A to Z Challenge: (U)ematsu, Nobuo

Nowadays video games are a huge deal. It’s not enough just to make a game that is fun to play; it also has to be visually stunning and have a gripping story, and a big part of creating a game that is also a cinematic masterpiece is incorporating the right kind of music. A game like Dragon Age would not have nearly the same epic adventure feel if not for the booming orchestral pieces accompanying every boss fight. Gone are the days of computer-generated beeps and boops that form a repetitive melody or two. We need to feel the music in our bones as we set out to save the world.

Of course, this idea is not nearly as new as I’m making it sound. In reality, Mr Nobuo Uematsu has been composing grand, orchestral video game music since the mid-1980’s. Uematsu, of Japan, is a self-taught musician who began his career by playing the piano when we was only eleven years old. He claims Elton John as an early musical inspiration, and after college he composed music for commercials while working in a music rental shop. It was during this time in his life that he was approached by an employee from Square about the possibility of creating video game music. In 1986 he joined Square and composed his video game soundtrack for “Cruise Chaser Blassty”. During the composition of this first soundtrack he was approached by the creator of the Final Fantasy series, and video game music history was made.

Eventually Uematsu left Square to go freelance, but he continued creating amazing video game scores through his own company, Smile Please. In 2012, Uematsu made history when a song of his from the Final Fantasy VII soundtrack, “Aerith’s Theme”, became the first video game musical piece to ever appear in the Classic FM Hall of Fame.

There is certainly no doubt that Uematsu has made an enormous impact on the world of video game soundtracks. The wildly popular ‘Play! A Video Game Symphony’ has paid tribute to him numerous times by incorporating some of his most well-known compositions into their concerts.

I grew up with Mr Uematsu’s music, although I didn’t think much of the composer back then. This man composed the scores to my two favorite games of all time: Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy III (North American version). Though a kid doesn’t usually register such things, the soundtracks of those games were a big part of what made them so amazing. The heroic scores in Chrono Trigger could make you feel like you were truly on an epic adventure. The individual character themes in Final Fantasy III helped to describe each character’s personality in a way that simple dialogue could not. To this day I still hum the tunes to most of the songs in these games, and I sometimes love to just sit and listen to their soundtracks for old time’s sake.

If you’re a gamer and you’re not humming the correct tune right now, you fail life.

Are you a fan of Mr Uematsu’s music? What is your favorite song of his? Have you ever seen ‘Play! A Video Game Symphony’? Please share!

Enjoying the A to Z Challenge? Why not check out these other participating blogs:

Jo on Food, Life, and a Scent of Chocolate
Deliciously Alive!
From This Side Of The Pond
The Faux Fountain Pen
Anabel’s Travel Blog
Everyday Gyaan
Wrote by Rote
Stephen Chapman Writer
YA GOTTA LAUGH ABOUT IT
Loni Townsend – Squirrel Talk

A to Z Challenge: (O)ctoroks and (O)chus and (O)utlaws (Oh my!)

Okay, I have to admit that “O” is a difficult letter for me to deal with, given my video game theme. There are only so many games that start with “O”, after all, and it’s not a common letter for naming characters or worlds either. After a lot of thought, therefore, I decided to talk about a couple of monsters from my favorite video games today.

First up we have the the Octoroks, who made their first appearance in the original ‘The Legend of Zelda’ game back in 1987.

Here’s a cuter version than what’s in the header image. ❤

Octoroks are octopus-like creatures who are generally found in watery areas and are often depicted as being blue or red. Their mode of attack is to shoot rocks from their elongated mouths, and in the original game they would quickly change their speed and direction to trip the player up. In the second game of the series – ‘The Adventure of Link’ – some Octoroks would jump and fire rocks into the air, and in my favorite game – ‘A Link to the Past’ – they would sometimes spin in place while firing in four directions.

