
To my surprise, I found parts of previous chapters of Agaffa, from when we'd done email relays (write a bit, send it, other person writes a bit, sends it back, etc) in readable text, even if it was often filled with HTML tags. I don't know why only these few emails weren't unreadable... there were also some early drafts of Starcustard and some other emails that were prepared in Word, so that might be why. It took me a while to scroll down through the whole text looking for Chapter 6, with the previous chapters slowly building up to completion as I progressed, but eventually, luckily, I found it... or at least, most of it. It has all the emails for Chapter 6 and therefore all of that chapter, but the final few emails' contents are just code, which I have no idea how to convert into English.
I've been trying various things all day... trying to get it so I can view the email in the AOL email window, searching for a decoder on Google, and even trying out some frequency analysis (replacing the most common character with the most commonly used letter in the English language and working my way down to the least common from there, stupidly hoping that whatever encryption there is will be that simple), but that got boring after about ten minutes. It's all been a waste of time.
So, like I said, we have most of the chapter, which is lucky. We've lost roughly the last third of it, possibly less. Now I'm just trying to remember everything I can about it...
The moral of this story is: don't use AOL.
I think it's odd that I've been putting more effort into avoiding having to rewrite it than we'll now have to do actually rewriting it. Oh well.
Labels: agaffa, starcustard, webtechnical
Monday, August 15, 2005
Cutting the Crap
Righty. I'm back, and no more willing to get to work than usual. Still, here are some updates on where various things currently stand.
Agaffa: I've written down all the big changes I'd like to see in the rewrite, and I think once these are done the whole thing will be much more coherent. I'm just waiting to see if Olli has anything he wants to add now.
The Aberration: Lots of exciting stuff happening with this. I've made a lot of progress with where this is going to go, but there's very little physical evidence for this, most of the changes I'm making and the other ideas still only being in my head. As I've mentioned before, this rewrite is more than just polishing up the quality: there's a lot of big changes to the plot underway, the biggest changes being with the character Mike. For a start, his nationality's changing, because I want him to represent an aspect of British character which has grown in him as I've written the story. I'm also completely scrapping the court case and diminishing the TV show, both of which have been major parts of Mike's story, but the latter having very little bearing on the rest of the story and the former having none at all.
I've also been thinking about character histories, what effect they'll have on the events that occur, and how they can add depth to the characters and make the whole plot a hell of a lot more interesting as it unravels.
Website design: 'Easier said than done' has never been more true, especially when I find myself completely unwilling to make the effort. HTML/CSS is boring, and it doesn't help that I don't feel I'm going to get very far with it even if I can be bothered. Amelia has said she'll help me with that, which is fantastic, because now something might happen.
Stuff that's being discontinued: A Room Full Of Zombies, the text-based game, because, like with the webdesign, I can never work on it for more than ten minutes; and also City of Anarchy, because I've left the community it's loosely based on, possibly for good.
The Fat Man In Tweed launch: let's face it, it's not going to be happening any time soon. It'll be up whenever I feel I'm ready for it to be, which won't be until I've got the rewrites and the design done at the very least, and I'm not going to be giving myself any deadlines for them that I'll never live up to.
And, OMG, ideas for a novel, which have been knocking around in my head for several weeks. They're for a variation on an idea I've had for a novel for almost a year now, but I get the feeling I might actually start to write this thing soon.
Agaffa: I've written down all the big changes I'd like to see in the rewrite, and I think once these are done the whole thing will be much more coherent. I'm just waiting to see if Olli has anything he wants to add now.
The Aberration: Lots of exciting stuff happening with this. I've made a lot of progress with where this is going to go, but there's very little physical evidence for this, most of the changes I'm making and the other ideas still only being in my head. As I've mentioned before, this rewrite is more than just polishing up the quality: there's a lot of big changes to the plot underway, the biggest changes being with the character Mike. For a start, his nationality's changing, because I want him to represent an aspect of British character which has grown in him as I've written the story. I'm also completely scrapping the court case and diminishing the TV show, both of which have been major parts of Mike's story, but the latter having very little bearing on the rest of the story and the former having none at all.
I've also been thinking about character histories, what effect they'll have on the events that occur, and how they can add depth to the characters and make the whole plot a hell of a lot more interesting as it unravels.
