[SUM] - Crushing some Space

Aw yeah... And no, please don't ask. Just don't. Not much to be seen or to be known anyhow.

As for today and as far as short updates in my utter madness go ... I found a chocolate Santa in front of door to my apartment this morning... Yeah! And not even one of those puny, small ones... but noooo, a big one!
Apparently somebody who moved in to the empty apartment a couple of floors below me only recently wanted to say hello to the rest of the house that way. Good to see there are still a couple of nice people out there.

Anyways..., a new novel isn't a real novel if it doesn't get rejected at least once when searching for an agent, right?

Back to the drawing board for now! Or... writing board... or the PC ... or... just... whatever.

I'm already going to leave you for today, need to get a few things sorted out in my head. Hopefully that'll work out while chillaxing. If not, then I've got not much of a choice but to focus.

As a last piece of info you probably did not care about at all... a few sole snowflakes seem able to make their way down to earth in my general vicinity, although mostly followed or even directly accompanied by rain.

But as always... thanks for reading.
Marc, owner and friend to Beni James Honeypaw - probably happiest plush bear on the planet

P.S.: New Kitteh going up soon.
P.S.S. addet 3 1/2 hours later: Oops... forgot about the Kitteh... but its up now ... My bad.

[RBS] - Comfy & Cozy

Ah yes... yet another Sunday awaits us in world demanding to claim our place in life and the part of the the great cake everybody wants to have a piece of which.
BUT it is also the second advent and another great opportunity to enjoy yourself with a hot cup of coffee or tea next a pleasantly warm fireplace... or at least light a candle (or rather two) to cherish the Christmas spirit as it slowly descends upon people.

Yeah, I'll stop there for now... there's enough of a chance that I'll get enough shit for those few lines as they stand already and well, there's enough people in this world who simply can't stand this holiday / don't celebrate it / think of it as way too commercialised nowadays. Admittedly, concerning the last part - they have a point. Nevertheless it remains to each person individually to make of these few days a year what they believe in is the best. (So... stop hatin'!)

For me, the last weeks been a whole lot of nothing, except for me mesmerized by a chain of green lights. For today I got my hands on a shiny new notebook to write more stuff down into and I'm currently looking forward to that, though I'm not entirely sure for what story I should use it. Or if I should reserve it for something completely different.

The things I still got planned for the remainder of the day include going ahead in buying a train-ticket to Saxony for the Sunday in two weeks - for visiting the family - drinking the tea that's already going cold as I'm still typing away and maybe lighting a couple of candles on my own. Not to forget the whole 'staring at the green lights' nonsense from the last few days.

By the way... If you haven't had the chance to do so already. I'd recommend checking out the latest part of my short "The Bamboo Labyrinth" that I uploaded the other day. It's right over here and should provide a bit more entertainment value than me going on about, well, stuff.

And just if you were wondering... I originally had something planned for today... something to talk about and give this post an actual reason behind its existence... but... I forgot. I know, I know... I should just make a list... write stuff down. It's not like that's the usual stuff I do, isn't it? But it's too late now! Deal with it... especially if you read this far.
Nevertheless... I will try to waste less of your precious time in the future, my dearest readers. I could go ahead and turn the good old Short-update-madness into a two-per-week thing... it's not that short honestly and well... why not, eh? That way I'd be forced to come up with more new content and not only ramblings...
I'll think about it and maybe a couple of other possibilities...

For now... thanks for reading despite the pointless nature of today, enjoy your weekend, cherish the [insert holiday name here] spirit and give a bit of warmth to the people you like/love or just goddamn know.
Marc, who still can't get over those green lights...

[RBS] - In lack of a better headline ... bleugh!

Heyhey there... just wanted to pop in for a few things I wanted to say/share.

I'm still trying to convince myself to let today count as half a day off from writing, but it didn't really work out that well during the last 15 hours - though I didn't manage to get a lot done, it's still some major things I managed to make up my mind about.
Also: more convertion issues - yay! None of the pc's I know of, that are in the possesion of either me or a family member close to me are able to deceipher, let alone open something written on one of the other maschines ... let alone even open it. Ever since windows dropped the two-diget numbers the easy ways don't really want to work anymore... But well... could be worse I guess as I usually still manage to 'solve' the issue... not like my new-ish laptop who just doesn't even tries to acknowledge the pure existence of my mom's printer.
Which brings me to my laptop, which still is on holiday. ... probably partying every night, getting drunk off his harddrive, erasing data along the way.

