Tag: Fantasy

Sold a Story! Unhallowed by Sidney Blaylock, Jr.

Image Source: https://www.wattpad.com/296700758-fantasy-sub-genre-guide-weird-west (link appears to be nonfunctional)

Hi Everyone!

Sorry that I’ve not posted since before the new year (Happy New Year, by the way), but one of my “unofficial New Year’s resolutions” was to restart the blog/return to writing the blog on a regular/semi-regular basis. I have a block of time that I can use to write this semester, so that is what I’m doing starting today. Of course, it helps when you have big, exciting news to share, so if you haven’t read the title, nor looked at the thumbnail, I sold a story! Woo Hoo!

Unhallowed

The story that I sold was Unhallowed, my “Weird Western” short story. Obviously, I can’t go into a lot of specifics (I do want readers to actually read the story and not be spoiled), but I will be doing an “Author’s Note” blog about it once the story releases (so of a “behind the scenes” look at the creation of the story–similar to what movies and video games do when their products finally release). However, if you’ve been a long time reader of the blog, you’ll know that there is a blog entry where I’ve talked about the general formation of the story.

What’s interesting about this story is that it is the first story that I completed under my new focus on the “Writing Process.” For the majority of my other stories before this one, I just sat down and wrote based on the idea that I had in my mind. For Unhallowed, I actually followed a process (idea formation, character sketch, rough draft, working draft, and revision). I usually “skimp” on the character sketch elements, but this time, I really dove in and created a strong backstory for the main character, Arizona.

Actually, this backstory, while allowing me to create a strong character, actually hindered my selling of the story. I included the backstory in flashback scenes (in italics to set them apart) and put these flashbacks in-between the “main” story narrative (so main story, backstory flashback, main story, back story flashback, main story). However, time and again I was told that the backstory slowed down the action. I think I received that comment from three different editors. I removed the last two very early in the submission process, but it was only after the 3rd editor mentioned that the backstory was slowing everything down that I grudgingly removed the last backstory section.

It sold on the very next submission! Goes to show you that a lot of times revision just comes down to listening to the feedback that you’ve been given and acting on it, even if it is “painful” to hear or goes against what you think/want for the piece.

Underdog Press

I sold Unhallowed to Underdog Press, for their anthology called, Underdogs Rise. I will go into more details about the press when it gets closer to time for the anthology to release, but a lot of people ask (in real life, at least), how they can support me or my work. The easiest answer is to buy a copy of the anthology (or magazine) that my stories appear. As a short story writer, I don’t earn royalties on my works, even if they appear in books like anthologies. For me, it is a one and done transaction. However, I need places to actually send my work to. That can only happen if you support these small presses by buying copies of the books/issues that my stories appear. If people don’t support small presses, then I don’t have anyone to buy my work and then I can’t be able to produce my stories (because if there’s no one to sell to, then what’s the point?).

So, please, Underdog Press is taking preorders on their anthology. You can either place a preorder with them for Underdogs Rise or purchase a copy when it releases, but this is the best way to support me as a writer until I start writing (and selling) novels and other long form work. Your support of the small press doesn’t just help me out, but it helps out all of the writers in this anthology as well. So please, consider preordering or purchasing a copy if you can. You don’t know how much of a help it is to us (non-Stephen King level writers) to have a consistent place to submit work to that we know will be available to us when we finish our next stories.

Thanks so much and have a great day!

Sidney

Please consider supporting these fine small press publishers where my work has appeared:

Currently Working On (December 2022):

Creative

  • The Runner (2022 Revision) (Fantasy Story–4100 words)
    Status: In Revision
  • Unhallowed (2023 Revision) (Weird Western Story–4100 words)
    Status: Sold! Underdogs Rise Anthology for Underdog Press
  • Science Fiction Story
    Status: Section 1 of 3 completed

Scholarly 

  • Dissertation Completed
    Status: Editing (Dissertation Director’s Comments/College of Graduate Studies formatting rules).
  • Unnamed Book Chapter
    Status: Drafting
  • Blood on the Shield: African American Trauma in Falcon and the Winter Soldier
    Status: Accepted for Publication (Forthcoming)

Movie Review: Ghostbusters Afterlife

Ghostbusters Afterlife Official Movie Poster. Five characters standing around the Ecto-1 car as a greenish "ghost" storm forms in the sky above them.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostbusters:_Afterlife

I’ve been purchasing quite a few movies lately. Most of them have been copies for my film class, for the ones that I did not already own, but many of them have been science fiction and fantasy movies that I’ve not yet had a chance to see. I’ve not really watched them because of the pressure of the semester, but I decided last night that the pressure was really getting to me (this post was almost a “Bear Eats You” type of post and I really didn’t want to go there), so even though it was later than I liked, I went ahead and watched Ghostbusters Afterlife. I have to say that I really enjoyed the film and that there was a lot to like about the movie.

The Good

I thought there was quite a bit of excellent work in terms of both writing and characterization inside the movie. The script, while not always working, was charming and endearing. Mostly, the movie was smart enough to do what most movies won’t do when they are trying to “revive” a mostly dormant franchise: it appealed to nostalgia in a way that wasn’t disrespectful of the old movies, but changed the premise just enough that one could see a “new” group of heroes take on the role/mantle of the older generation. This movie isn’t revelatory, but it doesn’t have to be: the only thing you want is to not “tick off” the fans of the original/older generation, while at the same time have the new generation not think it is “old” and “not relevant” anymore. I think GB Afterlife accomplishes this mission. It includes more than enough nods to the original in tone, structure, plotting and cameos to satisfy those of us who were around when the original GB was a thing, but also enough new characters (with their motivations and goals) and a plot that recalls some of the greatest ideas from the movie without being a straight one-to-one “copy” (beat for beat) of the original. This, I think, is what the Disney Star Wars sequels were going for, but didn’t manage to do, at least not for me. There was a “heart” to this movie that was missing in the Star Wars sequels. I think that if you are a fan of the originals or if you’re a Millennial wondering what all the fuss was over GB, then I think this movie is a good one to check out.

The Bad

Okay, for me, not much outside of the fact that you essentially have six characters that pair off for approximately 3 separate storylines. The main storyline gets enough time, but the two “B” and “C” stories (with the brother and mother) don’t really feel as fleshed out as they could be. Yes, I’m glad they didn’t do the whole teenage “angst” thing with brother disbelieving sister or mother who thinks her kids are in her way type of thing with this movie (and I appreciate it), but the character arcs for those to characters feel slightly stunted when compared with the arc of the main character (who, in this movie, is the sister as we follow her POV for most of the movie).

