Random Thoughts
Random musings by Warren Bennett
After reading this article today, I started thinking how these ten things effect me. What are my personal pitfalls? Actually I think the list in the article pretty much sums up my own pits that need to be filled in.
1. Unclear big-picture vision.
This is why I started making outlines for longer pieces of fiction. Sure I am still working on the novel, but it isn’t because I don’t know the big-picture. (It is because I let life distract me…but that is another story.) For those that don’t know, I use wikidpad to lay everything out. I Like it, it is a small personal wiki.
2. Lack of short-term goals
This is also something I started addressing earlier this year. I decided I wanted a word count of about 100,000 words. I split up my book in to 30 chapters, so that means each chapter would have about 3,333 words incorporated in to it. Using that, I could break it further down in to daily goals: If I could hit 3,000 words a day, that means I could do a chapter a day.
It didn’t quite work out like that (I’m aiming at about 1000 words a day) but it is nice to have it all split up and in bite sized chunks.
3. Fear..
Fear is something I am still dealing with. However, being without a job and no visible means of support tends to cute right through that fear. Right now I’m at a point where I have to put up or shut up. Either I make it as a writer, or I go back to work as a wage slave.
I really don’t want that.
That is helping my writing tremendously. I am taking risks I wouldn’t have before, or risks I would have agonized over. I now have a column with examiner.com and am working on a game review for an online gaming mag. Those are baby steps, but steps I am not sure I would’ve made previously.
4. Trying to force productivity.
Ever try to write when you are plum tuckered out? When you can barely stare at the screen, or the pad, or the keyboard without nodding off? Or how about when you know you should be doing something else (Like fixing dinner for the family…) It is essential that a writer get in to a groove, find that place where they feel the most comofortable but still productive. Learn to shut the door, work during a time you are not needed else where…
Something I am still working on. I am getting there… I now shut the door when I am writing and don’t answer it unless something big is happening. I am also exercising so that I am not dead tired. Even 5 minutes of walking helps me, much to my surprise…
5. Shabby systems.
Basically: How you file and extract what you write.
This one I am working on. I am very bad at organization. I love to be organized. Yet I have rarely been organized in my life.
…I am getting there. This is going to be a post in itself in the future. Basically I am working on getting my computer organized and backed up, so I know what stories I have, where I have sent them, what articles are being worked on, etc etc etc. I really need to get on the ball with this. I am constantly looking for ideas and such I know I’ve written down, but I don’t know where.
Have you ever tried looking through 500 gigs or more of information to try to find something you wrote last year? Man…
There are five more on this list. I’ll get to the rest tomorrow.
I realized something last night.. I think it was last night. Or maybe it was this morning. Okay I realized sometime within the last 12 hours while laying in bed that I never was comfortable in my last relationship.
Not one time.
Even the time where I was head over heels for her. I guess I should’ve realized it on the first date. I didn’t get to the point where i Lost my nerves and felt like I could “just be myself.”
The second date went well though; somewhat well anyway. We went to a mall. It was a fun day, I enjoyed myself for the most part. Yet I still didn’t feel like myself…totally. But I chalked it up to just it being the second date.
I can look back on it now and see the little comments and such started before then. The ones that add up in your head. The comments that finally get you to a point where you are contemplating ending the relationship. When it does end, it is more of a relief then a heart-ache.
I had started to open myself up to her but… The nagging, the little comments. Things I didn’t seem to really even notice at first. They started to pile up. As they started coming faster, I withdrew to myself more and more.
Maybe I should’ve talked about it, or ended it sooner. I don’t know.
I do know I never really felt comfortable. That is odd to me; I am a pretty comfortable guy. I mean I call myself a closet introvert, but after talking with someone for a few minutes I generally feel myself.
Maybe it was the rush of emotions mixed with other things that clouded my mind. If I had been thinking straight, as I eventually did, I probably would’ve realized that I just didn’t feel myself around my ex.
