My Hosting agreement ended yesterday. Yet this site is still here. I would update your bookmarks to leostableford.blogspot.com as this could disappear at any time.
Has, effectively, moved to:
The new place isn’t quite ready yet. But come along and have a nose around.
It’s an awesome thing to realise that moving website is becoming a bit like moving house. I’m having to set up all the new URLs and think about designs again and all that stuff. The leaner, meaner leostableford.com will be a site with ads (until I don’t need ad income) and a donate button. It will still be free in theory but I’m no longer going to be shy about asking people to get their wallets out.
Not that I needed to be particularly forthcoming in this little corner of the web. My books all have a royalty attached and the link is there and obvious to see. I just checked it, it works. I should possibly re-classify my adult content books as non-adult content books. Sure they have swearies in them and some violence and discussions of an adult nature but this doesn’t seem to bother anyone else on the web.
I was listening to Kevin Smith’s Smodcast last night for the first time, it does not proclaim itself through tagging to have adult content but I can tell you the air in my kitchen was pretty blue by the time I’d finished listening. This is what you get for trying to think of the children when your product isn’t a video game or a social networking website, obviously.
Anyway. The point is that this site grows from a time when I wanted to prove I knew how web applications ran and that I could run one. This is so much old news at this stage. Also, as previously mentioned, I am no good at pitching a novel. I just can’t. I like reading, if I had more time I certainly would read novels more often, but I don’t. If I am reading then I am reading an RPG manual or other sourcebook for my games.
For anyone who cares round here I’m totally excited about my RPG product but that will be launched on the new journal. All the content on this journal is… well, I don’t know what I’m going to do with it. I suppose I will try to archive what’s worth keeping but everything else is going to go. Sometime around mid-April wave bye bye to this monkey because he will be moving on.
If anyone has bookmarked this site your bookmark will continue to work (after a brief period of readustment) but it will now point to a blogspot redirect, not a dedicated piece of server space. I doubt I shall be here much more often except to tidy up so this is something of an au revoir to the old leostableford.com. Now it is going to sink slowly into decay and disuse until eventually it just dies.
Don’t be sad, the next gen leostableford.com is going to be a better place, I hope, if a little more commercialised. I’ll post up a direct link to the new journal as soon as it becomes a relevant thing.
Until that time… see you around everyone!
Well folks, the numbers are in the consideration has been given and the conclusion is inevitable.
The traffic leostableford.com gets does not justify paying for the hosting. Besides, I opened this site before it was wordpress some time in what, 2004? 2005? The web has moved on since then. I can host a free journal at blogger, I can link to my shopfront on lulu from there, nothing much changes. Managing functionality is easier. Also being on my own little island site is not a way to hook into the world wide community. So from this spring this place will cease to exist in its current form.
To be honest this is a good thing. Like I say I want my work to be more of a community effort. I am designing what may be the most social role playing game in the history of the world. I am a weird contradiction of a person, I hate crowds but I don’t mind people in small numbers. I need people for my work to be worth anything. Shutting myself away even online in a journal that’s so off the beaten track (electronically speaking) doesn’t help at all.
So I’m going to be working on that, and the role playing game and the novels over the next few months. Don’t expect many posts until then. But trust me, when the RPGs hit I expect I’ll be out pressing the virtual flesh, so to speak. I’m expecting a lot in 2009 time will tell how much a lot turns out to be.
It looks like some straight-to-DVD loser when displayed in its poorly designed slip case on the shelves of your local rental store but Gabriel is actually a good deal more than your average C-list snoozefest.
Made for a tiny budget with a cast and crew who were happy to defer their own payment (which had it been necessary would have escalated production costs into the millions) Gabriel tells the story of a battle in purgatory between the seven Arcs (Archangels) and the seven Fallen. Purgatory is a city, Gabriel is an action hero, everyone wears trenchcoats and fires guns at one another (or if no ordnance is handy they kick and punch effectively). Many questions about this basic Manichean morality and metaphysics are toyed with. It’s not that it’s the deepest movie ever made, more it gets points for trying when no one else does.
I am not too surprised, however, by the fact that it leaves a lot of people cold. It’s the first time I’ve actually been able to point the finger and say “look what happens when you don’t give the script the attention it deserves”. The featurette that the distributors package on the DVD spends about thirty seconds talking about the script (and then it’s more about the “idea” for the “story” not the underlying mecanism of the script). If Back To The Future’s script is held up as an example of the absolute best in nuts and bolts script writing (apparently every line of dialogue in the film is purposeful in that it builds the story, no one says anything that doesn’t in some way contribute to some story task like signposting, foreshadowing, or paying off) then Gabriel’s script could be an example of what happens when you just want a script of some quality but you don’t really mind how much.
