I'm sooooooo sick of road construction. There are road construction projects on FAR too many roads this summer. And to illustrate this I'll tell you the hell I've been through just trying to get to work at 7900 S. 3200 W. from State and 4700 S.
Last summer UDOT began work on 7800 S. Beween 4000 W and 2200 W. LAST SUMMER. Fifteen months ago. This road runs right in front of the post office that I work at, and not only do I have to pass it to and from work, I have to pass it to and from mail routes. Over a year this road has been torn up. It wouldn't be so bad if I could see that they're making actual progress on it, but they're not. They dig up a section, "work" on it, pave back over it, then a month later they dig back up the exact same section. This has been going on solid since it began, and it still shows no signs of being finished. What it looks like to me is Utah got several million bucks from the government for road construction as part of the stimulus and they're just making busy work to use it up.
Now, this is one road that I have to navigate through. And if it was only that one, I wouldn't be so annoyed. But beginning this spring, 3200 W. which I normally take over from 5400 S straight to work because there's normally 0 traffic on it has been closed Southbound because they're tearing it up veeeeeeeeery slowly to do god knows what, and now this construction has finally reached 7800 S and basically made the intersection in front of the post office a freakin nightmare to get through. So when this started I started looking for other ways to work. I started going down 2200 W, but then they started construction on that. So I started going down to bangerter and they started construction and repainting on 5400 S. That's basically finished but they have cones out to mark lanes still and this makes people feel that they have to drive 15 MPH for some incomprehensible reason, not to mention the fact that the 5400 S Bangerter intersection is also under construction. REdwood isn't much better, since one single intersection under construction back traffic up 20 blocks for some reason even though none of the lanes are actually closed. That basically leaves state, so I started taking State to 7800 S. and now they've got it blocked off at gardner village. There is literally no way for me to get from my apartment to work without going through 20 mins of waiting in construction traffic.
Now, here's my question. Why, if they've got several projects going already, DO THEY KEEP STARTING NEW PROJECTS!!! Seriously, why not just FINISH OFF SOME OF THEM first before starting a new one? Things would get done much faster that way, and commuters would not have the headache of having every single route to work blocked off. It doesn't make any sense at all. Why would they do crap like this?
And here's some more pet peeves of mine for driving. First and foremost are people that either text while driving, or talk on their phone for the entire durration of their trip. Texting while driving is just plain retarded and I hope that you crash and kill yourself if you're ever stupid enough to do it because it is exactly what you deserve. Now, As for talking on the phone, I have noticed that people who constantly talk on the phone do not pay attention to other drivers, speed limits, where the lanes are, signs and signals, or just driving in general. Sure, there's the occasional emergency when you need to talk to someone while driving, or someone might call you. But guess what. YOU'RE DRIVING!!! Tell them you'll call them back and HANG THE DAMN PHONE UP!!! Don't talk to them for the durration of a 20 minute drive, sooner or later you're going to kill someone. You might think you can do both at the same time, but guess what, YOU CAN'T. I've been stuck behind, and almost killed by enough idiots that think they can talk on the phone and drive at the same time to know that you're driving suffers when you talk on the phone. You're operating a several thousand pound vehicle at speeds that will instantly kill anyone that you hit and you're not even bothering to pay attention while you're doing it!
Finally, the most aggravating thing of them all, is people that don't go the speed limit. I mean, why? Why would you not want to go as fast as you can when there is no one in front of you? It makes absolutely no sense at all to me. It gets even worse when you get morons that don't pay attention on their own and look to other drivers to tell them what the speed limit is then you get every lane blocked because one guy wont go the limit and everyone else is going his speed because they think he's going the speed limit. I'm not a patient person, and I get irritated very easily. I don't care if you're going to be turning half a mile down the road, I don't care if the light at the next intersection is red and we'll just have to wait when we get there. If there's no one in front of you there's no reason not to go the speed limit. My time is precious to me, as I have so very little of it that's not taken up by work, and I get extremely annoyed at people who waste it. Twenty minutes spent in traffic behind people who refuse to go the speed limit for no reason at all except that they're not paying attention or just don't feel like it, is twenty minutes less that I have to spend on my writing, relaxing after a hard day, or looking for the future Mrs. Allen.
