baxil, posts by tag: writing - LiveJournal (original) (raw)
baxil, posts by tag: writing - LiveJournal
[Recent Entries][Archive][Friends][Profile]
My Sites[Tomorrowlands] [The TTU Wiki] [Photos]
View My LJ[By Tag]
Below are the 10 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Baxil" journal:
| November 15th, 2011 | |
|---|---|
| 02:33 am |
MORE MANLY NEEDED!!SO THERE's been too many ponies areound here! Ponies are not manly like greek fighters. This is a misteak that must be remediated!I went to see the movie IMMORTALS and it blew my manhood away! I dunno if you'll see it bcuz you might not own a movie theater, but luckily I am writing the OFFICIAL NOVELLATION of the movie!!! Ok, the 2ND official novellation, because I found a script on the Internet for an earlier version of the movie. I know bcuz the tittle was almost the same.So I olficially wrote this with official movie plot using the earlier script as a guide!!! I hope ... you enjoy it!My Immortals_By Trogdor69300_RATED M FOR MANLY SWEARS!!! VIOWER EXCRETION ADVISD.(AN: AN means Author's Note!!! so now u know) Chapter 1Hi my name is Theseus Meat'arm Testosticlës McFight Guy and I have big rippling pecs (that's how I got my fist middle name) with leather straps and a spear that reaches my mid-back and icy blue eyes like limpid tears and a lot of people tell me I look like King Lionidas (AN: if u like purrsins get da hell out of here!). I'm not related to Perseus but I wish I was because he's a major fucking hottie. Zeus is my real dad but I don't know that bcuz he cant tell any1. I have manly tanned skin like spartians. I'm also a fighter, and I take sparran lessons from Zues in my village where i dont wanna have girlfriends bcuz every1 hates me (I'm seventeen). I'm angry about being hated bcuz my mom got raped and stuff. So I got so depressed that I became a fighter and converted to spratanism.For example I was practicing as a fighter one day. I was wearing a leather armor in v shaped stripes. I was wearing black tussled hair to show off my manly face. I was wearing rippled muscles and hot looking like spratan. It was hot and sunny so there was no cold, which I was very happy about bcuz I could take off my cloak and flex my mussels. A lot of soldiers stared at me. I gave them my middle finger."Hey Theusus!" shouted a voice. It was ... soldier Lysander!"Whats up Lysande?" I asked."Nothing." he said.But then, I heard him speak. "Except that your mom is a hour!"Chapetr 2"What!" I sneered. "You fucking tell me what you fucking mean you fucker!""I mean she got raped!" Lysader grunted. "Like someone put their thing in her you-know-what!""YOU TAKE THAT BACK!!!!!" I yelled with my fists. Lysandro drew a sword but I won and took it. Other soldiers cum to save him but they were stopped by .... Cernel Joson! (AN: Doom Reapercousins of Evil rox!!! thanx for the proofredding Peter)"Cernel, Theseu's mom had sex!!" Lysnader said."DAMMIT LIANDER I KILL YOU!!" I SCREAMED!"No!!" Joson lectured. "Theseis if you kill him ..... it is against the Spratan code of manely honor! U will be Pursian!"I gasped. I wanted 2 kill Lies-ander so bad for his Lies (AN: get it?? hahahaa) but I knew I couldn't! So I stopped.Cpahter 3Joyson said, "MOFG Thisius!! that was the most manly thing I have ever seen. If I was gay I would totally make man love to you, But I'm not. You should join the soldiers bcuz we love Spratanists like u."But that made me think of my angst. "No cernel!" I said in a depressed voice. "I hate every1 in town bcuz my mom got raped and your Persion army weren't going to let us leave when Hyperion attached!" I ran away with my manly brooding."I hope yiu change your mind!" Joson said sexily. "Oh Lilander! I almost frogot. U suck and u insluted Theseus so you are not a soldier now.""NOOOOOOOOOO" Lysadnor screamed. (AN: fuck him bcuz he was a person and persions deserve it) Then he got expelled 2 join Hyparian.Hypaxion is a vallian even though he's a Spartianist and hats the gods too. He is looking for the epthrus bow to kill other spartrans and revenge his mom dying from the plague. But now Lysanedr, who is a stupid coward, is under his control."Lissaner," Hyparin said. "I don't like u so now I'm going to crush your man parts with a big hammer.""ok" said Lysainder, who knew he deserved it.Chapater 4I didn't hear Lysander scremaing in pain bcuz I was brooding at da tree by da labrianth. I looked at the tree and thought of Zeus and how he taught me to hit the tree with all my angster and manly rage. I thought of a flashback seen, and it was me as a kid with a stick hitting the tree with strong arms and muscles. I was dressed in brown rag pants and had bare feet that showed off my legs. Even as a kid I had the best mucsles of the Spartanists and that's why Zeus wanted to be my