Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Closing A Few Things and Introducing Another

I mentioned on Friday that I had a lot of things going on over the weekend. I’m sure you’ve all probably been dying to know the outcome and success rate of my weekend. So, without further ado, first I present the results.

1a. I got me another Xbox 360, actually at a much better deal than the first one. Actually, Wal*Mart had a one-day special on Saturday where you could buy a 360 for $199, but get a $100 gift card, which really made it like buying the 360 for $99. So I waited in line, from midnight until 8:00AM, to get the ole 360. Plenty o’ fun I had, tearing a huge dent out of The Last Argument of Kings and working a 3AM crossword puzzle.

1b. Now that I have a 360, I finally got around to starting a game I’ve owned but been unable to play. I’m talking about The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Made by the same folks that did Fallout 3, the game looks promising.

2. I went and watched a play called “Come Blow Your Horn.” I won’t review it, but it was incredibly enjoyable. The acting all around was fantastic, the theatre intimate, the set simple and perfect, and the lighting and sounds were excellent. In addition to this, the play itself was quite funny. There’s just something I love about watching live performances. All in all, a great and jolly time. There’s actually a 1963 film version of the play, starring Frank Sinatra, if’n your interested.

3. The Last Argument of Kings is blowing me away. I have around 200 pages or so left (I’ve read around 75%) and I can’t describe how awesome it’s been. To keep it simple (and to ease your curiosity, Dave), the last thing I read had to do with the House of the Maker. Wow. Holy wow awesome. I have my suspicions of how things are going to play out, but I’m expecting to be completely floored.

4. My NaNoWriMo word count is 10,572. By the end of the day it should be at 16,667, but I don’t see me making that mark. Hopefully I’ll have at least 13,000, but I make no promises.

And now for your educational purposes, and for an idea of what’s to come on tomorrow’s Writing Wednesday, I give you an offering from Wikipedia.

Epic: A long narrative poem in elevated stature presenting characters of high position in adventures forming an organic whole through their relation to a central heroic figure and through their development of episodes important to the history of a nation or race.

Epics have nine main characteristics:

  1. Opens in media res.
  2. The setting is vast, covering many nations, the world or the universe.
  3. Begins with an invocation to a muse.
  4. Starts with a statement of the theme.
  5. The use of epithets.
  6. Includes long lists.
  7. Features long and formal speeches.
  8. Shows divine intervention on human affairs.
  9. "Star" heroes that embody the values of the civilization.

I started “The Absurdly Epic Tragedy of Oscambria” many weeks ago, and while I’m not yet finished with it, I have plenty to post for a while, too. I’ve been following and obeying these 9 rules, as well as a few other things. Tune in tomorrow to read the first installment. You know you want to.

3 comments:

Crystal said...

Congrats on your NaNoWriMo progress! Still none here, but after today I have the next 5 days off. The ideas bouncing around in my head are begging to be released.

Looking forward to "The Absurdly Epic Tragedy of Oscambria". Anything with 'absurdly' and 'epic' in the title has to be awesome :)

David Wagner said...

Yay for Last Argument of Kings! Good stuff. Good, gooder, goodest!

Nice progress on your novel word count. I wrote well into the night last night and got up to just under 15K. I think I'm going to work on the map some more today... I've always thought maps were kind of silly, but now I see it as a game board where you can visualize the pieces, and move them around, etc. keeping the story straight.

Look forward to your epic! Oh, and Oblivion is one of my favorite games ever. Too bad you don't have it on the PC... there are tons of incredible mods that bring to game to amazing levels. But the base game is great as well. Don't get hooked on it until after November though! You need writing time!

logankstewart said...

@Crystal: Thanks, and good luck on your writing, too. I hope you enjoy this new story.

@David: I love maps. Always have. That's part of the reason I enjoyed my graduate level GIS map making class. For my story I've made out a few maps, and I find myself consulting them often. Oblivion has been pretty fun right now, and I have only just started.