Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope you are all enjoying yourselves and spending time with family!  And, if you're a sports fan, watching some football!  Let's go Cowboys!

Taking a Break & NaNoWriMo Update

In case you were wondering where I've been, I decided to take a break from blogging for a bit to focus my writing time into my book.  I realized I was writing more blog than book, and that was not what I intended to do with this.

I have plans to review StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void.  I've been playing that in my free time when I'm not writing, much to the dismay of my fiancee.  Also, trying to finish a friends novel so I can review that for her.  And a post about a particular online RPG that's near to my heart.  Hope everyone is having a good week.

NaNoWriMo Update!  In the past few days I've written 1189 words in my book.  totalling 2205 so far.  I'm gonna try to break 10,000 by months end, but we'll see.  Just haven't had the time to put into NaNoWriMo, but then again this is my first time trying.

World Building, Part 6: The Sword!

Because Heroes Prefer Swords

My own sketches, pre-Graey Erb

This is not news.  A trope older than Beowulf and Iliad, literature both ancient and modern is full of examples that prove the trope.  Some ask why, and the simple answer is that a blade has been present in warfare for almost as long as war has been waged (considering someone had to figure out how to make them, first).  Even today soldiers bring a knife to their gunfights, and while there are no longer epic sword fights outside of Medieval Times and Renaissance Fairs, swords remain strongly embedded in how we think of war.  Therefore, it is natural that in fantasy settings, swords seems to always find their way into the hands of a hero.  The above link goes into some detail regarding examples in literature, and literary trends related to it, so instead I will tell you about The Sword of my book, and why I found it necessary to design this particular aspect of the book and bring it to life through art so early in my writing process.

My pommel design sketch.

Before I hired Graey Erb to create artwork, I tried my hand at drawing things myself.  Above I was toying with the shape of the blade.  I was inspired by the design of Orcrist from "The Hobbit" movies (shown on the right).  Big surprise, I'm sure.  Truth is at the beginning, I imagined The Sword for my protagonist would be like Anduril, considering my unrefined excitement for "The Lord of the Rings."  Further thought and time eventually told me that a European long sword seemed out of place among lizard folk.  It is much more common to find lizard folk or any of the other 'evil minion' labeled races having some manner of cruelly shaped curved swords.  This comes from history as much as literature, as European Christians demonized the pagan tribal peoples of Eastern Europe and the Muslims of the Near East, both of whom of battled various European kingdoms either across land or the Mediterranean Sea (Crusades, anyone?).  These cultures used curved blades that fit their tendency to attack from horse back, where a curved blade would be more practical than the straight edged blades that dominated Western Europe's armories.  This allowed me to tackle and subvert another common trope, referred to as the Sinister Scimitar.  In essence, my desire to subvert the "Reptiles are Abhorrent," which claims that lizard-beings are almost always evil, gives me the chance to subvert the trope claiming bad guys use curved swords.

Curved swords!

The first draft of Graey Erb sword concepts.

In order to create a fitting visualization of the sword I wanted, I emailed Graey (after discovering his art on Pinterest of all places) with a 20+ page project proposal that included my own sketches for designing the sword.  The first draft of concepts were very different from each other, as I did not have a clear idea of what the sword would look like.  The initial idea was that the sword was created during a Golden Age of the World.  Since the Deities of this world have (or can choose to have) a draconic form, the weapons are made to evoke that.  The pommel is shaped as the head of a dragon, the hilt is the neck/body, the crossguard the wings, and the blade has a tail either engraved or embossed upon it in some fashion.  After seeing the first draft, I pointed out what I liked and disliked, and Graey went back to work, creating a second set of concepts.  The one I liked the most, and that Graey iterated upon, was a combination of features from #1 (The pommel, crossguard and blade shape) and from #3 (the hilt texture and the style of detail on the blade).  I also asked him to work on the proportions of sword, such as making the blade longer and thinner.  The other designs, despite not being quite what I had in mind, actually gave me some ideas.  Numbers 5,6 and 10, with the angular design elements reminded me of the dwarven architecture in "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" movies, so it gave me the idea that these designs could be reused when I get around to developing the other cultures that will be in my book.

