The eFuture of eBooks

I love a good story. To me, the art of storytelling is the finest form of expression, both of the self and of the world around you. It’s a way to escape the monotony of life for some, a way to deal with tragedy and loss for others, and a form of entertainment for just about everyone. For me, it was all of the above.

When I was young and growing up in rural Michigan, I didn’t have much. One of the few things that I did have easy access to were books, and throughout my childhood I would often find myself turning to my steadily-growing collection of stories. When my grandmother died, I buried myself in the Anne of Green Gables series (which was required reading for me in fifth grade), The Hardy Boys books, and of course, Goosebumps. Two summers later, when my mother was stricken with cancer, I retreated to the fanciful worlds of H.G. Wells, Douglas Adams, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. For a long time, my stories were my lone reprieve.

Then I lost them.

Posted on January 16, 2013 by James in Writing

The Post in Which I Make Excuses For Not Updating My Blog

Hi, kids. So, if you follow me on the Twitternets, you’ve probably seen me say something along the lines of “I’m going to update my blog today”, or “I think I should write something on my blog”. Obviously, I haven’t. But why not? Am I engaged in something so epic that it requires my full and undivided attention? Have I been kidnapped by Afghan nationals and fought my way out of their desert bunker only after building a suit of armor from spare pinball machine parts? Am I on a secret mission from the CIA to start a blood war between Portugal and Senegal?

No. For the most part I’ve just been lazy, but that isn’t to say that I haven’t also been busy. After all, I work at a video game developer and it’s the middle of “convention season”, which begins with PAX East and continues through E3, Comic-Con, gamescom, PAX Prime, Tokyo Game Show, and for an increasing number of companies, New York Comic-Con. Not every company goes to every event (in fact, most companies don’t go to even half of the events), but even if you’re just going to the big three (E3, SDCC, PAX), there’s more than enough work to be had. Maybe one of these days I’ll go into some more detail on what’s involved in putting one of these shows together, but it’s suffice to say that I’ve been busy.

The other big thing that’s been eating away at my time has involved me putting my personal writing projects in order. Going back to when I was in junior high, I would always write down story ideas in composition notebooks. Admittedly, some of these ideas are better than others (for instance, I don’t think “Lionel Ritchie’s Federation of Exceptional Bon Vivants” will ever see the light of day), and for the last few weeks I’ve been going through and picking out which ones I want to give serious thought to and which ones were just me grasping at straws during moments of soul-shattering boredom. While I wish I could say more, I still have a long way to go before I finish sorting the good ideas from the bad, and while I do that I’m still writing down new ideas as they come.

In addition to all of that, I’m also working on yet another writing project. I’ve talked about it on Twitter a few times now, and it’s really more of a pet project of mine than anything I’m seriously hoping to package and sell to the masses. It’s tentatively titled 500 Things That Make the World Less Good, and it’s exactly what it sounds like: a collection of things that, in my forever humble opinion, make Earth a slightly less awesome place. I’m still putting together the list right now, but once I have the core list in order and start actually writing the damn thing, I’ll give you more details (and maybe let you read on or two).

Oh, and when I’ve not been at BioWare or working on my personal projects, I’ve been going through my PS3 library. So, you know… there’s that, too…

Posted on June 17, 2012 by James in Writing

Meh

…a blog post talking about the lack of desire to write a blog post. Pretty meta, eh?

I have absolutely nothing pressing to say. I don’t have any particularly strong emotions flowing through me at the moment, and things are generally… pretty alright. It’s because of exactly that reason that I’m writing right now. Writing when you have nothing in particular to say is a good exercise. It’s akin to powering through writer’s block when you’re working on a project whose deadline is coming up and you have yet to write word one. It’s not that there’s anything up there — I’m thinking all the time. The issue is getting it all written down in a style and voice that I’m comfortable with.

It can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but I find that it’s a lot easier to restructure or rewrite bad text that has a good idea, rather than putting everything off and trying to come up with something fresh when I feel like it.

For the record, there is a difference between having Writer’s Block and just… not having anything to say. Writer’s Block is downright torturous — you’re sitting at your desk, staring at a blank word document (or pad of paper if you’re old school), the insertion point blinking over and over again as though it were judging you… mocking you… you know exactly what you want to say in your head and when you recite it back to yourself internally it sounds brilliant. Then you write it out and get:

I like bacon.

While not an inaccurate statement, you know that you’re missing out on so much. So you delete it and write it again. This time you get:

I really like bacon.

…closer. But still a mile away from what you’re after. You want to convey the absolute joy you experience from biting into that first crunchy slide (or chewy, if you’re into that). You want to talk about the heavenly scent of fresh bacon in the morning, or how you can still see the steam rising in wavy whisps as it sits on the kitchen counter.

But all you get is:

I really like bacon, especially when it’s hot.

It sucks. That’s writer’s block — and not as many people have this problem as Tumblr and Twitter would make you believe. The simple fact of the matter is that most people who say they’re dealing with writer’s block… aren’t. They just have nothing to say, but they can’t admit that to themselves and wind up penning pointless blog posts that have entire paragraphs opining about how awesome bacon is.

…wait…

Posted on January 16, 2012 by James in Writing