Vampires

Hello all. Last week was a tough one for me, returning from a vacation is sometimes worse than needing the vacation at all. A lot of downtime due to the fact that my kids are not in school, so I have to say that I have enjoyed being with them all this week as well. On to this week’s post!

I have been thinking about the direction of this blog, I mean, talking about my preferences in books, games, web comics, TV series and movies is all good; sharing my work in even better. Now, I realized something this week end about my absolute need to write words onto the screen that I never thought would even be part of the equation, but it is: It.is.my.therapy. There, I said it! The funny thing is that it is, or has been, for the past few months, and in an outstanding revelation, you, readers, have now officially become my therapists. LOL. Now seriously, writing has always been an emotional outlet for me, so it comes as no surprise that sharing part of my life on a blog is a natural extension of this desire to be read. So a big thanks to you all!

Writing

I am almost done with Chapter 1, and will post it sometime this week. I was thinking of posting a short story also, so the writing is coming along nice.

Books

I am reading The Way of Kings by Sanderson and boy, I am having a hard time of leaving the iPad down. This had been a pleasant and challenging read so far and will probably finish it tonight.

Blood Noir is next.

Rant

This week it was announced that Ann Rice, one of my favorite authors, is going to have a new book out soon, this one about werewolves, that it got me thinking on the evolution of the characters that gave her fame and that changed the landscape of Vampires in literature, and pop culture as well. The first five book of her Vampire Chronicles are just amazing (Interview with a Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, Queen of the Damned, The tale of the body thief and Memnoch the Devil). The pursuit of happiness from her complex characters, the pursuit of truth and purity even if their lives had been robbed by an unnatural predator and the way the characters interact with each other while juggling their own perception of what is good and evil make the series an instant classic. The books are scary, funny, erotic, informative and simply brilliant. Lestat, the Brat Prince, is the embodiment of what a modern Vampire is all about (Please, please don’t visualize Tom Cruise as Lestat, please; it is for you own good.). Lestat is vicious, cruel, evil in many ways, naïve, but he is also pure in his pursuit of truth and happiness, he is a rebel, a troubled soul trapped between the dogmas of a religion that damns his souls and a lifestyle that allows him to play God.

The series does steer away from its initial glory in the subsequent books- The Vampire Armand, Merrick, Blood and Gold, Blackwood Farm and Blood Canticle- but the unifying force of the series is precisely the realization of these vampires that they might be evil, but that they could achieve peace being and accepting what they were.

Now, I read these books when I was 16, the first four at least, and then followed the release of each of the following books eagerly. I knew then, as I know now, that I loved vampire novels. So I searched for other novels about vampires and found a lot of them. I wont list every vampire I have read here, because I do not have the time to do so, but suffice to say that I found some series that really got my blood and heart going (no pun intended), like E.E. Knight’s Vampire Earth Series, Brian Lumley’s Necroscope Series and Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series. While the Vampires in each series are completely different from each other, in their appearance, physiology and lore, they are still creatures that either want to enslave humanity, use humans for fun, sport, sex and blood, or are simply part of supernatural society that allows them to thrive in and out of the public eye.

Why, and I really would like an explanation here, why is it that a series like Twilight, becomes so successful? I mean, the idea that a 200 year old Vampire is smitten and in love with a 16 year old teenager is as bad a premise for a story as, say, a town in the US where dancing is not allowed (Yes Footloose, I am talking about you!). Isn’t that ridiculous? I mean, an emo Vampire is a bad idea, simply because being a Vampire is Goth enough. A Vampire has already taken the next step and is NO LONGER ALIVE, thus the heartache of not being important in other’s life, the angst of being a cast out, the melancholic exclusions of not being corresponded in friendship or love, of not being understood, of not being like the others, is a MUTE point. Oh, and with all due respect to Mrs. Meyer, her vampires glow! How can Vampires glow? So the destruction of Vampiric icons is well under way, I just hope that Lestat is listening.

Rant is over.

Harry Potter

I saw the movie last Monday, and I was blown away by how good the finale is. Yes, I have read the books, and I loved them (Well, not the Chamber of Secrets, but nobody is perfect). But this movie, it finally engulfed the epic quality of the series. I found myself crying like a little girl when the Wizards at Hogwarts began to cast the protective spell around the school. That scene, above any other, is what me understand how well the movie was made, and how well they had understood how to translate elements form a book onto the screen, which is not easy at all. If you are a fan, then you will enjoy the movie, if you are not, I’m sure you will become one.