The Nostalgia

So, I won’t go too far with this one, but nostalgia is really at the heart of this particular movie. It gives closure to the movie in a way that none of the other GB movies or the GB game in the PS3 does. The game is considered canon and is considered the “unofficial” 3rd movie in the GB franchise. I may be mistaken, but I believe the game was done before Harold Ramis passed away and everyone reprised their roles, but the movie was definitely done after Harold’s death and there is very much an “In Memory of” quality about the movie. It also earns brownie points for the way in which it treats the cameos of the original cast of the film. I always like when movies treat the originals with respect and this movie does so. While The Incredible Hulk and Race to Witch Mountain aren’t remembered fondly, I have a soft spot in my heart for the way they included the original cast members from the original television show/films for both projects. Knowing that “Lou Ferrigno” (the actor who originally was “the Incredible Hulk” from my childhood) played a security guard in the Marvel movie always bumps up my internal score for it (even if it isn’t as good as later Marvel movies).

Overall Score: A (95)

Rating: 5 out of 5.

As you can tell, I liked this movie quite a bit! I thought that the characters were great, the story was good, the appeal to nostalgia was great, and the special effects were great. While I would have liked more time on the secondary stories, it would have probably been a bad idea to focus too much on the mother/brother storylines, but I did notice that they seems a little “stunted.” Still, for me, there’s not too much to complain about for this one. I really liked pretty much everything they did with one. My only hope is that they keep this set of characters together if they do a sequel and not just choose to “cherrypick” and keep the brother and sister characters and then go with other “GB” companions (which is typical of many Hollywood) sequels/follow-ups. I think this group of “six” (sister/friend, brother/friend, mother/teacher) is a great set of characters–I might just like them to even out the storylines just a little bit more than they did for this movie. Otherwise, stellar movie!

Sidney

Please consider supporting these fine small press publishers where my work has appeared:

Currently Working On (February 2022):

  • The Runner (Fantasy Story–4000 words)
    2022 Revision; Out to Market.
  • Unhallowed (Weird Western Story–4400 words)
    2022 Revision: Completed; Out to Market.
  • The Independent (Science Fiction Story–4800 words)
    2021 Revision: ACCEPTED FOR PUBLICATION

2021 Playstation Wrap-Up

Source: https://www.dexerto.com/gaming/how-to-get-your-2021-playstation-wrap-up-on-ps4-ps5-1744940/

So, I’m trying to get back into blogging in a small way as hopefully you all can see through this week’ posts. Today, I’m going to focus on the games that I played over the past year. Playstation is doing a yearly wrap-up of the games, by allowing players to log in and see their yearly stats. I will use screenshots from the Wrap-up to show what my year was like in gaming. I won’t do all of them, just a few of the ones that I think are the most important. I’m going to keep this introduction short, so without further ado, here are my Playstation 2021 Wrap-up Stats.

Top Games of 221

https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/p/dragon-quest-xi-s-echoes-of-an-elusive-age

DragonQuest XI

My number one played game of 2021 was, according to Playstation, DragonQuest XI. I put in nearly quite a bit of time playing the game and beating it. It was a fun experience that I thought I’d “finished,” only to discover that I was only approximately 50%-60% through the game. I persevered and finished it right around September of 2021 (just as I was beginning my new job approximately). I haven’t yet gone back to see if I can get the Platinum Trophy yet, but I will give it a go when I finished my current playthrough of the games I working on right now. I do know that I’m not really a JRPG (Japanese Role Playing Game) fan, but for some reason, I really enjoyed my time with this game. I feel like it helped me get to grips with some of the conventions of the JRPG genre.

https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/p/dragon-quest-xi-s-echoes-of-an-elusive-age

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War

So, this game is the one that I spent the majority of time with during 2021 for my online gaming. Now, obviously, I won’t be doing so now that Microsoft has bought Activision, but before that time, CoD was a favorite (mostly because my mother enjoyed watching me play). CoD has been slowly losing its relevance because they have refined the gameplay in such a way as to want to cater to those who will purchase their “battle pass.” I like the CoD shooting experience, but I no longer like the way the campaign is rendered (with stealth/stealth-like elements). I feel that I got fairly good with the game, but mainly because the time that I put in was in service to my mother so that she could watch the game. By myself, I probably would have put only “half” the time that I did for this game. While much better than Vanguard, this game started some of the egregious ideas that were fully featured in Vanguard.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/812140/Assassins_Creed_Odyssey/

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

The reason why this game is so high is that I basically played it over the tail-end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021 (1st 3 months approximately). I did the bulk of the game in 2020, but finished the game and worked for a Platinum trophy during the beginning of 2021. I don’t have the stats for my 2020 gameplay handy (I wrote them down in a notebook), but I felt that I spent quite a few hours building up my character and finishing the game, and then doing all the work for the Platinum trophy. I enjoyed this one quite a bit, but I thought AC Origins had a slightly better story. Both focus on family, but there are more choices in Odyssey which means that it couldn’t be as narratively focused as Origins.

Source: https://store.steampowered.com/agecheck/app/1151640/

Horizon Zero Dawn

So, this one is complicated. I stared this way back in 2017 when it was released, but I kept trying to play it as an action game, when it is a “stealth” game first, action game second. While I played it on and off from 2017-2020, I finally figured out how to play the game late in 2020 after playing through Assassin’s Creed Origins and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. I went past the place in the game where I was stuck and I’ve pushed through, saw the story, and finally finished it (although this happened late in 2021 and early 2022). I enjoyed the story and feel that I’m now ready for the release of the next game, Horizon Forbidden West, a game I’m looking forward to when it releases in February.

https://www.codemasters.com/game/grid/

Grid (2019)

This is, unfortunately, one that I spent far more time with than I should have based on how much fun I had. This game is a good looking game, but is very shallow. The cars don’t handle that well, the tracks are quite limited and repetitive, the AI is a bit suspect (sometimes they seem “god-like” and sometimes they seem fairly inept). Unfortunately, this is a game that looks better than it plays. The reason why played it for so long is that I bought it on sale and I got the game and all the extra content that came with it. I felt like I needed to finish the game and the DLC. While I did it, the game was simply too repetitive and I ended up stop having fun playing it halfway through the base game. I had to finish the game and then finish the DLC, all while disliking the game more and more with each passing day. I managed to finish my goal, but I’m not all that proud as I played a game to completion simply to say I had rather than having a fun and enjoyable experience.

