OMGW2!!1!!

So I started blogging daily last year with a blog about how I would probably be talking about Guild Wars 2, and now it is the eve of the headstart launch of the game.  Suffice to say, I probably won't be blogging quite so often as I was before, not that I have been lately anyway.

But seriously, I'm probably going to stop playing any games except this one for a long time.  I'll try to keep people updated about my life, especially since job is happening soon and all that comes with that.

If you're playing Guild Wars 2, I'll see you in game.  Otherwise, I'll see you around.

Peace.

Anachronized Holidays and The Need For Time Travel

I get busy some days.  Still deliberating about a certain "job opportunity" for my wife, and things, and making plans about tomorrow.  Also, catching up on internet things like webcomics and the like.  Ho boy.  Ho ho boy.

It's July.  You know what that means.

Christmas.

In that vein, the sylvari and asura races will be playable in the final beta weekend event this July 20-22, which is super awesome but I'm still fighting an internal battle between making a crapload of sylvari characters and saving the sylvari for release as a surprise/treat.  It's a hard choice to make, because I like both ideas on their own merits.  My wife thinks I should wait.

There may still be some days in the next few weeks that I don't blog at all for various reasons.  Some of those days may be followed by face punch videos.  Some may not.  Honestly, I kept my original self-made bargain of one month and I did it again, punishments and all, so at this point whether I keep blogging every single day is a moot point.  Stuff is getting crazy around here, with the vacations and the job searching and the crazy little beautiful monster children.  Life only gets more complicated after college, kids.

Get that now.  Understand it.  Grok it.  It is knowledge you will need ingrained in your mind, so that you don't find yourself completely boggled when "Well chips, all my irons just fell right out of that fire."

Don't mind my Homestuck references, I'm freaking out about potatoes right now.  That's really all there is to say on the matter.

-shrugs-

Release Dates and Live Readings

Arenanet announced the launch date for Guild Wars 2 today, which is kind of a big deal.  I'm excited, because now I can tell people when the game is coming out, instead of saying, "This year."  By the way, it comes out August 28.

I've been implying that spending time with loved ones is a blessing and a curse.  On one hand, I get to spend time with loved ones, but on the other I have (or take) much less time to work on productive things like writing or job applications.  I don't really feel like driving around everywhere picking up and dropping off applications when there's guests around to hang with (and beat in Brawl).  This was a particularly strong example of that sort of day.

It happened.  I got to that point in Final Fantasy Tactics A2 where you're forced to take on a new clan member even if you don't want to, and it's a unique hero that can't be sent on dispatch or anything.  That kind of ruins the game for me, because I like my clan's set up, but I can't leave the continent now because that event's just sitting there.  So I guess I'm done with that.  Better find something else to do.  Like write.

Geez, I'm such a slacker.  My eyes, they are rolling.

I did some reading from Ashes of Silver earlier today.  Reading a book aloud is exhausting work, especially for someone who uses his voice sparingly in comparison to most people.  Unless you have something wet on hand for your whistle, talking through that much prose can get pretty dry in the glottal regions.  There's also the wincing I do when my sluggish mouth parts butcher my own painstaking syntax.  Plenty of that.  Or if I emote something wrong.  Or pause in the wrong place.  Nope, not a perfectionist.

Maybe part of my voice troubled was that I was also singing along to Emery before and after said book-reading took place.  When I sing along to good music, I commit a little.

It's a pitchy mess sometimes, to be honest.  I'm not the best singer.  Definitely not the worst.  Somewhere in the middle, where the amateur musicians reside.

And now I have nothing else to say.  It was that sort of day.

-shrugs-

White Knights and Writer's Block

I may have mentioned this before, but I don't particularly believe in writer's block.  Despite this, though, there are times I set aside to write where nothing comes.  I deeply suspect that during these times I just don't feel like writing.  If I let this rule me, though, I'll never amount to anything as a writer, because I'll never write anything.

It's hard when I don't like anything that comes out of my head when I'm writing.  There are some interesting ideas, but nothing cohesive, nothing that I think matters.  If I'm not engaging with what I'm writing, how are my readers supposed to?  Now, I've had readers most interested in the things about my writing I find the most dull, and I can kind of take that in stride.  People have different preferences from each other.  I still stubbornly seek objective goodness in my writing.  It's just a frustrating battle to fight.