The Octorok is an enemy that has persisted through almost all of Link’s impressive game series, and is one of the first things I think of when someone brings up a ‘Legend of Zelda’ game. My most frustrating experience with them? In the ‘Ocarina of Time’ installment the little buggers would dive under the water when approached, so the only way to kill them was to stand back and reflect their rocks back at them with your sword. Oh, and I was a horrible aim.

Next up, from the ‘Final Fantasy’ series, we have the hideous Ochu.

This ‘Final Fantasy’ staple is a living plant that is actually depicted as being quite enormous compared to the playable characters. An Ochu usually has two or four thorny, flailing vine-arms, and is sometimes decorated with a ring of pink flower petals that makes it appear to be wearing a skirt.

Ochu monsters appear in a number of the ‘Final Fantasy’ games, but my most recent experience with them is via ‘Final Fantasy X’ and ‘X-2’. In these games, like several others, Ochu is known for its status ailment attacks. It likes to cast such spells as ‘poison’ and ‘sleep’ on your characters, often at the same time. For this reason the Ochu can be an extremely frustrating monster to fight because it’s no stronger than any other monster, but it will kill you by keeping your characters asleep while they are slowly poisoned.

Lastly, from the era-hopping fan-favorite, ‘Chrono Trigger’, we have the Outlaws.

These enemies appear as bird-creatures swathed in white robes, and carry swords like a katana. They also throw shuriken as one of their attacks, so I don’t think anyone would be surprised if I say that they’re basically avian ninjas.

The Outlaws only appear in one part of the game, known as the ‘Fiendlord’s Keep’, or more commonly known as ‘Magus’ Castle’. This castle, according to legend, is home to 100 monsters, and those monsters usually attack in groups as you move throughout. What’s interesting about these monsters is that they tend to work together and set traps for you. Outlaws are usually paired up with strange yellow creatures called Jugglers. If you choose to attack an Outlaw before first dispatching the Jugglers, they will team up to perform a damaging counter-attack, wherein the Juggler lights the Outlaw’s sword on fire and the Outlaw unleashes a whirling move on all three of your characters. If you haven’t been properly leveling up before this point, it can be a very devastating attack.

So there you have it; three “O”-letter monsters from three of my favorite games. That wasn’t so hard, was it?

Do you have any experience with any of these monsters? Have you ever had any trouble fighting any of them? Do you loathe Ochus as much as I do? Please share!

Enjoying the A to Z Challenge? Why not check out some of these other participating blogs:

The Writing Game

Eclectic Alli

Full Measure of Joy

All But The Kitchen Sink

Holli’s Hoots and Hollers

Think Big. Start Small. Feel Better.

The Kitty Corner

Deepa’s Kaleidoscope

Consumer Psyche

Mary @ Jingle Jangle Jungle

A to Z Challenge: (F)inal Fantasy

For those of you who are already regulars on my blog it should come as no surprise to you that I chose Final Fantasy as my “F” entry for my video game theme. I’ve mentioned several times before that the North American version of Final Fantasy III is probably my favorite game of all time. But what about the rest of the extensive series?

For those of you who don’t know the history of this epic series of RPG video games, it all started in the late 1980’s, when video game producer Square was having a difficult time due to poor sales. A young programmer named Hironubu Sakaguchi knew that the company was facing bankruptcy and that his next game might be his last, so he decided that he was going to try his damnedest to make that last game a masterpiece. He chose to make his game a fantasy epic, thus the name “Final Fantasy”. The game turned out to be successful enough to pull Square out of the gutter, and a series that would span decades was born.

To date there are more than sixty core Final Fantasy games and spin-off games. The series, of course, is not a series in the technical sense, since most of the games do not relate to each other in terms of plot, characters, or setting, but there are similarities that carry through most of the installments. For instance, chocobos (large, yellow, chicken-like creatures that can be ridden like horses) are present in almost all of the Final Fantasy games, as are moogles (white, teddy-bear-like creatures with little pink wings and antennae on top of their heads). Many of the games feature powerful creatures that help or hinder the main characters, though they are not always called by the same names (espers, aeons, summons, etc.). And, of course, most of the games involve a group of vastly different heroes fighting to save their world from some great corruption or ultimate evil.

