I had to do it. I felt that my coder friend, Zajax, rolled his eyes at me in instant messages when I suggested we use the song as a marketing gimmick for our MUD. Afterall, Legends of Veral is abbreviated as LoV, so why not? Can't you see it? Heart shaped candies with the inked on, "I LoV U" Ooh, how sweet!

Blech! Moving on...

About two and a half years ago, Zajax and myself talked about our feelings in regards to a long standing aspect of our life. The Legends of Terris MUD (www.legendsofterris.com). We cemented our fears in mutual affirmation. The game was dead. Not an easy thing to admit though not so surprising. The creator of the game, Deori (Paul Barnett) had long since moved on to other video gaming ventures. Think Warhammer Online and more recently has become a Creative Director for Mythic Entertainment, a division of Electronics Arts. He is a prominent speaker, known for his enthusiasm and ability to pitch the awesomeness of a game, even if, in reality, it sucks donkey dick.

I forget whether Zajax and myself were drinking but the idea came that we should try our hand at creating a MUD. Zajax would code and I would bring a dynamic and interesting story. For those of you who don't know what a MUD is, this might illuminate what I am talking about:



Of course our MUD would be super clean and easy to play, with awesome story line and very many cool features that set it apart. Yeah... in hindsight, we must have been drunk. To think we could do it so easily.

After that night, a fire was lit under our respective asses. I bugged a buncha people from Terris to help. Some were tied up in other MUD building projects (that invariably fell apart) and the fire within slowly dwindled. After all, I know next to nothing about MUD building. Zajax can code, sure but real life has a way of being a nuisance. And I? Well... I suck at room building, names, game mechanic implementations. The only thing I know how to do well is role-play, story-time hoopla.

2 years later, here we are, trying again.

Terris is deader than ever and those that have hung about, are being treated horribly by the game that once emboldened us. Hell... I joined Terris at 15 for the sole purpose of becoming a better writer. I even paid out money monthly for this privilege. With Terris dead, and some people STILL forking over the dough, I am honestly pissed off! Such talent being wasted! Old talent I'd have to get back in touch with. So I returned to Terris to create new contacts and get back in the writing mood. Go to boards.legendsofterris.com and type in Heimdall Heorthrk in the Author search field to find a lot of my old writing. Likewise for Day By Night. That's beside the point really but a lot of my writing over the years has been given to that text based game. To no ultimate avail, since the world my writing has been given to is not my personal intellectual property and not to be used elsewhere.

Enter Legends of Veral. I have enlisted the help of many people from Terris and have new fire and vigor to keep me going. I have decided not to be overwhelmed this time and take it slow and steady. Look forward to more posts on this topic as I skirted a few things I know I will regret not having written. LOL

More for my sanity than anyone's curiosity, the following list is representative of what I got on my plate.


Veralian Novel Series:

Let the Dead Live
Webs of Fate
The Outsiders
Threes Memory
Timely Romance
Fallout (working title)
<--- Legends of Veral MUD --->
Regarding Radovan
Last Shadow Walker: Ill Tidings
Last Shadow Walker: Horde As One
Last Shadow Walker: In the Blood
Fate Reborn (working title)

Universal Truths (The book the character from "Drifters" is working on. Will be excerpted from as section divider in Webs of Fate)

Veralian Short Story:

"Drifters" (finished and in need of a rewrite)

Other Novels:

Heaven, We Have a Problem
Divine Game (working title)
Oh the Possibilities (working title)
Masks and Mines
Ben Zajac and the Otherverse
LoveClique
Mordred and Me <-- will become primary novel focus
Day By Night

Short Stories:

"Transplanted" (3/4ths written)
"Perspectives" (finished and in need of a rewrite)
"Exceptions to the Rule" (1/2 written)
"Colloquy" (finished)
"The Window" (working title)
"Median Strip" (finished and in need of a rewrite)

Podcasts:

Inebriated Conversations
Sean and Shaggy Show

Web Comic/Television Script:

Tempist
The Interview

Blog:

Shaggit's Blog
aka
this fucking one... lol

No, this post is not about the movie. No, my name is not actually Bob. This is, instead, the byproduct of a rather unfortunate conversation with two good friends as we touched upon nicknames. Being a fan of palindromes and alliteration, but absolutely horrible with names, I decided B.S.B to be an appropriate name for a revived blog six years in the dust.