One thing that's quite popular lately in all kinds of stories is the anti-hero.  This is the guy who doesn't even really want to do the right thing.  There's also the edgy hero, like the concept of Breaking Bad (brewing/selling illicit drugs to keep a family afloat).  I know that people are interested in this because it explores the space between black and white, and in our culture people tend to think the gray is more honest about life.  I'm not like that.  Yes, I'm admitting that I look at things in a more black and white way than most.  But you might be surprised by what I call black and what I call white.

One of my main questions is "where's your heart at?"  Not that I actually ask it aloud, or even think about it in as many words.  I like to see when characters weigh their decisions based on the nexus of their motivations, emotions, and logic.

I get frustrated when things don't come out right in the end, or if people making horribly flawed decisions are the ones rising as the victors.  I don't care for stories where no one comes to the rescue.  It's not necessarily because I believe that that's what happens in real life, but because when I'm a very protective person.  Because my first thought when I see someone in distress is how I can end that distress, it's hard for me to imagine that there won't be someone in the story who behaves as I would.

I know it's cliché to like the white knight, but I do.  I don't think they're nearly as boring as they're made out to be.  Because, again, that's my personality.  It's not easy to be the good guy.  If you're human, you're chock full of flaws you have to strive against, at the same time you're battling the injustices you see around you.  But that's the way I see myself interacting with the outside world.  Fixing things that are wrong.

That might be why I'm an introvert.  Some things don't need fixing, or can't be fixed.  At least not by me.  It kinda gets you down, man.

That's also probably why fantasy appeals to me.  Stack the deck in the favor setting things right.  Because things are never going to settle right in this world, and seeing the real world in chaos is what I do every day.  I don't want to keep seeing it in my fiction.

I want to see the chaos undone.  Raveled.

Okay, this kinda got side-tracked.  Anyway, sometimes I lose interest in writing in the confines of my current project.  Like Talas Ke.  I'm having some issues sorting out the ending.  It's hard to finish something that's been around in my head for a decade.  I need it to be perfect.  And it isn't going to be.  But I don't want to give up.  Then there's writing poetry for songs.  I had a couple good ideas, but now I don't know where to go without getting either repetitive or trite.

Thankfully, I can write about whatever on this blog, even about the issues I'm having with writing at the moment.  And know that I'd rather bury myself in a writing project than go out and find a job.  That's frustrating, too.  Because I need a job like a good analogy needs to relate to the audience.

Part of the problem with temporarily living at home with the parents is the lack of space.  It's also one of the few setbacks in marriage.  At least on the surface, it seems like I'd be doing a lot better as a writer if I was single and living alone in a quiet apartment.

Balancing the great two great passions of my life is just going to get harder, isn't it?

Grenth's gory beard, life sucks.

:/

Mostly Beta-related

The Guild Wars 2 beta has been awesome.  I'm a little concerned that they might not delete our characters after this one ends, though.  Let me explain why that might be a problem.  You see, if we go too many beta weekends with characters that are going to be deleted before launch, then we've grown really attached to those characters and it's really hard to just let them go like that.  I've played the first twenty levels of my future guardian over the course of the last couple months, and if I go another month with her, I'm gonna want to just keep playing this version of the character on release.

And the problem with that is that it's unfair to those who are waiting to get the game on release, who would be woefully behind everyone who's been playing since May.  So they should delete our characters when this is done.  Sad, but I think it must be done.

I got to nerd out about Guild Wars 2 to my little sisters today.  That was fun. We've been going on a good half-hour walk everyday for a while, so that exercise thing I mentioned a few days ago has been happening to an extent.  That's good.

Also, we ate at an authentic Mexican restaurant for lunch.  It's called Casa Real, and it's awesome.  So delicious.  So very, very delicious.  Did I mention I like Mexican food?  I do.  Lots.

It's probably a good thing the beta weekend is ending, because now I can focus on other, much more important things.  But this weekend has been very, very fun, and that was good.

That's all for tonight, folks.  Ciao!

Archetypicality

It's hard to blog in the morning when you don't have internet.  I spent most of the morning reconfiguring my family's wireless router so we could get on, then trying to get an old computer to download Guild Wars 2 for this weekend.  It seems that the problem is that it doesn't have enough RAM to download the client, let alone anything else.  Solution?  I guess we're gonna go buy enough RAM to get to 4gb at some point.  Then, maybe, the computer will work out.