So yeah, had to vent my rage as every one of these things happened to me today and drove me crazy. No way to get to and from work without spending 3 years waiting in traffic because of construction, nearly got killed by someone texting, and narrowly avoided being pushed off the road by some idiot too busy talking on his phone to glance to his right to make sure the lane is free before changing lanes. And then I got stuck behind no less than 4 people who refused to go the speed limit on the way home.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Monday, September 13, 2010
BWAAHAAHAA
Sooooo, 2 weeks later I've finally finished The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. Man that book was long, but it was pretty awesome. If you're looking for a good read, look no further... Of course, you should be warned that it is book 1 of a 10 book series, which will likely come to an end in about 15 or 20 years or so. As the first book, it was pretty much all set up for the rest of the series, but it was still pretty entertaining. He's a pretty good writer, and does very well with making relistic, believeable worlds with characters that seem more like real people rather than characters in a story.
And with that out of the way, it's time to get back to work on finishing Exile. I'm almost done, i just have two more parts to write out in patrick and weasel's storyline, with a couple of smaller additions here and there. Once I'm done with that I'll read through and fix any and all continuity errors (and there will be a lot with the inclusion of the new material) and add a few more little bits here and there, then I get to take a chainsaw to it and chop it down to size, because it's rapidly nearing 300k words which is about twice as long as it should be.
And with that out of the way, it's time to get back to work on finishing Exile. I'm almost done, i just have two more parts to write out in patrick and weasel's storyline, with a couple of smaller additions here and there. Once I'm done with that I'll read through and fix any and all continuity errors (and there will be a lot with the inclusion of the new material) and add a few more little bits here and there, then I get to take a chainsaw to it and chop it down to size, because it's rapidly nearing 300k words which is about twice as long as it should be.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Religious Persecution and Hypocracy
/rant
I've got a bit of a beef with the people of the USA and general Christianity lately. The United States was founded on the ideals of freedom to worship any god that you please in the manner of your choosing. Be you Christian, Jew, Muslim, Bhudist, Hindu, or one of many, many more, you are welcome here (aparently so long as you have the proper documentation and are not, in fact, Mexican... but that's another rant entirely) and free to worship what you will, however you see fit. Though the USA is primarily Christian, 73% claiming to be of Christian upbringing, if not practicing Christians, we share our great land of religious freedom with many others. Because we Christians enjoy such an overwhelming majority, sometimes it's hard for us to see the others that are standing in our shadow, but they are there, and by the constitution under which this nation was founded, are free to be something other than Christian without fear of persecution by others.
One of the basic tennants of Christianity is to love your neighbor as yourself. Christ didn't give stipulations when he said that. He didn't say, Love thy neighbor so long as he ain't Muslim, because those guys are bad news. He said love thy neighbor. Do unto others as you would have done unto you. Accept everyone for who they are and let God above do the judging. As my grandmother always says, hatred has no place in a Christian home.
So why, then, do I turn on the news to see professed Christian politician after professed Christian politician, condemning Islam as a pack of satan worshiping suicide bombers that will all burn in hell? Why do I see thousands upon thousands of people rioting and screaming about Muslim Mosques being built all over the country. Why do I see reports about innocent cab drivers being brutally slashed to pieces for the crime of exercising a constitutional right to follow their chosen religion? Why do I see Christian churches holding special events to burn the Quran?
My own chosen religion has seen its fair share of persecution. My own ancestors were chased across the entire country by supposed good Christians for believing what they did. Misourri only JUST raised a governmental extermination order on members of my religion. And I personally know what it is like to be hated, or feared, or attacked just for my beliefs. That is why I sympathize with many muslims living in the united states today.
Any idiot with an internet connection and twenty seconds of free time can find information about the Islamic religion. It is a religion that teaches peace, abstinance from alcohol, loving your neighbors, and many things that many Christians will find very similar to their own beliefs. Those that you see proclaiming Jihad and such things, murdering innocents, and spreading terror have fallen away from the basic teachings of the religion that they profess to hold up. Why? Because they're PEOPLE. They have the right to choose their own path in life. Because there are a few bad eggs in the bunch, does that mean every single person in the world who prays to Allah, rather than God is a terrorist? NO! It most certainly does not!
The same argument could be applied to Christianity again and again. Do the Crusades ring a bell? Or the spanish inquisition? Perhaps the Salem Witch Trials? All things done by Christians that could be accurately described as terroristic activities. And why? Because some people don't worship the same god that you do? Seems a pretty pathetic excuse. Should the blame for these tragic events in our hitory be laid at the feet of every Christian in the world? No. Why? Because it was only a very small portion of the population that was responsible for those things, just as it is with Islam. By and large, as a whole, the Muslim faith is one of peace, and love, the same as Christianity. And, by the way, you would not even have your Christian bible if not for the Muslims, so you might want to cut them a little slack.
