Boring Ramblings tl;dr: Failure is an option. If you learn from it.
The Sausage 5k was today.
I was signed up for it.
I didn’t go.
I wasn’t prepared to walk or run 5k. I’m that badly out of shape. I had plenty of time to train for the event, and I did not do that.
This is the point of course, where I should go off on how it’s not my fault. How my family didn’t raise me right. How my gym doesn’t have convenient-enough hours. How I’m working long hours and commuting long hours.
That’s not what I’m going to do.
I failed. I failed badly.
It’s through failing, and recognizing that I failed, that I can improve. Sticking my head in the sand and ignoring the problems that led to this failure won’t allow them to be fixed. Not coming up with a new goal won’t give me something else to shoot for.
And there’s a chance that I’ll fail that new goal. At which point I’ll have new lessons to learn, until there are no more lessons to learn. Failing is the best way to learn. I’d rather fail than not try.
Diablo 2′s Hardcore mode remains fairly unique, especially given the modern trend toward MMO gaming with invincible characters. The concept of a character that only gets to die once makes for an exciting game — the knowledge that you’re going to lose both your items and the time you’ve invested makes every battle a razor’s edge.
Instead of eulogizing my characters, I decided to write stories about the unfortunate deaths they’d encounter, whether by my failings as a player, bad luck, or a battle for which they are not ready. This is one of those stories. And this was definitely due to my failings as a player!
Nine-Tenths Lacerian, Level 9 Necromancer
Gaeleon was angry.
No, not Gaeleon. Brikok. His name was Brikok. He was still Brikok. Galeon was never angry. The momentary slip of his name made him even angrier, and a braying snarl escaped his lips. His axe flashed through the air, its rusted edge carving a slow arc through the air. He wished he could simply twist his elbow, change the flight of the blade, and carve a fatal chunk away from his own body.
Gaeleon wouldn’t allow that. He couldn’t even will himself to hit one of the curving horns that sprouted from his head.
Brikok grew even angrier at the fact that he couldn’t hurt himself, and another snarl began forming in his throat. But before it could escape, the sound choked off. Gaeleon wouldn’t allow that, either. Gaeleon had sensed . . . something . . . approaching, and forbade Brikok’s second snarl.
Brikok’s past was nothing but fading memories that seemed an eternity long past. A young warrior of the Blood Clan, he had been raised with on tales of glory and the oaths of fealty. Elders told him tales dark labyrinths long forgotten beneath the earth. Warriors told stories of might adventures capable of cutting down hordes of their best, but who carried treasures that the goatmen clans had never dreamed of once finally defeated. Brikok had practiced and trained, aimed to be the pride of his clutch.
His reward had been Gaeleon.
Brikok could vaguely remember the disgusting, vile feeling he had woken up to, like a waterfall of grease pouring down his throat, splashing into a midden heap piled in his belly. That memory was fading from Brikok’s mind at Gaeleon’s request, though, like all of his memories before that morning. He had no idea who or what Gaeleon was. The spirit in control of his body never spoke.
A skeleton appeared in the doorway. There were many denizens in these dank passages, hidden beneath a long-forgotten and crumbled tower, but this skeleton was different. This skeleton was a threat. Brikok still urged his body forward, but was a hair slower than Gaeleon’s urging. Brikok wanted to wretch at the feeling of being a passenger on one’s own limbs, his trained and conditioned body being used as a puppet.
His large axe came down hard on the weapon the skeleton held, knocking it askew. Next to him, another member of the Blood Clan stabbed hard at the skeleton’s midsection, axe clattering through exposed ribs. Brikok wondered if he’d known those Blood Clan members before Gaeleon. Were they similarly trapped by spirits, or provided other “gifts?” Had they been drawn to this forsaken place by their own will, or the will of some overriding force they could not fight against and win?
Brikok’s adversary slashed back at him, cutting a wound deep into Brikok’s side, but the damage barely slowed him. He was able to take wounds that would have felled others, the only gift he could really thank Gaeleon for. The skeleton crumpled to the ground at Gaeleon’s . . . Brikok’s . . . return strike, and the other Blood Clan member slid to his left to engage another skeleton that had appeared through the door. Before Brikok, the battle parted like a crowd of insects. Standing directly in front of him, he saw the tall, gaunt form of a human. Recognition from tales learned as a child appeared hazily in Brikok’s mind: A Death-Walker!
