Writing Through the Wall

Writing Through the Wall

So I've done it. I've done what I've always wanted to do. I've published a book. Not only that, but I don't have any plans to stop now. I, in fact, have three more books planned between now and the summer of 2015. Cybersaurus: The Awakening wasn't exactly a hit (in fact, very, very few people know about it, in the grand scheme of things), but I am certain that the more books I put out, the more I'll start to get noticed, and the more they may pick up steam.

I've decided shortly after finishing Cybersaurus: The Awakening that I wasn't going to visit Cybersaurus Season Two: Revolution until 2015, and that I would take quarter 4 of 2014 and quarter 1 of 2015 to pursue two other novels. Some friends of mine seemed excited for me to begin writing a suspense and horror novel, and so I set out to do just that, titled The Visitors Season One: Quarantine.

Yet it has taken me an abysmally long time to write Episode One of that season, and the entire time my mind keeps wandering back to Cybersaurus. Is this the Wall that every creative mind encounters? Or is it a general disinterest in my own work?

MMO Monday - Asheron's Call

MMO Monday - Part One

Asheron's Call

With the newest expansion of the world's most successful massively multiplayer online RPG releasing inside a month, it has inspired me to take a retrospective look at how this genre of video games has influenced how I look at gaming, role playing, and the online community as a whole. I've played my share of online games, and tried subscriptions to various MMOs, World of Warcraft being only one of them.

This post is the first in a four post series that will go through the most influential MMOs in my gaming history, and how they have shaped who I am today. So, for starters, we're going back to the year 1999.

Writing Warm-Up: Sad Face, Lock & Bridge

Writing Session Warm-Up with Rory's Story Cubes

The time has come for me to do some more writing in my serialized fiction, and that means doing a warm-up to get the creative gears turning. I've decided to utilize my Rory's Story Cubes, recently purchased and yet to see official use, to create a basic outline for a story I may or may not write sometime in the future.

In this particular case, I've rolled three of the story cubes, and I will use those three cubes to come up with a simple outline for a potential piece of fiction.

Experience Points - 2014 Resolutions

Happy holidays, readers! I hope your holiday week has been great so far, and that you have much to look forward to! As for me, I believe I have narrowed down my list of New Years Resolutions to the point of posting them for the world to see. The goal for my resolutions this year was to have a list that is not abstract, but is concrete, easy to track, and easy to measure how well I am progressing. As always, if you have any questions, comments, concerns or criticisms, please let me know!

Happy Holidays from Experience Points!

Hello readers! It's been a while since I've updated the blog, so here's a quick recap of the last few weeks, as well as some minor plans for the near future.

The holidays have been busy and hectic as I bounce from one part of the family to the other, balancing work, work, writing, friends, family, and girlfriend. In actuality the business is a blessing and I welcome it with open arms. I am very fortunate to have such wonderful people in my life, even if scheduling can get stressful at times.

I have been continuing to work on three different projects at once, as is my way, while also throwing down the groundwork for a new pet project in the future. The print format of the Round 10 Core Rulebook is at a solid start, but it will not be ready by the end of the month, as originally expected. I think, when it comes to releasing books, I'm going to stop posting my expected release dates, as I can never seem to stay on top of them. Additionally, I am tightening up the writing of the first adventure module for R10, Operation: Heavenly Discord, which should be ready for digital download in the near future. And finally, I am starting to revise and piece together the sections of the Zimildran Setting Module for R10, which should be ready for publication sometime next year. Add to this the fact that I am also developing a second tabletop game that may or may not see release, as well as trying to balance every other aspect of my life, and I hope you can understand why my blog has been so silent as of late.

As for the future, I've said this before, but it is something that needs to happen and I plan to hold myself more accountable from here on out. Unlike years prior, I will be holding myself to a set of resolutions for this coming new year. Where once my resolutions were abstract and difficult to define, such as 'be a better friend' or 'be more creative', this year I plan to make the resolutions concrete and easy to track. Also, they will be recorded here, in my personal journal, and posted on my fridge at the apartment, so that I will always be well aware of their importance. As resolutions in years past have been about myself and my relationships with others, these ones will almost entirely be about me and my work, with Round 10, online publishing, illustration and game development. I am excited to share the resolutions with you when they are finalized!

As always, thank you so very much for your continued support and readership. If you have any questions, comments, concerns or criticisms about the blog, Round 10, or my writing in general, please email me at lostlegacyrp@gmail.com. Check out my Current Creative Projects page to see what I'm officially working on, and keep up to date with all of your Round 10 needs at the Round 10 Website, Round 10 on Facebook, and by getting Round 10 from RPGNow!

