Saying goodbye and hello!

Hello all! I have not been able to update the blog because I have been very busy. Closing down the operations on the plant has been demanding, more emotionally than physically, but still, there are many things that need to be taken care of. I only know that my time in there is coming to an end, and I need some closure. I have always been one to close the lid on a period of my life and never look back, for better or for worse. I intend to do the same thing. What was done or not done, the 'ifs' surrounding this decision have no place in my life now. It is time to move on, time to part ways and time to embark on whatever life has stored up for me. But again, I need to close the door of 15 years worth of experiences and memories. Just today, we contacted someone to help us sell the hundreds of books my dad had accumulated, many of these I read, many of these were the first glimpse of the wonderful world of literature. I could not keep them because I have no place to put them, I have been busy buying my own books for the past 20 years. However, the memories of spending summer vacations down there, the bike rides in the park near the office, the feel and the smell of the place, those things, and those memories will be with me forever.

So, I have been spending my time between the office and my home, looking for work, and let me tell you, besides from the irrational anxiety that has taken a hold of my already shaky mental health, it is a boring exercise of futility. The fact that I have to input my resume into each and every company's database is exhausting. A good friend of mine has given me some of his contacts in the headhunting business, and I am now going to go that route. I am still sending out resumes to my own contacts, still looking for interviews, still pestering the good and bad souls that reside inside Human Resources offices, and my urgency to find a job is still there, believe me, but I can't spend all day glued to the computer looking for jobs in portals like Monster or OCC.

So my alternative has been a rather easy one. I write. I am writing like I have never written before, fluidly, not effortlessly, but I am hitting my word count goals in days instead of weeks. And so, I am pleased to announce that my first book, The Druid's Grove, will be available sometime by the end of this year. But this decision, triggered by the mighty surge of writing, has given me also reasons to think about the route I want to take with publication.

So I have decided that this series will be an Indie effort.

Why? Well, I am a planner, I plan everything, and I make outlines of outlines just to make sure the plan is still there. I have envisioned a path I wanted to take with my writing a long time ago, but seriously, two years ago I decided it was time to write the damn book and to get on the program. The outline cannot and will not wait!

I have four stories far enough in their development that I could have chosen from, but in the end I went with these story, an epic fantasy series, to make my debut as and Indie author. The remaining three stories are still waiting in the wings, and at least one of them is going to go through the tortuous and highly archaic route of traditional publishing. That story has been with for more than half my life now, and I vowed that I would send that one to publishing companies.

However, I believe that the Indie route is the most efficient way to carve a path into a consistent fan base and to connect to via social media to those that are willing to pay to read one of my books.

I would also like to expand more on the Indie topic, and will gladly do so next week.

So, that is what I have been up to, reading a lot, writing a lot, looking for work...a lot, and just trying to enjoy the time I have free to spend with my family and friends.

No book reviews or game reviews this time...although I did get a 30-day trial on both of my WOW accounts and I did give them a look. I have found farming and fishing soothing and relaxing, but not so much the grind of dailies. I will write about my tentative return to WOW next week.

Have a great week!

Games and books

Hullo! Hope you all had a great week end!

I had a rough week, but that is what the forecast predicts right? I mean, looking for a job in a depressed market is not an easy task, finding a job seems to be an urban fantasy rather than a common practice of our society. Regardless of my fruitless search for employment, this little time off has given me time to reflect on my life and the changes that might, or might not come. You see, I am now having time to write, to really write. To hop down the stairs after having breakfast and write. To write after lunch. To write after the kids are asleep and to edit until my eyes are red and sore. And I am loving it, not only in terms of advancement (In two weeks I am past the midway of the novel) but because it simply feels right. So I have made a decision that a month ago I would not have even dreamed of: I will use this time to become a full fledged writer. No more timid incursion, no more half-hearted attempts. No more excuses. I have the time, and hopefully, I will have the means to dedicate myself to write (while looking for a job, don’t worry, I am not that crazy) and finish what I started. I want to publish, and publish I will. The Indie route is jut fine with me, at least for now. The bottom line for any product placed in any market is that if it is good, if it is a quality product, people will buy it. That premise has ruled markets for most of our sentient time in this planet, and the formula holds true for eBooks as well. So, I am churning down pages, and I am getting closer to my word count goal. Suffice to say; amidst being in utter terror of the uncertain future, I am also excited of the prospect of the unknown. Crazy yes, but oh so good!