Even now when I talk to her on the phone, I’m a mere shadow of myself. She says I have changed. I haven’t changed really, but it’s like a shop that is closed up for the night. I don’t feel comfortable revealing myself to her. It is because every time I did, I tended to get it slapped back in to my face.
Why am I writing this? Just as a way of getting it out of my system. Of examining my own motivations. I hate to say it but I don’t think I made right choices in this relationship, yet I do think I got out of it fairly unscathed.
But much more knowledgeable.
I hope to find someone that I can feel comfortable around, that i don’t have to worry about being myself. To be able to say the word “love” with out it being forced.
Is that…an unrealistic wish?
Oh and just because Chuck Norris is awesome:
Writing wise, that is.
Soon I’ll be writing for a website. One that isn’t my own, mind you. I will be writing about the gamer lifestyle… Whatever that entails. I’ve also been asked to write for an online magzine, doing game reviews for free to play massively multiplayer games.
Now neither of these gigs pay a whole heck of a lot, if anything at all, but I do think they will expose me to a previously unknown audience. I believe it is a start, a start to something… I Hope it is a start to something that’ll help me in my life. I can point to these things and say “Hey *other* people wanted to read what i wrote besides myself!”
Well myself and one or two people that read my blog. And the few people that read my comic website… And the ones that read my tweets. Then there are the facebook people… *ahem.*
Anyway I’m excited, but I’m afraid to be really excited. The phrase I’ve been using is “cautiously optimistic.” I am optimistic but in a reserved fashion. I’m not jumping up, running down the streets, and shouting at the top of my lungs. (That would kill me in the shape I am in, for one.) But…
I am excited. Examiner.com has it’s pros and cons, but I am pretty much free to write what i want. Writing about gamer lifestyle… That is a pretty broad umbrella topic. I already have a few different ideas from the general “Lifestyle” to those specific to the Phoenix area.
Game Theory is a new venture, a PDF magazine that has only published an issue or two. I feel like that getting in on it now could lead to good things. Especially if the magazine and website continues to get many of people reading it. And it is nice to be asked to write for a change. It really is and I am honored to be able to do it.
So yah. That all happened within the last week. Now if I can start making good money off my writing…
Hmmm.
Baby steps, right?
I’m sitting here at 4:30 in the morning.
I am drinking a coke and eating some shell macaroni mixed with pesto sauce. I think the macaroni is good cold. I am thinking of adding a little bit of tuna to the rest…tomorrow. I say tomorrow but I mean “After I wake up.” It is almost 5 am and I am awake. This is as normal, to me, as having a vast amount is money is normal to Bill Gates. Not everyone has that money, but when you have it you don’t really think about it.
Although sometimes I do think about it. (My sleeping schedule, that is, not having vast amounts of money. Mainly because I don’t have it 
) I wonder if I’m some strange person set on this earth to act opposite of everyone else. I say good-night when people say good morning. I listen to the sounds of the night, wide awake, as other people are snoring in their beds. I great dawn as others great dusk. I don’t always sleep well at night, but during the day I seem to be able to just nod off.
I find it harder to go to bed at 10 then it is to stay up all night. It’s so weird. I’ve been like this my whole life; even as a child I didn’t sleep until 10 or 11. I didn’t think that was odd until my classmates would tell me their bedtimes: 7:30, 8. 9 at the latest… In high school I learned to sleep on the bus (when I road one.) We had an hour and a half or so ride and I felt like it was a good time to catch some zzz’s.
I read somewhere that some people are just wired differently. The type of people that would guard the camp at night in ancient history. Or the city guards that patrolled the walls at night in plague infested middle aged Europe. The creative types that often fueled industry and wrote books and songs and such in the Victorian era…
Did they have family that worried about it? Girlfriends/Spouses that told them to take some medicine just so they could sleep… Maybe a herb or a new tonic. And if they gave in and tried the world turned in to something that felt…
Unnatural.
When I try to force myself to conform to a regular schedule I feel weird. I feel like I’m going against the grain of my very existence. It is like trying to force myself to stop breathing. I can do it for awhile, mind you, but when I am left to my own devices I always go back to this schedule.
