Wordcount Wednesday

Well, friends, as of right now, I am a little over 150 pages into Failstate. More specifically, I've expanded this book to 38,363 words, which means I was able to cobble together 11,416 words. Wow. That's a pretty high benchmark.

And now it's time for me to take a break from it.

I know, I know, forward momentum is my friend when writing a first draft. I'm not entirely pleased that I need to take a break, but I have to for two reasons:

First of all, I need some time to regroup. Failstate is turning out to be the messiest first draft I've ever written. For starters, we have the fact that the first 50 pages are in third person POV and the next hundred are in first person (a good decision, I might add; I think my crazy velocity on this manuscript is due to the POV change). Worse, the structure is a mess as well. I have misplaced scenes all over. One scene should probably come about ten chapters from where I am now. I just finished writing five chapters that need to occur earlier in the book. As of right now, I'm so turned around I have no idea what I should be writing next. So I need a little time to take a deep breath, figure out where I am, where I need to go next, and then get started.

Second, and more importantly, I need to get my entries ready for the ACFW Genesis contest. Yes, I said entries, plural. But seeing as their due by the end of March (and the suggested deadline is actually mid-March), I had better get cracking.

If I'm lucky, my little hiatus from Failstate will only last a week or so. But right now, I need the breather.

So who knows what I'll report next week. Maybe I'll manage to eke out a few more words by next Wednesday. Time will tell.

Armin Shimmerman is the man

I've kind of been prepping myself. Sort of. In a weird sort of way.

See, I'm (hopefully) going to have my grubby little hands on two video game sequels soon. Both Mass Effect 2 and Bioshock 2 came out recently and I've heard nothing but good things about both. I had been intending to get Dragon Age: Origins before that, but I'm thinking I can wait for the latter.

The original Bioshock was an incredible game. If you haven't played it, well . . . why not? Yes, it's a first person shooter, but the writers did an absolutely fantastic job with that game. Rapture, the underwater city setting for the game, is a sick and twisted place where society has basically been run off its rails. Picking through the rubble is fascinating. And the twist. The twist in the middle of the game. Such an awesome, awesome thing.

While I loved Bioshock right away, I wasn't totally enamored with Mass Effect. I think I picked it up on the cheap several months, maybe even a year or two, after it came out. But again, I've heard such great things about the sequel, I pulled it off the shelf and replayed it. Twice. The story is pretty good, but the twisting morality of the game kept me hooked.

But here's the crazy thing I learned recently: Armin Shimmerman is the voice of Andrew Ryan in Bioshock. I was absolutely stunned when I learned this. Mr. Shimmerman is best known to me as Quark on Deep Space Nine. Playing Bioshock tonight, when I heard Andrew Ryan's voice, I had to remind myself of Shimmerman's involvement.

And the heck of it is, as I was perusing Mr. Shimmerman's IMDB page, I noticed he also played the voice of Fai Dan in the original Mass Effect. I just played through Mass Effect recently and had no idea. None!

I doubt Mr. Shimmerman will ever stumble upon my little corner of the Internet, but if he ever does . . . Mr. Shimmerman, my hat is off to you. Bravo, sir. Bravo.

Wordcount Wednesday

No extended lessons learned about writing this time around. Just a little bit of forward momentum this week. As of right now, Failstate is at 26,947 words, which means I added 6,040 words this week. Onward and upward.

Shrove Tuesday

Okay, so since Lent is almost upon us again, I decided I'd take things a step further this year. For the past eight years or so, I've given up all caffeinated beverages for the 40 days. I've endured the leg aches (don't ask me why) and tried to hold off my irritability with caffeine free pops.

This year, I'm giving up pop all together. No soda shall pass my lips until Easter. I drank my last Coke tonight.

I'm pretty sure this one's going to kill me.

So are you giving anything up for Lent?

The Lightning Thief

On a total whim a few weeks back, I picked up a copy of The Lightning Thief, the first book in the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series. I think I may have seen copies of these books in the past but overlooked them. But since I had heard that it had been made into a movie, I thought I'd check it out. Yes, I know, that's a lousy reason to read a book. Sue me.