The process of finding a job might be a long and tedious journey, one that I hope will end soon, one that I am actively working on, but the time in between will be spent with me dreaming up stories and painting the blank canvasses with my words. There is nothing better than that.

Now onwards to what I have been doing so far this year.

Games

In terms of games, I began playing SWTOR on December, and quickly developed an addiction to the game. The storylines are gorgeous, the voice acting is superb, the setting are awsome and leveling a toon is one of the most enjoyable leveling experiences I have ever had (I am not an uber veteran of MMO’s, WOW and Guild Wars are my only true experiences in the genre, with a brief, demented dabble in DC Universe). Me and my friends created a guild even before the game deployed and that turned out to be a very good idea, because guild that were exported from the web page into live servers were placed in servers with lively and active populations. The downer there was that a couple of our members did not enjoy the game as much as the rest of us did, added to the fact that we were an Empire guild and another friend decided to roll Republic, so we never really had the quorum to explore end game content as a group, and finding a good group to do that, via random strangers was not in my plans. So, through a friend, the only active member of the guild other than myself, I was led into the shark infested waters of PVP. Now, it is very important to underline that I had never before attempted any PVP at all. In WOW, I think in all the years I played I amassed about 1k honor points, which is nothing. The surprise in all of this was that I really liked SWTOR’s PVP games and maps, and I got fairly good at it. I really enjoyed it. But there was something missing, and eventually those things that I missed outweighed the things that I liked. The economy was rubbish and even though I had amassed a pretty nice chunk of credits and materials, there was no challenge there. I had two level 50 toons, doing PVP dailies and nothing more. I craved for dungeons and instances, maybe not raids, but some sort of progression that I never got. And, being honest, I never could have gotten it. I was in the midst of trying to save the company so I had no time to spare. Eventually I left the game about two months ago, and to this day, I have not wanted to return and don’t plan to.

The game has some flaws that need to be addressed. The engine is crap. It will nor run well in the best rigs and will run great in middle of the mill rigs. It does not utilize all of your CPU resources and will tax your graphic card to the max. (I had to change my card in order to play the game properly). It is clunky and awkward in certain situations, like being on the fleet in prime time and getting very low FPS and lag. PVP zones were a nightmare as well with these types of problems. It has no cross-server queue, not yet anyways, and even though server transfers are free and in place now (which in truth are server mergers) fighting against the same people, over and over again can be somewhat boring. The same could be said for finding dungeon groups. Patch 1.3 comes out today with a group finder, rated BG’s and other goodies. For those that stayed I hope it is a good one!

So I bought Diablo III and Skyrim to fill in the void, but, in all honesty, with all that is going on, I have not played them much, or at all. I have only gotten out of the first map part in Skyrim and in Diablo I am in Act II in normal. Both games look stunning and I am sure they are a lot of fun, but I just have not given them any time. Maybe next month.

I received and invite from Blizzard to return to WOW for a 30-day trial, on both of my accounts, and so far I have enjoyed being back. To me, WOW is my MMO home and it will be as long s it is running. Don’t know if I will subscribe though, have just been doing dailies and farming mats and that sort of stuff.

Reading

I am reading like a mad man, and have been thoroughly enjoying my time back in Krynn.

Now, this week I will review the first book of the Lost Chronicles Series, Dragons of Dwarven Depths.

I will not spoil the story at all, if you have already read the Chronicles series, there is nothing to spoil (If you haven’t, don’t worry, there is nothing to spoil either). The book centers around the time when the Heroes of the Lance are forced to march towards Thorbardin, the ancient home of the Dwarves, nestled deep inside the Kharolis Mountains. In the Chronicles Trilogy, authors Weis and Hickman told the tale of the Hammer of Kharas when the search and discovery of it had already taken place. This is the actual story of how it was found and by whom. The story allows us to know one of the main characters of the whole series, Flint Fireforge, a Neidar (Hill Dwarf) whose ancestors had been locked out of Thorbardin. We can see the turmoil surrounding his return to their ancestral home as well as the ideological troubles that fester in Krynn.