On other news: had a nice night out with friends on Friday and got some zombie-killing-action going yesterday. Though I'm still not in my personal comfort zone with the zombies!!! game ... I've still not really figured out a typical "Marc-combo" ... and I'm starting to doubt there is one. But meh... time will tell.

For right now I think I'll head into the Dungeons of Dredmor for a while, killing off my current charakter and afterwards I'll either continue to tend to my story or maybe I'll re-watch The Godfather Part II.
I already watched the first one at the beginning of the week when I had my connection issues, so I might as well continue on with the other two. They are just so frikken long...!

tl;dr: I've got nothing really interesting to talk about, got some more work done - yay - and now I'm debating with myself on my spare time.

Anyways... have a great weekend and of course a frightful Halloween tomorrow.
Marc, the Rambler of Ramblings

[RBS] - What a beautiful day it is

..., indeed I dare say.
The week's drawing to a close, the world is turning colder by the day (at least on the northern hemisphere) and Christmas approaches! Yay!(Guess it hasn't been linked often enough already this year) But not to forget that Halloween's also still on the list. Just a little bit more than a week from now... Even more YaY!(Got to love that movie.. should really take the time and watch it again...,  maybe around next week.)

As for I now I'm currently editing a few things on Loner's Peak - so nothing out of the usual and I'm trying to get into the mood for writing more of the actual storyline. I already have the next few chapters all layed out for me in the back of my head, but sometimes it gets a bit tedious. So nothing out of the usual there. And as I already start with the writing stuff again even though I tried to secure the Sundays of the week for more bloggish stuff it seems not to really work out for me. Hrmpf...
Anyways, yesterday I took a day off the writing and editing and went to the anual "Freimarktsumzug" in Bremen. The "Freimarkt" is a two-week long fun fair typical for Bremen, taking place during the last two weeks of October each year. And there is usually a festive procession on one of the weekends during that time - I'm not too sure about the actual sheduling to be honest.
So we had some plain old fun, looking at the different floats, listening to bad music most of the time and standing in the cold. Could have been better - but could have also easily been worse. (There was free beer... if you were quick.)

Also: Spending hours and hour on searching texts and articles for wonderful topics like migration.. or integration.. or education of young children is kinda fun... ... ... No, not really. You got me on that one. But helping out members of the family is a good thing, amiright?

And as a final statement, I'd like to throw out that I still think lots of the things Blizzard Entertainment announced on this years Blizzcon for the upcoming expansion of WoW sounds like late (or early) April's Fools jokes.
But I grew maybe just a bit bitter over the last year or two concerning that particular game... ^^

But enough about me, more thinking about Jonathan Mortinson lies right ahead.
As always thanks for reading my ramblings and have a nice rest of the weekend and a great start into the next one. Adventures await!
Marc, the strawberry-flavored - maybe blood-flavored, but that doesn't quite sound as tasty...

[RBS] - The blogginging carries on

And here we are in the third (but not final) new subsection.. 'Random Bloggy Stuff' and yeah I know... the abbreviation could also mean something different... yeah I noticed it - but never mind! We will just carry on without EVER questioning it... Yeah... As if that would happen.

Yet on to the none-existing topic for now... it feels a bit awkward dedicating a whole post to this stuff and it's the more strange as I don't really know what to write about today (the more comical after all the blogging in between the actual updates I used to do), but last week was rather slow I guess. I spent a good amount of time with getting up at 4 o'clock in the morning only for watching a stream on the interwebz - of course after writing it, it feels even more pathetic. Aside from that there really wasn't much going on - I was mostly caught up with the usual stuff... getting on with the story-development of 'Loner's Peak' and the following parts as well as taking down notes for the other stuff I working on. (Plus trying to also do a bit o' studying on the side of it all)
As of most recent event I spent a really great afternoon yesterday with a couple of friends at a Rock Contest in the community center of one of Bremen's city districts, because they performed there. Even though they did not win the grand prize (a strange little award which was 'not too big but it glows' as the supervisor of this little event put it), I personally think they did a great job - we all really enjoyed the afternoon and their performance was really great in my opinion (Band name: 'Jet Elmer'). This opinions is not biased at all... NOT AT ALL... (but in all honesty - I really like their music)
So... now that I'm through with all that and there is nothing left to write about... let's talk about the weather for a bit: It's f***ing freezing... 'nuff said...