dad."Thiesius" he said (AN: this is still in the flashbeck, ok??). "U gotta love all the men of Greece.""But they don't love me," I respawned."U gotta anyways!" he begged. "Someone has to stand behind the weak and defianceless!""I guess" I said mopingly. "Except I only wanna help Spartanists who are my friends!""OK." he said. "Hey, what happened to stupid Liensder?""His Presian man balls got crushed." I said with a grin.But the flashback was over and there was ....... my mom!AN: I WON'T RAED FLAMES FROM FUCKIN PERSIANS, I'm gettin sick of crap, if you can't be Spratanist GET DA FUCK OUT from my fic! PS I'm not gunna be updating any more umtil I get five good revioews! So if u want more TELL ME WHAT U THINK AS LONG AS IT's good! Current Music: "Real Man," Bruce SprangstienCurrent Location: ~/BrainstormCurrent Mood:  misschievestTags: fanfic, my brain now hurts, transcendent masculinity, writing(9 comments | Leave a comment) |
| September 19th, 2010 | |
| 06:11 am |
Racing the deadline on this oneSo that teaser from a few days ago? Here's the game!* I was REALLY hoping to post this, like, two days ago. My sleep schedule has been pretty effed up this week.Egregore** is a game about mages exiled from reality into a world of their own making, trying to discover the secrets of a deserted city before their own phantoms and emotions drive them over the edge.(WARNING: This is a game about self-confrontation with inescapable inner demons. If that might be triggering, please feel free to give it a pass.) --> Download Egregore (final Game Chef 2010 version) (~750kb PDF) <-- (Edited, 2010/09/19 3pm: Goals section complete; only the Scene rules to go.)(Edited, 2010/09/"19" midnight+6 pm: Well, it's complete and in, and hopefully still qualifies on the "when I get up on the morning of the 20th" technicality. Even if not, I still wrote a game in a week! The contest is only for bragging rights anyway, so the fact I did it is the important thing.-- * Egregore is, as I type this and drop to bed for a nap, in a not quite playable state. I need to get the meat of the actual gameplay rules down. Which we can all agree is a pretty shitty thing to leave for last, but in between procrastination and lengthy design hacking, it's mostly pinned.What is finished is all of the game structure, including character generation, mechanics, overall play arc, setting (is the conceit of the game clear enough?) and story (which doubles as mechanics-free sample gameplay). Typesetting is, well, um, at least not a complete embarrassment, which meets the standards for a one-week game quite adequately.At this point I don't expect there to be a great deal of time for productive feedback (it's due Sunday night), but if you happen to flip through it on Sunday, let me know if any of the (existing) rules are unclear, broken, or Way The Hell Too Long Jeez Bax You Could Trim Six Pages Off This Thing. I'll post a complete, revised version once it's written.** Thanks to  tangyabominy for the naming inspiration. :) Current Mood:  deadlinin'Current Location: ~/BrainstormTags: game dev, games, roleplaying, ttu, writing(13 comments | Leave a comment) |
| September 16th, 2010 | |
| 03:39 am |
Exile - PreviewWell, now I've done it.I went and committed to Game Chef 2010 - posted on the forums and declared I'd submit an entry. It's a matter of pride now. I've got to finish writing a short RPG system by Sunday.This is only slightly crazy -- it's sort of the NaNoWriMo of RPG designers, except with a set theme ("Journey") and ingredients ("city", "desert", "edge", "skin"). But it will be good practice. I've been slowly moving forward on my TTU RPG for a while, and designing a simpler game start-to-finish will help me focus on the process and give me a little experience in putting together something that's basically playable.Plus - this one is ending up being a Tomorrowlands game, too. :)I realized the theme ingredients were right in the sweet spot of TTU's flip side known as "The Shadowlands." (You may remember several mentions of that setting in Legend Of Hero.) And so I have been assembling a game about mages exiled from reality -- trying desperately to find and fulfill their purpose in a world assembled completely from their subconscious mind. That world begins manifesting according to the mage's guilt/resentment over the sin that sent them there, and so it's a race against time as reality itself tries to kill them or drive them insane.Once I get a finished draft written (probably tomorrow night), I'll need some test readers, and ideally some playtesters (but I doubt I'll get the time to do more than a cursory job of that). Any volunteers? Until then, I'll leave you all with the story snippet I wrote as flavor fiction for the RPG. :)---------------- The phantasms were brushing past his