Anyway, the story revolves around the aforementioned Percy Jackson. He's had a pretty rotten childhood. His mother has married an absolute loser and Percy has been bouncing around from school to school. He suffers from ADHD and dyslexia. Things are not going well for him at all.

And then, one day, his math teacher tries to kill him on a field trip. It's only when his Latin teacher tosses him a pen that turns into a sword that Percy is able to defeat her. Only he seems to be the only one who remembers that it happened.

Soon Percy finds himself embroiled in a fight for survival because of who his true father is, namely one of the Olympian gods (I won't say which one, but if you've seen the TV commercials, it's not much of a spoiler). Someone has stolen Zeus's master lightning bolt and everyone seems to think it's Percy.

Now Percy has to find what was stolen and clear his name before a cosmic battle unlike anything anyone has ever seen overtakes the world. And he only has about ten days to do it.

I'm not sure I really liked this book. In terms of craft, much of it is kind of cliched and overly predictable. For example, Ares as a biker. I suppose that's clever if a bit spot on. It might have been more interesting make him, oh, maybe a corporate shark. Maybe the problem is I'm three times the age of the target market. I don't know. But I had most of the plot figured out about halfway through, which made it annoying since it seemed like none of the characters had any of it figured out until the very end.

Don't get me wrong, there's lots of adventure and action, plus some laugh out loud moments. I suspect that teens and tweens would probably get a kick out of Percy's smart-talking ways and attitude.

What bothered me most was the spiritual aspect of the book, which might seem a little weird since in general, I didn't have a problem with the Harry Potter books. But we see kids offering burnt offerings and praying to the Greek gods, plus a few somewhat overt swipes at Christianity (or at least, I thought they were swipes; maybe I'm overreacting). All told, it left me a bit unsettled.

Apparently there are four more books in this series and, as of right now, I'm thinking I'll pass. If I do indulge my curiosity, it'd be via the library.

Sea Serpent Caught on Camera

Well, not really. But still, the fact that a crew caught an oarfish on video is still pretty cool.

The Restorer Revisited

A few months back, I received word that Sharon Hinck's fabulous The Sword of Lyric series was going out of print. That's a true shame. But one of the things Sharon asked her Facebook friends was what their favorite Restorer moments were. I have to admit, I didn't answer at the time because a lot of time had passed and I couldn't remember for sure. So I resolved to re-read the series.

It took me a while to get to it. Lots of good books (and several not-so-good books) got in the way. I finally had to pull them out of the shelf and put them in my "to be read" pile. Over the past week or so, I've gone back to the People of the Verses and relived some great adventures.

The three books are The Restorer, The Restorer's Son, and The Restorer's Journey. In the first book, Susan Mitchell, an "average" mom of four gets pulled through a portal into another universe. Before she can even get her bearings, she's caught up in a frantic struggle for survival. She's among the People of the Verses, a confederacy of clans who share a common faith in the One. But now the People are in danger, both from enemies within and without.

To make things even worse, Susan just might be a Restorer. These individuals are called by the One in times of great need to turn the hearts of the People back to the Verses and to offer them the help that they need. They heal rapidly. They have heightened senses. They are given great strength and fortitude (and other gifts, but that comes into play later). If Susan is a Restorer, then she's in a lot of trouble because she'll be facing a lot of enemies, all of whom want her dead.

I'm not sure what I can say about the other two books without giving away major spoilers. So, I guess, you've been warned. Abandon all hope, ye who have not read these books. I won't give away everything, but if I'm going to share my favorite moments.

Out of the three books, I think The Restorer's Son is my favorite. I like the main character and his story arc. I especially like . . . well, shoot, I'm not sure how I can explain this. Let's put it this way: I really like the scene that's depicted on the front cover. If you've read the book, you should know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, well . . . too bad. Go read it.


But in terms of other favorite scenes, I'd have to say I like Susan's whole story arc in the third book. Sharon puts Susan in a very dark place and the way she comes out is inspiring.