So yeah - I think I will leave it at this for today and I'm sure there will be lots and lots of wonderful, colorful things and actual randomness happening in my life in the near future that I can write about and annoy you with.

Hrm... I do feel kinda tempted to put something up from the stuff I wrote for 'Nightingale' today as I tried to get the first part done for that, so I can put it to rest for another half year or so. But I guess I'll keep that in store for Tuesday. *harhar*


As always thank you very much for reading (my pointless ramblings today). Have a great rest of the day.
Marc, the so very very confused.

P.S.: Classic kitten coming up.

Moonlight's Flashing Flash

Right now I'm sitting here on my bed writing a post for my blog, at a time when I actually should be sleeping rather than staring at the monitor of my laptop.
Yay for updating in the middle of the night ... yaaay... (at least it's the middle of the night in Germany - around 4 a.m. to be precise)

So what's the big deal with this? It seems I've got a bit 'insomniatic' again for a change so I figured I could as well go ahead and do a bit of work on this site of mine. I've been updating a few parts of this site with new content - mainly the random stuff. There is a new kitteh up as well. And I've been ironing out a few other things here and there, basically all over the place.
Also I'm still a bit hesitant to let Beni write his own blog-posts on the main site... who knows what he'd come up with...

There you go ... you call yourself an 'author' for once and immediately the cliche stuff kicks in..., now I just need to become an alcoholic and I'm all set... not that I'd actually be intending on going down that step slope. On the contrary - I'm trying to get away from the stuff completely.


But this post isn't solely about my pointless ramblings - I brought nice little piece of Flash-fiction along for you, my dearest readers. The whole thing is pretty self-explanatory so I don't plan on saying too much about it, except for: Enjoy!

*~*

Stray  Memories

Have you ever experienced a dream so vivid and life-like that you confused it with reality?

Each night a normal, ordinary person has countless dreams, fractions and scraps of memories, thoughts and illusions, not even meant to be remembered past sunrise.

Yet only a scarce number of those might ever have such an effect on you.

Nights tend to be lonely when you’re on your own and in a city not even the stars will keep you company. 

It was in one of those nights that I was sitting on my bed doing nothing, not even really sleeping, except for maybe admiring the darkness around me for its relentless obscurity. 

Then I started to hear her voice. 

It seemed clear yet distant, with a mechanical undertone to it just like on the phone.

At first I just listened to her, but then we quickly started to talk about all kinds of things.

We kept going on for hours and hours.

Suddenly she was quiet again and the haze around me started to lighten up. 

In an outburst of panic I searched for the telephone on the nightstand. I barely got a hold of it.

I held it to my ear, asking if everything was alright. But the only answer I received was the monotone dialling tone, waiting for me to enter a number.

The bitter realization... we've never talked since we put an end to it. 
A dillusion from the past haunting me in a moment of rest. 

Have you ever experienced such a thing?

No?

Then I guess this won’t matter to you...

*~*


The one thing I will admit and I'm sure most of you will have guessed it already, is that this whole thing is based on something that happened to me a while go in a similar fashion.
The short lil' text was originally intended for a contest - yet I withdrew it from the project as it was ... well... still too long and cutting even more would only cripple it in my opinion.

Concerning the recent events - I'm starting to come to terms with the development of the whole situation and I'm starting to accept what happened, so I'm also slowly leaving the lethargy of the last week behind me.
It's getting better again.

On a different - totally random note - I'm currently on the look-out for a good game with zombies in it that is available for a reasonable price... (And I want to mention that I don't like the Left 4 Dead series that much - just doesn't appeal to me)
Yeah - I know it's somewhat cruel - and I see the "irony" in the situation myself, but I got caught up on the whole Dead Island hype that started during the last week or two.
I probably would have jumped for it, could I actually get it via Steam... but nope... the German FSK decided that the game is not suitable distribution in our country (admittedly it is kind of nasty). Maybe, just maybe I could get my hands on a copy somehow but then again... it is still kinda expensive.
So I'm currently getting my fix of Dead Island thanks to Youtube by watching 2 Let's Play's of it - One solo playthrough with some random co-op-ness  (Thanks for keeping it rad Mr. Brad :>) - and another, different one on 4-Player Co-op.