Sidney

Please consider supporting these fine small press publishers where my work has appeared:

Currently Working On (January 2022):

  • The Runner (Fantasy Story–4000 words)
    2022 Revision; Out to Market.
  • Unhallowed (Weird Western Story–4400 words)
    2022 Revision: Completed; Out to Market.
  • The Independent (Science Fiction Story–4800 words)
    2021 Revision: ACCEPTED FOR PUBLICATION

State of Writing 2021 — Yearly Summary

Source: https://www.ayudainc.org/craft-research-paper/computer-history.asp

I got the idea for this blog post from a couple of different places. Two YouTube channels that I watch do “State of” videos to showcase their own interests: one writing, the other gaming. PlayStation also does a “State of Play” to showcase upcoming games, so I thought I’d use this forum to talk about the year that has passed in terms of my writing, especially since I had a 3 month long break from the blog. This won’t be in-depth, but will give a “snapshot” of the year that has just passed.

Stats

I sent out 3 stories last year: Unhallowed, The Independent, and The Runner. According to Duotrope, I sent out the stories a total of 12 times total for the year. Of the those 12 submissions, I had 1 Acceptance and 11 Rejections. However, this stat is a little misleading, as I will explain shortly. I didn’t jot it down, but I think the percentage of Acceptances to Rejections was (guesstimating) 7.21% or something similar (this is from memory–yes, I could do math and figure it out–my Mac’s calculator says 8.3% approximately, but it is obviously under 10%). Yet, even under a 1 in 10 chance, my average was STILL higher than the “average” of people submitting on Duotrope. This is why writing is so discouraging–in American Baseball, you’re a good “player” if you hit in the “250s” (2.5%), a great player if you hit in the 200s (280s-290s), and an exceptional player if you hit significantly over 300 (325-330s). That’s 3 hits out of every 10 swings. Now, compare that with writing where you’re getting 1 in 12 (less than 1 time for every 10 submissions) and that’s considered good. That’s why writing (& particularly publishing) is so demoralizing and why so many have left that traditional model for self-publishing. Okay, editorializing over.

Now let’s look at the individual stories:

Unhallowed

So, this is my Weird West fantasy story featuring an African American female bounty-hunter, Arizona. This story went out 7 times in 2021. While I did send it to 1 major market in 2021, for the most part, the rest were middle range markets. It was rejected all 7 times, but 1 market, Mythaxis, liked it and sent me a personal rejection letter. Basically, they felt it was too long for publication in their magazine. As a writer, I felt that, had the story been shorter, I would have had an excellent chance of getting it accepted for their publication. While they didn’t offer the option to revise and submit, I went through and I eliminated 2 of the 3 sections with backstory elements for the story (I felt I needed the first backstory section to explain the world/worldbuilding of the story as that’s where it all happens). I cut it down from 6, 600 words to 4, 400 words, and it is currently out to its next market with this trimmed down version of the story. If it gets accepted and published somewhere, my goal is to utilize the “origin” story to create a Graphic Novel/Comic Book adaptation of the story (for my longer, original vision).

The Independent

This one is a complicated one. This is my “Space Truckers” story. It only had 2 submissions for 2021. It was accepted by Mythic, a market I’d been trying to sell to for quite a while (at least since I started writing again “professionally” when I started blogging). I heard that I was accepted shortly before I started my new job as a Visiting Scholar in Residence. I was ecstatic! I signed the contract and focused on the job.

However, time went by and hadn’t heard anything. Then, a few days before Christmas, I got an email from the editor informing me that he was closing Mythic. The last issue was to be #17 and my story had been slated for #18. I was, of course, gutted, but also prosaic about it. The last thing I’d want is for someone to bankrupt themselves trying to fulfill a dream when it is obvious that the dream is “drowning them.” Something I learned during my time as a PhD student is: “if you’re in a hole, stop digging.” I wished the editor well and got on with my holidays, resolving to find a new market and send it out after the Christmas/New Year’s Holiday.

After the holidays had passed, I printed out a copy of the story, to do my new routing of an “Annual Revision Pass”over the story, when I got another email from the editor. He wanted to continue the publication (just in a smaller format), but wanted to know if I still wanted to publish the story in the magazine. Of course I did, so I agreed, and that’s where we are right now.

Last I saw, he was running subscriber drive/Patreon drive for the magazine. I don’t normally do this, but how about throwing him a few “bones” (slang for dollars) if you have any extra money. I’ll probably end up donating at least a part my own “fee” back to him for at least a 1 year subscription. Anyway, here’s a link to his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mythicsffmagazine/

The Runner

This is a new fantasy story that I finished this year. It is a story about a fictional human civilization on an island with creatures that the humans consider deities. This story was submitted to the LeVar Reads contest in August of 2021. I felt like the story had a good chance as it met all the requirements of the contest page and was really fun to write. Also, it didn’t have (or need) a complicated backstory to fill in the world, so I could just concentrate on the characters and the plot. This one was a MAJOR “almost” as I came very close with this one. There could only be 3 winners (a first place and two runners-up). Out of the 708 submissions to the contest, I made it to the FINAL round of 12. LeVar read those 12 stories (mine and 11 others) and made the final decision. I, unfortunately, wasn’t one of the eventual winners, but as the “rejection letter” proudly noted, my story made it the Top 2% of stories for this particular competition. Essentially, I was able to make it to the Olympics, but I wasn’t able to bring home a medal (to continue the sports metaphor from earlier). Still, my only goal for this competition was to have my story read by LeVar Burton and I accomplished this goal, so while I’m disappointed of course that I didn’t “win,” my story was good enough to do what I hoped it would: have a celebrity like LeVar at least read some of my work!

So that’s it. A fairly in-depth recap of my year in writing. I’m working on a new story now. Hopefully, I will be able to add it to the State of Writing 2022 summary next year!

Have a great one!

Sidney

Please consider supporting these fine small press publishers where my work has appeared:

Currently Working On (October 2021):

  • The Runner (Fantasy Story–4100 words)
    2022 Revision: Completed; Out to Market.
  • Unhallowed (Weird Western Story–4400 words)
    2022 Revision: Completed; Out to Market.
  • The Independent (Science Fiction Story–4800 words)
    2021 Revision: ACCEPTED FOR PUBLICATION

Author’s Note: The Runner

Tarahumara man with headband and pole, running on a brown dirt road with green trees in the background.
Image Source: https://ultrarunninghistory.com/tarahumara/

It’s been a while since I was able to update everyone on my writing journey. However, I am happy to announce that I finished another story this year! The story is titled, The Runner, and it was formerly known as “Project Runner.” I’ve added it to my list of projects finished at the bottom of my “Signature” line. It is currently under consideration to a market. While I will talk a little more about the inspiration, drafting, and deadline for this piece, I just want to say that I’m fairly proud of myself for meeting the deadline for this work under some fairly trying circumstances. Even if it doesn’t manage to do all that I hope that it can accomplish–i.e., the compromises that I had to make due to time– I still think that I like the piece and how it ultimately turned out.

Inspiration

This piece has a number of inspirations and no one inspiration was more important than another. They all sorta’ blended together to help me come up with the story. There are too many to mention here, but I did want to talk about a couple of the more interesting ones.