Concept Pass 2

The second set of concepts nailed down the size and shape of the sword, leaving the details on the blade itself to be choose.  I again went with #1, as the sunburst at the top seemed appropriate. It seemed too plain, still, so Graey and I came up with a stylized sun to replace the plain circle.  It ended up being two pointed starbursts overlapping each other  Next, something needed to go on between the lines radiating from the half circle.  We narrowed it down to either a diamond or a four pointed star, and settled on the four pointed star.  From there the sword was more or less complete.  With some color, the sword came to life.  There is one feature that I found unique which came from the original concepts: a medallion hanging off the pommel.  It is common among the practitioners of Wushu, a style of the 'kung fu' martial arts in China, to have a tassel hanging from the pommel of their dao, a type of broad bladed sword.  I like it as a way that my character, upon getting the sword, to personalize it without changing the sword itself.  A common trope in fantasy is the named weapon, which either comes from the blade being historical/legendary or from the character being sentimentally attached to the weapon.  I have not decided yet if I will name it or how it would be named, so the medallion seemed a good alternative.

Final Concept Pass

The Sword of the Hero!

Not Enough Time (Fail Blog Part 2)

Just a quick post.  I'm working on another World Building post but just haven't had time to get it completed.  Been too busy the past few days despite having more than the usual amount of 'free time.'  Just got too wrapped up in stuff to do.

NaNoWriMo has also suffered this week.  I barely wrote anything and I'm not feeling good about it.  Hopefully this weekend works out better for me.  I hope everyone else's weekends turn out better.

"Halo 5: Guardians" Single Player Review

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Halo 5: Guardians is the tenth game in the signature XBox gaming console series that spans 3 generations of consoles and the PC.  (Halo: Wars, Halo 3: ODST, Halo: Reach, Halo: Spartan Assault, and Halo: Spartan Strike are unnumbered editions).  This year, on October 27, the game was released following a seven hour live stream.  I was very excited about this game, having preordered the special edition XBox One to play it on.  After getting home from work, I tapped the XBox One and was greeted by the futuristic power up sound, and sat down to dive into the game.

Halo 5: Guardians Limited Edition XBox One

Blue Team: Linda-058, Frederick-104, John-117, Kelly-087

Halo 5 introduced a lot of new features to the game.  One drastically changed the way the game is enjoyed from the way almost every other Halo game was played.  This was that the developers removed the classic split-screen cooperative mode, sometimes referred to as 'couch co-op.'  Instead, the developers choose to integrate a co-op system which forced players to connect over XBox Live, and giving players the choice of controlling one of four characters in each level.  This system led to a change in the style of play the game had, because even when playing the campaign alone, like I did, the four characters were in each level.  Instead of being a one man army fighting the hordes of aliens as Master Chief Petty Officer John-117, the levels had either Fireteam Osiris, a team of four newly introduced SPARTAN super soldiers, or as Blue Team, some of the original SPARTANs led by John-117, making the game more of a squad based tactical FPS.  However, your squad members become little more than bullet sponges that are passively useful as they chase after you shooting at enemies with far less sophistication than most of the artificially-intelligent enemies they encounter, leaving you to do not just the heavy lifting, but babysitting them to keep them going.  This squad system also introduces a new 'death' mechanic.  Instead of having to respawn after being taken down by enemy fire, like in every other Halo game, instead you can 'save' your fallen teammates, and they can save you, keeping you from having to endlessly replay the same tough segments and offering you a chance to keep progressing if you and your team can keep you standing.  (If the AI teammates die, they respawn with no adverse affect on your progress, but player teammates must be saved.)  The problem is that when playing alone, your teammates will charge directly to you in order to save you, sometimes getting themselves killed themselves, and resulting in you respawning from a previous checkpoint.

Fireteam Osiris:  Tanaka, Locke, Vale, Buck

As for the campaign itself, you start off playing as SPARTAN Jameson Locke (Mike Colter), a former Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) acquisitions agent, and his SPARTAN Fireteam Osiris, featuring Halo 3: ODST star Edward Buck (Nathan Fillion).  They are sent to recover Dr. Catherine Halsey, who was kidnapped by the Covenant Remnant in Halo 4's Spartan Ops side story.  After killing the leader of the Covenant Remnant, Locke & Co discover that Halsey has found that someone is raising the Forerunner constructs known as Guardians.  These Guardians are the focus of the campaign, as where they're coming from become, what their purpose is, and who is controlling them is the big reveal of this game.  