More on the movie and the Potter series next week.

Have a great week!

A Dance with Dragons

Gloomy Monday here in Mexico City, a perfect day for staying in bed reading or writing, or for fighting an ear infection!

Books

This week I finished reading A Dance with Dragons, book 5 of George R.R. Martin's series A Song of Ice and Fire. I have to be honest about this one, after the 4th book, my expectations were not really high for this book, and the notoriety the series had gotten made believe that this would not be a very good book, just some more fodder before the conclusion of the series came. I was mistaken. The book is just magnificent. It is balanced and well written, like all of the series has been so far, but the scheming and the plotting is reduced and the action is what drives this book. I will not slip any spoilers but suffice to say, this is one of the best books I have ever read. The richness of the characters is superb, the vastness of the world coupled with the different types of food, dress and customs make Westeros one of those worlds where you can easily loose yourself and visualize, and feel and taste everything that characters are experiencing. A fine piece of art and an even better piece of literature,

I will read A Way of Kings and Blood Noir this week, so I will keep everyone posted on that front.

Writing

Writing was stalled to a dead stop while was on vacation, being in the pool with the kids from sunup until sundown is really tiring, and if you add the fact that I had a book to read, my priorities got a little screwed up. I did manage to write a simple outline for another story, featuring a character my two year old invented for himself, so I will probably work on that during the week. The other two stories I have already written on my head are itching to come out onto paper, but I will rein in the devils and will only write their outlines as I work on the chapters of the novel I am currently working on. The Druid's Grove is not to be denied and I am too far into the process of writing it to just let it go and begin writing the other two novels I want to write. Also, a lot of short stories have popped into my mind but will have to wait until I finish working on the one I want to submit to a contest.

My problem has always been procrastination, I am easily distracted. I only have the afternoons to write, but it is also a time to unwind from work, to be with the kids or to finish up any work left from the office, so time is precious and I have not been doing a good job of managing it, until now.

I am truly invested in my writing and I am finding new ways of staying focused and using the time I have productively, so I am certain that the first draft chapters of the novel will be finished before the year ends. That is my deadline and I will stay true to it. Two more short stories should be done and sent as well and the outlines for the other stories should be well underway. I am one of those that needs to set realistic goals and deadlines to function properly, I need to be driven by the deadlines, and that has been working wonders for me this year, I have gone up from roughly writing 1,000 words daily, to almost 2,000 and even though not everything goes into the draft, the exercise of writing has been liberating and exhausting and rewarding. Chapter one is almost done. In my head it is, on paper it is not.

I know that sometimes I am too stubborn when writing a chapter or a scene, because I want the beginning of each to be perfect, and I loose those the creative thread because my vision of how things should be is not consistent with what the story needs the beginning to be. For example, on the prologue, I wanted it to be a about Moonthrust and not about Pentholas, even though most of what I had written about it had Pen as the main character of the scene. So I labored for a couple of days trying to fit the new way of writing the scene with the way it was meant to be written. It has been the same with Chapter 1, but I noticed my stubbornness earlier, so I just let the scene I had detailed in my overview flow and the results have been better, both in terms of the writing and of the content. I wont try to make the scene perfect by adding new stuff to it, the scene felt perfect when it was constructed, so this is a typical case of less being more, and not the other way around.

Games

This week I plan to finish off FF VII, I am already on the last part of Disc 2, so it wont be long now. On the other hand, my fascination with Guild Wars has grown the more I have played it, and the more I have played I have reduced my time of writing. I have to understand that in the future, I might be able to spend all the time I want playing, but this is not that time. So, I will still play Guild Wars, and I will play the Star Wars MMO as well, but I will not play if my allotted time for writing is used up.

Series

We are almost done with Firefly, a series that I truly don't want to end, and will be done with Game of Thrones in a week or two. Camelot and the Borgias are next.

See you all next week!

Vacation!

