the ramble dump
Sunday, December 14, 2008
She Is Returned
It's been nearly two and a half years, excepting revisions, since we last saw Jesnails, strutting around the American West in 1875--back when we first decided to send her travelling through time to cause all the inadvertent chaos she's proved to be so good at. It occurred to us then as an appropriate next step for some Jesnailsian antics, following her life-fulfilling appearances as a scourge of zombies and, before that, her debut as a messianic figure intent on bringing some funk back to a dystopian, horrifyingly bean-motifed future world.
But Jesnails' trip to Little Pigaloo, USA, didn't work out quite as well as we'd hoped. We had planned it to be the first of a long series of episodic adventures as we followed Jesnails through time and space and watched as, space-time after space-time, the disco-fiend unthinkingly changed the course of history, precipitating in increasingly surreal situations as her story progressed.
We met with a problem, however. Jesnails, we found, does not work as a protagonist. She is a very dynamic character--so dynamic, in fact, that her mere presence is usually enough to have some huge effect. Her mysterious purpose, apparently self-prescribed, is essentially to spread the image of herself. She does this by creating an impression achieved through various modes of performance, often disco-related, and most of the time aided by some far-fetched contraption derived from her seemingly unlimited skills as an inventor. This leads to results that we can never clearly gauge the intention of, thanks to some catastrophic flaw or other that unfailingly manifests in her creations. So as far as the narrative goes, she's like a volatile chemical: once she's introduced, we sit back and watch the fireworks.
Explicitly giving Jesnails her own complete story puts us, as its writers, in the slightly tedious position of having to follow her around and describe the process by which she achieves her influence, rather than simply being able to have fun with each performance as it happens. So rather than just being able to play around with the hundreds of Jesnailsian moments we'd come up with, we had to fill each episode with a lot of uninteresting scenes to tie all these moments together and make a coherent story. Having her as the protagonist also constantly threatened to encroach on the idea of her as a rather vague, enigmatic entity because we ended up focusing on a character that by definition defies such focus. We continually had to check ourselves to make sure we weren't over-vocalising on her behalf, something that was often necessary just to move the story along in a sensical way--for example, getting Jesnails onto the Sheriff's whiskey-laden train required giving her a somewhat forced reputation as a fan of drink based on a single incident at the bar, and then we compelled her to walk into Bigbad's trap by having it stated that she was thirsty and wanted to avoid confrontation, thus leaving the train as her only option.
All of this also led to several moments where Jesnails' actions became hideously intentional in a way that didn't really fit her character. In a bit that I wrote, I had her deliberately shooting Bigbad, twice, when he was down. Here Jesnails had too much of a sense of what was going on, while one of the defining points of her character is supposed to be that she wanders the earth dealing much damage through sheer obliviousness. She'll react when she's cornered, like in the Santa battle in Jesnails Returns, but that's about as far as it goes.
Anyway, the endeavour was all so tedious that we never got past the first full episode. So, despite sporadic attempts to resuscitate, the project died. It was nearly a year ago that I had the idea of scrapping the convoluted story and presenting her time-travelling manifestations in the form of a more ambiguous montage. This way, Jesnails is cut free from the stifling necessities of a narrative while we are still able to showcase all those Jesnailsian moments we thought were worth presenting in the first place. And in some cases, Jesnails will never even appear in person. It makes the whole process a lot freer, a lot easier and a lot more fun, and hopefully the end product will also be much more effective.
Live In Rome, for your information, is the climax of the planned second episode severed from all the crap that was supposed to lead up to it, so you can enjoy just the tasty bits.
Partner in funk Ella Turnbull was informed of the plan and agreed to it all those months ago, but I haven't spoken to her in ages, sadly, so I don't know if she'll still be interested. I've only gone ahead with the project under the condition that Ella is free to add to it whenever she wants, but I figured I'd better just start the thing or it would never happen.
So basically, updates will appear when either of us feels like it.
Witness!
Experience Jesnails: Live In Rome.
But Jesnails' trip to Little Pigaloo, USA, didn't work out quite as well as we'd hoped. We had planned it to be the first of a long series of episodic adventures as we followed Jesnails through time and space and watched as, space-time after space-time, the disco-fiend unthinkingly changed the course of history, precipitating in increasingly surreal situations as her story progressed.
We met with a problem, however. Jesnails, we found, does not work as a protagonist. She is a very dynamic character--so dynamic, in fact, that her mere presence is usually enough to have some huge effect. Her mysterious purpose, apparently self-prescribed, is essentially to spread the image of herself. She does this by creating an impression achieved through various modes of performance, often disco-related, and most of the time aided by some far-fetched contraption derived from her seemingly unlimited skills as an inventor. This leads to results that we can never clearly gauge the intention of, thanks to some catastrophic flaw or other that unfailingly manifests in her creations. So as far as the narrative goes, she's like a volatile chemical: once she's introduced, we sit back and watch the fireworks.
Explicitly giving Jesnails her own complete story puts us, as its writers, in the slightly tedious position of having to follow her around and describe the process by which she achieves her influence, rather than simply being able to have fun with each performance as it happens. So rather than just being able to play around with the hundreds of Jesnailsian moments we'd come up with, we had to fill each episode with a lot of uninteresting scenes to tie all these moments together and make a coherent story. Having her as the protagonist also constantly threatened to encroach on the idea of her as a rather vague, enigmatic entity because we ended up focusing on a character that by definition defies such focus. We continually had to check ourselves to make sure we weren't over-vocalising on her behalf, something that was often necessary just to move the story along in a sensical way--for example, getting Jesnails onto the Sheriff's whiskey-laden train required giving her a somewhat forced reputation as a fan of drink based on a single incident at the bar, and then we compelled her to walk into Bigbad's trap by having it stated that she was thirsty and wanted to avoid confrontation, thus leaving the train as her only option.
All of this also led to several moments where Jesnails' actions became hideously intentional in a way that didn't really fit her character. In a bit that I wrote, I had her deliberately shooting Bigbad, twice, when he was down. Here Jesnails had too much of a sense of what was going on, while one of the defining points of her character is supposed to be that she wanders the earth dealing much damage through sheer obliviousness. She'll react when she's cornered, like in the Santa battle in Jesnails Returns, but that's about as far as it goes.
