Short update

Haven't had much time to write lately.  We have contractors doing renovations in our apartment complex, and I'm frequently without computer access during the day.  Hurricane Sandy's here now.  I've mainly been updating my graphic design blog, Encompass Rose, and that's probably going to be it for the next few months because that's quicker. Fandom Bouquet's getting the short end of the stick, but I hope to do better next year.

Torchlight 2: 10 Days In

I think the most telling statement I can make is that this was supposed to be "Torchlight 2 After A Week" and I kept putting it off because I wanted to use my free time for gameplay. This isn't a review post. I'm not familiar enough with the genre or the gaming industry to make a credible reviewer. This is just a post about my experiences playing the game. Fair warning: the post assumes the reader has at least a basic understanding of ARPG games.

Fangirl Glee Post: Torchlight!

I've said before that I'm not much of a gamer. I play games casually when I need a break or a recharge. I dislike games that feel like work or remind me too much of real life.

 I discovered Torchlight in 2009 and bought it during the Steam Holiday sale. I figured, for $2.50 I couldn't go wrong. Well, I've had more fun with Torchlight in the past 3 years than I have with many more expensive games. The story is...admittedly flawed (read: non-existent) the mechanics are kind of simple. I hear a lot of hardcore RPG gamers bitch that the graphics are "cartoony." I grew up in the 80s and 90s playing Super Mario Brothers and DONKEY KONG, so I come to video games with a whole different standard in mind. I think a lot of the games out today are all show (graphics) and little to no game. You spend your time marveling over what it looks like and then being frustrated or confused for hours on end as you try to complete the game. Games are supposed to be fun.

 Torchlight was developed on a shoestring budget by a small indie company, Runic Games. Given that, I think it holds up pretty well. It's certainly got enough attention. The long anticipated sequel, Torchlight II, comes out 5 days. I'm just about ready to explode with the wait. So, if things are silent here for a while, you may want to send search parties to Vilderan.

Makeover

I gave Fandom Bouquet a makeover today to make the site a little easier on the eyes.  White on black gets hard to read sometimes.  Let me know what you think.

100 Things Post 4: Leave It Online

I don't like books about writing.  I find most of them to be either authoritarian (listing off a series of "dos and don'ts" while they talk a lot about the need for writing discipline and what a disciplined writer does without ever giving a helpful suggestion for how to develop this all-important quality) or flaky (with nothing but a lot of fluff and feel-good motivational speeches but--again--very little practical value.

One of the few books about writing that I have ever found useful is Writing Down The Bones by Natalie Goldberg.  It's by no means a perfect book, and there are parts of it I think are flaky, but the overall tone and themes that the book presents are valid.  The biggest thing I learned from that book is this.

Nobody starts out being a disciplined writer.  Nobody even starts out to be a very good writer. Writers get better by writing, and we get disciplined by figuring out some rules that work for us and employing them. We also get better--and more disciplined--by learning to let go of our stories and our egos.

For me, every story is a learning experience, and every time I finish one (or even get significantly far into one) there's a moment when I think to myself, Man, I wish I had known this back when I wrote such-and-such.  There's a temptation to go back in and "fix" things.

100 Things I Learned By Writing Fanfiction: Index

This is a compliment to the Masterlist.

It's a sequential list compiled in the order I wrote the posts, which may be easier for some folks to follow.

Post 1- It Takes Courage to Post Fanfiction
Post 2-Reviews Don't Mean That Much
Post 3-Reviews are Everything
Post 4-Leave It Online
Post 5-You Will Lose Things
Post 6-Give Me The Background
Post 7-Nobody Knows Everything
Post 8-Somebody Will Always Know More Than You
Post 9-Finish Your Damn Story Before You Put It On The Internet
Post 10 – There Are Awesome People Out There
Post 11-There Are Big Old Jerks Out There
Post 12-It Will Grow
Post 13-Every Good Fic Writer Needs a Good Beta
Post 14-Not Having a Beta Is Not The End of the World

100 Things Post 3: Reviews Are Everything

Hey! It's day 3 without a headache!  To celebrate, here are some more Things I Learned Writing Fanfiction.

My Fanfiction.net Account has a total of  97 stories posted on it.  Most of them are multi-chapered pieces.  There are still other, earlier pieces that have never made it into the archive there but are posted on other sites like my Livejournal.  You might think that, after a while, reviews stop mattering.  They don't.  They are some of the most amazing and fulfilling messages that a fanfic writer can receive.

You won't get many of them.  If you expect to, or if you expect them all to be glowing expressions of how talented you are and how wonderful your piece is, you should ask someone to pinch you.  You've been sucked into a waking dream.