Backlog

At the beginning of the new year I had a half-dozen things to write about: trying to get into playing Final Fantasy XI Online, my understated Halloween, progress in school. Random crap.

Sometime during the morning of January 1 I got a call from my friend anthonykrones. (Together, we make the Constituency of Real Name/Username Parallelism! It's exhilerating.) We'd been planning to move in together for some time now, but this was complicated first by the lack of adequate affordable housing, then by his wife's pregnancy, and finally by the birth of his first son, David. However, that morning they'd settled on a duplex that seemed to meet all requirements, so would I be interested in moving in with the three of them after all? I said yes. Probably two weeks later I was here, which is where I am now: sitting at my computer in a wrecked room that's only been half-unpacked, enjoying the freshly reconnected Internet (previously disconnected because of a late payment) in a duplex occupied at other times by two parents, 22 and 21 respectively (currently sleeping upstairs), the four-month-old infant (mercifully sleeping upstairs) and the infant's uncle on his mother's side (currently out at work, as he is every night, more or less).

I've been stewing these two months. Things to write about, so many things to write about--so many things that there's not much to say, and what I DO say is inevitably badly written. I've been reading a lot of Stephen King lately. The Eyes of the Dragon, On Writing, a nameless compilation of the novels he published under pseudonym, most probably stolen gauging by the lack of a cover. Stephen King and Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles. They've been my time-killers, when I'm not working and not at school and not at home in Derby with my parents and not driving between any given two of those locations.

At this point, I'm completely flummoxed as to how to end this, a flustered apologetic excuse for not updating for two months. So I'll just end it and get to the business of providing actual content. Yes. That's what I'll do.

(no subject)

Just for a change of pace, I've uploaded a cropped-and-resized photo that should serve as an avatar until I find something better. It's not that I particularly dislike this photo, it's just that I haven't decided I like using a photo as a user icon. It'll have to do for now.

IT'S. SIX. A.M.

Those who know me well know the only possible way I could be up this early is that I stayed up all night, which would be absolutely correct. If I were sensible, I'd have spent that time cleaning or writing or working out or something. As it was, I read about six months' entries from this man's journal, partly because it passed the time and partly because I am thinking about my Next Big Thing.

I have a website all about detailing my various Next Big Things, titled "Work In Progress." Fittingly, it's still under construction, so I'm just going to talk about my Next Big Thing right here. It's actually more appropriate that way, since This Particular Big Thing is (hopefully) going to play out on these very LiveJournal pages.

I have alluded to it before. I call it "People of Influence."

In the time I've spent on the Internet, I've come across a lot of influential people. Other times, less informed by the good word of Cat and Girl, I'd have called these people Heroes or Geniuses, (and actually I probably have in the past) but I'd have been unable to tell you what made them so heroic or what their genius was. People like theferrett and 108 are awesome for reasons, however, and I'd like to try honing my weak and under-developed critical thinking skills by explaining why they're awesome and by using an example of their influence in the process of describing how they've influenced me.

Take 108, for example. I don't want to completely eclipse the (the what? The essay? The article? Let's just call it a "piece.") piece by going into all the details of why I'm so impressed by him, but one of the main points is his approach to writing videogame reviews or features or, for that matter, just about any of his articles on his website. The thing he does is he always includes a huge dose of the personal with whatever it is he's reviewing, so it becomes not so much a critique of the game itself as a critique of the experience of playing the game. Maybe it's fictitious, or maybe it distracts, or maybe you can come up with another reason why that's not such a good thing, but at the very least, it's memorable. I like the idea of reviews that exist not just to reaffirm the reader's membership in the videogame community.

The whole point of writing this, actually, was to document one of the main differences between his writing and mine (I mean, besides the years of experience and polish and profanity and the rest): he can write and write and write the most senseless random blather, but he can get away with it because he refuses to apologize for it. Sure, it wins him no friends amongst the literary Lawful Neutral, but he does it anyway.

I like that, even as he tries to distance himself from it. I'll take his mantra and reverse it: the Internet IS my personal writing exercise. Or at least, it SHOULD be; I've been ignoring my lessons until now.