Category: Creative Writing

One A Day, Day 48: Freewriting #2

[Here's another in my occasional series of "Freewriting" articles, where I start the clock for ten minutes and write without stopping – or really thinking as I go along. As a result, the output produced is sometimes not of the finest quality, but it can offer some interesting insights into my own brain.]

Start the clock!

I'm in Costa Coffee. Does the place you're in when you're writing affect what you write about? Well, of course it does – the proof is right there. I said "I'm in Costa Coffee" and then started to write about being in Costa Coffee and whether or not that made any difference to what I write about. So yes, yes it does.

I'm having the same trouble as last time with this freewriting lark – being too well-trained means that any time I make a mistake, be it typo or clumsy word formation – I automatically backspace and correct it. It's an automatic reflex action. I can't help it. I actually can't stop myself from doing it. I suppose in so far as bad habits go, there are worse ones to have than an anal attention to detail when it comes to spelling, punctuation and grammar.

I wonder how much I'll write today? Last time I believe it was in the region of 800 words, which would be consistent with my semi-inhuman typing speed of 85wpm. Can you be semi-inhuman? I don't know. I'm sure that inhuman things might have more difficulty typing, though, unless they're intimately familiar with the English language.

One of the toilets here at the coffee shop is closed. The barista has just asked for a "wet floor" sign. One can only imagine the terrors that have undoubtedly been unleashed in the lavatories here. To quote Simon Pegg from Black Books, "One of our valued customers had blocked one of the toilets with Monster Munch! How can we, as a team, get that sorted out?"

Not sure why that popped into my head. I think it's the sight of a smug Simon Pegg handing a bucket and rubber gloves to a bemused-looking Bill Bailey that is the thing that stayed with me from that episode. Black Books is excellent, incidentally, if you've never seen it. It's completely off-the-wall batshit crazy (and Americans don't seem to get it, or at least my American sister-in-law didn't quite seem to get it) but I find it completely hilarious. It's a very different kind of humour to something like Spaced – absolutely my favourite TV show of all time – but it's still great, and it introduced me to Dylan Moran, whom I'm constantly confusing with Chris O'Dowd from The IT Crowd. I can't help it – angry Irish man with curly, wayward hair? Roy from the IT Crowd and Bernard Black have a fair bit in common.

I pressed Shift five times while I was thinking (and typing) there, and Windows decided to do that helpful popup about "StickyKeys". It's ironic, really, isn't it, that the so-called "Accessibility" features of nearly every operating system I've used are actually inconvenient to the people who don't need them. I guess that's not so strange really.

Three and a half minutes to go, and I haven't touched my coffee yet. I can't really touch it while I'm typing though, can I? Not unless I did a very undignified "bend forward and slurp it" sort of manoevre (or however the fuck you spell it – it's one word I always forget) – but I've decided against doing that. Besides, it's probably too hot anyway.

Hot coffee. Wasn't there a story a few weeks back about some chav in this country spilling tea over their crotch from McDonalds and attempting to sue, much like the case from America a few years back? Why would you bother to do that? Actually, I know the answer – to get some "free" money. I wouldn't sue someone if I'd poured hot tea over my balls having been holding the cup between my thighs (as this person had) – I'd be screaming in agony, probably, and refusing to do anything useful for a few weeks, but there's no way I'd think it was the fault of the person who sold me the damn tea. If they didn't throw it in my face, it's my fault for anything that happens once I've taken hold of that cup.

Under a minute to go. I wonder if I'll finish a sentence, or indeed a paragraph in time? I'm up to 734 words… No, 742. WordPress' word count doesn't update immediately, so that figure may be off. But still, that's not bad work for ten minutes non-stop typing, is it? Ten seconds to go. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Bye bye!

One A Day, Day 36: An Open Letter

Dear Universe,

I write with regard to the recent delivery you made to my person – specifically, the bumper package of coughing fits, temperatures and shaky hands.