You already know that my favorite installment in the Final Fantasy series is Final Fantasy III (which was actually the sixth one in Japan), but that is far from the only one I love. I was a huge fan of Final Fantasy VIII, starring the brooding Squall and his gunblade, when it first became available in North America. Final Fantasy X was also a huge favorite of mine – which is why my husband bought me the PSVita release not too long ago – and although lots of people thought it was ridiculous, I also loved the sequel, Final Fantasy X-2.

Believe me, I feel bad about myself every time I see one of these pictures.

Some of you are probably wondering why I don’t mention Final Fantasy VII, which is a huge fan favorite, and this is where I have to admit that I’ve never really played it. Don’t kill me! I didn’t have a Playstation when the adventure featuring Cloud was released, so it just never happened for me. Maybe someday I’ll download it on my Vita and angry fans will stop proclaiming that I can’t be a real Final Fantasy fan if I’ve never fought Sephiroth.

Are you, or have you ever been, a Final Fantasy fan? What is your favorite installment? Favorite character? Favorite monster? Magic? Character class? Please share!

Enjoying the A to Z Challenge? Why not check out some of these other participating blogs:

Lynne @ Lynnelives
KC Kendricks Between the Keys (WARNING: ADULT CONTENT)
Tasha’s Thinkings
Sophie’s Thoughts and Fumbles
Gladiator’s Pen
Fantasy Boys 3X (WARNING: ADULT CONTENT)
Stephanie Faris, Author
Wittegen Press
Precious Monsters
A Rose is a Rose is a Rose!

One Kid’s Video Game is Another Kid’s Raging Obsession

Today’s writing assignment, along with the accompanying twist, introduces us to the idea of linking blog posts together to make a kind of series. Depending on what you choose to write about, this can be a way to keep readers coming back. Just like when reading a series of novels, if your readers enjoy the first one they’re going to want to check out the second. So let’s get on with it, shall we?

Today’s assignment is to write about a loss: something (or someone) that was part of your life and isn’t anymore. Today’s twist: make today’s post the first in a three-part series.

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I grew up in the video game revolution. When I was only a toddler I had an Atari with such amazing joy-stick-based games as ‘Mouse Trap’ and ‘Plaque Attack’. When I was a bit older my parents got me a Nintendo Entertainment System and I spent hour upon hour with the Super Mario Bros. The true gem of my childhood, however, was the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, which I got for Christmas when I was about 8 or 9.

The SNES introduced me to some of my very favorite games of all time. I spent ridiculous amounts of time playing The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Final Fantasy 3 (US version), and the little-known gem, Uniracers. And then my best friend told me about this role-playing game that she’d tried out from the local rental place (do you remember those? If not, you’re too young to understand the joy of the SNES). It was called ‘Chrono Trigger’, she told me, and to hear her tell it this game was absolutely amazing.

I rented it for myself one night, and I was immediately hooked. Chrono Trigger had amazing graphics (for the time; shut up, youngsters), an amazing storyline, lovable characters, and something I had never seen before: multiple endings that were rewarded to you depending on certain decisions and achievements you made while playing. It quickly became one of my favorite games of all time (and still is), and it didn’t take long before I’d convinced my dad to buy it for me (a wise financial decision, considering the amount of money I was pumping into rentals).

Owning the game made me obsessed with collecting every item, achieving every ending variant, and maxing out all the characters’ stats. This required a massive amount of grinding (killing enemies over and over again to gain experience in order to gain levels) that took hours and hours of my precious childhood. It may seem silly, and a waste of time to people who don’t play video games, but it was a serious ambition of mine to grind enough to get all the characters up to the maximum level of 100 (denoted by a pair of stars next to the character’s name).

I was getting so close. I had two of the characters maxed out already, three characters in the 90’s levels, and two in the 80’s. I was going to do it.