Summer Resolution

You know, I should just do away with my proposed blogging schedule. I'm not sticking to it at all.

Anywho...

I went on another late-night walk a few days ago, before this bout of rain and wind hit central Minnesota. I actually left my headphones at home, for once, to allow myself time to really think, rather than drowning out my thoughts with music.

I realized that, as is my norm around this time of year, I was becoming quite restless. Desires and drives were building up in me, causing my satisfaction to dip and my lamentations to rise. I saw time as something slipping away from me, as days wasted and relationships waning, and there was little I could do to reverse any of it. I wanted to call people and talk to people for no reason other than to do it. I wanted to play my drum outside again. I wanted to go on a road trip. I wanted to turn my life on its head, make decisions before I had time to think about them, and live my life, even if only for a short while, on the edge of my seat.

Sitting back and thinking about it all now, I feel that it isn't so much that I want to shake my life up with some random event or some big decision. Lord knows big changes are coming soon enough, anyway. Rather, I want to ensure that I feel good about how I spend my time overall. And the one way for me to feel good about my time, hands down beyond any doubt, is to spend it with people I care about, friends and family.

And so that is my "Summer Resolution." Consider it an expansion to my New Years Resolution (which was to be a better friend, brother, uncle and son, for anybody keeping count). For this summer, I am making it my goal to create more memories, take more pictures and do more with other people.
So if you're reading this and you know me personally, hold me to it. I've been known to hit stretches of complacency, times where I'm content just sitting at home doing next to nothing, and then I always regret those times later. I want to limit those times as much as possible this year, and again, if you know me personally, I want to be with YOU more this summer.

Now to get back to work on Round 10...

You Can't Take Everything (or Everyone) With You...

This is primarily going to be one of my sappy, self-reflective posts, so please bear with me.

As most of you are aware, this week marked the end of the semester for me. Monday was the official last day of class, and Wednesday was the first of my two days of finals. I found I was struck with a stronger pang of grief than I originally expected. I've grown somewhat close (which for me means that I've shared a lot of laughs and some minor extracirricular activities) with a handful of people, including the majority of my Acting class.

I've talked about how I connect with people in previous posts, but allow me to go over this again. Years ago, I used to be free with my happiness and optimism, and I used to approach everyone as if they could be a life-changing friend for me. I poured everything into friendships and I tried to do everything in my power for those people. It didn't matter if we shared a brief, friendly conversation or if we hung out consistently for multiple months, I probably considered you a close friend.

Then I had a period where this openness and willingness to connect so freely with people came back to bite me, and it ended up hurting me. So I backed off, and kept people at arms' length. Sure, I didn't let other people hurt me during this time, but I was hurting myself, stifling my extroverted self and forcing a more introverted lifestyle. It was difficult at first, but it got easier as time went on, and eventually it became all I knew.

Yet, in the last two years now, I've really been working on getting back my old self, the self that I was years ago. I wanted to be the Nick that people wanted to be around again. I wanted people to enjoy their time with me, and I wanted people to know how much they mean to me. I have had a few friendships and relationships these past two years that have been instrumental in making this transition, yet a week such as this proves to me that things won't always be easy.

We finished our last performances in Acting class, and I lingered for a moment or two, but ended up leaving quite quickly, quite abruptly, with very little said to anyone other than a couple of passing goodbyes. I got halfway down the hall to the exit, and I stopped myself. I turned back around, went back to the theater, and made up some excuse in my head of a question that I had to ask the instructor as the real reason for my return.

Unfortunately, when I arrived again, most of the other students had gone, and I had missed my opportunity to give a more suitable farewell. Now, I found, I felt even worse.

This seems such an elementary thing for me, but now all that is rolling around in my head is the fear that I may never see some of these people again. That is a reality I'm going to have to face, but it's not one I'm proud of accelerating.

As I have been saying, time and again, I am moving forward. Forward with my life, forward with my career, forward with my creativity and forward with my relationships. Unfortunately, the other side of that positive coin is the fact that as I move forward, I am forced to face the realization that I can't take everything with me, that I can try to stay in touch with as many as possible, but I will lose contact with most of them, and it kills me.

It kills me because I think of the people who I was once close to that I don't hear from, or don't reach out to, much any more. People who I keep telling myself I need to call, need to contact, but I either don't or can't.

This Friday is my last final, in Public Speaking, a class in which I have made some simple connections with a few people, though not as major of connections and with not as many people as I would prefer (mainly because other than one or two moments, I didn't put much effort into it, probably out of a fear of the inevitable future). I think I will do what I can to offer a bit more of a satisfying goodbye to these people, something I may segue into my requesting they see the play that I will be in this summer.

