Much to Read
February 10, 2011 in Blogs
So many articles have appeared since my last Blogless Lepolt post that I had to post comments to them all just to guarantee for myself that I could find them all (by going to the edit comments function of the site) when I got to writing this today. However, I am going to begin with my own contribution, another temporal anomalies Examiner article entitled TimeCrimes part 2: harmonization begun. This one overlays Hector’s three runs through the same time period into one history, getting about halfway through the story, in preparation for identifying and then resolving the problems.
I’m also going to mention here an article tweeted to me by the Geek Preacher, O Death, Where Is Thy Sting?, which suggests that comic books a.k.a. graphic novels (a.k.a. illustration art narrative) are wrestling with the issues Christians are addressing. I should probably link it from the Christian Gamers Guild site, but I’ve really fallen behind on maintaining that in recent years.
Rather than do the articles that appeared here in order, I’m going to separate them by author and begin with Adam Keller, who was mentioned in my previous post and has given us more of the same but increasingly interesting, as he presents journals from various versions of himself in different games. I, Jhiaxus, Chosen One of Odin is from his character in Eric Ashley’s game; I’m not sure what game I, Jhiaxus, of the Sharingan follows, but Adam is promising a new entry every other day, so we should be seeing more of all these characters in the weeks ahead.
Speaking of Eric, he has added five new articles to the corpus here. I’ll first mention Easy Money 2, because it is the sequel to the previously mentioned Easy Money, which does not yet tell us how the heroine plans to pay her bill but has her working on something. I gather more from comments than from content that Letter to a Lady is prequel to I Flung Myself Down, together painting both the desire to return home and the effort to do so, but the latter struck me as the better story than the letter. Somewhere in the back of my mind I’ve a vague feeling that the sketchy Diary IX: The Fall of Ysar and Other Matters is intended to fit into that as well, but I’m not certain of that. Finally, he gives us No Rest for the Virtuous, in which our verser is assisted by a young Beowulf in the slayng of the tyrannosaur Grendel, a fascinating world idea which he apparently has run elsewhere.
It’s enough reading material to make me wish I had some portable Internet reader (such as the I-Pod Touch® my wife received for her anniversary) so I could read them in the bathroom; but then, when would I read my books?
Hmmm–anyone know if you can save web pages on an I-Pod Touch® to read when you don’t have WiFi access? Or whether a Kindle® browses and saves web pages in addition to downloading books? And whether you can upload your own documents to either of them for perusal? I’m starting to think that something that allowed me to read web pages off-line, carry books in e-book format, and read my own documents (editing would be a nice feature) might be useful. On the other hand, this is not a good time to be thinking about something that costs money.
–M. J. Young
Jhiaxus said on February 10, 2011
The kindle can browse the internet, but of course the unit costs money. The I, Jhiaxus, of the Sharingan, is the character from Kyler’s game.
Tadeusz said on February 10, 2011
Letter and Diary are both learning experiences more so than some others. I have read a few charming books written n the form of a diary, and less in number, in the form of a series of letters.
I wish to develop the skill to write all sorts of scenes and with some difference of style. This is partly what I’m doing with the ‘Book of Versers’.
That you see Diary as part of the others is not what I meant, but it perhaps means I need to work on differentiating character more. And yes, with Diary, I felt that it did need some more depiction of the land….I had in mind a semi-arid land with scrub brushes, and sandy earth, and occasional goat farms on the edge of an empire…not sure I made that clear enough.
M. J. Young said on February 11, 2011
The problem with diary styling is that diaries–well, they share something in common with stream of consciousness writing, which most people can’t master at all well.
You have to know where you’re going before you start, but then create a path that meanders to it and doesn’t seem to be pointing that direction.
Real diaries contain all kinds of false trails–the person that interests the writer who later drops out, the hopes for a job that never materializes. The problem is, real life is not really a story, but a sequence of events. When we reach an “end”, we then mentally edit the events, recognizing which ones were the important ones that got us here and telling the “story” omitting the false trails.
In writing the story diary style, you have to maintain the illusion of the style, that there are false trails and such, while at the same time keeping everything relevant to the ultimate story. For example, we know that in the end Dave Thomas was the founder and chief executive of one of the largest fast food companies in the world, but what would his real diary have read when he got his first job in a restaurant, or when he started working for KFC, or met Colonel Sanders, or argued about how to make chicken? He didn’t know the future; he didn’t know the significance of any of these events. “I got a job at the diner, washing dishes. It’s money. I wanted to work at the movie theatre, but they weren’t hiring.” “The cook has been letting me help with some of the cooking. It’s really a lot more fun than I thought.” “I’ve decided I like this business; I’m trying to get a job working with a national company.” These would be brief entries amidst the other problems of life–school, bills, the cute waitress he doesn’t ever date, the girl he marries, the birth of his daughter. The diarist does not really know what will be important to the story. But the author creating a diary has to maintain the illusion that the diarist doesn’t know while at the same time bring forward the events that tell the story, that lead to the climax.
It’s not easy to do.
Adam–obviously, any device that can handle e-books will cost money. The question is whether it will do what I need it to do. I’m not looking to buy something like that now, but I do have a birthday coming in a few months, and it would be nice for a change to know what I’d like.
–M. J. Young