3 Green Fish

I’m getting closer and closer to alien territory here. The farther in I get the less crystal clear I am about what exactly is happening next. Right now, I’m doing okay, as I’m just starting to introduce Adrianna to some of the townfolk. But I can see that horizon coming up, and I think I’d better plan for it.

I added 3.5 pages today! I think things are still moving along well. I like Chapter 9, and chapter 10 is going to be something of a monstrosity in terms of length, but I’m still happy with how I’m doing. Just gotta keep on writing!

Tomorrow I can introduce Bobby Hollowleg, the town drunk.

Bandolor is not a family man:

Sorcery came from within: it was a power that dawned on men of arcane knowledge, in much the same way that speech blossomed in babies. Bandolor planned to accelerate the process as much as he could, in much the same way that a mother might coo and babble at her baby to get the chubby parasite to start talking. Bandolor hated children.

As promised, here is a list of the longest stories and series I’ve written in my 15.5 years of writing fiction. I included series as well as individual works — after all, if this book ends up longer than my longest series, that will be quite an accomplishment, and will make me rather happy to boot. It’s high time I broke a personal record, and I think I’m well on the way towards that. We’ll see. Note that my current project has already moved up to #8! Woo!

I added 3 pages today, and wrote most of chapter 9. It’s kind of short, but it’s a single scene and I think it fit together well. I feel like my characters are starting to click in terms of their relationships and how they interact, which is good on the one hand, because it makes the writing easier, and bad on another, because that dynamic is going to change soon. Still, if nothing else it means that when I go back to revise I’ll have a better grasp of things. Adrianna, especially, is revealing a little of what makes her tick, to me, and that helps a lot.

Today Adrianna gets a haircut and makeover, a la Queer Eye for the Sorcerer … uh, Gal.

“Thy locks are far too long,” Bandolor commented from a stool in the corner of the kitchen. “Though the bachelors in Ynedering let their locks rustle ’gainst their shoulders, a boy in Itenin with such hair as thine would scandalize many. Mayhaps a maiden would as well.”
“I be scandalized myself,” Iggsle said with a sly grin, and vanished once more behind Adrianna.
The scissors bit down again. Adrianna winced. “Don’t you have any better scissors? How do you cut each other’s hair?”
“Elias Barber lives in town,” Iggsle said. “His hands be steady. . . .”
“But his tongue shakes at any provocation,” Bandolor cut in. “His slightest suspicion be common knowledge in Itenin. ’Twould have been too risky to have thee meet him ere thy locks be shorn.”

Added two pages, and promptly managed to bomb my computer — I think that’s the first time I’ve managed to do that on my laptop. Fortunately, it happened after I’d saved and backed up, so nothing seems to have been lost. I think it might have been my removing the drive that crashed it in the first place. Hm.

Got a big loooooong scene coming up, but that’s the last major thing that has to happen in part 1 (well, okay, more like the second to last. But the other one isn’t as major). I could still finish part 1 by the end of August! Wow.

Okay, that’s all. Tired. I sleep now.

Last week I compared the 3 current-generation video game consoles by looking at differences in the design of their controllers. This week I’m going to continue my video game Versus Mode series by looking at the power of the three systems — after all, controllers aren’t everything, and computing power has a great impact on how games run. Along with the CPU, I’ll look at hard drive size while we’re at it. Let’s go!

Xbox 360

The 360 sports a nice 3.2 gigahertz PowerPC tri-core processor, 512 megabytes of ram shared by the CPU and the Graphics Processing Unit, plus 10 bonus MB in a special frame buffer to help reduce issues with graphics. The GPU runs at 526 MHz. Depending on the configuration, the Xbox 360 may come with a 120 GB hard drive, a 20 GB hard drive, or no hard drive at all. Hard drives may be purchased separately (say, by those who bought the cheap version and then realized that yes, they really did want a hard drive).

Playstation 3

The PS3 also has a 3.2 GHz processor, the Cell. which has 7 sub-processors called SPEs. These allow a certain division of computing tasks not possible in a regular processor, and theoretically kick the pants off of the 360’s tri-core processor, 204 gigaflops to 115.2 gigaflops. Granted, the value of this depends much more on how well the architecture is used by programmers than anything else, but it does present the possibility that the PS3 might reach a level of processing power that the 360 cannot. The PS3 has a total of 512 MB of memory, half of it high-speed XDR memory connected to the CPU, and the other half graphics memory. The 550 MHz GPU can access the CPU memory if necessary, but the PS3 lacks the extra 10 MB frame buffer of the 360. As for hard drives, the PS3 is currently available in the USA with either a 60 GB or 80 GB hard drive, with all models including hard drives.