Anyway, the endeavour was all so tedious that we never got past the first full episode. So, despite sporadic attempts to resuscitate, the project died. It was nearly a year ago that I had the idea of scrapping the convoluted story and presenting her time-travelling manifestations in the form of a more ambiguous montage. This way, Jesnails is cut free from the stifling necessities of a narrative while we are still able to showcase all those Jesnailsian moments we thought were worth presenting in the first place. And in some cases, Jesnails will never even appear in person. It makes the whole process a lot freer, a lot easier and a lot more fun, and hopefully the end product will also be much more effective.
Live In Rome, for your information, is the climax of the planned second episode severed from all the crap that was supposed to lead up to it, so you can enjoy just the tasty bits.
Partner in funk Ella Turnbull was informed of the plan and agreed to it all those months ago, but I haven't spoken to her in ages, sadly, so I don't know if she'll still be interested. I've only gone ahead with the project under the condition that Ella is free to add to it whenever she wants, but I figured I'd better just start the thing or it would never happen.
So basically, updates will appear when either of us feels like it.
Witness!
Experience Jesnails: Live In Rome.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Happy Birthday, Master Beef
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.
It was five years ago this month, I realised, that I wrote the first parts of that Halo parody and put it on that legendary website which had been forged by the minds of two fourteen-year-old geniuses. In personal terms, that's a hell of a long time. Over a quarter of a lifetime ago, in fact. (Fat Man In Tweed proper had its second birthday sometime last week.)
Not only does this mean that the character of Master Beef, conceived by my fourteen-year-old mind, is five years old as well (and I'm still using him); it also means that I've been posting stuff online, under this guise of 'writer', for just as long. And I keep asking myself: why?
The original answer is obvious enough: I'm just playing around. That's what we were doing with Fod, and the myriad other websites that myself and the Artist Formerly Known As Olli created. That's what I've been doing ever since, with the boardfics as well as the websites. Whatever grand schemes I might stumble upon along the way, and however carried away or excited I might get about some big story or idea, in the end I'm doing it because I enjoy it. That doesn't mean I'm treating it trivially -- in fact, I put a lot of work into it, and probably take it all too seriously -- but ultimately this website is a hobby. First and foremost, it's a way to entertain myself, while at the same time being personally meaningful and fulfilling in the same way that any other hobby might be. I get to reap the personal benefits, whatever they may be, of exploring my own thoughts, performing amateurish experiments with the 'craft' of storytelling and nudging together a few other ideas.
The point of this website as an attempt at exploring myself and the world around me is a conclusion I at least sort of arrived at already. But this doesn't explain why I need a website to do it. Couldn't I do all this in private journals? Another obvious answer here which I've already given in previous ramblings is that by putting it online, I get to put it out there for everybody to see. I like to entertain others with this stuff, and maybe some distant reader somewhere will find something interesting about it beyond that, even if it's really not good enough to achieve publication anywhere else. That is the best and worst thing about the internet: you're free to post whatever crap you want.
The other thing about the internet is that you have a certain level of anonymity. Even if I put my name on every page, I remain mostly hidden from view. It's a weird position to take after admitting that I want people to see what I've written, but I'm actually more comfortable with it being read by silent strangers than by my friends, many of whom still don't even know this place exists. It allows me, as a ridiculously self-conscious person, to maintain this illusion of being alone with my thoughts, paradoxically aware that at the same time it's out there to be seen. This is why, on those rare occasions that some random person sends me a friendly message about the site, I find myself slightly unnerved.
Besides these floating few, however, and as much as I get paranoid about plastering my copyright over everything I post, it's probably another self-imposed, happy illusion to imagine that I have much of a readership at all. But Fat Man In Tweed has its benefits anyway. Being able to publish things at all makes me feel more productive, but posting online, specifically all on one website, gives me a focus point for my efforts. As a 'project', it feels more substantive and it gives me a place to bring my thoughts together. With the serial fictions like The Aberration, I get to conduct an ongoing exploration of my own version of ideas (in theory also leaving it there to be considered by others), and then, in areas where I feel like being a little more explicit, I can toddle over to this blog and write about it here, along with all the other stuff I've been thinking about. A lot of my more ponderous, recent blogposts tend to end on something of a triumphant note, not because I've made some important new philosophical discovery, but because I feel like I've been able to work through something on my own and come to at least some sort of conclusion.
Ever since its inception, I've been conscious of Fat Man In Tweed as more of an entity in itself than other website I've worked on. And because of that, it has turned into something else. All this going back and forth and cross-referencing myself could in part just be me dwelling in my own egotism, but the effect of having Fat Man In Tweed as a focus point for all these things, leading to everything sort of bouncing off each other, will hopefully mean that something will eventually begin to resonate in some kind of meaningful way. On a personal level, at least, I'm finding that this is true already, bringing to clearer attention those things that are really preoccupying my mind. The website, it turns out, can function as a nucleus of personal thought in unexpected, interesting, and maybe even useful ways. For all it contains, it's proving to be a worthwhile medium for expression in itself.
Labels: bananas and laxatives, boardfic, excerpts, i am the ramblemaster, the aberration, webtechnical
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Less Than Ten Percent
So I kind of failed the NaNoWriMo challenge this year, achieving a grand 4,664 words out of the required 50,000. Here's how my progress went:
It makes me laugh.
It's not that bad, though. At various points before November began, I'd decided that I just wasn't going to bother at all. And it's more than I usually manage.
The premiss for the story, Marto the God, was based on an idea I've had knocking around for ages about doing something from a god's point of view. Somewhere along the line I decided to place him in a contemporary setting, and soon the idea became one of a young, arrogant god who was very aware of his godly nature but still discovering his powers. It developed beyond that in various cool ways, but I won't go into that here.
For all the horrific largeness of the target word count, writing Marto was a lot like writing the old boardfics. I'd start off with very little idea about where I was going with it, much like all my other stories, but the time limit meant that I had to be much more off-the-cuff with it. I don't get to plot as elaborately as I do with the serials, and having to burn through ideas at a superfast rate just to keep it going is both exhilirating and infuriating. It was two weeks for SciBoard Resurrection, and I managed about the same for Marto before it flatlines where the uni essays hit.
Frankly, it wouldn't have stretched to 50,000 words anyway. But I'm not finished with it just yet. I like where it's going, I know vaguely what happens next, and I know how it ends. Thematically, it overlaps with a few of my other projects, and is in many ways extremely typical of everything else I do, but I think it's tangential enough to be interesting in its own right. I haven't decided what I'm going to do with it once it's finished.
Either way, it's been a fun experience. I recently read out the first chapter to a group of people I hardly know and the response was positive, which is a good sign. For an idea that I always thought would never have enough to it to do anything with, so far it's turning out pretty well. We'll just have to wait and see for the rest.
