eddyfate

I stumbled across a demo for an upcoming video game called Bioshock, and the premise is somewhat familiar. It's an art deco city built in isolation (under the sea) containined a failed utopia and harboring mutants and odd, clanky scientific marvels. Sure, it's not exactly like Midway City, but it's close enough that I want to give it a try.

I believe it was at Angstgiving (our "Thanksgiving for chosen family" that we have every year), or maybe it was in one of the other side conversations that weekend, but I got into a conversation with mrogre and others about John Cage's composition, 4'33". 4'33" is a composition of complete silence that lasts for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. This, of course, prompted a conversation on whether it is really music or not.

Today, on Irregular Webcomic, the cartoonist posted a comic that consists of four black panels. His extremely lengthy annotation discusses his decision about this, and covers at length opinions on art, using 4'33" as a reference point.

( Incoherent rambling about art. Bring a map -- I go all over the place. )

This weekend was pretty sedate, and I was appreciative of that.  I got a good amount of reading done, finishing up my copy of the New Annotated Sherlock Holmes before Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's birthday today.  I also got into What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew.  So, there's an upside to not having access to a computer.  We also watched Bloodrayne, and it was just as terrible as I expected it to be.

There was a local Requiem game, which was a lot of me helping the local Storytellers out because of some changes locally, as well as building more bridges between games in Missouri.  I think a bunch of us are debating going to Columbia next weekend to continue the bridge-building process.

My hard drive should be in my hands tomorrow, so I can get things back on track.  I'm hoping to have it all in order by Thursday, so I can catch up on a stack of emails I'm sitting on, as well as stuff like the UWA and Serenity.  I would also like to get moving on editing my three short stories so I can start pimping them for publication.

I also have some more motivationsal poster silliness from Midway City.

Last night was another good class. I had a rough moment when I was the only student who admitted that I wanted to work sci-fi, and was told by the instructor to "try to make it literary." Once my initial flash if indignation calmed down, I interpreted it as "make it a good story," which I planned to do anyway, but I realized that my class is full of really talented people who want to do serious literature, whereas I'm the weird geek who wants to tell stories about angels, superheroes, and noir gumshoes with cybernetic limbs.

I'm realizing how much work school is going to be, and I'm a little intimidated because school has never been work for me. To balance my time and energy out, I took some hard decisions I had been kicking around for some time out of theory and into practice today (mostly the withdrawl of my participation from project "IndyPirates" and the consideration of combining projects "PunkRock", "Money", and a bunch of others into one big project with a longer timeframe). I don't like changing my plans, but a lot of things have changed since November, and I have to accomidate.

Last night I worked on my review of Dead of Night for RPG.net, and watched The Christmas Invasion. I also poked around at some Midway City stuff. Tonight I plan to do some background material to a large number of interconnected projects. If that goes well (and if I get Thursday and Friday off of work like I'm hoping), I want to try to get a draft of "PunkRock" done by 2006.

Had a productive email conversation with someone I thought I was going to have a huge fight with. It's not perfect, and it's not over just yet, but it went better than expected. I'm a little more confident in my ability to assess a situation.

After years of hating it and months of being worn down by my co-worker and my love of Joss Whedon's writing, I've decided to borrow the first season of Buffy to watch. I'm giving it one more chance. If it doesn't grab me, it never will. Of course, this will be after I finish I, Claudius, The Prisoner, my collected of Godfather movies, and so on.

As a side note, people who are knowledgable on the tiny details of the world of Midway City and who want a sneak peek at some behind-the-scenes work on the game, send me an email at spectrum (at) spectrum-games (dot) com; I will need some help soon on checking the details on something I'm working on, and I'm starting to get a little muddled on all of the drafts I've worked on over the years.

( Lengthy update on my projects )

Recently I was asked how I can keep track of all of this. The short answer is that I don't. I have an elaborate system of notebooks, binders, folders, computer files, and index cards that I use to keep track of scraps of ideas as I get them. At some point, the ideas reach critical mass and I have enough material to start a project, but it can sometimes take years to reach that point (or, like in the case of "Domhan," over a decade). I then use email, my Palm pilot, a wipeboard, and just leaving crap on my desk to help me stay on task with the projects I need to do. I have scores of ideas and projects that will never be more than a couple of notes in my notebook, and another handful that I have good notes on, but will likely never see the light of day. These are completely aside from the projects that are self-generated: they aren't based off of ideas that have been bubbling in my head, but are developed to fill a market need. Sadly, I even have a few ideas that are completely developed, but will likely never be published (like Carjackers).

"So I thought you were going to drop off the earth?"

