ARMED WITH WINGS LAUNCHED! + Fate of The Current + Winter 2011 ZU Awards

Bubs says, "I shoulda made this post like exactly a month ago!"

So, November 1 saw the launch of the prologue and first chapter (with November 2 and 15 seeing the launches of Chapters II and III, respectively) of my newest and most active project, Armed with Wings. Armed with Wings is a fan fiction novel project whose source is…a Flash game?! Yes, it is. You may not have believed it so, but it is possible to write a full-length fan fiction piece based on an online game. Because, yes, some Flash games and series actually have stories to them. Those are my favorite kind of Flash series, by the way!

Armed with Wings is based on the game of the same name, the first out of five games to be released (but the second in order of occurrence according to series canon) in Sun-Studios' Armed with Wings series (informally known as the Blackmist series). It follows the resurrected commander of a rebel force that had tried to dethrone the tyrant king but had failed; now, the former commander is back for revenge. He will have to scale a mountain and make his way through hundreds of guards and traps before he can reach the king in his castle.

As stated earlier, the first three chapters are already available for your reading pleasure! Armed with Wings is currently only available on the Zelda Universe Forums, but have no fear; there is a table of contents for easy navigation. In addition, a rough audio version of the fan fiction piece that goes up to the end of Chapter II is also available exclusively (for now) through the project's thread on ZU. However, this is a rough version, meaning that I deem it below standard for my audiobooks, so I will be redoing it at some point in the near future.

Armed with Wings can be found here! Enjoy! (It is rated M for violence and language. Please be aware of this.)

Now, I want to take a moment to discuss The Current. Part of the title of this post is "Fate of The Current," which has likely led you to believe that I'm scrapping it. This is not the case. I am, however, officially putting The Current on-hold. I want to focus on Armed with Wings, which I am well into the fourth chapter of. I will likely return to The Current in 2012.

Lastly, the ZU Awards are back! They are currently in the nomination period, with zero nominations for me for any award. The nomination period ends tomorrow. Thought I'd mention that.

That's it! A short update, since I explained Armed with Wings a lot in my last post. Until next time! (My next post will explain what happened with that "Live Q&A Event" thing. In case you were curious.)

Happy Halloween! + NEW STORY: "Star Crash" + Story Collection Thread + Next Up... + This Friday...

Happy Halloween, all! I know I stayed in and got irritated every time the doorbell rang...even though my mom was doing all of the candy stuff! What did you do? Most of you probably did some form of trick-or-treating, a tradition I upheld myself for a time, going as Harry Potter for the last 6 or 7 years of my trick-or-treating life. This was my third year not going out. It was also the year I officially decided that trick-or-treaters annoy me. I'm sorry. But I don't like little children ringing my doorbell every three minutes. Especially not when I'm talking to my mother about serious matters during dinner. Argh!

Today marked the first anniversary of "The First Hour." In its honor, tomorrow, I'll put it up as the Featured Story for a month or so. If you haven't read it yet, it's the perfect Halloween story, especially when read immediately following "Twelve Chimes!"

This past week, Tuesday night (late) specifically, marked the launch of my latest story. Again, sadly, it was not "The Shadow Loop," my planned Halloween story for this year. For more details on that, please see my post immediately preceding this one. Instead, it was a short story written as part of a school assignment, titled "Star Crash." It's an adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Tempest, but...in space! It takes the overall/main plot of the play and puts it in the context of the first scene of the play...but all in space! It's an interesting read! "Star Crash" launched late Tuesday night (my time) on the Zelda Universe Forums as my final story to be released as an individual thread (I'll get to that shortly), it launched Wednesday afternoon on Figment, and finally, it launched on Thursday afternoon on deviantART.

This next point is more directed at my readers on the ZU Forums or anybody who ever reads my stuff there. On Wednesday, I began compiling all of the short stories I'd ever posted anywhere on ZU into a single thread. Friday morning marked the completion (for now!) of this thread, when I posted "Star Crash" into it. The thread is a place where readers can view in their full texts all of my short stories (minus "Chosen Ones" and "The Blind Man Who Could See") and where ZU members can post feedback for any or all of my stories, from my newest to my oldest, without necroposting, which goes against ZU forum rules. From now on, all of the short stories that I post to ZU will be posted exclusively in this thread. No longer will they have their own threads for each one. You can find the collection here.

Story Launch: "Freeing Truth" + First Batch of Audiobooks Launches! + NEW PUBLISHING SITE: deviantART

Good news: I'm starting again on The Current next week!

In other news, one week ago, I launched my newest short story, "Freeing Truth." This was written as part of a school assignment, which was to make a creative piece (story, poem, painting, sculpture, etc.) involving the quote, "The truth shall make you free," in the light of Cory Doctorow's dystopian, modern-day 1984 novel, Little Brother, which was the "all-school read" for this past summer. The result is "Freeing Truth," my longest short story to date, at about 5.25 pages long in Word. Like "Trust Fall" before it, "Freeing Truth" is split into "chapters;" there are six in this one, as opposed to five in "Trust Fall." The story is of the fantasy genre, and involves a selfish king who holds a mysterious power in his castle. A youth then tries to steal it and learns a startling fact about the king and the kingdom. "Freeing Truth" is currently available on both the ZU Forums and Figment, and in the next few weeks, it will also be available on deviantART (more on that later).