Don’t get me wrong the film is not horrible and the script is passing fair. However the number of loose ends and unresolved issues it leaves behind are a testament to just how happy the team were to get the thing made quickly, cheaply and how little understanding they had of just how important scripting could be.
Much aside from the fact that Gabriel polished off a demon in the blink of an eye with absolutely no feeling of moment or occasion (twenty minutes later he reeled the demon’s name off as one of those he’d already eliminated, even after that I had to retcon the actual incident from the featurette) there were more serious problems. One angel is reputed to have “lost their wings”. We don’t know how this condition comes to pass but apparently it’s permanent, serious, and completely changes the angel into a human (who’s dead in purgatory, but can ascend to heaven or descend to hell the same as a normal person). With no real explanation of how this could come to pass the punishment seems arbitrary, unrealistic and somewhat lacking in weight.
It reminds us that the only reason to write the nasty fate of someone who is not the main character is as a shadow or omen of the possible cost of failure to the current main character. Gabriel is an angel, and thus no more immune, apparently, to losing his wings than anyone else. The question remains, how does it happen? What does it entail? If we had details we could feel concern for the protagonist, without those mechanisms the threat is idle.
Gabriel informs us, through its several failures (which are not the sum of its parts, let’s not forget, much is done well, the rhythm of dialogue is good, clarity never an issue, and the subject matter is incredibly difficult so that’s a special boon in this case) of the mechanistic aspects of storytelling. Charlie Chaplin summarised the business of plot communication, to paraphrase: “Tell them you’re going to tell them something, tell them, and then tell them you’ve told them”.
If you’re a Nano contestant then the pressure to slap a bit more prose into the heap is paramount. I can understand that. Unfortunately it’s all the poor storytelling that comes back to bite you in the rear. Writing that perfect plot centres on a process of accruing story. Not assuming that people understand things.
Next time you’re writing a metaphysical action blockbuster and you blithely refer to an angel losing their wings, don’t just assume that people know how that happens or what it means. There could be a good couple of thousand words there in a satisfying explanation of the phenomenon.
Okay. This is all a little difficult.
For years you’ve kind of thought you’re one thing, and then you discover you’re another. You’ve got to understand, it’s a fundamental change of identity. When someone says that they are a writer, or someone else says they think you should be a writer you tend to think of that as an endorsement of the role of novelist.
I mean, you just do. Journalist is a writer but it’s specific, writer just means writer, of stuff. If you’re a scriptwriter, a playwright or whatever you’re a writer but you’ve been qualified.
I think all writers have a bit of a footprint in regards to this. I can write scripts, they seem to flow out of me quite easily, more easily than novel-esque prose anyhow. If you were to read Hidden Predators, Dangerous Prey (one of my novels available in the shop, yadda, yadda… incidentally I think it’s a bit of a ropey effort, it’s like a stopgap if you are jonesing for a novel hit, I happen not to have written anything new and at last you turn to that darkest part of the cupboard…) then you would probably be able to see how much it was written as a long and ungainly screenplay before being turned into a novel.
See?
I can do scripts.
I’ve written about seven or eight novels, so I guess that makes me a capable novelist.
I have four games in draft.
I have written reviews and I am pretty good as a reviewer apparently, I used to get good ratings as a zoetrope reviewer anyway.
I don’t like short stories (although fairy tales are something else).
I have never written a piece of news reporting, or any other sort of reportage. Well, not since school anyhow.
The only non-fiction pieces I have ever written are my writing tips.
The thing about this whole game designer revelation I had is that being a designer of games is a complex business. It involves fiction generation skills and a passion for the essentially tedious business of ruleset design. Since becoming a systems developer I have learned a lot about algorithmic thinking. Since becoming a gamer I have learned a great deal about balance issues, atmosphere, things that contribute to a good game.
I like reading. I like sci-fi. I like movies. I like comics. I like stories. I love games.
I think that’s what I wasn’t seeing. My favourite form of passive entertainment bar none is the well written point and click adventure (actually these tend to be authored by programmers with writing as a hobby, I don’t think I’ve ever actually played a well written point and click adventure in the structural sense). I like these interactive experiences. I would rather play a new game than atch a new movie. I find it very difficult to sit down and read because my brain goes off half-cocked whilst trying to plough through the prose, unless it really draws me in, which it does less as I get older.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not going to stop writing novels. I enjoy that process, it’s awesome. But I might have to close the reviewer’s doors forever. The only place I can really sit down and read is the bus (or train, or plane) and until I can get a PDF reader in my hand for an affordable amount of money that isn’t going to happen.
Besides, as my moribund and recently deleted Shelfari account can attest I just don’t read enough novels to be an active participant in a novelist’s world. I write novels, but I’m not a novelist.
Sit me down with someone to discuss game mechanics however and watch me go.