It makes me laugh.
It's not that bad, though. At various points before November began, I'd decided that I just wasn't going to bother at all. And it's more than I usually manage.
Marto was a god.
He checked himself in the mirror. Tight black t-shirt and black leather pants with armoured knees; fingerless leather gloves and black combat boots with half a dozen straps and buckles each. Motorcycle goggles pulled back his hair, a greening brown, in a flattened sheath of porcupine-like spines. Marto grinned.
'Not bad,' he said. 'Not bad at all.'
The premiss for the story, Marto the God, was based on an idea I've had knocking around for ages about doing something from a god's point of view. Somewhere along the line I decided to place him in a contemporary setting, and soon the idea became one of a young, arrogant god who was very aware of his godly nature but still discovering his powers. It developed beyond that in various cool ways, but I won't go into that here.
Rotating his attention back to the door, Marto glanced at the doormen each in turn, grasped the handle and stepped smartly across the threshold. He strolled along through a corridor and took a second door to the left, which gave way to a dingy little living room.
'There is no spoon,' said a voice. Marto looked around and spotted a young boy sat motionless in one shadowy corner. He looked like a bald Buddhist monk in miniature, nestled in draping orange robes.
Marto viewed him with lofty condescension and replied, 'I am the spoon,' before walking through to the kitchen.
For all the horrific largeness of the target word count, writing Marto was a lot like writing the old boardfics. I'd start off with very little idea about where I was going with it, much like all my other stories, but the time limit meant that I had to be much more off-the-cuff with it. I don't get to plot as elaborately as I do with the serials, and having to burn through ideas at a superfast rate just to keep it going is both exhilirating and infuriating. It was two weeks for SciBoard Resurrection, and I managed about the same for Marto before it flatlines where the uni essays hit.
Marto took a biscuit.
'Biscuits are the way,' said Mrs Wise, as if reciting a mantra.
But Marto did not eat the biscuit. He clutched it stubbornly as Mrs Wise took the tin away and went to sit back down. Why, he thought, should he be forced to do such trivial things? Why should he have to eat a biscuit that he did not want? He was made for more than biscuits.
Frankly, it wouldn't have stretched to 50,000 words anyway. But I'm not finished with it just yet. I like where it's going, I know vaguely what happens next, and I know how it ends. Thematically, it overlaps with a few of my other projects, and is in many ways extremely typical of everything else I do, but I think it's tangential enough to be interesting in its own right. I haven't decided what I'm going to do with it once it's finished.
Either way, it's been a fun experience. I recently read out the first chapter to a group of people I hardly know and the response was positive, which is a good sign. For an idea that I always thought would never have enough to it to do anything with, so far it's turning out pretty well. We'll just have to wait and see for the rest.
Labels: boardfic, marto the god, nanowrimo
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Beans
CoA Chapter 6
I wonder if anyone remembers Beans from last year's trailer. Probably not.
In the dark and grim history of all things FMIT, beans have a somewhat ominous presence, having worked their way into the depths of my very consciousness and my every MSN conversation, etc, etc, and through their mischief caused incredible trouble and wonderful things also.
For example: did you know that a text message with the single word 'beans' triggered a set of events that would provide the basis for Jesnails Returns? Just ask Holly. She was so happy about it.
Mind you, everything to do with Jesnails and Chrisbot has such ridiculous origins that it could make you cry. But this is all Ella's fault. For she is Ella, and crazy. Crazier than me (she'll try to deny it, but that's just because she's crazy).
CoA Chapter 6 is full of nods to various things and people. Sometimes I can't help it. But, whateverbeans.
I wonder if anyone remembers Beans from last year's trailer. Probably not.
In the dark and grim history of all things FMIT, beans have a somewhat ominous presence, having worked their way into the depths of my very consciousness and my every MSN conversation, etc, etc, and through their mischief caused incredible trouble and wonderful things also.
For example: did you know that a text message with the single word 'beans' triggered a set of events that would provide the basis for Jesnails Returns? Just ask Holly. She was so happy about it.
Mind you, everything to do with Jesnails and Chrisbot has such ridiculous origins that it could make you cry. But this is all Ella's fault. For she is Ella, and crazy. Crazier than me (she'll try to deny it, but that's just because she's crazy).
CoA Chapter 6 is full of nods to various things and people. Sometimes I can't help it. But, whateverbeans.
Labels: boardfic, city of anarchy, jesnails, starcustard
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Press Release
So here am I, the shameless showman of the Fat Man In Tweed circus, announcing that the approximate third of 2006 remaining will be the most spectacular, most epic and most shocking yet witnessed by the two or three people who visit this website.
I'm excited. But then, it's a great excuse not to do any work.
But seriously. Dudes. Dudes. Get some loud and dramatic music of your choice playing, because lots of pretty major stuff is going to be happening. And at the end of December, 2006 will end like 2006 has never ended before. Just you wait.
So we should really kick things off. And to do so: a shiny new story.
On May 20th, a strange message appeared on the Fat Man In Tweed mainpage. Those with great astuteness and several nudgings in the right direction stumbled across this, a curious, ambiguous entry filled with clues to... something.
A month later a poster appeared, which was met with universal dumbfoundment.
Now let ye riddles be solved.
May I reintroduce to you: Jesnails.
Brought to you in a stylishly last-minute sort of way. Unfortunately, due to an unaccountable malfunction in time, only the prologue is going up tonight, but the first proper installment will be online very shortly (in two parts, because it's quite a bit bigger than we anticipated). We still met our deadline!
For those interested in a little bit of background, Jesnails first appeared at the end of 2005 as the result of some of the many bizarre conversations I have with friend Ella Turnbull. These led to Jesnails Returns, a Christmas story in which a strange, pseudomessianic figure appears, an individual with big hair and a passion for disco who is seen as a threat to the uncomfortable and rather inert dictatorship that currently has the somewhat indifferent population of the world in its grasp. Chaos ensues, with mercenary fake Santas, televangelists, drunken babies, psychotic judges, shotguns in teapots and lots and lots of beans all heading full-force into an explosive finale.
Jesnails made a surprise reappearance in April, in the last boardfic I did, SciBoard Resurrection, called on by the ultimately treacherous Mayor Electric to deal with the city's zombie infestation. A good portion of the city is destroyed towards the end when a giant stage and huge loudspeakers rise up from the ground and demolish the surrounding area, as Jesnails attempts to purge the city of its undead through the power of disco. She later inadvertently discovers the zombie's lair, in which her afrolights provide light for the others, and helps defeat the archzombie Zomborr by throwing a crucifix at him and knocking him off his high platform. Shortly after, she disappears.
