Candlewick

Today is April Fools Day, but I feel don't feel like making a prank right now. Which is not to say I am not involved in a prank. Only that I am not wanting to start one. Last night, I started writing a fake article for a Civilization V expansion, but I decided it wasn't up to my standards of funny. So I never finished it.

Last night, I woke up suddenly around 3 AM. I had this idea as soon as I got up and started moving, a new story. It was just there. I had a title at first, "Murder Associates", however I decided after a few minutes to call it "The Finer Things". I wrote it over a matter of hours this morning, finishing it right before 7 AM. Calling it 6:51 AM could be would wrong because I wasn't paying attention, but it's very possible. Later today I plan to post an excerpt from The Finer Things here. On the Fiction page.

Also on the writing front, I have another story. This was more an exercise that I wanted to do. I have never done a fan fiction (well, when I was very young I wrote a pilot for a new Star Trek series...). I looked down on the idea. Mainly from the lack of original ideas, the painful attempts at reading fan fiction in the 90's, and the whole slash subculture. Still, it was something I wanted to do. So I wrote The X-Files: Beyond The Truth as the first of a series of new X-Files stories. It was something I was happy to write, because it let me do something the show never got to do...make Doggett and Reyes interesting characters.

In the series, Doggett was basically Scully as a New York cop with a bad attitude, and Reyes was the flaky female Mulder. Reyes was especially shafted, because her character was forced and pushed aside. Which made it more awkward when she got her own episode, and it sucked. In my story, a year has passed from the series finale. Skinner, Doggett, and Reyes are reunited in a case to prevent someone from finding and killing Mulder, who they have lost touch with. If that plot sounds generic, that's because it's only the surface. I had to reunite the characters first, I had to resolve the absurity of the series finale. Now that it's done, this new story paves the way for the events in I Want To Believe, and answers questions about what happened after Mulder's disappeance. In X-Files fashion, it doesn't give too many answers, and adds more questions. Beyond The Truth will be available in full in the fiction section.

In the Civilization V front, I am in discussion with a certain group about writing a day one review of Brave New World, hopefully getting to be one of the first. It's too early to say anything though, but hopefully this opportunity will work out.

One thing about this website I should mention is that I am changing FTP clients, and hopefully that will be a simple transition. I wouldn't want to go back to the old text client like I used to use (oops, I forgot to set it to ascii and it's trashed!).

The music projects are still coming along. I'm So Everything has been revised for performance as a solo acoustic song, while the original version will be used for recording. I'm really just having recording problems stopping me from progressing.

One other matter I might as well discuss here. I saw some posts on Steam's forums that made my morning. Seems my presence in that community is missed. I feel I owe an explaination, but am limited by what I can explain. I'll keep it simple, I ran into a moderation problem there, and I left before things could escalate. I think the moderation on Steam needs some massive review, and I am unable to affect change in that area, and unwilling to support the existing situation. It was better for me to remove myself from the problem, it was making me angry. Still, I might stop in and say something to those who said the supportive stuff I read. It means a lot. Thanks, guys.

It's random droppings from the tree of...random droppings.