Reflective Statement

Reflective Statement

            Throughout my thirty-day challenge, I struggled with finding time to sit down and do my challenge. I chose to write every day for thirty days. Instead of rewriting constantly, I wrote out an entire prologue before going back to revise it. I found blogging to be very easy to do. I would write like I was talking to someone and used humor in my images and posts. The writing aspects of this challenge were very easy. It didn’t hurt that I had already laid out ideas beforehand for the story I wrote before I had known I was going to be doing a challenge. The digital story script I wrote was almost as easy.

            I had to talk about the results of my thirty-day challenge. What came naturally to me was to just talk about what I learned. Other than a few sentences that were redone to sound more fluid, the script was easy to do. The ending was short, but I couldn’t find a way to make it transition better. I was uncomfortable recording myself, and had to rerecord myself because my video editor didn’t seem to have an edit function for the voiceover. After that was done, I planted in images and set music in. It was the most anticlimactic part for me.

Artist Statement

Artist Statement

            I used what I learned during my thirty-day challenge to make my digital story along with snippets that I took from what I wrote. I felt that this was the most effective way to communicate what I had done for my thirty-day challenge. The photos I used were to emphasize my points and were more explicit than implicit.

            At the beginning of my video, I explained the reasoning behind my thirty-day challenge before telling my audience what the challenge was. I used images from my Steam library, which showed how many hours I spent on a game, to emphasize my points on what makes a game good. The music starts about when I start talking about the challenge. I tied into my thirty-day challenge by linking storytelling in gaming to writing stories. I used an image of me typing at my computer, then I had it change into an image of me sleeping at my computer. I used it to transition from how good it felt to write again to the frustration of having no time to write.

            I moved into the story I wrote by using a hand drawn picture to help illustrate what I was talking about.  When I spoke of their persona, I used word clouds with a few words to break from the monotony of using the same hand drawn image. I finished on an image of me sleeping at my computer, and the music stops a few seconds before that so the watcher can focus on what I am saying.

            I was sick while I was recording myself the second time to fix a stutter I had in the first recording, and that definitely comes across when I try to say a few words and my voice warps. The first recording I was able to achieve different tones but I feel the tone is pretty much the same throughout the second recording.

Is This the End?

Well, is it? Ha! No. I created this monstrosity and now I'm stuck with it until the day I die. I might as well make it something decent that I can share with friends and family.

That Fiction Factor blog/ website I previously mentioned is incredibly helpful. It's also much more diverse than I originally thought and covers a lot of subjects. I read one of the articles on names to help me come up with some names for my two aliens. I ended up with Nim the Assistant and Dorzu the Overseer.

I originally thought I wouldn't need to name them because they were merely setting the stage for the main characters. Now I know them and know that Nim is very fatherly and affectionate, and Dorzu is commanding and irritating but still a good person. After thinking about who they were, it seemed like a bad idea to keep referring to them as "the assistant" and "the other".

Some more resources for those who want them: Purdue Owl

The Purdue Owl covers plot, character, theme, conflict/crisis/resolution, and point of view.

So next up on my to do list for the misshapen mass of words is still adding detail. Still. You might be thinking I'm lazy, and you certainly aren't entirely wrong. I've got a lot on my plate though. I only make time to write and revise my piece every three days or so now. It's a lot more than I used to, which was never.

Inspiring and Cheesy Stuff

After looking through some of my requirements for points, I found out I needed a TED talk. I figured I would just find some loosely related video that was inspiring and would tell whoever watched it that they can do whatever they want if they put their mind to it. Instead, I found this video:

Elizabeth Gilbert on Genius

Sorry to disappoint you. It's not cheesy.

I was amazed that she managed to hold my attention for the entire video. The ideas she presents are things I've never thought of before, and are truly delightful to listen to. Even if you have no desire to create something, I would recommend you watch it anyway.

While looking for other blogs that are related to what I was doing, I ran across Yeah Write. It's a blog that hosts competitions for writing in the two broad genres of fiction and nonfiction. If you have any desire to write, they offer prompts to write about and expect around seven hundred to a thousand words.

Another great thing to know about making your story is making your villain or antagonist a believable, rational being. This essay explains it very nicely. In fact, Fiction Factor is a great resource for new and novice writers alike. It covers naming characters, creating villains, bringing characters "to life", and creating non human characters. I wish I had found this at the beginning of October.

So in the jumbled heaps of words that constitute my prologue, I suppose the antagonist is the virus. Other than that, I don't really have one. The guy in charge goes a little insane and rampages a bit at the end, but he doesn't cause too much damage. I need to go through and name the characters. Then, I need to replace the words that described them throughout the prologue. This thing will eventually be tolerable.