I am a better friend than I have been this last week or so, I know it. I just have to act like it.

Changing the Game

Things have been moving at a very definite pace for me these last couple of weeks. I made some big decisions, the nature of which I can't really get into yet, but that will be changing the course of my life for at least the next year or two. It's both exciting and frightening, but I know that these are decisions that had to be made, considering my future goals and my current direction.

On a smaller scale, I made a tough choice about my personal belongings today, selling a good number of old video games for past - and current - generation systems. They were simply sitting on the shelves or in drawers, collecting dust and not seeing any use, and since I had to spend extra money on phone repairs and dropped some more cash into Round 10 (necessary cash, that is), I've been a little tight on funds.

But creativity is one of my strengths, and being creative with how I spend my money is a skill I've been tempering since January, thanks in no small part to the guidance of my sister. And it's something I'm going to have to get better at, looking at the road ahead.

I am nothing if not a work in progress.

This Big Lake Has Got Me Feeling Anxious & Lazy

Decided my post today would be a poor attempt at poetry. Sorry about the scheduling delay!

Alright, it's time to clear away those temptations and dust off those notions, ignore your hesitations and challenge your devotions. Shake up those foundations you let settle, look back on your creations right down to the letter. You let your distractions get in the way of your plans, you've been looking at the downside so let's start again.

Lefts and rights, ups and downs, keeping your head through the smiles and frowns.
A walk under the sun isn't always so bright, but strolling under the moon doesn't always feel right.
A pocket full of plastic still comes up short but creative success is attained with support,
so tighten the belt and sharpen the number two, push uncertainty aside, you've got work to do.

The world's unlocked the door and cracked it open some more, but your shoe's all scuffed because you've been here before. Your art is a chore and your ego is sore, you're in the big leagues now but you're too chicken to score. And after all this, what's it really for? Pride? Honor? Principle, or something more? Would anyone notice if you closed the door? In a market full of Cores, who needs one more?

You have been here before. But this time is different.

You're lost, aren't you? There's no rhyme to your reason, you hang on too tightly and then change with the seasons.
You make up your mind with the certainty of weather and you tend to fall apart after every get-together.
But finding happiness in life begins with a thought, and if you refuse to smile then you've already lost.
You're not going to give up before you even started, afterall, you've seen worse, and even when you departed
from this path for which you packed you backtrack to the fact that this has always been your knack, no matter how abstract, exact, or sidetracked the fact of this track is that it's about your impact, not your plan of attack.

So the next time you're tempted to turn your back, or worse to simply let yourself drift off-track,
do us all a favor and snap yourself back. This far in the game you can't afford to slack.
I know it'd be easier with a little more change, and I know it'd be nicer if you could share the stage,
but choices and terms led you to this point, and whether alone or not you shouldn't disappoint.
You've made promises before, now it's time to see them through. Not to your family or friends, you only owe it to you.

Don't second guess me on this. You know I'm right. Forget the cold apartment and the flat sheets at night.
One fish at a time if you're going to fry 'em right. Even if there's bigger fish out there, this one's in sight. You've been going too long on catch and release, and now the sun is going down and you still need to eat.
So reel this in with patience, stay true, and you'll be fed for the night and tomorrow's brand new.
One fish at a time is my advice to you, and who knows? Maybe someday that fish will find you.

Late Post: Auditions

Hello again, readers! I missed the Wednesday post, so my apologies for that. My week has been quite busy, and so this and most other posts will be shorter in length for the next week or two.

The most noteworthy event during this week is the fact that I had another audition this last Wednesday evening, May 1st. The director is my Acting class instructor, so having that established familiarity with him as a person did wonders for my anxiety. I went in at 7:00pm, and I'm assuming that he really liked my performances since I was one of the last to leave, having been called back in for additional readings three times.

He said he should have the play fully cast by this weekend, so I should get an email Saturday or Sunday to let me know if I got the part or not. We shall see! I will say that I am very excited, and I'm trying to not expect a role, but rather just be happy with whatever feedback I get from him.

The Illusion of Progress

This past Sunday was an interesting day for me. It started off with me visiting my parents briefly, I vented some of my frustrations and discussed upcoming events with them, and then headed into town to pick up groceries. I returned to the apartment, started my laundry, and sat down to work on my research paper for my Interpersonal Communication class. It promptly started snowing, and heavily, outside, and I knew that I was confined to the apartment for the remainder of the day.

I finished the paper within about an hour, spent some time talking with my roommate about our summer plans, graduation, and other topics, and then sat in front of my computer to work on Round 10.

