Published!

I wrote an article for work which appeared in the local paper today! The article was inspired by a paper I wrote for school on Tolkien's The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun. With the knowledge still fresh in my head, I thought it would be a great way to showcase some of the library's resources. You can find a copy here!

Screenwriting!

This summer, I am taking a screenwriting course from Gotham Writers' Workshop. I have just finished up the third week of ten and I'm really enjoying it. I've got the beginnings of a screen play coming together and I like learning about an area of writing which I have never dealt with.

To help with the course, I purchased Gotham's book Writing Movies: the Practical Guide to Creating Stellar Screenplays. Writing Movies deals mainly with five movies: Die Hard, the Shawshank Redemption, Thelma and Louise, Tootsie and Sideways. I've seen the first two movies in the past, but had never seen the latter three. I watched Thelma and Louise on Saturday, but have put off watching Tootsie and Sideways for the last week. So tonight, with nothing to do tomorrow afternoon, I'm going to watch both of them!

An Overdue Update

School has kept me extremely busy, so I've been neglecting things like my blogs. Well, my personal blogs for fun. I had to start a blog for a class, so that one has gotten all of my attention lately (you can check it out here if you're interested).

Besides school, I got a new laptop and Halo ODST in September. My old laptop has given me tons of problems over the years, like the battery dying (and if I hadn't removed it, the battery would have eventually killed the laptop). The newest problem was that a purple vertical line appeared down the left side of the screen. If you want to see what I'm talking about, check out this page. Apparently this was a common problem with the HP ZD8000 laptop. I decided that this was the last straw, so I went out and bought a new laptop. The new one is an Acer. It's a million times quieter and cooler than the ZD8000, and also a lot faster. I'm still getting used to the keyboard (it's not as sensitive as the ZD8000's was when it worked properly), but so far I'm liking it.

Halo ODST is another thing I'm liking. I preordered it in the summer, and was counting down the days until it was released. Luckily it didn't disappoint. I haven't been able to play as much as I'd like (school is keeping me very busy) but I'm enjoying it. The campaign is a bit off - it's not as bad as Halo 2, but not as good as Halo 1 and 3. But once you play through it, you unlock the entire New Mombasa Streets, which is a lot of fun to wander around in. And the multiplayer is fun too. You battle with up to three friends against waves of enemies, instead of gainst other players. It's really tough, but great fun.

I also went to see Streetlight Manifesto in Toronto back in September. They were amazing! You can check out the pics on flickr!

The one thing I'm sad about is my lack of time to write. I wrote a quick poem on Apocalypse Madness for last month's quote, but missed writing for the September quote. I got to post this month's quote, and I'm really hoping I'll have time to write a couple of stories for it. Hopefully I'll be able to sneak some writing time in during the end of next week when I should have a bit of time.

No Spacelord Again

Sorry everyone, but it's that time of year again. I have a couple of papers and a group project coming due in the next few weeks, so once again I will be putting Spacelord on hold. After today's post, Spacelord will most likely not be back until after my exams in early April.

A Very General What's Going On

Well, Study Week is officially over. So I thought I would just do a quick update on how things are going (and also to hopefully remind myself of a few upcoming deadlines).

Over Study Week, I had very little I had to do. I had one book that I needed to read for school (Bridget Jones's Diary) and a project to start planning. Other than that, I was pretty free to do a bit of fun reading. I didn't take as much advantage of that as I would have liked to, but I got through about three fun books (see The List for details). Of course, I also had a grand old time wandering through bookstores, so the List has a few more titles on it now. I also picked up a few fun books, like Kittens in the Sun which is a book full of kitten pictures.

As for writing, I didn't do a whole lot until near the end of Study Week. I wrote the new Spacelord early, and had a lot of fun with the post. I also revised a story which I am planning on submitting to the LU Lit Mag sometime before midnight tonight (I'm going to look over it again before submitting it). And then I found out about a writing contest that is open for English majors at LU, so I need to come up with something before March 2.

I also got to see a few movies that I really wanted to see. Last Thursday I saw Gran Torino, the new Clint Eastwood movie. It was a really good movie; I laughed a lot throughout it. Then this Saturday night, I saw Underworld: Rise of the Lycans. It was alright. Better than the second Underworld movie (Evolution). Finally, I saw Slumdog Millionaire. I absolutely loved the music! It was a really good story.