This is a beautiful story, which will fill in the blanks for to all of the fans of the series. It is a book crafted with special care in maintaining the details of the original story, but focusing the narrative through the eyes of the grumpy dwarf.

It is also a very well constructed story, using the fact that the outcome of the story is already known, so they shift the focus to the characters and the setting.

I highly recommend this book.

Next week I will review the second book of the Trilogy.

However, I am also reading more books (like I usually do) but will touch more on that next week as well.

Have a great week!!!

Grinding

Middle of the week and I have this irresistible craving of writing all day long. But I can’t write all day, I can’t read all day and I can’t play games all day. I have work and a beautiful family to take care of, so the alternative suits me just fine.

Now, the Novel is advancing at an accelerated pace. The three stories that will meld into one, eventually, are well under way. The whole structure of the world is finished; the nuances of clothing, architecture, vegetation, etc…are in place and no longer require more of my limited time. Now I am only writing and editing, writing and editing. This first book of a five part series will be available, if all goes well, around December of this year. Book two is already outlined. So I am pretty excited about this!

My short story, X, will be ready soon as well, I just need to get my reading group together and iron out the details it still has. Draft two was fairly different from draft one, but I liked the second better, its structure is much better and the pace is better as well.

Hopefully, I can send the story in May, and work on a second story shortly.

The other two projects that are still dancing in my head will have to wait for a bit. This is not bad really, because I am still making notes about characters or ideas about the story of these two projects, and I know that, at some point, they will get written.

As I grow older I begin to realize that certain things in life tend to be easier than initially thought, perception changes, yes, but drowning in a puddle is no longer an option, when real life-changing problems knock on our doors. I understand that writing, in any of its forms is an outlet I NEED in order to function right, regardless of my dreams and passion of becoming an author. This is good!

See you all later!

NaNoWriMo is approaching!

Hello all! It has been a long time since I missed an update completely, but again I had some health issues, (minor stuff really, but annoying as hell) and work has taken over my life, and I would not have it any other way.

Bu I am glad to be back!

On to this week’s post!!

Books

Well, yesterday I finished Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn: The Final Empire, book one of the famed Mistborn trilogy. This is the second Sanderson book I have read, the Way of Kings was the first one, (not counting the Wheel of time books, which I have also read), and I have to say that I am now, a true Sanderson fan. I like how he writes, which is important, I like how he constructs the world around his characters, I love the way he throws us into his world head first, with no noob manual about his cities, its costumes, folklore, legends, fetishes and more importantly, its inhabitants. Also, and I believe this is what I like the most, the books have depth. I live in Mexico City, a third world country, where the wealth is distributed unevenly, to say the least. In his books, Sanderson always tackles the inequalities in his world, harshly and dramatically, but in a sense that one can relate or at least understand to how the wealth of the world is distributed, and I truly like that. I love to feel a connection with the story per se, not only the characters, and The Final Empire gave me that opportunity.

The amazing use of metals (Allomancy) integrated into the story is the icing in the cake, a great use of magic in world devoid of hope.

Sanderson is a brilliant story teller but he also makes me think, and I do value that from my fantasy.

I did not have much time to read the last couple of weeks, The Final Empire is a large book, but yesterday I began this books: (Some were already started :D )

Shadow Games

The Hand of Oberon

The Well of Ascension

Writing

Phew! It has been a very good two weeks for me in terms of writing. I finally have found a way to write 2,000 words per day, but I have not been able to discipline myself into writing on Saturday’s and Sunday’s, it is as if on the weekends, the portion of my brain that allows me to write is turned off. However, I am getting somewhere and I am enjoying the process immensely.

The Druid’s Grove

Is coming along nicely, the Elven story is done and the Human Story is flowing quite nicely. I have been able to write some acts, just random scenes that pop into my head every now and then, for when the three stories merge into one, and being able to write them, and then move on to the chapters has been quite satisfying.

X

I will be working on the story for the remainder of the month, aiming at having an actual first draft done by Oct 31^st. I am in no rush of getting this story done, because I feel that it is good, so I will take my time to edit and rewrite it.