That's perhaps one of the reasons why I enjoy Sharon's books so much. There are a lot of adventure in them, lots of great emotions, but Sharon always manages to sneak in at least one or two really profound spiritual lessons, much deeper than a simple "God loves you!" or something to that effect. In many ways, Sharon's books seem to be geared for more mature Christians, aimed for those who have been walking the walk for a while and now need a nudge to keep them going in the right direction.

If you want to learn more, I did an interview with Sharon . . . holy cow! Three years ago? Well, I suppose. Anyway, it's divided up into three parts and can be found here, here, and here.

It's a real shame that these books are going out of print. So if you want a copy of them, better go get them quick. And no, you can't have mine. Just saying.

Wordcount Wednesday

Two weeks ago, I jokingly wished that I could double my wordcount every week. I never actually thought that I'd be able to do it. But somehow, I managed to do just that.

As of right now, Failstate has grown to 20,907 words, which means that over the course of the past week, I somehow managed to write 9,316 words. That's really not too shabby. I doubt I'll be able to maintain my velocity, especially since next week is Ash Wednesday and that means a lot more work and a lot less caffeine for yours truly.

But once again, I had a weird revelation about my book, one that I thought I'd share.

Earlier this week, I was slaving away on a scene and I was having a rough time with it. As a matter of fact, Failstate has been kind of a slog so far. I couldn't quite put my finger on why, but it seemed like each page was an intense labor, like I had to force myself to keep writing. I wasn't all that happy with the way things were turning out.

So I'm working on this scene, sweating each word, sure that I'm producing garbage (you know, the usual writer lament). And I got interrupted. I had to leave the computer and go do something, I don't remember what. When I came back, suddenly the words started flowing easily. I felt lighter.

It took me three sentences before I realized I had accidentally switched perspectives.

See, I had started writing the book in third person. When I started, I thought that would be good. It would allow me to "head hop" if I needed to. But this past week, I accidentally started writing in first person and it seemed to flow a lot better. It felt more natural. It felt fun.

I gave it some thought. I'm pretty sure I won't be "head hopping" after all. The whole story can be told from Failstate's perspective. So I decided I would write a chapter or two in first person and see what happened.

Well, I guess we can see what happened. I've racked up my highest wordcount on this project to date and things are falling into place.

The downside to all of this is that I'll have to majorly rework the first fifty pages or so, but hey, that's what the rewriting process is all about, right?

Now I have another week to go before Lent is upon us. I doubt I'll do as good as I did this week, but it does give me an impressive standard to shoot for, right?

A Request for Help

They say when you find out you're going to be a father, your entire life changes. And from my experience, that's certainly true. But my experience was a little different than most. I was actually holding my son when I found out I'd be his father.

One of the greatest experiences I've had is becoming an adoptive father. A little over three years ago, Jill and I worked with Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota and, after a surprisingly short but wild ride, we met Isaiah's birthmother. Isaiah was four months old at the time.

This past summer, Jill and I started working with LSS again to start the process for our second adoption. We are home study approved and we're looking for your help. We're hoping to adopt a second child, ideally infant up through six months. We are more than willing to have an open relationship with the birthparents as we've stayed in contact with Isaiah's birthmother and have really enjoyed that.

If you know of a woman who is thinking about placing their baby for adoption, please let us know. You can contact us via e-mail at johnorjill (at) live (dot) com (replacing the items in parentheses with the appropriate symbols) and we can pass along more information.

Thank you in advance for your help!

Worcount Wednesday

I should have done much better than I did this week.

Stats first: as of right now, Failstate is 11,591 words long. I hadn't even realized I cracked the 10,000 word barrier. That actually has me worried; I was hoping to keep this one on the shorter side but that doesn't appear like it'll happen. We'll have to see.

But I'm afraid I must confess something now. I broke one of my cardinal rules of writing a book.

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

One of the rules I've found really helps is that of no back-editing. In other words, once forward momentum has been established, I do not go back to fix anything in what has already been written unless I wrote it that day. So let me give you an example. Earlier today I realized that I should rework the first scene in the first chapter so I can introduce some important plot elements from the get-go. I have a pretty clear idea of how to do it too.

But if I go back to fix up that scene, that means I won't be making forward progress on the story itself. My forward momentum will grind to a halt, which will make it all the harder to get started once the back-editing is done. So I've made a note of what needs to be done and I've kept writing.