The man was looking away from Gaeleon, watching one of his skeletons and what appeared to be a mass of earth battle three more of his companions. Gaeleon raised the axe above his head and crossed the distance with three great, lunging steps. The man never saw the axe that cleaved his head in two, crumpling him and his creations to the ground.
Brikok wondered for a moment if the Death-Walker might have had the arcane knowledge required to free him from Gaeleon’s grasp before the spirit completely took over. The only response he got was silence, and Brikok knew that he was doomed.
My Novel Is Terribad tl;dr: Progress on a rewrite is a lot slower than initial drafts.
I’ve had a 50,000 word novel* hanging around a while. One of my editors got back to me with great feedback, and the other has been drafted into the armies of the damned, and they don’t have cell phones. I’m sure he’ll get back to me with edits on my draft just as soon as their campaign against the Falkland Islands wraps up.
* There is actually great debate in the NaNoWriMo community with regard to the definition of “novel,” especially since, by “modern” publishing standards, 50k words tends to be a bit on the short side. However, I side with the NaNo philosophy on this issue: “If you think you’re writing a novel, you’re writing a novel.”
That little snafu not withstanding, I’ve been attempting to transform my “first draft created in a blur throughout the month of November for my first ever NaNoWriMo win” into a “second draft that isn’t quite so horribly crafted and might have a semblance of value.” The eventual plan is to have a draft that someone wants to pay me some sort of sum of money for the publishing rights, after which I can be those filler books in the bookstore that serve to fill the small niches of the shelves not covered by books dealing with Star Wars, Twilight, Harry Potter, or Saint Louis Cardinals fans.
This is turning out to be harder than I thought.
When you’re writing a first draft, everything is new and exciting. Every word you put down on the page — in addition to getting you closer to the glorious goal of 50k for NaNoWriMo — is the next flick of a wrist, move of a hand, word of a mouth in your characters’ universe. Everything drives the story forward, by definition. Symbolism be damned. Foreshadowing be damned. Coherent clothing for your characters be damned. (Seriously, I had a character spontaneously change from jeans to a dress between lines of a conversation. Oops.)
Rewrites? Those are hard. First, there’s a lack of motivation. I had made the mistake of advertising my NaNoWriMo participation to my general [Facebook] public, and there was a screaming banshee of [Facebook] public humiliation and [Facebook] public scorn should I fail. She was always there, hovering over my shoulder, reminding me that while Caribou Coffee was usually terribly busy on a Thursday night and I was tired from a whole day of not doing anything, I had to go there. If I didn’t put 1500 more words to paper before I passed out from exhaustion tonight, I’d be behind the curve, and the banshee would get closer.
Second, there’s the operation inside the established framework. You’ve already written the scene, but now you’re rewriting it. There are even two distinct classes of the rewrite, and I’ve found both to be handcuffing. Handcuffing not in a sensual, “Oh, this is going to be a great Friday night,” sort of way, and not in a frustrating, “This is impossible, this is going to be a terrible Friday night,” sort of way, but in a way that erodes your WPM.
The Perspective Change: Writing a scene from a different perspective. I’ve already had to do this three times (more or less), since my reviewer (rightfully) found the first draft’s structure confusing and stupid and, I quote, “not worth the virtual paper Adobe PDF is putting it on.” Okay, some of that’s hyperbole. But sitting down and rewriting from a different (and in this case, less-informed) perspective makes things harder than I’d like them.
The Actor Change: This one’s even harder. Rewriting a scene without a character being present, because you’ve decided not to introduce him until a bit later, makes for tedious work. In practice, I just scrapped the original scene altogether, but the chicken-and-bailing wire construction of the first is still present in my brain, so I continue to drift toward the (now-(sometimes)-nonsensical) original flow of action.
Therein lies my biggest hurdle, then. Where the original novel was a flurry of words appearing in FrameMaker (fist bump to my large document management brosefs) and steadily driving the word count higher and higher, the rewrite is harder to measure that elusive beast of “progress.” A few nights ago, I had the opportunity to make “good progress on my novel.” And in retrospect, I did.