Hello all!
Sorry about the missing update, but I am on vacation with my wife and kids and it has been nearly impossible to find the time to write a thoughtful post.
I am still working on Chapter 1, the transition of being the narrator and evolving into the writer has been difficult enough, and with the added burden of trying to leave things sorted out in the office did not help either.
It is funny, but inspiration has become almost like a state of mind, like being happy, rather than being able to write because I am compelled to do so. I am happy with the story and the current state of my life allows me to draw energy and inspiration from the heart, and not from the soul. Soul writing is great, if you are a goth! Kidding aside, I enjoy rummagging through my soul and write about it only as a cathartic exercise, putting so much of myself into a scene or a chapter does not work for me, I feel too naked and honestly, my characters could do very well without my own fears and short comings.
I write from the heart because that is the place where I can store and take care of the beautiful things I have heard or seen, or eaten or felt. Those little compartents that I can open and close to add a bit of salt and pepper into my writing.
I will have a worthy post next week, for now, I have to leave to share more moements with my family that will undoubtedly be stored inside those little compartents of my heart.
Have a good week all!

My work :D

I finally decided to post some of my work. Hope you enjoy it.

Prologue

The lion crouched low under the covering canopy of the lush grasslands, letting the scent of the prey linger inside his nose and mouth. The overpowering sensation of the hunt was stronger than the pungent smells of decay and death. Wailers tasted bad, their blood was clotted and their flesh was stringy and rotten. A small part of the lion, the one that was still Pentholas, flinched at the memory of tasting Wailer flesh, but the Druid's voice was swiftly drowned out with the adrenaline rush of the kill, the exhilarating sensation of teeth tearing into flesh, the spill of blood...

A sound from behind the lion made him turn his head, ever so slightly, trying to decide whether the visitor was a threat or not. It was not, it was alive. The little voice told him that is was his backup, the lion laughed at the concept of needing any help, and was rather annoyed that he had to keep an eye on the two-legged elf that would need rescuing in the end. The faint smell of sweat mixed with lavender was not at all unpleasant, the scent of fresh blood and tender meat was even better. 

The shuffling march of the Wailers told the lion that they were headed towards the road, where the Grasslands turned into a pitifully dried collection of twigs and dirt. The undead had not ventured over there in more than two moons. The elf behind him moved, the lion could hear her soft steps running, almost above the ground, entering the forest.

"The entrance through the road is a great place for Moonthrust to ambush them, let her get into position." the voice explained.

The lion grunted softly, tensing the bulging muscles of his powerful shoulders and back legs, the filthy undead would not spoil his beloved home, not on his watch. The lion settled lazily near a big rock that had a straight view of the entrance of the road. He could not see the Spotters but he could smell them now, he could smell the vile spit that burned everything it touched, he could smell the corruption of evil spreading through their body, as if their hearts were still beating. He could smell two, but a tingling at the back of his shoulders and the way his stomach clenched told the lion that there were probably more.
He was waiting for the right moment to attack.

 

"Patience is the virtue of the true warrior." the little voice said. 

He grunted once again, scoffing at the idea of patience. He had already waited long enough, the Wailers now stood in little clusters of two or three together, a great position to maximize damage and create chaos. He lifted his head, then his body, shaking the magnificent black, shaggy mane, announcing his presence. Death had arrived.

With a ferocious roar, the lion sprung from the grass, a deadly 300 pound dart, claws open and ready. The claws ripped into the two Wailers that were standing right next to the grass, facing the other way. The two were ripped apart with identical slashes, from the neck down to the lower back, the lion could see the white of the spine, the threads of bared tendon and muscle. Two more came at him, he jumped back and guided them through the mess that now lay in front of him, ready to pounce as soon as they began to stumble. He could hear loud noises coming from behind, where he thought the Spotters had been hiding, closer to the forest, where the nice-smelling elf had gone. He bit the neck of one Wailer, tearing the head right off, jumping towards the other one, before it even raised its arm to strike at him. He used his weight to slam the Wailer to the floor and tore out the throat, then carved their bellies with his claws and went after the others, there were still many of them standing up, and he was not going to let the elf take away his kills. He lurched towards the first Spotter, the crimson robe standing out from the rusted mail and rotten leather. It was surrounded by ten Wailers. Roar!

"Wait! There are too many, I need to immobilize them" the voice said. "Just stand still a few second and they are yours."

The lion shifted restlessly, his own blood pumping hard, the sinewy tendons of his body tensing and flexing, not used to waiting, sitting in front of the undead. A beam of blue light came out of the lion's mane, hitting the dirt road where the Wailers were standing. The dirt became mud so suddenly that the Wailers slipped and fell or were trying to maintain their footing. 

"Now!" the voice said urgently

.