This system works pretty well. It keeps me going, working through the story. It doesn't let me get bogged down in little nit-picky stuff in a first draft but instead lets me focus on telling the story as a whole. And normally, I'm happy as a clam with this rule.

Normally.

Only I hit a snag this week. I found myself slogging away through two chapters that really weren't working for me. Oh, the scenes were necessary. Some important stuff was happening. But it didn't feel right. The 2,700 odd words I pieced together just stared at me on the computer screen and I could feel their wrongness seeping into me.

I was ready to move on when, in a flash of inspiration, I realized what the problem was. Two characters had to be merged, which would require an extensive re-write of their chapter. The setting and manner of the next chapter was completely and utterly wrong. In essence, both chapters would have to be thrown out and rebuilt from the ground up.

I should have probably just taken my notes and kept going. But instead, I back-edited. I tossed out the first draft and rewrote both chapters, which actually turned out to be three chapters that came to approximately 4,200 words.

I feel much better about what I've written, but I back-edited. That was forward momentum that could have propelled me deeper into the story.

In the end, I suppose it was right for me to throw the rule book out this time. But I think I'll need to keep a sharper eye on what I'm doing. I would hate to have to do that again.

Oh, and come back tomorrow. I'll have something much more serious to talk about.

Puts It All in Perspective, Doesn't It?

First, watch this:



Now read this.

Whoa.

Seven Deadly Sins

The idea of the Seven Deadly Sins is nothing new. From what I understand, the Vatican released an updated list a few years ago, but you can't go wrong with the original seven. Wait. That came out wrong...

It's not the new list that Dan Boone wrote about in his book, but he treats each sin in a separate chapter and pulls back the mask to show how each of the seven lurk within modern Christianity.

On the plus side, this is a fast read. I polished it off in a few hours. Boone's writing style is very conversational, accessible. You don't have to be a theologian to appreciate his thoughts on each of the seven.

This is a great book for "afflicting the comfortable." There were many times that I was squirming in my chair as Boone's text held up a mirror to my life and showed me where the sins were hiding. But it's not so great at "comforting the afflicted." Boone seems very interested in drawing bright red circles around the the sins themselves but then moves on almost immediately to the next one without any real Gospel.

Also odd is the fact that Boone mentions that there are certain animals associated with each of the sins. I had never heard that before and wanted more info, but he never really developed the connection. For example, why is a frog associated with greed? Or why is a cow associated with lust? I'd think a rabbit would be better there, Playboy or otherwise.

All in all, it was an interesting read. I'm thinking it might just have to serve as the basis for a sermon series at some point (not that I'd read the book; I'd develop my own series based around the seven). But not this year.

R.I.P. Dollhouse

The good always die young. Wow. What a series finale!

Dollhouse ended tonight and I'm pretty upset about it. This was a phenomenal show almost from the beginning (almost). The premise was great, what with the imprinting of entire personalities that have been cobbled together from bits and pieces of other people. How would such technology impact the world? Here's a hint: not very well.

Sadly, both seasons of the show suffered from the same sloppy structure. Both seasons started with "engagement of the week" episodes, stand-alone stories that really didn't contribute much to the overall storyline. Then, halfway through each, the show delved into the deeper mythology of the Rossum Corporation and their nefarious designs for humanity. It's unfortunate that they (either the writers or the network) chose to do it that way. Rather than draw in viewers, I think the relatively lackluster stories drove them away.

For those of us who stuck around, though, Man on the Street in Season One and Belonging in Season Two were game-changers, dropping us head-first into a twisted story that was so engaging because it was so frighteningly possible. I'm not talking about the tech. I have no idea if you can imprint total personalities over someone or not. But the way Rossum used the tech is completely believable. Joss Whedon has a dim view of humanity's ability to resist such seductive power. I share it.

But let's talk about some of the twists, such as who the head of Rossum was or who died in the finale tonight. No worries, no spoilers, but wow. No sentimentality for anyone.

