A Blog On Writing, How Meta

If you look around on the internet, especially the blogosphere, you can find all sorts of "helpful" posts about how to write a blog, how to make money blogging, or how to improve your blog. I'll just go to Google right now and search. Here's what I found

Crap.
More Crap.

Obviously there were more than this, but I only wanted a couple examples. I could read how-to-blog help posts from now until I'm blue in the face and I don't think I'd find anything helpful (for me). Is it because I'm beyond help? Well, hopefully not, but I'm also more optimistic than that.

Given absolute freedom, I'd rather do what I want and write what I feel. That's how I approach blogging. The internet drills on about framework and structure and content. Titles and take-aways. I say bunk-a-bugga. From five paragraph essays to term paper outlines, we've been force-fed this way to write and it looks as messy as orange barrels and detours in a construction zone along the interstate. Blogs need to defy that pre-fab, cookie-cutter writing mentality in exchange for exploration and creativity.

I first noticed this order versus chaos dichotomy in a creative writing class. It was creative nonfiction. I'm still not sure what that means. Anyway, we used this stupid course management system forum to post our assignments, respond to what we were supposed to be reading, and comment on each other's work. So we would all upload a neat and pristine word document, our creative nonfiction on display, then wait for classmates to respond and critique in the forum comments section. Man, I loved reading the comments; regardless if my work was ripped to shreds or placed on a pedestal. That class's forum comments section was a primordial cesspool for real writing. Raw writing. Some of the craziest shit I've ever read. Maybe I need to wade through some more forums across the internet. Upon entering the blogosphere, I expected to find that raw, untamed wilderness. Sad to say, but the orange barrels are already here.

A Man Unplugged

In an attempt to waylay unsavory habits of borrowing movies, music, and software my household unanimously decided to cut the cord (so to speak) and cancel the internet component of our cable services. Even though I did my best Jeff Winger, I couldn't convince them to kill everything. College football is starting again and they would have none of my just-cancel-the-cable craziness. Apparently they need football at home much more than I need the internet at home. So I lost and won.

Officially I am unplugged; it's a can't-stop-my-hands-from-shaking feeling, like an addict going cold turkey. My brain, suffering from withdraw, started listing all the things I could no longer do without the internet. Team Slayer in Halo Reach, gone. Wait, that means Xbox Live is...gone. And that means the PlayStation Network is also...gone. The shakes come back. Who am I going to lose to in Mortal Kombat? What about all those new features in the next Disgaea game? Screaming now. The lights go out. What have I done? Paying bills online...gone. No more youtube, iTunes, or flickr. All is lost. All is lost.

What have I done? Okay, relax. It's not as bad as I'm making out to sound. The disconnected life does mean that the Xbox and PS3 lose their online multi-player; there will be less idle browsing in flickr, youtube and facebook. Yeah, I'm going to miss this stuff at first, but it won't be a horrible loss. And there's one key word I want everyone to read: TEMPORARY. The plan is to flip the magical internet switch back on at the beginning of September. Think of it as a cache-clearing technodetox.

This is an experiment, in the greatest sense of the word. I want to see if I can do it. Go without the internet at home. I can still read up on things and blog during my mandatory hour lunch break at work. On top of all that, I can use my new phone to check my email and jack into the interwebs (which I won't do too often because I'm not a fan of touch screen interneting). All the bases of necessity are covered and I feel confident I can make it until August 31, 2011 before I call the cable company, half screaming, half crying for them to give us back our internet. I don't know how my roommates will manage, but if worst comes to worst...

...there's always unsecured wireless networks.

Pre-order, Prinny Please

Once again, I find myself falling prey to pre-order swag. The fourth reincarnation of Disgaea releases this September and I'm constantly reminded of the pre-order goodies from NIS America. A special "thank you" goes out to the email spam prinnies polluting may inbox with their Hades-spun advertising. Still. Art books and soundtracks are tempting treasures. Wait, what am I saying, after about a week the Disgaea game music gets annoying; I usually turn the BGM all the way down and grind through the item world to Rush or podcasts. So I'm really just interested in the art book. And where's the Disgaea 4 strategy guide (which is basically an art book with the walkthrough, character/weapon/spell/monster tables, and secrets)? Yeah, I'd rather have one of those.

Tempting though those goodies may be, the one thing that has me salivating about Disgaea 4 are the PlayStation network connectivity options. Every since popping the original Disgaea into my PS2 and delving into the item world, I have wanted to make my own item world maps. In fact, I'm sitting on three designs in a graph paper notebook that will be the first ones I churn out. I even did a geo panel pattern in the carpet of a Sims house. Okay, you get the picture. I really want to design levels in Disgaea 4. But this is just one of the functionalities spanning the PlayStation network, there's also Senator swapping, Pirate customization and battling, and game data comparisons. My Laharl can hit for 999k damage. Oh yeah, my Laharl can hit for more. It's about time we had some Disgaea dickwaving options in real time. I'm tired of all the youtube anyway.

It's exciting to see all these features promoting interaction in the world of Disgaea. I'm a fan of the series (this much should be obvious to you now), but I'm a little upset that it's taken this long to implement the interactivity. Sure, Afternoon of Darkness had the multi-player option, but it was way too little for such a large world as Disgaea's. I envision Little Big Planet style of interaction and cooperation for Disgaea's Netherverse. Call me crazy, but I think co-op levels, multi-army battles, and team-based objectives would open Disgaea up and launch an immersive gameplay experience. Picture a multi-player level riddled with Deathblow, Clone, and Warp geo panels and six blue pulsing base panels, three on each side of the map; a middle no man's land splits the sides, barren, save for geo symbols. Sprites file out of each base panel, turn by turn until the set unit number populates the map. Then the battle ensues, like some psychedelic, six person, spell-casting chess game.

Maybe the prinnies are listening. Maybe I'll get my wish. DLC?

Not Doing Much

Technically, the do nothing man no longer exists. Yeah, it's sad. Believe me, I know. Besides the fact that I had no income and very little cash (I was eating out of my savings account), I thoroughly enjoyed doing nothing. My stint of unemployment lasted only six months. October, November, and December of 2010. January, February, and March of 2011.

At the end of March I was of offered a job with a software company on their development and quality assurance team. For security and privacy reasons, I'm not going to talk too much about the company, its products, or what I do. But I will say it's awesome and that I'm required to take an hour break for lunch.

This free time in the middle of the day has led me back to this lonesome blog. The Chronicles of F. S. was a collaborative idea between myself and a close friend. This guy, whom I met in a creative writing class (poetry, go figure) at The Ohio State University, set everything up for me: the name, the blog, the twitter account, everything. All he told me was: "There you go. Tell your stories."

Storytelling has always been a passion of mine, but I'm not always on the side of delivery. In fact, I look to be on the receiving end of storytelling most of the time; I revel in excellent storytelling. And I love to listen to excellent storytellers. Taking a slight side-step, I also enjoy reading reviews on video games and technology, especially when the reviewers are storytellers themselves.

So I tried my hand at some of that over at Destructoid. I promise not to re-post anything...though I may occasionally shoot a link over to that blog. What's overwhelming was the amount of attention I paid to other peoples’ blog posts while writing mine. After my posts were up, was still paying more attention to other posts; I wanted to see who commented and when. I read the posts that went up before and after mine. Additionally, I really focused on related posts that were getting more views and comments than my post. In doing all this, I realized my most adamant curiosity: How do I write a blog post that spurs attention and action from my audience? I want to get people talking, commenting, liking, disliking, or tweeting. How do I ignite that interaction? That's the killer question. Finding the answer is now my goal.