And on Friday, I fit in a quick trip to Kakabeka where I took some nice pics of the Falls. It was a great drive on a beautiful afternoon. Check out my flickr page to see my Falls pics!

So that was my Study Week. It was a nice break, although not long enough (I would've like to have fit in a few more novels that were better than Bridget Jones).

OUTSaga

Once Upon a Time . . . a blog was born! Yes, as I mentioned back on the 5th, I have created a blog dedicated to the stories that we tell from the Once Upon a Time card game. That blog is OUTSaga (Once Upon a Time Saga).

Happy 2009!

Seasons greetings everyone, and happy 2009!!!!!

It's hard to believe that 2008 is over! So much has happened over the last year. I've started several blogs that seem to be doing well (The List has about 60 posts on it, and Apocalypse Madness has 13 contributors). I've read many great books (and some not so great ones) and have written a fair bit. I am hoping to continue with everything in 2009 (Spacelord still has a lot more story to go!), and to hopefully drum up some more activity on Apocalypse Madness.

Spacelord to Return this Coming Monday!

After giving the matter some thought, Spacelord will be returning Monday December 15th!!!! I will be continuing with posting it every second week, as that seemed to work best for me. I am hoping to do some work on the story; if I end up a couple of posts ahead, then I'll have some leeway for when school gets bad in the spring.

What's Happening this December?

I haven't really done a post about what is going on in my life for a while now. So I figured, now is a great time, as I have a lot in store for December!

Well, I just finished an update on the List. The List has 102 books on it as of this moment. As I said in my post, I am planning on doing a lot of reading. I have started another anthology, I have a few graphic novels to read, and I'd love to get another List novel out of the way before starting into next term's school books.

But before I can even begin to tackle my reading projects, I am in the middle of exams (quite literally. I has one exam yesterday, and my last one is on Monday). My first exam went well (I hope!) and I have to get going on studying for the next one. Oh yeah, and I have to keep going with my applications to Grad school.

While this is happening, I have decided to stay away from Xbox Live. I've been itching to play a couple of games (I finally opened Assassin's Creed! It's fun! Why did I wait so long to try it?). I most likely won't be able to get back onto Live until Tuesday night.

But more important than Xbox are the writing projects. I know I already wrote an Apocalypse Madness story this month (so I'm off the hook as far as that goes), but I have an idea for another story or two. I can't make any promises, but hopefully they'll work out.

And now the moment that everyone's been waiting for: Spacelord should be returning next Monday (the 15th)!!! This isn't official yet (depending on how things go, I may have to hold off until the 22nd) but that's what I'm aiming for. My official decision will become public by the end of this week. So stay tuned!!!!!

Hamlet 2!

No, this is not a post in reference to the movie titled Hamlet 2. Rather, this Hamlet 2 is the play two of my friends and I are writing for a class. Our play centres around Horatio, the last surviving Dane from Hamlet 1. While lamenting how far Denmark has fallen since Fortinbras took control, he discovers the ghosts of his friends wanting revenge. So Horatio sets out on a journey into the bowels of Hell in an attempt to set the souls of his friends free!

Meanwhile, Fortinbras is making a pact with the Devil for troops to put down the revolting peasants. And Claudius is plotting to retake Denmark from beyond the grave!

I got to write Act 1 (there are three acts, as there are three of us). It was a lot of fun writing. Scene 2 is easily my favourite. I will be posting it eventually on Delivering Awesome (probably after it is handed in). I am also going to be drawing some pictures of scenes and characters for the play. If they turn out alright, I will post them on Delivering Awesome along with Act 1!

Home from Toronto

I know, I didn't really say anything when I was going, but now I'm back home! I was in St. Catherines and Toronto for a week, from Nov. 11 to today. I did waaaay too much shopping and barely managed to stuff everything into my suitcase! All in all, it was a great trip (although I was a bit sad that I didn't get to go and see Eagles of Death Metal).

While on my trip, I managed to read a couple of books (Twilight and Spud in Winter; see the List for my reviews), and take a ton of pictures (they will be on my Flickr account hopefully in the next day or two). I took in the new Bond movie. I went to some of my favourite Toronto restaurants as well as a couple of new ones that I enjoyed. I took in the ROM, and managed to catch the end of the Christmas parade. And I still had time to hang out with my bro, playing random video games and watching cartoons. The only thing I didn't get to was and writing; I wanted to get my Apocalypse Madness story written, but just didn't have time. But all in all, this was a great trip!