The first one is the idea of a “Spear-Bearer.” I’ve always been interested in the “bo staff” and I was intrigued with the way Brandon Sanderson essentially takes a master of the bo staff and turned Kaladin into a spear-bearer in his Way of Kings novel. I, too, wanted to have a hero who was a master of the staff and created a female character (islander) who was good at the staff. However, being an islander, she would most definitely use a spear and not a staff due to the fishing community that her people would have started as in their history on the island, so I made my hero a spear-bearer as well.

Another one is the idea of a “Runner.” I knew that this hero would run the length of the island. I was already creating a running character when I happened across the development of a video game that described a Mexican culture (Tarahumara) that actually has “runners” as their warriors. The video game, Mulaka, had a developer’s diary video on the Playstation channel that helped me figure out that my “runners” weren’t warriors, per se, but more like “police/ambassadors.” They kept the peace between the human tribes and the fractious non-human “gods and demons.”

Finally, the major inspiration for this story was a tourism video on Vimeo about the island of Bali. Bali is actually known as the “island of gods and demons” and as a history minor (and some one who knows quite a bit about the world’s mythologies, I’d not heard that and was super curious to find out more. After I read about Bali a little more (I’d known of it, but not in a major way–my parents were meticulous on social studies as were my elementary school’s textbooks–while I can’t tell you exactly where every country is, I can generally point out on a map the general location of most countries in the world). I remember thinking that about the phrase “gods and demons” and taking it into my “Dungeons and Dragons” experiences and wondered what if these “gods and demons” were actually just fantasy races that were thought to be “gods and demons” because of their influence on the island. This really kicked the formation of the story into high gear and it was my need for a way to have the humans come to understand that these other races weren’t really “gods and demons” that drove me to create my hero and the story itself. I don’t have access to the original video, but here is a representative video from YouTube that shows the beauty and majesty of the island.

Drafting the Story

So, this was one of the stories that I worked on over the summer with my new way of working/writing. I took the summer to do all of the “Pre-writing” for this story. I worked on my story outlines, I worked on my character sketches, I worked on writing down a “rough draft” in my notebook (hand-written). I then transferred that hand-written rough draft to my computer. And I wrote a “possible” first paragraph for the story.

I set it aside and then I did the same for several other stories this summer. I then saw a “submission call” in which a TV personality was teaming up with a magazine to do a competition for stories that dealt with several subjects, with “gods” being one of those subjects. I decided that this would be a perfect time to go ahead and complete this project and try for this particular competition.

The deadline was fairly tight (August 31), but I was helped by the shortness of the piece. I’d wanted to make it more elaborate, but I didn’t have the time, so I stuck with three sections, a beginning section that worked as exposition and inciting incident, a second section that worked as raising the stakes, and a third section that worked as climax and resolution. I didn’t really have problems drafting the story, except that I found that I needed to add a section “3.5” in order to get to the resolution and anti-climax. I’d envisioned a much grander (cinematic) fight scene, but I just didn’t have the time. Instead of “war” between the three factions (gods, demons, and humans), I had to settle for a fairly terse personal challenge between three representatives of the factions. Still, I think that it worked out well.

Deadline

The deadline for the story was submission no later than 11:59pm on August 31st. I’d written approximately 800 words or so before I saw the listing–most of the first section. I devoted several days throughout the middle of August working on section 2. It was here that I realized that I was going to have to scale down the story I had in my mind and eliminate a couple of the longer scenes (running from village to village) in order to meet the deadline.

I promised a draft to one of the Writing Center consultants who wanted to read the story and who offered to give me feedback. Since the 31st was on a Tuesday, I worked most of the weekend on Section 3 and finished it and sent it to her so that she could give me feedback. I integrated the feedback on Tuesday afternoon and sent it off. I probably won’t hear anything back until late Sept. (if I didn’t make the 1st round), or mid-October, if I did make it to the 2nd round (2nd round are the “winners”–3 stories, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place).

Overall

Overall, I have to say that even if the story isn’t chosen, I’m happy with it. It may get a 2022 “revision” (I plan to read over all my stories that haven’t sold and revise as necessary), but mostly I’m happy that I was able to write and finish the story in a reasonable amount of time (about two months, give or take a week or two) and get it off in time to meet the deadline. I’m working on “Project Wall” now, but that is going much slower because I’m devoting more writing time to the dissertation and teaching my classes. I’ve not yet figured out how to “re-intergrate” creative writing with dissertation writing. It seems to be either one or the other (The Runner was written during the time when my director was looking over my Introduction and while I was doing the edits for the intro). My mind seems to only want to focus on one project or the other, so maybe when I finish Chapter 1 of my dissertation, I can move to “Project Wall” and make progress on it as I did with The Runner.

Anyway, there’s a look at my process for this story! I hope that it might be helpful to other writers out there! Have a great day!

Sidney

Please consider supporting these fine small press publishers where my work has appeared:

Currently Working On (September 2021):

  • The Runner (Fantasy Story–4000 words)
    Completed: 2021; Out to Market.
  • Unhallowed (Weird Western Story–6600 words)
    2021 Revision: Completed; Out to Market.
  • The Independent (Science Fiction Story–4800 words)
    2021 Revision: Completed; Out to Market.
  • Starlight, Starbright (Science Fiction Story–3500 words)
    2021 Revision: Completed.
  • To Dance the Sea of Storms (Fantasy Story)
    Prewrite: Completed, Plan & Outline: Completed, Write a first draft: Completed, Revision: In Progress

Commodore 64 (C64) Nostalgia Review: Karateka

Tan box with an Asian "warlord" character with headgear staring out at the viewer. Also staring out at the viewer is a western male protagonist with indeterminate hair color (brownish blond) in a white karate gi, and a blonde western female with her shoulder bare.
Insert: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karateka_(video_game) (You’ll also notice the “Westernized” protagonist and his love interest in an Asian themed game for the box art)

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, but based on the analytics, these are far more popular than I thought they would be. It seems there’s a lot of love for the C64 (as the Commodore 64 is affectionately known) and there are a lot of people in other countries that find these interesting at least, so I’ll continue doing them. Eventually, they will run out because I got all my C64 stuff via birthdays and holidays as the software was far too expensive for me to purchase with my own allowance as a child. Luckily, the C64 era spanned most of my tween and teen age years, so I have a fair amount of it that is pretty cool.

I actually want to talk about one of the ones that I enjoyed playing the most and a game that definitely inspired me as a child growing up in the 70s and 80s: a game called Karateka.

Karateka

So, Karateka was made by Jordan Mechner who also made a video game called Prince of Persia (PoP), which is now a currently dormant, but major, franchise owned by Ubisoft. At the time, however, I didn’t know about PoP, but as I was in to all things Martial Arts as a child, somehow I discovered this title and I thought it was absolutely awesome.

