Year: 2014 (page 46 of 61)

I’ve had Titanfall (Xbox One) for like, almost two weeks now, but haven’t really played because of work and traveling and toddler and something-something liquor.

But, today, I cracked into one-half of the campaign.

Here, then, are my impressions:

The Awesome:

The game is easy. Or, feels easy, at least.

It’s orchestrated toward Awesome Moments. First match, I got blown up, ejected out straight up into the air, fired an anti-titan missile straight down and killed the big giant robot that had blown my ass apart in the first place. Again: this was my first match.

Pilots are nimble-footed. Game feels like there’s nowhere you can’t go. The wall-running and double-jumping give your movement a very fluid sensibility, which is nice.

Fast to respawn. Minimal downtime as a result.

Titans are not immortal killing machines. A single pilot can take one down. Not easily, though.

It’s really fun. That sounds simplistic, but it’s a game, so that matters.

Short matches let you just jump in, shoot some motherfuckers, then go do something else.

I GET TO STOMP AROUND IN GIANT ROBOTS WITH GUNS AAAAAAH YAY

The Less-Than-Awesome:

It’s very, very fast-paced. More Unreal than Halo. Curiously, as I get older, my reflexes in video games slow equally to mine in life — I prefer a slower, more methodical game. I like the slightly plodding run of the soldiers in Call of Duty. Pilots here feel like ninjas running around, and they’re hard to shoot. (Piloting a Titan feel more fun because of this, actually.)

Game matches tend to be frenetic.

Sorely lacking a single-player game.

Multiplayer on Xbox One has nobody talking. Likely due to the fact none of us have mics/headsets, and it won’t use the Kinect that way — and why do we need the Kinect again? As a result, it feels like a multiplayer match of individuals, which is not super-great in a team-based game. It’s mostly just a bunch of assholes running around playing their own game.

You start the game underpowered, and it shows. That first match it’s like, every time you pop your head out, somebody is shooting it off. Though by my fourth game I was feeling comfortable and with enough option to not feel like a total gopher at the hole.

The campaign is doofy. It’s a veneer of single-player staple-gunned onto a multiplayer-only game, which — y’know, don’t bother. Never half-ass two things — whole-ass one thing. Of course, to unlock things, you gotta play the campaign anyway, soooooo, poop noise.

Overall?

It’s cool. It’s fun. It’s easy-breezy.

If you like this sort of thing, you’ll love this particular thing.

If you do not like this sort of thing, you’ll hate this particular thing.

If you’re looking for single-player: ain’t here. Maybe one day (but I doubt it).

Last week’s challenge: Somethingpunk!

This week’s challenge is simple in description, but perhaps complex in execution.

It is about pacing and arrangement.

A piece of flash fiction is usually treated in a certain way — it’s short, so it uses the brevity of the form to often capture a snapshot in time.

We’re going to open that up a little bit.

You still have 1000 words.

But you’re going to break that up into 10 chapters.

Now, ostensibly that works out to about 100 words per chapter, though variation on that is fine. However you see fit to make it work. The goal here is to maintain brevity but increase scope. Can you tell a larger story in a smaller space? Does breaking it up make that easier — or harder?

Otherwise, standard rules apply.

Any genre will do.

Post at your blog, then drop a link in the comments here to that blog.

Due by next Friday, March 28th, noon EST.

1000 words, split into ten chapters. Now write it.

Here there be guest post! This time by Tee Morris, talking about how the fear we all feel about our writing doesn’t go away just because you’ve published a book.

I never like seeing friends stressed out. Whether it is intensely stressed out or just out of their groove, it just kills me. It is amplified more when I personally feel the bumpy ride of Life’s rougher patches. Lately, those bumps have been feeling far too frequent for me; and it is very easy to lose yourself within the bad news and let it affect your work.

Getting published isn’t the hard part. It’s living up to the hype. Every time you clear one goal, another appears in front of you; and each goal is higher than the next.

There’s a lot riding on Dawn’s Early Light, the third book in the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series, penned by Pip Ballantine and myself. At least, that’s what I’m seeing. The book hasn’t sold a single copy, and yet the fate of an award-winning steampunk series, potential titles under development, and even my own direction as an author all feels to be in the balance. Why, you may ask? As I was one told by a friend of mine:

“You got nothing to worry about. You’ve arrived.”

I have? Well shit, I must have missed that memo.

Sure, I have the previous performance of the series’ previous books, Phoenix Rising and The Janus Affair. They still manage to appear in Amazon’s Top 100 in Steampunk. It’s even better when these books pop up in the top 50 after three years. We have been working up a modest anticipation for Agents Books and Braun on Twitter, on Google+, and with a third season of our award-winning Tales from the Archives podcast. We also have a blog and podcast tour underway, appearing on over twenty blogs (including this one) and ten podcasts this month, all of these appearances heading towards the launch of Dawn’s Early Light.