So there you go.
I hope you enjoyed my randomness as I lack sleep and the Flash-fiction I hereby offered for your entertainment.Have a great day - all of you.

As always thanks for reading,
Marc, Chosen by the Moon

P.S.: New stuff everywhere \o/ Oh snap... already mentioned that... erm.. Bazinga?

Summertime ... wooh

It shouldn't be a secret anymore... it's sunny and warm outside. (Stating the obvious like a pro...)
But summer isn't only about warmth or sunshine or ice cream or sun or whatnot but sometimes also about vacation!

I know; I know... not too much actual information included, but yeah... what did you expect? I got through my marketing seminar and the test connected to it last weekend and what should I say? Our lecturer was an awful lot of fun. Great person and also a good teacher. So at least one of the two days were fun. (Except for maybe the 2 hours of train ride for each getting there and back home again.)

Now concerning the nearest future: I'm going home to my family during the week, probably on Thursday - which includes another whooping 4 hours of train riding. This also means that "family-vacations" coming up for me - which in this particular case means something on the line of "roughly 3 to 4 weeks without" Internet and therefore no updates throughout most of July.
Of course it will be picking up again afterwards around the beginning of August, by then I will also start sharing my experiences from the trip. Should be either a lot, or nothing at all...

I got a bit of writing done over the last few days, yet unfortunately I haven't been able to copy it over to the computer. It's still lying around somewhere in my apartment in my dreadful handwriting. So I should be getting onto that...

For now I'll stop here and let you all run off into the more or less warm summer in your area.
As always, thanks for reading.
Marc, the Traveller

P.S.: uploaded the kitteh promissed last time just now, so next one coming up in a day or so
P.P.S.: also finished my nostalgica-flash this morning with getting through a Let's Play of Final Fantasy VIII ... uh I so loved that game when I was younger... I know a lot of people literally hate it, but I personally think it's the best part of the series. As always... personal opinion, so feel free to argue with me about it.

Laws, to be unwritten?

Just a few stray thoughts...

Honest thoughts to be on the honestest of honest with you.
So I just wanted to talk, err... write about a few things that have been on a rampage in my head over the last few weeks.
... Or perhaps you want to call it 'whining late at night'. It's only a thin line after all. But meh, everybody does it once in a while, and whether or not it's a good idea, most people won't refrain from it. So I might as well join in.

There are a few things that I have noticed even with this incredible small presence that I currently have in this, indeed world-wide, interwebz. One of them being that the writing world currently seems to have a few unwritten laws, a codex one might even call it, which enforce that who ever tries to bend or even ignore one of them will be basically crushed with whatever seems available. In case of the Internet, it is, of course, mainly words.
Then again, I can see that this seems incredibly trivial as it is the usual way of life (and art). There are always at least a few rules. Someone tries to change, side-step or ignore one or more of them and either prevails with great success following or is utterly defeated.
The problem on my part is, that I basically come into direct conflict with one of those 'unwritten laws' every time I decide to write something. Usually more or less on purpose, sometimes not.

As for my stories 'Sleeptalking' and the work-in-progress 'Loner's Peak' as well, I tend get a few hints (and with "a few" I mean "LOTS") on what I should improve (which I don't wanna). And most of them actually cover the same subject. The style of writing and the grammar I use(d).
Thus this first 'rule' in writing kingdom seems to be something on the lines of 'always use spot-one grammar and don't try to fool too much with it, also... short sentences are a must!'
And it usually makes me a bit sad (not too much to change something about my writing style and/or goals though), because it seems that all those people don't try to understand or let alone think about it for a second why I chose that particular way of telling the story or even to try to view it as an artistic choice in that matter, just so it would sound even more far-fetched.

There actually is a reason for the style I use to tell the story with? *gasp*

The story of 'Sleeptalking'  is set in 1860's England, so why should I use short sentences? Why should I use "modern-day" grammar? And the other story, 'Loner's Peak'? I try to catch the vibe of a somewhat classical noir crime story. I know that 'noir' as such doesn't exist in the world of literature and only in movies but why not try something 'pseudo-new' and recreate it? The main character(s) narrate(s) everything, so there should be no need for complete sentences all the time. The things you usually think aren't complete sentences after all or are you that one different one?
But yeah, I ain't gonna fool anybody on the internet, cause probably everyone who bugs me about the grammar stuff is probably just that special guy or one of his 12.000 clones.