And now she's back again, this time having earned the prestigious honour of being a main Fat Man In Tweed feature. This should probably be considered independant of her previous appearances, as her previous appearances were of each other, mostly for the sake of your own sanity.
But just what would happen if Jesnails was in possession of a time machine? We shall show you! Oh verily yes, we shall.
P.S. City of Anarchy will return in 2007.
I'm excited. But then, it's a great excuse not to do any work.
But seriously. Dudes. Dudes. Get some loud and dramatic music of your choice playing, because lots of pretty major stuff is going to be happening. And at the end of December, 2006 will end like 2006 has never ended before. Just you wait.
So we should really kick things off. And to do so: a shiny new story.
On May 20th, a strange message appeared on the Fat Man In Tweed mainpage. Those with great astuteness and several nudgings in the right direction stumbled across this, a curious, ambiguous entry filled with clues to... something.
A month later a poster appeared, which was met with universal dumbfoundment.
Now let ye riddles be solved.
May I reintroduce to you: Jesnails.
Brought to you in a stylishly last-minute sort of way. Unfortunately, due to an unaccountable malfunction in time, only the prologue is going up tonight, but the first proper installment will be online very shortly (in two parts, because it's quite a bit bigger than we anticipated). We still met our deadline!
For those interested in a little bit of background, Jesnails first appeared at the end of 2005 as the result of some of the many bizarre conversations I have with friend Ella Turnbull. These led to Jesnails Returns, a Christmas story in which a strange, pseudomessianic figure appears, an individual with big hair and a passion for disco who is seen as a threat to the uncomfortable and rather inert dictatorship that currently has the somewhat indifferent population of the world in its grasp. Chaos ensues, with mercenary fake Santas, televangelists, drunken babies, psychotic judges, shotguns in teapots and lots and lots of beans all heading full-force into an explosive finale.
Jesnails made a surprise reappearance in April, in the last boardfic I did, SciBoard Resurrection, called on by the ultimately treacherous Mayor Electric to deal with the city's zombie infestation. A good portion of the city is destroyed towards the end when a giant stage and huge loudspeakers rise up from the ground and demolish the surrounding area, as Jesnails attempts to purge the city of its undead through the power of disco. She later inadvertently discovers the zombie's lair, in which her afrolights provide light for the others, and helps defeat the archzombie Zomborr by throwing a crucifix at him and knocking him off his high platform. Shortly after, she disappears.
And now she's back again, this time having earned the prestigious honour of being a main Fat Man In Tweed feature. This should probably be considered independant of her previous appearances, as her previous appearances were of each other, mostly for the sake of your own sanity.
But just what would happen if Jesnails was in possession of a time machine? We shall show you! Oh verily yes, we shall.
P.S. City of Anarchy will return in 2007.
Labels: boardfic, city of anarchy, jesnails
Friday, July 21, 2006
Freakshow
So, dragons.
Dragons like to do everything on a grand scale. Flamboyant, ambitious and perhaps a tad egotistical, they love to be the centre of attention. Or so it is according to the Chinese zodiac.
One day I'm going to create my own zodiac, probably, and those born on the exact date and the exact time as myself, with the same name and characteristics, will be the great ones. But for now, I'll stick with what we have, and with that, I'm probably more in line with my supposed Western sign, Scorpio.
But I noticed an interesting thing about dragons.
And, inevitably, it's to do with writing.
To come from a seemingly total otherdirection: why do I write?
No...that's too big a question for just yet. How do I write? Cinematically. This is something I've realised quite recently, especially during the bigger, more action-orientated events in a story. Even if it doesn't always turn out that way in the end, the approach is cinematic. I get an image in my mind's eye, sometimes a very specific image, literally looked at from a certain angle, and I try to put it into words. In City of Anarchy, there's Hermes being launched into the sky as a building explodes underneath him, for example; Chimaera in SciBoard Fiction forcing the snout of the shotgun into the top of the alien's head and firing; or vehicles being hurled into the air and thrown into buildings as the fat men in tweed pursue the Mini Cooper down the street in The Aberration.
But why do I write like this? To impress? To turn to the audience and go, 'Look what insane and spectacular stuff I can make happen!'
I think I'm guilty of this even more than I realise. I do tend, I'll admit, to get a bit carried away. When I first posted City of Anarchy I had people going 'Is this story going to give me nightmares?', and while I was staging a zombie versus pirate fight in SciBoard Resurrection, the climax of which was a hundred barrels of gunpowder and rum igniting and tearing the pirate ship apart, I was too busy having altogether too much fun with it to realise how over-the-top it was, and ended up having someone commenting, accompanied by a shocked-looking smiley, 'My dear God. Not afraid of spectacle, are you?'
So is that all it is? Spectacle? Am I some sort of literary showman, with trailers and posters and general enthusiasm, trying to gather an audience to witness this showcase, this freakshow, that I have brought before the public?
It's that dragon thing, in a way. Eccentricity and flamboyancy. Showing off. Being the centre of attention, which all writers love to be, even though some might pretend otherwise.
But then, while I'd be lying if I said I didn't take some delight in people responding with pop-eyed smilies when I present the absurd, the dark or the unusual, entertaining other people is actually a very small part of it. It's much more selfish than that. I do it to entertain myself.
Picture, if you will, a dark and eerily-lit laboratory. Its centrepiece is a large slab, upon which lies a dormant creature of freakish qualities; and somewhere to the right is I, the mad but nevertheless genius scientist, cackling maniacally and bringing down a giant lever with all my force. Impressive lightning effects ensue, and the monster becomes alive. I shriek with glee at that which I have created.
Enthusiasm, sometimes demented, is needed to bring ideas to life, whether it's being curious about or taking interest in some line of thought or image, or throwing yourself full-force into a concept or hypothetical world, either way exploring it and seeing what interesting things you can find.
This is why I write. This is what I love about writing. It can be figuring out a way of telling or presenting a story, through the way I use language and the way I construct different scenes and situations, or it can be examining what-if scenarios: what if there was a universe with giant slugs that wore wigs and slippers? What would happen if such an aspect of history was changed in this way? Fat men in tweed as seemingly inhuman, terrifying monsters...weird, eh?
Entertainment. Imagination. Perspective. Causality, history, humanity.
Exploring, experimenting, seeing what happens. Making something good out of it, and making something interesting.