NaNoWriMo

I am excited and, to be honest, afraid, of what I have signed up to do. Beginning on November 1^st, I will have 30 days to finish a novel. :D The goal is to write 50,000 words in a month, and I don’t know if will be able to do so, but I will certainly try. I am going to write a novel that has been inside my head for more than half my life now, Children of Sea, and I cant wait to see what I have done a month from now. This is an excellent tool to get my lazy butt off and running, and will be a great exercise as well. I am confident that I will be able to write the 50,000 words, but I do not know if I will be disciplined enough to do so, if that makes sense.

So, all of November, in terms of time and resources, I will spend them writing the novel I have wanted to write all of my life.

Games

With me being under the weather, again, I decided to relax and to revisit one of the games that I believe to be one of the greatest RPG’s ever made: Dragon Age: Origins.

It still is.

The music is just one of the many details that create a whole that is better than its counterparts, it elevates you when you need a boost, it brings you down when you are talking to your companions, and it urges you to go in the missions and makes you peek around corners looking for enemies. The voice acting is exceptional; each character is played with care and knowledge.

The story, much like the world, is enormous and generous, and it actually feels like you are part of the story, rather than only an spectator.

The graphics are good and the overall quality of the game is superb. I don’t think we will ever see another RPG quite as complete and beautiful than this one.

I will see you all next week!

Guns of Avalon

Good Tuesday to all! This has been a fun week for me, and I hope it was a good for you too. On to this week’s post!

Books

I am still well into my romance with The 1^st Chronicles of Amber. I read book 2 and 3, Guns of Avalon and Sign of the Unicorn.

Guns of Avalon is a great sequel to Nine Princes in Amber, it has so much depth and the descriptions of the places the Princes call Shadows reach epic and oneiric proportions. Corwin’s quest of conquering Amber is derailed, but his determination to sit on the throne rivals only that of his brother Eric, who is the actual ruler of Amber. This is a book that allows us to get closer to Corwin, thus revealing some of the truth hidden inside his imperfect memories.

Sign of the Unicorn is a faster book; it has a relentless pace that will navigate us through the political turmoil and family conspiracies brewing in Amber. The Shadow Road might be explained, the curse Corwin launched might come back to haunt him, brothers lost might be found and allies might become traitors. The key word here is might :P

The books were written in the early seventies, and it shows. This is a brand of fantasy that has a message behind it, not hidden, but subtle in its presence. This is a series about family, about loss, power, politics, treason and Shadows, the latter are wondrous worlds created and inhabited by the Princes, or their own shadows. I had wanted to read a fantasy series that evoked the sort of epic world where I could visit and relax, and rest my mind, and Amber is such a place.

I am already reading book 4, The Hand of Oberon.

I still managed to squeak by a few more chapters of Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn: The Final Empire, Volume 1 of the Mistborn trilogy (or quartet, since a new book of the series is due to be released a month from now). Like much of what I have read from him, the book is just massive, the people that inhabit his worlds are rich and colorful and interesting, customs and folklore and magic are well balanced and make for a great read. I will post more of this book next week, but again, what I have read is really good.

The Dresden Files are still on hold; I did not manage to read a single page of the first book, Storm Front, but will try to get a few chapters under my belt this week.

The Black Company is no longer on hiatus! I did manage to read quite a few chapters of the fourth book, Shadow Games, but wont comment on the book until I am done, hopefully next week. Croaker, I still love you!

Games

I am playing Dragon Age again; in between session of Final Fantasy VII of course (I am in Disc three, so I will take it easy and milk it as much as I can). Dragon Age: Origins is one of the greatest games I have ever played in my life. The scale of the world, the voice acting, the animations, the cut scenes, the story and the characters that will accompany you throughout makes this one the best RPG’s ever made. I have played this game twice already, both times (go figure) I played following the Human Noble origin story and because I bought the Digital Deluxe edition, I had a couple of quests that added a very good ally in Shale and gave me a place to keep my stuff (Storage space is a bitch in this game) in Warden’s Keep.

I usually like to play characters (in games where choices do have some sort of impact on the development of the story), tending to be more on the good side. With the two human characters I managed to fall in love with Morrigan, the sexy witch everybody hates to love or loves to hate.

For this go around though, I created a City Elf and will try to be more on the neutral side. I will let you now how I am doing.

Still waiting for SWOTOR to be launched!