And I sat there, and stared at it, yet couldn't bring myself to type anything out. Nothing was coming to me. Here I was, the whole evening ahead of me, a mountain of time that could allow me to make tons of progress on Round 10, and all I could do was stare at the document blankly.

And then Monday came around, and between classes, in the matter of an hour and a half, I started and finished three different sections in the rulebook, fingers hammering away faster than they had in a while. Yet I did this in the college cafeteria, rather than my own kitchen as was the case on Sunday.

I realized that the change of environment was what did it. It offered a change of pace, a change of scenery, which dramatically affected my writing. I realized that, as I have mentioned in previous blog posts, that I am fearful of my own stagnation in life, and the simple change of scenery was enough to kickstart my writing juices, oil the gears in my creative mind, and get more work done than I had seen in a long time. It was an illusion of actual progress, with me fooling my creative brain with the idea that I was in a different place, at a different time in my life.

That simple illusion, that simple head fake, was enough for me to temporarily forget about the stresses of the direction and pace of my life and to focus on the task at hand - my writing.

Here's hoping I can continue to make it work.

The Life of an Otter

Today I found I was far more stressed than I originally wanted to admit to myself, something I realized as I let the hot water of the morning shower pour over me. And, I found, as my morning went on, my stress only increased.

I had a research paper due on Monday, and I came to realize that the shape of my schedule from Friday morning through Sunday evening wasn't one to allow for much room to research, organize, write and revise said paper. On top of that I needed to begin preparing for my final speech, I needed to read through the scene my acting partner and I had landed on, and I came to realize that I was falling behind in my RPG writing, my blogging, and that the end of the semester was right around the corner, having snuck up on me with incredible speed.

These thoughts and more crowded my mind, and put me in a sour mood to start the day off. I don't like to toot my own horn, but I like the entertain the notion that I am not one to get easily stressed. I tend to take things as they come, a skill I've been working for the past few years, and it takes a bit before I start to lose sleep.

Luckily, though, two of my friends came forward to help ease my stress, through consistent joking, light-hearted shenanigans, and offering scheduling advice. What looked like a catastrophic mess of a weekend soon became a manageable situation, and I was beginning to mitigate my stress, all thanks to two of the most wonderful people I've had the pleasure of getting to know these past few months.

During speech class today, one of the students spoke about personality profiles, and outlined three basic personalities as described by animals. The lion, the otter, the beaver and the golden retriever. I recognized the person I used to be (the beaver), the person I wanted to be (the golden retriever) and the person I currently was (the otter) in her descriptions. One quality about the otter that stood out to me was that, as she claimed, "an otter will call anyone that they interact with at least two times their 'close friend'."

I saw that in myself right away. It's true, if we hang out together only a couple of times, if I have two different conversations with you that both seem to go relatively well, I often consider you a close friend. That label in no way diminishes the quality of those friendships I've shared for many years, it only helps define the lengths I'm willing to go to in order to 1.) get to know you better, and 2.) maintain our friendship. While I can't be 100% certain in this self-assessment, I feel that I get along well with most people, and unless our personalities clash in a particularly blatant way, I can often see myself becoming good friends with just about anybody.

Whether I've been going to your house since my early years in elementary school, or we just met this semester in one of my classes, or you're the friend of a friend who has hung out with me once or twice, or we've merely shared a place of employment for about a month or so, it is very likely that I see you as a friend, and I see the potential of a greater friendship there. When it comes to relationships, I tend to jump in feet first, plunge myself in whole-heartedly, and then see where it goes from there. Unfortunately, this means that I cannot get to know everyone as well as I'd like to, much to my dismay. Yet I do what I can for my friends and family, whether it's offering counsel via a message or phone call, showing encouragement over their chosen form of artistic expression, or simply sharing a few amusing stories and listening to how they're doing.

However, no matter how far I'm pushing in a relationship, I always feel I can push a little further. Am I overextending myself? Am I wasting my energy on too many relationships, exhausting myself emotionally, and will I only be met with disappointment? I will admit that sometimes it feels that way. Sometimes I feel like I'm giving too much or coming across too strong, but then I have evenings like I did on Thursday, or mornings like today, and I realize that for me to do any less would be a dishonest, dissatisfying use of my energy. It is my ultimate wish to experience as many people's stories as I can, to interact with as many people as possible, and to create and share memories everywhere. And boy do I have a long way to go as I bring that wish into reality.

Literary Burp: Personality & Purpose

The following post is a thought or musing of mine that I just wanted to get recorded. These sort of thoughts filter in and out of my head constantly, and I'm of the mindset that if I don't acknowledge their existence, then I may as well have never had them in the first place. And every thought deserves its due attention, even if its a random one such as this.