A blog I completely forgot I had until about a month ago when I thought about starting blogging again, only to realize I fucking had this one. A quick lost username recovery, then lost password change later and here I am, posting.

What is this going to be about? Scroll to past entries and you will see a project list. That list has evolved substantially and here are a few things I will be touching upon fairly regularly that were not even a blip on the radar all those years ago:

- Podcast titled Inebriated Conversations. Starring Big Jay, Zajax and myself. Guest appearances will be our friends and a side to that will be the Shaggy and Sean Show.

- A MUD or Multi-User Dungeon titled Legends of Veral. A text based video game Zajax and I are developing (hopefully with some help by creative individuals).

- The Tempist. A web comic or animated show, also with Zajax and Big Jay. This, of course, will require outside help as well.

- My other writing projects and personal life where entertaining and worthwhile to share.

As you can see, there is a lot going on and what other way to get motivated than to write constantly and update? More to come.

It's official everyone. I am and have always been a screenwriter. Big deal I didn't understand the intricate rules of formatting. The usage of courier font and margins, be it dialogue to parentheticals to downright scene. Fuck all that. This isn't what I'm talking about!

I am a screenwriter. I took a YMCA class in tenth grade high school, got distracted by Natalie and forever since have been all about the dialogue and scene/action. I mean, shit! I play hookie from work or college class to see movies! MOVIES! Instead of making money or gaining knowledge, I study, break down and analyze film! Entertainment!! Gar!!!

I guess I should be a little bit richer in the telling. It has been a long time, after all. Five weeks, so Jesse noticed. Sorry about that man. Been doing a lot of reading, critiquing and feedbacking. I am taking two Gotham Writer's Workshop Classes. Screenwriting and Humor writing. While the screenwriting class is exactly what I expected, the humor writing slightly took me by surprise as it focused mostly on nonfiction humor writing (David Sedaris, Dave Barry, etc) and less on fiction humor writing (my deal). Be that as it may, the lectures delve into things as simple as perspective (first, second, third) and the pros and cons therein, and as complicated as tools to maximize humor (juxtaposition, exaggeration, irony, the rules of three). The rest of the class time is either doing an in class exercise, to be read aloud and scrutinized, take home assignments and finally booth submissions.

Booth submissions are pretty much personal writings you did, printed and then Xeroxed that you give to everyone in the class. The next week, each person would state one thing they liked, another they thought could be improved. It's the same deal with the screenwriting class but with our scripts. Long story late, too short unfortunately (lol), I submitted a seven page printout of my comedy novel. Seven dialogue heavy pages having to do with Satans introduction to Jon (main char and protagonist) and Virgil (fowl creature heaven guide) The response was pretty much what I expected. Being an excerpt, some people were confused about what the hell was happening. They also nitpicked sentences or made suggestions on places where I skimped on the detail. The praise was all geared towards how flavorful my writing style was, how it had a flow that worked and how it was very visual. VISUAL! Aaaggggghhhhhhh!!!

That's where we come full circle with this driveling. I write visually and that's EXACTLY what screenwriting is. You aren't allowed to delve into the thoughts of your character in a script because everything you write has to either be seen or heard on screen. Voiceovers are cheap tactics usually used to cover up production errors. Take, for instance, Lethal Weapon or The Shining. Great movies, no doubt about that. But the voice over dialogues whilst driving was added later to make sense of where the fucking characters were headed. Heh.

When I'm not submitting, I'm reading and critiquing other people's submissions. Suffice it to say, it's a lot of work, hence why I haven't journaled in a long while.