The gist of the game is that an evil warlord (Akuma) has kidnapped your one true love (Princess Mariko)and you had to fight through various warriors in the evil warlord’s palace to get her back. Yes, the damsel in distress trope was common in the games of the era. However, was was unique was the range of moves and motions that your character, the Karateka (which means, practitioner of karate as far as I’m aware), had available to him. Remember, this is years before a game like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. Games were lucky if there protagonist remotely resembled a person (I’m looking at you, the “cursor character from Adventure), so to get a human character who could punch, kick, and move away realistically was absolutely fantastic!

Action, Adventure, and a Little Chess-like Strategy

The game starts with you pulling yourself up onto a rocky crag where the evil warlord’s palace begins and you fight your first enemy. Your enemy is basically a “white belt” beginner and the challenge increases in terms of timing, moves, and belts as you delve deeper and deeper into the warlord’s palace. Along the way, there are eagles that you have to defeat with a well placed kick, otherwise they will attack and take valuable life away from you–life you’ll need to get through the ever-increasingly difficult fighters that lie in wait.

The game very much relied a timing system. It took your character a set time to throw a punch or a kick and it took the enemy a set time as well. However, as the enemies became more difficult, I remember their timing becoming slightly faster, although that could have been just memory–if I’m misremembering that, my apologies. One thing I know for sure, however, is that the enemies’ life increased dramatically as you went on. As you only had one life (yep, this was the era of one life games), this made it incredibly tense and super important not to get hit and squander one of your valuable life arrows (which went down in increments, if I remember correctly–no, I think it could go down in increments or if you caught a powerful punch/kick it could go down a full life arrow).

I found the instruction insert to the game and here are some of the strategies/story given:

“You can withstand only a limited number hits. The rows of arrows across the bottom left of the screen tells you how many. Every time you get hit, you lose one arrow. If your last arrow disappears, you die . . . As long as you avoid getting hit, your arrow supply will be replenished. Every guard has a different headgear and fighting style. As a rule, the guards get tougher as you advance into the palace. When you kill a guard, take advantage of the opportunity and run forward. Watch for danger when you’re standing or running. In these positions you’re vulnerable to attack — one well-aimed blow could kill you!”

Karateka Getting Started Insert

You Think the “SoulsBorn” Games are Hard?

It was incredibly difficult to go through the entire game. There are a couple of “traps” that you had to watch out along the way. I remember getting to one of the traps, a gate, and being stymied for literal months as to how to get through. It was only by happenstance one day where I was running and remembered the gate at the last minute and I “decoyed” the trap (yes, I don’t want to spoil this even though it is nigh on 30 years old at this point and no modern machine outside of emulators can even run this game properly). From there, I knew it could be done, but it was figuring out the parameters of the gate and its timing. I got to where I could pass it reliably, but it was still months before I would see the end of the game, after getting by another “trap” as well. This second one, I didn’t think was fair, and it also broke the internal logic of the game to me, as if it was “true,” it made no sense to me as to why/how the Princess could have been captured. This was a classic twist, that while surprising, didn’t really work with the fiction of the narrative and probably my first time figuring out that games functioned differently than other novels. There was a narrative/narrative rhetoric in what the story was doing, but there was also a procedural rhetoric (although I wouldn’t know the term until studying my PhD here at MTSU) in what the code was doing.

While the code/coding didn’t break the game and was entirely consistent with the concepts of “gameplay,” it most certainly broke the narrative, and showed the duality behind the game. You can have narrative structure and/or gameplay, but they aren’t at all the same and can be, at times, at odds with each other.

Favorite Game?

This was one of my favorite games as child, easily within my top 5. Was it my favorite game of all time? That I can’t say, but it was one that I finished as a child, and for a game this difficult, this was no small feat. It is also a game in which I was dedicated, I used problem-solving, and had a little bit of luck to see the gate’s “pattern/trick.” If this wasn’t my favorite game as a child, it was certainly close. I still remember the sweaty palms as I made my way into the inner sanctum of the palace with only a handful of life arrows remaining. Would I have enough skill or would my journey end at the hands of a combatant with way too many life arrows?

Karateka was an absolutely perfect game for my childhood. It had everything that I wanted in a game, compelling story, cool martial arts, and a new and unique (for the time) setting. It also had everything I needed as it was a well crafted game that rewarded patience over rushing in and a measured, tactical approach to combat so as to help one to utilize problem solving skills and timing.

I think this is probably one of the games that I consider formative to both me as a person and me as a gamer. Without Karateka, I don’t know that my love of games that require strategy and patience, like the original Tomb Raider games would have developed and blossomed as it has, so hat’s off to Jordan Mechner. We always talk about art inspiring and moving people, and I can definitely say that Karateka had an effect on me as a human being. For those who say video games aren’t art, well, you’re welcome to your own opinion, but essentially, you’re only looking at one dimension of games–the procedural one. Computer code is 1s and 0s, but just as novels are more than the words written on the page, so too, this game is much more, to me, than the sum of its parts.

Sidney

Please consider supporting these fine small press publishers where my work has appeared:

Currently Working On (June 2021):

  • Unhallowed (Weird Western Story)
    2021 Revision: Completed; Out to Market.
  • Starlight, Starbright (Science Fiction Story)
    2021 Revision: Completed; Out to Market.
  • The Independent (Science Fiction Story)
    2021 Revision: In Progress.
  • To Dance the Sea of Storms (Fantasy Story)
    Prewrite: Completed, Plan & Outline: Completed, Write a first draft: Completed, Revision: In Progress.

Raya and the Last Dragon Mini-Review

Image of Raya and the The Last Dragon, Sisu (a purple and blue dragon from the Chinese mythos--serpentine with no wings).
Image Source: https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2564916/raya-and-last-dragon-make-money-disney-data-suggests-streaming-mulan

So, this blog is late, and yes, there’s a reason for it. One of the reasons is that I am going to eventually get around to drafting these entries on the weekend and then release them during the week. That is going to happen . . . eventually. There’s no question of it. Eventually.

However, it doesn’t help when WordPress goes and changes the way the blogging editor works for no good reason. I like my titles as they were clearly defined from the rest of the content. WP has changed this and now the title works differently as I draft these entires. I’m going to stop here as the rest of this entry would likely be a “grip session” at WP, but please allow me the option to choose what I prefer in order to write the blogs rather than making the choice for me. Thank you!

Back to regularly scheduled blog entry now.