Even if the end result was only one page of rewrites completed. “Progress” is funny sometimes.
My Novel Is Terribad tl;dr: Subversion is awesome and every writer should use it.
To put it simply, version control systems should be taught in every Professional & Technical Writing curriculum available. These systems, long the province of programmers, system admins, and guys who hang out in their mother’s basement but aren’t bloggers, have a variety of very useful tools for writers.
Now, to be fair, all of the features that are available in a version control system aren’t going to be used by every writer. A lot of us, unlike our programmatic brethren, don’t work in plaintext files. Rather, our domain is in the binary mysteries of Framemaker and Word files. So things like merging are right out, and things like file locks become more important than ever.
The downside, of course, is the learning curve for a version control system, and the added overhead of operating within that system. The overhead for the binary file writer is fairly consistent, however, and doesn’t actually change regardless if you’re working with 1 or 100 other writers: You need to remember to lock (check out, reserve, whatever) your file before you make changes. The learning curve problem is also mitigated by earlier introduction: It’s far easier to learn about how version control works and why version control works on a (sorry, the pun was unavoidable) controlled system, as opposed to the sprawling, gigantic, lumbering systems that most corporate implementations transform into. If you’ve learned the basics on that small (here it comes again!) controlled system, you’ll be able to handle the large system with ease.
What benefits does version control provide for the writer? Instead of just producing a laundry list, I’m going to point out the advantages I got from using Subversion for version control on my novel. Many, if not all, of these can be applied to other forms of professional writing, and I’m sure there are other items that can be added to the list.
Multiple Points of Access: This really was the main reason I started using Subversion, believe it or not. I recognized that there would be nights that I’d want to work on the novel at home on the desktop, and there would be nights when I wanted to work from a coffee shop on the laptop. And that there may be nights where I wanted to work from home but use the laptop.
Positional flexibility: It’s the hallmark of a good novelist. Not like that; stop thinking that.
I wanted to do this, but I didn’t want to have to hassle with carrying around a flash drive of files, wondering if I remembered to roll last night’s changes onto the file system before I dashed off to work. (Yeah, ironically, Nano fell on a rare “I’m employed” month.) Did I forget to bring changes back to the desktop? Did I forget my flash drive? Why is Windows giving me a file copy error?
With Subversion, the process became simple. When I was done for the night, I committed changes to the version control system. Before I began a writing session, I updated my working copy (the local version of the files) from the version control system, ensuring I had the most up-to-date files. Easy.
Backups and Security: I chose to use FrameMaker for my writing program, and I don’t regret it one bit. Why it was a great choice is probably worthy of another blog post, as I gently stroke and coo toward the program, and tell it that I care for it.
Despite all of the advantages, however, FrameMaker still has one annoying quirk: It has this habit of occasionally crashing in catastrophic fashion, dragging whatever document you might have been working on into its own version of large document management hell, leaving you shaking your fist and sputtering at the now locked-up computer. Add in the fact that I spent a good deal of time on a laptop, in a coffee shop, where one wrong step could have met with latte disaster, and you’ve got a compelling reason to backup your work.
Aside from my usual backup routines (imaging the laptop every week, etc.), Subversion gave an additional layer of protection. At any given time, there were 2 or 3 clones of my work out in the wild. They might have been slightly out of date, but they weren’t days and weeks behind. Had the laptop met with an unfortunate latte incident, the working copy on the desktop was only a day older, and not that much progress was lost.
Back to the Future: It was easily one of the most useful features during the first write, and it’s become a valuable as gold in the rewrite phase. One of the greatest features of version control is the ability to “go back in time” and see a snapshot of a file from a previous checkin.
How does this help you as a writer? I’ll share an exact example: You’re working on a new chapter in the middle of the book, pounding out words, and you get to the introduction of a character. You know that you reference some details about this character later in the book, but the initial description you wrote of him was deleted last week, since you decided to not introduce the character until right now. With version control, you can pull up the old version of the chapter that used to contain his introduction, look at what you read, and incorporate it into the new chapter. Totally awesome.
Progress Notation: Check in comments, which are attached to each commit to the database, are almost universally reviled. They’re just extra work, and “…” is usually a good enough comment. After all, you made the changes, you’ll never forget, right?
