The Semester’s End & Things to Come

So yesterday I had my last final. I’m really glad it’s done but I’d also like to kick the person who decided to hold finals and graduation on the same day. Seriously stupid. Why not have graduation on Saturday instead? Makes way more sense. Whatever, it’s done and I’m pretty sure I did well on both of the finals I had to take. My hand is still mad at me though. Nothing like having to hand-write a five page essay in under an hour. Fun times. Now though it’s time to move on to super fun things!

Starting Monday, barring any life events, I will be starting my new Fuzzy Adventures series. All of the gear I needed to make it happen came in on Thursday. Took me a good day or so to get everything set up as well. Still have to do a few things on the software end but that shouldn’t be too much of an issue. Tested out the video capture card by hooking up my trusty old PS2 and booting up the first game I’m going to use for my Adventures series: Castlevania – Symphony of the Night. I wasn’t sure I was going to start with that one but the Kickstarter for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night decided me. For those who haven’t heard it is a gothic-themed side scrolling action adventure RPG made by the same guy who co-directed Symphony of the Night (SOTN). In his opening video he says that he’s wanted to do another game like SOTN for a long time but the AAA publishers say there’s no demand for such a game. Considering the campaign is already at $2.1 million with 27 days left to go I’d say the AAA have their heads up their asses. That’s not news though. Personally I’m really glad crowdfunding has allowed game developers to give AAA pubs the finger and do what they and the gamers want: make awesome games without publisher oversight and interference. Just look at what happened to Maxis and Simcity. EA took a beloved franchise and forced Maxis to limit and monetize the game to the point that it was a huge failure. Then EA blames Maxis and closes them down. Fuckers. But I digress.

I’m excited that I’ll be using my Twitch channel quite a bit more. I still plan on doing Live Writing sessions since I have plenty of writing to get done this summer. Each Fuzzy Adventure will entail quite a bit of writing per episode. I haven’t decided how long each finished video will be since I don’t know how long it will take me to do the writing for every 15 minutes of game play. I suspect that will vary greatly from game to game. SOTN isn’t exactly plot or dialogue heavy so I’ll be making a lot of stuff up to tell an interesting story. If and when I get to games like Final Fantasy 6 or Crono Trigger though I’m sure the writing portions will be much, much longer with less deviation from the game plot & dialogue. Either way I’m super excited to get going on this!

Brainstorming for Summer

With just two finals left this semester will be done before I know it. This has been making me anxious. Mostly because it means that my schedule next week and going forward will be up to me and it would be nice if I could manage to not waste this free time. After all how many 30 something’s get a real summer break? I know I never thought it would be possible once I was neck deep in the soul sucking 9 to 5 grind. To that end I’ve been thinking that it’s time to brainstorm and come up with a list of goals for this summer. So without further ado (and in no particular order), here is the list:

1. Write book 3 of Stephen’s trilogy
2. Do my own Let’s Play series with the Terraria 1.3 patch
3. Do video readings for some of my short fiction
4. Finish re-edits for Transformation & Induction
5. Edit and publish Avatars & Identity
6. Complete at least one Let’s Play + VG Writing Series (Fuzzy Adventures)
7. Compile, edit, and publish the class fiction and poetry book
8. Find and check out local writing meetup and social groups
9. Design BFG Publishing website
10. Shampoo the carpet
11. Move my desk
12. Re-organize this blog
13. Write more short fiction & poetry (At least 1 poem & 1 short story/flash fiction per week)
14. Send stuff to magazines/publishers every week
15. Continue the Live Writing series or combine with some of the above

 

Whew. Looking at this list I realize that I have my work cut out for me this summer. This to-do list is in addition to the usual goofing around and just having fun that will be required to stay sane. I’m also going to have to prioritize if I want to get even half of this done. The Fuzzy Adventures series is something I’ve been thinking about most of this semester. I love video games and I love writing & reading. I wanted to combine those somehow. That’s when I struck on the idea for re-visiting some of the games that I loved so much as a kid and doing a combination let’s play with an episodic writing series. The basic idea is that I’ll play a game in sections and write a story to go along with it, also in sections. Basically I’d have a separate area of this blog devoted to these series with each game getting it’s own sub-section. Each blog entry would be an episode of the story and video both. I’ve got a short list of games I’m considering, but I’ll probably start with something short like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night instead of an epic length game like Final Fantasy 6.

I’m thinking the other thing I’ll need to help keep me on track is some kind of daily schedule. I’m not very good at sticking to schedules that I come up with on my own but I might need to give it a shot. Anyway, glad I finally got all of these thoughts down. The list reminded me that I’m missing a couple of key pieces of hardware that I’ll need for a number of these ideas. Amazon ho!

A Quick Update

It is now the last week of classes at UW Madison so things are hectic indeed. Next week come the finals. My Create Writing class doesn’t have a formal final thankfully so once I turn my portfolio in on Friday I’m done with the graded work. Not done with the class though as we are putting together some of the stuff we worked on over the semester to publish as a free ebook. I offered this as an opportunity to the class and everyone was all for it. I’m interested to see how it turns out.

