Tuesday, May 31, 2011

THIRTY DAYS

http://thirtydahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifysproject.com/?p=65

I could technically finish WMRR if I participated in this. The only problem is I can work exceptionally slow on personal work, even if I work on it all day. At least it would motivate me to try. I could also do short stories, but I don't know if I can come up with 30 original short stories...unless they were very, well, short. Well it's something to try for. Maybe I'll actually get some WMRR done.

Maybe I'll just watch the Supernatural seasons I got yesterday....

The world may never know.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Old vs. New

Been awhile since I made a post, so I thought I'd do something fun. I'm going to take snippets of WMRR from version 1 and the version I'm working on now and compare them. Looking at my old highschool material gave me a good laugh. It really is horrible. I don't know if I'm much better now than I was, but at least I see SOME improvement. All snippets are largely unedited, so sorry for any mistakes. I'm too antsy about looking over them now, especially the new, because then I'll start CHANGING EVERYTHING, and that won't be good for any progress I've managed to scrape out of this month (which isn't much).


Completion of CMD: 2006


Ash and the technicians worked non-stop for the rest of the evening and into the night. Dedrad and Grypt came by about three hours in, bearing coffee and painkillers. The coffee was for Ash, the painkillers were for the members working under his supervision. Ash downed the coffee and bullied Grypt into bringing him something stronger. The two stayed for until they got tired of the yelling. They had more than a lifetime’s worth of yelling from Ash, seeing as how he was their trainer. They decided to leave Ash alone to his work and went to join Dan, who was gaming, down the hall in computer room 113-A.

Four hours later the project was complete. Ash was incredibly tired after yelling non-stop, chucking clipboards at various people, and bringing about half the technicians in the room to tears. Supervising was hard work.

Jennifer presented the device they had worked so hard on, to Ash. He took it in his hands and studied it. It was small and compact, only being the size of his thumb. It did not look complicated or important, but it was the device that would give them a huge advantage in the war.

Completion of the CMD: 2011


Five hours and six empty coffee mugs later, the CMD reached its completion. Ash woke from a short nap to see Joey standing on the observation deck next to him. He held the same clipboard in his hands and looked down at Ash as if he were something nasty he had just stepped in. Without a word he handed him a memo and stepped off the deck onto the floor. Ash wiped the sleep from his eyes and sat up. He scanned the sheet before using the com next to him to page Dedrad. He chugged the cold dregs of his leftover coffee and followed Joey to where a small group of researchers were gathered.

As he approached he saw the team passing around and inspecting a small device. They looked pleased with their work. Ash slipped into the circle and watched as the small, metallic rectangle made its way slowly towards him. Jennifer was the last to look it over when she handed it to Ash. She placed it in his open hand, face was almost reverent. He was shocked at how light it was. He turned the thumb-sized box in his hands, examining the display on the front and the chip with two tiny prongs at the back. He passed it back to Jennifer. She turned it over and activated it. The device made no noise as it glowed with life.

Intro Jason: 2007


A knocking was heard at the door, followed by the soft click of a laptop screen being folded down. Jason Manila spun around in his chair to face the door. He stared at it for a moment, then rolled his eyes and stood up.

“Come innnnnnn,” he sung to the closed door.

The door opened to reveal a gorgeous girl with long black hair and grey eyes. She was holding a large coffee mug. Jason guessed that it was his latte. He narrowed his eyes.

“Hello General. I have your drink here sir,” she greeted, adding a fake cheer to her voice.

“What happened to latte man Miss Aimee? Did he fall down some forsaken pit, or has he forgotten how to cross the street and buy a coffee?”

“I’m sorry sir, Cody was called away on an urgent matter. I’m merely filling in for him.”

“Now what was this urgent matter I wonder? Going to tell me, or just stand there stupidly sniffing my coffee?”

Aimee’s face flushed, but she answered his question. “President Colorine requested him for sector duties sir. I am not clear on all of the details.”

Jason raised his eyebrows, and turned towards his desk. He motioned for her to enter, and tapped the desk with his finger.

“Just leave the latte right here Miss. You have duties to carry out now don’t you?”

