3 months in
Wow. Just... wow.
No writing at all in 3 months. I've been kicking myself.
Sure, I've got a 3 month old, but I can't blame it all on parenting. There have been some pretty messed up things happening to my family recently, medically-wise, that have really pushed my mind away from any writing.
Until last night.
I can't remember the last time I woke up in the middle of the night with an idea in my head. What's better, it was an idea that really appeals to me for the fantasy story, around how wielding/casting works. It's been a sour note for me, that I always saw that as the weakest part of my idea. Too much "hand-waving", if I'm honest. I'm not saying this dream fixed it, but it does give me a cool way to differentiate the magic system.
So... things are finally settling. Our kid's falling into a rhythm. We're falling into a rhythm. Things are starting to feel a bit more normal.
Contributing to my escape from writing (coward!) was the release of two games that really took me in. I hesitantly stepped into Horizon: Zero Dawn and was very pleasantly surprised. It's a great game. Loved the story, loved the ending, loved the characters. The combat system was fluid and responsive and how can you not like hunting robot dinosaurs? Really, two thumbs up, and with replay value too. Sure, the story's done, but I'd like to see how my dialogue choices changes some outcomes, if at all. Will eagerly await a sequel, because.. surely!
Speaking of sequels and dialogue choices. I really need to stop reading online reviews for video games. There was so much hate floating around for Mass Effect: Andromeda that I honestly thought twice about buying it. In the end I decided that Bioware couldn't have messed up that badly and I'm sure glad that I did so.
Andromeda was a lot of fun.
Sure, if you want to get nitpicky about it, there were graphical issues, there were some bad animations, collisions and stuff you don't expect from a finished game, but the game itself is solid. Would it have benefited from waiting until this first patch they released last week? Sure.
I don't pretend to understand why they wouldn't hold off another month to fix the issues. I mean, I work for a software company, and I know that for every bug that gets past QA, they still catch many more that are fixed before launch, so... they had to know the issues were there at launch, and still decided to go for it. Again, I don't pretend to understand that, because it places an awful lot of trust on folks like me to take the gamble despite negative publicity, but hey, I suppose I did end up buying it anyway. Shows what I know...
Whatever or however those decisions are made, the fact is that the game is fun. The combat was familiar to ME fans with just enough new tweaks to make it an interesting learning curve. I myself went for an infiltrator, so while my team went in blazing I would often sneak in around back and take out the top enemies while cloaked. I didn't go biotic at all in this first run-through. That's for next time.
And there will most definitely be a next time.
Aside from DLC that will surely drop in the coming months, I have to play the game with a different outlook. This first time I went all "snarky" and it was extremely fun. There were some actual laugh-out-loud moments in conversations, very much "Nathan Drake from Uncharted/Mal from Firefly" type of humor that I appreciate.
So I might go for a more calculating, shrewd biotic in the next play-through, we'll see. Also I'll probably play it as the female Ryder. Because, why not? I hear you can pick-up the Scottish science officer, whereas male Ryder struck out.
Conclusion: never pay too much attention to online reviews/hype. If it's a studio you trust, it may be worth the risk. I know I'd pick up anything CD Projekt Red puts out, given the masterpiece that the Witcher 3 is. Bioware has a lot of good faith from me still, all the way from KOTOR, and Andromeda feels like a great beginning of another trilogy. It's not a reboot, but it could work as one.
So, games, medical emergencies and just plain exhaustion have taken their toll, I haven't even been reading at all. I'm finally finishing Ghost Talkers by Mary Robinette Kowal and it's good, I feel ashamed that I stopped in the middle.
One writing thing I did do is join Critters. I submitted To Return for critique and boy! Was it ever pulled apart and picked on. I got 9 critiques, of which 8 were super useful. Really great points, really incisive observations. I wish I'd joined sooner. As part of how it works, of course, I've had to critique about 8 short stories, which for the most part have humbled me and reminded me of how many good, potentially great, writers are out there, and how much I still have to learn.
So that'll be it for now. I'm feeling a bit more like myself again, more inclined to take up the torch after work. Let's crack some knuckles and finish the darn ending to Everybody Goes To Hell so I can submit it to WoF.