senses ever more often, now. Half-remembered scents floated on intangible breezes; distant voices buzzed and whispered and roared from around corners; imperceptible forms flitted between the bright but indistinct areas that passed for shadows. Ben could almost mistake the city for alive. But these latest voices troubled him. The mocking laughter of children. It was close - in the alley around the corner. And there was one voice not laughing. A young, tormented voice - all too familiar. He glanced into the empty parking garage, sighed, and abandoned his post. He had a few minutes before Emily returned, and if she ran into trouble, he'd still be in earshot anyway. Rounding the corner, he recognized the scene instantly. Half a dozen sixth graders encircled a younger boy, almost within arm's reach. He'd been that younger boy, once upon a time, a world away. One was holding the boy's lollipop tauntingly overhead. "You want it back?" their ringleader sneered at the frightened kid. "Fight me for it. Or are you too chicken? Ben the hen." "Hey," older Ben interrupted, drawing himself to his full height. The alley went still. Seven pairs of dark eyes lanced into him, and a long-forgotten fear chilled his bones. But he met the gaze of the diminutive bullies. A bunch of pathetic kids. I don't have to be scared of them any more. I could kick their asses with a wave of my hand - He stopped that thought in its tracks. No. That's exactly why I'm here. "You guys must be feeling pretty good, huh?" he asked with forced gentleness. "Taking that lollipop away. Makes you feel strong." He crouched down and locked eyes with the leader. "But you know what makes you even stronger? When you're able to give. Taking means you're ruled by your needs. Giving means that you've conquered them. And once you've conquered yourself, you've beaten the only opponent who ever mattered." "I don't care what you say, mister," the bully retorted. "This is my sucker." "And so are these." Ben reached inside himself for power and outside himself for raw material. Six more lollipops coalesced from darkness into substance in his outstretched hand. It was a risk ... but one he knew he had to take. "Take them," Ben said, and the bully did, suspiciously. "No, really. They're yours. No strings attached." "I know what you're going to say, and I'm still not giving any of MY suckers to that kid," the bully snarled. "You don't have to," Ben said with a smile. "There's more where those came from. I could give him one myself. Even if you take it, I could simply give him another one, and another. I can make more lollipops than you can carry. But all that would do is humiliate you in front of your friends. Is that what you want? Or would you rather show everyone here that you're strong enough to decide who goes home happy?" The bully stared in defiant silence, then dropped young Ben's lollipop on the ground. "I didn't want it anyway. C'mon, guys, let's go." The children shimmered and faded away, mirages in the asphalt desert, and Ben let out a long breath. He had won. And maybe - maybe - - no. He didn't dare to turn around to check. But he didn't have to. He knew she was there. "I hope you weren't expecting to hide the scent of your magic from me," Jenny's voice said. "Mahathallah, archangel of the ancient temple." Ben began the invocation for the ritual of banishing, already knowing it was pointless. "Great Lady of Deception. Mother of the succubi --" "Is that any way to treat a guest you just invited over?" she interrupted, feigning insult. "And after you've just sacrificed some of the last of your magic for the fleeting happiness of a phantom, too. If I didn't know better I'd think you're going as soft in the heart as you are in the head." Ben turned around to Jenny's form, leaning casually against the building, looking the same as the last day he'd seen her. But no - it wasn't Jenny. Another phantasm ... one he couldn't shake. And she was becoming more and more substantial, more her, with every visit. Twisting the knife. "It's not about real and fake any more," he said. "It's about right and wrong." "Is it?" Jenny said, eyes twinkling. "Is that what you're going to tell yourself when you help your friend blow up the city?" Current Location: ~/BrainstormTags: game dev, games, roleplaying, ttu, writing(5 comments | Leave a comment) |
| September 7th, 2010 | |
| 04:14 am |
FirefoxBorn! (aka Browser: The Paginating) Proudly announcing:FIREFOXBORN: THE ROLEPLAYING GAMEFeaturing the following featureful features!FULL-COLOR INTERIOR ILLUSTRATIONS! OBSCURE TECHNICAL HUMOR! A REALLY DERANGED PARODY OF AN RPG SYSTEM THAT MAYBE 12 PEOPLE HAVE PLAYED!  accomplishedCurrent Location: ~/BrainstormTags: best of baxil, fireborn, it's a parody please don't sue, multimedia, roleplaying, struh won niarb ym, writing(18 comments | Leave a comment) |