So why the anxiety over this? We got this, right? This ain’t our first rodeo.

Actually, it is. At least, with Ace. Our publisher has made a gamble on us and on a series in progress. We have to make sure this gamble pays off. This is what it means to be a modern day author. Back in the day of Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen King — hell, even in the days of a young and spry (?) George R.R. Martin — the term R.O.I. never came into play.

It’s a different world now, kids. It would be nice to think you can follow in the footsteps of Uncle George and enjoy a few years between books, but you can’t and you won’t. You’re measured by your last book. Not only in how it performs but when it came out.

The clock continues to count down to release date, and I continue to try to keep a clear head amongst distractions like douchenozzles buying New York Times bestseller slots and the saber rattling over Independent versus Big Bad Legacy publishing. It’s enough to drive you to drink (and I enjoy my single malt over chilled rocks, thank you), especially when you have on the line details like a house, a child to take care of, and a career to pursue.

On one of the more intense days where I was getting particularly frustrated, Pip said it to me through my rant of frustration: “You can’t give up. You’re not allowed.”

Then it hit. And it’s still hitting me…

I’m scared.

I’m scared that Ministry won’t go the way people are telling me it will go. I’m scared the book will hit the shelves and people will hate it. I’m scared that I’ve got all these great ideas, but I’ll suddenly find myself unable to get beyond the pitch. I’m scared the Ministry is going to fall short of everyone’s expectations; and I’m scared, particularly on those days when I struggle to herd the words, of losing that ability to write.

There’s also that fear that I’m doing something wrong, or not doing enough, to make our latest title a success.

That’s what’s happening in my headspace, and it is tearing me apart.

I understand what Pip meant though. I’m not allowed to give up. These are First World problems, and I still have stories to tell. It may sound like I am miserable, but that’s not it either. It’s just that anticipation. I love what I do, but I know how I get right before a major release. I set a pace, and there are days when I feel I cannot keep that pace. I have to, though, no matter how bad it may seem. We as the upright mammals we have evolved (in spite of those damn Godzilla-bits in our brain) must always strive forward. Onward. Always.

But this terror. Sometimes, this darkness feels bigger than me.

This fear isn’t a bad thing though. It’s good. It keeps me focused and driven. I know that when I’m the most terrified, I’m sharp. My heart pounds like a jack rabbit as I hammer out a blogpost, before a speaking event, before a panel discussion, against words straining to get on the screen, and—from what I discovered at a writers’ retreat—introducing a new work amongst a roomful of peers. I know that I’m alive, and every rapid pound in my chest reminds me that I have earned the right to be here and it’s time for my “A” game. I am told by agents, editors, and publishers I have chosen a path that few undertake. I honestly don’t know what that means, but I do know that this fear is an acknowledgement of a challenge before me.

When that fear threatens, though, a friend of mine—a fellow storyteller named Phil Rossi—offers a perspective I can get behind.

“We are defined largely by our own perception. If I think I can’t write, then I’m not going to be able to do it.  If I consider myself capable of telling a good tale, then that’s just what’ll happen.  Belief is a powerful thing. 

And in this case, I’d say it’s magic.”

In a perfect world, I believe that how we should be to each other: inspiring. That really is, as Queen once put it, a kind of magic.

Find your strength. Even when you believe you have none left, remember you do. It could be a loved one. It could be another writer. There is strength to draw from. Always.

I am ready to face it. I am ready to be a motherfucking rockstar.

Writing has rules. And writing has “rules.”

By which I mean, writing is beholden to two things:

Laws and guidelines.

Laws are mostly immutable. A period goes at the end of a sentence. Commas work a certain way. Words mean things. Grammar, punctuation, parts of speech, etc.

These laws grow more complex, of course. Byzantine, even. And the more complex they become, the more mutable they get — technically, you don’t put a preposition at the end of a sentence, but really? You can. And most do. You’re not supposed to use sentence fragments, either. But you can use sentence fragments to excellent effect: the short, sharp shock of information delivered. It can set a staccato rhythm. Just as deft use of a run-on sentence — also a technical no-no — can draw out rhythm and give your prose a purposefully meandering, stream-of-consciousness feel.

Guidelines are a different animal. They feel like laws and are often reported as such because it’s much easier and more interesting to yell YOU SHOULD NEVER USE ADVERBS instead of the more even-handed hey, maybe you should think very hard whether that adverb is necessary here because it might not be, okay? Never mind the fact that in the phrase “never use adverbs,” the word ‘never’ is actually a goddamn adverb, and so are lots of words you will use frequently like ‘now,’ ‘here,’ ‘there,’ ‘always,’ ‘yesterday,’ ‘everywhere,’ or even, ahem, ‘frequently.’ Writing advice is often about guidelines and not about laws, though, so many of the givers of advice (or shouters of advice) appear do so as if they are banging a gavel against the stone binding of a bonafide holy book. This is doubly more complicated when they begin to deliver storytelling advice, which is waltzing on ground that is as unstable as a field made of wadded-up jizz-tissues.