Raya and the Last Dragon

So, I’ve been out of the “movie watching” habit. On Saturday nights, as a reward for getting through the week, I treat myself to a movie that I’ve not seen before. Before school, I would buy a DVD/Blu-Ray that I’d not watched before, but after going to school (and being a student again–read, poor), I started streaming movies through Netflix (although I did subscribe to their DVD/Blu-ray Disc option for a time). However, even back in 2016/2017/2018, I could see where streaming would be the “future” of the industry (if I’d had any money for stocks, I definitely would have invested in Netflix and other streaming ventures–though I’d probably lost money as streaming didn’t really become viable until late 2019 with Disney+ entering the market and kicking off the current streaming wars, and the pandemic of 2020 really forcing people to reevaluate the streaming vs cable cost paradigm).

However, I’ve been trying to get back into the movie watching habit, so I’d thought last Saturday,–yes, it’s late, but I’ll go ahead and watch a movie. After not being able to decide, I saw that Raya and the Last Dragon was available on Disney+ and since I’d really liked the trailer, I decided to give it a shot.

Not Bad

This is going to sound like “damning with faint praise,” but I liked it and thought that it wasn’t bad. It isn’t my favorite Disney animated movie, but I still think that it is a strong movie and a fun watch. Unfortunately, it just didn’t hit the heights of other Disney animated movies. Still, at the moment, a middle of the pack Disney movie is still better than the majority of live action movies out there.

I really liked the characterization and the story. The setting seemed a little too “on-the-nose” for my tastes as the way the land and water are visualized in a map depicted in the story makes it seem like a “dragon.” There isn’t a villain, per se, unless you count the faceless monsters in the story, but there are antagonists. However, they make the antagonists wanting to do good, but acting out of “fear” and trying to make their lives better at the expense of others. However, fundamentally, the story argues that all people are good and that coming together is better than being separate.

Moana Does It Better

However, the message, which is so central to most Disney animated movies, seems a bit too forced in this one. Maybe it is that “on-the-nose” quality that I mentioned earlier, but from the way they bring the characters together, to the way the faceless villains are depicted and motivated, to the resolution of the story, all seem to be more geared to a more child-like, less experienced audience, where a movie like Moana, at least to me, still speaks to me as an adult. I can glean a message from Moana while enjoying the story, but for Raya, it felt like the message was the story. As a writer, I can intuit that, for Raya, the theme is central to the story, but for Moana, the story and characterization are central and the theme emerges naturally from the story.

This isn’t to say that Raya is bad or “preachy,” but for me (and probably for most adults), the story is better when I’m allowed to take what lessons I can from a story due to the characterization, plot, and setting, even if there is a “preferred” idea that is strongly hinted at/encouraged by the film. Raya gives you only one (To Trust is Divine). Yes, there are others, like “better together” or “come together in order to defeat a greater evil,” but realistically, the movie is exploration of the idea/theme of trust (who do you trust, when, how, why, etc.). That’s a little two-dimensional for me as a writer, storyteller, and audience member. Moana’s focus on her heritage and what it means to be the person that she was always meant to be adds that third dimension that I think Raya is lacking. I think that if they could have combined their characters and plot in a different way and utilized the “faceless creatures” in a different way–then Raya could have truly been a truly great movie on the level of Moana.

Overall Rating: B (85 Above Average)

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Even though it seems like I mostly focused on the negative, I still had an enjoyable experience with this movie. In the late 80s, there was an ad for a comic/graphic novel that I desperately wanted called The Last Dragon by Chuck Dixon. Unfortunately, when I finally found it and read it years later, it was a bit of a disappointment because it was more along the lines of a period piece and a biography of one of Dixon’s forebears (as I remember it–I could be wrong on this as this was YEARS ago, so YMMV). Raya is much closer to what I hoped that graphic novel would have been (although it still doesn’t quite match what I have in my imagination, so maybe . . . one day, I’ll write what I envisioned). The fight sequences were excellent and the characters, while not laugh out loud funny, still made me chuckle or smile, so it is an enjoyable film. It just, in my estimation, misses the mark of greatness for various reasons, but the biggest reason is that it lets the theme dominate the characters/plot, rather than letting the theme grow organically from the characters/plot.

Sidney

Please consider supporting these fine small press publishers where my work has appeared:

Currently Working On (June 2021):

  • Unhallowed (Weird Western Story)
    2021 Revision: Completed; Out to Market.
  • Starlight, Starbright (Science Fiction Story)
    2021 Revision: Completed; Out to Market.
  • The Independent (Science Fiction Story)
    2021 Revision: In Progress.
  • To Dance the Sea of Storms (Fantasy Story)
    Prewrite: Completed, Plan & Outline: Completed, Write a first draft: Completed, Revision: In Progress.

Rhythm of War: Book Review

A woman with red hair standing on fantasy landscape with blue water on one side and a reddish diagram on the other.
Image Source: https://www.amazon.com/Rhythm-Stormlight-Archive-Brandon-Sanderson/dp/0765326388/ref=asc_df_0765326388/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=459559487726&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=5192376959006262636&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1025943&hvtargid=pla-917808360122&psc=1

During the Fall semester of 2020, one of my three favorite authors released a new book and when they do, I always try to buy it and read it over the intervening break. Unfortunately, one of my three is semi-retired and even though she has a series still in progress, she’s not really writing it at a normal pace anymore. My other favorite writer has returned to a series that I’ve loved from my childhood, but while I enjoyed the novella setting up the story, I’ve found that he’s almost pulled a “Disney Star Wars” routine where the main characters have had a crappy life so as to focus your attention on the new, upcoming coming characters and I HATE when authors/creatives do that. I much prefer the “Lucas Star Wars” way of doing things which is skipping the intervening time periods, catching us up on the current status of the characters and then letting the story flow organically from there. We can also do prequel/far future, and we can do near future, but the “gritty, hard life” after setting up “hope” at the end of the trilogy really ruins the story for me because it is like the previous story/trilogy meant NOTHING to those characters (a very “Grimdark” way of doing things–which is a pet peeve of mine). So, that leaves my third author, who, luckily, is writing in an epic style in full on professional writer mode and with no “hint” of Grimdark anywhere around–even though the book is probably one of the “darker” entries in the series. So, I set out to read Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson over my Christmas Break. At over 1,000 pages, I have to say that it took me a little longer to finish than the 3-4 weeks of Christmas–I actually only finished about a week and half ago and I’m sitting down now to write down my thoughts about it.

The Good

I really liked the way that the story continues. In an age where George R. R. Martin’s popularity is finally starting to slip (at least until the next GoT series rears its ugly head), fantasy is beginning to turn away from its “Grimdark” obsession (again, for now). Sanderson was one of the few authors not seduced by the “dark side” of GoT‘s popularity and money and wrote epic fantasy with complex characters, worlds, and plot lines, that were still fun and didn’t wallow in the tortuous Les Miserables “everything’s dark and grim” fantasy like so many others.

