Production Diary: Getting the Band Back Together...

So, kind of a hectic end of the week ahead of me.  I'm co-hosting Noah's weekly soccer podcast tomorrow,  and Friday has the return of of Johnny C. to FaOS studios to record the season premier of Season II of the show.  Now, Friday is normally my "Fuck, I have a deadline" night, where I'll pound out the remaining portions of the entry, jot down a few notes for the next day, post it and go to bed.  If worst comes to worst (as it did last weekend), it goes up on Saturday, but I'll be in the city and then in Chester for a birthday and the Union Game.

That being said, entry four (why the hell did I call them 'Chapters") will be fairly short, and mostly serves to set the stage for the direction that Deathmatch is taking, and a very brief glimpse of the Judges, and what the Bastard is up to.

Entry five is the introduction of Jason Black from TPoR, and sheds a little light on Black Iron University (an event and setting that will become more and more important as the story continues).

So, there stands the grass.

Thanks as always,

Sean.

Building a Better Sean...

Well, I've come to terms with the fact that I don't think I'll ever really be happy with how the fight scenes are going in the untitled project (that's a link there, that is).  So I'm putting the fighting stuff aside for a bit.  I'm actually kind of happy with the whole "turned what was supposed to be a prolog into it's own actual story" thing - hopefully it's make the characters' growth more noticeable, and make the closing battle at the end of the first part all the more startling.

Part of what's supposed to make the battle so massive (both in scope and in meaning) is seeing the characters out of the armor.  So, great ready for the quiet bits (which I'm ok with in stories, and total crap with in life).  I'm also kinda (read: blatantly) bring in the character of Jason Black from TPoR, and the events of "Skipping Rocks on the Lethe" - Jason doesn't really appear as a character until Part 2 (the story wraps up there - this isn't a trilogy), but I like the idea of including a lot of the background information on the characters through him.

One thing that's odd, thinking about Jason v. Garrett - Jason was written during a rough period of my life.  A lot of shit had gone wrong, more was going wrong all the time.  And currently I'm at the tail end (I hope) of a period that seem like that mental deconstruction's wikipedia entry: you get the idea of it, but not the full experience, if you take my meaning.  Jason was a semi-idealized version of me - Garrett isn't nearly as Mary-Sue in that regard.  He has a character arc, he changes and grows.  The whole first part is his descent, the second part his ascent (kinda).  At least that's how it plays out in my head.

But since a lot of the story (as planned) is about coming to terms with the past and with yourself, maybe it's good to have ol' whiny ass Jason back, if only to face those parts of me that keep screwing up my current existence.  On the Podcast Noah and I used to talk about how art (usually music) was meant to have an effect on you, but I've always figured it should have an effect on the creator as well.  We're supposed to grow and change, everyone, but we do it in different ways.  Hopefully this is mine - and but constantly producing something (if only for the length of this work), I can end up being a better me for it.

Ok, enough of this pompous malarkey.  I'm for a shower and then working more on entry four.

Later, people of earth,
S.

Production Diary interlude...

So "Chapter Three" might be done in time for a Friday release.  Huzah for that!  But I've come to realize that...there are a lot of female characters in this story.  I think we're at a close 1:1 ratio, which is a bit odd for a story that has, for the most part, involved hitting other people with swords and other violent acts.  I'm not complaining - I'm just not sure if I write convincing female characters (well, among the other doubts I'll always have about my skills).  And since the character development is very lite and dialog based until after the "Atrocity match", i'm not sure if its coming out right.

"Chapter Three" introduces a lot of the main cast for the first bit - and sets up certain parts that will come into play later.  I'm generally very happy with the work I've gotten done, but i know it's all going to seem very action heavy in the beginning.  as one character will put it later on, "I'm not terribly comfortable with the quiet parts," because i want the scene to look just so - like Kubrick's camera work in "Barry Lyndon", or something alternating between the shadows of baroque paintings and the harsh fluorescent of a hospital.  I think if you set the scene like that, then you don't have to put the internal monolog or (God help me) have them give a soliloquy.  If you get the lighting right, then there's more text in crumpling a piece of paper than there is in the dictionary.

The flip side of this is going overboard, so that it's just a description of a fucking room, and any action taken by someone within is no longer organic, no matter how it's handled.

So we'll see.

Another portion of the story, more worries...

Well, chapter two is up.  I really hate calling them "chapters" - it seems really silly.  "Chapter One" was meant to be the prolog - it's only 1,588 words long - and "Chapter Two" clocks in at a slightly better 4,264.  I should have called them segments, but, well, it's started so I guess that's where we are.  After rereading the latest entry, I should have given more time to describing the surroundings - I didn't because I'm trying to follow plot and characters, letting each drive the other.  But surrounds are part of character development - the colors, size, adornments - all this stuff has a mental weight to it.  That will have to wait for later, now, I guess.

"Chapter Three" and "Four" both cover the same day, with "Four" probably being just one massive battle scene, with a tight focus on both Garrett and the Fury (her name is revealed in "Four"), while "Three" will go into more of the armor, even though I'm not sure if it's incredibly interesting, I think it's important since the cast spends so much time in the bloody things.  It might come off as a science-faction, but as the story takes place next Sunday A.D. (well, this bit takes place three years before next Sunday A.D.), I'm not really troubled about it.

Also, yes, Quint is gay.  

I'm also kind of nervous about introducing two characters who won't become forces in the plot until later (TJ and Emily).  I think it's a good move - TJ's already played a small part in the first chapter, and is planned for a bigger role later on, but for the first bit he's just sort of there.