The lion leapt at them, tearing flesh and bone with his claws and his mouth. His golden fur was tainted with blood and gore, his black mane now a tangled web of entrails. 

"Get the Spotter, there is one behind him. Moonthrust has taken out the other two." 

The lion roared out of frustration, the female elf had taken his quarry. He lunged at the Spotter, waiting for the spit to come his way, but the Spotter never saw him; a barrage of lightning bolts distracted it long enough for him to take it from behind, using his weight to get it to the floor. He grabbed a hold of its neck with his mouth, twisting it from side to side, hearing bone break, resisting the urge to lick his face. He lifted his face while the claws destroyed the body beneath him, searching for the other one. A spray of green spit hit the mangled corpse beneath him, making him jump out of the way, weaving his way in front of the Spotter. A lightning bolt hit the Spotter on the head, destroying it, splattering the lion with its remains. The mindless Wailers were now in disarray, no one was controlling them, so the lion took his time to kill them, one by one, toying with them, feinting and darting away, biting legs and arms before going for the kill. Another lightning bolt took away one of his kills, so he roared towards the forest, letting the female know that she should quit before becoming his dinner. 

"Easy big fellow, easy." the voice said, but the lion did not acknowledge it. "She is just trying to help you."

The lion did not need help, not when facing the puny creatures that threatened to deface his home.

Once the Wailers were dead, the female elf came out from the forest, smelling of fear and sweat, of summer storms and rain and lavender. 

"Come my friend, we need to get you all cleaned up if we ever want to cuddle with Moonthrust again." the voice said chuckling. 

The lion was not sure what the voice implied, nor did he care. He was content with his work. The threat was gone. He could see four Spotters dead and Wailers lying in heaps of blackened flesh, thorny vines and puddles of mud. His home was safe for now.

Any constructive criticism is not only appreciated but encouraged!

Retiring from WOW (Really)

Happy fourth of July to all of my American friends, hope you are still enjoying your long weekend!

This week came and went pretty fast, but there was a topic that stuck on my mind and wanted to share with you this week.

I have always been a fan of Role Playing Games. Ever since I knew of their existence, I have been an avid player of very good and very bad games. To me, there is not nothing better than to actually become the hero of the story, of being addressed by the NPC’s and to be able to save the world/princess or whatever it was that needed to be saved. But then, something happened in my life that changed the way I viewed and played RPG’s forever: I discovered World of Warcraft. WOW is an MMO, a Massive Multiplayer Online experience like no other. Four years ago I paid for my first account of WOW and, well, it did change my life, both in a good and a bad way.

I leveled a Druid named Pentholas (a continuation of a pen and paper character) and, even before I knew what the term meant, I leveled him mainly as a feral Druid, with a few touches of a Balance Druid. Real life friends began to play the game as well, and before we knew it, we each had our main toons ready for the expansion that was Wrath of the Lich King (I still played relevant content of the Burning Crusades, but I was not a part of any raid). I was a part of a very social, very active, very dysfunctional guild called The Vay of Elune and was even promoted to Officer status. To be honest, at that time I had no idea of what I was supposed to do both in the guild and in the game. I had not really understood the dynamics of what the game entailed in its unusual and challenging end game content. So, me and friends decided that is was time to move from a social into a raiding guild. I had one of the worst experiences of my life as a gamer in one of these guilds, and was about to leave the game when we were approached by another guild, Fallen Angels, an awesome guild run by Glint and Buns, and thus my journey into madness had begun. Don’t get me wrong, the guild and its members became a second family to me, and it was about this time that I really learned to play the Feral Druid toon and its complex rotation, but it just became too much, too much time spent on the game, farming, playing with the mechanics of my spec, and raiding at 11 pm Mexico City time.

After all was said and done, I was burnt out, having troubles at work and at home, and thus came my first separation of the game. I had never enjoyed the game more and I never enjoyed it more since those months were me and my real life friends (ironic that you have to make the distinction between you real life friends and your virtual ones), because of the time we spent on vent, or Skype, or simply building a lasting bond that I still miss today. Suffice to say, the call of the game was too strong for me to resist and I relapsed into two more stints playing the game.