Website design: 'Easier said than done' has never been more true, especially when I find myself completely unwilling to make the effort. HTML/CSS is boring, and it doesn't help that I don't feel I'm going to get very far with it even if I can be bothered. Amelia has said she'll help me with that, which is fantastic, because now something might happen.
Stuff that's being discontinued: A Room Full Of Zombies, the text-based game, because, like with the webdesign, I can never work on it for more than ten minutes; and also City of Anarchy, because I've left the community it's loosely based on, possibly for good.
The Fat Man In Tweed launch: let's face it, it's not going to be happening any time soon. It'll be up whenever I feel I'm ready for it to be, which won't be until I've got the rewrites and the design done at the very least, and I'm not going to be giving myself any deadlines for them that I'll never live up to.
And, OMG, ideas for a novel, which have been knocking around in my head for several weeks. They're for a variation on an idea I've had for a novel for almost a year now, but I get the feeling I might actually start to write this thing soon.
Labels: agaffa, boardfic, city of anarchy, the aberration, webtechnical, zombies
Saturday, July 23, 2005
Bulletin
I've been watching the repeat of the first series of 24 for a few weeks now. This is the first time I've seen it. The BBC have been showing two episodes every Friday night. Next Friday I'll be on holiday in France, so what are they doing? They're showing three.
Indignation courses through my soul like a raging, caffeine-stimulated dragon of high-voltage electrical power.
Suffice to say, I'm buying the DVD.
In other news [shuffles papers]...
We got started the rewrite of Agaffa and went through the first two chapters scribbling down various minor changes, but I think we decided that there's a lot of major stuff we need to sort out, which might make a lot of these minor changes unnecessary anyway. No idea when we're going to do that.
The future of City of Anarchy looks uncertain as a huge argument breaks out on the message board I write it for, and now I'm really not sure I want anything to do with it anymore.
As a result, The Aberration is now my main focus, and the one I'm really going to work on during the next few weeks. I've been neglecting it, and there's still a lot of stuff I need to do.
Indignation courses through my soul like a raging, caffeine-stimulated dragon of high-voltage electrical power.
Suffice to say, I'm buying the DVD.
In other news [shuffles papers]...
We got started the rewrite of Agaffa and went through the first two chapters scribbling down various minor changes, but I think we decided that there's a lot of major stuff we need to sort out, which might make a lot of these minor changes unnecessary anyway. No idea when we're going to do that.
The future of City of Anarchy looks uncertain as a huge argument breaks out on the message board I write it for, and now I'm really not sure I want anything to do with it anymore.
As a result, The Aberration is now my main focus, and the one I'm really going to work on during the next few weeks. I've been neglecting it, and there's still a lot of stuff I need to do.
Labels: 24, agaffa, boardfic, city of anarchy, the aberration
Monday, July 04, 2005
First Impressions
The first part of City of Anarchy went online on Friday. I think those who read it liked it, but some responses were a little...bemusing.
One guy said, 'I like except for the bits with violence and pain. I kept having to close my eyes.' I don't understand how closing his eyes would have helped. How did he know when to open them again? Did 'YOU HAVE REACHED THE NEXT PARAGRAPH' flash across his eyelids?
Aside from that, I didn't think it was so...well, dark. Another person said, 'Is this story going to give me nightmares?' If people are seeing it this way, I think I'll just go with it, though I really can't see how they are.
Another guy told me, 'it reads like comics.' This is probably a good thing, because it suggests that the opening was sufficiently action-packed, but it was still something I really didn't expect.
Still... as long as they're enjoying it...
Tomorrow I'm going to force myself to sit down and get this bit of Starcustard done. I think one of the reasons I've been avoiding it is because I'm not sure how I'm going to go about it, but if I take another look at what we've already got, I'll probably be able to figure it out.
Also, Olli awaits Agaffa. I really need to be getting on with websitey things in general.
One guy said, 'I like except for the bits with violence and pain. I kept having to close my eyes.' I don't understand how closing his eyes would have helped. How did he know when to open them again? Did 'YOU HAVE REACHED THE NEXT PARAGRAPH' flash across his eyelids?
Aside from that, I didn't think it was so...well, dark. Another person said, 'Is this story going to give me nightmares?' If people are seeing it this way, I think I'll just go with it, though I really can't see how they are.