Terrorists don't do things because their religion tells them to do it. Terrorist do things because they are, in fact, douchebags. Plain and simple. For centuries upon centuries men have killed and tortured each other in the names of their gods. Men professing every religion that is and ever has been have used the excuse of fighting for their god to murder his enemies. The modern day terrorists are no different at all. They claim to serve god by killing the infidels, but no God would ever condone the murder of the innocent in his name. Placing the blame for the actions of a few individuals on an entire body of people is not only wrong, it's completely and utterly stupid. And you know what? It's playing out EXACTLY as THEY want it to.
By giving in to hatred, burning Mosques, killing men in the street because they happen to be Muslim, refusing to allow Mosques to be built as the Constitution of the United States of America give them the right to do, BURNING THE HOLY MUSLIM SCRIPTURE AS PART OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH SERVICE!!! you do exactly as THEY, the terrorists, want. They are merchants of hatred and chaos, living to spread their poisons through the world. Giving into the hatred, and spreading the chaos only works in their favor, weakening relations between two great branches of worship, and strengthening the position of those that would exploit it to do harm to others. Be you Christian or some other religion, or no religion at all, there are some basic principles on how life should be led. If you do not profess to follow a religion that teaches to love thy neighbor or some variation, then at least exercise some simple human decency and respect for your fellow man. Stop the killing. Stop the hatred. Just stop acting like complete and utter morons for twelve seconds, and go find a clue. When you act like animals in reaction to the actions of terrorists, THEY WIN, and EVERYONE ELSE LOSES, INCLUDING those who actually do follow the tennents of Islam as they were written. That is exactly what their aims are, to destroy your society, and what better way to do that than to turn you into an angry, lawless mob?
/end rant
I've got a bit of a beef with the people of the USA and general Christianity lately. The United States was founded on the ideals of freedom to worship any god that you please in the manner of your choosing. Be you Christian, Jew, Muslim, Bhudist, Hindu, or one of many, many more, you are welcome here (aparently so long as you have the proper documentation and are not, in fact, Mexican... but that's another rant entirely) and free to worship what you will, however you see fit. Though the USA is primarily Christian, 73% claiming to be of Christian upbringing, if not practicing Christians, we share our great land of religious freedom with many others. Because we Christians enjoy such an overwhelming majority, sometimes it's hard for us to see the others that are standing in our shadow, but they are there, and by the constitution under which this nation was founded, are free to be something other than Christian without fear of persecution by others.
One of the basic tennants of Christianity is to love your neighbor as yourself. Christ didn't give stipulations when he said that. He didn't say, Love thy neighbor so long as he ain't Muslim, because those guys are bad news. He said love thy neighbor. Do unto others as you would have done unto you. Accept everyone for who they are and let God above do the judging. As my grandmother always says, hatred has no place in a Christian home.
So why, then, do I turn on the news to see professed Christian politician after professed Christian politician, condemning Islam as a pack of satan worshiping suicide bombers that will all burn in hell? Why do I see thousands upon thousands of people rioting and screaming about Muslim Mosques being built all over the country. Why do I see reports about innocent cab drivers being brutally slashed to pieces for the crime of exercising a constitutional right to follow their chosen religion? Why do I see Christian churches holding special events to burn the Quran?
My own chosen religion has seen its fair share of persecution. My own ancestors were chased across the entire country by supposed good Christians for believing what they did. Misourri only JUST raised a governmental extermination order on members of my religion. And I personally know what it is like to be hated, or feared, or attacked just for my beliefs. That is why I sympathize with many muslims living in the united states today.
Any idiot with an internet connection and twenty seconds of free time can find information about the Islamic religion. It is a religion that teaches peace, abstinance from alcohol, loving your neighbors, and many things that many Christians will find very similar to their own beliefs. Those that you see proclaiming Jihad and such things, murdering innocents, and spreading terror have fallen away from the basic teachings of the religion that they profess to hold up. Why? Because they're PEOPLE. They have the right to choose their own path in life. Because there are a few bad eggs in the bunch, does that mean every single person in the world who prays to Allah, rather than God is a terrorist? NO! It most certainly does not!
