Why is the Internet Dead?!
Sorry, I meant to be updating all over the past three weeks. The internet is so buggered at my house. It figures that, just as I start to pull out of my depression, start drawing again, and get an AWESOME FRICKIN' COMPUTER (I'll never stop bragging), that I'd have connection problems. :P
Anyway, let's start where we left off. RCFM was absolutely fantastic. It is starting to compete with MFM as my favorite con, probably because a lot of the staff members are the same. While I didn't rake in piles of cash this year (purposefully, really; I have no business taking on a huge number of commissions, so I was pretty picky, for me.) I had a lot more time to actually enjoy myself. Last year I sat in Shiro and Yoken's room a little bit just to socialize while I drew my ass off, but this year I actually got to get to know them and I love them so much! It's funny, Yoken was the one who told me to enter the raffle for the laptop (for those of you who wanna look it up , It's an HP Pavillion dv9000. It has HP Media Center, Quickplay, and a ton of extra goodies Yoken loaded onto it. More on that in the next section of this post)
Oh yeah, and I found a neat Korean cafe across from the hotel and tried it. Cow tongue is surprisingly good and doesn't look nasty at all with the way they slice it. I couldn't find anyone else brave enough to try it though, except Ardenfetz. Me and my food adventures.
I got a big kick out of Likeshine and Angel on Sunday night. They were on crack or something. I know the feeling, I get it too when a con is done. You stay up drawing for hours and hours and hours and finally it's over and you can relax a little bit. I walked down the hall later, to raid the con-suite, and saw Likeshine jump halfway across the hall, sideways. It was brilliant. Then I assaulted her with a loaf of bread and ran away.
I made a lot of great friends. I'd met most of them last year, but hadn't taken the time to really get to know 'em. Malaki was really cool about the fact that I forgot his email last year and so was very late on giving him a badge, and he's also the guy who donated this laptop to the charity. So he's like my new hero. XD
The trip back was even fun. My friends, Ardenfetz and Kartonis, assured me that I was reaping some good karma when I won the laptop. I needed a new computer so bad, I'd been so sick. I don' know if I really deserve it; I feel awful for some of my late commissions. But I'm catching up now, which feels great. I just gotta get the stuff posted, mailed, and emailed. Then I think I'll be taking a nice vacation from commissions until I'm sure my health is under control.
Besides, I miss working on my own things.
With that in mind, I won't be at AC. Gas is too much, Fetz and Karty aren't going, and I just feel like that week would be better served at home, finishing any commissions I'll have left then. But I'll be at MFM for sure, if I have to sell my body. XD
One of the things I love about my new computer is actually just a little program called OneNote. With it, I've done something I could never manage before: organize the copious amount of notes and essays I'd written for my novel, Necessary Evil, and all the other novels I'd planned around it. For years, things sat in jumbled folders. It took ages to find something, if I found it at all. But now, with neat little folders, sections, and pages, I've got everything in front of me so that if I need to go look up what the name of some obscure emperor from 4,000 years ago, I don't spend two hours sifting outdated and nonsensical notes.
You can even publish the pages as a website, sort of like a wiki. When I get the notebook updated enough, I may create a wiki. I have to ask Shai if it's a good idea or not. I kinda want to work on making it a campaign setting for me to run a D20 modern/future game in. I've had several friends express interest ( I assume they're being honest; I know I'm obsessed with Otska and people tend to tell me anything to make me shut up about it sometimes)
Anyway. OneNote. It changes a writer's life. It's also good for organizing the actual book chapters and scenes, since I write in a very chaotic fashion, as scenes come to mind.
The past couple of weeks, I've worked on NE a lot. I ran through and polished the first three chapters, split them into five chapters, added a very small bridge chapter (I think it adds a lot of depth to one of the characters, and makes him more believable.It also clears up some things about two other characters. The POV char in the chapter, Ataskra, really didn't have some good reasons for doing what he does in regards to Daroneasa. Similarly, she has even fewer good reasons for doing what she does to him. I don't want to get rid of their emotional give-and-take, but I want to set it up better. The way it was, I couldn't imagine two supposedly brilliant people agreeing to ally themselves and marry. Especially not Ataskra. He shouldn't be instantly devoted to her, it goes against everything else I've ever written about him. By starting out differently, hopefully, I can more clearly understand the character and how he changes. Mostly, I don't change major things, the way it ends, but I am trying to support it.