There was one thing that bothers me about the way everything played out. It would appear that the writers ret-conned the way Caroline became Echo. In the Season One episode Echoes, it would appear Caroline became Echo after a weird YouTube animal rights plot. In the Season Two episode Getting Closer, Caroline is a crusading terrorist out to topple Rossum for what they're going to do to people. In both episodes, each plot seemed to be her entrance into the Dollhouse. A contradiction? I have no idea.

It's a shame that this is over. I think they could have kept going and it would have been a wild ride along the way.

So what's next for Joss Whedon? I'm hoping for Dr. Horrible 2. But that's just me. I do know I'll be mourning Dollhouse's demise for a while. Too soon, too soon.

Behind the Mask

So it's early 1996. I'm a college senior and it's Monday night. I've got nowhere to be and I'm a bit bored, so I'm flipping channels when I stumble across a professional wrestling show. Much to my surprise, I see that Hulk Hogan is wrestling.

My immediate thought is, Hulk Hogan is still wrestling?!?

The show ended on a cliffhanger and it intrigued me enough to tune in the next week to see what happened. Before I knew it, I was watching WCW Monday Nitro regularly, but not because of Hulk Hogan.

No, I was watching because of Rey Mysterio, Jr.

He's called the human highlight reel for a reason. He was incredible. This was back when he was in his early twenties and in great shape, doing all sorts of crazy aerial moves. I still remember the moment I became his fan. He was wrestling someone and his opponent went for a clothesline. Rey grabbed his opponent's outstretched arm and used it almost like a trapeze, swinging himself around his opponent's body so he could get his legs around his opponent's neck, which led to a head-scissors takedown.

This whole series of events took exactly half a second, if I recall correctly, so fast that I could barely have blinked.

I've followed Rey's career off and on since then. I was thrilled when he came to the WWE. I was psyched that he won the World Heavyweight Championship. So naturally, I was stoked to read Behind the Mask, Rey's autobiography.

I'm not so excited anymore.

To put it bluntly, this was something of a boring read. I did learn a bit about lucha libre and the culture of Mexican wrestling, which was cool. I learned about how Rey trained with his uncle, the original Rey Mysterio, how he broke into the business way earlier than most would (if I recall correctly, it was when he was fourteen).

But as the book dragged on, I got more and more frustrated. I've read other wrestling autobiographies in the past and loved them, but that's only when they pull the curtain back and show us the inner workings of the profession. How are decisions made? How are matches put together? What goes on backstage at a show and what stories don't we know about?

Sadly, Rey doesn't give much in that regard. He had a few short tales to tell about his time in ECW, but that was it. He mostly gave us match recaps, who did what and when and, he did it almost in a way that made it sound like we were supposed to think the matches were "real," so to speak. In many ways, it was almost like the story was being written by the character of Rey Mysterio, the man who comes out on camera and puts on the match. It was like he didn't want to break kayfabe, which is kind of the point of a book like this. We didn't see much of what happened behind the mask, which is pretty ironic given the title.

The few times we did drift backstage, it was bland and kind of predictable. Rey apparently was a saint who never had any beefs with anybody backstage. He says many times that he heard that some people think that Wrestler X was hard to get along with, but he never had any problems with him. Uh huh. Right.

It may sound odd, but what frustrated me the most was how thin the chapter on Eddie Guerrero and Rey's run with the World Heavyweight Championship was. There was very little there.

In the end, this book wasn't all that great. But that doesn't mean I'll stop being one of Rey's fans.

Wordcount Wednesday

I'll keep it short and sweet this week. Work continues on Failstate. As of a moment ago, I have 7,710 words put into it. About 35 pages or so, in five chapters. I've put together some halfway decent turns of phrases (at least, in my grubby little opinion). I was even able to piece together some details that had been eluding me for a while.

But I'm glad that I was able to add 4,476 words this week. That's over half. I wish I could double my word count every week. Could you imagine if wordcounts were exponential? Wow. Sadly, they're not. I'll keep going with the few hundred words here and there until this beast is done.

I do think I need to do some more research, only I'm a little nervous to proceed. I'd love to talk to a police detective about interrogation techniques, but I'm not sure how that conversation could possibly end well. "Hey, Mr. Police Detective, I'd like to pick your brains on how you would conduct an interrogation on a superhero." Yeah.