The same argument could be applied to Christianity again and again. Do the Crusades ring a bell? Or the spanish inquisition? Perhaps the Salem Witch Trials? All things done by Christians that could be accurately described as terroristic activities. And why? Because some people don't worship the same god that you do? Seems a pretty pathetic excuse. Should the blame for these tragic events in our hitory be laid at the feet of every Christian in the world? No. Why? Because it was only a very small portion of the population that was responsible for those things, just as it is with Islam. By and large, as a whole, the Muslim faith is one of peace, and love, the same as Christianity. And, by the way, you would not even have your Christian bible if not for the Muslims, so you might want to cut them a little slack.
Terrorists don't do things because their religion tells them to do it. Terrorist do things because they are, in fact, douchebags. Plain and simple. For centuries upon centuries men have killed and tortured each other in the names of their gods. Men professing every religion that is and ever has been have used the excuse of fighting for their god to murder his enemies. The modern day terrorists are no different at all. They claim to serve god by killing the infidels, but no God would ever condone the murder of the innocent in his name. Placing the blame for the actions of a few individuals on an entire body of people is not only wrong, it's completely and utterly stupid. And you know what? It's playing out EXACTLY as THEY want it to.
By giving in to hatred, burning Mosques, killing men in the street because they happen to be Muslim, refusing to allow Mosques to be built as the Constitution of the United States of America give them the right to do, BURNING THE HOLY MUSLIM SCRIPTURE AS PART OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH SERVICE!!! you do exactly as THEY, the terrorists, want. They are merchants of hatred and chaos, living to spread their poisons through the world. Giving into the hatred, and spreading the chaos only works in their favor, weakening relations between two great branches of worship, and strengthening the position of those that would exploit it to do harm to others. Be you Christian or some other religion, or no religion at all, there are some basic principles on how life should be led. If you do not profess to follow a religion that teaches to love thy neighbor or some variation, then at least exercise some simple human decency and respect for your fellow man. Stop the killing. Stop the hatred. Just stop acting like complete and utter morons for twelve seconds, and go find a clue. When you act like animals in reaction to the actions of terrorists, THEY WIN, and EVERYONE ELSE LOSES, INCLUDING those who actually do follow the tennents of Islam as they were written. That is exactly what their aims are, to destroy your society, and what better way to do that than to turn you into an angry, lawless mob?
/end rant
And THAT is why you don't mess with sociopaths...
So, I had my first scheduled appointment with that therapist last week, and the second last night. During the first she basically admitted to me that she lied to my supervisor because she found me interesting and basically wanted a real case of Antisocial Behavorial Disorder of her very own to poke and prod at.
This week I came prepared. I had my minidic player in my pocket the whole time recording the entire session, in which I goaded her into repeating it. When I played it for my supervisor this morning I magically don't have to ever go back to mandated therapy sessions anymore, and I expect that miss jackass the happy pychiatrist is going to be under investigation for fraud pretty quick here.
This is exactly why you don't antagonize people who are both far smarter than you are, and couldn't care less about your wellbeing, (and frankly wish you would fall victim to a landshark attack, or some other equally stupid and or painful way to be torn limb from limb).
And in writing... this being a WRITING blog and all...
I've kinda slowed down a bit on the third draft of Exile. I'm about halfway through with it at the moment, and kinda had a bunch of stuff fall in my lap, it having recently been my birthday and all. I have The Way of Kings to read, the new Metroid and Ys games to play, and, you know, my day job too. I've also been doing a lot of brainstorming and stuff for other stories, mostly Splitplane Saga.
Though I am keeping the actual details of the storyline of Splitplan Saga to myself for fears of an actual, truly original idea being stolen, I do have a bit of an excerpt from the prologue, which i've already writting that doesn't give much away, but basically tells what the series as a whole is about, but at the same time, it tells absolutely nothing of what the series as a whole is about.
The Highplane above, and the Lowplane below, the Splitplane was broken into Shards and Echoes, forever drawn apart by the forces of the Shadow Abyss . . . until now. So begins the War of Echoes.
Beyond Shadows, beyond the Shards and Echoes, in the forever blackness of the Shadow Abyss, the Beast stirred, and reality itself trembled. Freedom and blood would soon be his, and the fires of his vengeance would spread across every Plane. The Beast smiled in the darkness. His father would pay and his mother would burn, their unholy union thrown across the Planes for all to see, and he, the Prince of the Abyss would take his rightful place amongst the higher beings. Soon. Soon. Soon.