I'm a little dazed this week, I guess.  Having a heard time putting it together and getting going.  Maybe I need to set my alarm for earlier.  I dunno.

I've covered the importance of diction, word choice, and characters to writing, and how those apply to building the world your readers will see as they absorb your prose.  In no way have I been exhaustive on those topics.  There's almost always more to say.  But I think I've given you an idea, at least.

One of the things I love about fantasy is the archetypes.  To the other-trained eye they look like clichés:  overused character tropes.  But depending on the kind of fantasy you're telling, the wise and arcane counselor can be quite effective.  It's always best, though, to try for new and interesting combinations—and keep diction and character in mind while you deal with archetypes.

There aren't just archetypical characters, like the Wizard or the Fledgling Hero.  There are archetypical settings, too.  Mordor is an archetypical Wasteland ruined by the villain.  Swords of Power and Words of Power are both also archetypical elements.

So what's the difference between a cliché and an archetype?  Basically, archetypes are old.  Old like the Epic of Gilgamesh old.  Arthurian legend is a good source of archetypical ideas, as are the epics of Homer and the canon of the Greek and Roman pantheons.  The other thing about archetypes is that they are closer to allusions than to clichés, and by using them you are referring to and acknowledging a vast history of stories told.  It's this past-reference that makes archetypes a good thing.

Here's what you have to beware of, though.  It works for alternate histories, and somewhat more casual fantasy, to rely on thinly veiled archetypes.  For example, there are characters with names like Marduk, Vulcan, Tempus, Leviathan, and Tiamat in the world of Hearthstead.  That's because my cousin and I decided that one of the motifs of Hearthstead would be direct allusions to mythological figures and places.  But Hearthstead isn't high fantasy.  Again, that's not a mark against the world.  But it's an identifier.

If you're doing high fantasy, it's expected you're building a huge historied world for your story to take place in, and if that's the case you really don't want a Gandalf stand-in.  Someone very old and very wise?  Okay.  But a wizard with a giant beard who dies and comes back to life is not a good idea.  You should probably also avoid taking names directly from the real world.  No Zeus.  Maybe you can take some names like Zachary, but ehhh maybe not.

This ties in to diction/word choice big time.  It's best to have an idea of what the people of the world call things.  You're probably writing in English, but if it's a fantasy world you most likely don't want to have everyone naming their babies and their places things like Philadelphia or Johnny.  There's also the whole thing of not overdoing x's and y's.

If you're basing a world or a part of the world off of a particular mythology or real-world culture, using naming conventions from those are a good idea.  Norse, for example, or Spanish.  However, if you want mad props for creativity, spending a long time hashing out the nitty gritty details of names, their spellings, and their meanings is probably requisite—as is trying to veil any real-world ties as much as possible.

Even then you'll be using archetypes, for much the same reasons as you're going to have people in your story.  Stories are retold with new (or mixed-up) contexts.  Your job in world-building is to create a place with a set of contexts that's intriguing for the reader.

One story that does this very well is the Avatar series, actually.  Not the movie Avatar with its uninspired story, but Avatar:  The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra.  The former introduced a world where, basically, the whole thing is Asia, and people learn martial arts that allows them to control the elements.  By "the whole thing is Asia" I mean the four main peoples of the Avatar universe are based on real-world Asian peoples.  All the names, cultural motifs, and much of the spiritual/magical element of the show derives from this Asian center-piece.  That's one reason why The Last Airbender movie was completely terrible.  In The Legend of Korra, time has moved forward (pretty rapidly for fantasy) into what seems to be 1920's era city-life, complete with industry, high-inventiveness, and mangled city politics.  The metropolitan lifestyle has affected many of the visual characteristics (such as fashion and ways of moving) but the Asian background is still there and still strong, including the fact that all the names are still created according to very not Anglo-Saxon conventions.  This is a good thing.

So I talked a bit about archetypes and naming things today, and I'm sorry if it was a bit jumbled.  I did say I was scattered.  That's all I really have to say for the day.  See you tomorrow.

Ciao.

Character and World-building

I said yesterday that there's a beta event for Guild Wars 2 this weekend.  I am immensely excited for this, and hope to spend a large amount of time playing.  Maybe that old computer can even get set up for GW2 so I can play with my wife!