Another guy told me, 'it reads like comics.' This is probably a good thing, because it suggests that the opening was sufficiently action-packed, but it was still something I really didn't expect.
Still... as long as they're enjoying it...
Tomorrow I'm going to force myself to sit down and get this bit of Starcustard done. I think one of the reasons I've been avoiding it is because I'm not sure how I'm going to go about it, but if I take another look at what we've already got, I'll probably be able to figure it out.
Also, Olli awaits Agaffa. I really need to be getting on with websitey things in general.
Labels: agaffa, boardfic, city of anarchy, starcustard
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Why, Hello There!
Do you know what I have now, what with all my exams being over? Lots and lots of free time.
I admit, I'll probably be spending a lot of it playing Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath, but here's some of the stuff that's coming up...
Starcustard Chapter 4 isn't far from completion. It hasn't been for weeks, but, well, you know... I'm also part way through a Starcustard-related drawing. I'm making my first task finishing this off.
Olli mentioned revising/rewriting the first few chapters of Agaffa in a conversation at school. I don't know if we're still going through with that. We managed to finish Chapter 6 back in April, and we started Chapter 7, but there's most of that still to write.
(See also: Gnome Milk.)
The Aberration is the same as it has been for a while. The first three chapters are being partially rewritten, there are a few minor adjustments to make to Chapter 4, and Chapter 5 has barely been started.
The first part of City of Anarchy, a new project (with the characters based on the members of a message board I'm part of), will be posted online sometime next week. The second of the two drawings I'm currently working on is related to this.
And I want to make some progress with A Room Full of Zombies, my zombie game. I've had some neat ideas for this that I'm going to try and implement.
Nothing except the powers of procrastination and video games are standing in my way now. Time to get things done.
FATMANINTWEED.COM. COMING SOON.
I admit, I'll probably be spending a lot of it playing Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath, but here's some of the stuff that's coming up...
Starcustard Chapter 4 isn't far from completion. It hasn't been for weeks, but, well, you know... I'm also part way through a Starcustard-related drawing. I'm making my first task finishing this off.
Olli mentioned revising/rewriting the first few chapters of Agaffa in a conversation at school. I don't know if we're still going through with that. We managed to finish Chapter 6 back in April, and we started Chapter 7, but there's most of that still to write.
(See also: Gnome Milk.)
The Aberration is the same as it has been for a while. The first three chapters are being partially rewritten, there are a few minor adjustments to make to Chapter 4, and Chapter 5 has barely been started.
The first part of City of Anarchy, a new project (with the characters based on the members of a message board I'm part of), will be posted online sometime next week. The second of the two drawings I'm currently working on is related to this.
And I want to make some progress with A Room Full of Zombies, my zombie game. I've had some neat ideas for this that I'm going to try and implement.
Nothing except the powers of procrastination and video games are standing in my way now. Time to get things done.
FATMANINTWEED.COM. COMING SOON.
Labels: agaffa, city of anarchy, starcustard, the aberration, videogames, zombies
Friday, May 20, 2005
Links
I actually got some work done on the TA rewrite. Can you believe that?
I've agreed with Olli on the idea of a sort of halfway-point website to link Fat Man In Tweed and his site, and to house Agaffa and the next story we're going to write. It'll have it's own design, too.
This means I'm going to have to rethink my own layout ideas, though. I had considered doing something like this for all the stories:
Each number would be a link to a chapter, while
The thing is, if I did that and just linked to the pages each chapter was on, it would make having a seperate website pretty redundant. I still want to make the story a part of Fat Man In Tweed somehow, though, because it's part of my 'online portfolio'.
I could just keep it having a link to each chapter and have the name of the website by the title of the story, in brackets and as a link. The change in design will probably be enough to show that it's a part of whatever we call this new site.
I've agreed with Olli on the idea of a sort of halfway-point website to link Fat Man In Tweed and his site, and to house Agaffa and the next story we're going to write. It'll have it's own design, too.
This means I'm going to have to rethink my own layout ideas, though. I had considered doing something like this for all the stories:
AGAFFA
Blurb goes here. Agaffa has many biscuits that Miss Darley does not, etc.
