the ramble dump
Monday, August 29, 2005
Quintilicious!
And so as we once again fall upon an odd-numbered chapter, it is my duty to begin it. And I shall. Today. Maybe.
Yep, Starcustard. Ye beware! the following contains spoilers for Chapter 4.
As Chapter 4 ended, the story began to split into several directions. Gen is on her way to Hepthazard where Gregarium and Tenua have to leave her with the doctor's friend Mel Marsh, because, as Gregarium said, 'I have important work to do some way from here. It's commission work. I'm afraid I can't take you with me.'
Meanwhile, the Captain, Andromed and the other slavekids have to decide what to do now that the two surviving slug-filled pods are on their way to get help from the Authorities, their attempt to stop them having failed.
Escaped from the chaos of Organza's ship, things calmed down a bit for Gen in Chapters 3 and 4. Chapter 5 is where the pace starts to pick up again.
Yep, Starcustard. Ye beware! the following contains spoilers for Chapter 4.
As Chapter 4 ended, the story began to split into several directions. Gen is on her way to Hepthazard where Gregarium and Tenua have to leave her with the doctor's friend Mel Marsh, because, as Gregarium said, 'I have important work to do some way from here. It's commission work. I'm afraid I can't take you with me.'
Meanwhile, the Captain, Andromed and the other slavekids have to decide what to do now that the two surviving slug-filled pods are on their way to get help from the Authorities, their attempt to stop them having failed.
Escaped from the chaos of Organza's ship, things calmed down a bit for Gen in Chapters 3 and 4. Chapter 5 is where the pace starts to pick up again.
Labels: 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
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
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Spacefish
It's finally here...
Now on the sparkly new temporary Starcustard blog: Chapter 4.
Enjoy.
Now on the sparkly new temporary Starcustard blog: Chapter 4.
Enjoy.
Labels: starcustard
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