Wrong. One of the great uses I used for check in comments, combined with the fact that Subversion doesn’t increment every file in the repository when a check in is made (it only increments those files that are changed), was to keep progress notes. It was really handy to look at the last change for a chapter file, and be reminded of what work I had accomplished last session and what I still needed to accomplish on it.
As a corollary to this, there’s also the ability to attach “meta data” to the files, and Subversion allowed me to create custom fields. It’s not so incredibly useful since I’m not juggling hundreds of files, but it’s nice to be able to add tags to chapters that indicate which characters show up and which plotlines are advanced. In a bigger environment, such metadata ordering can become a powerful way to view your files, without having to resort to massive and unwieldy folder or reporting structures.
Let Me Tag That For You: One of the handiest features after I finished the first draft. Tags and branches are ways to create offshoots of your main development line, and changes to those are independent of the main line. In Subversion, there’s not really a difference between tags and branches, other than the fact that tags are supposed to be immutable, should you choose to enforce that.
What I did with the novel will be immediately familiar to anyone who has ever worked in software development. When I finished the first draft, all 65k words worth, I created a tag called draft_1 and added it to the repository. It’s sat there, untouched, unmodified by the ongoing changes to create what will eventually be draft_2. And should I need my original draft (as I did need for a project just last night!), I can check out that tag, and have a directory structure that is absolutely identical to the way the book looked when I called it “done.”
Boring Ramblings tl;dr: We're trying this whole blogging thing again.
The blog, of course. Who did you think I meant?
Today marks the (second) relaunch.
When I first started senorpez.com, I mentioned a bunch of hollow platitudes, like how a journey always begins with a single step, how the iPod was (now famously) called “lame” by Slashdot, how you eat an elephant one bite at a time, how you can’t push a rope, how you never touch moss on the north side of a slope in fall if its raining, etc.
When I had a complete failure of a relaunch 15 months ago, I think I said some similar things. You can check it out yourself; that post hasn’t been culled, like so many others have been.
So what happened? And why, for the last few weeks, have I been building and writing toward a July 1 post that would start this crazy process all over again?
Hell if I know. But it’s here. And if you’re reading this, so are you.
Biased Reviews tl;dr: Great until the ending of the game.
Assassin's Creed
Assassin’s Creed is a prime example of why you shouldn’t go see a certain movie, play a certain game, or date your sister just because someone says you might not “like it” and you “shouldn’t do it.” Many of the reviews decried the gameplay as “repetitive” and “boring” (much like dating your sister), dropping the score down a few notches. But upon playing Eidos’ “Climbing to High Places” simulator, I didn’t find that at all.
There are varying ways to classify an activity as “repetitive.” If I take my sister out to dinner every Friday night, when does it qualify as repetitive? Always? Only if we go to the same place every time? Only if we order the same thing every time? Only if I get a Three-Cheese Nachos with chicken, extra black beans, hot salsa, cheese, no sour cream, and a topping of Cholula hot sauce every time? Be right back, now I need Qdoba.
Back. That’s the issue with Assassin’s Creed. Fundamentally, there are some repetitive tasks, but I found the execution of those tasks to be the draw. Sure, I was, again, tasked with the murder of several guys in order to get some information from an informer, but instead of being in dark alleyways these guys were in the middle of a busy market. The challenge comes not from the core task, but figuring out, on the fly, how to complete that task. Sure, it’d be incredibly boring if every instance of the task happened in a crowded market with the same configuration. But that’s not what happens.
Unfortunately, Assassin’s Creed really is like dating your sister. The core game is engaging, the story is a bit arcane but good enough to keep you rolling through cutscenes, and the visuals and controls are superb. There’s a sense of style and danger to the whole package that really gets you hooked and keeps you hooked.
Then I went and finished the game. To paraphrase Douglas Adams, this made me angry, and has been widely regarded as a bad idea. Like dating your sister, the end of the relationship is where all the bad stuff comes out. In your sister’s case, it’s probably disownment (because, let’s face it, your parents like your sister better) and public shame. In Assassin’s Creed, it’s what I refer to as the Ending Problem.
A fiction author spends a lot of time creating characters and worlds. If the author has any sort of talent, than these characters and worlds end up being multi-dimensional, with depth and the ability to react to any situation in a manner that’s either:
Logically derived from past events in the world created by the story.
