Sunday, June 27, 2004

^___^

I got a massive burst of inspiration last night for my various writing projects yesterday. I knew I'd been trying to over-complicate things. First was Nazreal: I now know how I want to handle various story elements and I realise from reading various other online stories that the chapters I want to write don't have to be very long for them to be decent. One particular story about furries I was reading had chapters not much longer than those in Kill Adam. And they seen a really good size- long enough to give a decent amount of detail, but not long enough to make your thoughts wander off and skim-read. But writing style would play a part in that, too. I'd always assumed that the chapters I wrote had to be girt long things like those in Dark Conflict. But as it's probably not going to amount to much more than a web-based story, it's not important. The Nazreal and Anime Stereotype High School RPGs will be winging their ways along soon. Actually, Shin's Apartment Building C was partly how I invisioned ASHS to be like. Shin's should be good stuff, so I'd watch out for it. Dark Conflict's still in limbo at the moment, but I'm getting closer to it. I think I may go over it from the beginning and give it another makeover, but not a huge one. Just aesthetics, to make it a v3.1. The Resistance and Torture Museums in Holland helped quite a bit with giving me ideas. Uhm... I don't really think there's much else I can say. there are things I want to say, but they're probably best saved for private messaging services. I Don't Want to be a Soldier... Another re-enactment do today, in Fort Purbrook. It's a fantastic place, if very exposed to the elements. There's a geat view over the entire Portsmouth area that sprawls for miles and miles; in a golden sunset it looks spectacular. I gained a few injuries today- I was hit in the spine by a sword pommel and got a nasty scrape across my knee by a blade, but I got off quite lightly compared to others. I've been lucky so far, save for that nasty bump at Christmas, hopefully I'll remain so *touches wood* To save this post from inaneity, I'm going to start up the end of my Solo On: topics. The first of which shall be Books. At least, I'm going to attempt to write it. My spelling's been atrocious whilst typing this all up. If I never corrected my mistakes, I'd never have become a Moderator... Solo On: Books I would like to say I've read a lot of books in my time, but there really aren't a huge number. My sister's probably read more than me. It's not that I don't like reading, it's just that sometimes I get bored with the story and want to get straight to the end. That's only a trait that's developed in recent years: I'll find myself skim-reading large paragraphs to try and find something of significance. Quite what it would be I don't know, but I often force myself to read it through, which can get quite tiring. My first set of books that I remember really well were the Deptford Mice trilogies (the first set and the Histories), by Robin Jarvis. Theye were fantastic, hehe. They were easily accessible to people- not pretentiously written or overly simplified despite the fact that all of the the characters were animals. I don't know if anyone else knows them, but they're great fun. There's action, love, drama, comedy and various other genres, and a great darkness to them. They're almost like anime in book form, I suppose. I'm suprised it's not yet become any kind of series or film yet, considering even Redwall had a crappy animation made out of it (does the books NO justice, I can tell you). The books are all set in and around London (with the exception of the third histories book), where communities of mice, rats, bats, squirrels and various other creatures all play their part in a mysterious and dangerous battle. The animals aren't like those in 101 Dalmatians; they're more like those in Starfox, but less humanised. The illustrations show them really well, I think. My favourite character was Thomas Triton, the Midshipmouse. He lived on the Cutty Sark, wore a wooly hat and carried a sword made out of a pin ^_^ He was very cool, and had his own book written for him- that was the third Deptford Histories one, called Thomas. I won't spoil anything about the books, but so much happens in them it's sometimes hard to take it all in. If these were released now, they'd give Harry Potter a run for his wand. Unfortunately, they were released at a time when I don't think many people were too interested in books as a whole, so these are terribly understated. The most recent book I finished was The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse, by Robert Rankin. It's one of the funniest things I'd ever read, and I'd recommend it to anyone. One bit in particular had me incapactiated with laughter for ages. I will now poorly attempt to paraphrase it from memory: He was handed his sandwich, gloriosuly filled with filling, stuck between two pieces of bread. He viewed it with relish. "I'm afraid we haven't got any relish," said the barman. Ah, I can't remember it right, ut it's fantastic stuff. I draw a lot of ideas from books; more often than not they influence my writing style. If there's something I feel I lack, then reading a book can give me some ideas on how to go about writing with that particular attribute. Since this article is so closely related to Writing, I'll do my Solo On: Writing post next, heh. That, and I can't think of a decent way to end this article. Maybe I should read some book endings... Ciao!

Comments (3)