Yeah, so did I, but my script writers like to juxtapose my intentions with my situation. The potential is still there, though. One project (codenamed "IndyPirates") has hit a snag, and I can't go forward until I get a piece of information sorted out. Another project (codenamed "PunkRock") I could work on, but it's a project I want to focus on instead of picking at every couple of days. cynthiacm is working on project "Money" slowly, and somewhere in there I need to start looking at projects "Dime," "MovieCheck," and "FunnyPages."

Along with that, I was supposed to work with banzaigrrl and greebotrill to put together the Requiem game for this month, but we're all stupidly broke and pressed for time that we can't come up with even a token decoration effort. Luckily the game premise is supposed to be relaxed and low-key, but it's still aggravating because other players have both time and money. Combined with minor drama and stress involved with the game (in the Camarilla? NO!), Requiem has been a bit more of a drain than an escape for me.

Further, I've been thinking a lot about my future. Current long-term plans indicate that if I want to get a degree, I have to stop screwing around and get it in the next two to three years. So, instead of my current schedule of one class a year, I have to try to take classes in Spring, Summer, and Winter, which will take up even more of my time. I enjoy school, but I dislike not having at least some free time, which means that some hobbies will be downsized to make time for it.

Finally, I've been feeling antisocial lately. It would be easy to blame the weather or "seasonal depression," but in reality neither is a constant impact on my mood (although I do hate the cold as much as I hate the heat). What's really going on is that I'm once again focusing on one of my flaws and trying to work past it, which is a painful process. In being honest with myself I'm learning that some of my previously-held assumptions are no longer true, and that many of my problems are due to my own inadequacies. The more painful part is that most of the flaws I'm targeting stem from the fact that I'm too much of a nice guy. I don't like the feeling that people don't like me, but trying to be everyone's friend is making my life more complex than it needs to be. Once again, I need to reread Lao Tze.

Last night was the first playtest session for Midway City. I could have done some things better, but overall the players had a good time and the basic elements of the LARP rules work well. We played later than expected, and I didn't get home from afters until 2am.

Work up around 11am or so, and updated my notes. Went to lunch, came back, and Firefox crapped out on me, likely due to some weird interaction between the updates on my extensions. So, I deleted it and started over. Between getting new extensions, tweaking Firefox to work the way I want it to (and trying out some new ideas), and plowing through a large stack of backlogged mail as well as tossing around ideas with graveyardgreg and zja2, it's now 7pm and my day is gone. (What's worse is that I'll probably have to do this AGAIN when I get around to reformatting my hard drive, which desperately needs to happen.)

Tomorrow is D&D and character rewrites, and then it's back to the grind for another week (which means groundwork for GenCon Indy and starting on a couple of other Midway City projects).

Dear muse,

When I warn people that I'm going to drop off the radar because I need to focus on a lot of things for a while, this is not the opportune moment to give me a really cool idea for a Midway City card game. The correct time to have done that was a few months ago, not after I've just dived into a ton of work and set deadlines and commitments to people.

I hate you.

- eddyfate

FINALLY got my copies of Midway City. w00t! secret_fire, drop me a line so you can finally buy your copy.

Do you want to contribute to Midway City? Feel free to send me an email at spectrum@spectrum-games.com if any of the things below interest you.

Reviews
I'm always looking for unbiased and detailed reviews of Midway City. I'll send you a copy of the book in PDF, in exchange for the review being published in an RPG periodical or posted on an RPG review site (such as RPG.net).

LARP Playtest
I have a first draft of the Midway City LARP conversion done. If you're interested in playtesting it, you must have a copy of the Midway City book to use the conversion. My timeframe for having the LARP rules published (in PDF) is April 1, 2006.

GenCon Indy LARP
I'm seriously considering running said LARP at GenCon Indy. If I do it, and how big the event will be, depends on how much help I can get (I've already got a few people who have expressed interest). If you're interested in volunteering to help run the game, let me know.

(As a side note, if someone knows who is running the Camarilla LARP or LARPs at GenCon Indy, please get me in touch with them.)

Fiction Writer
I'm looking for contributions of Midway City fiction for the website. It doesn't pay a thing, but if you have ideas for adventures in the City that won't work on your gaming table, send them to me after the usual editing and spellchecking, and I'll host them on the website.

Midway City Files Contributor
If, instead, you're interested in game writing, I'm currently taking submissions for the Midway City Files. There might be a percentage of profits, depending on the size and usefulness of the contribution, but a free copy of the work you contributed to is much more likely.