Alex

Just a little blurb. In preparation for my humor workshop to begin on the 18th, I have been reading Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. It serves as excellent primer for me and my own comedy novel Heaven, We Have a Problem. That is all.

It's official. As of this semester, I will be attending two writing workshops. I start January the 16th with a screenwriting course. After lengthy inner debate, I've decide to write the LoveClique script. I figured it would closely match my life and relationships and thusly be easiest to focus on during the ten week workshop.

On the 18th, the following thursday, is the workshop class I'm most looking forward too. Humor writing. There, I'll focus on H-Whap or Heaven, We Have a Problem. I already have begun this book. With future guidance and deadlines I'm confident to write much more than I have been.

All this will and has appeased my familial demands. So yay! Six more months of them not being on my back. Woohoo!

Lol. I crack myself up with the subject titles. Pathetic, I know...

Hello and welcome to H-WHAP, better known as Heaven, We Have a Problem. My comedy novel. Inspired by Douglas Adam's Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, which I still think the funniest book series ever, H-WHAP humorously delves into the religious world.

Meet Jon Dowe, a Greyhound Bus ticket clerk in an unnamed village complete with a gas station, greyhound bus stop, IHOP, Mart of some kind, houses and bar and motel. A drab and boring life, Jon Dowe is invariably immersed in an adventure of cosmic and hilarious proportions.

One day, traveling home from work, Jon sees a mysterious figure opening up a portal of some kind. Upon further investigation, Jon finds the portal is a direct link to Heaven. Long summary (too long already) short, Jon is tasked by Virgil the Fowl (think TV Mighty Max) who formerly took Dante into the Inferno to solve the mystery of who or how the portal came into existence. Along the way, Jon and Virgil team up with Satan, a fun loving, blood hating Public Relations of Hell devil. He is really just a nice guy after all.

The other day I had a revelation. I was listening to Eminem's "Curtain Call". This inevitably led me to D-12. I thought. D-12...hmm...what would be a good parody of the whole circumstance. This went full circle back into H-WHAP.

In H-WHAP, Jon and company meet Jesus Christ. JC has a rap name Jammin JC (old school) and is a part of the group 'the Profetz'. Included are the Gouda Buddha, Mo' Sez, and Mo' Hammed. Of course! Jesus Christ and D-12! His Disciples Dozen! The Dozen Disc'izzy'ipplez or the Disc'izzy'ipplez Dozen! Woo!

Tell me that isn't funny...

As promised, the list:

Veralian Novel Series:

Let the Dead Live
Webs of Fate
Threes Memory
Village Anonymous
Timely Romance
Fallout (working title)
Last Shadow Walker: Ill Tidings
Last Shadow Walker: Horde As One
Last Shadow Walker: In the Blood
Fate Reborn (working title)

Universal Truths (The book the character from "Drifters" is working on. Will be excerpted from as section divider in Webs of Fate)

Veralian Short Story:

"Drifters" (finished and in need of a rewrite)

Other Novels:

Heaven, We Have a Problem
Divine Game (working title)
Oh the Possibilities
Masks and Mines
Other'ality
LoveClique

Novellas:

Day By Night

Short Stories:

"Transplanted" (3/4ths written)
"Grave Digger" (finished and in need of a rewrite)
"Going Live!"
"Perspectives" (finished and in need of a rewrite)
"Exceptions to the Rule" (1/2 written)
"Colloquy" (finished)
"The Window" (working title)
"Median Strip" (finished and in need of a rewrite)
"Twisted Depths" (most likely will incorporate into a LoveClique chapter)
"Subway Baby"
"Transit Museum" (working title most likely never to be written)

There you have it. My projects. I haven't included Plotholes or F3K only because those two aren't writing projects per say. Go ahead. Think me crazy. Why, oh why, do I have so many fucking projects? Why are so few of them WRITTEN?! Snap to it man. Buckle down and DO it!

I work on each one a little bit every day. Depends on my mood and current train of thought. If you were to ask me of any particular one, I'd have a lot to tell you. Only a few are mere premises or ideas. The majority of them are full stories, beginning, middle and end.