(Don’t even get me started on publishing advice. Yoinks.)

And I say all this as a person who quite clearly delivers a goodly bit of writing, storytelling and publishing advice weekly. I say this to remind you, in part, that what I say here is really just a suggestion — advice on par with how to how to brew coffee or how to perform a given sex-move. You do what you like. Different squeaks for different freaks.

Or: whatever makes your grapefruit squirt, you know?

Because every writer is a different animal. A mythic beastie whose mold was broken.

But herein lies the value of writing advice: these are things worth considering. Seeing how other writers do things matters. Just as the very nature of writing is not immutable, neither is your process, and neither is your grip on language, character, plot, story. Writing advice gets you to engage in the thoughtwork necessary to say, is my way better, worse, different, or what? It demands you ask, is there a way to improve what I’m doing, and is this way the way forward, or is it a step backward? It behooves you to pick up a tool and check its heft, its grip and its function before dismissing it entirely.

Learn the laws. Observe — and challenge — the guidelines.

Some writers violate the laws and guidelines because they never beheld them in the first place, in which case they’re not some bold explorer or given over to artistic experimentation. They’re just an orangutan with a paintbrush. (Sorry to any orangutans reading this blog.) If you use a chainsaw to perform dentistry, I’m impressed, but I’ll be a whole lot less impressed if after the act you say, “Wait, what’s a chainsaw?” Accidental genius isn’t easily duplicated.

I know that I’ve broken rules in my writing. I know that I’ve broken rules in this very post.

I know why I did it, too.

I have said before and I will say again here:

We learn the rules so that we may know when to break them.

We break the rules so that we know why we need them in the first place.

Learn your craft. Then make it your own.

It’s funny that people think I’m going to curse up a storm upon meeting them.

It’s understandable. I tend to be rather profane on this here blog (er, this here motherfucking bastard of a blog). I like to curse! Profanity is a circus of language. It’s a spoken world of dizzying trapeze jumps and exploding clowns and lions eating bears or whatever the hell happens at the circus (I haven’t been to the circus in a long while, shut up).

But I thought I should warn you, since this seems like it might be of some disappointment:

I don’t actually curse that much in person.

At least, not in polite company. Like, if I just meet you, I’m not going to be like, “WHAT UP MOTHERFUCKER” and then give you a wedgie. I’m not going to abrade you with my beard and say words like “shit-turkey” or “cock-spackle” or “fuck-sundae” unbidden. I’m certainly not going to get on a panel (where children might be present) and talk about, y’know, jizz or whatever.

As I grow more comfortable with you, I may pepper in a little profanity. And if we become truly close — like, my beard cilia begin to harvest your flesh — I may utter a steady stream of gibbered profanities from the Time Before Man into your ear in a ritual unlocking so that I may milk your pineal gland of all its wisdom and turn you into another one of my Wendigo-Puppets.

(AKA “Wendogs.”)

But, just to warn you: I probably won’t be all that cursey when we meet.

Probably.

Last week’s challenge: “Must Contain…“

Cyberpunk. Steampunk. Dieselpunk.

The literary subgenre -punk contains, as I see it, a couple key features —

a) A world taken over by the technology or fuel source or by humans (often in an authoritarian role) attempting to control the utilization and implementation of that tech or resource.

and

b) Characters who represent an anarchic, rebel “punk” vibe in this world.

Certainly other definitions could apply, but this is the one I’m going for today. The Matrix works as cyberpunk because you have the authoritarian machine regime and also the radical activists who dress all bad-ass and work to break the regime and its system to itty bitty pieces. Is Star Wars spacepunk? Forcepunk? If you really wanted to be cynical, you might suggest that we — right now — live in an Oilpunk world. BUT I DETECT NO CYNICS HERE. Ahem.

Anyway.

Your job is to write 1000 words of fiction in a new SomethingPunk world.

Where [Something] is a noun (tech/resource, most likely) you choose.

Definitely no cyberpunk, steampunk, dieselpunk.

That said, if you’re feeling a bit daunted by this initial open choice, I’ve included ten options below that you could grab and use in order to write this flash fiction challenge. Grab a d10 or choose randomly. If you grab from the list, the interpretation you choose is entirely up to you. (Most of those can go several ways, I suspect.)

You’ve got one week, par usual — due by noon EST on March 21st (Friday).

Post at your blog or online space. Link to your story in the comments below.

SomethingPunk Possibilities

1. Ghostpunk
2. Hellpunk
3. Cowpunk
4. Bloodpunk
5. Soulpunk
6. Geopunk
7. Godpunk*
8. Beastpunk
9. Dustpunk
10. Germpunk

* originally written “godspunk,” which sounds like “god-spunk” instead of “gods-punk.”