In the spirit of acknowledging this change in thinking the default category on posts shall hence forth be gaming. I know there’s about, er, 20 ish of you out there who check up on the site from time to time (Analytics just told me that I have had visitors from the southern tip of the Indian subcontinent this month… anyone care to explain? Spammers? Or genuine visitors?). Those regular readers among you may be wondering if this change is going to make the blog irrelevant to you.
I have genuinely no idea why anyone reads this thing you know. No idea. It’s not a popularity contest it’s a record I write so people can, er…
Erm… you know something, I don’t really know why I write this thing. If it was intended as a publicity tool for my novels it’s failed miserably. 2009 is going to be a huge year for my output. Maybe I’ll have a better idea why this is here by the end of next year. If I don’t then it might be time to retire the site.
I would like to encourage people to talk to me via the site so I have tweaked the comment leaving apparatus. You still need my approval to have a comment posted but this is merely because so much spam monster stuff would get through otherwise. As it is my little Captcha device coupled with the huge waste of time posting spam is on a blog where the admin kills it before it sees light of day seems to put spammers and bots off comprehensively enough.
So, now I am throwing the floodgates open. What ARE you doing here? What possesses you to breeze by and look me up? If it is my patchy and unreliable former services as a POD reviewer then you should move along.
I should mention. And I would love to go into this in more depth but I now know time is simply not going to allow, that the follow up to the book I reviewed by the wonderful writer and cymruphile GR Grove is just as gripping and well written as ever, when I get reading time I am faithfully plodding through this PDF. I am up to about page 180 or somewhere abouts. I had already decided to give it a rave but I like to finish things before I review and that puts me at about one review every three months at present.
To anyone who has subsequently submitted something to me for review I will try to read your pieces as time allows, but you’re probably all sick of waiting for me by now.
This is a shame because unless something is truly horrible I enjoy reading it. But I am a content producer not a content reviewer and there are never enough hours in the day. I have to regularly make a choice between reviewing content or producing it and producing it always wins.
If you are here for another reason however, stick around. I intend to continue my new tips series, then combine the two series into a single volume on how the Monkey thinks someone should set about writing a novel, if that’s the kind of thing you’re into.
Also my gaming posts are liable to drop in narrative, contextual and other pieces of sourcebook advice for other types of writers. A lot of this post has been about which box a writer sees themselves fitting into. But I also talked about writers having a footprint. The latter point means that any writer should, at some point, find something in another writer’s journal that is of interest or inspiration.
Personally I think some of my most interesting posts have been about storytelling through games. It’s quite a new topic, seeing as you either need a computer or a group of role players who don’t just want to stab and bludgeon their way through dungeons to take part in it. For the novelists among you, however, I would have thought that all my more controversial thoughts about plot structure and so on came in that handful of posts. Like the one about stories in games where I asserted that novels set up their entire worlds around their protagonist to make the events happen. I thought that was a dodgy call but no one disagreed (or supported) the statement.
I’d like to try in the magic 2009 to get some comments going on here. I hope my new role as a game writer helps that happen.
For now… time to wash up, then I have to tidy a fairy story before cooking dinner. Have a nice Saturday everyone.
Quite a different one this year as well because it happened in the midst of the rest of life. I don’t care what anyone says writing and real life need the accompaniment of light time wasting or else you might just go bonkers.
It’s been my favourite Nano of the three mostly because it proved I could live life and get 50,000 words done in a month. If I don’t have to live life it can take me five days but that’s not a practical situation.
Over the course of November it has come to my thoughts that although I am a writer, and I love to take on a novel project, and will continue to write novels, I am foremost another type of writer. It’s just that the type of writer I am is quite a new, specialised and rare kind.
The fact is in the past year I have roughed out the plans for at least five role playing systems, I have finished one novel and started one more. I am also writing an online comic. But I think the role playing point is the relevant one. I am never happier than when reading a role playing manual, GMing a game or playing a game, or thinking of new games. I also think the role playing community could well benefit from the imagination of someone with my background in the hobby.
It does also help to tie together why I am a computer programmer. Systems + Imagination = Games. So, if you detect a drift in the content of the site as time goes on you’ll now know why. I believe way back when blogging was new this kind of thing was assumed to be expected. A blog is a float not a velocity.
So this is what Nanowrimo is supposed to feel like. The other two times I did it I had plenty of time to sit around writing my novel and blogging away and merrily watch my skyrocketing word count. This month although I am making steady progress towards the goal I am not entirely certain I will make 50k before it actually materialises. It is not a question of difficulty it is a question of fitting it in around my life. I really want to go play a computer game or do something pointless like that but I have a Levercastle to write. Still… nearly there.
It’s not a village. It’s a town. A small town. But a town. I just can’t make it be small enough to call it a village.
Only 60% of my 50,000 target to reach.