Intro Jason: 2011

His drink was lukewarm. Again. The espresso machine on the fourth floor needed tending to. The damn appliance was brand new and though it used an old system of capsules, it should have been capable of making a hot cup of coffee. Jason tossed the last half of the drink down the sink, drops flying onto the tile backsplash. He discarded the little cup into the basket next to the sink, ignoring the nasty clink it made when it landed. Tired and annoyed he slumped into one of the chairs surrounding the common tables. Five home guard and three maintenance workers kept hm company in silence, trying to disregard his foul mood.

Fifteen minutes until he had to return to his rounds. He slumped over the table, head propped on one arm, as he tried to take an interest with the television hanging on the back wall of the room. Weather reports about the droughts and fires, government speeches concerning relations with the East and an opinion piece suggesting the Freets could be burned out of hiding, using the dry conditions to their advantage. It was followed by an ad about hair replacement with an over-the-top spokesman obviously wearing a wig. Nothing new, nothing interesting. Jason wished he had caffeine.



*EDIT - I fixed some of the typos and bad wording in the 2011 version of Jason's Intro

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Bad News

I've started what I like to call "scrolling". Commonly occurring in academic papers, scrolling is where a writer will scroll aimlessly through a document, scanning the words, but never really reading them. I did this for about ten minutes before I realized I hadn't written anything. I think I changed one word. I have two chapters started, but I can't think of how to progress. This is probably due to too much distraction. Just now I got into a conversation about Chuck Norris, the Simpsons and quotes about France and Italy. Also, I found two new webcomics to read:

http://syacartoonist.com/
http://www.phdcomics.com/

Both have been around for awhile, but do not cease to be amusing.

As for the writing....the battle rages.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Chapter 10

The chapter is done. Finished it up with some dialogue. I don't like the ending line, but it'll do for now. I need to double check that my logic...makes sense. Logic and I do not get along.

Current word count: 64,479

Would have posted this two days ago, but blogger felt it was a good time for maintenance. Working on chapter 11 now. Would have had more done last night, but I was focused on editing and making sure my video didn't explode. Took six hours to upload. That is ridiculous. I have been told that I need to make videos in a different way. Hopefully, this will reduce the size and upload time.

I need to learn how to write without so much dialogue.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Back

Figures. I come back from a holiday in worse shape than I left. Pulled muscles in my leg, cut my heel bad on a lava rock and my back is a wreck. Otherwise, I'm pretty rested. I'm ready to get back to editing and writing.

So I opened my WMRR document yesterday and realized I haven't touched it in about a month. That's no good. I have good starts to three chapters, which is both a plus and a negative. While I have a lot of it done, I lose the level of flow I might have had before. I'm planning on having these done in the next few weeks here so I can finally get to the official halfway mark (at least in my outline).

Had my end of the year interview for fiction writing. Came out of the course all right considering how busy I was this term and how difficult last term was being sick most of the time. I learned that I have great settings and scenarios, but need to work on tension, effect and impact. My prof called my work "timeless" in that it seems to exist out of any set time. It just runs in a loop. At any rate, I've got a lot to work on this summer. I also need to think of a novel I want to write for manuscript writing and start WRITING it. I could use WMRR, but I don't know if it would be accepted since it technically IS science fiction. The prof for the course does not want "genre fiction", though I'd like to think that WMRR is more about the characters rather than the genre.

Until I find a job, I'll be working on WMRR and editing pretty much full time. The editing will get me to the end of May/beginning of June. I also have to begin planning my Europe trip next year, finish my Dungeon Keeper video series and think about my next video series. I want to do Dead Space on hard (though I haven't finished it on normal yet), Dungeon Siege on Veteran (but I need to play through the game one more time for that), Fire Emblem (which I'm not sure will work well), Half Life on hard (already have some of this recorded, but I may start over) or Overlord (since I already started a walkthrough of that and never finished...). I also need to decide if I want to do text or voice commentary. People really seemed to like my test video of Dead Space with voice commentary. I think it'll depend on the game.

So though I don't have a job, I have tons to work on, which is nice because I can't handle sitting around and doing nothing. This is probably why I tried to do too much at the end of last term. Guess I better get cracking. Four months is not a long time.