In the first one I changed server so that I could raid at a decent time for me, 7 pm, so that I could release my raid fury over the period of time I had allotted for playing the game. It was good, I finally raided all I wanted to raid, I finally got into a guild that was a hardcore raiding guild, I finally had the chance to raid end game content in all of its difficulties and I even had one my best friends, in real life, along for the ride. But, as things got easier in terms of what I wanted, they also got repetitive and bland. The game, after numerous patches and in-game changes and tweaking the mechanics, had lost some appeal to me because the Feral Druid rotation was not as complex as it once had been, and, to be honest, once you had all the epics the toon needed, it was not a real challenge anymore. So, on the day that I was supposed to kill the Lich King, I decided to quit, and quit I did.

Cataclysm came out in December of 2010, and I decided to give it a try, leveling Pentholas to 85 in more than a week (which already showed my lack of enthusiasm over the game) and decided to take it slow. I just did not want to raid or even do dungeons for that matter, because the game was broke. Dungeon queues were ridiculous and if you were not part of a decently sized guild, there was no chance in hell that you PUG a raid. NONE. So I just played around making money, leveling toons and simply being disappointed by the lack of new content. I left the game after only three or four months, with no regrets and no lingering sensation that I wanted to be back to it…someday.

Last week, the new 4.2 patch came out and with it, Blizzard is now offering, instead of their traditional 10 day trial, a 20 level try, that is, you can level a character to level 20 for free (with tons of limitations), but still, an attempt to lure new players to their thinning ranks. If the community was horrible when I left it, how bad would it become with these new additions? So, for the first time since I began to play WOW, I can honestly say that I am retired for good. I miss raids, dungeons, leveling grinding, yes. I miss all of those things. But I miss being part of a guild with my friends even more. So, I wont come back, because there is nothing there for me to do, and there are exciting new MMOs that have caught my eye.

In one of WOW rehab stints, I purchased Guild Wars and have now began to play it in earnest, and I have to say that I enjoy the community much more than WOW and the playing experience, the ability to advance playing alone has been great so far, so I will be playing this one a whole lot more. I will buy Guild Wars 2 so I will let you know how I am doing over there as I progress. Right now, I have a level 10 Necromancer/Monk and a level 11 Monk/Elementalist.

Now, I want to play Star Wars: The Old Republic. I want to play it now! I want to play it because, well, er…I want to be Jedi. I want to be a Jedi so bad that I am willing to play a Healer toon in order to play a Jedi! But to be honest with you all, I just want to play because my friends are going to play the game and that will make it even better. For those that believe that playing these types of games alienate you from your loved ones, well, they do if you allow the game to dictate what you want to with your time, but if you take your time to plan out what you want to do with it, it will bring you closer to the friends that are already playing it.

What are you guys going to do? Are you planning on playing SWOR? Guild Wars 2? Are there other MMOs out there that have caught your eye?

Series

This week I will finish Game of Thrones if it is the last thing I could do, because I have to get past the hurdle of seeing what I already know is going to happen. (See? NO spoilers there!) I just can’t stomach the thought of loosing characters, again! I mean, once in the book is enough for me! (Oh, and the characters that I do want to get rid of and knowing that they will remain…ughh!)

Books

I have finished the 5 books of Joe Abercrombie’s First Law Trilogy and world, and I just loved each book. The Trilogy is fun, fast-paced, bloody, splattered with intrigue and mystery, and filled with warm, cold and real and complex characters. The stand alone books are juts a treat, because although you know they are set in the same universe, and they do have some characters that were part of the trilogy, they just stand out on their own, with their own pace, their own back stories and their own unforgettable cast of characters. I fell in love with Monza and against my better judgment, I tended to side with Calder.

I am now reading Danse Macabre, Book 14 of the Anita Blake Series and I am also reading The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson.
The Sword of truth is on hiatus, AGAIN!

Writing

Well, last week I finished the overview for my novel and began with the first attempts at the chapters, but I did not go past the Prologue. I am having such a difficult time of shedding the narrator hat off my head. Last week was also mired with a lot of family engagements that made it difficult for me to get into any sort of rhythm. I am a creature of habit and if I have to change some of my ritual, well, it just does not work. Hopefully this week will be better.

I will also begin to write the overview of a second novel I want to write about my other literary love: Vampires. I have already written most of the world in which they live in, but I need to get into the details of the story. Hopefully these minor details will not take too long to iron out.

I will also try to finish the short story I am writing for the contest. The story is very close to being ready, but I have, in all honestly, neglected it for far too long.

Well, I hope everyone has a great week! I will see you all next week!