When growing up I had a very different experience. I'm the youngest of four, and primarily grew up with my sister, as my other two siblings were considerably older and thus occupied a different lifestyle than I did. When they were listening to music and driving vehicles I was playing with Legos and acting like a dinosaur. Growing up, I've always seen how different I was than the rest of my family. I had an unashamed, unbridled and unquenchable thirst for the unknown. Concepts like outer space, the ocean, trackless desert and the deepest recesses of nature were all notions that held great sway with me. These were places that people only talked about or wrote about, but didn't go to. These were 'true' places, untouched by the hand of man and operating without his interference. These ideas, even if I didn't know how to articulate them at the time, intrigued me beyond compare, and were manifested in my love of such things as dinosaurs, Star Wars, the Marvel superheroes and other fantastic stories.

This passion for finding the amazing in what others rarely even thought about set me apart, at least in my eyes, from a lot of people I knew growing up. For all of my head-in-the-clouds, fantasizing and day-dreaming antics, my father was at least that engulfed in practicality. He showed a love of old comics and stories from his youth, but he is a man of concrete facts, of a world that's written in black and white and runs by the word of God and the letter of the law. Where he would try to determine 'why,' I would only muse 'why not?' As I grew up I found that I inherited his unshaking resolution in the truth of the world, in the presence of God, and in the important role religion plays in our lives. Yet I wasn't about to let this 'certainty' of faith, morality, and the way of the world limit my desire to seek the unknown, to continue to walk down paths others dismiss as fantastical, and to continue to keep my head in those beautiful clouds.

What is this post all about? I don't really know. I started out with one thing in mind, but it as changed in these few paragraphs. I guess it is an introspective analysis of myself. If there is one thing I do, and frequently, it's question why I think the way I do, why I feel the way I do, and why I act the way I do. I still feel like I am still learning who I am, and I feel like the only way I will ever truly learn about the world around me is to first understand that there is much I don't know, even about myself.

We all search for the concrete answers in life, or we think we have found them, or we plant them for ourselves to find. We rarely question them, some of us never do, and we are happy knowing that the sky is blue, the sun will rise, and tomorrow will always follow today. But not me. I'm not content with merely accepting the world, or my existence in it, at face value. I am here for a purpose, as is everyone, and I will never learn what that is unless I leave my mind open, unless I accept the fact that the concept of 'truth' is a human concept, and that I will only, in my entire life, learn a mere fraction of what is considered as truth. In short, there is much more going on in existence than I can ever hope to experience, to learn, to know.

Tough it Out

I've noticed that my hands have been dry recently. Considerably dryer than normal for this time of year. Normally I'm one to deal with it, knowing that it is something that will correct with time, that eventually the air will saturate as we move out of the dry winter weather, and my cracked, sore hands will be right as rain. Yet I've found that I've been having trouble toughing it out this year. My hands hurt, and for once my generally stubborn approach to this has been challenged. Why don't I just use some lotion and stop forcing myself to deal with unnecessary issues?

I'm starting to feel the same way about other aspects of my life. I've been avoiding change, even changes I fantasize about, simply because it will require me to "give in" or "change up" what has been working for me for so many years.

I don't like making ripples in the water, at least not in what could be perceived as a negative sense. One thing I try to be conscious of is my own ego, as it has been known to get out of hand. For instance, all throughout the last two days, my peers in my acting class have had nothing but profoundly positive things to say about my performance this past Monday. Then the time came for people to perform their monologues in front of the class, which we were to have memorized by today. Yet I remained silent, and did not stand up to give my own, under the guise that I had not memorized it yet.

Why did I do this? Why shy away from what others have pointed out to be one of my few talents? Is it a fear of not meeting expectations? Somewhat. Whenever people say to me "you're really good at that," it makes me feel a bit more pressure around whatever that is. I both love and hate the compliments. However, I think it is also because I was getting so many compliments, and I didn't want that to go to my head.

So when it comes to other people, doing things with or for others, I love making ripples. Hell, I'd be ecstatic if I could turn it into a whirlpool. I'd rather be remembered as someone who lived his life for the benefit of those around him, and not as someone who only does things for himself.

So when I think about these changes that I hope will one day come about, I can't help but feel that pang of distaste, a dissatisfaction at myself for having those thoughts. While routines have come to bore me, and while I know that in order for me to be happy with myself I need to make changes, I worry about leaving others behind, leaving a role that so many have come to expect me to be in. I worry about letting people down, to an extent.

And so do I tough it out? Do I go another month, or do I say 'to hell with it' and just start applying the lotion? It's a hard decision to make, and it is one that plagues my thoughts these last few months...