[1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Extras]Each number would be a link to a chapter, while
Extras would contain things like the annotations. There'd be an underline and overline when the mouse hovered over them.The thing is, if I did that and just linked to the pages each chapter was on, it would make having a seperate website pretty redundant. I still want to make the story a part of Fat Man In Tweed somehow, though, because it's part of my 'online portfolio'.
I could just keep it having a link to each chapter and have the name of the website by the title of the story, in brackets and as a link. The change in design will probably be enough to show that it's a part of whatever we call this new site.
Labels: agaffa, the aberration, webtechnical
Friday, May 13, 2005
The Crinklestick Chronicles
Oooooooooooooooooohoohoohoohoohooooooo, we have some exciting stuff coming up for Agaffa.
Action, adventure and a few little surprises along the way. Things are going to get quite complicated.
Action, adventure and a few little surprises along the way. Things are going to get quite complicated.
Labels: agaffa
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
After Agaffa
So we know, sort of, how Agaffa is going to end.
And we've been brainstorming for the story that's going to come after that, involving a character who was invented when The Aberration was started, back at the end of 2003. A character who was actually going to be the co-protagonist with Master Beef, only it was decided that their worlds were too different for them to be in the same story.* And also, the character wasn't just my creation, so it didn't feel right.
But enough of this pointless history!
This new story is going to be an accumulation of many of the crazy ideas we've had over the years that we've known each other. It'll be much easier to write than Agaffa, because we'll have much more to work with. Five years of friendship's worth, in fact. Hopefully it'll have a slightly better plot too, but we also want it to be equally as chaotic, if not more so.
I leave you now with one word: magic.
* TA is currently enjoying its fourth title. Originally (when this other character was going to be in it), it was called And Fools Seldom Differ. When it was decided that this other character wasn't going to be in it, it lost this title and assumed a simple working one of Master Beef. (The only Beef bit that actually got written under the AFSD title was the opening microwave-chiselling scene...no more was written until March the next year, by which time it had long been changed.) Although I can't remember why I changed my mind about using the original name then, I'm glad I did, because I now I think it sounds like the title of an old British sitcom...probably from the BBC.
A little over a year ago, once I'd decided a vague plot, I changed it to The Manifesting Surreal, and it became The Aberration at the start of this year because it now had a slightly different vague plot.
And we've been brainstorming for the story that's going to come after that, involving a character who was invented when The Aberration was started, back at the end of 2003. A character who was actually going to be the co-protagonist with Master Beef, only it was decided that their worlds were too different for them to be in the same story.* And also, the character wasn't just my creation, so it didn't feel right.
But enough of this pointless history!
This new story is going to be an accumulation of many of the crazy ideas we've had over the years that we've known each other. It'll be much easier to write than Agaffa, because we'll have much more to work with. Five years of friendship's worth, in fact. Hopefully it'll have a slightly better plot too, but we also want it to be equally as chaotic, if not more so.
I leave you now with one word: magic.
* TA is currently enjoying its fourth title. Originally (when this other character was going to be in it), it was called And Fools Seldom Differ. When it was decided that this other character wasn't going to be in it, it lost this title and assumed a simple working one of Master Beef. (The only Beef bit that actually got written under the AFSD title was the opening microwave-chiselling scene...no more was written until March the next year, by which time it had long been changed.) Although I can't remember why I changed my mind about using the original name then, I'm glad I did, because I now I think it sounds like the title of an old British sitcom...probably from the BBC.
A little over a year ago, once I'd decided a vague plot, I changed it to The Manifesting Surreal, and it became The Aberration at the start of this year because it now had a slightly different vague plot.
Labels: agaffa, the aberration
Monday, April 25, 2005
Same Old, Same Old
I say I'll do things, and then I hardly ever do. I didn't get any more of TA Chapter 5 done over the weekend. I never drew any room plans for the places visited in that chapter (although I've more or less decided what they're going to look like now anyway). I said I'd do sketches of gadgets and weapons and, er...storage rooms, apparently. I sort of did that, but then gave up.
I have, howevrar, almost finished a messy concept sketch of this new alien that's going to be in Starcustard. I might post that here at some point, maybe with a few annotations.
I get the feeling I'm going to need all the free time I have after the exams if I want to get the site up in the Summer, but I know I'm still going to waste it. It's just one of those inevitable things.