Running is my go-to idea for exercise, but I'm really bad about doing it.  I should probably do it soon, but the internet!  And the things!

And pizza!

Friday and Saturday I talked at length about diction and word choice and how they relate to writing (with a focus on Fantasy because, well, I'm me).  I wanted to talk today about characterization and its utmost importance.

As far as I'm concerned, if you're going to tell a compelling story it requires at least one person at the center of things, experiencing and interpreting the world, and influencing it with agency.  If there  isn't a person involved, it's not a story in my estimation.  That isn't to say it isn't art.  There's quite a few poems where there's hardly an author's voice, let alone a narrator (though this is most often a finely crafted illusion because, you know, there's an author or at least an editor where there's words involved), and that doesn't detract from the artistry of the poem.  Similarly, visual arts don't need human subjects to be artful or beautiful.  They just aren't stories in my eyes.

Now you might mention wilderness documentary stories, like that Chimpanzee movie.  But here's the thing:  in those works, the creatures depicted are anthropomorphized.  They're not people, and I believe they shouldn't be treated like people.  That's why movies like that bother me.  When things get more metaphorical it bothers me less, but animal movies annoy me because the stories pretend that these creatures are people.

I am making sure to use the word "person" because that is a more significant catch-all than human being.  In my worldview, the only "people" are human beings (aside from God and maybe angels).  However, there is a rich tradition of giving a non-human the aspects of personhood (self-cognizance and the like) throughout human history.  It's a good exercise for the imagination.  So I should clarify that the stories that bother me the most are the ones that are direct documentaries, especially of primates, that try to sell them as people when they're not.

So anyway, people are at the center of storytelling, because people are the origin of stories we tell.  I also believe that God is a storyteller, and that he has imparted stories to us, and that our penchant for storytelling is part of His image in us, but that does not detract from the centrality of people in our storytelling.

I've said all this to contextualize why doing your characters right is as important to the world you build with your story as diction and word choice.  It's also not one of the things you think about when you think "world-building."  That phrase conjures to mind the imagining of geography and infrastructure and special laws outside the ones that govern our universe.

But all that mind-blowing stuff has no meaning and no purpose when not considered through the lens of character.  It's hard for me to say this.  I love world-building for the sake of it.  Coming up with places and types of magic and different political systems is really fun.  But I realize that if you don't have a character who reacts to the circumstances you've invented for him (or her, or it) you don't have a story.  You just have a world.  And it's harder to sell or spread the word about a world you built aside from within a story.  You need a medium to convey the world you've carved in your mind.  That's where the art comes in, and fantasy writing relates to world-building as a medium for that creation you've done.

In the series I worked on for most of my adolescence, called Talas Ke, there are two characters who come from (a slightly alternate version of) Earth, but spend the vast majority of the series on Talas Ke, the world I built.  They bring all their prejudices, experiences, memories, mannerisms, and so on from Earth with them, and view the differences of Talas Ke in light of that paradigm.  It's a fairly common formula, and because I started writing it when I was about twelve I wrote to discover, building the world as I went.  Looking back, I see the world-building and storytelling I did when I first wrote that story as sloppy and sometimes ill-conceived, but I've been told by many of those who've read it that it works.  Why?

Because they cared about the characters.  I plunged my characters into the world that I had made, as shoddily as I might have made it, and made them live it.  Because they lived it, and they reacted as fully as I could make them react, and as fleshed out as I could make them, I had invested readers.

Now, as I reflect to friends and family on my disappointments with that story, and express my need to revise it to a tremendous extent, I likely have some disappointed, invested readers.  It's because of them that I haven't given up on Talas Ke and intend to return to the world soon, to finish what I started almost ten years ago.  It's also because, in my slightly-insane writerly way, I owe it to those characters to finish their story.

Most of my short stories fail because I can't give the characters the roundness they need.  Epic, mainstream, AAA endeavors in writing or in film fall short because the characters aren't written true to themselves and to the world.  And do you know why the Avengers was such an awesome movie?  Why it's a record-breaker?  It's because Whedon wrote the characters well, and gave them their fullness to live in the world that was made.  If the characters weren't well written, they couldn't have been well-acted, and then no amount of fancy special effects shots could have saved the movie.

