Back for a Third Time, I'm Dedicated

Okay. So round three and not quite as much to talk about and cover as round two but hey. I'm back for three weeks in a row and I'm still writing these things so it's obviously important to me like I know it's important to you. This past week wasn't terribly eventful but I have done a lot in a little amount of time on some of my writing that I had put aside for such a long time. I even have created and designed a whole new world and have a huge backstory drawn up about how the world has gotten the way it is now in that story. I have a main character and have a great idea on how to start the story. I haven't started on it though. I've been too busy on an older piece that I am currently revising and making longer than it originally was. Which is something for me because I hate doing that with any of my works. I prefer the original versions of everything I write.

So I am about half way through chapter two revisions for the old story and I am having fun with it. A lot of fighting, but it is all sparring. No blood and death, just a lot of things that are being settled in a specific manner. The main character I named Drake, which was when I was younger. I came up with this four or five years ago so I wasn't much younger but it sounded cool to me at the time and I've stuck with it because it's different in it's own way. In this story I don't have any backstory drawn up or even remotely ready to go for when it does occur. This one is just forming as it goes. Everything that is being written is all what I come up with on the fly. I like it because it keeps me thinking while I'm writing and it turns it into a challenge when I have to introduce a new character and actually come up with a name for them. No characters have a planned story to them and if they become important enough they will have a scene with the main character that will likely cover a chapter telling their story that will be made up on the spot. I know my sister probably doesn't agree with that writing idea but it works for me so I'm going to stick with it for now on this story.

Now this other story I am beginning to develop. I haven't even began to write any of it. All I have are the races that are in my world, the landscape and the map of the continent, which took many days of work to decide on how I wanted it to be, and the current standing of the races. I have also decided on a main character, who is completely non-traditional for fantasy stories, or at least, I haven't seen a fantasy story with one of their race as a hero. Everything I have done for this one has been planned out, even the elements and what each god in the story represents. I have slowly ground out the backstory of the main character, but I haven't shared that bit with anyone yet and don't plan on it for a while. I have also figured out how he is going to leave where he is currently at, which will be different than most other stories too I hope. The history of the world and what goes on in it has also been planned out, including the myth of a human town existing near the borders of another race, that does exist but the other humans are convinced it's a lie. The ones that don't know about it live on three islands off the west coast and are more like the ancient Norse Vikings. I like that idea and I'm going with it. I haven't decided if I'm going to go with there being werewolves and vampires in this story or not. I might just use werewolves because frankly I'm quite tired of vampires. This map I have made also shows the territory of the races, the line of where the peaks of the mountains run, the rivers, the lakes, the capitals and all other cities that belong to each race. On it also appears former human cities as well. Which gets explained in the story as it progresses. All in all I have a lot of ground work and no actual story. But I have spent about two weeks planning all of this before I finally yesterday decided on the main character, his race and how it all starts out. I would like to thank Rich Burlew who actually showed me this idea on his website under the gaming section, and that web site is called this one here, http://www.giantitp.com/. His articles in that section helped to inspire me and actually made me sit down and think out every little detail of what I was going to do and how I was going to do it. Thanks to this mans guides I made my decisions and even made a world I don't think even I know everything about. This should make the writing process that much more fun for me.

Now, as to other things that I have done recently. I have finished reading both Clockwork Angel and City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare. The Clockwork Angel book is the first in the prequel series to the Mortal Instruments series. Both are actually really good books, but the Clockwork Angel one left something to be desired. I enjoy her writing but I don't think it was her best work so far. In City of Fallen Angels she picks up a few weeks after the end of the third book in the Mortal Instruments series but to be totally honest as much as I enjoyed it I don't think it should have been written. The third book in the series has a very final tone at the end of it. She does a good job with the story but it deffinitely could have been left alone and I wouldn't have complained one bit.

Games, I haven't played a lot of 360 in the last month, mostly I get on briefly when I have an urge to play and by the time I get the system turned on I'm no longer in the mood to play. However I have been playing the game MapleStory quite a lot lately. I made a new friend today who lives in Australia, which I think is cool. I also got my character I mentioned last week all the way up to level 120, and I am 68% of the way to my next level. Max level is 200 so I have a long climb left to go. I have also joined a guild in the game that I am having fun in and I'm even trying to do some stuff in the game so I can do stuff with the guild. I also have two other characters I am working on leveling up, one of which uses a canon as his weapon, and the other uses dual crossbows. Can't beat that can I? The main thing I am focused on is just having fun. I played Spore some earlier today too, which was actually as fun as I remember it being. I actually have a new game I'm getting ready to try out and I hope that I actually enjoy it. I don't know if I will or not though. That's it on games.

This past week I have seen two movies both of which were actually really really good. Sunday night I saw the new Underworld Awakening which I have to admit for it taking such a long time they made one awesome story and did a really great job with that movie. It was such a complex story in that movie that it was actually so much better than a lot of newer movies that are so easily predicted. The other one I saw was tonight and that movie was the new Daniel Radcliffe movie The Lady in Black. I didn't know a single thing about the movie but I will say he may be Harry Potter but I will tell you right now that is not the only character he can be. He was brilliant as Arthur Kipp in that movie. I also learned tonight that this movie is a remake from a 1989 movie. I don't know how acurate it is to the original but I know he did a stunning job in that movie. I strongly recomend this movie, it is a good movie. A couple things jump out at you but for the most part it is a very good movie, though it is very dark. I say dark as in there are a lot of shadows and the story is a little dark in its own right. Well, not a little dark, very dark.

Okay. So this turned out better than I hoped. So far each week has gotten progresively longer. I hope this doesn't happen next week or I'll have a cramp so bad in my arms I won't be able to move my fingers. Anyway this is everything recent that has happened to me and this is where I will finish this off. I'm going to post the picture of my map that I have so painstakingly worked on and I hope that everyone will be pleasantly surprised by the detail I went into to make this map. Talk to everyone in another week with more news on how things have been and more updates on other tidbits in my Life.