life is what happens when… (fill in the blank)

Lots of stuff going on in the real world right now. I’ve been pretty busy making sure things don’t crash and burn. On top of that, new processes here at work and hurdles to leap over (or hoops to jump through, depends on who’s asking).

I’ve managed to hammer out a few more words for my juvie-fantasy novel. Good, solid start to things. I might post some more excerpts soon. I will post a new chapter to one of the ongoing short stories I’ve got on here, along with a link to everything. I’ve already started by adding the Creative Writing tab again.

EOZK (Equal Opportunity Zombie Killer)

I have this thing about playing female character, in both video games and RPGs. One of my friends didn’t have an issue playing a woman in d20 Modern. He played a Zoe Bell–like action hero, lots of martial arts action and high jumping, from buildings even. Another friend thought it was a challenge in a Call of Cthulhu scenario I ran a while back. He/she died a horrible death though. Werewolf attack. Another player-character at that.

I digress. My point is, it never felt right to fill the shoes (or high heels) of female characters. Whenever my friends jump into a L4D or L4D2 game, I pray I’m not last. I really don’t want to be playing Zoey or Rochelle, respectively. It’s really nothing against the characters, or women, it just feels… awkward. I’m not into the Tomb Raider games because I don’t like those types of games. I can’t stand high jump, puzzle, fall to your death if you slip style games. My palms get too sweaty and the controller slides out of my hands. My mild aerophobia might have something to do with that.

I’m baffled that Valve didn’t make a customizable game with L4D2. It doesn’t seem that it would be that difficult to make generic names and voices for the players to pick, and then X amount of variations on a character. How cool would it be to play a personalized model in that infected mess? The Unreal games do it to a certain degree.

That’s my idea for the next Dead game: custom player models. To keep it cheap, use the same maps from the previous games, just tweak them slightly. They show other people in-game trying to hide out in other (sometimes failed) safe rooms. It would be great to play L4D: ReLoaded. Sort of the same maps, but from a new perspective, with personalized player models.

And this idea stems from wanting me and my male friends to be able to play an all male team of zombie killers. The flipside to that is a team hot female zombie hunters out there.

That’s all. Maybe Valve will get this. Maybe they’re already planning this.

AFK too much

My office network does not like WordPress. That’s too bad, I really like it. It’s pretty funny though. Sporadically throughout the night my blog gets blocked, but not every time.

Whatever.

I’ve posted some more stuff to my Kindle store, but its not completely live yet. I’ll drop a post when it is. My serial superhero story, Invinci-Boy will be available soon. Hopefully with cover art, but that’s not a promise. I’m trying to get back into the swing of writing something – anything! – every night. I really want to post a few pages every night or at least once a week.

Right now I’ve been devoting a lot of time to writing my kid’s fantasy novel. It’s a little slow, I want things to be just right. I’m still kicking around ideas for a title, but nothing fits yet. I’ve got the cast set, the environments set, and am now a few pages deep. The main character is a young boy that gets pulled through a portal to another world, something entirely alien, but still familiar. Portals open up all over the place, dropping into other worlds, so he’s constantly shifting from place to place until he gets home. Every world will be completely different in scope and development. One place might be the stone age, another will be futuristic. This story will most likely end up touching on all the genres I really love. When I feel comfortable with a piece I’ll post another excerpt.

BTW, thanks to everyone for checking out my Kindle store. If you get a chance, please leave a rating or review (or both), and tell others that might enjoy it as well. Also, you don’t actually need a Kindle to read Kindle files. You install a program, very similar to iTunes, to purchase and download content. Once you have it, you upload it to the Kindle reader. The cool thing though is that you can read the stories on your computer. The software will keep everything organized, just like iTunes. It’s a pretty decent package.

still writing, sort of

I’ve been plotting this new story lately, thinking about everything that’s going to happen. I want this to be the most planned out story I’ve ever written. The reason I’m planning so much for this one is because I want it longer than anything I’ve ever written. I’m going to continue to write for the other ongoing stories, but this one will be different. I’m attempting to write a kid’s fantasy book. Basically, the story is a mix of everything I grew up loving and still enjoy watching with my kids. My influences are things like Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal, Jim Henson’s Storyteller series (sensing a theme yet?), Harry Potter, Star Wars. The great thing is that I have a built in test audience. My oldest is the perfect age for reading this type of story, and so far he has liked it (all four pages of completed material). I didn’t tell him my idea; I just asked him to read what I had and tell me what he thinks. He said I should write more so it would be a book, like Harry Potter or Spiderwick.

Here is an excerpt I’m working on now:

Wolverine series could be better

Didn’t get a chance to write that Siege review like I wanted. Still haven’t caught up with the whole thing. I forgot to bring in to work the Origins of Siege and Embedded. I ended up reading some back issues of Wolverine instead. All I can say about that… Marc Guggenheim is a horrible writer. Coupled with Howard Chaykin’s art, it was most likely one of the worst stories I’ve ever read. EVER. Here’s an example of the writing:

“The proverbial camel’s vertebrae was fractured…”

“Double-U-double-U-one” translation: WWI

The Dr. Strange appearance was awful too.