I do not remember ordering these items, nor do I wish to keep them. As such, I must humbly request that you dispatch a courier posthaste to come and pick them up. Technically the items have been "opened" and "used" since they are coursing through my body as we speak, but since I did not order them and they appear to have been delivered in the dead of night directly to my person rather than appropriately packaged at a more sociable hour, I do not feel that the premature opening and usage of said items is my responsibility.

I am of the mind that this delivery was perhaps intended for someone else. If this is the case, would you kindly furnish me with the details of the intended recipient and I will do my best to forward on the items as soon as possible. I would not wish the items' rightful owner to miss out on the experience of coughing so forcefully it creates a side-effect of unintentional flatulence.

If, on the other hand, the items are an unnanounced "gift" from someone (which is possible, seeing as there did not appear to be a receipt with the items) then I request, with respect, that you provide me with their name and address so I may return the favour, perhaps through the medium of Uzbekistani sledgehammer dancing – a dangerous yet beautiful artform which frequently places bystanders' testicles in mortal peril.

I thank you in advance for your co-operation in this matter, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Yours sincerely,

Pete Davison

One A Day, Day 33: Freewriting #1

[As promised, here is an example of freewriting. I've given myself ten minutes to just write… or type in this case… and see what comes out. It could be anything – fact, fiction, prose, poetry (unlikely), nonsensical… err… sensical? Let's see what happens. My time starts… NOW.]

It's warm in here. A little too warm if I'm honest, but at least it's nice and quiet. It's good to have peace and quiet while you're writing. I'm in my wife's office, away from my usual blogging spot of in the lounge, because she's watching the "live" episode of Eastenders that is on the TV at the moment. This despite never ever watching Eastenders when it is on TV in its normal form.

Eastenders is a depressing programme and I've never found myself wanting to watch it. I rarely get interested in soap operas at all, though I did find myself drawn to Neighbours a little bit during my time at university, though this was more out of interest in running jokes regarding Harold Bishop more than anything else. Harold Bishop even found his way into "The Adventures of Dave Thunder", an RPG Maker 2000 project which I worked on off and on and which is now sadly lost to the mists of time and the failed hard drive on my old Sony Vaio desktop computer.

I can never type "Vaio" without first typing "Vaoi". I don't know why. It's not as if "Vaoi" is any more a word than "Vaio" is. Stupid really. I should also stop going back and correcting the mistakes I make on here, which is perhaps missing the point of freewriting slightly, but by now it's an automatic response. Anyone watching me write things is always surprised to see quite how quickly I type and how quickly and automatically I can go back and correct things.

Having nimble fingers is probably a result of two things – being able to play the piano and years of typing things in, both for pleasure and from copying things out of magazines. The old Atari 8-bit magazines used to have "type-in" listings in them which, when typed in and saved onto a diskette or cassette tape, allowed you to play the games which the authors had come up with for that issue. There were several authors of these games who were rather prolific, with one in particular sticking in my mind being Bill Halsall. I even went to the effort of putting all Mr Halsall's games on one 5.25" floppy disk and writing my own menu system for the disk. Yes, I was a supergeek even at that age.

Went out for a cup of coffee with a very good friend (and ex-workmate) earlier. It was a nice experience. We sat, we exchanged stories and ranted about the things that were pissing us off. There are a lot of things pissing us both off, and it's always good to share those things with someone else. Neither one of us would want to be in the other's position, I don't think, but it's always "nice" to share your pain with someone else. Perhaps "nice" isn't the right word, but it's – I don't know. Cathartic? Is that the right word? Perhaps.

I haven't stopped typing yet. This is good going. It's 5:51 into my ten minutes. I wonder what other things will pop into my mind. I'm literally emptying my thoughts out onto the paper. Page. Web. Whatever. I'm literally emptying my thoughts out onto… this blog entry. Right. And I'm clearly stalling for time while I think of something else to talk about. I shouldn't think. I should just write. What to write next. What next? Hmmm.