Dragons like to do everything on a grand scale. Flamboyant, ambitious and perhaps a tad egotistical, they love to be the centre of attention. Or so it is according to the Chinese zodiac.
One day I'm going to create my own zodiac, probably, and those born on the exact date and the exact time as myself, with the same name and characteristics, will be the great ones. But for now, I'll stick with what we have, and with that, I'm probably more in line with my supposed Western sign, Scorpio.
But I noticed an interesting thing about dragons.
And, inevitably, it's to do with writing.
To come from a seemingly total otherdirection: why do I write?
No...that's too big a question for just yet. How do I write? Cinematically. This is something I've realised quite recently, especially during the bigger, more action-orientated events in a story. Even if it doesn't always turn out that way in the end, the approach is cinematic. I get an image in my mind's eye, sometimes a very specific image, literally looked at from a certain angle, and I try to put it into words. In City of Anarchy, there's Hermes being launched into the sky as a building explodes underneath him, for example; Chimaera in SciBoard Fiction forcing the snout of the shotgun into the top of the alien's head and firing; or vehicles being hurled into the air and thrown into buildings as the fat men in tweed pursue the Mini Cooper down the street in The Aberration.
But why do I write like this? To impress? To turn to the audience and go, 'Look what insane and spectacular stuff I can make happen!'
'Woah,' said the detective.
I think I'm guilty of this even more than I realise. I do tend, I'll admit, to get a bit carried away. When I first posted City of Anarchy I had people going 'Is this story going to give me nightmares?', and while I was staging a zombie versus pirate fight in SciBoard Resurrection, the climax of which was a hundred barrels of gunpowder and rum igniting and tearing the pirate ship apart, I was too busy having altogether too much fun with it to realise how over-the-top it was, and ended up having someone commenting, accompanied by a shocked-looking smiley, 'My dear God. Not afraid of spectacle, are you?'
So is that all it is? Spectacle? Am I some sort of literary showman, with trailers and posters and general enthusiasm, trying to gather an audience to witness this showcase, this freakshow, that I have brought before the public?
It's that dragon thing, in a way. Eccentricity and flamboyancy. Showing off. Being the centre of attention, which all writers love to be, even though some might pretend otherwise.
But then, while I'd be lying if I said I didn't take some delight in people responding with pop-eyed smilies when I present the absurd, the dark or the unusual, entertaining other people is actually a very small part of it. It's much more selfish than that. I do it to entertain myself.
Picture, if you will, a dark and eerily-lit laboratory. Its centrepiece is a large slab, upon which lies a dormant creature of freakish qualities; and somewhere to the right is I, the mad but nevertheless genius scientist, cackling maniacally and bringing down a giant lever with all my force. Impressive lightning effects ensue, and the monster becomes alive. I shriek with glee at that which I have created.
Enthusiasm, sometimes demented, is needed to bring ideas to life, whether it's being curious about or taking interest in some line of thought or image, or throwing yourself full-force into a concept or hypothetical world, either way exploring it and seeing what interesting things you can find.
This is why I write. This is what I love about writing. It can be figuring out a way of telling or presenting a story, through the way I use language and the way I construct different scenes and situations, or it can be examining what-if scenarios: what if there was a universe with giant slugs that wore wigs and slippers? What would happen if such an aspect of history was changed in this way? Fat men in tweed as seemingly inhuman, terrifying monsters...weird, eh?
Entertainment. Imagination. Perspective. Causality, history, humanity.
Exploring, experimenting, seeing what happens. Making something good out of it, and making something interesting.
Labels: boardfic, city of anarchy, excerpts, fat men in tweed, i am the ramblemaster, starcustard, the aberration
Monday, May 01, 2006
Mayday
So, after two weeks of intense writing, then a week of nothing as school hit, yesterday the belated SciBoard Resurrection finale was posted. There are some characters I didn't manage to get in when I would have liked to because of changes I made, but overall I'm happy with it.
It was fun returning to some of the old characters, like the Plaid One and the drag queens, as well as thinking up new ones, like Ambassador Hsing and Cyn. Of course, so many people who featured in the old one have moved on since it ended, so there were a lot of characters who were simply cut out for Resurrection, and this made it quite different to the original in many ways. The entire Underworld was removed, for example, and their function replaced by a small special ops team.
But I think it was still very much SciBoard, even if it's impossible to call it a direct sequel and even though there were both major and minor differences, and once again the world has been faced with its end and a group of oddball characters with strange quirks and unusual motives have found themselves having to sort it out.
As my final boardfic, I think I've ended the whole thing on a good note.
It was fun returning to some of the old characters, like the Plaid One and the drag queens, as well as thinking up new ones, like Ambassador Hsing and Cyn. Of course, so many people who featured in the old one have moved on since it ended, so there were a lot of characters who were simply cut out for Resurrection, and this made it quite different to the original in many ways. The entire Underworld was removed, for example, and their function replaced by a small special ops team.
But I think it was still very much SciBoard, even if it's impossible to call it a direct sequel and even though there were both major and minor differences, and once again the world has been faced with its end and a group of oddball characters with strange quirks and unusual motives have found themselves having to sort it out.
As my final boardfic, I think I've ended the whole thing on a good note.
Labels: boardfic, jesnails, zombies
Monday, April 10, 2006
Boardfic
So.
In the past few years, most writing I've done for online viewing has been for the various websites I've worked on, ultimately leading up to FMIT. But for almost as long, there's been another side to the whole thing. Namely, boardfic.
'Boardfic' was the name given by a small online community to fictional stories, usually humorous ones, about the members. I like writing them because they don't have the same demand as the stuff I put up on FMIT (they're usually consciously bad quality, a bit like Bananas and Laxatives was), because I get to make even less sense than I do in other writing, and because, selfishly, I get a kick out of the response, which is generally bemused but positive (I think). It's partly boardfic's fault that the progress of other projects has been so slow.
The community itself started out as the weird outcome of an unmoderated message board for the works of Terry Pratchett, based on the publisher's site (it moved about a year ago after disruptive troll activity). Whereas most message boards aimed at fans of something will have endless amounts of discussion and jokes about whatever it is the message board was actually intended for, the members of this one, probably due to the lack of moderators, didn't really talk about Pratchett all that much. The off-topic section, misleadingly titled 'Discworld Novels', was the biggest forum, and the others were pretty much inactive.