Then, one day after school I came home, grabbed my SNES controller, and turned the game console on. The screen flashed for a moment, and then remained black. I began to panic immediately.

There may be some of you reading this who are too young to remember cartridge games, but the Super Nintendo had them. Instead of disks or digital downloads we had rectangular hunks of plastic with a circuit board sticking out of the bottom that had to be pressed firmly into the top of the game console. If the game was not properly pressed all the way down before turning the console on, you could cause a short circuit that could cause all kinds of problems. Problems like deleting your game save data.

I touched the top of my Chrono Trigger cartridge and pressed down. It moved a good inch, meaning it hadn’t been seated properly when I’d turned the console on. With my little heart dancing in my chest, I turned the console on again and loaded up the game.

Empty. My game save data was gone, as though the game was fresh from the store.

I can’t describe how I felt at that moment, but it was an interesting mixture of rage and depression. To a kid, losing that many hours of gameplay on a video game is like a college student accidentally deleting the term paper they’ve been working on for weeks. I felt robbed. Robbed of hours and hours of “work”, and robbed of my victory, my bragging rights. I was certain I would never come close to touching this achievement again, and I was right. Even as an adult with a remastered version of the game on a newer console, I never came anywhere near maxing out all my characters’ stats ever again.

But that’s not the end of this tale… You see, I hadn’t removed the Chrono Trigger cartridge from my SNES in weeks. So how, you might wonder, did the cartridge wind up popped out of the console and seated improperly? Well, that’s a story for another day…

Musical Moments

Today’s assignment and twist are all about building a writing habit, which entails forcing yourself to write even when you can’t think of anything to write, and forgetting about such nonsense as spelling, grammar, or even making any sense (after all, those things can always be fixed later). The point is to get pen to paper and just get the words down, because you never know what awesome things you might write when you commit yourself.

For the assignment I’m actually scribbling all this out freehand, but for the sake of the blog I will fix such things as spelling and grammar as I’m typing it out. So without further ado, today’s assignment is:

Write about the three most important songs in your life – what do they mean to you? Today’s twist: You’ll commit to a writing practice. The frequency and the amount of time you choose to spend today – and moving forward – are up to you, but we recommend a minimum of fifteen uninterrupted minutes per day.

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Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat. I love music – like, really love music – but there aren’t a lot of songs that I would consider to be “important” to me. I just love music in general. So a couple of these songs might seem like I’m stretching a little, but that’s okay.

“Me and You” by Kenny Chesney

It might not sound like a difficult task, but when I was planning my wedding one of the hardest choices for me was to decide what our first dance song would be. I must have listened to a thousand songs and every one felt chintzy or dumb or just didn’t fit. After what felt like forever I finally happened to stumble across this song – one I’d never heard before – and something clicked. I knew it was the perfect song to dance to with my new husband. My favorite lyric? “Just a precious few ever make it last, get lucky as me and you.”

“Now That I See You” from Disney’s “Tangled”

What? A Disney song is one of my “most important” songs? Yes, and I’ll explain. First, I’ve never stopped watching Disney movies because screw that, I love Disney movies. Second, when my daughter was an infant I happened to see Tangled. I thought the love song of the movie was very pretty, and I began humming it to my daughter when I was trying to get her to sleep. Eventually I learned the words and would actually sing it to her. Now it’s three years later, my daughter has actually seen Tangled herself, and now whenever I’m plucking at my guitar this is one of the songs she wants me to play and sing for her (she calls it ‘Rapunzel’s Song’).

The Final Fantasy 3/6 Theme

Okay, first a Disney song and now a video game song? I must be a musical philistine, right? Wrong, you close-minded fool. For one thing, quite a lot of video game music (especially RPG stuff) is orchestral, so my choice is automatically way more classy than, say, a pop song. Second, this song choice is all about the nostalgia and fond memories of my childhood. I grew up with video games, with the Final Fantasy series being one of my all-time favorites. Final Fantasy 3 (US version) was the first of the series that I’d ever played. To this day listening to that theme song brings me back to days spent with my best friend, the two of us piled in front of a Super Nintendo and a 13″ television. We thought the game was the greatest thing ever back then, and I still do to this day.

