My Upcoming Week Without Meat
Filed Under: My Writing, personal
Starting today, I am going to attempt to live a week without eating any animal flesh. I’m not going vegan, but I want to see if my tastes have broadened enough that I can get by on fruits, nuts, veggies, cheese, and bread. We just stocked our fridge with a small jungle of fruits. I imagine some of you have some questions about this.
Why are you doing this? Aren’t you practically a carnivore?
Yes. I love meat. I famously love meat. How many other people do you know that keep a running tally of the number of species they have eaten? (In fairness, I keep a list of what has bitten me too). And I find ethical ideas about not eating meat mostly suspect (all food is alive, unless we find a way to consume raw carbon). I’m not doing this because I care deeply about cows or chickens. This is about putting myself in an uncomfortable situation and seeing how I do. Challenging myself to make do with a different kind of food than I would usually take.
And for my health. If I could adjust my diet to have less meat, I’m likely to live longer. This is really kind of what I am aiming at, beyond the nebulous goals of personal growth.
Why should Catholics have all the fun of giving stuff up for a period of time? I want to play too.
Cheese? You’re eating cheese? I bet you’re eating eggs too, you MONSTER.
That’s right. The only thing I love more than meat is cheese. I will never give it up. Abandon all hope, ye who think you can convert me to veganism. In fact, there’s a 95% certainty I’ll go right back to meat again next Sunday.
No offense. I respect you non-meat-eating folks. Anyone who can decide, deliberately and willfully, “I will never eat bacon again in my entire life” after having tasted it even once, is a tougher mofo than I am.
Can I send you some vegetarian/vegan recipes to help you out?
Sure! Drop me an email or use the contact form. If I try it and like it, I’ll write it up on the blog. Here are some caveats though; I won’t eat lettuce or onions (I do eat baby spinach though). I very much like fruit more than vegetables, but when I do eat vegetables, I mostly prefer them cooked.
Ha! There’s no way you’re going to make it through the week. Can we start placing bets on when you give up and go to McDonalds?
Sure, use the comments session and place your bets. It’s entirely possible that I will fail. I have no idea if I have the willpower to make this work or not. Again, it’s an experiment to see how I do. I’m not sure that a lapse will really be a failure. Just an indication that I don’t do “extremes” well.
Do you have plans to tinker weirdly with other aspects of your life?
Yep. I have a lot of ideas of one week life-shifting projects that I want to attempt in the name of SCIENCE! It should all make lovely blog fodder as well. So that’s a bonus.
“Captain Blood’s B00ty” on Starship Sofa
Filed Under: My Writing, Podcast
There’s a new, excellently-read podcast of my short story “Captain Blood’s B00ty” story over on Starship Sofa today. Give it a listen and let me know what you think.
This story previously appeared in the Shimmer pirate issue, edited by John Joseph Adams.
I’m sorry things have been so quiet around here lately. I just don’t have much to say right now. Soon though.
Delaying a Project and a Good Review
Filed Under: My Writing, Web Design, creativity
My “pays the rent” freelance project load is such that I’m going to have to hold off on my “pipe dreams of the video game industry” project right now. I’m going to shoot to start it up in November now (although I’ll be squeezing reading in anywhere I can). It’s embarrassing to have made that post on Monday and by Wednesday have to change my schedule and plans, but as always, my first priority is paying the rent. I always seem to think there’s more time in the day than there really is. I should probably be working more on my time management skills (which really aren’t bad) before I should be working on my game writing skills. Anyway, more to the point, I’m not seeing a lot of work coming down the pipe right now, so I need to hustle some up. If you’ve been thinking about hiring me to build a website, now’s a good time.
In writing-related news, my story in Interzone issue 224 (on newsstands and in bookstores now!), “Godfalls’s Chemsong,” received a very nice review from John DeNardo over at SF Signal. I’ll take 4 out of 5 stars any day. The story is an experiment of mine to create bizzare alien biology and society using mostly real Earth biology traits that exist in real creatures. I only improvised a little bit, and I’m pleased with the results. I really should write more stories like that, but they’re a bear to come up with. But I guess if it were easy, everybody would be doing it.
A New Blog Project: Project Game Writer
Filed Under: My Writing, creativity
After attending the Game Developer’s Conference Writer Summit in Austin a couple of weeks ago, I have been increasingly determined to make a slow career shift from web-related work to the video game industry and writing. I’m not going to stop building websites yet. But I want to start writing in the field.
I’ve been thinking about the pluses and minuses for myself, and I’ve made some lists to examine my interest.4
First, why do I think I could break into the video game industry as a writer and be good at it?
- I have a proven track record as a writer with my short story materials, as well as the Dr. Roundbottom project.
- As a web designer, I’m used to working creatively in a collaborative environment. The transition to being part of a team in writing will be an easy one for me. I will be your word monkey.
- I have experience writing for voice acting and directing voice actors both through Escape Pod and Dr. Roundbottom.
- I am technically skilled and can write code, so when it comes to hooking dialogue up to a game with in-house editing tools, I can pick that up quite quickly and easily. I built several modules for my own entertainment with the Neverwinter Nights tool set, so I’ve already had some experience here.
- My writing often has a strong sense of voice, which is important for many types of game writing.
- I love video games, and games of all sorts.
And why do I even want to break into the video games industry as a writer?
- I enjoy working collaboratively with others on larger projects.
- The pay per word is generally much better than straight fiction writing.
- The audience is there. Top games sell millions of copies. I’m not going to be able to play in front of an audience that size with short fiction.
- I love writing.
- I love video games, and games of all sorts.
But there are some potential downsides to the video game industry for me:
- Long crunch hours could sap my will to live if I’m not prepared for them.
- The pay may be more than fiction writing, but it seems often less than web design (at least at this stage).
- Am I really prepared to write My Gorgeous Pony: The Magical Adventures II?
- Not entirely sure I have the full range of writing talents to make it. I need to learn how well I can switch genres to genres that I don’t normally write for.
With all that in mind, I’ve purchased a couple of books on the industry, and they include chapter exercises. As part of my process of exploration, I’m going to post the exercises and my attempts at them. I plan to do 2 chapters of the Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing book a week, but I may shrink some of the projects in size or skip the larger ones that would take a considerable amount of time. You’re all welcome to play along at home with your own copies, and comment on what I do. Or you can just ignore it entirely–that’s cool too.
At the very least, I hope you’ll keep me working on it and poke me if I don’t keep on the project. Wish me luck. I’m going to need some of it in addition to talents I’ve yet to develop. But it’s an exciting prospect, and one I look forward to exploring.