Now, the second mission has Blue Team investigating a missing ONI ship, which you find out was researching biological weapons to use against what's left of the Covenant.  The ship, however, is overrun with Covenant forces trying to steal technology.  Master Chief and his Team are forced to destroy the vessel.  While in the process, Master Chief is knocked unconsious, and the game starts to take a turn toward the a mystery:  Cortana beckons John to the planet Meridian, saying "the Reclamation is at hand."  Since Cortana was reported lost at the end of Halo 4, you wonder if John is just hallucinating, but John is convinced he has to follow her call.  At the end of the mission, he learns Osiris is on their way to investigate, and John decides he has to get their first.

I'll stop the spoilers here.  The above summarized the first two missions.  That said, I found the rest of the game somewhere between awesome and good.  The story is intriguing, but at parts it feels like it could have been so much better.  Having the two groups of characters makes the game feel too different from the Halo games you love.  In Halo 4, the death of Cortana set up a great story arc that could have been used to develop the Master Chief, the generally 'personality'-less protagonist meant to allow the player to feel like they're the hero, instead of just playing a hero.  Instead, they spring seven new and vaguely interesting characters, and you barely play as the series chief hero, pun intended.  Instead, the game ultimately comes off as just a huge ad for Halo 6, the inevitable sequel, where the feeling of wanting what's to come is greater than the satisfaction you should feel from a well experienced story.  Halo 4 leaves you heart-broken for Chief after watching him lose what could be called his "True Love" (because lets face it, Chief and Cortana had a thing despite one being a inside of a machine, and the other being an Artificial Intelligence) Do you see what I did there?  Halo 5 just leaves you going "Man why couldn't we play THAT game now?"  The plot twist is rather surprising, and I actually saw part of it coming after learning about the Composer and how the Forerunners tech worked in Halo 4, so it's worth while, but it's not done well enough to be a real shocker by the time you get to it.  (Bioshock's plot twist was epic in its reveal and how it made you feel)  Instead you're just like, "Okay that makes sense," and ready to move on.  The 'best' part of it is sadly at the very end, and by then you want so badly for a certain outcome that is clearly not going to happen.

Ultimately, I'd give the game about a 7.5 out of 10.  I don't like the changes to game-play, as despite the rescue mechanic saving you some time, it ultimately makes you wait even longer when you severely screw up for a chance to try something else.  Also, many of the levels play the same way, and instead of facing a variety of opponents with tactics that adapt to your playing, like in previous games, you either fight the same enemies fighting the same ways, or huge hordes of enemies you have to wade through and hope your AI partners can pick up some of the slack.  The game is probably awesome with friends, as the squad mechanics would allow for actual tactics to be used, and the banter between the characters is enjoyable, but nothing matches Sergeant Johnson's gung ho Marine chatter or Cortana's sharp sarcastic wit.  All we really have left from the original three games is Chief, and he's an observer in his own story.

The Legacy of Beowulf

Hail, Beowulf!  King of the Danes!

So I'm sitting on the couch watching Star Trek: Voyager with my fiance, and an episode comes on called "Heroes and Demons."  It's about a crew member who vanishes while experiencing a "holo-novel," a holographic recreation that's interactive, of the Epic of Beowulf.  In the episode, two senior crew members vanish seeking the third, and it takes a fourth crew member, a holographic medical officer, to figure out how to 'defeat' Grendel, an monster from the Beowulf legend.

I find it amazing how much popular culture is inspired by that ancient tale.  A legend ancient even when it was written down by monks almost a millennium ago, the tale has inspired books, movies, and television either with direct adaptations, or using the material to tell other stories.  You've read how Tolkien looked to how the character of Beowulf acted and proved himself when writing his character Aragorn.  Michael Crichton's* The Eaters of the Dead and the movie adaptation The 13th Warrior take the tale of Beowulf and tell it through the eyes of a historical figure, a Persian historian who is said to have visited Scandinavia, where he meets Danish warriors as he left his homeland.

