Father's Day Thoughts

Sometimes the easiest thing to say is nothing. But it's not always the best thing. This is the first father's day since my dad died, but it's not necessarily the first without him around. So in a lot of ways, it's not all that different. But of course it is.

I've got a talent for only letting out the things I want people to see. For all the times I seem stoic, know that usually I am. But not today. Today, I'm opening up a bit.

Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is ajar.

One of the best friends I could ever ask for and my brother, Kyle McNamara, is taking the next step of his journey today. There’s a lot I could say, a lot I want to say and more that I could never put into words. But I’ll try.

The Ins And Outs Of Outlining

If I had to specify, I would say that this post falls under the technical term of 'whenever' for the next blog update. But here it is and not a moment too soon. You see, soon I will have a guest post up on my friends blog, and it would be a shame for me not to give advance warning here. The exact timing of that one depends on when exactly he puts it up and how long after this post goes live I get that one written, but I would imagine that neither will take more than a day or two. Stay tuned for that post over on his blog, and I will make a note here when that goes up.

As for the subject of today's post, I wanted to talk about something that I'm still trying very hard to figure out. Outlining is, and always has been, one of the weaker parts of the writing process as far as my skill is concerned. I think this comes, in part, from a personality trait that I am well aware of. I've never been one to plan out much, and have a slight (read: not so slight) aversion to doing so. It's something I'm trying to overcome in more aspects of my life than just writing, but making life decisions about characters is much easier and lets me avoid doing the same for myself. At least for now. So without further ado, we'll get started.

Bad Me, Bad!

So I've been really, really bad about updating this. It's only been a few months, right? ... Right? I plan on updating this blog again, maybe only once a week or even just whenever, but I will be doing so. The reminder came from a friend of mine who is just starting his own blog over at All the Good Names Were Taken. He's clever, eloquent, a good writer and a better friend. You should check his stuff out.

That's about all I have to say today, but if there are no objections, I'll continue where I left off with the Choose The Action story line. The vote was for 2, the Tree. I lost the rest of it, which is a pain. So it's kinda pointless actually.

Hmm... Vote 1 for starting something new or vote 2 for abandoning the choice tree! (I threw loaded die for that one.)

Regardless, expect something more from me soon. And pester me if I don't!

Choose the Action

As I said in the last post, I've been playing a fair amount of Dragon Age 2 over the past week or so. It gives you a fair amount of choice, even if some events have to happen in certain ways. That made me wonder and let my mind walk down the path of choosing how the event actually turned out. I thought that would be fun to do for my small readership here.

So here's how this is going to work. Right now I'm going to write out the introduction and give you guys your first choice. This will all be off the top of my head. After I finish writing tonight, I'm going to plan out a choice tree that will give an overview of all possible choices given and their outcomes. I'm going to keep this as an either or situation, so as to not spread the votes too thin and so I don't have to plot out all those possibilities.

Once we've reached the end of a particular choice line, I'll post all of them out so you can see I didn't just have one ending in mind from the start. You'll have until the weekend to vote in the comments for this one. I'm going to turn comment moderation on for the time being so that there's not a swarm of votes. If you've got an actual comment, make sure it's separate from your vote comment. Before I get too long winded, here's the actual story.

Conspiring by Candlelight

Would you look at that, I've been slacking again. You think I'd know I do this and try to stop it... or something. But here we are, so this is just the first one of this early morning hour. We can blame Dragon Age 2 for consuming my time. Yes, let's. However, I did I finish my first play through and it was pretty good. It felt unpolished, but was enjoyable.

Now onto the actual post. This one was inspired by current politics and global events as well as the new album by Rise Against, Endgame. At least partially inspired by those. It started out as pseudo poetry, but as you'll see has lost that and gone to prose form. Keep that in mind while reading. As always, after the break.

The Architect

This one is part of an idea I'm tossing around. The name comes from a new song by Rise Against called Architects. I hope to continue this one soon, but I want to get this part out there for corrections and any ideas any of you may have. Can't wait for the feedback.