Eight hundred blog entries! My target is always about 1000 words per entry, so I’ve come even close to that average, that’s… a whole lotta words. I could have written a whole fantasy epic novel sequence instead! But writing novels takes a hell of a lot more effort than… organising your thoughts on a subject into a coherent and structured narrative… … Uh… shhhhhhhh!
Continue reading “Blog 800: Don’t Be Fooled By the Blogs That I Got”Tag: writing
Blog 728: If I Wrote… C&C4: Tiberian Twilight
I was interested in C&C4: Tiberian Twilight, despite all the rumours of its horror. The core concept — trading standard base building and assault for a mobile super-vehicle — seemed quite interesting to me. For a man that favours the ultra-versatile solo operatives of RPGs and FPSes, the conceit had legs.
The game did not deliver anything of what I imagined; it is exactly as bad as everyone says. So instead of delving into that den of iniquity, let’s indulge instead in what it could have been, had somebody with dreams more like mine been at the helm…
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Blog 669: If I Wrote… Pacific Rim 2
There is little justice in this world. While Cloverfield, a dreadful film (let alone monster movie), has a sequel almost ready to drop, the much-desired sequel to one of the finest action-adventure films of recent years continues to stumble along in development hell. 2018, maybe? Harrumph.
But if they won’t give me Pacific Rim 2, then I’ll just have to dream my own version.
Blog 574: NaNoWriM… Oh.
Writing is hard. You’d think it’s easy, just a tumble of words, but it isn’t. Not really.
Maybe the restrictions I feel are all self-imposed. Either way, this is a post mortem.
Politics. Bureaucracy. Mismanagement… I’ve got some bad news. The mission
failed.
Blog 571: And Then I Go And Spoil It All…
… by doing something stupid like trying to write a novel in a month. Yeah!
It’s not going to end in tears, is it? Please, tell me it’s not going to end in tears. Ah, don’t worry, I know you can’t lie to me. It’s definitely going to end in tears.
November is National Novel Writing Month, apparently. Some people are going to be writing novels over the course of the month. For funzies. Totes.
http://nanowrimo.org/participants/rao-dao-zao
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Blog 564: Planning the Elusive Third Book
Did I mention I was writing a novel? Surely. I always forget to clarify, though — it’s actually a trilogy. Go hard or go home, and all that; RDZ never does things by half measures.
Creating the new super-refined plot outlines for When the Freedom Slips Away and This Wreckage has been mostly straightforward. To be fair, I have written three or four drafts of each over the years, so there is a lot of base material to draw from.
The difference with the cdoncluding third book, Shattered By Light, is that there has never even been one draft. It has always had an ending, and it briefly had an awkward beginning — but no middle, nothing remotely approaching a complete narrative. This is an issue that I am finally going to remedy.
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Blog 560: Brownscape: EnTwinement
So-called “Twines” are pretty fashionable these days. I still don’t know entirtely what they are (something something “interactive fiction”), but I intend to find out… using one of my less successful recent projects.
Blog 559: Get the Balance Write
It’s an age-old struggle I find myself in — where to strike the balance between a believable, internally consistent world, and a world that’s fun and interesting?
Everything a plot tries to deliver is for nothing if it has shaky foundations, but on the flip-side, if a plot has too-solid foundations it is all too easy for it to paint itself into an incredibly dull box.
Rao Dao Zao 