Inevitable, Mr Anderson.
The stories aren't really a problem. I'd like to get as much of them done as possible for the launch, but there's already a chapter of The Aberration and a chapter of Agaffa that will be new-to-fatman content, and the same'll be true for Starcustard in the next few weeks or so. It's getting Release 2 of the zombie game done, and also learning CSS and designing the whole thing, that's going to be the real challenge.
But I shall rise to the challenge!
If and when I feel like it, that is.
I'm really going to have to stop posting about the same stuff every entry. I'll try and post more interesting stuff, like concept art and more excerpts and random junk like that. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy film is released this week. I could post stuff related to that once I've seen it.
I have, howevrar, almost finished a messy concept sketch of this new alien that's going to be in Starcustard. I might post that here at some point, maybe with a few annotations.
I get the feeling I'm going to need all the free time I have after the exams if I want to get the site up in the Summer, but I know I'm still going to waste it. It's just one of those inevitable things.
Inevitable, Mr Anderson.
The stories aren't really a problem. I'd like to get as much of them done as possible for the launch, but there's already a chapter of The Aberration and a chapter of Agaffa that will be new-to-fatman content, and the same'll be true for Starcustard in the next few weeks or so. It's getting Release 2 of the zombie game done, and also learning CSS and designing the whole thing, that's going to be the real challenge.
But I shall rise to the challenge!
If and when I feel like it, that is.
I'm really going to have to stop posting about the same stuff every entry. I'll try and post more interesting stuff, like concept art and more excerpts and random junk like that. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy film is released this week. I could post stuff related to that once I've seen it.
Labels: agaffa, starcustard, the aberration, webtechnical, zombies
Friday, April 08, 2005
Checking Status...Btthrrhp
A Room Full Of Zombies - Been working on the zombie-specific outcomes of attacks. The green zombie does exciting things.
Agaffa - Failed to get the two chapters done in those two weeks. Doesn't really matter, though.
Starcustard - Running through some ideas for the events in the next few chapters, including something pretty big for Chapter 6...which is ages away, but still. I might sketch some stuff. That can be a good way of generating ideas. Sketches of gadgets, weapons and storage rooms.
The Aberration - The first draft of Chapter 4 has been completed. There are a few things I want to go back and add in, but they're minor things. I might start typing that up tomorrow. I also started writing Chapter 5 today. I think I'm going to have to doodle some stuff in my sketchbook for that, too. More room plans. It's about time I did something other than character designs anyway.
Agaffa - Failed to get the two chapters done in those two weeks. Doesn't really matter, though.
Starcustard - Running through some ideas for the events in the next few chapters, including something pretty big for Chapter 6...which is ages away, but still. I might sketch some stuff. That can be a good way of generating ideas. Sketches of gadgets, weapons and storage rooms.
The Aberration - The first draft of Chapter 4 has been completed. There are a few things I want to go back and add in, but they're minor things. I might start typing that up tomorrow. I also started writing Chapter 5 today. I think I'm going to have to doodle some stuff in my sketchbook for that, too. More room plans. It's about time I did something other than character designs anyway.
Labels: agaffa, starcustard, the aberration, zombies
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Excerpt #002
Agaffa cheekily shovelled another biscuit into her large mouth.
'I just found it, I had no idea it was there, promise...'
Miss Darley was not convinced. 'I am not convinced,' she said. 'How many more do you have?'
'Ah,' said Agaffa, tapping her wrinkled nose. 'That only time will tell.'
Miss Darley snorted. 'I shall starve to death and it will all be because of you!' she said dramatically, lifting her hand to her head in the theatrical way of displaying her distress.
Agaffa just shrugged. 'I no longer have the conscience to care,' she said, retrieving another biscuit.
'Please can I have a biscuit?' said Miss Darley.
'No.'
'Pleeeeeeeeeeeease?'
'No.'
'A third round of begging is not worth my dignity. You will just have to hand over a biscuit.'
From Agaffa Chapter 6, with one hell of a cliffhanger!
'I just found it, I had no idea it was there, promise...'
Miss Darley was not convinced. 'I am not convinced,' she said. 'How many more do you have?'
'Ah,' said Agaffa, tapping her wrinkled nose. 'That only time will tell.'