I find it amazing.  It might not even be a terribly complex feeling but I just couldn't help myself.  I had to talk about it.  So much of what we think is modern is influenced by the ancient.  I see it all the time on TV (when I watch it).  Marvel Comics love to take from the Norse Mythology for their Thor titles.  The show Stargate SG-1 used all manner of Egyptian and Norse mythology as inspiration for the Aliens that humanity once thought were gods.  In fact a Neil Gaiman novel that recently received major rewards for writing is called "American Gods," and it features versions of ancient Gods competing against the 'new' gods of wealth, fashion, and money.  It's just fascinating to me, and I love discovering these influences, especially in things that I love.

Did you know that the original Halo games (1-3) have a heavy Biblical influence?  I may have to write about that some time!

NaNoWriMo update!  536 words over the past 3 days.  Not the best but at least I've been writing.  Chapter 7 has been coming quicker than I expected but some of the details I'm anxious about putting on too strongly.  A certain character is quite negative toward the protagonist, but I don't want to make the character into a caricature. However, at the same time, I want to just write it, and iron out the hiccups later.  Thanks for reading!

*Corrected a mistake I made.

A Few of my favorite things: Role Playing Games

Yesterday's Post Today!

Despite all the kinds of games out there, Role Playing Games (RPGs) are my favorite.  They allow a player to take on the role of a character or cast of characters as they pursue a goal.  Those goals can be noble, such as saving the world/kingdom/town/self from something, or something sinister, like stealing cars and kill people (or taking over/destroying the world).  Different games offer this range of moralities with their own justifications.  The Grand Theft Auto series has always been about being a criminal, and while they sometimes offer some kind of justification for the murders and thefts and destruction you will no doubt cause over the course of the game, most people who play them do so to experience that thrill of being 'evil' without the real life consequences.  On the same token, games like Dragon Age: Inquisition offers the player a spectrum of options to choose from in pursuing the goal of stopping monsters from overrunning the world, and some are more noble than others.  And then you have Zelda, where you're always the good guy, and the worst thing you can do is murder a chicken and smash peoples pots.

The games I just mentioned are video games, but RPGs also come as table top games.  By table top I mean a game you play similarly to a board game, on a table with other people, and usually involves dice and a set of rules for how to use those dice to play the game.  The game is also usually one by a player whose job it is to tell the story and take the role as the antagonists. These players are generally called Game Masters (GM), since they also enforce the rules.  Because of the nature of the game players have virtually unlimited choice of how they want to proceed, tempered by the consequences and results determined by the GM.  So unlike a video game, which has a goal in mind and certain limits as to how you can accomplish them, a table top game's only limit is the imagination, with the GM and the results of dice rolls the only thing that holds you back.  A good GM will generally take what you come up with in mind, but if you're trying to kill 100 orcs with one arrow by bouncing it off rocks, you are asking to fail.  There are still levels of success based on game rules, and some times things are just too ridiculous to work.

For instance, Dungeons & Dragons, one of the most popular table top RPGs in the world, uses a system of tiers call Levels (something many games both digital and physical use) to determine a characters abilities, powers, skills, and more.  At level one, killing a single orc with an arrow can be hard,but not impossible.  A lucky shot can take an orc out in one hit, or just make it angry and come after you.  By level ten, however, one-shotting an orc should be easy, and you begin to be able to do feats such as making an arrow go through one orc and hit another standing behind him.  By level twenty, you might even shoot four arrows at once, have them all punch through the orcs, hit the ones behind them, and maybe make the arrows explode for even more carnage.  But the trickier the shot, the better your skills and dice rolls need to be.  And by level twenty the orcs may just run at the sight of you.  The dragon on the other hand...

The thing I like most about table top games, though, is the story.  I've played noble paladins fighting for the honor of their deity while slaying the undead that plague the world.  I've played warriors who seek to amend a disgraceful past and die gloriously in battle in the name of their ancestors.  I've played a selfish, short sighted rogue who thought her (yes, I play female characters sometimes) way was the only way, and hurt both friends and enemies on her personal quest for justice.  Table top games allow you to make your own history and goals for your characters, instead of having to follow the script of a video game.  I enjoy Skyrim and Dragon Age as much as the next gamer, but even they limit your choices, and your goals.  In the table top realms that come either ready to go from the publisher, or you make one up with your friends from scratch, you can do anything in them (GM and dice permitting).  Want to be a sorcerer who comes from a cursed family seeking to enslave the very demon lord that cursed your ancestors?  Go for it!  Want to be a barbarian chieftain set on claiming the civilized world for your people so they no longer need to fear the night?  Go for it!  Want to help resurrect the God of Murder and watch the world bathe in blood for his glory?  Umm, okay, sure.