I really liked the way Sanderson inhabits his characters. I liked most every scene in which the viewpoint characters interacted–sure, in a book with over a thousand pages, there were several times where one storyline or another wouldn’t grab me, but every time I thought that I wasn’t interested, Sanderson had a twist (either in plotting or characterization) that made me perk up and take notice of what was happening. I can say that his characters, unlike Robert Jordan’s sometimes, don’t fall into stereotypes or caricatures. They may be of a type, but they definitely are true “characters” who have motivations and desires and their actions stem from those elements. The hero isn’t always “good” and the bad guy isn’t always “bad,” but for more complex reasons that have to deal with personal history rather than the “Grimdark” philosophy of “gray” characters. Sanderson is much more like Tolkien in this manner, drawing from the world’s history and the character’s personal history to add in complexity rather than just having a character be mean to his/her fellow characters “just because they can” (which in many authors and critics point of view makes the character “oh, so complex” (when it doesn’t–it just makes them a jerk!)

The Bad

Okay, so there’s not really much bad here–I love this series and I love the author’s writing! While my favorite authors tend to fluctuate based on the projects that they write and the way they execute them, I can easily say that Brandon Sanderson is easily in my Top 3 pretty much all the time. However, this is the first book in the series that didn’t earn 5 stars from me. So, what gives? In a word: pacing. In the Stormlight books, Sanderson must balance the POVs of several major characters (anywhere from 2-5) per book while dealing with a handful of minor characters (again, in that 2-5 range, not including the one-off POVs that may come in during the Interludes). Taken all together, you get a full story and rich picture of what’s happening in the book, where each main character has a huge piece of the puzzle/discovers a huge piece of the puzzle, and the minor characters have smaller slices that, once are integrated, give you the complete story. Usually, Sanderson is able to pull off these stories in the correct proportion, but this time, I felt that he didn’t quite get the proportions just right–the struggle seemed to go on for too long and the resolution and redemption arcs weren’t as developed as I would have liked. Sanderson likes to “reset” the hero to zero (almost like a video game) for each book, but during the course of the story, the hero learns some piece about themselves, which allows them to “level up” so to speak and push forward. This happened in the book, but the resetting process and discovery process came at the expense of the resolution process where the characters come to an understanding (and in this series of books), really learn how to use their new knowledge to beat back the inner/outer darkness. While this still happened, I felt like it seemed a bit rushed and wasn’t as satisfying as in previous books. For me, a lot my investment in this series is the way that the main characters actually get to express their heroism and the way they get to be heroic. Even outside of the “Grim Dark” sub-genre, the fantasy genre, as a whole, has drifted away from idea of the protagonist (male or female) as “heroes.” To be edgy or hip or modern, or relevant, far too many published authors in the genre have moved to what I’m calling the Battlestar Galactica (remake, not the original) mode where they take the heroes, still keep them as heroes, but make them do and act in despicable ways in order to show their “conflicted nature.” This series doesn’t really do that–it shows that the people of the world have problems, some internal, but mostly external that they are struggling against. However, in the final third, they usually rise above their problems, internal or external, and become something greater. In this book, rather than the last third, it is more like the last tenth of the book–it is still there, but greatly diminished, so I didn’t really get the same sense of enjoyment at seeing the characters get to be as heroic as they were in other books of the series.

The Ugly

To be honest, I thought the decision-making of some of the characters was really questionable at points in the story. There are several characters who either do things, or don’t do things, that seem strange in this particular book in the series. Maybe I’m being hyper-critical, but there were several times when I was thinking to myself, why are acting this way or doing this. Or for another character, I was saying, “tell them already!” In the end, when the resolution actually came, all the things that the characters were not doing, they did, or things that they were doing them, they stopped, so it seemed like many of the “wrong-headed” decisions of some of the characters were there to enhance/draw out tension, but many of these decisions had to do with internal struggles rather than external ones, so it felt like a bit of a cheat. There’s one specific instance that involves the god Cultivation very late into the book that just completely baffles me. I can’t go into detail because of spoilers, but it is implied that she had foreseen the consequences of earlier actions in series that led up to this particular instance in the book. However, the decision that was made was so horrendous, so bad for the heroes and the world, I (personally) have trouble believing that one could foresee this particular thing coming to pass and not understanding the ramifications of it for the heroes, the world, and the Cosmere itself. I think I spent the next twenty to twenty-five pages after the event passed, shaking my head and wondering how on Roshar this decision could have ever been thought of.as a good one. I think this, more than anything else, made me stop and examine some of the flaws that I saw in the decision making processes of some of the characters and while it comes later in the novel, it was still enough to make start to wonder about why I wasn’t having quite as much fun reading this book as others in the series.

Overall Rating

Rating: 4 out of 5.

It probably sounds like I hated this book. Far from it! This is still my favorite series and the only one that I can depend on not to (at the moment) succumb to the numbing idea that’s pervading Speculative Fiction at the moment: except for superhero movies, there are no heroes anymore. That is ALL the rage in popular culture these days, and I find this series a refreshing breath of fresh air that sweeps that sentiment aside. It’s just that with the shortened time allowed for characters to be heroic by the fairly quick resolution and the incredibly wild decisions that some of the characters make at times, this is the first book in the series that I’m not giving an unqualified 5 stars too–and that makes me a little sad.

Maybe the next book will alleviate my concerns and give me a longer resolution where characters don’t make inexplicable decisions, but based on the final scene in this book (no spoilers), I’m not too hopeful. It was this final scene that truly illustrates why Cultivation’s decision was so bad and so uninformed, even as she said that she foresaw this eventuality that made me begin to question the decisions of earlier characters which had only been small little rumblings of discontent up until that point.

Again, I really liked this book! I just thought that it didn’t quite match the heights of the previous books in the series.

Sidney

Please consider supporting these fine small press publishers where my work has appeared:

Currently Working On (March 2021):

  • Unhallowed (Weird Western Story)
    Out to Market
  • Starlight, Starbright (Science Fiction Story)
    In for Revision & Editing
  • The Independent (Science Fiction Story)
    Out to Market
  • To Dance the Sea of Storms (Fantasy Story)
    Prewrite: Completed, Plan & Outline: Completed, Write a first draft: Completed, Revision: In Progress

Project Seas = To Dance the Sea of Storms (Short-Story)

Sailing ship on an ocean with a golden sun and sky and light gray clouds in the sky.
Image Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/548454060847640099/

I apologize for last week. I keep telling myself that I’ll work on 2-3 blog posts over the weekend, but it just never seems to work out. Last Saturday, I went have my taxes done, and I wasn’t able to get the blog posts again for a second week, so I decided to just do shorter blog posts so that even if I can’t do it the blog daily, I can at least get 2-3 blog posts per week. Today I’m going to start that with a shorter post on managing to finish a new short story.