So yeah. In future entries, I will be tackling specific musings of the day in regards to whatever so happens to be my focus. Here I go...

A.E.

Hey all,

Through high school and much of my early college career, I wrote in a writing journal. Whether or not the cause for my horrific school transcript is thankfully not the point of this freewrite. lol.

In this writing journal, would be all my story ideas in a jumbled mess only I could possibly understand. My handwriting is inexcusable, a definite result of computers being introduced in schools in the early nineties. Oh, an aol 4.0...

So I discontinued the writing journal around my wouldbe junior college year. I began actually writing what I had planned and progressed, but usually unsuccessfully. I'd stop after a certain number of pages or days and move onto the next writing project (of which there are many).

Then recently, in chill-time with Sean, the issue of whether or not I have or ever had a diary came up. In my usual machismo I said, 'Hell no!', only then explaining further that the closest to diarying was when I wrote in my 'Writing Journal' freewrites. To anyone who knows of my myspace blogs, shut up! Let's not go there. lol.

After this, at the behest of Jesse more recently, I have taken it upon myself to continue my writing journal, only this time forsaking my penmanship and continuing here. Considering the audience will be slim to maybe one, this will serve as the perfect place to tweak and occasionally freewrite my thoughts on my writing thus far. My mind tends to jump all over the place but thankfully for us, we can organize in tags.

Soon I will post an entry of all my projects currently underway. I warn you: There are MANY. In over three different spots I have the list of projects so as to keep them separate in my mind. The reason I have so much is simple. Probably more than half of them will be unpublishable. I guess that makes it sound like I work with quantity over quality. The thing of it is, I don't know which are which. In my mind, they are all good, are all worthy of publication. It's up to the world to judge.

A.E.

So,

There is a saying so said it's cliché. Write what you know. Go forth from there. Everyone's first work of fiction is an autobiography of sorts. That's another I've heard during my upbringing and is true to a large extent. My first short story, a sixteen page, desperately in need of a rewrite, Drifters, had a struggling writer from a YMCA workshop being dead and crossing a modern day river Styx in the subway. A sixteen page story much like the rambling sentence above. Guess who the struggling writer was?

Since that first completed short story, I've gotten a bit too ahead of myself. Plotting this and that, drawing inspiration from such writing genius as Tolkein, Douglas Adam, and so on. I've since rethought the truth that I am not even in the same sport as these men. I must become more humble, more grounded in my reality as I know it. Not spoonfed like the many other sci-fi/fantasy/fiction/action/comedy/drama works that exist in all medians.

And so, I present my latest brainchild, a definitive departure of my other works. Lifted from my own life. LoveClique. Cassandra reacted as I expect most will. Expecting something more grim and dreary, more…me, I guess. Hehe.

LoveClique will be about a group of friends, recent college graduates, who knew each other since high school. Directly pulled from the life, as I know it. Sure I will change details and not everyone will be represented accurately so creative license will be had. I hope, however, to do the characters justice. Give them a humanity that is believable and a story line that many can relate to.

I warn you. If you know me, chances are you will be in this story. I have weighed the possibility that not everyone I know will be pleased with me and could cause friction further on. When I'm ready to share, I will do so hoping to acquire your approval. Of course, tweaks, corrections, comments and the like will be welcome but I seriously consider that the next phase of this project.

If you want to know what your role will be, message me and we'll talk. I am currently in the process of storyboarding the chapters. I know that the beginning, middle and end will be about my life, but in a slightly escapist way. I am still deciding on the final chapter from my perspective. I have the option to go in a slightly tragic route considering this is fiction lifted from real life.

My ex girlfriend will factor into this story as well and play a small role. It is, after all, about love in all its forms. Love as in friendship, relationship, family and reconciliation.

So … I hope to do everyone justice who will play a role. Remember. I've known many of you for over eight fucking years. I would like to think our bond is stronger than a biased book of our lives could ever be.

But I can only wait and see,

A.E.