Iron Man’s new armor!

Had to add this before I logged off. I was checking a site real quick, in the process of shutting down here at the office, and saw this cool new re-design for Tony Stark/Iron Man. I really dig the sleak look. I wonder how it works. With it being less bulky, it makes me think of the Extremis armor he had a few years back. The Extremis armor was more bio, kind of like the liquid metal terminator in T2. Sort of. He lost that though at the beginning of the current Iron Man series. Anyway, it’ll be cool to see how he gets this suit.

The House of Ideas… has a good idea!

Ok, most people that know me know that I’m a huge comic book geek. I love Marvel, not big on DC, although I like what the “art house” branch of DC develops. Vertigo, Wildstorm, anything that’s not mainstream DC is ok.

But Marvel, that’s what I’m addicted to. If I just had a shirt that said , then I would be happy and wear it most of the time.

I’ve loved just about everything The House of Ideas has put out in the past few years. Yeah, the Marvel Civil War rubbed me the wrong way (heroes and best friends shouldn’t be socking each other in the face), but the aftermath was good. Considering that most of the Civil War was poked at by the zealot like Skrulls, along with most everything since Avengers: Disassembled, it makes the whole CW a little easier to digest. Anyway, all of that say that the new Marvel event, Siege, is really cool so far. The only hiccup I’ve got, is I can’t figure out everyone’s motive. Loki – we all know that he has always wanted Asgard for himself, so he’s using Osborn to get what he wants. Osborn… that one is fuzzy. I love the natural progression of Green Goblin/Osborn over the years, and he seems like a fun character to read. You love to hate him. His current deal though, being hell-bent on invading and conquering Asgard, is not established. It’s weird.

I’ll post my thoughts on Siege #1 when I get a chance, on Monday night most likely, after I get a change to read Prologue to Siege and Siege: Embedded #1.

More Kindle!

I’ve been tinkering around with my Amazon DTP Kindle store a little bit this morning. I’ve added a few titles, and even have cover art! Amazing! I found two sites that really helped with getting some pictures to use for covers. I’ll add them to my links section later. For now, check out the three neat pics I’ve got.

chopping away at the writer’s block

Man… I’m a slacker. Actually I’ve been pretty busy lately. When I’m not busy and have some honest to goodness free time here at work, the WordPress is blocked. My company’s firewall is so wishy-washy. Sometimes it’s blocked, sometimes not. It seems that between 3:00 AM and 6:00 AM, and few times around 7:00, WP is tagged as a “social networking website” and I get shut down. Not sure why that time frame. Anyway…

I’ve been writing, just not as much as I want. I’m prepping a new writing project right now, hopefully it’ll be big. So, less writing, more planning. This will be one of my most thought out projects yet. I feel bad about the others that have fallen to the wayside though. The zombie western was fun to hammer out, and I only got two chapters deep before I got sidetracked. The action had just started up and I saw something shiny and got distracted. Sometimes I will start a story on just a simple idea or as practice, but then leave it, perhaps not finishing it. Like the modern noir-ish revenge piece. Also the Cthulhu serial I dropped. After getting into a near argument with someone on a forum about the trademark or copywrite (or lack of) of Lovecraft’s work, I stop writing it. Almost like that fight stole my momentum for the story. I don’t want to even get into the issues with the Saint story. I will say this though: someone recommended that I change the main character’s name from St. James to just James. Okaaaay…

Alright, I’ve got two more things left to post, and then I need to get back to work. The past week or so I’ve been revising and prepping another story, getting it ready for Amazon. I’m happy to say that it is now done and posted, now available for download! Still need a cover though. I’ve got ideas that I’m working on and should have something soon. The other thing, I was checking my Amazon DTP reports and found out I have actually sold a story! Yeah! Yes, just one, but I couldn’t stop smiling when I found out. The first time I’ve ever sold anything and it felt great.

Now available for Kindle! Tales of Aeryndor: Kiss of the Spider Queen – Part I

Ok, work calls to me. Paperwork to go through. Phones to answer. Errors to correct (not mine, other people).

The Original Dreamie – just what every couch potato needs!

I saw this infomercial at work. Looks like someone is trying to one-up the Snuggie (or whatever that thing is called). It’s called a Dreamie, and it “helps” you sleep on the couch. Not kidding. It’s made for that small niche of people that live on their couch. It looks like a sleeping bag, open on one side, with a built in pillow. The commercial shows someone watching TV and getting annoyed that the blanket they’re using doesn’t cover their feet, and the couch “just isn’t comfortable enough”. Well, get up and go to bed, doofus. Or buy a new couch.

Also, why is the bed at the hotel too nasty to sleep on, but the couch is just fine? The people that slept in the bed are the same funky people to sit their butt on the couch.