A funny kind of unserious microsociety had sprouted based on copious in-jokes that had nothing to do with Pratchett, and boardfics were a result of that. It probably deflected a lot of people visiting to the site, but apparently it wasn't a bad place for people like me who were casual fans (and I've met quite a few good friends there, who I still talk to even if they've moved on). To all intents and purposes, it was (and still is) pretty...well, pointless. A community for people who liked Pratchett but didn't really want to keep talking about him. I know I wouldn't have stuck around for more than a week if it was what it was supposed to be, having come across it by idly looking around at Pratchett-related stuff one day. After moving to a new place to escape the trolls, it's still advertised as a Terry Pratchett message board, but we couldn't really have made it anything else ('Sort Of Terry Pratchett But Not Really' somehow wouldn't have worked).
I've written a few boardfics. The first, Festive Destruction, was a short Christmas one in 2003 with practically no plot at all; the second one, The April Fools was a slightly longer Easter-themed sequel with slightly more plot (posted towards the end of a period of a few months where half the front page was occupied by boardfics, mostly direct, board-based parodies of books and other stuff). The most recent was Jesnails Returns, written with Ella Turnbull at the end of last year. City of Anarchy also started out as a boardfic, until I decided I had bigger plans for it.
But the biggest boardfic I've done, started only a week after The April Fools, and the longest running (April 2004 to February 2005), was SciBoard Fiction. SBF contained anything and everything.
The first 'episode' was about a man auditioning for a musical (of someone else's boardfic) at the Big Theatre and ending up as the third member of a group of cannibalistic drag queen henchmen.
The second episode followed the story of the Plaid One, a superhero whose very existence is challenged by the arrival of another superhero who is slightly better at the job and an evil goat she foolishly saved from the slopes of a volcano just before it errupted (completely missing the small village at its base).
The third episode was the SBF version of how two members of the board became a couple (although it never actually got that far), one an unsuccessful mime artist and the other a grammar obsessive, who ended up meeting each other through trying to destroy a tapestry that could tell the future, which had been set up in an extension of space-time on the stage of the Big Theatre (it was called the 'Tripod Tapestry', named after a board-based webcomic that had been started).
The fourth chronicled the events leading up to and following an alien invasion, with the shady Underworld and the 'World Above' having to team up to fight them off. It culminated in an insane Christmas Day finale with the protagonist Chimaera and several other characters (including the Plaid One, who had just woken up from a coma she fell into at the end of Episode 2) trying to destroy the impregnated 'mother' alien who was firing her offspring out like ammunition whilst sat in the Queen of the Underworld's throne. The Big Theatre was even blown up at the end.
The fifth and final episode followed the desperate conquest of a mix-and-match of surviving characters from previous episodes trying to stop the world from ending, which was happening because so much weird shit had gone on with the superheros and the tapestry and the aliens and stuff. The climax was with the characters interacting with Ba, a supernatural, 'god'-like presence, through a giant, ethereal BaMessenger™ window (an instant messaging service that had appeared throughout SBF, from the mysterious opening scene in the first episode to acting as means of aid and information to characters from others during the course of their adventures).
It was filled with references to the most obscure things as well as numerous board in-jokes and any strange and spare idea I had. And now, for a short, one-off episode, it's back. Some old SBF themes are continued, but it's a standalone story, not a proper sequel, and also less heavy on the in-jokes, so you should be able to follow it without getting too confused. Hopefully.
So...
Just for Easter, here's one final tip of the hat to this strange and unusual genre. SciBoard Resurrection. Enjoy.
Edit: link updated.
In the past few years, most writing I've done for online viewing has been for the various websites I've worked on, ultimately leading up to FMIT. But for almost as long, there's been another side to the whole thing. Namely, boardfic.
'Boardfic' was the name given by a small online community to fictional stories, usually humorous ones, about the members. I like writing them because they don't have the same demand as the stuff I put up on FMIT (they're usually consciously bad quality, a bit like Bananas and Laxatives was), because I get to make even less sense than I do in other writing, and because, selfishly, I get a kick out of the response, which is generally bemused but positive (I think). It's partly boardfic's fault that the progress of other projects has been so slow.
The community itself started out as the weird outcome of an unmoderated message board for the works of Terry Pratchett, based on the publisher's site (it moved about a year ago after disruptive troll activity). Whereas most message boards aimed at fans of something will have endless amounts of discussion and jokes about whatever it is the message board was actually intended for, the members of this one, probably due to the lack of moderators, didn't really talk about Pratchett all that much. The off-topic section, misleadingly titled 'Discworld Novels', was the biggest forum, and the others were pretty much inactive.
A funny kind of unserious microsociety had sprouted based on copious in-jokes that had nothing to do with Pratchett, and boardfics were a result of that. It probably deflected a lot of people visiting to the site, but apparently it wasn't a bad place for people like me who were casual fans (and I've met quite a few good friends there, who I still talk to even if they've moved on). To all intents and purposes, it was (and still is) pretty...well, pointless. A community for people who liked Pratchett but didn't really want to keep talking about him. I know I wouldn't have stuck around for more than a week if it was what it was supposed to be, having come across it by idly looking around at Pratchett-related stuff one day. After moving to a new place to escape the trolls, it's still advertised as a Terry Pratchett message board, but we couldn't really have made it anything else ('Sort Of Terry Pratchett But Not Really' somehow wouldn't have worked).
I've written a few boardfics. The first, Festive Destruction, was a short Christmas one in 2003 with practically no plot at all; the second one, The April Fools was a slightly longer Easter-themed sequel with slightly more plot (posted towards the end of a period of a few months where half the front page was occupied by boardfics, mostly direct, board-based parodies of books and other stuff). The most recent was Jesnails Returns, written with Ella Turnbull at the end of last year. City of Anarchy also started out as a boardfic, until I decided I had bigger plans for it.
But the biggest boardfic I've done, started only a week after The April Fools, and the longest running (April 2004 to February 2005), was SciBoard Fiction. SBF contained anything and everything.
The first 'episode' was about a man auditioning for a musical (of someone else's boardfic) at the Big Theatre and ending up as the third member of a group of cannibalistic drag queen henchmen.
The second episode followed the story of the Plaid One, a superhero whose very existence is challenged by the arrival of another superhero who is slightly better at the job and an evil goat she foolishly saved from the slopes of a volcano just before it errupted (completely missing the small village at its base).
The third episode was the SBF version of how two members of the board became a couple (although it never actually got that far), one an unsuccessful mime artist and the other a grammar obsessive, who ended up meeting each other through trying to destroy a tapestry that could tell the future, which had been set up in an extension of space-time on the stage of the Big Theatre (it was called the 'Tripod Tapestry', named after a board-based webcomic that had been started).