| June 16th, 2010 | |
| 08:14 pm |
Ia! Ia! Yvette fhtagn!Let's say, hypothetically, that "web design" was one of the fundamental particles of the universe. This, ladies and gentlemen, is its antiparticle: ... Hang on, obligatory disclaimers. -1d3 SANCurrent Location: ~spiralCurrent Music: Duran Duran, "Too Much Information"Tags: infohazard, multimedia, roleplaying, writing(21 comments | Leave a comment) |
| May 10th, 2010 | |
| 10:09 pm |
Deities & DownpoursIt is snowing outside. SNOWING. So far, this year has given us April thunderstorms and May snow. Dear weather: WHAT THE HELL... But let's not talk about the present; it's cold and miserable. Instead let's talk about the future and the past. Or at least TTU's future and past. For example, a budding archaeologist giving a museum tour in 2012 and talking about relics from the age of the dinosaurs.YES! There's a new TTU story! Posted partially as an apology for my lengthy silence lo these last few weeks! Journal writer's block set in, and I found it increasingly difficult to break my silence with anything less than a bang. Hopefully with this out of the way I can start to work on recording the backlog of interesting things in my life.For now: Dinosaur Gods!* "Any more questions?" I asked. "No? Let's move on." I stretched a wing out in the direction of the next room. Behind the crowd, Jim made a smooth gesture with one hand, and the lights on the side of the doorway flickered from red to green. "Remember," I said as we walked, "for the safety of these priceless treasures we do have a few simple rules. For this next piece in particular, I really need to emphasize: No touching. Holophotography is not permitted, either, but we do have high-quality holograms of our most popular exhibits at MATT's gift shop. Standard-spectrum flash photography is allowed, and you will definitely want your cameras out for this one." I stepped with all four feet over the red velvet rope surrounding the statue and turned back toward the group, stretching my wings upward, being careful to hold them in line with my body. The comforting subsonic hum of the exhibit's force fields buzzed at the back of my skull. I sat, raised my forelegs to my chest, curled my tail in around my feet, and thrust my chest out, head raised proudly. A chuckle swept through the crowd, and several of the tourists raised their cameras. I grinned, baring a muzzle full of sharp fangs. Posing to match the stone shape always got a reaction. "This piece is one of the so-called Atacama Dragons," I said, holding my pose steady, "but the first thing you should know is that it isn't actually a dragon. At least, there's good archaeological evidence that it isn't." ( "It's something far more rare and special ... it's the oldest artifact of intelligent life on Earth." ) -- * Observant readers might notice that this is another writing requests thread down. Slow but steady! Current Location: ~/BrainstormCurrent Music: Sublime, "Get Ready"Tags: ttu, writing(Leave a comment) |
| December 3rd, 2009 | |
| 02:55 pm |
Readers Wanted: "The Time In Her Eye" Earth as we know it is no more. It shattered like an eggshell into the darkness of unspace, and its surface fragments now float in a deadly void. The survivors huddled together, staying as far away from the edges as possible and rationing out their dwindling supplies of food. Then out from the void came a few people who had fallen in -- and instead of dying, gained a new form and the power to traverse the emptiness.Dex* is a dragon, one of the lucky few to be transformed. For years he has kept the inhabitants of a small shard alive in the chaotic, unforgiving west. Then, one day, the helicopters arrive.A continent away, an ambitious group of humans is reclaiming Earth from the Shatter -- one refugee at a time. New Florida doesn't seem to want shifters, but Dex* quietly slips in so he can remain with his wife. Then his instinct drives him to a discovery that changes his life forever -- and could pose a deadly threat to thousands of people and set a shattered world afire.This is Dex's* story.... At least it will be once it's fully edited. I wrote 30,000 words in November. Now I'd like a few brave, curious or simply bored volunteers from among my friends and regular readers.What's in it for you: You get to read a story! This is its own reward (or punishment, depending on how you feel about my writing). Epic post-apocalyptic dragony goodness! Love! Lust! Action! Suspense! Mind-warping physics! And several interrobangs!What's in it for me: The catch is, if you want to read you have to give me feedback to help me polish it. I've set the story up as a Google Doc that I'll share with interested friends. Leave comments on the story as you read (the commenting