Well, I've got some time to figure out that bit of dialogue. But in the meantime, onward and upward.

The Sims 3: World Adventures

I've been meaning to do this for a while. Let's talk The Sims 3: World Adventures.

It's not surprising that EA would put out an expansion pack for the Sims. That's where the money is and part of the reason why the Sims remains one of the top-selling game franchises for the past decade or so.

This one is a sort-of retread of previous expansions (namely Vacation and Bon Voyage) and allows your Sims to leave their homes and go on crazy adventures. Unlike the previous iterations, World Adventures includes three "real life" destinations, namely France, China, and Egypt (although I doubt anyone would ever find a place called Champs Les Sims, but I digress).

There's also the requisite new textures, furniture, and so on, plus three new skills for a Sim to learn (photography, "nectar" making, and martial arts. There aren't any new career tracks, which kind of surprised me since those are usually included as well.

Truth be told, there's not a lot to do at these destinations unless you want to go on the titular adventures (more on those in a bit). There's a general market for each new city, plus a few additional features (such as the nectary in France or the martial arts academy in China). You can certainly get to know the local Sims, go fishing, collect rocks and seeds, but that didn't hold a lot of appeal for me. What makes this expansion pack interesting is the tomb raiding.

That's right, each of the three destinations have numerous tombs scattered throughout. You can just plumb their depths right away, but I've found it a bit more satisfying to do the missions that accompany each one. Upon arriving at your destination, you arrive at a "base camp" with a mission bulletin board where local Sims post adventure requests. You can then accept the missions and go out to do them. This is actually an important part of the game, because how long you can stay in country is dependent on your visa level. The only way to increase that level is to earn visa points by doing the missions.

Some missions are easy: collect X number of Y and deliver them to Z. Others require you to go into the various tombs and retrieve certain objects or artifacts.

Ah, the tombs, where the game really shines. Inside the depths of these tombs, you find floor and wall traps that shoot darts or try to fry you. There are huge piles of rubble that need to be cleared away to expose treasure chests and hidden doors. There are relics galore to collect and keep. Some of them are fairly straight forward in terms of raiding. The worst seems to be Abu Simbel in Egypt. I'm pretty sure I botched that one when I cleared it, even though the game says I did fine.

Again, the focus on the expansion pack seems to be the tomb raiding, which is kind of an interesting twist to the franchise. It's not in the usual vein of life simulation and has an almost linear game-play feel to it. But it's kind of a nice change of pace. You certainly don't have to go raiding if you don't want to.

But there are benefits. Not only do you get lots of stuff that can be sold for lots of simoleans, you also can collect "epic" relics that, when gathered into one collection, give your Sim a nice mood bonus.


All that said, there are some serious bugs in the game, enough to really bother me about EA's quality control. I've had some experience with some of them. The game launcher will crash occasionally, although if I wait a few minutes, that problem resolves itself. More problematic is the strange relationship bug.

Let me tell you my story: before the expansion had come out, I had been playing with one family for a while. I really liked this crew and had some plans for where I wanted to take them even after the expansion was added. Small problem: once the expansion was added, I couldn't get their relationships to progress. They could become friends with other Sims, but those friendships couldn't progress to love or marriage or children (which is a small problem when you're trying to keep the game going).

From a quick search on the Sims 3 forums, I discovered this isn't a unique problem. A lot of players have run afoul of this bug. In my case, I was a bit frustrated because when I initially contacted EA about the problem, the tech support guy condescendingly suggested I was playing the game wrong and needed a game strategy guy to figure out what I was doing wrong. Um, no, this isn't my problem, buddy, it's yours.

The last I heard, EA is "working on it," whatever that means. Hopefully a future patch will resolve the issue. I did find a solution: I uninstalled my game and reinstalled everything and the problem seems to have been solved. But I shouldn't have had to do that.

Anyway, it's a fun addition, even with the bugs. Although if EA wants to fix those sometime soon, I certainly wouldn't object.

Catching Fire

I think I've commented on this before. When I'm not enjoying a book, it takes me forever to read it. When I really enjoy a book, it seems like I burn through them like nothing (pun somewhat intended in this case). That's certainly true of Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins.