I will say this much, there are two worlds, one called Shard, and the other called Echo, and they go to war with each other. This story will take into account many of the things that are plaguing our world today. Environmental disasters, depletion of resources, suicide bombings, hate crimes, religious persecution, and other such horrible things to make a bit of a statement about the state of Earth and her people as a whole, though I will not be so heavy handed with it as many, many other writers so often are. It will be primarily about telling a hugely awesome epic, just with a little bit of moral backbone to it that might make people take a look at the world around them and think.
This week I came prepared. I had my minidic player in my pocket the whole time recording the entire session, in which I goaded her into repeating it. When I played it for my supervisor this morning I magically don't have to ever go back to mandated therapy sessions anymore, and I expect that miss jackass the happy pychiatrist is going to be under investigation for fraud pretty quick here.
This is exactly why you don't antagonize people who are both far smarter than you are, and couldn't care less about your wellbeing, (and frankly wish you would fall victim to a landshark attack, or some other equally stupid and or painful way to be torn limb from limb).
And in writing... this being a WRITING blog and all...
I've kinda slowed down a bit on the third draft of Exile. I'm about halfway through with it at the moment, and kinda had a bunch of stuff fall in my lap, it having recently been my birthday and all. I have The Way of Kings to read, the new Metroid and Ys games to play, and, you know, my day job too. I've also been doing a lot of brainstorming and stuff for other stories, mostly Splitplane Saga.
Though I am keeping the actual details of the storyline of Splitplan Saga to myself for fears of an actual, truly original idea being stolen, I do have a bit of an excerpt from the prologue, which i've already writting that doesn't give much away, but basically tells what the series as a whole is about, but at the same time, it tells absolutely nothing of what the series as a whole is about.
The Highplane above, and the Lowplane below, the Splitplane was broken into Shards and Echoes, forever drawn apart by the forces of the Shadow Abyss . . . until now. So begins the War of Echoes.
Beyond Shadows, beyond the Shards and Echoes, in the forever blackness of the Shadow Abyss, the Beast stirred, and reality itself trembled. Freedom and blood would soon be his, and the fires of his vengeance would spread across every Plane. The Beast smiled in the darkness. His father would pay and his mother would burn, their unholy union thrown across the Planes for all to see, and he, the Prince of the Abyss would take his rightful place amongst the higher beings. Soon. Soon. Soon.
I will say this much, there are two worlds, one called Shard, and the other called Echo, and they go to war with each other. This story will take into account many of the things that are plaguing our world today. Environmental disasters, depletion of resources, suicide bombings, hate crimes, religious persecution, and other such horrible things to make a bit of a statement about the state of Earth and her people as a whole, though I will not be so heavy handed with it as many, many other writers so often are. It will be primarily about telling a hugely awesome epic, just with a little bit of moral backbone to it that might make people take a look at the world around them and think.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Soooo, I'm a sociopath...?
So the other day at work, my first day back after being to sick to walk straight, some guy i barely knew at work just dropped dead of a heart attack right there in the middle of the post office. Today we had mandatory one on one time with a grief councilor, who in our brief fifteen minutes together has dubbed me as "Displaying sociopathic behavior" and as I had no idea what that was supposed to mean, she explained that I have a severe lack of empathy for anyone that is not me, and she wants to see me again on a more long term basis because she thinks I'm really messed up. I mean seriously, I didn't even know the guy's name, and rarely if ever even interacted with him. What am I supposed to do, break down in tears over his death? Would you? I might as well have never met the guy, and she went on and on about how my refusing to get to know my coworkers (of which there are over 200 might I add) is just another part of it.
Sure, I'll be the first to admit that I do have a serious problem empathizing with other people, and have a hard time recognizing emotions in people I'm not familliar with (signs of Antisocial Behavioral Disorder or Sociopathy, thank you wikipedia). What annoys me about this is that she's crawling down my throat about it over a guy I saw so little I couldn't even describe him to you. He might as well have been a stranger off the street. I didn't even witness the actual event, I was in the break room getting a coke. And, not to mention, that I was still sick after a pretty long stretch of being unable to work because of it. It was my reaction to this event and ONLY this event that she based that opinion on. Which is why I have a strong dislike for therapists. They made me go to one back when I was sent home from my mission, and the guy kept pulling radical conclusions out of nowhere to describe me and none of them were even close, although he was the first one to suggest that I might have a mild electrical problem in my brain afer observing me pausing, completely unaware of it, in mid sentance several times, which did turn out to be true a few months later.
