Return to Innocence

Hello dear blog,

Alas, it has been quite some time since I graced you with my presence and don't think for an instant that I forgot about you. Every day, I've been plagued with the guilt of my abandonment of you. Every day, I keep wishing and hoping for some inspiration to strike, some flash of insight that will give me a topic to expound upon within your illustrious 'pages.' And yet, every day you weep silently to yourself...your creator has left you. He built you up from scratch and thousands of lines of html (which He doesn't write because Blogger does it for him) and then left you like some cheap hooker on the side of the road after having his way with you for these long years months.

Now you know how mankind feels about God. I mean, honestly.

Fear not, kind blog. I have returned, brimming with wit and charm, overflowing with depth and clarity into the trueness of the world around us. It is within you, of all the free webspaces in existence, that I choose to leave my mark on this cruel, cruel world. Much like a dog pissing on a tree, so I shall piss forth my wisdom unto you. I shall chronicle my triumphant return to the glories of my youth and spend the remainder of October 2008 honing my already razor-sharp skills in preparation for NaNoWriMo 2008, or The Year Jon Finally Accomplishes Something, Anything, For God's Sake Do Something With Your Life, Man!

No one knows, least of all me, what direction this blog will take. Most likely it will contain some parts Sarah-Palin hatin' and some parts Gastrointestinal Diary (or, why I am so very, very alone) and maybe some parts random shit that flies out of my head like a way less impressive version of Athena. Any which way you slice it, though, the world (of the Interwebs) is a better place for my being in it.

Perhaps someday a future people will dig up the bones of our civilization and discover my blog over all others (and pray to whatever you pray to that they don't find Perez Hilton first..).

This is a topic I'd like to return to, but for now, I must go download Enigma.

Yours, ever and always,
Jon

Return to Oz

Ah, my blog. Well, it's certainly been a while. I've been meaning to start writing in this again since I failed miserably at NaNoWriMo. This is now year 4 or so that I have failed, but I still don't want to give up. I mean I was REALLY close this time. There were extenuating circumstances...and those circumstances were not FFXII. My intention is to start writing more often, both in this blog about whatever comes to mind and in a more creative setting, to help myself write faster and thus be marginally more efficient during November. Of course, if I'm still in this job, which I intend to be, November will be a horrible month again...but life will always get in the way if I let it, so I won't. Bitch.

So, update on my life. Obviously, due to my extenuating circumstances, I am single once more. This is me waving my white flag and giving up for a while. I really want 2008 to be the year of me. I want to get re-acquainted with what I like about myself and whatever it is that other people like about me. Sometimes, it's difficult to see the good in myself. It's far easier to slip into a self-fulfilling prophecy about my being boring, but I know I used to think I was a fun, interesting guy. Sometime back in college probably, but I know I felt that way once. It would be a nice change to get back to feeling like that.

Hmm, what else... Been getting into watching politics even more than I used to, so yay for that. I <3 Hillary.

On an unrelated note, while it is obviously sad that Heath Ledger died, let's try to remember that celebrities are no more valuable human beings than anyone else who dies every day. Let this spur people to vote to get us out of Iraq or something.

Also, go see Persepolis, cause it's amazing. Um, pretty much out of stuff to say right now, but lovely to be back and I'll be sure to post something soon about Mass Effect or something. Digital orgy. Plz.

Forum Trolling and Plot Mulling

So, Brennon and I are wicked excited about NaNoWriMo. Well, I am excited paired with a squirmy anxiety about him out-writing me in this year's installment. To mentally prepare myself and stock up on advice, I'm already trolling the forums to scope out the competition. As always when I view these forums, I am struck by how much time people have to participate in this. Some of these people won last year's NaNoWriMo with 110K+ words. That's just insane. I mean, that's like 3K words a day. Who does that?

I'm still toying with ideas for plots and ideas for non-plots. Sometimes I think it may be easier simply to start writing and let the plot go where it will. When it comes down to it, if you let go of "coherency," there's really no hole out of which you can't write yourself. I mean, so your main character dies? Then they can explore the afterlife and find a way to resurrect. Or say your character and plot are dragging, with little to no direction and a boring as hell story... Simply make then board a spacecraft and turn it into a space opera. Or hell, just turn it into a musical. Maybe I'll write a novel that is insanely trippy and just make random shit happen without explanation. Could be fun and kind of ridiculous. Currently, I'm imagining a female protagonist with a pretty much blank personality. I was just reading a thread about Mary Sue's, which are characters that are incredibly talented for no reason but that they are the main character and they exhibit no or very few (and minor) flaws. They are generally well-liked, attractive and insanely cliched. I don't want a Mary Sue for a main char. So I need to either come up with a few believable flaws or I shall just make her a non-hero. I'm leaning towards this at the moment, maybe even making her the villain, though I don't know how convincingly I could pull off a novel centered around the villain.

But I'd like to make her maybe a bit like Nynaeve al'Maera - an angry, hot chick who kicks ass. Or maybe not. All of Robert Jordan's chars tend to be a bit Mary Sue-ish, so I may avoid that route. I'd like to write a story about an average person who skates by somehow but without gaining extraordinary power. But I think I do want to set it in a fantasy world, horse-fantasy as Brennon would say.

I can't yet decide whether I'd like my main char to be live in a city or the country. I don't really even know what sort of plot I'd like to do, but it could be fun to make her run around by herself in the wilderness for a while, make her run into some crazy shit and what not. I dunno, anyone have any fun ideas of who my char is or what I could do with her to start off. I'll probably just let the plot develop as it will, unless I can come up with something I like. I still want to write people into the novel like I planned last time. What say ye?