Your goals don't even need to fit the fantasy genre, which D&D and many other games inspired by Tolkien focus on.  There are games that take place in a world of Gothic Horror inspired by authors like H.P. Lovecraft.  There are games based on Star Wars, Star Trek, even video game franchises like Warcraft and Dragon Age.  You can be a Werewolf, a Vampyre, a Mummy, in the White Wolf "World of Darkness" setting.  You can be a super hero, a super villain, a pirate, the options are as endless as the imaginations of players.  You can even take a rule set you like and make your own setting where dragons with lasers fight pirates in flying space ships and people drink potions to gain super powers if you wanted.

In every way, an RPG is like getting to actively engage in writing a book in a manner that's unique.  You don't have to think about how a battle will turn out, you roll the dice, and fate decides it.  And that's what makes it so thrilling.  I remember a game where I played a Half-orc samurai-esque warrior just beginning to uncover a plot to turn a peaceful valley into a gateway to Hell.  Facing long odds and enemies several steps ahead of he and his allies, he remained determined to stop the evil plot, even at the cost of his life.  Though the story ended up left unfinished due to the unfairness of real life not allowing people's schedules to mesh, I always imagined his end to be found stemming the tide of the demons, alone with no hope of victory, as his allies raced to close the bridge between realms, giving them as much time as possible before joining his God, Kord, on the battlefields of eternity.

Some day...

In a time where writing my novel was a chore, table tops gave me a creative outlet that I could use to try out tropes and ideas in unrelated settings, and seeing how a character might develop in a more natural way (as opposed to an author forcing things to happen, which might be described as artificial).  That is why I write, and that is why I game.

Fail Blog

Good evening, readers!  Today has just not been a good day.  I come to you empty handed because what I was planning to post was written terribly and I want to provide better content then something that sounds like a drunken rant.  Instead, I will edit it and post it tomorrow.  On top of that my update for NaNoWriMo is equally disappointing.  I think I wrote one sentence today.  This week was very stressful and it all just compounded itself into that sort of self-defeating apathy that happens when you're just too worn out to care.  So tomorrow will be a better day.  I will try to write more of my novel tonight and I will count it toward tomorrows contribution.  Sorry blog-readers.  But today the stress of life won this battle, but I will win the war.  Goodnight and have a great weekend.

Things that Inspire, Part 1: Long Live the King!

Large and In Charge

Many things inspire my writing. Chief among those is "The Lord of the Rings," which I've mentioned many times, but even more so, specific things in "The Lord of the Rings" inspired specific things in my novel. For instance, my main character. In my earliest drafts, my Protagonist was inspired by my favorite character in TLotR:  Strider, aka Aragorn, son of Arathorn, heir to the throne of Gondor

Aragorn II Elessar, son of Arathorn, King of the Reunited Kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor, and all around bad ass. Early on, my main character was almost a rip off of the movie adaptions' version of Aragorn: ratty clothes, soiled leathers, elven hunting knife, born of some special legacy, gets "The Sword" and becomes "The Hero." I won't use that 'C' word but, yeah. I was a teenager and that was what I liked. Not much has changed but my character has, for the most part.

Apart from the tropes I liked, the character also appealed to me because of how the actor, Viggo Mortensen, portrayed Aragorn. In the novel, Aragorn is a character who knows that he is the heir to a kingdom and a mighty legacy, but he tends to make sure everyone knows it, too. He leaves Rivendell with the Sword of the King (unlike in the movie) and basically lets anyone who doubts him because of his vagabond appearance just who he is and why that sword he's carrying shines with the light of the sun and moon. Some quick literary analysis: Tolkien based Aragorn on the heroes of myth and legend from Northern Europe, such as Beowulf. Beowulf, if you read the translations of the surviving manuscript, is pretty much that guy who knows he's the best there is and decides, "Yeah, I can kill that beast Grendel unarmed and naked." And then does it. Then takes the next step and kills Grendel's mother. And then a Dragon. Solo. While no one-on-one monster slaying is done by Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings books, he does have some suitably heroic encounters. He faces off with all nine Ringwraiths, some of the most deadly fiends in Middle Earth, with nothing more than a mundane sword and a torch in the Fellowship of the Ring.

