Two posts in one month?! Buh?!

It is a difficult thing to forgo one's habits. We find ourselves in the niche of those comforts as have had some effect to comfort us in the past, though they are only second, third, fourth, or fifth best. But we know that they have an effect. Even if the effect is not quite what we need, if it distracts us from or alleviates the stress of life, the cold and the dark, then it is worth receiving and interfacing with. It's the case of being stuck in a hot shower: one knows that life is going on outside the shower stall, that inevitably our skin will prune or the water will get cold or that we will run up the utility bill, but inside that cocoon of hot water and gentle noise life enters an apparent stasis. It is, of course, an illusion; a minor comfort to proverbially wash away the dark and the cold, but those things which we do all we can to avoid are still awaiting us beyond that hazy curtain.

So we have many hot showers, many placebos and opiates, but only one true cure. The cure, as it seems, is far away and through a winding, coarse path that we must carve ourselves, rife with distractions (fair and foul) and pricker bushes and all manner of annoyances. It's the difference between finding a comfortable dugout to sit on a third of the way up the hill and climbing the hill to find a fully furnished cottage with all our favorite things and a gracious host. It's obviously worth the effort but the more time we spend in our dugout the more the cottage slips into a state of myth in our minds and hearts.

It's dry and rather safe in the dugout, much better than being out on the slippery hill, but it's still second best.

So what does it take to get off of one's ass and forgo those comfortable habits for something lasting and wholesome? I can't really say. I suppose the comforts (the dugout, the hot shower) have to fail us enough to motivate us to find the real thing. That, probably, could take a lifetime. 

The Moderate Gamer

I'm confounded by this all-or-nothing attitude toward MMOs. I understand it because I've been there but, sparing myself any Freudian waxing, it doesn't make lots of sense. It seems a very juvenile attitude to have, whereby one is either the "best" or not there at all. These perpetual worlds can be savored slowly, dropped when the enjoyment fades, and resumed when interest is piqued again.

It's not like single-player games where you play through, beat it, enjoy it, play it again when you feel you want to relive the experience (not unlike books). These online games are always growing and changing, there for you when you want to give it another go.

I suppose I just get annoyed when the same people who complain about the game from the outset and devour content like cheap steak decide to make a big fuss about their "leaving" a game, only to return in a few months. Who cares.

The Secret World

So The Secret World is due out in April. I'm intrigued by its setting: the modern world, with a hugely epic backstory spanning millennia, where every myth, urban legend, and conspiracy theory you ever heard is true, and where secret societies fight for control of these powerful myths. I don't know how it will shake out as a game, but the idea has piqued my interest terribly. I haven't gone in for this sort of thing since I got into Lovecraft back in college. Feeling inspired, I wrote a little story about a character finding his way into the secretive Illuminati of TSW. Enjoy!

I enjoy the way you lie

I haven't talked about it much on this blog but I am in love with a show called Deadwood. It only took me a few years after its cancellation, but having spent the summer watching the series twice in a row it has quickly changed the way I feel about television, dialogue, and my beloved western genre. Its insane creator/writer/director, David Milch, I was previously aware of (who hasn't heard of NYPD Blue, even if you haven't seen it?) but I was unaware of his sordid and scary history which involved the 60s, a suspension from Yale, and a lot of drugs. Watching some of the supplemental material and footage from both seasons 1 & 2 (I haven't done 3 yet) and listening to Professor Milch, who does and did actually teach at the collegiate level I believe, I am reminded of a scene from the first episode where one Elsworth is speaking to the hard, subversive, complicated, swindling pimp Al Swearengen, proprietor of the Gem saloon and all around antihero.

Just write.

I've been writing for a long time. I'm pretty sure I have been writing, in some capacity, since the third grade when I started making my own comic strips. When I first read Dragonlance I wanted to start writing fantasy. When I read Tolkien I wanted to write fantasy that could change lives and worldviews. If I have ever finished a work longer than a short story or essay, I have lost it.

Time and again I realize that I need words. Words are the way I see the world. Words that make stories are how I understand the world, including myself. At a deeper, more cosmic level, the Word is the foundation for all reality, truth, and life.

But I forget.

So what I need to is just write. Here's what this guy says:

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.

— Ira Glass

My irking comes from the "taking a while". If I had been writing more consistently, maybe I would be a published author. Maybe things would be different. Inversely, maybe things are the way they are because they are they way things are supposed to be. I like that notion.

Commitment

National Novel Writing Month. Long have you hunted me. Long have I eluded you. No more. Behold! A shred of commitment!

I mean to enter NaNoWriMo this year and I'm concerned. I'm concerned not only because I have a baby due the first week of December who is as like to come onto the scene beforehand (and interrupt whatever writing process I have begun), but because writing 50,000 words is a feat.

This is not something you've seen before...

Lil' Glitch shipwreck

As much as I adore serious things and bear a mile-wide serious streak, I've always held a place in my heart for the silly, goofy, and absurd. If I'm honest with myself it's more in line with who am I. But for as long as I can remember those two parts of me have taken turns: in the midsts of my metal/grunge obsessed adolescence The Presidents of the United States of America snuck in and maintain a dustless space on the trophy rack of my heart; along with countless re-reads of The Lord of the Rings and nameless other fantasy, scifi, historical novels I still break for the comedy of JRH or George MacDonald Fraser; it's a toss up between Young Frankenstein or Momento any day of the week for me as well.

If brevity is your thing, we all need the silly.

So it comes as no surprise to myself that that Glitch has stolen my attention for the time being. In a gaming world of exploding Orks and endless raids a cute, fun, almost combat-free game is as crisp as the fall air that approacheth from the west. TF2, if nothing else, has proven that a little comedy goes a long way in enamoring a bunch of bloodthirsty nerds.