Twitching in the Corner

A little more than a week ago I setup a twitch account and started live streaming some of the video games I play. So far I have only streamed Mechwarrior Online and Baldur’s Gate 3. It’s been fun and I have met a few new people, so that is cool.

My tagline for the streams is that I am the Old Man Sucking at Playing Games. It is a fitting monaker because I really am pretty bad at video games. Don’t get me wrong, the more I play the better I get, but even that is not enough to say I am any good really. My friends at work that I play with Joke about starting up new games they can carry me through. I could be annoyed by that, but honestly I am embracing my rank mediocrity.

Week One Mini-Nano Update

So I did not exactly blog every day over the course of this week, and I apologize for that. It turned out to be a really busy week for work and I added a new pastime to my online portfolio: Twitch Streaming. Playing some video games is my primary way to blow off steam, so I thought I would give the Twitch thing a try. I’ll talk more about that on another post, but it contributed to the limited number of posts I managed this week.

The good news is, as far as my Mini-Nano goes, I have managed to keep on track. Since my Day Two post I have managed to maintain an average of 651 words per day in 25 minute increments. Honestly this is the most consistent I have been in a while. I have cleaned up a couple loose threads and started working with someone who is helping with the editing of the story. If I can catch a little break at work this week then I will post a chapter or two and I would love to get your feedback.

So how are you doing with NaNoWriMo or your Mini–Nano? Are you keeping the pace, working ahead, or endlessly falling behind? Let me know!

Mini-NaNo: Day Two

Another day, another twenty-five minutes. I call that a good start. I managed to clear 632 words in today’s twenty-five, but more importantly I feel like I’ve set a path forward for the story. I even finished the chapter, so I may post it tomorrow or the next day depending one how brutal the day job is.

I really need to reread the whole thing and put some sort of timeline in place so I can figure out where I am going with this thing other than the vague notion of an ending. I imagine I will have to spend some time dedicating myself to organization this weekend.

So how about the rest of you? How are you doing on NaNoWriMo? Did you create your own Mini-Nano goal? Tell me about it. I want to celebrate your triumphs with you.

Mini-Nano: Day One

So today I started my Mini-Nano adventure. My personal goal is to hit twenty-five minutes of writing per day for the next thirty days. I did not get a lot of response on the poll I posted regarding Mini-Nano, but those who did respond picked Beyond the Darkside as the project of choice, so that is exactly what I have done.

I ended up writing for about 26 minutes all things said and done, and in that time I managed a little more than 700 words. Now that is nothing epic, but that is a good amount of writing for me as of late, so I will take it.

One day in. One day successful.

I need to figure out the exactly where I am going with this, so hopefully I can brainstorm a way forward in this story tomorrow. Once I have the current chapter done and a quick edit I’ll post it here.

No Pants Allowed!

https://www.needpix.com/photo/download/1803752/pants-clothing-jeans-fabric-blue-fashion-sky-modern-clouds

If you have spent even a modicum of time in the writing community you know that there are two kinds of writers. Outliners and Pantsers. Let me explain for the uninitiated. An Outliner prepares an outline for the story, prepares for what is going to be written, and sets it out on paper (or Word doc). A Pantser is someone who has an idea, or a character, or a place, and just runs with it. There is little preparation. They are flying by the seat of their pants.

Dungeons and Dragons Again…Only Different.

So a couple years ago I started playing Dungeons and Dragons again. I had not played since I moved out to North Carolina (other than a sad attempt with my boys and one of their friends), and it was something I truly missed. In Oregon I ran a few different campaigns that lasted for years and giving them up was one of the hardest things about moving to North Carolina.

A little more than two years ago a friend from work suggested that I check out Roll2.net and find a game online. I was a little skeptical, but I checked it out. I poked around a bit and decided to try running my own campaign. I put out a call for players an soon had a group together. Over the course of the next few months players left and new players took their place. I was learning a lot about how the system worked on top of remembering how to even play D&D 3.5. I am happy to say that I am on to a second campaign now, feeling comfortable with Roll20 and the rules for 3.5 again.

So what is the point? Well the point is that I’m going to be posting a bit of gaming related material here along with the usual writing and such.

To kick off this new addition, I am posting a few house rules that we use. If you use house rules or have a thought or two on the ones I mention here, please share.

NaNoWriMo OhNo!

No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn't trying.
— Tony Robbins

Every year as November approaches I go through the internal debate of whether or not to do NaNoWriMo. In all the years I have tried to do NaNo I have only hit the 50K mark once. I always start out with the best of intentions and do well at first, but I always fall short in the end.

So why am I missing the mark? The first problem is as it is for most people: Time. I am lucky if I can crank out a couple thousand words in a week, much less 1667 per day every day for a month. I work a full time job and have a wife and kids. I could probably do 1667 per day if I could find a solid couple hours uninterrupted before 10PM. Most of my writing happens between ten and midnight, but lets face it, I have been up since about 6AM and have been going pretty full tilt until about nine or ten. I am freaking exhausted by the time I can sit down and write.

A Little WIP for today.

https://www.maxpixel.net/Zombies-Destroyed-City-Horror-Walking-Dead-1666584

I know it has been a while since I have posted anything, but I thought I would share a little something that I worked on today. This is very rough, so be kind, but it is from the next book in the Armageddon Angels series. Tell me what you think. Motivate me to get this beast finished.

Beyond the Darkside 35 1-5

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

The sound of electrons rearranging on the surface of the molecular analyzer grated on Aldric’s nerves. The hiss-chirp hiss-chirp cadence generated by the device was new, or at least it was new to him. He never noticed it before, but he was distracted before. Everything was clearer now, so it only made sense that he would notice sounds that were obviously masked before. Ignoring the sound was difficult, but it did not keep him from understanding the information.

The complex patterns taking shape on the analyzer was unlike anything he had seen before in organic matter. The DNA, or what passed for DNA in the remains of the tentacles that came pouring through the dimensional gate, mimicked the wave pattern of the energy that came from opening the gate in the first place. Was the creature’s DNA change when it went through the gate, or was the gate somehow connected to the creatures? Hard to answer that question without going through the gate himself, and he was not crazy enough to try going through the gate. Not yet anyway.

Review: Dead Life #1

This review originally appeared at Geek-O-Rama.

 

Writer: Jean-CharlesGaudin
Artist: Joan Urgell
Colors: Folny
Publisher: Titan Comics

Ground Zero. Stephen did not know that getting into his grandfather’s treasures in the attic so he could play Indiana Jones with the neighbor down the trail would lead to an outbreak. He was just having fun. How would he know?

Dead Life is an English reprint of the French comic, Dead Life: Crépuscule.

The story starts with scenes of life. Normal conversations and disagreements between husband and wife, the casual meal with extended family as Curtis and Kate return to his parents’ home to pick up their son, Stephen. When Curtis’s dad returns to the attic to retrieve some books he notices that one of his boxes has been opened and the contents are missing.