Anyway, long rant short, she talked to my supervisor, lying and saying that I might be having some serious problems due to the incident, and now I'm stuck going to her for an hour a week every thursday (in 45 mins for my first actually). If I miss an appointment I am automatically suspended from work without pay. My only consolation is that I'm not paying for it, workman's comp is BWAAHAAHAA. I also find the prospect of having a certified piece of paper with all of my mental vices on it to jokingly wave at my parents and say "look what you did to me" somewhat amusing as well.
Sure, I'll be the first to admit that I do have a serious problem empathizing with other people, and have a hard time recognizing emotions in people I'm not familliar with (signs of Antisocial Behavioral Disorder or Sociopathy, thank you wikipedia). What annoys me about this is that she's crawling down my throat about it over a guy I saw so little I couldn't even describe him to you. He might as well have been a stranger off the street. I didn't even witness the actual event, I was in the break room getting a coke. And, not to mention, that I was still sick after a pretty long stretch of being unable to work because of it. It was my reaction to this event and ONLY this event that she based that opinion on. Which is why I have a strong dislike for therapists. They made me go to one back when I was sent home from my mission, and the guy kept pulling radical conclusions out of nowhere to describe me and none of them were even close, although he was the first one to suggest that I might have a mild electrical problem in my brain afer observing me pausing, completely unaware of it, in mid sentance several times, which did turn out to be true a few months later.
Anyway, long rant short, she talked to my supervisor, lying and saying that I might be having some serious problems due to the incident, and now I'm stuck going to her for an hour a week every thursday (in 45 mins for my first actually). If I miss an appointment I am automatically suspended from work without pay. My only consolation is that I'm not paying for it, workman's comp is BWAAHAAHAA. I also find the prospect of having a certified piece of paper with all of my mental vices on it to jokingly wave at my parents and say "look what you did to me" somewhat amusing as well.
Exile Third Draft Preview
I'm still alive... I think. If I'm not then I'm blogging from beyond the grave and you should all be honored that I would take the time out of my afterlife to do so.
I've been massively sick for the last week and a half or so, and lucky me, having no health insurance, have been too poor to afford to go to a doctor, so I just have to deal with it *joy*. Being sick for my birthday was not cool, but oh well.
Anyway, I've been too dead to do any real work on the third draft of Exile until the last few days. This draft, I've decided, is going to have only the edits needed to make the ending make sense added to it. All other changes are going to wait until draft 4. Still there is a rather lengthy storyline with Patrick and WEasel that will probably be 5-6 chapters at least, and a few other little additions here and there.
I've started writing patrick's storyline seperately, and when it's done I will chop it up into chapters and put it into the draft where I think it fits well enough. These chapters are going to be rather longer than the others in the story before the ending as they need to tell a lengthy story in as few interuptions as possible. Throughout the whole story you keep hearing about the horrors of the Samirreh invasion and I never really let you see any of it firsthand, or even really an actual samirreh until the ending. With this storyline I'm going to take you into the war, and show you the people fighting it, and the horrors that they've lived through, and see with their own eyes. Before I kinda just made you take my word for it that the Samirreh are evil, now you'll get to see how evil they really are.
Anyway, after posting so much of spires and then exile draft 2 up here so often I felt like I was kind of leaving something out not posting anything to be read, so I put up a Third Draft Preview on my site, and it can be downloaded at the bottom of this page.
What this is is basically the beginning of Patrick and Weasel's storyline, how they meet, and what their relationship is like. It introdices the two characters to you early on in the book and gives you a good idea about who they are and what they're doing, and what effects their actions are having on the rest of the Four Kingdoms. Plus there's a bit of setup for the rest of their storyline with thier particular villain Lawrence. Right from the beginning you can see that this storyline is going to be very dark, but if you've read the second draft you know that it has a happy ending. Enjoy =)
I plan to have this draft completed in just a few weeks, though that depends on how long it takes me to read Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings a book he's been blogging about for years and only just got around to publishing. I've read previews of it and it is awesome so far. I may disappear into a hole for a week or two--probably 2 as it is 1008 pages long IN HARDCOVER--to read it.
I've been massively sick for the last week and a half or so, and lucky me, having no health insurance, have been too poor to afford to go to a doctor, so I just have to deal with it *joy*. Being sick for my birthday was not cool, but oh well.