Katniss Everdeen, having survived the Hunger Games, now has to endure the Victory Tour. She must travel to all twelve Districts of Panem and face the families of the tributes who either died or were killed by her in the Games. But the stakes are higher than usual. The way she and Peeta Mellark won the games has started a spark of rebellion against the Capitol. Katniss is told that she has to smother the flames before the whole country catches fire, a task that may be completely out of her control, especially when the next round of the Games begin with a horrifying twist.

I'm pretty sure that I polished this book off in a little more than 24 hours. I simply could not put it down. Collins's story and characters are engaging and vivid. The first person-present point-of-view, while off-putting in the first book, felt completely natural this time around. The description of life in oppressed Panem was fascinating, especially at the decadence of the Capitol.

If there was any part of the story that had me a little upset, it was the fact that Katniss seems to be a bit too clueless for her own good. There were more than a few times when things happened around her and she just glossed over them and didn't pull the threads together to see what should have been obvious. A certain watch, for example. That's all I'm saying on that, but if you read the book or have read the book, you should know what I'm talking about.

That, and to be perfectly honest, I was hoping that at some point, Katniss would resolve the love triangle she's in. It's just not working for me.

That isn't to say I won't be reading the last book in the series. Far from it. As a matter of fact, I checked Amazon today and found out that I can pre-order the third book and lock in the lowest price possible. Right now, the third book is on pre-order for almost half off. I can't imagine the price getting much lower, but I know that even if it does, Amazon will give me the lowest price it lists. So I think I know what I'll be doing this fall: spending one last day in Panem to see what happens to Katniss Everdeen.

The Big Five Oh ... Oh

According to my dashboard, I've just hit a milestone on this blog. This is post #500. Well, for now it is. I've been thinking of going into my backlog and clearing out some of the overgrowth, but I've never gotten around to it, but anyway...

Wow. I'll be honest, when I started this blog, I didn't think that it'd last very long. If you go back and look at the earliest entries (and please don't, just take my word for it), this little corner of cyberspace would very easily live up to its name. Stupid rambling posts by yours truly, never around a central theme. It very well should have imploded like a Viking's fan's Superbowl dreams (Gah! Too early!).

But here we are, five years and five hundred posts later. I suppose I could get all introspective right now and try to come up with some profound insight over how I've changed over the past five years. Five years ago, I was still a pastor in Blue Earth. Five years ago, I hadn't yet gone through the adoption process and become a father. I hadn't attended an ACFW Conference yet, I was still banging away at the same science fiction trilogy that now gathers some dust on my bookshelf.

Truth be told, though, I'm in a bit of a mess right now mentally. So instead of going for philosophy, let's go for the moment.

As of right now, I'm sitting in my den chair, wearing my purple #4 jersey, wondering how much the Saints paid to bribe the refs. Saints fans may disagree with me, but come on, some of those last calls were ridiculous. Go Colts.

Now that that's out of my system, let's talk TV viewing. My current roster of TV shows I follow regularly is holding somewhat steady: Chuck, Heroes, Castle on Mondays. Scrubs and now Human Target on Tuesdays (although don't hold me to the latter, I'm not sure when that's on exactly). Law and Order: SVU on Wednesdays. Dollhouse (for now), Shark Tank, and Law and Order on Fridays. Thank goodness for my hardworking VCR so I can record it and catch up on those shows at my leisure.

I'm reading Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins presently and I'm surprised at how fast I'm plowing through it. Good stuff there.

According to my iTunes 25 Most Played List, I am apparently obsessed with the soundtrack for Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog. Weird. I didn't think I'd listened to it that many times. Not that I have recently. I'm also the proud subscriber of about a dozen podcasts, three from How Things Work, the venerable Late Nite Jengajam, the PC Gamer Podcast, and I just recently, I subscribed to Word Like Fire and downloaded all 25 episodes.

I'm still a pastor but I've dabbled with dreams of going for an advanced degree of some sort. I took a somewhat half-serious look at an MFA from Hamline, but got derailed sometime last year.

I've lost more hair in the last five years than I wanted, but those are the breaks.