Finally, Some Me Time

Today is the first day in about a week that I've had free time. My schedule looked something like this:
10/10: Class, Algebra Test
10/11: Class, Work 4 pm to 11 pm
10/12: Class, Blog Posts due
10/13: Work 2 pm to 11 pm
10/14: Work 2 pm to 11 pm
10/15: Work 2 pm to 11 pm
10/16: Work 2 pm to 11 pm, Entire Game Design due
10/17: Class, Algebra homework due
10/18: Work frantically on Reading Response 1, work 4 pm to 11 pm
10/19: Class, Reading Response 1 due, start my two weeks of breathing room

I did "finish" my prologue, but it's just a shitty first draft. I think I'll go through and revise it instead of plowing through the next chapter. (Spell check just prompted me to look up whether it was plough or plow; turns out that it depends on if you're in the UK or if you're in the USA) It needs a lot more detail and description for the environment around these two mad scientists who dared to trespass into God's domain.

Apparently people want to read my story, but I don't feel comfortable posting the whole thing on the internet. I'm not saying my work is by any means publisher material, but I don't ever want to be in a situation where someone has taken my work and published it under their name. I'll post excerpts to get around both of these problems.

Here's something from the first paragraph (of the prologue):

“Did it work this time?” the assistant asked. “I’m getting sick of torturing it, even if it’s artificial.” The other male in the room replied, “Only if we can retrieve the fragments this time, and it’s not torture. It’s an artificial intelligence. They can’t feel pain.”

 And something from the last paragraph (of the prologue):

After several hours, the assistant finally slumped in exhaustion. He had saved the majority of the new species he had helped create. After a few minutes, he looked down at his arms. They were going from their natural, healthy blue to a sickly green. It was almost his time as well.

 I had wanted to write this for the past four or five days, but schoolwork and work happened. The ideas came to me while I was at work and I knew it would be a while before I could write. I curse my schedule. May it burn in the pits of hell forever.

After Some Technical Difficulties...

Now that I finished fiddling with the background, (It now scales with your window size! No more repeating image!) I can blog stuff!

Since almost everything is due this week, I have found very little time to actually write anything. I figured prioritizing my schoolwork (and, therefore, my future) might be a little more important than writing my story. How dare I. 

I am close to finishing my prologue. I just need to go over the whole, "We figured it out!" thing. Spoiler: it wasn't the right answer. Or, rather, not the right answer with the amount of  time available.

The mode of transport for their cure is to create a species that are basically guinea pigs for a now dying race. Why? I don't know yet. This is where that thing called writer's block comes in. I'll have to put that part in later if I can't think of anything soon.

How would one create an entire species anyway? I need to come up with a feasible answer and way to write it so that it seems believable as I present it to the reader. Until I can do that, I just need to keep writing and forcing it. I can always revise it without anyone knowing.

No one will ever know the atrocities I have committed.

Progress Report(s) - I still hate them.

Know how I said that I knew what the first hump would be? It's not the first hump.

Schoolwork and my work schedule are conspiring against me getting anything done for this thirty day challenge. They're also interfering with my sleep, making me a cranky person. Maybe I should just kill all my characters brutally. Kidding, of course. I finally managed to make time to write tonight.

 

If you look carefully, you can see me in the top right window.

My story is science fiction. Science fiction has always been my favorite kind of TV show, book and video game. Must be something to do with lasers and space.

It starts off with two creatures of another species trying to find a cure for a disease that destroys their species brain cells. Humans are unaffected by the virus. They are running simulations with an artificial intelligence to see if there's something different in the way the A.I. constructs its brain to resist the "disease" being applied to it.

That's what's really happening, anyway. The way it's presented to the reader makes it seem like the two creatures are human. It's later revealed that they are not human.

I hope to finish the prologue in the near future.

What's a thirty day challenge anyway?

My thirty day challenge is to write a paragraph to a page a day. Creative writing certainly isn't easy.
If you want to know more, here you go: Intro Essay

I already missed four days because I was without a computer and didn't have a hard copy of what I had already written while I was out of state.

Starting was easy, and I know where the first hump will be. When I finish the prologue, I will have to tie it into the first chapter. I have a general idea for where I want my story to go, but I'm not entirely sure how I will transition.

Shitty First Drafts by Anne Lamot

Anne Lamot's piece on first drafts can help anyone write.
It convinced me to just keep writing instead of getting hung up on a part, which is also known as writer's block. I never thought of just powering through a bad section of writing to get to a part that made it all worth it. In the past I would just stare at the sentences wondering why they wouldn't just work. After a few weeks of just staring at my creation, I would give up.

No more of that. Now I'll stumble through it, head first, into whatever grimace-worthy story I come up with.