So I'm taking a break from my fiction to get back to the bread-and-butter: Midway City line support. Enough things fell into place that I was able to take a swing at how I wanted to break down the writing for the line over the next year or two. At this point we're looking at fourteen supporting books (counting the LARP conversion). Instead of putting out big books with a lot of material certain groups might not want, we've decided to put out a lot of small "files" (hence the name of the line: the Midway City Files) that cover specific topics so players and Narrators can grab just the files they need for their game. If things go well, we might then compile all of the files into one book (tentatively titled Midway City Confidential). Believe it or not, the act of sorting all of that out took a few hours, and from there I want to try to outline each of the books before I start writing (which is probably going to be a week or so of work).

So, basically, I'm back to work, and enjoying it so far.

Feathery snowflakes fell and melted into her golden hair as we held each other. Time became muffled under snow and ice. Her arms squeezed me tightly as she buried her face in my chest. Her face was wet as I held her to me, assuring myself of her reality, clinging to something I didn't understand but was so afraid to lose. A second, an hour, a lifetime passed by as we held each other, no other words needed but simple human contact.

I felt her stir, and I looked down into her eyes. Her electric-blue gaze slammed into my mind. I leaned forward just as she did and our lips connected, completing the circuit started in her eyes. Soft passion flowed through me as I felt her hands inside my coat, her nails gently raking my back as our lips flowed over each other and melting snow slid down my face, masking my tears.

Three shots cracked in the darkness. Warm life splashed over my face as I felt my leg buckle. I fell to the frozen street, banging my head on the car parked behind me. I screamed her name as I drowned in a sea of darkness. Frozen pricks dotted my tongue as I called her over and over again, struggling to keep my eyes open.

As the freezing void drug me down, the last thing I saw was her lying on the ground, her dead eyes staring at me as gritty, sticky blood oozed under my hands.

---

Author's Note: Decided to get a scene out that was lurking in my head. This is background to events in my eventual Midway City story. Revised 11/18.

I made up six Midway City icons for general use. They're not the best, but they're pretty cool. If you're really good at making LJ icons and want to take a stab at making some more official MC icons, drop me a line.

The Midway City website is new and improved. It's got all of the links to the preview materials, ordering information, lists of retailers, nifty links, and some new sections that will be expanded in the near future (including a section for LARP). Go check it out!

http://www.spectrum-games.com/midwaycity

Midway City is now available for purchase online!

http://www.zmangames.com/products/store_midway.htm

Midway City has been acquired in the UK!

Edit: For those who can't read it -

Just got my copy (personally hand delivered by Mike of Leisure Games, no less). It's got my name (and those of [info]raggedy_man, Gandalf WINOLJ, [info]sesquipedality, [info]kinkykay and [info]jasonooc, the rest of the UK playtest group) in it and everything.

It looks damn fine for a small company's effort. Rol Enriquez' illustrations capture the feel wonderfully and [info]adamjury's layout and page design (mimicking a police case file with stuck in illustrations and paperclipped notes) just gives it that little edge.

Spent most of the night starting on the new and expanded Midway City site. It's pretty similar to the Spectrum Games site as a whole, but I'm expanding the content and hopefully putting in enough room to grow for a couple of years without a major site overhaul. I got further than I expected, but still nowhere near done; I gave myself a week to work on this, and odds are good I'll use most of that time. I've been feeling like I was spinning my wheels for a while, but I think I just needed a good project to get me back on track.

I've been having off and on ear pains in my left ear (the one I didn't have the recent operations on) since Phoenix. I'm a little concerned that we might have to up the timetable on that ear before we know how the hearing will pan out in the right ear, which means an increased chance of my losing hearing overall. I'm going to call the doctor tomorrow to see what he says.

Bad: Delays on Midway City forcing me to reschedule my LARP.

Good: Not trying to bang out a LARP in two weeks nor plan around visitors at home.

Bad: Tons of crap to deal with in my inbox.

Good: Being mostly done with the heavy lifting on email.

Bad: Feeling swamped at work, at home, and in general.

Good: Taking time for myself and catching up on Season Four of Red vs. Blue.

Bad: Not finding out Henry Rollins was in town until today, and not having the money to go see him.

Good: garchangel bringing home From Russia With Love, the video game.

Summary: Good. The Sean Connery Bond is back, bitches.

Books arrived at my publisher's yesterday, and are currently being sent to West Coast distributors. I should have my copies in the next two weeks, so in theory I should be getting my copies about the time stores should be getting theirs. It will likely be on sale at zmangames.com next Friday or so, so call it the middle of November.

So, if you want to start going to your friendly local gaming store and asking for a copy, you should be able to do so now. :)