In the movies, however, Aragorn is portrayed as a reluctant hero. He still knows that he is the heir to a great legacy and the elves can't wait to remake that awesome sword so he can go save the world with it, but chooses a humble and honorable life as a ranger to protect those in need, fearful of the corrupting influence of power. It was that version of Aragorn, the hero that's heroic only because duty calls and would rather just be left in peace, that inspired my character. In my story, the protagonist just wanted to be a respected hunter in his village, but an encounter with an ancient plague and a need for someone to do something about it (and a dash of certain people not liking him) ends up propelling him along the heroic story arc. I don't want to spoil anything, so I won't go on any further about the plot. The other part of the character of Aragorn that inspired my own character wasn't so much something specific to Aragorn, but it's something common to the archetype Aragorn represents: The Hero. And in myths and legends, the Hero almost always has The Sword. I mentioned a few times already that Aragorn gets "The Sword" for his particular book. That sword is Anduril, the Flame of the West, forged from the shards of Narsil! Basically it's the weapon that the Bad Guy even fears because it can hurt him. Common trope. And teenage-me loved it. Get the awesome sword, be the awesome hero. Simple formula. Works just about every time. From Luke Skywalker to Eragon to Bilbo to Arthur. Getting "The Sword" means you're "The Hero," and so it shall remain for my book. Nothing new, I know, but hopefully the context within the book itself will make it better. That tends to be how these tropes work. It's not the trope itself but how it's used which makes a book unique. Again, won't divulge much, but you will see "The Sword" of my book soon. It's pretty cool.

NaNoWriMo update: Another busy day as you can tell by the late posting, but productive. Chapter 7 is under way with another 261 words typed, totaling 1277 words so far. I'm pretty sure I will get this one done this month. I have it planned out almost from start to finish, so just need to add the details. But you know what they say: The devil is in the details. Wish me luck!

Quick note:  This had pictures in it but Blogger must have messed up the html somehow, so I removed them until I can fix them.

I do not have the time to blog the armies of Mordor...

But I will blog none the less!

Lord of the Rings Reference.  Congrats if you got it.

That said, I really have had a bad day for free time.  I was considering writing a review on the Halo 5 single player campaign, but I want to do a good job and haven't had the time until 6:30 pm today.

That also means I have had little time to write for NaNoWriMo, though that does not mean I haven't written anything.  The current word count is 1016, and I finished Chapter 6!  So, I consider that an accomplishment.  At this rate I could reach 30,000 words for the month, which is no small feat!  When I edit my 'chapters' I anticipate a lot of things being reshuffled and actual chapters being made of pieces of the chunks I write.

*Two Hours Later*

Wow!  I let the night get away from me!  Today is not a good day for the blog.

A Change of Plans

The Struggle is real...

Seems my initial plan that I could get something meaningful written every day before 3pm was a gross overstatement.  That first week was easy.  But it has gotten exponentially harder to select a topic every day that would not sound like I'm rambling just to have something written.  That said, I still hope to post each day but the posts will likely be much later in the day.

As for NaNoWriMo, I have a total of 759 words typed as of this post.  At this rate I will definitely not get close to 50,000 words for the month, but we'll see what happens.  My main difficulty so far has been deciding which way to write things.  I am currently working on a segment where my main character is entering a new place, and he encounters the residents, who initially are hostile to the newcomer.  So I've been struggling deciding how they react and what those reactions would lead to.  The next part that becomes a struggle is when I get to that new area and have to describe it.  While I always have an idea of the generalities of a locations features and landmarks, translating it into words so a reader can appreciate the vision in my mind.  I stumble a great deal, often because I worry about missing details, or because I feel my initial description is suddenly inadequate.

If you would like to help, leave a comment mentioning a feature of a forest/mountain lake that would be interesting.  I happen to be a writer that loves input, because I can refine it into something that works for my novel, regardless of what it is.