Ras needed very little tweaking, I was pleased to find. I left him alone for the most part. Working on the next section will require me to tackle Daroneasa a lot more. She's the least believable of the three main chars.
I also fixed some passive writing I saw in there, and added a sparse bit of description. I used to avoid it because, at one point in my life, I would tend to describe the surroundings too much. Only Dickens could get away with a full page describing the street the character is standing in. I just overcompensated. One type of description remained, though, and that was describing how the characters interacted. I'm not sure if it's excessive now, or if it's something that gives my writing a unique quality. I think I may have a problem if I am constantly looking for new ways to describe how someone glances, glares, looks, sneers, leers, etc at someone else.
I've been seriously thinking about drawing a series of illustrations. I've got some sketched and inked, but I haven't had time to actually color them.
Last night, I got to be in Cy's game (finally, a real game, with a real dm, with real substance)
It was a fabulous prelude. I'm playing a lawful good cleric, which is a departure from the alignments I've played in the past, usually chaotic good or neutral. I didn't think I could pull it off, but after my 13-yr old char managed to stand up to an angry, drunken mob so that his buddies could save the crowd's intended victim, I think I like lawful good. I've been prejudiced against the LG's for too long. I admit, in the past, I let alignment inform the way I played a character's personality. If I saw lawful good, I thought of them as being crusaders, evangelicals, and accordingly played it as "lawful jackass". Because, IRL, I'm of a chaotic bent, the other end of the spectrum was easy. I'm not happy unless I get to defy authority, but playing Quintus helped me realize that defying authority happens to lawful good characters too, especially when that authority is drunk and about to commit an evil act. I'm really looking forward to this game. ^^
wow, long post. Well, I'll be back online soon (hope hope hopefully). Sorry if this clogged up anyone's f-list. XD
Anyway, let's start where we left off. RCFM was absolutely fantastic. It is starting to compete with MFM as my favorite con, probably because a lot of the staff members are the same. While I didn't rake in piles of cash this year (purposefully, really; I have no business taking on a huge number of commissions, so I was pretty picky, for me.) I had a lot more time to actually enjoy myself. Last year I sat in Shiro and Yoken's room a little bit just to socialize while I drew my ass off, but this year I actually got to get to know them and I love them so much! It's funny, Yoken was the one who told me to enter the raffle for the laptop (for those of you who wanna look it up , It's an HP Pavillion dv9000. It has HP Media Center, Quickplay, and a ton of extra goodies Yoken loaded onto it. More on that in the next section of this post)
Oh yeah, and I found a neat Korean cafe across from the hotel and tried it. Cow tongue is surprisingly good and doesn't look nasty at all with the way they slice it. I couldn't find anyone else brave enough to try it though, except Ardenfetz. Me and my food adventures.
I got a big kick out of Likeshine and Angel on Sunday night. They were on crack or something. I know the feeling, I get it too when a con is done. You stay up drawing for hours and hours and hours and finally it's over and you can relax a little bit. I walked down the hall later, to raid the con-suite, and saw Likeshine jump halfway across the hall, sideways. It was brilliant. Then I assaulted her with a loaf of bread and ran away.
I made a lot of great friends. I'd met most of them last year, but hadn't taken the time to really get to know 'em. Malaki was really cool about the fact that I forgot his email last year and so was very late on giving him a badge, and he's also the guy who donated this laptop to the charity. So he's like my new hero. XD
The trip back was even fun. My friends, Ardenfetz and Kartonis, assured me that I was reaping some good karma when I won the laptop. I needed a new computer so bad, I'd been so sick. I don' know if I really deserve it; I feel awful for some of my late commissions. But I'm catching up now, which feels great. I just gotta get the stuff posted, mailed, and emailed. Then I think I'll be taking a nice vacation from commissions until I'm sure my health is under control.
