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The Book(s)

Okay, so I mentioned that I was going to try to put together some of my video game thoughts from this blog, forming a critical book or, mayhap, something more. After having an interesting conversation with a friend the other day (who, having read some—read: never finished—one of my fantasy-genre books), I was told that my greatest strength lay in crafting critical analyses, rather than character- and/or plot-driven pieces of fiction.

It wasn't a criticism of my fiction writing; rather, it was an indication of what he, as a reader, preferred.

I've been stewing on this opinion ever since, and, with the summer staring down at me with two smoking barrels of free time (pending Peter, of course), I have decided to work on not one, not two, but three different texts. It breaks down a-like a-this:

  1. Untitled Fantasy Story: This is my most current fiction work in progress. I am struggling with it mightily, as I don't know where it's going or what its purpose is. Still, my writer's group is slogging through the drivel, so I figure that I should keep spewing it out until the well dries. It has potential (like everything I write, I think), but it's kinda buried beneath a murky veneer of randomness. Still, it's fresh to me, and that's the most important part.
  2. Words of the Silenced: This was completed a year ago on my birthday, and is also part of the post I had about rejection (I'm too lazy to link it; look up the rejection tag if you're that interested). I had a coworker read the first chapter and give some dazzling suggestions that could really lift it out of the mire of mediocrity that it currently calls home. I'm rather hopeful that it will turn out to be worth the rewrite, for a revision itself—line by line redrafting—won't be sufficient. It basically has to be completely redone, though a good 50 or 60% of it is still usable.
  3. Press Start to Begin: This is the 'video game book', its tentative, working title. I have, thanks to this blog, amassed over 8500 words in a single day (wish I could always be so productive). This is a nonfiction piece, so it pulls on a different writing style, one that's more accessible, I think, to days when writing doesn't flow well with me. Today is an excellent example: I worked on both WotS and PStB for about equal amounts of time, but the former got a little bit of rearranging and a whoping 100 words written, while I crafted almost 1,000 new words for PStB. I was just more 'in the mood' for the nonfiction today, so I wanted to hammer out some of the 'outline' for the book in its tutorial (introduction). Also, I'm blogging, another aspect of the nonfiction side of my brain—further proof that I am getting writing done somehow, which I absolutely must do if this summer is to be considered a success for me.
So that's the scoop. In between all of this writing, I also have some poems that I want to look at and revise (I love writing poetry, but it's kinda like confessing to liking Fresca or emo music (neither of which I like...honest); it just has this stigma to it), my baby to play with, my wife to hang out with, and more video games to play. I'm intrigued to think what BioShock has to offer me...

Anyway, I just wanted to follow up from my last post by saying that I actually got around to starting a new project, as promised.

Ending it, on the other hand, is not nearly as easy...
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Comments

CFlo said…
I'm glad you took it that way, because that's the way I meant it.
June 3, 2009 at 2:45 PM
Steve Dowdle said…
It's nice to know that I do understand others occasionally....
June 3, 2009 at 2:48 PM
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