Writing

Well, on Friday my two writing buddies and I discussed and dissected my short story, X’s Game, so that now I can edit and rewrite it at will, for the second and third drafts. The good news it that the story is a go, they liked it, the bad news, well, there are no real bad news. It still has a long way to go and I need to work on it still. But, we are getting there!

The Druid’s Grove is coming along fine, today I hope to finish Chapter 20 and will be a couple of chapters shy of finishing the Elven part of the story, which is the real meat and potatoes of the story. The Human and Dwarven part are going to be smaller. I love to write!

I have laid my goals for the final weeks of the year. I want to be writing 10,000 words per week, 2,000 words per day (I won’t write on Saturdays and Sundays, not yet anyway) and last week I fell short 3,000, but I am getting there.

The Druid’s Grove word count: 36,811

See you all next week.

The Legend of Huma

Hello all! Last week, me and my wife just about recovered from a very strenuous week and half, and the weekend was not much better. On Saturday we got to go out with some good news and on Sunday I got to enjoy a quiet, NFL Sunday. So, on to this week’s post.

Books

I managed to finish The Legend of Huma, and I was reminded why I loved this book so much. From all of the Dragonlance series books I have read, I like this one better because it is darker, it has an air of despair, of hopelessness that the other books do not have. It also has well rounded characters and interesting plot points, giving us a glimpse into the Knights of Solamnia’s world, before the change of Age, filled with political intrigue and their fair share of backstabbing. But, most of all, the book describes the relationship between Huma, Kaz and Magius, an eclectic trio of heroes that for one reason or another, found themselves thrown head first into the battle against Takhisis.
Other Dragonlance novels are not quite up to par to Knaak’s superb narrative and it makes Huma stand out from the rest of the Heroes books.

Ugh, I need to give Pattern Recognition another shot because the book club is going to meet soon. I have never left a book I started and I won't start now.

I am halfway through the Black Company’s fourth book and I am still quite engrossed in the history and in the characters. I am one of those readers that truly identifies or antagonizes with the characters I am reading, thus I get truly involved in the whole reading experience. Croaker and Raven are the types of characters that I root for and that I am not likely to forget any day soon. Enjoying the book so far.

I also began the first book of the Mistborn Trilogy, Mistborn: The Final Empire, and as usual, the beginning of the book is interesting, enticing and maddening, all at the same time. He always dives into the world with no respite; no explanation, no warning and I just LOVE that! It is still too early to really tell if I ma going to like the book or not, but so far so good.

Also reading book 1 of the Chronicles of Amber series, Nine Princes in Amber and, while I only have a few chapters under my belt, the story flows quickly and I am still at that stage where I have absolutely no idea of what I am reading, but want to know more.

I have been in the mood for a good mystery novel, anyone has any suggestions?

Writing

Well, this past week I finally finished X’s Game, the short story I am going to submit to the contest. It is fairly short, for my standards anyway, a tad over 7,000 words, but I do feel that this one has a real shot being successful.

The Druid’s Grove is next, and I will tackle it this week. The chapters I have posted have been read quite more than I had imagined at first, and the reviews have not been that bad. What is evident is that they need to be proofread more thoroughly before being posted, and I will do a much better job of that from now on. There are a lot of typos and stuff like that that simply will not cut it.
The story of the novel is based on three characters, and we get to see the story told through the eyes of these three characters. The Elven, Human and Dwarven story. I am almost finished with the Elven story, but have not really worked on the Human and Dwarven story. So, I still have a lot of work to do.

The Scribes of Lore is finished, and will be edited and re-written (if needed) so that it will be ready for the contest as well. I found a few interesting websites where I can submit my work for cash prizes, but more importantly, for it to be read, so I will probably will be working in that as well, but the Grove is still the number 1 priority.

Games

Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) has now a definitive launch date: December 20, 2011. I cant tell you how excited I am for the release of this MMO, because, honestly, after World of Warcraft, there is a HUGE void of MMO action in my life.

I am planning on playing a Sith Warrior, more intent in generating threat and receiving damage than inflicting it, that is the original plan anyway. I am also truly excited because most of my real life friends will be playing this game, but we still need to convince a few more.

The site will still be updated on Mondays and if there is anything worth posting during the week, I will do so, but the Thursday update is now gone.

Have a great week guys!!!