If you agonize over anything when you're writing, let it be the characters.  If you believe the characters, you'll believe the story, even if the world-building sucks or is just plain mind-raping.  Homestuck, as another example, has characters I am invested in for better or for worse, and it's that investment that has me reading through all the appearifying antics and yellow yards.  Characters are why I'm still reading the Wheel of Time series, and why after the first season of Game of Thrones I wiki-walked through what remains of the story, and might even read the remaining books as they are released.  They're also why A Song of Ice and Fire hurts me deeply to consume as a story, because it punishes you for caring about characters.

And if it sounds too painful to agonize over your characters, know that it gets better over time.  Maybe it's because you get more heartless, or maybe it's coming to terms, but unless you're a children's author you're very likely going to kill off a character you love at some point when you're writing.

I'd give some pithy saying, like "invest in your characters, and..." but I can't come up with the second half.  So just that.  If you're telling a story, invest in your characters, then build your world for them.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

So my last two blog posts were a little longer.  This one won't be.

Today, I stood and watched my cousin (one of my best friends) get married, and almost cried because I'm maybe a little happy for them I guess?  And it was an awesome ceremony, a great reception, and a wonderful time.

Now those kids are off somewhere having an adventure, and I'm home after about three hours or more of riding in a car.  It's super late, and I'm tired, but not tired enough to just let a face-punch penance happen.

Though I might have, if my wife hadn't reminded me.

Tomorrow starts a new week with the foreseeable future dedicated to figuring this life out.  A little over a week till I get my proof to verify, and less than that till a GW2 BETA WEEKEND WOO!!!!  In the mean time, more writing projects to agonize over, more job applications (and similar activities) to fill out/send, and some exercise to work into my (hopefully not too) busy routine.

I leave you with this:  Nate and Christine Hunter, I know you might not read this right away (you'll be busy, I know how honeymoons are), but God bless you and your marriage.  I pray it be as much a blessing to you as the last ten months have been for me.  All my best wishes.  I love you.  Seriously.

Bed time.

Not Blogging is Out of the Question

I've started reading more bloggers in the last year or so, and that's really the reason I get hankerings for blogging myself.  If I didn't read the relatively common updates of these other writers on the web, I don't think I'd have the motivation to try my own hand at it.  And in the end I'm digging in because I see potential for connections and other opportunities waiting in the "blogosphere."  

I read just about every post Ravious puts up, and this last one is actually the inspiration for me mentioning this at all today.  If you read it, then you might identify me as one of those "city slickers."  I don't have very many connections, and I'm not all that consistent.  I'm just hitting the trail, in his words.  But his post encourages me to try and reach out, if I can.  Now that school's about done (once again I graduate on Saturday!! D:) and I'm about to crash-land onto the jobs market, scrambling for tidbits amidst the wreckage, I might have more time to devote to blogging and writing in general.  I think it probably defeats the purpose if I don't, considering I'm getting a writing degree and I want to spend my whole life writing about things.

I said early on in this endeavor that I might talk about Guild Wars 2 a lot.  Honestly, I don't think I have.  There's an ambition in the back of my head for writing about the game every day, but what I think stops me (more than avoiding total obsession) is the fear of saying something someone else has already said.  There's already fantastic bloggers out there who are talking about GW2, like Ravious who I mentioned above.  Greibach's not bad either.  There's also huge community forums like Guild Wars 2 Guru, where hundreds to thousands of members gather to exchange news and discuss the finer (or more insipid) points of the game.  I have spent an inordinate amount of my time in the last couple years just reading what everyone else has had to say on the matter.

There are some things I've got in mind that might bloom around GW2's release, and I debate whether to divulge the ideas to get feedback on it or make it a surprise.  Either way, if I'm gonna try and become a sort of GW2 blogger it'll be on my own special snowflake terms.

I don't necessarily want to make Guild Wars 2 the main thing I blog about, either.  I've got maybe a dozen writing ideas dancing around in my head on any given day, and at least a few pertain to blogs.  There's my fiction/poetry blog where I first attempted scheduled updates, and my philosophical blog that I tried to frame entirely in socratic questions, and I'm not entirely shy of the idea of starting more.  For one thing, not everybody's gonna be interested in everything I have to say.  Some of the people who read this blog appreciate my commentary on Kid Icarus more than my discussion of my spiritual life, for example.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I've no intention of giving up anytime soon, and blog posts like Ravious's "Cowboy Up" only serve to fire me up.  Color me ready to ride.