That's all for today.  Since today is Election Day in the United Stated (and since I promised, "No politics") I could not think of anything substantive to discuss today.  I am also not ready to delve too deeply into novel specifics yet.  Thanks for reading!  Feel free to suggest topics for me to discuss, books I should read, games I should play, or even YouTube channels to watch.  Best wishes!

National Novel Writing Month

NaNoWriMo

AKA "Write.  Your.  Book!"

Hello readers!  Happy NaNoWriMo!  November is the time of the year where both veteran and novice writers can set a goal for themselves:  Write their d@mn book!  Or more accurately, write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.  On top of that, there is an organization dedicated to this endeavor that offers a place for writers to post their work as well as offering tools, advice, and even encouragement to keep writing.  In order to write 50,000 words in 30 days, you have to write an average of 1667 words a day.  That's a lot, to be honest, however, it is a lot to think about.  On a good day, I could blast that out and be happy with it.  But for 30 consecutive days?  Without getting caught in Revision Hell?  Without writers block or an idea not developing properly?  Hence the support structure.

Perosnally, I know I can't write a 50,000 word novel in a month because I haven't even written 50,000 words in 12 years!  I am however, keeping track this month.  So far I have written 308, all of which come from today.  We will see how far I get by November 30, but my goals are as follows:

1. Write as much as possible.  Not a specific goal but still something I need to have as a goal because "Write as little has possible" as been my goal for a while and its not helping me write!
2. Finish chapter 6 for Tolkien's Sake!  I've had my sixth chapter staring at me for over a month or two and it's driving me crazy!  It's also a terrible reminder that I write too slow, so, "Finish It!"
3. Start chapter 7 and  also finish it!  Fingers crossed!
4. Start chapter 8, bonus points for finishing.
5. Write as much as possible.  Just so it sinks in.

I will probably compell myself to write more after posting this, but I will keep the total words typed count running all month.  I hope it gets close to 50,000!

For more about National Novel Writing Month, click the links below, and Happy Reading and Writing!

Link to the NaNoWriMo Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/nanowrimo/

Link to the NaNoWriMo Home Page:  https://www.nanowrimo.org/

For those looking for a Halo 5 Review

Hey just a quick post.  For those looking for the Halo 5 review, I'll try to do that this coming weekend.  I didn't get to play it this weekend and I still have to dig into the Multiplayer.  This weekend was not kind to my free time, or my productivity.  Also Happy National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo.  I'll let you know my plans for it tomorrow.

The Weekender: Sports Fandom

Why we love to be stressed out on the Weekends

This will be short.  I just wanted to rant about sports for a minute.

Why is it that we love to stress ourselves out watching sporting events?  Is it the cycle of anticipation followed by the reward of watching a team you like winning or the disappointment of watching them lose?  Is it like gambling?  Where you know you have no idea what will happen next but you can't wait to see it?  If I wanted to dig out my psych textbooks I could go into it all, but the answer has something to do with both of those things.  We are addicted to the exhilaration of victory, even vicarious ones.  We clearly gain nothing from watching Dez Bryant catch a last second pass to win a football game or watching David Wright blast a baseball into the upper deck, but we love it?  And when a quarterback throws an interception that costs the game or the batter hits into a double play it hurts and makes you a mix of angry and sad.  But we do it every weekend.  This weekend all of my teams, The Dallas Cowboys, The New York Mets, and the Rutgers Scarlet Knights, lost games.  The odds are so rarely in our teams' favor but we watch and hope and sometimes are rewarded, but usually we're disappointed.  Goes for every sport, and (almost) every team.  Some teams are lucky and have a long history of success.  The Cowboys have been contenders many years, and have won like 10% of all Super Bowls played.  Only 4 of the other 32 teams have done that.  But the Mets...  I'm lucky and blessed and so happy to watch them play in the World Series after such a crazy season.  We have our best pitcher on the mound tonight and I hope when I wake tomorrow to get ready for school that the Mets have won and a World Series  Title is still a possibility for the Mets.  But if they lose, the Royals take it home to KC and I have to hope for next year.  I don't know why we do this to ourselves, but I think, no matter what, we will always have sports to stress us out, and sometimes fill us with pride and exhilaration.

Have a good night, and LETS GO METS!