To come to a conclusion, what I try to express as I experience it first hand, I think the writing world in general and their audience too, should try to step away from these narrow-minded concepts of what is right or okay...
It's art after all, isn't it? Sadly it seems most of the time people forget about that. For me it just feels like in terms of movies, music, visual/plastic arts and even poetry people are far more willing to accept different ways on how to approach something than in terms of literature. Which I think is strange, sad or disappointing, however you want to call it. I can't really name it.
Of course there are always several sides to be on, and there always will be someone who dislikes this or dislikes that, but you still somehow accept it how it is.
(I don't want it to sound like I'd be taking myself completely out of this equation. I'm also just a human being, so I also have stuff I like and dislike, that I appreciate or not.)

So yeah... that's just my personal opinion on the whole matter. And I'll let it go of it for now. It's something that I just had to get out of my system and why not do it here? It's a blog after all.

That's all for just now, enough of the whining (maybe I'm simply too early or ...well... too late) and I probably should be getting ready for the hate-mails to start rolling in, telling me to go die in a fire or whatnot, as I just kicked my credibility as a sophisticated (?) author right into the face and left it lying on the floor bleeding...
Still, just back to the drawing board, or writing board in that case... Keeping on going is the only thing that'll help with all o' this...

Next time: Moar Music!

Have a great night, or morning or whatever everybody.
Marc, the Frightful


P.S.: Somewhat dead looking ghoul-kitty on the kittens page.
P.P.S.: That location thingy didn't do anything as far as I can tell :<

Indigo Something

Short-update-madness continues in its third installment.

This time my mad ramblings are all about 'Fahrenheit' or as it is also known as 'Indigo Prophecy' in the US.
Yes..., yet another video game on my site! Treachery! ... or... well.. .something.
But you know, I already went on about 'The Void' during the last week and yeah... why not honor great story telling in this so often forgotten and even shunned type of media?

The story starts off with the main character, Lucas, in the restroom of a local diner in the streets of New York and how he kills an seemingly innocent person whilst in a kind strange state of trance. He clearly has no control of him self, like a puppet on a string. Mere moments later he finds himself standing above the dead body with a knife in his hands, strange symbols carved into the flesh of his own forearms, unable to explain what happened and with only one option left... to flee.

The setting of the story is great and the way how you are introduced to the several characters of the story as well. After you have managed to escape from the diner in time as Lucas Kane and before anybody else has found out about the dead body sitting on the toilet, the player takes control of two other main characters. Carla Valenti and Tyler Miles, both from the NY PD.

Sadly, to be frank with you, my dearest reader, despite this rather suspense-full start the game tends to turn a bit... well... crazy rather fast. The way the story progresses might not be for everyone and especially as the game draws closer to the end it all feels kind of rushed. As if the pacing itself just went bat-shit-crazy for no particular reason and leaped out of the nearest window trying to fly away and head onwards to the horizon.
Despite the game going a bit wonky in the end however it proves to be thoroughly enjoyable and leaves the player with something else behind.
The game itself is rather like a ... interactive movie than what you would think of your typical video game. It's game play is focused mainly on decision-making and quick-time-events (when the player has to hit the buttons displayed on the screen as they come up), which leaves many opportunities to actually build up an emotional connection with the player.

 But I guess this game should be old news actually, after all it was first released in 2005 by Quantic Dream. A similar game with an even more compelling story (and without the pacing on Speed) made by the same developers would be 'Heavy Rain' - also a truly remarkable experience as a game. Yet I don't what to spoil any of that, at least for now.

There ya go... the short-update-madness lacking the short is about to come to a close for today. Yet before you head back to whatever you have been doing until I managed to lure you to my blog, a special treat for those actually interested in my WoW FanFiction is heading towards the site during the next few days.
To be a bit more clear, I'm planning on posting the satirical short story which served as a foundation for the actual FanFiction.

Stay tuned for more mad ramblings and actuall information about my own writing.

As always thanks for reading,
Marc Marcinson of Marcvania