Completely out of character, which will only be accepted by the audience as “valid” if it then leads to a major change in the character for future interactions. (Granted, this assumes a competent audience, which, given recent box-office successes, may not be a safe assumption.)
What does the author hope to attain at the end of a tale? A “big finish,” similar to ESPN’S PTI, but with less concern for NBA basketball. Yes, there’s always the possibility of a sequel, but you still want to give your audience a “payoff” for their hours of attention.
There’s the issue. If you logically derive a result, the changes of a proper big finish diminish rapidly. And if you, as an author, force scenario number 2, you have to damage the characters you’ve come to love so much.
This is exactly what happened in Assassin’s Creed. The “authors” wanted a big finish. But they couldn’t figure out how to make silently and stealthily sliding a blade into someone’s throat climactic, so they went with the old standby: Horde of guys to fight, straight up. No joking. The entire last 3 hours of the game is nothing but you, a character who spent the entire game relearning the “creed of the assassins” by silently murdering people instead of the full frontal assault that got you in trouble in the opening scene… performing a full frontal assault on King Richard’s army. Seriously. That’s worse than the ending of a Harry Potter book. Also, there are spoilers in this review.
So, how does the game rate? Without the ending war, ignoring the fact that it’d be a story without an ending, it’d be a solid 9, if you’re the type of person who desperately craves numeric game reviews. With the ending war, it’s probably a solid 7, saved and injured in equal parts due to the mind-bending ending to the story which both forces you to think a bit instead of drooling over a cutscene… and which practically screams “BUY THE SEQUEL.”
Assassin’s Creed is far from unique in the Ending Problem, however, and maybe I’ll get around to reviewing some of the other material that suffers a similar fate, and maybe provide some of my tips for getting around it. Both Slumdog Millionaire and Lakeview Terrace were movies that painted pictures in beautiful shades of gray, only to have an ending with a nice, shiny, “everything worked out, didn’t it” ending. And that’s only 0ne example.
The only Ending Problem left now is how to end this post. I was going to post a cool video, but since everything on YouTube is 12-year olds showing how “AWESOME!!!!” counter kills are (they really are, but we don’t need 1,000 videos about it), I’ll just post the Trailer. Crossbow aside, it’s really similar to what you actually do in the game, what with the running and jumping.
For those of you that were around for the first crack at this, it’s been roughly a year since I last posted anything. For those of you that weren’t, don’t worry, you’re not missing much. And either way, ti’s not that hard to find the old content. It’s around here somewhere. Be careful nosing around there; the person who wrote those lines isn’t the exact person that’s writing these, and that’s a good thing.
For anyone who knows me, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I had a list of “dos” and “don’ts” written up. Things that I wanted (or should) blog about, and things that I didn’t want to (or shouldn’t) blog about. That’s been tossed out. Whatever happens here, will happen, regardless if it’s on a list or not. What I’m passionate about will remain what I’m passionate about, regardless if it’s on a list or not. The interest generated has to be internal and unbounded, regardless if it’s on a list or not.
So what is new? Why the new look? Why the new title? Why the same old URL?
This Thread Sucks is an homage, if you will, to the life cycle I see in Internet forums. You start out with something small, personal, intense. It gathers momentum, growing both in scope and people. And eventually, it crosses a tipping point, where you’re full of no-longer-funny memes and shitposts, with every thread deserving of the eponymous name.
Nothing’s permanent on the Internet, nor in life. In the year I’ve been “gone,” I’ve:
Lost 50 pounds. Gained 70.
Went to China. And didn’t leave Waukesha County for a 2 week period.
Caused my brain to explode getting and MBA. And am still at the same job I had before I even started the degree.
Joined, posted in, and enjoyed many Internet and gaming forums. And watched every single one devolve into suckiness.
Joined and ignored Facebook. And then started using it.
Calculated the number of minutes in a year by hand. And by typing “1 year to minutes” into Google. And the answers don’t match.
Lamented about driving someone special away. And then getting off my dumb head and not letting that happen.
And so, with all of those changes behind me, here’s the new playpen. I’m not expecting anything… other than fame and fortune, that is.