Oh, and if anyone is interested, I wrote for 17 minutes. ^_~

Things I’m Addicted to Right Now

I actually have a surprisingly addictive personality, but not for things like drugs or alcohol. No, I get addicted to games, gadgets, TV shows, products, services, and any other number of awesome things. So I thought I’d share! Here are a couple of things that I am ridiculously addicted to right now.

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These are things that I'm always obsessed with, but let's get a little more specific.

Subscription Boxes
As though you hadn’t noticed, right? When I first found out that these things existed it was like a whole new world opened up to me, and as a result I went a little overboard at first. I’ve therefore spent the past few months trying out different boxes to see what they’re like and what I want to continue getting. Currently my favorites are Loot Crate and Horror Block, which have both been sending me some pretty fun, awesome goodies, and I’m also in love with Ipsy’s Glam Bag as an affordable, value-packed beauty subscription. There’s a ton more options that I’d love to try, but at this point I can’t really justify spending any more money than I already am.

Once Upon a Time
I’ll be the first person to admit that the plotline of this show does not instill a lot of confidence in its quality: the evil queen casts a spell that rips all the fairy tale characters you’ve ever known out of their world and into ours, where none of them remember who they are and no one gets their happy ending. I mean, come on…that sounds more like a crappy cartoon than a show meant for adults, right? But I gave it a try, and even though it was hard to sit through the opening every time (the narrator says basically what I just did at the beginning of every episode), I soon found myself falling in love with it. The show actually has a pretty intricately-woven plot that incorporates a ton of characters, and it’s not as fluffy and cute as you might imagine…people even die, on a fairly regular basis even. Long story short, if you like fantasy and fun characters, this show might be worth a try. I devoured the entire second season just over the past six days.

Silent Hill (a la Guillermo del Toro)
Okay, okay, I can’t really be obsessed with a game that wont’ be out for, like, two years. But I’m very excited about it. The hubby and I recently played the teaser game, P.T. that was created as a way to show that the staff behind the new Silent Hill are capable of making a truly frightening horror game. More precisely, I played and he watched, because he wanted to see me almost have a heart attack. The mini-game certainly proved its point; I nearly threw the controller through the TV screen more than once. And having played it, I am super-hyped for this new game, because what’s more fun that being scared silly from the safety of your own living room?

Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Nail Polish
Call me girly if you must, but I absolutely love this stuff. I’ve always liked nail polish because it’s a cute, easy way to look a little more feminine (plus it keeps me from biting my nails), but I never applied it often because it drives me foolish how quickly it wears and chips. Cue Miracle Gel. There are other gel polishes out there that are quite good as well, I’m sure, but this is the one I decided to try and I’m so glad I did. It comes in tons of super-cute colors, goes on really smooth, finishes bright and shiny and lovely-looking, and really, truly lasts. I am currently wearing the “Hunger Flames” color (it’s a kind of pinkish-purple) and after almost a week only the very tips of my nails are starting to wear a bit. I’m more than happy with the product and I hope that Ipsy sends me another color or two sometime in the future!

Final Fantasy X-2
Hear me out! I know that X-2 is widely regarded as one of the stupidest Final Fantasy games ever (the “garment grid” might have something to do with that, I’ll admit) but I always thought it was actually pretty cute and fun, with the story being an interesting addition to the FFX one. A little while ago my hubby picked me up the remastered PS Vita version of FFX, which came with a download code for X-2, and just recently I began playing it. Color me hooked. It’s so silly, but it’s fun, and isn’t that what games are supposed to be? Fun? Yeah. You know I’m right.