So that's about it. I have no idea where or when I'll be when post #1,000 comes around. I have no idea what changes might have occurred in my life.

Hopefully by then, the Vikings will have at least made it into the Superbowl. A guy can dream, right?

The Breath of God

So, I guess, lesson learned. Don't expect great books at a liquidation sale. I just now finished the final book I bought at the B. Dalton clearance sale and, unfortunately, it would appear that there was a reason all of those books were sitting around.

I tried to save the best for last. I'm a big fan of Harry Turtledove. Or, at least, I used to be. So when I saw The Breath of God, I figured I couldn't go wrong. Half price, an author I usually (or used to) enjoy.

What I didn't realize at the time was that this was the second or possibly third book in a series. I'm a little miffed with Tor for completely concealing this fact from me. Nowhere on the book itself does it say that this is book two or three of four or whatever. It didn't help looking at the list of other books by Turtledove either since the publisher didn't group said books by series. When I first started reading the book, I assumed it was a stand-alone.

Needless to say, you can imagine my consternation when it became quite clear that I should already know most of the characters. Turtledove went over great chunks of backstory, so much that I realized I had missed at least one book, possibly two. The sheer amount of telling in the opening chapters, while necessary, was also boring. I almost stopped reading the book after the first fifty pages but my Germanic stubbornness kicked in and I decided I would make it through the whole book.

The story itself deals with Count Hamnet Thyssen. Apparently he and some friends have gone further north than anyone ever has, through a Gap in the Glacier, where they've discovered a great nation of people who call themselves the Rulers. The Rulers have great wizards and fight atop riding deer and mammoths. And now that they know the Glacier has the Gap in it, they're bound and determined to add to their territory. First they'll conquer the nomadic Bizogot, and then it's on to the Raumsdalian Empire. Thyssen and company must stop the Rulers, but that won't be easy since Thyssen isn't exactly on friendly terms with the Emperor.

Like I said, I had to force myself to read this whole book. Turtledove's writing was repetitive, so much so that it frustrated me to no end. Lots of pointless bickering, and the characters would resolve things by stating, "Tell me I'm wrong" or "I can't say you're wrong" or some variation thereof.

In short, I wasn't impressed. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it would have helped if I had read the first book or the first two books or however many I missed. But honestly, after slogging through this one, I have no desire to track down those skipped books.

Oh well. On to better things, books for which I paid full price.

Wordcount Wednesday

You know, it's been so long since I've posted an actual wordcount for one of these, I've almost forgotten how it's done.

Kidding, of course. But as I said last week, I finally started my downward spiral into the world of Failstate, a YA superhero novel. I wish I could report that I've made a lot of progress, but I haven't, not nearly as much as I'd like. Part of that is pressure from the "real world." Part of that is laziness on my part (combined with being distracted by our new Wii Fit Plus and the Sims 3: World Adventures).

But a lot of that had to do with my greatest arch-enemy: the blank page.

I hate blank pages. So much pressure to fill them and do so in a way that's good. And it's even worse when the blank page is the first of a new book.

Maybe I'm the only person who faces this tyrant with such fear and trepidation. I've kind of set a goal for myself to always try to have a great first line or a good first scene that really hooks the reader. I mean, we only have so many words before someone would put a book down, right?

Well, with Failstate, I had a problem with the first line. I couldn't think of a good one. I finally had to throw a weak one on the page and start writing. But because the first line was so lackluster, I didn't feel good about the two or three pages I pieced together.

Then, one evening, a better first line came to me. And it helped. The better first line led to a stronger opening, which led to a fun little scene, which led to more fun...

I'm not done with the first chapter yet (close, but my bed is calling to me with its siren-song), and I'm a little worried about that. I'm on page 13 and I was hoping to have the first chapter be 15 pages or less so I could have an easy entry for ACFW's Genesis Contest. Oh well, maybe I'll lose some bloat when I rewrite the chapter in a few weeks.

Anyway, on to the report. As of right now, I have put 3,234 words on the page. Not too shabby for about half a week's work.

But I know it could have been better. So please, feel free to leave somewhat disparaging remarks for me. I could use the motivation.