Today marked the launch of the first batch of audio versions of my short stories! In case you never noticed the "Audiobooks" page here, it's been here for about three months with a message saying "Coming soon! (I promise!)" Well, it wasn't quite as soon as I'd hoped, but I'd say not bad! Each audiobook is read by me, unabridged. If you download the whole thing (as a ZIP file), you get some extra goodies. Unfortunately, that's not out yet, as I haven't recorded all of the audiobooks yet. The first nine have been recorded, as well as the version of "Trust Fall" with the extended second chapter, the version of the audiobook that will only be available in the ZIP file. I will also be recording "The Blind Man Who Could See" later today (UPDATE, 17:38: Done and available!), and maybe another, as well. If you enjoy books more when you can listen to them, then you'll benefit from the really dramatic (at least most of the time) audio versions of my stories! Even if you're a visual reader, you can still enjoy! Just head over to the "Audiobooks" page, and you can download (individually) the available audiobooks. (There is a small error in "Twelve Chimes" when my microphone apparently cut off for a second. No need for you to worry, as I will be fixing that--by rerecording that cut-off sentence--and re-uploading the file within the next week or so.)

Um... (a.k.a. a Current Update) + New ZU Writing Contest Entry

Yeah, so at least I...sort of have an excuse this time? I've been busy with a few things: two vacations, one of which made it a tad difficult to perform tasks on a computer; relaxing--it's a valid excuse, considering the fact that I otherwise have no life during the school year; writing podcast stuff--remember, I work on the ZUCast, and I have scripts to write; and writing a new short story ("hit the jump" for more on that). There is hope, however! A month ago or so, I signed up for my choices of the mandatory after-school activities at school for this year, and my first choice for both the fall and winter trimester is the school newspaper. Believe it or not, this is when I have gotten quite a bit of my creative writing done in the past couple years! Forget the school newspaper (though I obviously write articles); once I'm done writing articles within a day or two, I spend the rest of the month writing stories and novels! Take that, school! Yeah....

The Current Update + Conceptual Dual-Release Launch + Reception on Figment

Well, the good news is that I've started the third chapter of The Current! And now that I'm into it, I should have it finished in a couple days or so. Don't worry. It will happen soon! Chapter three has also undergone a name change, in case you didn't notice it under the "Current Projects" (how fitting!) box on the right. Originally to be called "Chapter Three: The Current," for the obvious reason (if you read chapter two!) that Joe will be going down the Current in this chapter, I felt it was too simple and, since the novel's title is The Current, didn't really express what I wanted it to in regards to the chapter's content. The new chapter title is "Chapter Three: Insult to Injury," of which I will not disclose the relevance of at this point in time, due to it being a fairly major spoiler. Again, it should be up in a couple days or so.

As I mentioned in my previous post, today I have launched a dual-release of conceptual short stories that I wrote over the course of the past school year as English class assignments. The two stories, as I also mentioned before, are titled "The Blind Man Who Could See" and "The Open Gate," respectively. The former was released exclusively on Figment, and the latter was released exclusively on the Zelda Universe Forums.

"The Blind Man Who Could See," which I originally wrote last October, is a conceptual/spiritual story that sacrifices complexity in the plot and in the writing itself for an important, powerful message. Like "The Open Gate," this story is told from the view of the main character. This character is a young man who meets a blind, old man on the side of a street in London. From his conversation with the old man, his view of life is forever changed. The assignment for which this story was written was to write a short story borrowing elements, particularly the character of Vasudeva, from Hermann Hesse's classic novel, Siddhartha. It received a B+.

"The Open Gate," which I originally wrote in April, is more fantastical than its parallel release and carries less of a message. It is also significantly darker in mood. The main character stumbles upon an open gate across the street from where he is walking home, and he/she realizes that the gate is made entirely of pure gold and is studded with all kinds of gems and crystals. He/she decides to take a detour to see what lies beyond the gate, but he/she soon finds him-/herself walking down an endless road that provides for his/her every need in order to wipe the thought of turning back from his/her mind. It's a very chilling story! It received a B or a B+ (I'd need to check to remind myself).

The Current Update + ZU Awards + Music

Here's a tip: whenever I say I'm expecting a chapter to be out, don't expect it to be out then. Remember "Illusions & Lies: Undercover?" Perfect example. I haven't even started writing the third chapter yet. However, there's someone I like to show my writing to in person who I'm seeing on Thursday night, so this next chapter will most likely be done, if not online, by then. But no promises.