David’s Tea: Cotton Candy flavor
Last but not least on my list for today, one of the most delicious teas I’ve tried from David’s Tea yet. I wound up with a packet of this particular flavor when I decided to try their Summer “Carnival” box, and I’m so glad I did. It’s a delicious blend of green rooibos, mango, brittle, flavoring, and sprinkles (just…because), and really truly does smell and taste like cotton candy. I demolished the entire bag in about a week and had to go get some more! And the topping on the cake is that it’s caffiene free, so I can enjoy it all day long without having to worry about keeping myself up half the night.

So there you have it: my obsessions for now. Will they last? Will they change? I don’t know…give me a few months and ask me again. ^_~

Accountability Wednesdays: Week 14

Oh, look at that! Another week has passed! My, how the time flies. Did you know that Easter is only a week and a half away? I need to make some more of my edible birdy nests!

Goal #1: Lose ten pounds and become healthier overall.

Are you all getting sick of hearing me talk about this particular goal yet? I’m kinda getting sick of talking about it, because the truth is that it’s been the absolute last thing on my mind. Okay, I shouldn’t say that…it’s been on my mind, but that’s about it.

It’s a combination of things, really, but if I’m truly being honest, I’m waiting to hear back from my doctor. I still haven’t gotten the info on the procedure I’ve been mentioning for a few weeks now, and in addition to that my usual doctor sent me for blood work last week as well. He wanted to check out my thyroid and a few levels (B12, iron, etc), and he’s also looking in several places for signs of arthritic problems, which are apparently common with the issue that we all believe I might have.

It’s sounds really weird, but I’m actually rooting for a couple of these possible issues to be confirmed. No one wants to be sick, and I can’t say that it won’t suck to possibly have to take pills every day for the rest of my life, but at this point I have so many complaints about so many different things that I am just dying for a doctor to say, “Yes, there IS something wrong with you, and if you take this medicine it will be better.” Does that make sense? I hope so.

Long story short, so much of my brainpower has been focused on waiting for my various reports to come back so that my doctor and I can discuss the results, I’ve been completely unwilling to care about anything else. Terrible excuse, I know, and you would think that having health problems would encourage me to eat better and exercise, but I guess you’d be wrong.

Goal #2: Be more active on social media and work hard on my “author platform”.

I’ve got to say, I’ve been really up on this one this past week. I’ve spent a ton of time on a ton of blogs, plus engaging in tons of conversations with fellow bloggers, plus having great success with my Facebook Author page. It’s been pretty top-notch. My week point is definitely Twitter, but I’ve even been gaining some followers over there, and having a couple of pleasant interactions, so it’s still all good!

Goal #3: COMPLETE my zombie apocalypse novel, Nowhere to Hide.

I should be totally ashamed of the fact that I still haven’t actually opened my Scrivener file and gotten to work on the last round of edits, but I’m not. You know why? Because I spent that time this week instead making this:

And I’m so happy with it, I can’t even tell you. I know it’s not the most super-professional-looking cover you’ve likely seen, but it’s mine. It was created using a photo taken by my father, and I made all the adjustments and additions myself. I even modified it using Create Space’s Cover Creator, so I know that when it comes time to set everything up it will fit perfectly. And to top it all off, I made a rear cover as well, which only needs to have the novel summary added to it.

In other words, while I’ve failed to spend any time on the actual manuscript, I am, at least, this one step closer to publication. Yay!

Goal #4: Write 500,000 words.

I’ve got to say, it’s been a bit of a weird week. Wednesday through Saturday I wrote absolutely nothing. Unless you count blog comments, which I don’t. So nothing then. I was having so much fun bouncing around from blog to blog, taking part in the A to Z Challenge, that I wrote nothing.

When I realized this on Sunday, I thought that I’d better do some kind of writing. I didn’t want to blog (I spent so much time setting up the A to Z posts in advance that I’m enjoying the little break, thank you), and I didn’t want to edit (should have, but didn’t want to). And so I found myself opening up the file for my Final Fantasy novelization, and seriously? It was just what I needed. I’ve been typing away like a maniac for the past three days, and with just that one project I managed to squeak 7681 words out of those three days. It’s not exactly the most important thing I have to work on, but writing a little bit of goofy nonsense that I don’t have to think too hard about has been absolutely great. I think I might just have to do it for a little while longer. What do you think?