In other news the UW Creative Writing Award ceremony is this Thursday and since I submitted a couple of things to two different contests I will be attending. They don’t tell the winners ahead of time so you have to show up to find out. A rather devious way of making sure plenty of people attend, not just the winners. No idea what my chances are but I’m not holding out much hope. I am a very new writer after all.

I also received my very first rejection notice from the folks over at Flash Fiction. Woot! I was pretty happy to see that and I plan to keep every rejection I get as a souvenir of the work I’ve done. This may seem a bit strange but I think of it as proof that I’m really giving this writing thing my all. I hope to have many, many more rejections by the end of summer. And a few acceptances as well of course. Without classes to worry about I have some big plans. Which I need to sit down and write out. After finals.

Changing Schedules

It’s always a bit tough to change schedules once you’re used to your old one. Yet sometimes it is necessary. This is the case with my Live Writing events. I was doing them most Tuesdays and Thursdays at 1:30 PM CST but this ended up being a really bad time for me. In the past two months I’ve had to push back the time more often than I was able to stick with it. I originally picked that time and those days because of my class schedule. It gave me plenty of time to get home from my only morning class and then get down to some writing. Unfortunately these times also turned out to be best for very important things like appointments with my doctor or business that can’t wait until later in the day.

To that end I ran a short survey here on my blog asking when I should move these events to and 8 PM was the time voted for. This actually conflicts with a few things during this month but will work fine in May. So next week, barring any problems, I will be moving my live writing event temporarily to 6 PM. When May rolls around I’ll need to reassess my times anyway since classes are done in early May. I’m thinking of increasing Live Writing to anywhere from three to five days a week. If I do that though I’m thinking I need to make themes for the various episodes. Not just novel writing but maybe something like super fast short story writing. I’ve got a lot of ideas and I’m looking forward to playing with my Live Writing format to see what works best and is the most fun.

On Editing and Finishing My Third Novel

I finished my third novel, Avatars & Identity, on Tuesday! Which was good since I’m now out of town and not really in a position to spend much time writing. It’s exciting to know that I’m still pushing on with the whole writing as a career thing even if I’m not writing as quickly as I’d like to. Part of that is just how much time school takes up. As a transfer student approved at the last minute I signed up for classes less than a week before my first day. That meant my schedule has been less than ideal. Fall semester should be much more accommodating though so that’s a plus. I’ll be doing so much writing, and much of it should be publishable. Also a plus. Yet with my third novel done and it being clear that this isn’t a passing fancy it’s time to seriously look for a professional editor. Dun dun DUUUUUUUUN.

Up to this point I’ve just been using feedback from friends and family. They’ve got a good amount of mistakes but there are plenty left in. I was okay with that when I was just starting out but now I really want to put my best foot forward whenever I publish something. Thus a professional editor is necessary. Thankfully my sister pointed out we have one among our friends so I’m in the process of getting that worked out. I know it’s going to cost a good chunk of my meager income but I think having well-edited novels is worth it.

Thinking Ahead

Even though this is my first semester at UW Madison I transferred in so many credits that I have senior status. Which is funny to me because I’ll still be here another three semesters at least meeting the requirements for my degree. The upside is that I’ll be one of the first undergraduates to sign up for classes. So go me, I guess. The flip-side of that little perk is that I have to figure out my classes for next semester NOW. There’s only a couple of school days left to get advice and learn about just what the possible courses I might take next semester will entail. I need to maintain full-time student status, but I’m out of the easier gen-ed courses at the end of this semester. That means a full four advanced English courses. I could easily screw myself over by taking a far too large workload on. There’s also NaNoWriMo in November that I’d really like to do, and win, this year.

Not huge problems when compared to all of the truly serious issues in the world but definitely something I’ve been pondering.

Update: After talking with the always helpful folks in the Creative Writing department I’ve settled on taking three creative writing workshops and one required literature class. Not sure how heavy the workload is going to be, especially when NaNoWriMo rolls back around, but I’m going to give it my best shot.

A Time for (Non-Epic) Change

As most will be unaware, I do two Live Writing events every Tuesday and Thursday at 1:30 PM CST. This is where I write for about an hour or so while streaming to my Twitch channel. Afterwards I upload the resulting video to my YouTube channel for archival viewing. It’s not the most exciting thing ever conceived to watch but it really helps keep me writing at least twice a week on something other that school work. Yet for the past couple of weeks it has been impossible to keep to this schedule due to intrusions on the part of real life. Now it is apparent that my selection of 1:30 PM for the starting time was in error. It also got me to thinking about my schedule, for this semester I’m in, over the summer, and next fall. I knew my Live Writing would change over the summer but I hadn’t anticipated the multiple conflicts that would arise. It turns out that I regularly need my down time in the afternoon on Tuesdays and Thursdays for medical appoints and other things that have to get done. Thus I am led to posting my first ever poll!

