OPi8.com :: NEW DARK CULTURE

I've just started up volunteering as assistant editor on this site here... Cyberpunkishly bleak; nice, dark sense of humor; fun-filled forums. I think I like it there.

So, I've been a little not saying much lately. I've been in the middle of a project. Unfortunately, it hasn't been officially announced yet, which is odd, because the release date is not all that far away. So I can't say a whole lot about it is what I'm getting at. The point is that I've been working disturbing hours, and soon, I'll be burdened with another unanounced project at Legend of Zelda, both of which I really want to work on, but man, my brain's just going to pop, and it's going to require a lot of clean-up time.

I've also been unwilling to spend time actually writing anything serious, anything that needs to carry continuous thoughts from paragraph to paragraph, page to page. I've got a couple of meager little short stories I want to put together, preferrably in comic-book script format, for later conversion into images and words by people who have the skill to render these things in glorious drawings.

And of couse, it takes a bit of confidence to write things down, and it takes a bit of practice. I've probably built up enough of the former, but I need to work on the practice end of things. It's a matter of getting back to the point where I've got a voice, where I'm writing myself instead of writing myself writing Hunter Thompson or Warren Ellis or whomever I'm reading at the moment. That's the hardest part. No, I take that back. The hardest part is writing myself out of anxiety. Writing, right now, requires two steps: convincing myself I've got anything worth saying and then saying it. When I see writers committing acts of brilliance to paper, I have a tough time thinking I can come close to what they've accomplished, and so I don't try. Chuck Palahniuk writes some simple sentence that totally captures an unworded observation floating in my mind, and I think "that's one more thing I should have written down, and now that someone else has done it, I don't have to."

That's the thing that stops me. And I need to push through that, to know that I've got something worth writing in my head, even if it isn't the first thing, the second, the tenth, the hundredth thing I write... I just need to get it out of my head.

So what am I reading? What makes me feel I've nothing to add?
Hunter Thompson's Kingdom of Fear.
Listening? Two Towers soundtrack, Vagrant Story soundtrack, and VNV Nation, which has moved from 'the new thing' to 'the constantly running background thing.'
Drinking? Aberlour whiskey, but not right now. Vanilla tea, but not right now.
Feeling? My back hurts. I'm actually going to a chiropractor. Or is it chiropracter? Neither looks right to me. Oh well. Anyway, there's this new chiropractitioner (ah HA!), and she's giving free exams, just to build up the neighborhood business. So that's what.

Playing? Mechassault, Metroid Prime, and Golden Su--whoops, you almost got me to reveal my unannounced project. Silly me.