It is like slipping on an old pair of jeans. They just fit, ya know?
It’s not that I sleep all day; I feel the best when I’m asleep between 4 and 6 and awake between 12 and 2. I like being up when the sun is out. Yet, here I am at almost 5 am and not asleep.
I guess it doesn’t help I’ve worked mainly graveyard and evenings my whole career. I just don’t like working in the morning.
I guess that is why I think “Author” is the best job for me. Very few professions can be done in the still of the night. Words seem to come to me more naturally when I’m awake at night and feeling good. Concepts often hit me at night that don’t during the day. Many people have received late night emails from me stating something that was both cool and neat…or so I hope. I have one friend that is well aware of my nightly wanderings, for she often suffers from insomnia and sees me up at all hours of the night. Probably one reason we are still friends after so many years…
I don’t think it is insomnia in my case. I’m just nocturnal.
I guess it’s time for me to stop fighting it. To embrace my nocturnal nature and just run with it. Get things done at night, when I’m awake, instead of laying in bed fighting to sleep. It’s all I can do; I feel the most normal when I learn to stop fighting and love my nocturnal nature
In the end, Death won.
It was a tense battle. I pulled out all the stops. My thoughts were clear, my moves concise. He didn’t win by much, mind you, but he still won.
It was a fun match. To bad it ended with my mortal body slumped over the board with my nose gushing blood.
Fortunately I was out of the body by then, so I didn’t feel the pain. The people that found me didn’t know that. I didn’t have to see that event, since by then I was well beyond the “mortal coil.”
In an elevator.
“So the afterlife has muzac?” I said absently, listening to POD as filtered through a lounge act from the seventies. I stood next to death; He had his hood back and was smoking a Lucky Strike. They were the short kind with no filter. I guess you didn’t have to worry about it when you are dead. Or Death. He offered me one and I shook my head. He shrugged and put the pack back in his robes.
“It’s piped in from Bogata if you can believe it.” Death said, smoke coming out of his eye sockets as he puffed on the small stick. “You figure it would be somewhere in the USA or Japan, right? Nope, right in the heart of Bogata.” His white lips pursed for a moment. He then stuck the cig between them and started fidgeting around in his robe.
“So. Is this going…uh…Up or Down?” I said, my stomach suddenly flopping as I considered the destination. For the first time I might add. He finally found what he was looking for and stared at me. In his hand was a well used yellow pad of paper, the kind you can find at any Walgreen’s.
I think he stared at me. I could swear the smoke in his sockets formed eyeballs for a moment.
“That’s the rub ain’t it?” He said, sticking a pencil behind his ear as he flipped through that old yellow notepad.
I waited for him to continue, to elaborate on the hanging question. He didn’t, he just sat there flipping through the notepad, smoke wreathing his maggot colored head.
I coughed. He looked up for a moment.
“Don’t rush me, kid! I’m looking.”
Kid? I thought. I’m 34 years old! I am not a kid.
Then I remembered how old Death must be. Everyone must seem like a kid to him.
“Okay it says here that you were bound for one place, but they need you for other things.” He moved the pad back as I leaned over to look. “Ah.. Orders son! You can’t know where yo uwere headed.”
I furrowed my brow for a moment. Trying to think, was I a good guy or wasn’t it?
“Doesn’t really matter, ya know. That’s not the deciding factor.” Death said absently as he scribbled something down with a pencil he pulled from behind his ear.
“You don’t use something to talk to, whoever?” I said. “The notepad seems so ancient.”
Death smiled, though it was a chilling smile no one should see. “Why do that when he knows? These are notes for myself! I’d say my brain isn’t as good as it used to be, but I don’t have a brain!” He laughed and smoke came rolling out of his eyes, his nose, his mouth and other places in his head. He slapped me on the back as the elevator ground to a halt and the doors opened.
“Great game kid.” I heard him say as the doors closed. Somehow I wasn’t in the elevator anymore, but in some place…else.