Miss Darley snorted. 'I shall starve to death and it will all be because of you!' she said dramatically, lifting her hand to her head in the theatrical way of displaying her distress.
Agaffa just shrugged. 'I no longer have the conscience to care,' she said, retrieving another biscuit.
'Please can I have a biscuit?' said Miss Darley.
'No.'
'Pleeeeeeeeeeeease?'
'No.'
'A third round of begging is not worth my dignity. You will just have to hand over a biscuit.'
From Agaffa Chapter 6, with one hell of a cliffhanger!
Monday, March 28, 2005
Car Chases
[rolls in on a unicycle, playing the trumpet or something.]
I've very nearly finished The Aberration Chapter 4. Car chases are difficult to write. Fun, but difficult. Does it count as a car chase if the chaser isn't a car? Anyway, I've practically done that bit now. Just need to do the closing bit. I probably won't be 100% happy with it when I'm done, but I never am. I can always edit it some other time if I want.
Either tonight or tomorrow I need to start the next Agaffa chapter. There's a pointless flashback scene set in Miss Darley's mansion that needs writing. :P
I've very nearly finished The Aberration Chapter 4. Car chases are difficult to write. Fun, but difficult. Does it count as a car chase if the chaser isn't a car? Anyway, I've practically done that bit now. Just need to do the closing bit. I probably won't be 100% happy with it when I'm done, but I never am. I can always edit it some other time if I want.
Either tonight or tomorrow I need to start the next Agaffa chapter. There's a pointless flashback scene set in Miss Darley's mansion that needs writing. :P
Labels: agaffa, the aberration
Friday, March 25, 2005
More Websitey Stuff
Olli and Eye finished the first draft of Agaffa Chapter 6 last night. That brings us to the halfway point for what we're aiming for by the end of next week, which is just about right.
We also talked about how we were going to have the LOTR parody sketches and Agaffa accessible to both of us. One idea was for one of us to have a section of webspace where we could put all the 'shared' files, with a password, so that either of us could use FTP there. However, apparently Rydia (the webhost we'll probably be using) doesn't let you do that sort of thing. Also, there's the issue of consistency when it comes to webdesign. Both of our sites are going to be portfolios of our stuff, so if we want all of it to be under one design, the shared area wouldn't really work. In the end, we decided it would be best for both of us to have copies of the texts, put in our individual page templates.
With the LOTR parody sketches, because it's not really a collaborative effort (we both write sketches, but each sketch is written by one person or the other, not both of us), I assumed I'd be taking all of my sketches and putting them on Fat Man In Tweed, leaving Olli to do whatever he wanted with his own, but that might not be what's happening. It might be better to have them all in one place, but if we're both going to have copies anyway, I wonder if there's actually any point in us both having each other's.
I got my first bit of feedback for Release 1 of A Room Full Of Zombies from him last night. And that's only 'cos I downloaded it onto his laptop and started playing it. :P It kept him interested for around fifteen minutes, which isn't bad considering how little there is to it. He thinks he's roughly figured out the order you're supposed to kill the zombies in, but he hasn't.
Hm...this blog should really be more exciting. I think at the start of my next entry I'll roll in on a unicycle, playing the trumpet or something.
We also talked about how we were going to have the LOTR parody sketches and Agaffa accessible to both of us. One idea was for one of us to have a section of webspace where we could put all the 'shared' files, with a password, so that either of us could use FTP there. However, apparently Rydia (the webhost we'll probably be using) doesn't let you do that sort of thing. Also, there's the issue of consistency when it comes to webdesign. Both of our sites are going to be portfolios of our stuff, so if we want all of it to be under one design, the shared area wouldn't really work. In the end, we decided it would be best for both of us to have copies of the texts, put in our individual page templates.
With the LOTR parody sketches, because it's not really a collaborative effort (we both write sketches, but each sketch is written by one person or the other, not both of us), I assumed I'd be taking all of my sketches and putting them on Fat Man In Tweed, leaving Olli to do whatever he wanted with his own, but that might not be what's happening. It might be better to have them all in one place, but if we're both going to have copies anyway, I wonder if there's actually any point in us both having each other's.
I got my first bit of feedback for Release 1 of A Room Full Of Zombies from him last night. And that's only 'cos I downloaded it onto his laptop and started playing it. :P It kept him interested for around fifteen minutes, which isn't bad considering how little there is to it. He thinks he's roughly figured out the order you're supposed to kill the zombies in, but he hasn't.