2 Few Days

So, after finding out that I’ve only had two (2) writing this year, I was very disappointed in myself as a writer. I’ve had many other things to do, but only working on a project for 2 days was something that I have to better with. I’m slowly working my way toward a possible schedule for my class in terms of grading, but I think I over-extended myself on the amount of school projects that I’ve taken on this semester. However, there’s no use complaining–I just need to try to balance my writing, school, and life as best I can in order to accomplish what I can.

So, long story short, I set up a 250 word session goal for Scrivener and worked toward the ending of the first draft of the project. I wrote 272 words in 2 days, but because I was already close to the end of the story, I managed to finish the draft in those two days.

It took me a total of 9 Writing Days to finish the story: 5 days in December, 2 in January, and 2 in February. It is approximately 2,300 words. I feel that it needs a little more, though.

To Dance the Sea of Storms

I’ve had a version of this title for most of the time that I’ve been working on it. I think I’ve said before, but in case I haven’t, most of my stories are generated from ideas that come to me first from titles. I generally think of the title first and then the plot, characters, and setting all come from the title. Rarely, it doesn’t work this way, but for this story, it did.

I will save a “deep-dive” on the plot and story and initial idea for the “Author’s Note” when I send the story off for the first time, but I’ll give a little information about it here. It is a fantasy story inspired by a line of dialogue in a fairly well known story by Stephen Crane called, “The Open Boat.” My story involves sailing and high seas adventure in fantasy world. Think of it as Master and Commander: Far Side of the World in a fantasy world.

So What’s Next?

I’m going to work on another project (planning it out and writing an outline). When I finish that one (hopefully, in a reasonable amount of time), I will come back to To Dance the Sea of Storms and work on the 2nd draft. In the interim, I’ll do a character sketch of the main character, Brynn and jot down notes for how the larger world works. I already have an idea for a new “beginning” scene that should show Brynn’s character to the reader without doing as much telling as I am in this first draft. Considering that this is the middle of February, I don’t think I’ll get back to working on the revision to this story for at least a month. However, as I’m comfortable with doing one new short story per semester, I think I’m still on pace to have the story ready for submission by late April/early May.

I enjoyed writing the story, but I just wish that I could have finished it in December or early January (by spending more time on it more consistently). I most definitely plan to do that during the revision phase.

Sidney

Please consider supporting these fine small press publishers where my work has appeared:

Currently Working On (February 2021):

  • Unhallowed (Weird Western Story)
    Out to Market
  • Starlight, Starbright (Science Fiction Story)
    In for Revision & Editing
  • The Independent (Science Fiction Story)
    Out to Market
  • To Dance the Sea of Storms (Fantasy Story)
    Prewrite: Completed, Plan & Outline: Completed, Write a first draft: Completed, Revision: Not Yet Started

On the (Writing) Road Again

A straight road with a white striped line down the center disappearing into the horizon. There are brown fields of grass on either side with an azure blue sky above.

Sorry for stepping away from the blog, but college classes, under Covid, are something else entirely from what I’m used to as an instructor. I’ll save this rumination for another post, but basically, everything takes 5 to 6 times longer because everything has to be explained (in detail) in this environment and often, multiple times. A simple explanation at the end of class to clear up a misunderstanding often takes at least 1 email, sometimes 2 or 3. So, all that to say, I’m struggling to keep up with it all.

However, what I can say is that, after a two month unintentional hiatus, I am back on the writing path. Oh, I’ve been writing over these two months and while it hasn’t all been for school, most of it has. I even tried to work on other projects, but they’ve all fallen by the wayside until last weekend.

Project Wall

So, the obvious joke would be that I “hit the wall” with this project. That’s not true, however. The fact is, I still believe in this project and I still want to do it, but I don’t really have a strong character to help guide me through. I have a brother and sister duo here, and I’m an only child. I set it up so that the younger brother would try to save the older sister that he idolizes, but even in the very first scenes/paragraphs, I could muster much urgency for the character and his dilemma, even with a literal “clock” ticking in the background to increase the sense of tension with the story. And this isn’t some random bomb explosion, but a time-based story point actually woven into the story’s setting–and yet, I felt nothing as I was writing it. I may have to just make it the main character’s story instead of trying make it about saving his sister. Maybe the solution is to have him out and he has to struggle back before the time runs out. I’m not sure, but just writing those couple of sentences seems more tense than the draft I had been working on.

Project Ranger

The next project I’d been working on was one in which I can see the first scene and the last scene in my mind’s eye. I was able to get the entire first scene down, but without a middle, I don’t really have a narrative going. I have a thing that they are working towards, but it is a longer narrative that can’t easily be told as a short-story because of the number of characters involved and the way in which I want to tell the story.

Also, while I have a fairly distinctive character this time in terms of conflict, I don’t have a good sense of who that character is outside of his one defining trait: anger. Not only that, but I can’t “see” the character. I know he’s African American, but is he short or tall, bearded or clean shaven, bald or dreads down to he shoulder blades? I don’t know, I can’t tell you and it makes it hard when your protagonist is just one emotion: barely contained rage, and nothing else.

KnightWatch (Graphic Novel)

Which leads me to my final project, KnightWatch, and the one that I actually have worked on for the past two weeks in a row and the one that seems to be “the one.” It is a sequel to my long ago published story “Sister Knight.” This one is also going to take a while (probably all the way through Christmas) as it is a graphic novel. While not my first attempt at a graphic novel, it seems like it could be the first one I actually finish *fingers crossed* as it seems (right now) to be “flowing” where the other two projects did not.

This time, unlike my previous project (which I do hope to go back to at some point), I delved directly into the sequel. I think my beginning point is strong enough and evocative enough to capture the audience’s attention, but if I need to recap my short story as a “first” issue, my rationale is that I know how to do that well now from the previous project and right now, the story I want to tell is the one that I’m telling–a new story, with old characters in an “advisory”/”adjacent” position and new characters taking up the story. I can see the main protagonist of the story with my mind’s eye and the secondary characters are beginning to come into “focus.” I’m going to change my Signature file to reflect this new story. I’m giving myself a while (3 months) to get it done.

Well, that’s all that I have for now. Hopefully, more shortly!

Sidney

Please consider supporting these fine small press publishers where my work has appeared:

Currently Working On (10/2020):

  • Unhallowed (Weird Western Story)
    Out to Market
  • Starlight, Starbright (Science Fiction Story)
    Out to Market
  • The Independent (Science Fiction Story)
    Out to Market
  • KnightWatch Graphic Novel (Fantasy Graphic Novel)
    Drafting: 1st Draft (Issue 1)

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