Fiction Fragment Fridays: Chrono Trigger Timeless (Trial)

During one National Novel Writing Month I decided to be a “rebel” and write fan fiction. That fan fiction was another novelization like my Final Fantasy piece, but this time based on another super-popular Square game: Chrono Trigger. I barely made it a third of the way through the storyline before NaNoWriMo was over and I moved back on to other things, but I fully intend on returning to this project once I’ve finished the Final Fantasy novels.

In the meantime, I thought I’d share a scene from what was always one of my favorite parts of the game: Chrono’s trial. Enjoy!

*Spites via http://www.videogamesprites.net
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“Members of the court!” called out the judge with a strong voice, “We present to you the defendant, Chrono, who is charged with abducting Princess Nadia.”

The chancellor barely let the judge finish his sentence before stepping forward and approaching the jury. “What shall we do with him?” he asked casually, as though asking them what they would like to have for lunch, “Fire perhaps? Hang him upside-down for a few years? Or…shall we employ the guillotine?”

A Monday Miscellany

I thought that I’d take the opportunity of a Monday morning to mention a few random things that bear mentioning. Monday mornings are excellent for that sort of thing, I think.

First and foremost are the changes I’ve made to my blog. If you’re reading this post via my blog itself, rather than a WordPress reader of some kind, then you’ll see that I’ve changed the appearance. I think this theme looks a little neater, a little cleaner, and mostly just a little different. I found that my old theme was starting to stagnate at the back of my brain. In addition to the theme change I’ve changed the header image. The old image was a stock photo I found and wrote my blog’s name over top of. The new image is actually a photo of a couple of my notebooks laying on top of each other. I think it gives a more personal feel to the blog, knowing that those are my actual words in my actual handwriting. Plus, since the rest of the blog theme is pretty much just black and white, the little splash of different pen colors brightens the whole thing up a bit, am I right?

I also changed the little profile image on my blog from the little cartoon character I had to an actual photo of myself. This change comes from a bit of advice in Kristen Lamb’s Rise of the Machines: Human Authors in a Digital World. Basically what it boils down to is that a good picture is an important part of an author platform, and it makes something like a blog a lot more “real” because of the ability to see the face of the person “talking”. All in all, I think that it looks professional, even if it’s not the best picture in the world. One of these days I’ll take the time to get a good “author picture” taken, but for now this is what you get. 🙂

Finally, as far as the blog goes, I’ve added a “Linkables” page (yes, I know, linkables is not a word, but sue me for trying to be a bit whimsical) where I’ve listed a few of my favorite sites and blogs. Have a look! You might find something interesting.

In other news, I’ve been making a valiant effort to make contact with Square Enix recently, with the intent of discussing my novelization of one of their most beloved games, Final Fantasy III (VI in Japan). I’m neither confident nor foolish enough to hope that they might want to publish what will eventually be two rather involved books (though that would be truly amazing). My hope is that I can obtain legal permission from the gaming company to publish my work as two free e-books, that way I wouldn’t be infringing on their copyright, but I would be able to gain some publicity and share my books with lots of video game lovers who aren’t necessary fan fiction readers. At least, that’s the plan. Unfortunately I’ve had no luck contacting the company so far. They don’t seem to closely monitor their several Twitter accounts, and though their website has a very detailed page that explains the process for submitting unsolicited material, I’ve now been waiting a week just to hear back about the release form I’m supposed to be sent before being allowed to submit my request. I understand that these things can take time when dealing with huge companies, but I really did believe that the form would be fairly quick to come, even if the request itself took months to be replied to. Have I mentioned before that I’m not one for all this waiting nonsense?