Anyway, I've been too dead to do any real work on the third draft of Exile until the last few days. This draft, I've decided, is going to have only the edits needed to make the ending make sense added to it. All other changes are going to wait until draft 4. Still there is a rather lengthy storyline with Patrick and WEasel that will probably be 5-6 chapters at least, and a few other little additions here and there.
I've started writing patrick's storyline seperately, and when it's done I will chop it up into chapters and put it into the draft where I think it fits well enough. These chapters are going to be rather longer than the others in the story before the ending as they need to tell a lengthy story in as few interuptions as possible. Throughout the whole story you keep hearing about the horrors of the Samirreh invasion and I never really let you see any of it firsthand, or even really an actual samirreh until the ending. With this storyline I'm going to take you into the war, and show you the people fighting it, and the horrors that they've lived through, and see with their own eyes. Before I kinda just made you take my word for it that the Samirreh are evil, now you'll get to see how evil they really are.
Anyway, after posting so much of spires and then exile draft 2 up here so often I felt like I was kind of leaving something out not posting anything to be read, so I put up a Third Draft Preview on my site, and it can be downloaded at the bottom of this page.
What this is is basically the beginning of Patrick and Weasel's storyline, how they meet, and what their relationship is like. It introdices the two characters to you early on in the book and gives you a good idea about who they are and what they're doing, and what effects their actions are having on the rest of the Four Kingdoms. Plus there's a bit of setup for the rest of their storyline with thier particular villain Lawrence. Right from the beginning you can see that this storyline is going to be very dark, but if you've read the second draft you know that it has a happy ending. Enjoy =)
I plan to have this draft completed in just a few weeks, though that depends on how long it takes me to read Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings a book he's been blogging about for years and only just got around to publishing. I've read previews of it and it is awesome so far. I may disappear into a hole for a week or two--probably 2 as it is 1008 pages long IN HARDCOVER--to read it.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Fanfiction
/rant
So I got into an argument at work today about the merits of fanfic. The other arguee, is a rather pathetic 58 year old woman who is completely and utterly obsessed with Twilight. She spends most of her free time writing rather disgustingly erotic fanfics where the Twilight characters basically screw each other until someone loses an eye. She even told, once, of a slumber party she had with women her own age, where they stayed up all night writing Twilight fanfics together and reading them to each other. GROWN WOMEN, ALL!!! And most of them old enough to have grand children and even great grand children, acting like twelve year old girls. Setting aside the wtf factor of that for another rant, her argument is that fanfics are fun. They're not hurting anyone. They continue the stories that people love, giving fans a way to live their fantasies. She thought that I'd be pleased with her as she knows that I spend a lot of time writing and am trying very hard to get a writing career off the ground. Unfortunately for her, I have a very low opinion of fanfic, and those that waste their talents writing it, and I'll tell you why.
I am no stranger to fanfiction. In my earlier years I used to seek them out on the internet, because like the people who wrote them, I wanted the stories of my favorite games, movies and animes to continue on. I even tried my hand at writing a few, though I found it to be very unsatisfying in the end. Why? Because I was wasting my talents on something I can never, ever, ever take credit for. I am the sort of person that likes to be praised and recognized for my accomplishments. I do not know where this need of mine came from, likely because as the first child everything I did was never good enough for my parents. From an early age I was constantly driven to be the best, and when I fell short, as I often did, I was chastised for it, rather than told that since I did my best I should be proud of what I'd accomplished. They never praised anything I did, even when I became Utah's youngest Eagle Scout in history, and told me that I had better do better next time if I know what's good for me. Oh, it's not their fault, they were still learning to be parents at the time, and likely had no idea how badly they were messing me up. Writing stories that take place in other people's worlds with other people's characters did help me to begin learning how to write, but it was very unsatisfying, because it wasn't my own creation, and therefore I could not take credit for it, and thereby earn praise for it.
I've read many fanfics in my time, though I stopped bothering long ago. Some of the people who write them have real talent, and with a bit of polish and hard work they could have themselves a very successful writing career. But they instead waste themselves on writing stories that take place in the realms of someone else's imagination. It makes me sick to think of all the would be authors out there that are throwing away real chances of making something out of their talent for storytelling. It's just such a waste.