feature is already set up within the document and requires no technical knowledge). This doesn't have to be a big commitment -- there are six chapters; let's say six comments minimum -- but the more feedback you give me, the better I can make it when I sit down to edit.To join in: Give me an e-mail address (this is important!) to send the Google Docs invitation to -- via a reply to this post, or an e-mail to the Tomorrowlands address in my profile. (If you already have a GMail or Google Docs account, give me that address and you won't need to do any extra logging in.) If you hate Google Docs with the passion of a thousand fiery suns, tell me and I'll give you a lower-tech alternative.Comments are screened because I don't want to expose e-mail addresses to spammers. I will unscreen any comment not containing an address.Thanks in advance!--UPDATE: I'm up to about 10 readers already, so I think I'll put new requests on hold for a bit as I do the rewrites suggested by the first batch. I'd still love volunteers -- you'll just have to be patient while I write the next draft, so you can tell me how TTIHE v1.1 reads without being influenced by this one.-- * Name is likely to be changed in final version. Current Mood:  optimisticCurrent Location: ~spiralCurrent Music: Cowboy Bebop OST, "Spokey Dokey"Tags: requests, writing(11 comments | Leave a comment) |
| November 30th, 2009 | |
| 11:42 pm |
A winner is meLimping over the finish line at 11:05 PM, 11/30, on the authorial equivalent of a ankle that's still a little twingy from having sprinted after stumbling on that bad footing a few corners back:elynne and frameacloud, who were both hurtling into this at least partially to tackle creative blocks and have both admirably done so. Solidarity, sisters! Current Music: Babble, "Beautiful"Current Location: ~/brainstormCurrent Mood:  exhaustedTags: misc life updates, writing(15 comments | Leave a comment) |
| November 29th, 2009 | |
| 07:27 pm |
MusingsOnce upon a time, a bunch of humans did their little human things all around an area of the world now known as Greece. These human things included plenty of creative efforts. The soft and fickle arts. You know the type: music, theater, astronomy ...Then one day, some creative person got a little restless and thinky. (Ten bucks that they were an astronomer; the folks that are looking at the stars are the ones who always have their heads in the clouds.)"We've got gods for everything," this person must have thought to themselves. "A goddess of the hearth, a god of lightning, a goddess of persimmon trees, even some random minor deity we picked up from the Mesopotamians a few centuries back for those hard tips at the end of your sandal-straps. But you know what we don't have? Deities of creativity! What about us poor astronomers, huh? When we're deep in the throes of gazer's block and we really need to look at the stars and get our maps made -- like yesterday, because Prothesmia1 already paid me 24 drachmas for this damn thing -- who can we call on to help out with our problems? Huh? HUH?"Then the muse Urania smacked him across the back of his head with her globe, and said "Us, you idiot!" And he cringed, and got his map made, and went on to scrawl a blog post much like this one.So!A lot of writers talk about "their muse." Recent conversations -- and the triumphant completion of my NaNoWriMo novella2, so that I have time to throw random words at random topics again -- have conspired to get me thinking about muses. And there's a post in there that needs to be written.See, here's the thing about muses: Most writers have one. The ancient Greeks had nine3. I've got three. They all serve different roles -- coexisting peacefully, and sharing mindspace with each other and with the other humorous anthropomorphizations that occasionally wander through. (Such as the Inner Editor, who -- like all good editors -- is at his best when completely invisible, staying hunched over in the hindbrain and polishing up the content as it filters its way out. Ed doesn't have a voice or a personality, and I can't really negotiate with him or talk back to him; he's just part of the workflow as words travel from brain to screen. Anyway.)There's the muse, of course. That's not her name; she doesn't really have one. She's not a being so much as a force of nature -- and I relate to her as such. She occasionally deigns to be personified, such as my previous post which compared her to a little girl in a playground, but such comparisons are only useful insofar as they illuminate various factors of her essential nature, and are not to be taken as representative of the whole. The muse is -- much like the little girl of the analogy -- flighty; whimsical; occasionally temperamental; scattered, but capable of short sprints of