Besides, I miss working on my own things.
With that in mind, I won't be at AC. Gas is too much, Fetz and Karty aren't going, and I just feel like that week would be better served at home, finishing any commissions I'll have left then. But I'll be at MFM for sure, if I have to sell my body. XD
One of the things I love about my new computer is actually just a little program called OneNote. With it, I've done something I could never manage before: organize the copious amount of notes and essays I'd written for my novel, Necessary Evil, and all the other novels I'd planned around it. For years, things sat in jumbled folders. It took ages to find something, if I found it at all. But now, with neat little folders, sections, and pages, I've got everything in front of me so that if I need to go look up what the name of some obscure emperor from 4,000 years ago, I don't spend two hours sifting outdated and nonsensical notes.
You can even publish the pages as a website, sort of like a wiki. When I get the notebook updated enough, I may create a wiki. I have to ask Shai if it's a good idea or not. I kinda want to work on making it a campaign setting for me to run a D20 modern/future game in. I've had several friends express interest ( I assume they're being honest; I know I'm obsessed with Otska and people tend to tell me anything to make me shut up about it sometimes)
Anyway. OneNote. It changes a writer's life. It's also good for organizing the actual book chapters and scenes, since I write in a very chaotic fashion, as scenes come to mind.
The past couple of weeks, I've worked on NE a lot. I ran through and polished the first three chapters, split them into five chapters, added a very small bridge chapter (I think it adds a lot of depth to one of the characters, and makes him more believable.It also clears up some things about two other characters. The POV char in the chapter, Ataskra, really didn't have some good reasons for doing what he does in regards to Daroneasa. Similarly, she has even fewer good reasons for doing what she does to him. I don't want to get rid of their emotional give-and-take, but I want to set it up better. The way it was, I couldn't imagine two supposedly brilliant people agreeing to ally themselves and marry. Especially not Ataskra. He shouldn't be instantly devoted to her, it goes against everything else I've ever written about him. By starting out differently, hopefully, I can more clearly understand the character and how he changes. Mostly, I don't change major things, the way it ends, but I am trying to support it.
Ras needed very little tweaking, I was pleased to find. I left him alone for the most part. Working on the next section will require me to tackle Daroneasa a lot more. She's the least believable of the three main chars.
I also fixed some passive writing I saw in there, and added a sparse bit of description. I used to avoid it because, at one point in my life, I would tend to describe the surroundings too much. Only Dickens could get away with a full page describing the street the character is standing in. I just overcompensated. One type of description remained, though, and that was describing how the characters interacted. I'm not sure if it's excessive now, or if it's something that gives my writing a unique quality. I think I may have a problem if I am constantly looking for new ways to describe how someone glances, glares, looks, sneers, leers, etc at someone else.
I've been seriously thinking about drawing a series of illustrations. I've got some sketched and inked, but I haven't had time to actually color them.
Last night, I got to be in Cy's game (finally, a real game, with a real dm, with real substance)
It was a fabulous prelude. I'm playing a lawful good cleric, which is a departure from the alignments I've played in the past, usually chaotic good or neutral. I didn't think I could pull it off, but after my 13-yr old char managed to stand up to an angry, drunken mob so that his buddies could save the crowd's intended victim, I think I like lawful good. I've been prejudiced against the LG's for too long. I admit, in the past, I let alignment inform the way I played a character's personality. If I saw lawful good, I thought of them as being crusaders, evangelicals, and accordingly played it as "lawful jackass". Because, IRL, I'm of a chaotic bent, the other end of the spectrum was easy. I'm not happy unless I get to defy authority, but playing Quintus helped me realize that defying authority happens to lawful good characters too, especially when that authority is drunk and about to commit an evil act. I'm really looking forward to this game. ^^
wow, long post. Well, I'll be back online soon (hope hope hopefully). Sorry if this clogged up anyone's f-list. XD