Project Silicon Notes #3: What You Hear, What You See, What You Feel

Coalescing a little better. Just laying the groundwork for this project involves taming an errant muse that grows a little more powerful the harder I struggle with her. She doesn’t want to make this easy for me. I think it really shouldn’t be easy. The process of creating something truly satisfying involves sweat, tears and a little blood. Your commitment level is as strong a signifier as any – perhaps the strongest – of how much you truly care about something.

And this is one of the few occasions when, for me, my ambition’s taking a second place to my interest in simply creating something significant. …which is not to say that my ambition isn’t there at all. Er, no – this is me we’re talking about. I’m defined by my ambitions, even if I often lack the discipline or character or resources to see them through.

This project, though, is entirely hedonistic. For my own pleasure. A selfish indulgence tempered with a desire to “get it right.” The only reason I’m nuancing it as much as I am is because “getting it right,” for me, doesn’t imply any form of a slapdash approach – it isn’t enough for me to just cough up some rough semblance of narrative, splash crude emotionality, and call it a day. I want to create something that resonates with a level of truth in it – that to read it from the start is to be immersed in its world until the end.

…see, even when I’m merely doing it for my own satisfaction, I’m still an ambitious son of a bitch. I don’t mean to be lofty. I just aim to be satisfied. But I’m never really satisfied, you know? Mostly because I’m not dead yet.

Project Silicon Notes #2: Ephemerality

It’s starting to congeal. Flashes of dialogues; frames of locations blurred by motion. I haven’t even written anything down yet – as much as it’s congealed, it can roughly be described as a hazy fog of ideas. Too ephemeral still to call it a plot.

There’s a few interesting ideas kicking around, though.

Project Silicon Notes #1: San Jose in the Nearish Future

I’ve got a new Project kicking around, and decided I needed a repository for some of my notes pertaining to it.

I won’t spoil. Some of you might’ve seen me talking in a Certain IRC Channel about it, but I can’t say it’s a particularly large or ambitious project. At best, it’ll see fruition in a year or two. It’s not expected to be anything more than I can show off for its own sake.

But I like to get things right, so…

Snarky Thoughts are Snarky

So, a thought occurs to me. As they are occasionally wont to do.

It’s been nearly two full years into the Obama presidency now.

And there hasn’t been a single terrorist attack on US soil.

Thought Process Interruption

I was going to write more about my thoughts on the construction of a “proper” digital novel, but then I ran into a certain New York Times article.

I got distracted.

It’s, uh, fair to say that I flew off the handles a bit. Though even as I’m cooling down, I still feel fully justified in my outrage. My identity as an American, and the cultural baggages that entails, is intrinsically rooted upon the promises of liberty made to its citizenry. I do not feel, and will not budge on this, that those promises are mere “political propositions.”

I do not enjoy being told that those points are, in fact, negotiable.

The Digital Novel? (Preliminary Thoughts)

First, a status update: the last couple of weeks for me have been a matter of tossing resumes at every inbox that I care to even entertain the thought of accepting it, poking around at various roleplaying groups online, writing a bit of fanfiction (shut up I do okay), poking at the cooling carcass of my novel (original Thoughtscream readers – hi Chris – might still remember it), replaying Persona 4, and jogging a lot.

Also, relistening to Umineko’s story climax themes. Because, holy shit, the art might be terribad, but the music’s definitively epic. Here, have a Youtube link. No, for those of you that haven’t read/played/watched Umineko, that’s not representative art – that’s fanart. Never mind, just enjoy the damned theme already!

Speaking of Umineko, though. Ryukishi07′s work has been sitting like a heavy weight on my subconscious for the last year or so. It’s not the usual sort of visual novel – in fact, it’s far more novel than visual. User interactivity is drastically limited compared to the norm – you’re reading it straight through with no decisions to make. There’s a pretty concrete argument to make that Umineko isn’t a game at all – rather, it would be better to consider it as a light novel on a disc, one given a soundtrack to cue based on where the reader’s currently at.

This is me we’re talking about. If you’ve read my earlier stuff at all, I think you have an idea where my next thought is going:

“…I wonder if you can build a model out of this…”

Rant, Rant, Rant Away

Got invited to participate in a randomly updated group rantblog by the folks from a certain Rizon IRC channel. The topics are mostly otaku, mostly written on the spur of the moment, and mostly just inarticulate wank.

I posted a politically oriented rant just now. Note that the tone for the group blog’s a bit more blustery, generalized and testosteroney than the stuff I’d put in here. Think of it as me channeling “Kitchen Confidential” through an otaku and politics junkie filter, and regurgitating it onto your screen~

http://sofrustrated.wordpress.com/

Oh what the hell – back to blogging.

Things aren’t working out for me. I’d mope about it, but I don’t feel like it. For now, let’s just say that posts will be more common, but erratic – figuring out a schedule is ALSO something I don’t feel like doing, not that I’m particularly good at sticking to one~

There may or may not be a year-long series coming soon from this blog. Depends on whether I get a certain email from a certain employer. I’ll let you folks know soon as I get confirmation.

FanimeCon 2010: Saturday Impressions

I get nostalgic about Fanime while at Fanime. A bit odd as a juxtaposition, but nonetheless true. It’s a matter of realizing exactly how uncommon it actually is for me to feel this … hm. Hard to find the word for it. Carefree is kinda it. Content isn’t, but facets of it exists within the general concept. It’s the sort of feeling you get when, even if you don’t personally know a whole lot of people in a crowd, you’re sure you’re going to have a perfectly good time that weekend.

Folks that’ve gone to music festivals probably know what I’m talking about. It’s a certain sense of camaraderie, vastly distinct from the life you lead outside the timeframe of the convention, festival or event.

The nostalgic thing, I suppose, is the realization that a timeframe is bound and finite. And real life is only a few days away.

In Which I Give Everybody from BP to Rand Paul to the GOP At Large Unmitigated Scorn

It occurs to me that Balloon Juice’s take on whether or not the anger at the Obama administration’s handling of the BP oil spill crisis is justified is fairly on point. There seems to be a certain lack of public consideration as to the factors at play – and what the Obama Administration can realistically do in the status quo of what is now a month-old spill.

(note: I’m not even pretending impartiality here. Seriously, fuck the lot of ‘em.)