Let's talk about the sound of my fingers typing on the keyboard. When slow typists type, you can hear each key being pressed – click, click, click. When a skilled (or at least fast) typist types, the individual click click clicks take on their own almost musical rhythm, the high-pitched clickity-clickity-click punctuated by the heavier thump of the thumbs on the spacebar. In fact, that's one memory I have of home – I can always tell when my Dad is typing because the old keyboard he has attached to his computer (or had attached… I'm not sure if he still does) was one of those keyboards that clattered to a ridiculous degree while you were typing, and the thump of the spacebar would reverberate around the whole house, with shockwaves going down through the desk, through the floor.

Perhaps that's an exaggeration, but it's a vivid memory. I find the sound of typing quite relaxing. It's the sound of creativity. Sometimes. You hear the sound of typing in boring offices as well as amongst writers, and unfortunately boring offices tend not to be the places for creativity. I temped in a boring office for a while – a "loss adjusters" (a profession whose purpose still escapes me) and I had to type up the very boring men and women's dictation on the subject of subsidence. That's when your house is sinking into the ground and is supposedly the fault of a tree or something. Very dull.

I have ten seconds left, so with that, I think it's time to sign off. Good night!

One A Day, Day 32: Writer's Unblock

Look at me, blogging in the middle of the day like it's the most natural thing in the world.

Writing's a funny thing. If you're a writer, you'll know the feeling you get when it's a "writing day". I'm sure this is different for everyone, but for me I know it'll be a good day to write if I find myself composing introductions to articles in my head while I'm doing other things. Because, after all, getting started is always the hardest bit, right?

So now I've written the article for which the introduction popped into my head while I was at the shop buying milk. No, you can't see it. Yet. As introductions go, it wasn't anything particularly groundbreaking or astounding, but an introduction it was nonetheless, and from that starting point I could continue on to write the rest of the article.

I don't write like we were taught in school. I remember when we were first taught "how to write an essay", with encouragements to plan things out beforehand – to plan your introduction, to plan your conclusion, to plan each paragraph using a "point, example, explain" structure (which one English teacher memorably referred to as PEEing all over your work) – and thinking "gosh, that sounds like a lot of unnecessary work".

By the time I was writing essays for school, I had already been writing for my own pleasure for some years. The box of 5.25" floppy disks which is currently sitting in my living room accompanied by the Atari 800XL with which they are used contain a couple of disks worth of my "Cyril the Dragon" stories, which were vaguely hallucinogenic tales that only a young child with an overactive imagination could come up with. If I ever get the cable to link the Atari to a PC working, I will be sure to publish some of that juvenilia on this very site for all to admire. To get to the point (maybe I should have planned this paragraph) – these stories were unplanned, written purely by sitting down, starting typing and seeing what happened next. As the product of a young child's imagination, you can clearly see the influences on the things which took place – mostly video games, some television, some books, some comics, some things which had actually happened – but most importantly, I hadn't actually planned it that way. It just sort of came out.

Writing in this way is actually quite a relaxing experience. Those who study this sort of thing call it "freewriting". Technically what I'm doing right now is almost freewriting – the only thing setting it apart from true freewriting is the fact that I'm going back and correcting mistakes. True freewriting is where you sit down with a piece of paper, don't look at it, don't listen to anything and just write, without stopping, for a set period of time, then only look at what you've written once your time's up.

Some seriously odd things can come out. For a Creative Writing module that I did as part of my degree, we had to do this every day for about a month. Some days, the beginnings of stories came out. Other days, my internal monologue came out onto the page. Other days, I wrote about how I was feeling, or who I was thinking about, or my aspirations for the future. None of them were great pieces of writing, but they were interesting insights into what was going through my head at the time. I don't think I still have the pieces of paper on which I wrote them, which is a bit of a shame. Perhaps I'll try it again sometime, though.

In fact, that sounds like tomorrow's blog entry is ready to go already. Expect tomorrow's entry to be even more gibberish than usual, in that case.

One A Day, Day 20: >LOOK

Hill Top

You stand atop a gently-rolling hill that is fairly featureless aside from a few bramble bushes, some small, dead-looking trees and, just next to you, a small stone monument.