Maybe that means I should try to make my closing statements less noncommital?

-shrugs-

Hamlet

There are no more classes.  There is only the work to be done.  Time to be spent.  Papers to be written.  Friends to miss already.  Foods to eat.

Hamlet to watch.

I guess I've never mentioned David Tennant.  He's super awesome.  He's a good actor, and so is Patrick Stewart.  And together, they are the respective protagonist and antagonist of a production of Hamlet.  It is a glorious thing.

He also happens to have played the Tenth Doctor on Doctor Who, which is also a thing.  And by a thing, I mean a thing that you should watch, because it's good.

This morning I played the last of the Guild Wars 2 beta up to three in the morning.  It was excellent.  There were terrible giant fiery moa birds.  We died a lot.

That's about it for today.  Talk to you tomorrow.

Manic Monday Morning

Last day of GW2 beta.  It goes till 3:00 in the morning for me.  MUST PLAY.

MUST WRITE PAPER.

MUST DO ALL THE THINGS.

Church this morning was good.  That was a thing.

Um....?  Finals week starts Wednesday, and I have till then to get it all done.  Life is good.  The Legend of Korra is a good show.  You should definitely be watching it.  But only after you've watched Avatar:  The Last Airbender.  Because that show is pretty much the best thing.  Do those things.  That's my contribution for the night.

I really don't have much else to say.  Sorry to be lame.

-shrug-

A To-Do List and GUILD WARS 2

So here's what I have left for this semester:


English Grammar:  One eight to ten page research paper, and one take-home final exam due Wednesday morning.

Pres. Speaking:  Two short papers analyzing speeches due Thursday morning.  Exam 8:00am.

New Media:  Exam 4:00pm Monday, May 7.


Writer workshop:  Finished manuscript and a portfolio of my finest writing due during Finals Week.

It's the final stretch.  And yes, this is what's on my mind today.  This, and

GUILD WARS 2 BETA EVENT.  A little less than two hours from now, the floodgates will open, and I will... be in a meeting with some peers about my writing.  Then!  I can come home and log in. Maybe.  If my wife isn't buried in it on my computer.

At any rate, I am ridiculously excited about this.  Maybe I'll take some pictures or something.  Yes, I am blogging now so that I don't have to do it while I could be playing Guild Wars 2.

No Time for Blogs

I've spent all day trying to work on this speech, and it's still nowhere near acceptable.  Honestly I think I'll be okay so long as I don't somehow fail the speech, but I'm just not feeling this.  It's awful.

Yes, that is the dichotomy I am currently in.  It's gonna be okay.  This is awful.  Life is good.  I'm a honey badger.  Eat some pound cake.

Chocolate chip cookies.

Nope.  No stress here.

Madness aside, I'm excited because the Guild Wars 2 client is on my computer and the beta event's coming up.  And school is winding down, and I think (maybe?) I'm gonna survive this.  Most of my effort is going into maintaining a productive mindset.

As such, that's all I have to say today, and I'll ramble about some other stuff tomorrow, probably after I've lost it in front of my Presentational Speaking class.

Shruggety shrug mcshruggers.  Bye.

I WROTE THIS IN PAGES BECAUSE THE INTERNET IS DUMB

I’m writing this blog on my word processor because the internet is being SO MANY BUTTS RIGHT NOW.  I mentioned a while back that I’m a bit, well, stuck on Homestuck.  This thing has only been going for—what—three years?  It’s huge.  A huge, labyrinthine timey wimey mindsplosion of amazing things.  Did I mention convoluted?  Because it is that.  To the point of hella.  Which is not an adjective a writer should use when speaking in his own voice.

Don’t judge me.  I have a degree.

Or I will in, like, two weeks.  I wrote eeks at first.  Did you know all you really need for a bachelor’s degree in writing is to frighten a couple mice?

On more serious topics, I punched myself in the face again today.  The unpleasantry was my own fault, and I hope it gave you a great deal of happiness.  Or, once again, whatever perverse name you have for what you feel when you watch a guy hit himself.

-shrug-

No wait!  I’m not done with the blog yet!  I did more than Homestuck and face punching today!  I also worked on those things I need to get done to accomplish that elusive goal I have set, without which my life is pretty much over.  There will be worse things to see than face-punching if I’m not BA by the end of May.

