I have finished a trilogy of posts on the Incarna Expansion, WiS (Walking in Stations), and the EvE playerbase’s culpability for what happened after…
I hope some of you will take a look, read and see if YOU feel WiS was as big as ‘missed opportunity’ for EvE as I do.
I have been, ummmmm… busy ok?
Actually I ‘may’ shut this blog down due to lack of… well… everything bloggish. You know, posts, readers, interesting things to say, people interested in the interesting things I have to say… that kinda “stuff”. I started this when I decided to scratch the itch I have had since I first got hooked on reading back in the days of E.E. “Doc” Smith’s “Grey Lensman” series when I was but 7ish. I have had a constant low level desire to be able to craft stories and suchlike that were as fascinating and captivating as the things I read by Asimov, Clark, Niven, Heinlein, etc., etc …Like so many, I just ever took the time to sit down and (1) see if I had a ‘muse’ and (b) explore it a bit on paper ifn I did.
Well, just prior to starting THIS blog I had taken that time… and tried… and lo and behold I did seem to have a muse and I was able to tap into it, at least once. The day I wrote my short (sci-fi)(posted here) story, “Anti Kora” was a revelation to me. I now know what the “muse” is and more importantly, how it affects you. “Anti Kora” wrote itself. I swear… I was reading it for the very first time, same as reading someone else’s work, but I was doing this AS my fingers were typing the words… it was an incredible feeling.
So I though, “Hey… mebbe I CAN do this!” Uh huh, mmmmmK… so what came after that? well… not much. I just couldn’t seem to find/kickstart/reacquire/get-back-in-touch-with/ my muse again. I began reading in earnest on writing… the art, ways and such of the Craft of Writing. I read over and over again and again, “Write what you know.” Speak whereof you are knowledgeable… OK, what do I know? As an almost exclusive reader of Sci-fi I wanted to write Sci-fi… but I am not steeped and learn-ed in science. Oh I am a smart guy (ya can’t really ‘preciate ‘good’ sci-fi infn yer not) and I am a computer tech for a livin, which strangely enough does not give me the insights and inspirations one might think it would.
I am not sure where ‘Anti Kora’ came from… maybe it was a fluke. All I do know is that I was dry… I tried a few things, got a few starts I was very unhappy with and allowed my stab at ‘writing’ to die of neglect on the vine… hence no blog updates since 2000 and 8.
That’s three years these files have sat on a Worpress server totally neglected. I had forgotten I had this blog out there until a few weeks ago when I received an email from WordPress regarding a possible, though slight, chance that my login/password for this blog might have been compromised and would I please to change my PW JIC?
Ohhhhhhhh… righhhhhhhhhht… I have that blog too. Yea, too, as in also. You see in Nov of 2010 my son introduced me to EVE Online. An MMORGP, IE: a Massively Muliplayer Online Role Playing Game. Internet Spaceships… you heard me, SPACESHIPS. CCP (Crowd Control Productions) of Rykjavik in Iceland, has created a starcluster of approx 5700 stars, each with multiple worlds, moons, asteroid belts, space stations and WORMHOLES, etc., etc. … This star cluster resides on ONE server. It is a persistent universe. We, the players, ALL play in the same universe ALL at the same time.
This game rocks. I am as badly hooked on EVE as any drunk to his drink and as any gambler to his game, as badly hooked as I was when I first read “The Grey Lensman”, book 1. It is the only way I will ever get to go to space. And MAN is it beautiful. The graphics are simply stunning and amazing. It is incredibly complex… Training for the hundreds of various skills available takes place in REAL TIME and some skills can take up to 62 real days to complete. That’s right I said SIXTY TWO DAYS. It is so complex to learn that the sheer amount of time you must invest in order to do anything, much less do these things well, acts as a barrier to keep computer and Internet savvy children (those teen and preteens who normally make MMORPGs such a facepalming bore for me) out. They simply do not have the maturity and patience to see the benefit in taking the time necessary to learn the skills needed to do things in EVE. Dear God do I love that aspect of this game… =]
OK, so what has this to do with this blog? A few months into the game, I started a blog about EVE and THAT blog has taken off like a house afire. Write what you KNOW huh? Well, THIS I can write about! My experiences in EVE have given me access to my muse in such a way that I find it hard NOT to write!
So… what does this mean for ‘The Currrved Surface?’ I am not sure… for now I will leave it up and see if my virtual life in EVE prompts my muse to more fictional creations in my writing… this is my hope. Wish me luck. =]
In response to John Scalzi’s thrown gauntlet… here is my list of Ten Things… Please check out Scalzi’s list here.
1. Received a boob as a birthday present. (1, size ‘C’, silicone implant)(and nope, not “installed”)
2. Left home and moved in with your eighteen year old girlfriend… at sixteen.
3. Had your wife look up, raise an eyebrow and then simply go right back to her knitting in response to your accidentally firing a .25 caliber round into your LazyBoy.
4. Been to a Billy Joel concert… in the company of five women who were all “on a date” with you.
5. Gotten a friend’s sailboat jammed under a bridge by the mast… (yes, alcohol and skimpy bikinis were involved)
6. Been a bouncer at a Carly Simon concert…
7. Received, as a gift from your best friend, a (real) Katana… hand made by that same friend.
8. Had a ATF agent call you (at the gun shop where you were the night manager) and tell you there is a “possibility” that some suspects in the theft of several LAW rockets from a National Guard armory, “may” be in your area… (an interesting feeling)
9. Walk into a bar to find four ladies (whom you were dating at the same time) all sitting together in a booth… (another interesting feeling, preferred the LAW rockets actually)
10. Shot in a high-power rifle competition at Quantico Marine Base… with a Chinese made SKS rifle.
Well… long in contemplation…. short in activation. I have begun a blog. So strange to sit here typing to myself in the vainglorious hope others will find me and then find my thoughts and wunderings… interesting. Am I different? Am I interesting? Is there another blog out there with the EXACT SAME words strung together in the exact same way?
We’ll see… said the blind man.
An introduction seems to be in order. I am Jason D. Blackwell. Computer Tech by trade, Virginian by grace of God and an aspiring writer in my dreams. Husband, Father, Homeowner, Hunter, Gun Owner, Unrepentant Republican (though with some strongly held disagreements with that Grand Old Party) and Unrepentantly Male… (this could be interesting after all huh?)
My main reason for starting this is an unabashed hope for some small recognition as a writer. I am mainly interested in Sci-Fi and Military, Techno, Alternative History genres… I have completed a short story and am working on a novella that seems aspire to noveldom… though I think it is a foolish idea at this point. I remain unpublished and want to try this as a starting point and as a way to get regular practice at writing.
‘Nough for now…
The Currrved Surface 