The fourth chronicled the events leading up to and following an alien invasion, with the shady Underworld and the 'World Above' having to team up to fight them off. It culminated in an insane Christmas Day finale with the protagonist Chimaera and several other characters (including the Plaid One, who had just woken up from a coma she fell into at the end of Episode 2) trying to destroy the impregnated 'mother' alien who was firing her offspring out like ammunition whilst sat in the Queen of the Underworld's throne. The Big Theatre was even blown up at the end.
The fifth and final episode followed the desperate conquest of a mix-and-match of surviving characters from previous episodes trying to stop the world from ending, which was happening because so much weird shit had gone on with the superheros and the tapestry and the aliens and stuff. The climax was with the characters interacting with Ba, a supernatural, 'god'-like presence, through a giant, ethereal BaMessenger™ window (an instant messaging service that had appeared throughout SBF, from the mysterious opening scene in the first episode to acting as means of aid and information to characters from others during the course of their adventures).
It was filled with references to the most obscure things as well as numerous board in-jokes and any strange and spare idea I had. And now, for a short, one-off episode, it's back. Some old SBF themes are continued, but it's a standalone story, not a proper sequel, and also less heavy on the in-jokes, so you should be able to follow it without getting too confused. Hopefully.
So...
Just for Easter, here's one final tip of the hat to this strange and unusual genre. SciBoard Resurrection. Enjoy.
Edit: link updated.
Labels: boardfic, i am the ramblemaster, jesnails, zombies
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Teaser Extended
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
City of Anarchy Chapter 2: A&E
Yeah, I'd rushed it the first time round and decided I want to make it a little better.
Includes EXTENDED CHAINSAW SCENE AND MORE!
(Although not much more.)
Here be City of Anarchy Chapter 2: Ammended & Extended.
Includes EXTENDED CHAINSAW SCENE AND MORE!
(Although not much more.)
Here be City of Anarchy Chapter 2: Ammended & Extended.
Labels: boardfic, city of anarchy
Monday, September 12, 2005
Freefall
In English class today, we were asked what we thought was more important when it came to creating a good story: writing from experience, or what the teacher called 'freefall imagination'.
I think 'freefall imagination' certainly describes my personal style of writing better. When the teacher was trying to explain what she meant, she told us that science fiction books with their huge concepts and ideas would be an example of where freefall imagination was prominent. I guess it's science fiction of sorts that I write, but I don't think it's just that which makes it so freefall. I love completely crazy and insane concepts, especially when I can just about pull them off and still make an enjoyable story that's not too confusing. I like to create worlds and chains of events that are almost always on the brink of chaos, and I want the reader to feel like they've been grabbed by the collar and pulled in after me, to enjoy the plummet and to hit the end at full speed having not been able to stop, to take a moment to recover and think about what just happened, and then to say, 'Woah...'. Whether or not I'm actually successful at this is another matter. This is, though, definitely what I aim for.
The main argument for writing from experience being more important would probably be because it helps make your story more believable, and it can help give your characters depth. Freefall imagination is definitely what's needed when it comes to spaceslugs and cannibal drag queens, but maybe the crazy ideas I have for characters are based upon certain traits I've seen in people I've met in real life. There's no way you can create a truly interesting character with more than two dimensions without basing them on something you've encountered in a person you've met, seen or heard, even if the character has these aspects greatly exaggerated. And a good story does need interesting characters. The same goes with how believable situations you put your characters in are. And if you're going to give your story some moral or philosophical message... well, you're going to have to have lived your life and arrived at them yourself before you start dishing them out.
I think it depends on what kind of story you're writing. In my case, freefall imagination is extremely important, but I think writing from experience is equally as important, especially as I try to include a lot of humour, a lot of which comes from characters, as well as amusing concepts.
The life experience versus freefall can apply to other things, too. Like art (I've just been talking about it to Holly, and her art is definitely freefall).
Which would you say is more important for you?
I think 'freefall imagination' certainly describes my personal style of writing better. When the teacher was trying to explain what she meant, she told us that science fiction books with their huge concepts and ideas would be an example of where freefall imagination was prominent. I guess it's science fiction of sorts that I write, but I don't think it's just that which makes it so freefall. I love completely crazy and insane concepts, especially when I can just about pull them off and still make an enjoyable story that's not too confusing. I like to create worlds and chains of events that are almost always on the brink of chaos, and I want the reader to feel like they've been grabbed by the collar and pulled in after me, to enjoy the plummet and to hit the end at full speed having not been able to stop, to take a moment to recover and think about what just happened, and then to say, 'Woah...'. Whether or not I'm actually successful at this is another matter. This is, though, definitely what I aim for.
The main argument for writing from experience being more important would probably be because it helps make your story more believable, and it can help give your characters depth. Freefall imagination is definitely what's needed when it comes to spaceslugs and cannibal drag queens, but maybe the crazy ideas I have for characters are based upon certain traits I've seen in people I've met in real life. There's no way you can create a truly interesting character with more than two dimensions without basing them on something you've encountered in a person you've met, seen or heard, even if the character has these aspects greatly exaggerated. And a good story does need interesting characters. The same goes with how believable situations you put your characters in are. And if you're going to give your story some moral or philosophical message... well, you're going to have to have lived your life and arrived at them yourself before you start dishing them out.
I think it depends on what kind of story you're writing. In my case, freefall imagination is extremely important, but I think writing from experience is equally as important, especially as I try to include a lot of humour, a lot of which comes from characters, as well as amusing concepts.
The life experience versus freefall can apply to other things, too. Like art (I've just been talking about it to Holly, and her art is definitely freefall).
Which would you say is more important for you?
Labels: boardfic, starcustard
Sunday, August 28, 2005
Regeneration
I've tried to avoid going into things like this on this blog, but because there might be readers who are wondering why I keep changing my mind about it, I think I need to give some sort of an explanation.
I'm going to continue writing City of Anarchy. Two reasons for this:
(1) I had decided to give up on it because the community it's based on was falling apart and things had become very ugly for various reasons. I hadn't planned on going back because I was fed up of it all. Above all, I was angry with some people, and I still do disagree with a lot of things that were said and the way a lot of things were handled, but that doesn't matter now. I'd also decided that there was no point in me being there because there was nothing keeping me there. I wasn't enjoying it, and hadn't been particularly interested in anything that was going on for some time. I also wasn't too keen on being there for the dozen 'how to make it a better place' threads that I expected to follow, which always went around in circles in the end, because it was an unmoderrated board (the publishers that own it abandoned it years ago), and nothing the community decided on could really be enforced properly.