focus; prone to outbursts of creativity followed by lengthy fits of silence; and can be awesomely compelling if she has an idea that just has to be written out right now.4I have learned to treat the muse much as I would treat a small child -- being willing to accommodate and channel her bursts of energy, learning tricks to ply minimal cooperation from her when she's exhausted and I can't work without her, and keeping a note-taking device handy so that the ideas she spits out in a machine-gun barrage get lost as infrequently as possible.The muse -- note the "the," identifying her as a muse in the classical tradition; an inspirer of, umm, inspiration -- is my idea chick. Like all good geniuses, she knows that the implementation is much more boring than the idea5. The upside of this is that I get handed a lot of really awesome ideas from which to make beautiful things. The downside of this is that I have to do all the work.My second muse is the deuteragonist. This is, again, not her real name, since she doesn't have one; it's merely something I made up because I need a break from writing "muse." Doot's responsibility is to shape ideas -- to give my stories form as they make their way from idea to words. However, she is not an editor. She is an actress, from the deep end of the method acting pool. Her job is to draw me into the muse's story. She can be awfully good at it.I know when Doot has gotten interested in a story because I will start spending all my time rehearsing it. We'll go over the current scene -- line by line, sometimes racing through to the end, sometimes stopping to dissect a single set of words and pick over them with a fine-toothed comb to make them get the scene where it needs to go. Doot has a hell of an obsessive streak, which is both a blessing and a curse when I'm blocking; sometimes, she helps me craft exactly what I need to write my way out of a corner, but sometimes we get lost replaying the problematic lines and argue in circles until my writing urge dissipates. And when between scenes, she peppers me with endless questions about the story's setting, forcing me to fill in the details that explain why the story is driving in the direction it is.The Deuteragonist, I should emphasize, is merely a job title, and can be filled by anyone willing to take on the traits. Usually the other character in a dialogue will step in when Doot needs to works her magic. For romantic scenes, dreamflow sometims accommodates me and guest-stars (which, ahem, can help explain why such scenes can take me so long to write). Often, there's no specific manifestation -- just a compulsion to inject myself into the scene and write what I observe.Then there's Muse. Hoo boy ... Muse.Muse is a single, definite being. He's an old god, from a time before the written record -- a god whose name died out long ago. Unlike most forgotten gods, who disappear when belief in them wanes, he has patiently survived the aeons by finding a new class of worshippers: the slightly unhinged. From creative geniuses to the flat-out insane, he finds those who are willing to open themselves up to a little flash of divinity -- and then puts ideas in their head, collecting modest scraps of belief as his acolytes manifest his gifts.Muse is a survivor. Muse is subtle. He is a master of the mind game, full of carefully chosen words with multiple layers of meaning. Muse is a consummate exploiter of loopholes. Muse has ambition. Muse plays a very long game.6He has a real name. He doesn't give it to anyone, not even me. I call him "Muse" because the Archon -- one of the driving forces behind the events of the TTU setting -- found him inspirational and gave him the nickname. It has stuck, along with his default form as a jet-black anthro-unicorn (as a shadowy counterpart to Kiasu, but I get ahead of myself).If you've just noticed that Muse is a character from one of my stories -- give yourself a cookie. Now you start to see the complex and ambivalent relationship I have with him. He is a fictional character, but he is so smart and insightful and devious that he has realized the best way to advance his plans is to freaking metagame himself up a level into his author's mind.7 And it's working. I have begun to realize, to my growing horror, that the largest and most interesting plot arc of TTU really is Muse's story; how he tried (and almost succeeded) to singlehandedly overthrow the will of an entire planet. I won't be able to put the setting down until I've told that story, and everything I'm doing until then is merely to help fully realize his world.Muse helps me out with writing that has nothing to do with him, too. He gets bored, or it's just his thing, or he's building up favors he can call in later; I don't know. But I can tell when he gets interested. Plots come