English Papers

This week, I have found out that I can't write an English paper to save my life.

Alright, that's not entirely true. I can write an English paper. It will follow the MLA format. It will even be written rather well. But I'll still end up with a crappy mark. And why would that be? It appears that I write the papers the way I write psychology papers. I guess that's what I get for being a psychology student in English.

What exactly does this mean? No, it doesn't mean that I'm psychoanalyzing Hamlet, or writing about oedipal complexes in characters. It is more of the style that I am writing in. I don't jump right into the texts and go; I give background information, acknowledging what came before. This isn't always a bad thing, but in the paper I was working on all week, it really wasn't necessary to go back to Plato.

Yes, the writing style may be alright, but it's my content that is lacking. I'm failing to analyze the literature properly. So I have worked on one of my papers since last weekend every day, getting help and trying to rectify the problem. Hopefully this time I'll do alright. I have one more paper due next week, and that's it for the term.

One way or another, this is a learning experience!

Spacelord Once Again on Hold

Sorry to everyone, but I will not be posting any Spacelord for a while. I've got a couple of other things that are a bit more important (papers and applying for Grad School) so Spacelord will be on hold until those are out of the way.

Next Apocalypse Madness Quote Coming One Week from Monday!!!!!

Yes, the next quote is almost upon us! The third quote is due on October 27th, so there is just over one week left for the current quote!

I have written a rough draft of my story, so it should be posted within a few days!

What's Coming Up

The next month or so is going to be rather busy! First and foremost, I have two papers due at the beginning/mid November, so they are going to be the priority. I also have a group work project that I'll have to work on, so that will also be important, but a bit less so because it's due at the end of November. But of course, the most important thing that's coming up is the deadline for Grad school, so I'll be working on that in amongst everything else.

Non-school things that I also need to do includes a lot of writing. I need to get working on my Apocalypse Madness story. I also would like to revise the story I wrote for the Artery (but I might hold off on it for now and submit it for the next one). I am hoping to be writing Spacelord in here somewhere, but I may need to put that on hold for some of these other projects.

There are also a few other projects I've alluded to. I want to revise the Rhyssa Thorn story. And maybe write part two to the Phantom Dust story (it was originally intended to be three parts, but I don't know if that will happen. We'll see when I start writing it, if I do!)

I also have a few things to read, both for school and for fun. I want to read Twilight before the movie comes out. I have to read one more Shakespeare play, Richard II. And then I have several books in Children's Lit (the first of which is The Black Cauldron).

This is going to be a busy month!!!!

No Spacelord this Week

Sorry everyone, there will not be a Detective Spacelord post this week. I have been extremely busy and just haven't had time. I'm hoping to have one written for two weeks from now, but that will depend on school and everything.

One Week to 2nd Apocalypse Madness Quote!!!!!

Yes, there is only one week left until the 2nd quote goes up! I'm extremely happy with the blog so far - all of the stories are so different, and great to read! I hope the fun will continue with the next quote! I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!

There is still lots of room if you'd like to contribute! Just send me an email!

The Wasp Prince

Yes, yet another thing I found on Flickr!

I've been meaning to read this ever since it was posted, but I never seemed to have the time. Finally, I read it a few minutes ago. "The Wasp Prince" is a series of photos with an accompanying story by Aaron Nace and Rosie Hardy. I thought all four parts were hilarious! The characters were fun, and the story was highly entertaining! I'm hoping that they will continue writing as I cannot wait to read the next part!

My 1st Apocalypse Madness Story is Up!

I'm excited! The first story I wrote for Apocalypse Madness is up! I've been working on it for about two weeks now, and I've finally decided that I am happy with it! If you'd like to check it out, you can find it here. It is the longest story to date on the blog, so it'll take you a few minutes longer than the others to read.

Apocalypse Madness is still looking for contributors! We're currently at 8% capacity, so there's still lots of room! If you're interested, email me here!

Spacelord Post Scheduled for Midnight!!!!

I'm really excited - I figured out how to schedule posts today! I had tomorrow's Spacelord post ready to go, so I originally just saved it as a draft so I could come on sometime tomorrow and just post it quickly. But now I don't have to worry at all - it will automatically be posted at 12:03 am!

See this page if you need help figuring out how to schedule posts.