What time do you think my Live Writing should take place on the T-days of the week? I’ve put in some time possibilities but left an open answer you can fill in as well:

 

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If you like these and other posts, feel free to check out my other work:

My Fiction on Tumblr: http://fuzzynerdcorner.tumblr.com/

My Fiction on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/fuzzynerd?ty=a (Some activity requires Patron Status.)

My Live Writing, Editing, and other videos: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFZHBRlGb3-RFEr2BXQPi-Q

If you’d like to help a budding author you can also support me on Patreon:

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New Book Published!

Super excited to finally have my second book, Transformation, published and on sale!  It was a long time coming but it finally came together. This time was definitely easier as far as the actual publishing process goes. Just a few minor issues with things I’d managed to forget between my first book and this one. As usual the Smashwords edition is giving me the most problems but I’ll have time today to sit down and fix them.

Once that is done I can focus exclusively on Avatars & Identity and getting it done. I have a couple of people reading it as I go along and so far it’s my most exciting story yet. I find that funny since it’s the book I’ve struggled with the most. Not to mention the majority of it was written very quickly in the first half of November 2014. It’s been nice taking a break from Stephen’s story to try something different. Lately though I’ve been missing the old gang so I’m also looking forward to getting back to them and finishing off my first trilogy.

On the school front I’m looking into the various writing opportunities available here. I’ve discovered we have an excellent fellowship program for graduates, though I don’t hold out much hope of getting a slot. There are apparently well over 600 applicants for the 6 spots each year. Still won’t hurt to try. I’m also talking with the English department about putting together some kind of information packet or workshop on self-publishing since that is a very new and valid option for budding authors (or even long time authors for that matter).

All in all it’s been very busy but very productive and I’m feeling much better about my situation in general. No idea yet if this whole writing full-time thing will pan out but I’m making progress building up my body of work. I’m also discovering that I enjoy writing poetry a whole lot more these days than I did waaaaay back in high school so that is yet another avenue I will be exploring.

Onward and upward!

 

 

If you like these and other posts, feel free to check out my other work:

Fiction on Tumblr: http://fuzzynerdcorner.tumblr.com/

Fiction on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/fuzzynerd?ty=a (Some activity requires Patron Status.)

If you’d like to help a budding author you can also support me on Patreon:

Back to it at Last

Finally finished Chapter 13 of my NaNoWriMo novel. My protagonist found herself back in the hospital and for some reason I found the scene very difficult to write. When I took my extended writing break I was probably only halfway through the chapter. I knew what I wanted to happen but couldn’t seem to work it out when I sat down to write. I managed to put a couple of sentences down here and there but nothing significant. Until tonight.

Or course the whole thing was made more difficult because everything leading up to this scene wasn’t fresh anymore. I had to stop to look up details more than once, which is always annoying. For the past two novels as long as I kept up a steady pace I could generally keep track of all the important names, details, and events. Guess that’s what I get for letting my doubt demons get the better of me. Oh well, the chapter is done and I can FINALLY move on to more fun and exciting scenes.

NaNoWriMo and Live Writing

So I decided as a way to both motivate myself and get the word out about National Novel Writing Month I would do a series of live writing events in which I would live stream as much as possible while I write my NaNo novel. I had originally planned to start early this afternoon (11/3/14) but ran into a whole bunch of issue.

First up was my music playlist. A lot of the music I have on my old writing playlist is commercial and I plan to post all of these videos to YouTube. That meant making a playlist that wouldn’t get my videos flagged. So I spent a couple of hours downloading the music library for OCRemix.org (a most amazing video game music remix site) and then selecting tracks for my streaming playlist.

Once that was done it was time to set up the Hangout. Unfortunately while it was extremely easy to stream my writing window it was a complete pain in the ass to stream my music at the same time. I ended up installing a piece of software that created a virtual sound device that I could send my music player’s audio stream to and then select that as my microphone in Hangouts. At that point I thought I was done. Then I discovered Hangouts audio quality is pretty terrible. I could have just stuck with it but I really wanted the whole experience to be as good as I could make it. That meant switching venues. On to Twitch.tv!

Twitch is typically used to live stream someone playing video games. I’ve used it for this before and it’s actually easier to work with than pretty much any other streaming site I’ve used (including LiveStream, YouTube Live, Justin.tv (RIP), and Hangouts on Air). The audio quality is excellent, I don’t need any special software, and I already have a stream casting program from my video game streaming days. Viola!

So now everything is set though it took FAR longer than I wanted it to. It’s been a long and frustrating day but my work has paid off. It is now time to do my very first live writing event for NaNoWriMo!

If you read this in the next hour or so you can join the live stream on Twitch here:

http://www.twitch.tv/fuzzynerdcorner

Once the stream is done the video will also be uploaded to the FuzzyNerdCorner YouTube channel here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGJ__pNL7A3BFsbRBJEmCKg