So, yes, you'll find out what the Fury's name is before the end of March, and at somepoint in the future you'll find out more about the Bastard.

Thanks as always for reading,

Sean

So...I have this thing going on...

For a while, I've been trying to complete a proper follow up.  I've never been happy with The Parliament of Rooks - a novel more composed of mental breakdown than anything really...uh...well, shit, literary merit, plot, etc., etc., and so forth.  I love the book, sure - it's a (not terribly flattering) snapshot of a time in my life, and more than a few of the people in it.  The wretched little book taught me humility in a lot of ways - and while I'm not pleased with the final product (on more levels that I can to point to), I love it.  It's a bitter memory that I can smile at.

That was damned near ten years ago.

Ten fucking years.

I've been hiding in the background since then.  I've started a lot of projects that never really went anywhere, wrote a lot of (shit) poetry, and got a lot experiences under my belt.  All of which seems to have been leading to my new project.  I still don't have a title, but it's going to look something like this:

But with paintball.

Now - I have no clue if this will work.  It started out as the chopped up bits of a bunch of previous projects, including Nyle G. Turla from "Skipping Rocks on the Lethe", and Marian M. Caleden (a character i made because I wanted to write a character based on vloger Dodger), Black Iron College from "Not a Philip K. Dick Story (I Swear)", Ian O'Brian from We'll Burn That Bridge When We Get To It: An Oral History of the Revenants and the Decline and Fall of an Unknown Garage Band (which was supposed to be a This Is Spinal Tap look at some of the kids in bands I knew growing up - it was way worse than you can imagine), as well as the sheer mental weight I've been lugging around my pop-culture addled head in regards to violence.

In addition to my forays into MMOs, deathmatches, and the completely common but still weird experience of getting killed and cursed out by a ten (10) year old, there's also my love of the geekest of geek subcultures: Game Workshop's various versions of Warhammer.  In particular Warhammer 40,000, and more in particular the Horus Heresy series of books.

So, again, I have no idea where this is going, except that I'm going to be hopefully updating the story [LINK!] on a (bi)weekly basis.  The next bit will be going up this Friday (1 March if you're reading this bit later) as I wanted to have more characterization before my first fight scene...but I wanted to do the fight scene and get it over with, as I've never put a protracted fighting bit out for public consumption (there's two planned for the first act that...I'll be reading a lot of Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Dan Abnet, and Robert E. Howard and doing a lot of rewriting, most likely.

But we'll see where it goes.

Also!  I put a donation button on the page under the "about the author" bit.  If you got a buck and like what you read, please feel free to lend encouragement.

But as always, thanks for reading.  That you'd waste your time with my stuff is, as always, really cool.

Cheers,
S.

Male Pattern Body Issues...

I'm out of shape.  For a guy with next to no body fat, this is a serious problem - from health issues to generally not falling into a depressive state when I watch action films. The phrase "skin and bones" is really pretty apt - it really seems like I have nothing beyond those - well, ok, hair too (more on that a bit down).  But also I smoke, so in general I look like a skeleton that's been dipped in paint that wheezes during jogs.

I've stuck with it enough to discover that - addictive personality aside - the body image thing really bothers me.  Sure, I want to be healthy, but I also think there's a problem with how I currently am.  But, really, there's no reason for me to feel this way.  I don't take in as much visual media as the average Statie, I'm not trying to attract a mate/partner/warm-body-to-wake-up-next-to.  It's not insecurity, at least, it's not the normal insecurity.  I'd want to pin it on being afraid of how I'll look when the EMT arrive and find me on the couch, but as I'll be dead, I doubt I'd really care.

Part of it, I know, is the fact that I now work in an office, sitting down all day, and my crippling desire to sleep once I get home - having spent an exhausting day of...dealing with people...from the "comfort" of my chair.  But looking at my co-workers, I have a dread of what can easily become my repertoire of comments (aches, pains, and dieting to relieve said aches and pains and "You know, really start living" - actual quote for a forty-three year old in regards to their joining Weight Watchers).

All fine and well, really - and I've been able to stick to my plan about four to six days a week.  And I honestly do feel better, both in general and about myself - although that may just be the endorphins talking.

The thing that I cannot control is my hairline, which has decided to enter a war of attrition with my scalp.  And since follicle revanchists don't happen, I'm a bit stuck on this count.  My hair was one of those things people always commented on - from family members to friends of the family, to girls I was courting.  It was the one thing I knew wouldn't disappoint.

Now, though, I have have the creeping suspicion that I can measure the distance lost as a solid centimeter, maybe two, and it's only a matter of time until I have the dreaded "geographical patterns" - with a tiny grove of hair forming Australia, and the Asian subcontinent in a horseshoe around the side with the might pacific of a chrome-dome filling in the rest.

I shouldn't worry about this, but I do.  I like my hair, and I never obsessed about it until I got the office job and realized that I had no hope of ever showing up to work with the beginnings of a bear ever again - those days were gone, and stylistic blandness is hear to stay.

So what can I do?  My evil plan for coping with it is, once the geography settles in, I'm going to grow a goatee and Fu-Manchu mustache.  Then I'm going to shave me.  Everything but the properly started facial hair and the eyebrows.  The facial hair I'll try to cultivate into the long and wispy style, so that I'll look something like a Celtic Dr. Lao.

Which I much prefer to look like a midget version of George "The Animal" Steele.