- Chair!
No writing at all in 3 months. I've been kicking myself.
Sure, I've got a 3 month old, but I can't blame it all on parenting. There have been some pretty messed up things happening to my family recently, medically-wise, that have really pushed my mind away from any writing.
Until last night.
I can't remember the last time I woke up in the middle of the night with an idea in my head. What's better, it was an idea that really appeals to me for the fantasy story, around how wielding/casting works. It's been a sour note for me, that I always saw that as the weakest part of my idea. Too much "hand-waving", if I'm honest. I'm not saying this dream fixed it, but it does give me a cool way to differentiate the magic system.
So... things are finally settling. Our kid's falling into a rhythm. We're falling into a rhythm. Things are starting to feel a bit more normal.
Contributing to my escape from writing (coward!) was the release of two games that really took me in. I hesitantly stepped into Horizon: Zero Dawn and was very pleasantly surprised. It's a great game. Loved the story, loved the ending, loved the characters. The combat system was fluid and responsive and how can you not like hunting robot dinosaurs? Really, two thumbs up, and with replay value too. Sure, the story's done, but I'd like to see how my dialogue choices changes some outcomes, if at all. Will eagerly await a sequel, because.. surely!
Speaking of sequels and dialogue choices. I really need to stop reading online reviews for video games. There was so much hate floating around for Mass Effect: Andromeda that I honestly thought twice about buying it. In the end I decided that Bioware couldn't have messed up that badly and I'm sure glad that I did so.
Andromeda was a lot of fun.
Sure, if you want to get nitpicky about it, there were graphical issues, there were some bad animations, collisions and stuff you don't expect from a finished game, but the game itself is solid. Would it have benefited from waiting until this first patch they released last week? Sure.
I don't pretend to understand why they wouldn't hold off another month to fix the issues. I mean, I work for a software company, and I know that for every bug that gets past QA, they still catch many more that are fixed before launch, so... they had to know the issues were there at launch, and still decided to go for it. Again, I don't pretend to understand that, because it places an awful lot of trust on folks like me to take the gamble despite negative publicity, but hey, I suppose I did end up buying it anyway. Shows what I know...
Whatever or however those decisions are made, the fact is that the game is fun. The combat was familiar to ME fans with just enough new tweaks to make it an interesting learning curve. I myself went for an infiltrator, so while my team went in blazing I would often sneak in around back and take out the top enemies while cloaked. I didn't go biotic at all in this first run-through. That's for next time.
And there will most definitely be a next time.
Aside from DLC that will surely drop in the coming months, I have to play the game with a different outlook. This first time I went all "snarky" and it was extremely fun. There were some actual laugh-out-loud moments in conversations, very much "Nathan Drake from Uncharted/Mal from Firefly" type of humor that I appreciate.
So I might go for a more calculating, shrewd biotic in the next play-through, we'll see. Also I'll probably play it as the female Ryder. Because, why not? I hear you can pick-up the Scottish science officer, whereas male Ryder struck out.
Conclusion: never pay too much attention to online reviews/hype. If it's a studio you trust, it may be worth the risk. I know I'd pick up anything CD Projekt Red puts out, given the masterpiece that the Witcher 3 is. Bioware has a lot of good faith from me still, all the way from KOTOR, and Andromeda feels like a great beginning of another trilogy. It's not a reboot, but it could work as one.
So, games, medical emergencies and just plain exhaustion have taken their toll, I haven't even been reading at all. I'm finally finishing Ghost Talkers by Mary Robinette Kowal and it's good, I feel ashamed that I stopped in the middle.
One writing thing I did do is join Critters. I submitted To Return for critique and boy! Was it ever pulled apart and picked on. I got 9 critiques, of which 8 were super useful. Really great points, really incisive observations. I wish I'd joined sooner. As part of how it works, of course, I've had to critique about 8 short stories, which for the most part have humbled me and reminded me of how many good, potentially great, writers are out there, and how much I still have to learn.
So that'll be it for now. I'm feeling a bit more like myself again, more inclined to take up the torch after work. Let's crack some knuckles and finish the darn ending to Everybody Goes To Hell so I can submit it to WoF.
- Chair!