It is my belief that the people who write fanfics can sometimes have very good ideas for stories. They can be very creative and quite original sometimes, though the majority are just retellings of things that already happened in whatever the original source for their fanfic is. Why not take those ideas that you have for a fanfic, and instead of writing them out in someone else's world, with someone else's characters, take one step further into originality and create your own world around them, with your own characters to act them out? It's a very short step from coming up with a good idea for a story, to coming up with a world and characters to base it on. That is how I came to write my very first book. It was total crap, I will admit it, and I have tried very hard to forget it, but it was MY crap, and no one else could ever take credit for it. It was a first attempt at writing a book, way back in tenth grade, and it set me on the long path of honing my skills as a writer and pushing myself to come up with more original and more exciting ideas to write, with ore interesting characters and worlds.
The worst part about it is that most of the people that write fanfics with great skill, and very creative and original stories will never know how talented they are, because they will never seek to put their skills and talent to anything of their own making. THAT is why I hate fanfiction. Because it wastes the talents of the talented, and makes them think that there is nothing more to put their talents to. Think of all of the great writers who go on to boring office jobs and the like, because they never stopped writing fanfiction and started writing their own stories.
Fanfiction destroyes the careers of many promising young writers.
/end rant
So I got into an argument at work today about the merits of fanfic. The other arguee, is a rather pathetic 58 year old woman who is completely and utterly obsessed with Twilight. She spends most of her free time writing rather disgustingly erotic fanfics where the Twilight characters basically screw each other until someone loses an eye. She even told, once, of a slumber party she had with women her own age, where they stayed up all night writing Twilight fanfics together and reading them to each other. GROWN WOMEN, ALL!!! And most of them old enough to have grand children and even great grand children, acting like twelve year old girls. Setting aside the wtf factor of that for another rant, her argument is that fanfics are fun. They're not hurting anyone. They continue the stories that people love, giving fans a way to live their fantasies. She thought that I'd be pleased with her as she knows that I spend a lot of time writing and am trying very hard to get a writing career off the ground. Unfortunately for her, I have a very low opinion of fanfic, and those that waste their talents writing it, and I'll tell you why.
I am no stranger to fanfiction. In my earlier years I used to seek them out on the internet, because like the people who wrote them, I wanted the stories of my favorite games, movies and animes to continue on. I even tried my hand at writing a few, though I found it to be very unsatisfying in the end. Why? Because I was wasting my talents on something I can never, ever, ever take credit for. I am the sort of person that likes to be praised and recognized for my accomplishments. I do not know where this need of mine came from, likely because as the first child everything I did was never good enough for my parents. From an early age I was constantly driven to be the best, and when I fell short, as I often did, I was chastised for it, rather than told that since I did my best I should be proud of what I'd accomplished. They never praised anything I did, even when I became Utah's youngest Eagle Scout in history, and told me that I had better do better next time if I know what's good for me. Oh, it's not their fault, they were still learning to be parents at the time, and likely had no idea how badly they were messing me up. Writing stories that take place in other people's worlds with other people's characters did help me to begin learning how to write, but it was very unsatisfying, because it wasn't my own creation, and therefore I could not take credit for it, and thereby earn praise for it.
I've read many fanfics in my time, though I stopped bothering long ago. Some of the people who write them have real talent, and with a bit of polish and hard work they could have themselves a very successful writing career. But they instead waste themselves on writing stories that take place in the realms of someone else's imagination. It makes me sick to think of all the would be authors out there that are throwing away real chances of making something out of their talent for storytelling. It's just such a waste.
It is my belief that the people who write fanfics can sometimes have very good ideas for stories. They can be very creative and quite original sometimes, though the majority are just retellings of things that already happened in whatever the original source for their fanfic is. Why not take those ideas that you have for a fanfic, and instead of writing them out in someone else's world, with someone else's characters, take one step further into originality and create your own world around them, with your own characters to act them out? It's a very short step from coming up with a good idea for a story, to coming up with a world and characters to base it on. That is how I came to write my very first book. It was total crap, I will admit it, and I have tried very hard to forget it, but it was MY crap, and no one else could ever take credit for it. It was a first attempt at writing a book, way back in tenth grade, and it set me on the long path of honing my skills as a writer and pushing myself to come up with more original and more exciting ideas to write, with ore interesting characters and worlds.
The worst part about it is that most of the people that write fanfics with great skill, and very creative and original stories will never know how talented they are, because they will never seek to put their skills and talent to anything of their own making. THAT is why I hate fanfiction. Because it wastes the talents of the talented, and makes them think that there is nothing more to put their talents to. Think of all of the great writers who go on to boring office jobs and the like, because they never stopped writing fanfiction and started writing their own stories.
Fanfiction destroyes the careers of many promising young writers.
/end rant
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