The Shallows is an interesting book, and I’m glad I was forced to read it for a class—for what that’s worth.  As a result of a speech I’m writing for my other class, incidentally, I fully intend to drastically increase my deep reading (or reading of physical books, or whatever you want to call the old way of doing things) so as to balance that part of my brain with the internet part that’s been getting stuffed full for the last four years.

Also, this week I should be downloading the client for Guild Wars 2, which has a Beta Weekend Event this weekend.  Wow that was redundant.  At any rate, I hereby bind myself by bloggery forespeech that I will not play the game until I’ve got my reading, a good amount of research, and one of those pesky papers out of the way.  It’s an undertaking, but with a juicy, delicious prize like GW2 waiting for me, I shall not want for motivation.  

It doesn’t hurt that if I don’t play the game, my wonderful wife certainly will, and enjoy it immensely.  I can enjoy it vicariously through her if necessary.

I think my rambling is finished for the day.  

-shrugs off-

Saturdays Are Stupid Busy

I pre-purchased Guild Wars 2 today. Registered and everything. Stoked. I also managed to not die in Dungeons and Dragons hell today. More stoked. I haven't had much time to spend with my wife today. Not so stoked.

I don't really have time to blog for long today, either. So this is pretty much what you get.

Ciao, folks.

Entitlement

So about three days ago Guild Wars 2 became available for pre-purchase. Here's how it works: you pay for the game up front, and then you get into every Beta Weekend Event that Arenanet puts out for the game until release, a three day headstart come release, and a token in-game item that will only be useful for the first ten levels or so.

Ever since Arenanet started ramping things up towards release, the hype train has been chugging full speed ahead, but this comes with an ugly, ugly downside. There are thousands upon thousands of people who seem to be endlessly and terribly misinformed about the way things, and distrustful of Arenanet's own official word on things to a level that can only be called spiteful. Sometimes it seems like the buzz around Arenanet is a firestorm of awesome, and then you read the Facebook comments and it looks a lot more like a seething, maggot-infested mass of entitled twelve-year olds.

I'm a fanboy for Guild Wars 2. I'm a raving fanboy, hiding my madness inside from all but my wife, who appears totally chill about this game in contrast. I tend to love everything that comes out Arenanet's gates about Guild Wars 2. But I have no illusions that the game will be perfect. I just think it will be amazing, and I hope that a lot of people agree with me.

I also have the decency to let Arenanet say what they want about the game, and then digest it and make my own conclusions about it.

So anyway, the latest thing is that Arenanet is running a stress test on their servers today, which was pretty well unannounced and isn't open to the general public. People are incensed, even though this is not a Beta Event—it's a stress test to help them prepare for this month's Event. I don't want to tell people what to think, but—

CHILL. OUT.

That's what I'm thinking about today. Tomorrow, my wife and I are going to go pre-purchase Guild Wars 2 for ourselves, and we're super excited.

All-consuming Vortex

It is so very easy to consume. I spent about an hour and a half today watching someone else play Kid Icarus. I spent another half an hour playing Tetris Battle. Another forty-five minutes on Star Trek: Voyager and Fringe each. Twenty minutes of forum-surfing of Guild Wars 2 Guru. My wife has been watching NCIS on and off all day.

Even now, as the day winds down, I'm listening to Tonight Alive and fighting the urge to play more Tetris while I try to write this blog post.

I like to call myself a writer, but I spend much more of my time consuming what other people have produced—outside of my own field—than I do practicing my craft. I even have a hard time generating original thoughts to discuss the things I consume.

It hasn't been a bad day. In fact, it's been an awesome day. My wife is super happy. We had lasagna hamburger helper for dinner. I enjoyed geeking out about English grammar for an hour this morning.

Sometimes I do feel like a failure for not doing a lot of writing, but tonight I'm just struck by how weird it is that I spend so much time watching, reading, playing, instead of writing, composing, or enjoying the outdoors.

Not that the sleet made the outdoors a desirable alternative today.

So yeah, that's what's on my mind today. Maybe forcing myself to blog at least once a day will help keep this in focus or even—Heaven forbid—lead me to change my ways. We'll see.

Once again, this is me shrugging.

Peace off.