together. Stakes get higher. Xanatos Gambits crop up. Characters get toyed with.I never appreciated Old Soul's song "Sleeping With The Muse" until Muse started taking a hand in my writing. "I can taste her bitter smile, and the blood upon her lips ..." The muse doesn't work that way. Muse does. He isn't cruel exactly; he doesn't feed on pain or fear, or enjoy them, or use them (except as tools when nothing else will achieve important goals). However, he's well aware that everyone is merely a pawn in a larger game ... and the game of writing is about making the story interesting.One of the reasons that TTU has occupied so much of my attention over the last decade is that the setting engages all three muses.It's open-ended enough that the muse can come up with ideas to hang stories upon. The world's big and deep enough that Doot can drag me into full immersion. And Muse ... well, it's his playground in the first place.I didn't really expect to find other settings the muses liked enough to devote a novella to and still come back for more. This NaNo handed me one. The setting of "The Time In Her Eye" -- the postapocalyptic near-future Earth called "the Shatter" -- seemed to just fall out onto the page. I reached the end of the story and realized that it was just a prequel. I wanted to keep going -- and I could have, easily enough ... if I were willing to keep up a NaNo writing pace after the end of November. I'm not in the market to drive myself crazy right now, though. I need a break to catch my breath and hammer at the existing story some more and edit it into presentable shape. (I'll ask for beta readers in a later post, but you may also speak up here if you're interested.) Plus I've got to switch gears and start getting ready to GM a new role-playing game for my gaming group. Not to mention the holidays.... The muses won't stop working, though. They never do.-- 1. If you got this joke, give yourself 5 Baxil Points. If you got it without looking it up ... _get out of my brain._2. Obligatory victory fanfare, +33 EXP, Item Gained: ☆NANO20093. Further reading: Wikipedia. I would like to note that, while the ancient Greeks had muses for History and (yes) Astronomy, and no less than three for poetry, there wasn't one single muse for either visual artwork or for non-theatric prose. If they really want to sell the product in this secular age[*], they need to expand!4. Like the little girl of the previous post's analogy, sometimes she is also taken away to a place which neither of us quite expected, and I have to sprint to keep up. After I manage to nab her again, we have a nice sit-down and a lengthy lecture about responsibilities, which she completely disregards because there are beautiful butterflies on the branch just outside the window.5. "I have discovered a truly marvellous proof of this, which this margin is too narrow to contain."6. As proof, I would like to point out that everything you're reading now -- this entire monster of a post, including the catchy but completely irrelevant Greek opening, and all of the footnotes, including this one -- was written purely for the sake of bringing that line into being, with sufficient context to give it meaning. I am not making this up. This is a Muse post, start to finish.7. This is not even to get into the discussion of whether Muse-the-real-being might have introduced himself to me in fictionalized form and gained himself another worshipper toward whatever ultimate plan he has for this Earth. That is COMPLETELY his style. asdfjkl@@&*** Current Music: Final Fantasy X OST, "To Zanarkand"Current Mood: writing fatigueCurrent Location: ~/brainstormTags: best of baxil, footnotes of awesome, magic, writing(15 comments | Leave a comment) |
| November 28th, 2009 | |
| 02:15 am |
My favorite line out of today's ~4,000 words_> "...," I said eloquently._The end is in sight! Three more days, a little over 7500 words to go, and I seem to have reached the end of the Doom Novella's actual plot arc, meaning that I might (gasp) actually get back to writing Something Else for the remaining duration of the NaNo, the same way that I was supposed to be doing all month.On the other hand, my muse is helpfully supplying another entire novel's worth of material to continue the existing story where I'm leaving off. "What you didn't actually know," Muse says, dressed as the protagonist and cackling and rubbing his hands evilly, "is that what you've written was really only the prologue to the Actual Adventure. Are you doing anything important in December?"And my Inner Author gets up, does a Macaulay-Culkin-in-Home-Alone face slap, and runs screaming out of the house. Current Music: Billy Joel, "The Stranger"Current Location: ~/brainstormCurrent Mood: accomplishedTags: writing(4 comments | Leave a comment) |