I should be asleep. I can’t get to sleep. I had a *thing* with my ex last night that is keeping me awake.
She asked me if I still loved her. I said “I don’t know.”
Because I really don’t know.
She didn’t take that well despite the fact we are not dating each other any longer. She has this idea that we will get back together and I don’t have that idea… She still loves me, but you wouldn’t of been able to tell that from the last month of our “relationship.” A time from a little before I quit/lost my job until the end of the relationship. It was full of her getting up set at me and (doing what she does when she gets upset, which is start to insult me.) The insulting stuff started to rise and that lead to me continuing to clamp down on talking to her.
She also thinks I’m the one that broke the relationship off. Yet she is the one that did it, I just agreed. She didn’t expect me to agree so quickly, but I had told her (when she had previously broke up with me) I am not a yo-yo. I don’t do the whole “break up, get back together, break up, get back together” cycle.
I vented to my brother for a bit tonight, but I am still upset. It is like everything came to a head in my mind tonight: I am not even sure I want to speak to her any more.
Part of it comes down to her wanting to force me to talk. Now those that know me know it isn’t hard to get me to talk. But she hasn’t really giving me that much time to just…recuperate from the end relationship. At least once a week she’s wanted to “talk” about it. I say I don’t want to talk. So she continues to talk about it. I say I don’t really want to talk about it. Yet she continues. Until finally I hang up and she doesn’t mention it again… Until the next time she wants to talk about it.
Usually when she does get an answer out of me, it isn’t want she wants to hear.
When we first got together, I felt like I could tell this gal anything and her not judge me for it. Then I began to find out her way of not judging was still trying to get me to…change. To became a “man.” Or her version of a man, anyway. Nothing I was brought up to think a man is: You know someone honorable, full of morals. Someone that was a leader as well as a servant… Nope. Apparently I was a wuss.
That started me slowly to stop talking about how I view life. To retreat in to myself. To not say how I felt about things, to just let her prattle on in one sided conversations… I started to slowly stop caring about what she thought about my actions in life.
Believe it or not, this pained me. I didn’t want this to happen.
I lost that feeling of comfort I had. You know what I mean? The comfort a person has with close family and friends. The family has to accept you (even if they don’t want to 
) and the friends accept you because they are your friends.
The comfort left and I knew, when I quit/lost my job, that this wouldn’t work. The support system I wanted wasn’t there. I felt like a dog that was wounded and kicked over and over again.
Yet I loved her, right? So I kept on trying… But it was kind of futile. I knew things were waning. I didn’t talk to her about anything and I know that isn’t a relationship. Finally when she said “I don’t think this is working.” I jumped on it.
It wasn’t working. The woman I had once loved so deeply now was I couldn’t imagine marrying. Since I am not in a relationship for sex or just to “not be alone,” I knew it wouldn’t work.
Yet I wanted to try to be her friend. To be there when she needed it, even if we weren’t together. It doesn’t seem to be working. I just want some time away from thinking about ‘the relationship’ and she keeps bringing it up. I never know, when she calls, when the conversation will turn that direction. It makes me tense and a little short with my words.
I do not wish bad things for her. It is the opposite: I want her to be happy. I want her to have a good life. I still care about her a great deal. I don’t *lose* emotions. The constant barrage of…things just makes a person turn.
I want a gal that will support me. One that has *some* interest in my life. One that isn’t trying to change me form who I am. One that doesn’t think I’m mean when I crack a joke. One that I can share the little moments with. One that I can be out on a date with and not be uncomfortable. That if we are on said date and my car starts to break down, she doesn’t get upset when I am worried more about the care then about the events she has already related to me about 10 times. One that isn’t upset when I am late for something with her and it is because of something totally out of my control.
One that is, above all, a Christian.
I hope I can be that man this gal deserves. Right now I don’t feel like I can be; I’m tired and pissed and down. I didn’t regret this relationship before today, but now I am starting to regret it.