Wii

Poor Wii. Unlike its brothers, it doesn’t get many handouts when it comes to power. If the Xbox were America and the PS3 Japan, the Wii would probably be a nomadic tribe on the African savannah. Still, its 729 MHz processor and 243 MHz GPU are a healthy step up from the GameCube and most of the previous generation of consoles. The Wii sports 88 MB of RAM, plus 3 MB of frame buffer memory. It has a whopping 512 MB storage capacity. With the exception of the larger hard drive, the Wii clocks in around the original Xbox.

And the winner of round 2 is…

Next week: it’s all about the dough. Oh, and maybe Mario.

I added 3 whole pages today, which is good — it means I’m catching up!

Today was fun. I think my characters are starting to coalesce a little, which is great. I’m getting a better handle on Adrianna, which is extremely important. I know I’m going to have to go back and strengthen her early on, but that’s okay. This is rough draft land — right now I’m just moving ahead and discovering new things.

My word count stands at just over 23,000 words — officially in novella territory, and over halfway to the usual designation of novel (40,000 words). It’s #9 on my personal list of longest stories/series written, by word count. Just recently passed ThatPlace: The Joining in length, which is amazing considering how much happened in that story! (I’ll post the full Top 10 list as soon as I get a chance to format it)

Today Adrianna got her first “lesson,” if you can call it that, and then she got to meet Bandolor’s thesaurus:

The creature was watching her eyes move back and forth between Bandolor and her palm. Adrianna leaned in to get a closer look at it, and it raised up a long-fingered paw towards the side of her face. Such a strange animal, and almost creepy in its chimerical composition, but it had the most innocent expression on its face. In the end it wasn’t Bandolor’s command that led her to raise it to her cheek, but simply the fact that it was, despite its mismatched limbs , quite cute. It climbed up on the side of her face and held itself there with its sticky feet. One set of long fingers curled around her ear, the other rested softly against her temple. The cool temperature and sticky appendages of the creature sent itchy tingles across her face.

Well, I took a little break over the weekend to recharge, and then another couple days after that to recover from my weekend break. Whew. Now I’m back in the game and churning out pages again. The lesson? Take a break every week. Who would have thought?

I made some progress moving things along today. Now that the tongue is fully introduced, I can move on to other matters. I’m going to have to be prolific if I still want to finish part 1 by the end of the month, and average 2 pages a day to boot, but I think I might still be able to manage it. We’ll see.

I also wrote a preliminary “jacket synopsis” today. This would be the sort of thing that you’d find behind the front cover of a hardback (or on the back of a paperback). Mostly, I just wanted to start the attempt to come up with a synopsis of this story, since every time I get asked about it, I give some long confusing rambling answer as to what the story is about. So, this might put some stuff in context. It might not. It’s a work in progress.

The synopsis:

Bandolor O’Sorce has a problem. His theories of magic, branded heretical by the church that governs sorcery in the land of Tindol, are close to being verified. When last he tried to bridge the gap between his world and another, the spell went disastrously awry, sucking away his apprentice and depositing a strange young woman in his place. Bandolor needs a new apprentice to finish his research, and he is quickly running out of time.

Adrianna Jordan has a problem. Whisked away to a distant world in a magical accident, she is far from home and haunted by the memory of her boyfriend’s death. Trapped in strange and terrifying land, her only hope of returning home is to become Bandolor’s apprentice and help him try to open a gateway back to her own world — a risky enterprise in a land where no woman has ever been allowed to learn the art of sorcery.

Ellia Shepherd has a problem. In love with the local blacksmith’s son, she can’t ever seem to get his attention. Perhaps sorcery might help her out….

The Tongue of Erskavit O’Sorce has a problem. Used and abused since being cut out of its owner’s throat centuries ago, the tongue is ready for revenge, and woe to all who stand in its way.

When sorcerer, foreigner, shepherd’s daughter and tongue meet, their lives will never be the same again.

I seem to be in a competitive mood these days (by which I mean “in a mood to make others compete”), so it looks like the first review of the week is going to be another Versus Mode. This time, we’re looking at Coats of Arms — symbols of national identification that don’t really mean as much in our modern world. Nowadays “arms” usually refers to firearms of some kind or another, and regular old shields aren’t as effective against bullets as they were against swords. Still, I recently noticed that both the United States and Germany have eagles on their coats of arms, so it seems like an interesting comparison to make.

