So, there’ve been a few things I was interested in writing about, but keep putting it off, ’cause recently, my schedule’s been sliding forwards – sleeping later, waking up later, and I just haven’t found the time. And, I seem to only be able to remember the relevant crap I was gonna write about when I’m in a car, or in the pool, or wherever, as far as I can be from a computer, or when I have the least free time possible. Anyway – quickie media recommendations:
* Hikaru no Go: A manga about a sixth-grader who gets inhabited by the spirit of some ancient Go master, and ends up learning Go and playing in a bunch of tournaments. Fun, and really reminiscent of old sports comics that I read when I was really young. Fun stuff.
* The 40 Year Old Virgin: A both hilarious and sweet movie – manages to skirt the sappiness of a lot of these sorts of comedies by actually having reasonably fleshed out and realistic characters, so it doesn’t feel arbitrary or weird when conflicts, or resolutions happen. Steve Carrell is awesome, and the supporting cast is frankly awesome, too. I’d love to see them work together more.
* V for Vendetta: I picked up the DVD when it came out, and watching again (a couple times) reminds me that this was my favorite movie of the year, hands down.
Thoughts:
* The time is perfect for a game startup. Many years ago, you could develop a game in your garage, with a couple friends, and sell it on a relatively small scale, either through local companies, or through publishers, who were looking for any content, because the industry was really small. That time has come again – with Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft all on the online distribution thing, and with Valve’s Steam providing a similar service on the PC, it’s clear that smaller, cheaper, often simpler quality content finally has an outlet again. You can make a game with five to ten people, in less than a year, and actually sell it somewhere without fighting against EA’s marketing idiots, or Wal-Mart’s buyers, for shelf space next to Generic Space Shooter Fifteen.
What it requires is taking those first steps. And I’m scared to death of the risk, having watched my dad suffer through the last few years. But on the flipside, is this the thing where I look back five years from now, and say, “dammit, I was right – and I know because those *other* five people – they’ve done what I said I should have done.” I don’t want that. I also don’t want to jeopardize Ei-Nyung and my financial security – we’ve got a good thing going – on top of just stable, things are really good. Progress is being made against the creeping anarchy of home repair, and we’ve got money saved up – a reasonable amount of it, for whatever the future holds, whether that’s catastrophe, or a child, or whatever. We’ve got some safety in place, and that’s a good thing.
But there’s that question – what if? I know a lot of people – the *right* people – who are asking themselves similar questions. I know they’re the right people, because they’re asking the same questions as I am. 😉 But there has to be a way to do this with minimal risk – it’s certainly looking into whether that’s a tolerable situation, and what pursuing it would entail. It’s taking the first step that’s the hardest – even looking implies a certain seriousness that I’m having a hard time mustering. Weakness, or sensibility? Maybe both?
Then, there’s thinking about NaNoWriMo this year – thinking about what I like writing about, a certain structure presents itself relatively clearly. I like writing little things about characters. I like writing about stuff I’m passionate about. And one thing that I’d like to capture is the sense of calm before catastrophic death. Yeah, I know it’s weird, but there’s a certain… I dunno – value in having had that experience that I’d sort of like to share in some way without almost crushing everyone’s head with a car.
So, I think the basic story will be about a game designer, who starts a company with some of his friends. There’s a good portion of the book that goes on about that, and their various problems – conflicts with publishers, money issues, design brainstorming, production issues – what it’s like to see a game come together, and actually play something that months ago was merely a dream in your head. It’s a pretty thrilling experience, honestly, and capturing that would be pretty cool. Some portion through the book, something happens, and it’s not done in an overly dramatized way – it’s an event that has been portrayed in countless works of fiction, but I’m hoping that I can deal with it instead of how it’s been done in those works of fiction, in a realistic way – how a generic schmoe who’s worried about his deadline at work deals with this sort of catastrophic event. Then, at the end, it all culminates in a single moment where everyone has the same moment of realization.
I dunno – it’d be a *real* trick to pull off, and have anything compelling. My guess is that it would take a better writer than me to actually pull it off, but I guess in some sense, I’m hoping that if I’m not good enough at the beginning of the month, I might be by the end of it. 🙂