One thing I learned is that I do need to communicate more in a relationship, but it is hard to communicate when you think that what you say really holds no meaning. That Love isn’t the only thing that can drive a relationship, there must be mutual respect too. I am glad I went through this, it has shown me a lot of things. I didn’t come through it unsullied. I hope that the dirt doesn’t mess up a chance of a future relationship with someone wonderful.
And now I’m not angry, just sad. I’ll get over it. I bounce back. But for now… I don’t know. Tonight was the first time I’ve really talked about how I *really* felt about everything, both to my brother and on here. Maybe I needed to do it as a catharsis to help me get on with my life.
I can feel it. Burning inside me. Trying to get out. I don’t know how to stop it. The pain, the horror of this. The pleasure of when I give in to it. I can feel myself…changing.
“Clark?” A voice from above. Female. The scent of lillies wafts around here. I must not kill this one, must never…
Light hits my eyes and I wince away. I try to answer but all I hear is bestial sounds and grunts.
“It’s happening.” Came another voice. I didn’t recognize this one. Male, deep with a bass rumble. I smell…blood. Meat. Something else mixed in. I should respect this one I think.
I scrambled back in a corner, holding in my rage and my longing to be out of this place.
“It will become easier to control, Clark.” Claire spoke; the one I had mated with wfor life. No! Not mated…Married. My mind drifts back and forth between realities. One I am running with the pack on the night of a full moon, free and clear of any restraints. The other I am in a dark basement, two people watching me. A gas latern flooding the the room with light that was to bright…
The two moved back and something was thrown in front of me. Raw and bleeding, a full deer carcass. I could feel the life still in it as the deer moved weakly.
The two in front of me watched as I jumped on the carcass and started tearing away flesh. The deer did not survive much longer…
Hours seemed to pass as I gorged myself. I barely heard the wisps of converstation.
“I remember this.” She said. The light of my life, my one and only.
“We all go through it. I am amazed you hid it from him for so long.” The other said. The leader. The one that should be respected.
“I…did not want to. I should have told him before this…”
“Lovemaking can transfer our plight as much as a bite.” The elder intoned.
“He is one of us now.”
I finished, the some bones of the deer crunching in my mouth as I settled on the floor sucking the marrow out. I knew I was man, but I was also something else. Something bestial and earthy. I try to listen to the voices in front of me, but it is to no avail. I fall in to a darkness that seems deep and inviting, one for which I might never come out…
(This is a cross post from my Bioware area found here.)
I’ve been wanting to start using a toolset to create modules for a long, long time. I’ve fiddled around with many, but I’ve never actually mad a game module of my own.
I think it’s about time to stop fiddling and focus on one module… Then start to create.
I’ve decided to go with the Dragon Age Origins toolset. One reason is that I don’t have to buy any extra software for it and I actually don’t have any money invested it the game at all. Plus I have a bit of knowledge with both the original Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Nights 2 toolsets.
(By the way: No I didn’t pirate DA:O. I won the Digital Deluxe edition through a contest. Very cool )
Another reason is that I know that the community for modding Dragon Age Origins will be going for a long, long time. At least if you judge by the plethora of Neverwinter Nights modules that are still around. That game came out in 2002.
I’ve considered many different toolsets: From Fallout 3 to Torchlight to various others. Some I hope to get to one day (The Fallout one especially) but I need to cut my teeth somewhere… So here I am.
I am finishing a half written game document I made awhile back. I am a Christian and decided to make a module based on a story, or a slice of a story, from the Bible. I hope to make one that isn’t cheesy and does justice to the stories that are in that grand tome. I believe that, even if you don’t believe in it, the Bible is a good read. In the grand tradition of many a Hollywood spectacle I want to create something that is fun to play, well written, has a good story, and taps those heart strings.
It is interesting: Dragon Age: Origins kind of used an idea I wanted to implement for this module. Having separate, playable origins for various characters before getting in to the main story. My idea is to have each “story” talk about one member in the main party before they actually get together, something Dragon Age doesn’t do.