First World Problems

My friend and former roommate Kyle posted this as his status at some point today, and I think it's a pretty good summation of what's going on in Christendom at the moment:

"This is the in-between day. The day when the reality of Christ's death sank in. The day when they were forced to recognize that it really happened. He was really dead. The day in which nothing happened. On Good Friday God asks us, "do you trust Me?" On Saturday He ask, "No, really, I mean it. Do you trust me?""

I'm facing an interim year. Once I graduate, I'll be moving back home with my parents (with my wife Rachael in tow) for the time being. My current plan involves applying to various MFA creative writing programs (specifically the ones with fellowships attached) and waiting a year to find out if I get in, because I was late for the party for the coming academic year.

What this means for me is that I have time to make bank, if I can find a way to make bank. As was so recently hammered home for me, this means making connections. And that means interacting with people. My Kryptonite. Whelp, that's just the way it goes. Time to deal, right?

Merf.

So anyway, that's the sort of thing on my mind today. There's fun stuff happening with Guild Wars 2, like that it's now officially rated Teen (I think). I spent some time watching a Let's Play of Kid Icarus: Uprising, which is another one of those pretty games I'll probably never get to play because I can't afford a new game system and won't be able to until I make bank, like I was talking about earlier.

I could spend some time creating a backlog of games I want to play.

I could spend some time creating a reading list of books I want to read.

I could spend some time creating a watchlist of films I want to see.

Each of these things would cost me money, unless

1. I can borrow games (and their respective systems).

2. I have reliable access to a library with a good collection of books.

3. I manage to bum my way through the theaters.

None of this I can realistically expect to happen. I can look forward to spending my money on gas, food, and bills for the foreseeable future, which renders one array of my writing-resource sucking tendrils totally paralytic. I'm aware that one must intake if one is to put out art properly. Another concern.

I'm noticing that I don't tend to write these blog posts until the end of the day, and that they're egregiously organized. Maybe I'll work on that. Or not. We'll see. For now, I'm going to work on not having to punch my own face.

Defensive Gaming

Today, I played Brawl with my friend and my sisters. I used to be way better at the game than any of them, because I had more access to the game. Now I'm about even with Ethan, and my sisters get better every time I play against them.

My best character is Link. In my family we always do five-man stock matches, and the reason I do so well is I'm able to keep from being K.O.'d until it's just me and one other person, and I can use the many tools at Link's disposal and my experience with the game to win a one-on-one.

I'm a very cautious person, so my gaming strategies reflect this. I'm quite poor at games that require me to aggress for success—for example Starcraft 2. I also like to be able to handle myself in many situations. Thus Link, who fights with a sword but also sports several long-range options to rely on when the fire gets too hot.

From my extensive reading into Guild Wars 2, it's a very aggression-oriented game. Because every character has primary responsibility for his/her own well-being, the game mechanics are designed so that no one can rely on turtling to stay afloat. Even the guardian, a profession based on the idea of protecting one's self and others, can't just bring all the best defensive skills and armor sets and then stand there exchanging blows with a cave troll. You do have some particular tools, like the dodge mechanic and movement-while-casting, but that must also be coupled with making sure you're doing damage.

I am a mite-bit concerned that I might not be as good at Guild Wars 2 as I'd like to be, considering I've never been so hyped up about a game in my life. Maybe I'll need to relearn some things, but I can't know how things will go for sure until I put fingers to keyboard and try the game myself.

OMGW2!!!!!!!!1111!!!1

I figure after a year of silence on this tiny little blog I would repurpose it for something a little more, well, purposeful. Starting with the month of April, my plan is to blog about whatever's on my mind that day, every day, for a month.

I'm not going to lie, there's probably going to be quite a large portion of my blogging space here taken up by discussions of Guild Wars 2. And by discussions I mean frothing fanboi love-rants. To go along with this, I may be posting some fan-fiction set in that game's world.

Essentially, this blog is going to be comprised of whatever floats my boat. That being said, this is both an experiment and a serious project—I intend to become accustomed to blogging, and if I go a day without posting anything I will punch myself in the face. Heck, I'll even do it on camera and post it to the blog. Scout's honor.*

I think that's just about all I have to say for today. I can afford to be lazy until tomorrow. Then it starts in earnest.

*I’m not a scout, though I do play one in Team Fortress 2.