Hm...this blog should really be more exciting. I think at the start of my next entry I'll roll in on a unicycle, playing the trumpet or something.
Labels: agaffa, webtechnical
Friday, March 18, 2005
Progress!
670 words. Not bad for a day's work, considering the usual pace. If we can keep this up (which is unlikely, but we're going to try), the next couple of chapters of Agaffa will be done in no time. We're aiming for them done by the end of the fortnight at least. I think we'll manage that.
(That doesn't include typing it all up, by the way.)
(That doesn't include typing it all up, by the way.)
Labels: agaffa
W00t!
I got the FTP thing to work! I don't know what I was doing wrong last time, but I'm now posting an entry into Kommingle. I tried the SFTP thing and it did that constant page-refreshing thing again, but when I retried the regular FTP, it worked.
So...problem more or less solved. I can take it off Kommingle now that I know I can do it, and put it on Fat Man In Tweed in the Summer.
Olli's sent me what we've written of Agaffa Chapter 6 so far. Today I'm going to work on that and send the whole lot back to him so he can do his next bit, and then I'll get some Starcustard done.
Things are moving along nicely, and I'm happy. :)
So...problem more or less solved. I can take it off Kommingle now that I know I can do it, and put it on Fat Man In Tweed in the Summer.
Olli's sent me what we've written of Agaffa Chapter 6 so far. Today I'm going to work on that and send the whole lot back to him so he can do his next bit, and then I'll get some Starcustard done.
Things are moving along nicely, and I'm happy. :)
Labels: agaffa, starcustard, webtechnical
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Halo There
Now that the Easter holidays have started, I can start getting things done. And who knows? Maybe I even will. I have exam revision to be doing, but I'll still have quite a lot of free time.
The Aberration, Starcustard, Agaffa, A Room Full Of Zombies...and fatmanintweed.com. It's odd, I never really considered Kommingle as a 'project' as such...at least, not in the same way I consider all these other things to be...but with Fat Man In Tweed, it's different. It's a much bigger challenge now that I don't have anybody to rely on for the financial side of things, or for the webdesign.
Anyway.
Something completely unrelated: Master Beef, the protagonist of The Aberration, was originally created as the main character of a spoof of the first Halo game. The spoof was called Bananas and Laxatives. I intend to bring back some of the characters from the spoof. This will mean some nice Halo references for fans of the game(s), but it won't ruin it for those who don't really know anything about it.
You could always go and look up some information on the Halo games if you want to try and guess which characters' spoof versions are going to be used. :P
Or, alternatively, you could just not bother. Up to you, really.
The Aberration, Starcustard, Agaffa, A Room Full Of Zombies...and fatmanintweed.com. It's odd, I never really considered Kommingle as a 'project' as such...at least, not in the same way I consider all these other things to be...but with Fat Man In Tweed, it's different. It's a much bigger challenge now that I don't have anybody to rely on for the financial side of things, or for the webdesign.
Anyway.
Something completely unrelated: Master Beef, the protagonist of The Aberration, was originally created as the main character of a spoof of the first Halo game. The spoof was called Bananas and Laxatives. I intend to bring back some of the characters from the spoof. This will mean some nice Halo references for fans of the game(s), but it won't ruin it for those who don't really know anything about it.
You could always go and look up some information on the Halo games if you want to try and guess which characters' spoof versions are going to be used. :P
Or, alternatively, you could just not bother. Up to you, really.
Labels: agaffa, bananas and laxatives, halo, starcustard, the aberration, videogames, zombies
archives
03.0504.05
05.05
06.05
07.05
08.05
09.05
10.05
11.05
12.05
01.06
02.06
03.06
04.06
05.06
06.06
07.06
08.06
09.06
10.06
11.06
12.06
01.07
02.07
03.07
04.07
05.07
06.07
07.07
08.07
09.07
10.07
11.07
12.07
01.08
02.08
03.08
04.08
05.08
06.08
07.08
10.08
11.08
12.08
01.09
02.09
04.09
05.09
06.09
07.09
08.09
09.09
10.09
11.09
12.09
01.10
02.10
03.10
04.10