I must admit this idea isn’t entirely my own. It has been rolling around in my head since playing an old Capcom RPG called “Destiny of An Emperor.” It was a badly translated little gem for the NES that told the story of three people that come together to help put one man on the throne of China and unite the land. The basic plot is taken from the ancient story “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” which has spawned many, many games based on it…
But I digress. This game, combined with another RPG I played when I was younger (Phantasy Star III) put the idea of starting with different protagonists until a certain point in a game in to my head. I’ve wanted to do this for years…
Well now it’s time to do that.
It is 3:30 am and I need to get to bed. I’ll see about updating this a little later today. I think I’m going to unload most of my games from my PC so I can concentrate on doing this project (and other writing projects.) Crazy thoughts at so early in the morning… I don’t even know if I’m rambling or what at the moment.
Ah well…
Up a bit earlier then usual. I have a busy day planned today, just wanted to get some personal stuff finished before everything…starts. I’ve thought about doing this on a regular basis; maybe try to write in the morning instead of in the evening. We’ll see. It wasn’t that easy for me to get up today but… I did it. Just have to make it a habit.
I don’t want to spend to much time on the blog right now, but I do know I have ideas whizzing around my head. I need to figure out which ideas I need to focus on. Do I spend time with old ideas that I’ve been trying to get going for years? Do I spend time on new ones? Whatever the case, it is good to have ideas… There are so many things I want to do.
I’ll get to them. For now I must clean. I’ll see about posting a longer blog a bit later.
When I was a child in the harsh deserts of Arizona…
My mom used to take us out on spur of the moment trips. One trip tended to be right after it rained. Noticing a rainbow in the sky, my mom would pile us in the car we would take off from the house. We would spend the rest day trying to find the end of the glorious desert rainbow. We’d work our way through whatever desert sands and back roads we could, looking for that elusive and always in front of us mirage. My brother and I would discuss what we would find at the end of the rainbow and my mom would join in, always ready to share a dream with her two sons.
We’d often have the AC in the car turned on high to combat the desert heat, and I’d watch the miles roll by and the sun slowly drift across the desert sky. I remember closing my eyes in the back seat, willing myself to believe that the car was traveling the opposite direction that it was traveling. Believe it or not it would work, but I’d always be a bit disoriented when I opened my eyes.
I remember my brother and I would sit and and talk about the oddest things. The type of leprechaun we’d meet. What we would do with the gold. What if our favorite cartoon characters were real. We’d also make up new carnival rides for the fair. (The Hammer and the nail is one I remember. People would ride in both a giant hammer and a giant nail: It would go until the nail was pounded in to the ground.) My mom never seemed to mind. She would have the radio up, country musing pounding out the typical southern twang. We would often sing along to the songs, especially if it were a Hank Williams Jr. song. My brother was really in to Hank Williams Jr. when we were both kids… I can still hear Hank’s gravely voice float in the back of my mind as I write this.
Though we never found the end of the rainbow, the trips to search for it were worth the time spent looking.
I often wonder if I am just chasing the end of the rainbow in my life. Why I can’t just be content to do the same job for years at a time. If there is something that is wrong with me, some sort of immaturity inside me that keeps me from truly being comfortable at any one place. I have all these hopes and dreams… But they are hopes and dreams i’ve had for many years. I wonder if I should give up, give in, and just live life like everyone else. As I grow older, these thoughts come more and more to my mind. I wonder if I’ll ever fight through the issues I have with myself and actually…be someone.
I have days where I feel like I can take on the world. Those day are good, I love feeling confident in myself. But others… Others I just want to crawl in to my bed and stay there, not letting anyone in side my self made hole.
I am learning to deal with both types of days. I am learning to just enjoy the trip to find the end of the rainbow. Even if I never make it, I need to make sure that my trip wasn’t in vain. my mom proved that finding the rainbow isn’t what the trip is about, it is the journey that is brings meaning.
I don’t want to be one of those people that just lives in the past, relying on the dusty remains of tattered hopes and lost dreams.
I won’t be, but sometimes I feel like it is inevitable. Luckily I am not always like that and end up snapping out of it.
Which is good…I think, heh.