josephdevon.com

Keep in mind that my deadline is now tomorrow night because I’ll be out of town starting Wednesday morning.  So all the nonsense gets pushed up by a day.

While I’m gone if you leave a comment and haven’t done so before your comment won’t show up for awhile.  I have to approve first timer’s comments and I won’t get a chance to do that until I get back.  I have to approve you because I already get a ton of spam comments here and making sure you’re for real the first time you comment seems the easiest way to keep spam at a minimum.   Today I had four spam comments.  Two were for “Uneven Parallel Bars,” one was for “The Best Reclining Chair,” and another was for an online pharmacy.

I can understand the pharmacy, and the myriad of sex related spam I get most other days, but uneven bars?  A reclining chair? Granted, I’m not entirely sure I’m reading them right.  A lot of them are just gibberish and I think they expect me to let the comment onto my site and then they expect you to click on the name they give, thinking it’s a real person, and wind up at their site.  I’m pretty sure that’s their game most of the time.  Some of them, though, almost get by me because they sort of sound like real people.

For that matter, is there even a difference to me between a person commenting on a story and a spam virus propagating itself by commenting on a story while sounding as much like a person as possible?

I should probably go to bed now.

Popularity: 23% [?]

Share This

Woo-hoo! I get the day off tomorrow! No posts until Sunday. By which point I’d like to have the first draft of the current story done. If you haven’t listened to Skulcrusher Mountain…then I hate you? Go here and do so, or go here and watch a fan-created World of Warcraft based video. Don’t cost nothin’.

And while you’re listening, just for kicks, try and come up with a short story to write based on the song. Or, you know, you don’t have to write it, just what story would you tell? There’s a lot of choices to be had. A lot of decisions to be made. A lot of probability curves to be collapsed. For now we’ll focus on the details. God is, apparently, in them. The devil is in them as well. Also, sometimes there’s a guy named Herb in them.

It was, after all, the details of this song that were the biggest drawing point for me. It’s hard not to want to write a story and play around with them. I’ve already mentioned a few, but by now you’ve listened to the song as well. How many stuck with you? For me there is, of course, the half-monkey half-pony. That’s a given. There’s the golden submarine. The Doomsday Squad is wonderfully intriguing.  They’re not merely henchman, they seem on a different level.  Not necessarily higher, just different.  And then there’s Scarface.  But we’ll come back to him.

On top of all the visual details I keep noting more and more the constant advance and retreat of the guy’s courtship/politeness/sanity.  He moves from romantic gesture to “Oh yeah?  Well to hell with you too!” at least four different times throughout the song.  And, of course, the voices inside his head.  Although to be fair they’re telling him not to kill her.

Ah, young love.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Share This

I recently signed up for a Creative Commons license.  There’s a button over in the sidebar now.  Basically this is an organization that creates copyright licenses for mass consumption which aim for a middle ground between complete control and complete freedom.  In other words, you allow free usage of your work based on a couple of requirements, and you can pick and choose between a couple of different versions to suit your needs.  Whatever. Jonathan Coulton says it’s good, and he’s the guy this site is based on.  Basically I just do whatever Jonathan Coulton tells me to do.

I’m a little hazy on some aspects of Creative Commons in all seriousness. Not that I don’t understand their goal, but in my mind copyright has always had the sort of flexibility that they’re striving for, so I’m not sure I entirely get it.  At times I feel like I’m taking part in a great experiment in free culture while retaining my rights as an artist to receive proceeds for my work.  At other times I feel like I just added a new button to my sidebar because Jonathan Coulton has an irrational fear of talking to lawyers.

That’s all irrelevant.  Here’s the real point.  To celebrate my new sidebar button (whatever its implications) I have decided to base next Thursday’s story on one of Coulton’s songs.  See, I can do that because of his Creative Commons license.  As long as I credit him, don’t sell his ideas for commercial profit, and I agree to share alike, this is all cool.

Here’s where it gets interesting.  I have decided to do this for a few reasons (#2 I think is pretty neat).

#1. Ease.  I’ve got Thanksgiving in here and a truncated week after that due to a wedding so I could use a light week.  Since I’m using a song that (obviously) already exists I’ll have preexisting story and characters to draw from so that should make things easier.

#2.  You, dear reader, will be able to see what’s there from the start.  Get it?  I couldn’t show you “guy at wedding” that became Matthew.  I couldn’t play you the sound of billiard balls clicking together that became “Private Showing.”  I couldn’t let you feel the sandy hair that became “Black Eyed Susan.”  But I can point you to the song I’m going to be basing this story on.  You’ll get to listen to it, create your own images, walk with me as I examine it, then see where I go with it when you read the story.  This is huge.  Huge!  Like Vader is Luke’s father huge.  Okay, maybe not quite that huge, but huge nonetheless.  Huge I tell you! Huge!   So go here.  It’s the third song on the “Most Popular” list.  It’s called “Skullcrusher Mountain.”  It’s about an evil genius who finds himself falling in love with one of his hostages.  Oh yeah.  Here’s a video someone made using World of Warcraft.  Here’s a video someone illustrated.  Bring it.  Which takes us to…

#3. Fun.  There’s a henchman named Scarface, an evil genius, a golden submarine.  I get to play.   A lot.  Good times.

#4. Maybe I can poach some of Coulton’s fans.  Er…did I say “poach?”  I mean establish of bridge of creativity by which our two mediums can share a oh to hell with it maybe I can poach some of Coulton’s fans.

That’s it.  Let’s see how this goes.  Also the site I get pictures from isn’t loading.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Share This

For those of you who have been with me for awhile you know that my Thursday night/Friday morning posts right after a deadline tend to be sleep deprived gibberish and nonsensical ramblings. So I’m not really going to bother trying to write something interesting. After all, it’s my night off.

So instead my post-story posts are now going to be pathetic pleas to you, my readers, to go out and get me more fans. One of the aspects of this whole year long project is to see what sort of audience I can generate with an online presence. I’m currently doing any number of things to attract more readers, but asking you to do a little word of mouth advertising is certainly part of it.

So go do that.

If you especially liked one of the stories and think a friend might like it, go ahead and forward it on. If you’ve been meaning to tell someone about the crazy author who’s making a public display out of his writing process but haven’t gotten around to it, go ahead and do that now. If you have a surplus of gold bars in your garage and you were toying with the idea of melting them down and casting a graven image of me to idolize, why not get started?

So go e-mail, start a fan club, tell a friend, cast me in gold, whatever. Fly, my minions, fly!

I’ll be right here when you get back.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Share This