So, while the Summer 2011 ZU Awards season isn't exactly over--it's currently in the voting stage--it is for me. Surprisingly, I not only wasn't nominated for the Best Writer award like I was last year, but I wasn't nominated for a single award at all! Maybe I'll have better luck this winter, when the next awards season takes place. I wasn't really expecting to win, but I was expecting at least a nomination. You see, there is actually a bit of a hierarchy in the ZU Writing section, one that I have identified as follows, from lowest to highest: spammers, new members (to the Writing forum) who haven't read the rules, Writing forum newbies who have read the rules, little-known veterans, known veterans, and elite veterans/moderators. I consider myself to be an elite veteran, one among the likes of ZU members Doran_Bladefist, Holden, The Unknown Soldier (now known as Gamzee), Sakume, Jordan, Hero of Geeks, and moderator Fairess, plus former moderator and former ZU member Veyrael. Strangely, though, almost all--if not all--of the people I just mentioned were nominated for Best Writer this awards season. But I wasn't. Am I complaining? Yeah, probably a bit. If I hadn't been nominated last winter, I probably wouldn't be complaining at all. But I was, so I was expecting to at least be nominated again. Oh, well. I guess it makes sense considering how little I've actually written in the past few months compared to the previous few months.

Still Alive + The Current Launch + ...Halloween 2011...? + ZU Awards

If you read my previous post, you'll notice that it begins with an astonished question, "Did I manage to go a whole month without posting here?". Now look at the date on that post. It's March 10, 2011. Now look at the date on this post. Yeah. So not only did I manage to go another month without posting here, but this time, I managed to go three times that without doing so! Impressive?

Basically, I've been busy. My school is a college preparatory school, and they give us boatloads of work. While I'm fine with all of the regular homework, I have particular trouble with working on long-term assignments; my brain shuts down easily due to anxiety. Well, in the past few weeks, my school, which got out the first week of June, gave me about five long-term assignments at once. Imagine how that worked out for me. Long story short, I had no time to work on my fictional writing and had to dedicate a few weeks of my life to sleeping, eating, going to school, and working on...non-fictional writing (plus breathing). Let me officially mention that while writing fiction is one of the things I love most in this world, writing non-fiction (essays, etc.) is quite possibly my least favorite thing in all of existence. Yeah! No joke! (I know some college or something is probably going to find this blog at some point and read that statement. Well, my fine friends at the college or something, I'm not going to lie about that fact. I have to force myself to write essays and things. And it sometimes drives me a bit crazy. Literally. But they all get done in the end. And I'm a bit paranoid for writing this, especially considering that I won't even begin looking at colleges for another few months.)

Anyway, in writing news, the first two chapters (time flies...?) of my previously-mentioned project, The Current, are now online. The first one can be found at both of the novel's official web locations, Figment and the Zelda Universe Forums, while the second chapter, at the time of this posting, can only be found at the ZU Forums. And yes, the novel has been listed on the Master List since I first published the first chapter. You can expect the third chapter to be up by this Friday or so.

While I was not originally planning on it being part-comedy, that is what The Current is turning out to be. However, it will likely become less humorous (not necessarily darker, except for later on) as it goes on. It also  features more swears than I have ever featured in a single project! And more references to drinking! And the first-ever references to drugs (well, tobacco)! This is my most mature science fiction project to date, and possibly tied with The Midnight Sequence ("Twelve Chimes"/"The First Hour") for being my most mature overall project to date. If you are easily offended by that kind of stuff, this is one project you might want to stay away from. Sorry!

Return to Fan Fiction?! + Return to Novel-Writing

Did I manage to go an entire month without posting here? Wow. Well, my birthday was at the end of last month. Just wanted to put that out there.

Anyway, last month saw my return to fan fiction. What is fan fiction? Fan fiction is written literature (almost exclusively novellas; however, fan fiction novels, short stories, and even poems have also been written) that takes elements from one or more existing books, movies, TV shows, video games, etc. Commonly, these include the characters, setting, and even plot. Pieces of fan fiction are always unofficial, hence the "fan" part of "fan fiction."

Like I said, I have recently returned to fan fiction. That's right: this is not my first piece of fan fiction. Back in summer '09, I began working on a Legend of Zelda fan fiction (it's on the Master List with a link included) of which I only made it to nine chapters before tossing it aside. Why did I toss it aside? Because it was getting pretty stupid. I have always tended to look down on fan fiction, considering it "unoriginal art," lacking creativity on the part of the writer. Given this fact, I have no idea why I decided to return to fan fiction. I think something snapped inside my head a month ago, and I went insane. Or something to that effect.

Back in January, I began watching the English-dubbed French animated series Code Lyoko again, of which I'd first watched a good portion of the first season back in 2004 or so. It is a tween/teen cartoon/CGI science fiction series following the adventures of five junior high/high school-aged boarding students who go into a virtual world called Lyoko, which is located inside of a supercomputer in the basement of a defunct automobile factory, in order to battle an evil entity known as X.A.N.A., which is intent on escaping Lyoko and taking over Earth. X.A.N.A. (which doesn't really stand for anything, as far as the fanbase knows) has the power to manipulate things on Earth, including the ability to possess animals and people.

Why am I talking about Code Lyoko? Because that's what my new fan fiction is based on! The fan fiction, which is updated chapter-by-chapter exclusively on the Zelda Universe Forums, is titled Code Lyoko: Virtualization and is the first in a trilogy of fan fiction pieces known as Code Lyoko: More Than a Game. The first three chapters are currently available, with the fourth chapter temporarily on hold (just for a couple weeks to a month).