But I realise now that my exit was more a heat-of-the-moment thing than anything. I underestimated them. Not only have they recovered, but it's now better than ever. Everything's under control so it won't ever get out of hand like it did again. Ironically, I was originally against having moderators because an unmoderrated board had its advantages, but they've sorted it out so we're not restricted as you usually are with moderators, and so far it's working. I'm reminded of what it was that made me stick around there in the first place. Maybe a change or a fresh start was what was needed. I resolved to abandon it forever and only lasted a few weeks. Go me.
(2) After I started to have some initial ideas for City of Anarchy, it very rapidly grew and grew with all the different concepts, ideas and jokes, and in a surprisingly short amount of time, I had the main frame and a lot of the content planned out. As egotistic as it sounds, I really like a lot of the ideas I came up with for it that couldn't really be used as effectively if I tried to include it in something else, and I'm proud of the story as a whole and how it all fits together, and even when I planned never to return to that community, I couldn't help feeling that it was a shame that I was just abandoning it. I considered continuing to write it without basing it on the community, but I knew it wouldn't work as well. Although I know now that other projects like The Aberration are going to end up being slightly pushed aside like they were when I first started it, I'm sort of relieved I can now continue writing it like I was doing. I think more than anything it's because with other projects (like TA, where it's taken a year and a half to finally decide on a plot), I don't really have much of an idea where the story is headed, but City of Anarchy is one of those rare occasions where I do.
I'm going to continue writing City of Anarchy. Two reasons for this:
(1) I had decided to give up on it because the community it's based on was falling apart and things had become very ugly for various reasons. I hadn't planned on going back because I was fed up of it all. Above all, I was angry with some people, and I still do disagree with a lot of things that were said and the way a lot of things were handled, but that doesn't matter now. I'd also decided that there was no point in me being there because there was nothing keeping me there. I wasn't enjoying it, and hadn't been particularly interested in anything that was going on for some time. I also wasn't too keen on being there for the dozen 'how to make it a better place' threads that I expected to follow, which always went around in circles in the end, because it was an unmoderrated board (the publishers that own it abandoned it years ago), and nothing the community decided on could really be enforced properly.
But I realise now that my exit was more a heat-of-the-moment thing than anything. I underestimated them. Not only have they recovered, but it's now better than ever. Everything's under control so it won't ever get out of hand like it did again. Ironically, I was originally against having moderators because an unmoderrated board had its advantages, but they've sorted it out so we're not restricted as you usually are with moderators, and so far it's working. I'm reminded of what it was that made me stick around there in the first place. Maybe a change or a fresh start was what was needed. I resolved to abandon it forever and only lasted a few weeks. Go me.
(2) After I started to have some initial ideas for City of Anarchy, it very rapidly grew and grew with all the different concepts, ideas and jokes, and in a surprisingly short amount of time, I had the main frame and a lot of the content planned out. As egotistic as it sounds, I really like a lot of the ideas I came up with for it that couldn't really be used as effectively if I tried to include it in something else, and I'm proud of the story as a whole and how it all fits together, and even when I planned never to return to that community, I couldn't help feeling that it was a shame that I was just abandoning it. I considered continuing to write it without basing it on the community, but I knew it wouldn't work as well. Although I know now that other projects like The Aberration are going to end up being slightly pushed aside like they were when I first started it, I'm sort of relieved I can now continue writing it like I was doing. I think more than anything it's because with other projects (like TA, where it's taken a year and a half to finally decide on a plot), I don't really have much of an idea where the story is headed, but City of Anarchy is one of those rare occasions where I do.
Labels: boardfic, city of anarchy
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
Sunday, May 29, 2005
54 Minutes of Starcustard
Starcustard Chapter 4 is nearing the point that's somewhere near completion. I need to write one final bit, which can probably be done sometime this week, and then a quick proofread (because we've done some of that already) before we decide what music we want to feature in this chapter.
Speaking of which, I made an album with all the tracks from Chapters One, Two and Three, which is just over 54 minutes long. I didn't realise how strange our choices had been in places, and how varied some of the music is, but as a compilation, it all fits together strangely well.
Here's the tracklist (in order of appearance in the story):
I haven't really made much more progress with the TA rewrite yet, apart from a little bit on Phil's intro, but I have decided on a few things for Chapter 5.
I've also started writing another story that might end up on Fat Man, which will feature characters based on members of a message board I'm a regular on (or used to be until I had all these exams to deal with). This isn't the first one of these I've done (it's known as 'boardfic' there), but the others were a little too reliant on in-jokes to be put elsewhere, and this time around, a lot of usernames that are the names of characters of someone else's work will be changed to something else.
And this one's going to be a lot more KICK-ARSE than the previous ones I've written. YEAH!
So, priorities for this week (other than exam revision): write that last bit of Starcustard Chapter 4, and get some work done on The Aberration.
Speaking of which, I made an album with all the tracks from Chapters One, Two and Three, which is just over 54 minutes long. I didn't realise how strange our choices had been in places, and how varied some of the music is, but as a compilation, it all fits together strangely well.
Here's the tracklist (in order of appearance in the story):
Fleetwood Mac - Albatross
The Chemical Brothers - My Elastic Eye
The Chemical Brothers - Out of Control
Thin Lizzy - Jailbreak
Fuel - Falls On Me
Jeff Beck - Where Were You?
Blur - Ambulance
Stereophonics - I'm Alright (You Gotta Go There To Come Back)
Radiohead - Where I End and You Begin
The Flaming Lips - Slow Motion
Beethoven - Für Elise
The Ramones - Cretin Hop
Muse - Ruled By Secrecy
I haven't really made much more progress with the TA rewrite yet, apart from a little bit on Phil's intro, but I have decided on a few things for Chapter 5.
I've also started writing another story that might end up on Fat Man, which will feature characters based on members of a message board I'm a regular on (or used to be until I had all these exams to deal with). This isn't the first one of these I've done (it's known as 'boardfic' there), but the others were a little too reliant on in-jokes to be put elsewhere, and this time around, a lot of usernames that are the names of characters of someone else's work will be changed to something else.
And this one's going to be a lot more KICK-ARSE than the previous ones I've written. YEAH!
So, priorities for this week (other than exam revision): write that last bit of Starcustard Chapter 4, and get some work done on The Aberration.
Labels: boardfic, city of anarchy, starcustard, the aberration
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