Today is my day to post a blog - if you've been following, I post every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, the days I don't have classes this semester. Unfortunately, today I find myself completely unprepared. Normally, I would be writing blogs up ahead of time, quickly carving out a rough draft, and then sitting down with it to edit on the day I'm supposed to post. Lately though, I haven't been writing as often, so I only have one paragraph of one future blog which I want to do more research on before I send it out for the world to see.
A small portion of me doesn't really feel like writing, so that may explain the lack of backup, but that's just a small part. Also, most of my blogs require some research, and I haven't felt like doing any lately. More to blame, however, are two other things I've been spending my time on:
A Game of Thrones
This is a novel by George R. R. Martin, which HBO made into a mini-series that's starting next month. I don't really care about what HBO thinks or does, but when The Daily What Geeks announced the show, the comments went wild with people ecstatic to see one of their favorite books brought onto the screen. I'd never even heard of it before, but I'd been looking for something new to read when I finished The Hobbit (again), so I decided I'd pick it up. I only had a vague sense of what the story was about, and I normally don't like to start new TV series until one of the ones I'm already watching is over, but this is a mini-series so it doesn't really count (Since I know it'll have a definite end, instead of going on and on until viewer ratings decline).
I was a bit uncertain when I got to the bookstore and realized A Game of Thrones is 800 pages long, but I'm glad I decided to pick it up anyways - this novel is a true epic. It's a medieval soft-fantasy, meaning that though fantastic creatures and powers may be talked about or mentioned, there's little evidence that they're more than just legend. The culture that Martin created for this world is realistic to our own medieval time, and extremely well thought out. There's so much going on at any given time, it's no surprise he had to take 800 pages to flesh out the entire drama from all sides. I've been losing sleep, staying up at night trying to find out what happens next.
A little warning though, this book is not for the faint of heart. There are lots of battles, a good number with wit but a lot with blood too, and more than one awkward intimate scene. I appreciated Martin's bluntness throughout it all; he gives you the facts and spares you the gross details. Still, there were a few paragraphs that we hard to read.
Dragon Age: Origins
A few months ago, Felicia Day, a web series actress/writer/director whose work I follow, announced that she was working with Bioware game studio to create a web series based on one of their best-selling games, Dragon Age. Again, I'd never even heard of Dragon Age (I don't really know why, since it's in my video game niche), but I had to find out more. Felicia Day's work is kind of an example of the American Dream - she started out as an obscure TV actress who started her web show with her own money to give herself real work to do, and is now being paid by a well known game studio to romp around in the forest pretending to be an elf. Though I'd never played the game before, I really wanted to watch her new web series in support of her success.
Which means of course that I have to play the game - I don't watch movies or HBO mini-series before reading the books, do I? Why should a video game be any different? So, I managed to get someone to lend the game to me, and started my own play-through of Dragon Age: Origins.
I'm planning to write a full (and probably long) blog on that later, when I'm done, which could be anywhere from a week to a month or three from now, depending on how much sleep I decide is really necessary. The game's awesome, and if I had more time to devote to it I could probably be playing all day, every day, for a long time. Every decision you make changes elements of the gameplay, and there are six different 'origin stories' depending on which type of character you chose - so, you could play the game all the way through at least six times and have it be different every time.
I'm only doing one play-through, at least for now, to get a sense of the game before Felicia Day's new web series comes out. More on my experiences and thoughts when the game's finished
With two long, in depth stories I'm trying to work my way through, m writing's been a bit forgotten about - but I promise myself that I'll keep it up!
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