Lastly, just because I can, I want to congratulate all the amazing Canadian athletes who have bagged medals at the Sochi Olympics so far, and I wish the best of luck to all those who have yet to compete. You’re an amazing group of people and I wish I had one hundredth of your ability and determination. Kudos!

Accountability Wednesdays: Week 5

Okay, let’s start up the day by apologizing for there being no blog posts the past two days with no explanation. Don’t worry, it wasn’t another family emergency or anything. Apparently I’d just forgotten how difficult it is to find time to bang these things out during the last few days of my shift when I’m trying to get my laundry done and pack and deal with a bunch of different buses to take me to the right places to eventually get on my plane and fly home in the middle of the night. So…yeah. Sorry about that. I’ll try to plan ahead next time. ._.

Goal #1: Lose at least ten pounds and become healthier overall.

Okay, confession time. Since returning out West and landing myself at a camp that has a huge fridge filled with cans of every flavor of pop out there, things have not been good. I like pop. I like it a lot. I also hate plain water, and mostly avoid the milk out West (because, sorry, it doesn’t taste right, I don’t know why) and the juice out West (because it’s fountain crap that is watered down and tastes awful). So, yeah…I’ve been drinking a lot of pop. Like…a lot of pop. Also, the dinners there are delicious, so I’ve been gorging at night, and alternatively the lunches are kinda pathetic, so I’ve been compensating with cookies and other treats.

Long story short, the eating habits have jackknifed into a bad place. I also didn’t really get any exercise for the two weeks out West because I forgot to take a pair of “indoor shoes” and therefore couldn’t use the gym, and also it turns out that my crew actually has trucks now that we can use to drive to the job instead of walking all over hell’s creation. That last bit is actually a good thing, overall, but it does dramatically cut back on the amount of exercise I get on a daily basis.

All in all, it’s been a poor couple of weeks. Remember last week when I said that I probably actually gained weight? Yeah, I was right. Luckily I had a buffer zone from the few pounds I lost that week I mysteriously couldn’t eat anything, so I’m not in the red or anything…but yeah. Pretty much starting from scratch.

Goal #2: Be more active on social media and work hard on my “author platform”.

This is always so difficult to report, but I think I did pretty good this week, considering the missed blog posts. I spent quite a bit of time on Twitter, and made spent more time than usual reading, liking, and commenting on blog posts. There’s not much to say other than that. But look! I’m participating! 😀

Goal #3: COMPLETE my zombie apocalypse novel, Nowhere to Hide.

Okay, I just got home yesterday, so you can’t hold this one against me yet. Remember I said I was thinking about it? Really thinking about it? Well now I’m home, so I have two weeks to use those thoughts. I hope to start tonight, but I’m not making any promises, because my daughter has a fort in the living room and she keeps wanting me to come in with her and watch Teen Titans Go! through the doorway. I have to have priorities, man, geez.

Goal #4: Write 500,000 words.

And to top off a week of pretty poor accountability reporting, I have to say that I can’t tell you what my word count was for last week. The reason is not because I’m embarrassed about the skimpy word count (although, now that you mention it…); it’s because I’m having difficulty getting my word count spreadsheet to play nice between my tablet and my computer. I created it on my computer and had to move heaven and Earth to get it to both open and allow me to make changes on my tablet, and now apparently I’ve screwed up the file so that it will no longer open on my computer. So, when I get a chance, I guess I’m going to have to open it on my computer and physically re-input all the numbers into the version on my computer. Why not just use the tablet all the time? Just take my word on this…the program that I’ve had to use in order to get the spreadsheet to work on my tablet is outrageously frustrating to deal with. I may have to just track my words on paper while I’m out West from now on…that’s how terrible the tablet program is.

All that said, though I can’t give you the exact number right now, I can tell you that my word count for last week sucked tremendously. I fully plan on making up for that this week by pre-planning blog posts, finishing up the editing mentioned earlier, and hopefully banging out another chapter or two for Returning Hope, but again, I must bring your attention to the fort in my living room.

Ciao!