The Coat of Arms of the United States of America

Technically, the obverse (non-reverse) of the Great Seal of the United States is considered the country’s coat of arms. Let’s look at this, shall we? There’s an eagle, holding an olive branch and a bunch of arrows, and biting down on a ribbon that reads “E Pluribus Unum.” Also, there’s big thing floating above its head with stars surrounded by clouds or something. There’s a lot going on, and it’s very meaningful and all, but it’s a little too busy. Also, the position of the shield across the eagle’s belly makes me think of some kind of nature documentary censored by people unwilling to show the naughty bits of eagles. I mean, really, it looks like someone just pasted the shield on top. Yeesh.

The Coat of Arms of the Federal Republic of Germany

Likewise bearing the likeness of an eagle, the German coat of arms is refreshingly uncluttered in comparison to that of the United States. However, its a little too stylized and blocky to be a really good coat of arms, especially compared to some older designs. Take a look at Wikipedia’s article — see the double-headed, firebreathing eagle? Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. On the other hand, it’s still better than the creepily angular version used by the Nazis in the 30’s and 40’s.

And the winner is…

I’m a gamer. I make no excuses for the habit — at least it’s better than watching television all the time. I also hope to be a published author some day, and thus, barring a miracle of popularity, I’m pretty much condemned to poverty, and the likelihood of me being able to buy all three current video game consoles is almost nil. But I’ve gotten over it.

Today I’m starting a weekly “versus mode” series. Each week I’ll look at one (or multiple) factors that distinguish the three current generation consoles, in an attempt to figure out which one is the best. I don’t own any of them, and I’ve only had a chance to play extensively with the 360 and the Wii — but I figure that balances out the fact that the only console I own is a PS2, and I’ve been very happy with it. That said, even I don’t know how this is going to end, so check in every week and be surprised along with me.

Today, I’ll look at what is probably the most defining difference between Xbox 360, PS3, and the Wii: their controllers.

Nintendo Wii

The Wii was originally named “Revolution,” because the console was going to revolutionize gaming. At the heart of that was its controller — it looks like a remote, is filled with motion sensors, and has an optical sensor on the end. It also comes with a nunchuk attachment for two-handed play. Motion sensing is a great idea, and it works decently, but when a game has you hold the controller in any other manner (say, perpendicular to the screen, as if it were a regular controller), it’s a little uncomfortable. Also, the broader motions that come with using the Wii remote can actually injure you; I found my shoulder getting sore once when playing Wii Tennis. Finally, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — I’ve yet to see the perfect application for the Wii remote.

Microsoft Xbox 360

On the opposite end of the spectrum we have the Xbox 360’s controller. It’s pretty much the epitome of the classic controller: lots of buttons, two analog sticks, and a digital pad. It has a nice feel and is quite ergonomic, unlike the Wii remote, and it has rumble, something the PS3 controller lacks. Still, it doesn’t sense motion, so it’s basically just a last generation controller with a major makeover: it’s sleek and usable, but hardly innovative. Unlike the PS3 and Wii, not all of the 360’s controllers are wireless. Those that come with the core console are wired, and must be plugged in at all times.

Sony Playstation 3

The PS3 controller occupies a sort of middle ground between its competitors. Much more of a traditional controller, the PS3’s SIXAXIS looks and feels a lot like the PS2’s DualShock. However, instead of rumble, the SIXAXIS has some motion sensing capabilities of its own, although due to the differences in design, it’s not easy to directly compare the motion sensing of the PS3 and the Wii. In terms of comfort, it’s still a lot like the DualShock — perfectly reasonable, but they could have smoothed it out a little to make it more ergonomic. There are a lot of rumors floating around right now about Sony putting rumble back in the SIXAXIS, as its lack has caused something of an uproar. Which rumble isn’t hugely important to me, it would round out the controller.

And the winner of Round 1 is…

Next week: POWER!

Another day, and I added about two and a half pages worth of blah. Well, okay, there are bits that I like, but there’s definitely a rough draft feel to this part. I’ve been plowing ahead just to make progress, but I think it’s time for a short break to recharge my batteries. And, lo and behold, I’m heading out of town for a couple days. I might get some writing done over the weekend, or I might not. We’ll see what happens. A little break should do me good.

Once I get through this tongue introduction, then I can go into a more narrative mode, and things will move faster for a little while. I think I’m still on schedule to finish part 1 by the end of August.

I got to use the word “gargat” today. That was fun.