There is a wooden bench here.

I'm in the Great Outdoors, specifically the New Forest, though the bit I'm in right now isn't very foresty. After the week that was, the peace and solitude is just lovely. There are very few people here, and the ones that are here are the type of people who politely say "hello" to you as you pass, even though you've never met them before. They also have dogs with names like Gladstone and Horatio.

It's striking to me, sitting here now, just as it was when I went to Lepe Beach to take those photos the other day, that there isn't a game out there yet which has got "the great outdoors" right. Games like Oblivion, World of Warcraft and numerous other open-world adventures and RPGs have tried, but none quite capture this feeling of peace and solitude. (Perhaps because wherever you are in an RPG world, you're only ever a stone's throw from something that wants to kill you.)

Actually, to say that no games have pulled this off is inaccurate. The games that do it best are interactive fiction titles, they of the complete lack of graphics and the only minimum system requirement being an imagination that still works.

Up here, I'm particularly reminded of Andrew Plotkin's "A Change In The Weather", the only game I know of where your final confrontation is with a thunderstorm. Of course, right now it doesn't look like I'm going to have to race against time to prevent a rickety old bridge from being washed away, but the atmosphere is the same. Peace. Quiet. No-one but you. And definitely no needy, whining, squabbling children, stick-up-their-arse inspectors or faux-concern headteachers.

Sitting here, you can say "sod off" to the world, and no-one can do a damn thing about it.

The Adventures of Count Kurt von Hellstrom and Company, Part The First

[Note of explanation: I recently acquired a copy of Games Workshop's classic dungeon-crawler Warhammer Quest, which is notoriously brutal on its players – though not quite so much as their earlier title Dungeonquest. What follows is a report of our first adventure together as a party – myself as the Elf, my friend Sam as the Dwarf, my friend Tom as the Wizard and my friend Tim as the Imperial Noble.]

"You must defeat the demon in the temple before it escapes and wreaks havoc across the land!"

The situation sounded serious. Count Kurt von Hellstrom stroked his beard absently, looking at the writ which had been pushed into his hand some hours earlier. He was expecting some companions to join him, but wasn't sure what to expect. This was, after all, the first time he'd been out adventuring properly. It was time to see if those years of rapier training and pistol-shooting were good for anything.

An Elf was the first to arrive, hooded and mysterious.

"Hello," said the Elf bluntly. "You're Kurt?"

"I am, my good Sir!" said the Count with a flourish. "Count Kurt von Hellstrom, at your service!"

"Good," said the Elf, then looked around him without another word.

There was an awkward silence. The people of Marienburg went about their business as usual, and here, in this alley behind the Beer and Boar Tavern, the two strangers eyed each other up.

"Might I know your name, my good sir?" asked Kurt finally, twiddling his beard around his fingertip.

"I'd… really rather not," said the elf.

"Now come, come, sir," said Kurt with a wry smile. "One should never be embarrassed about one's heritage." He flashed a sparkling medallion around his neck. "This has been in my family for generations. It gives me strength."

The elf sighed and dropped his hood. Beneath it was a mane of long, blond hair.

"All right," he said. "But if you laugh, I promise I'll run you through."

I'd like to see you try, thought Kurt, his hand instinctively moving to his rapier and the muscles in his legs tensing, but then he realised this was probably what passed for elven humour.

"I'll be careful," he said with a grin. "Now come on man, spit it out!"

"Tinkleblossom," the elf replied, grimacing. "Tinkleblossom Feypants."

There was another awkward silence. This time, the elf was the one to break it.

"I know, right?" he said. "You can just call me 'elf' if it's easier for you to deal with."

"No, no," said Kurt. "Tinkleblossom is just fine."

Tinkleblossom muttered something under his breath and raised his hood again – a clear signal that this conversation was, for now, over.

At that point, there was a raucous shout from around the corner and the sound of clattering metal.

"Ach!" cried a gruff voice. "Ye'd think ye'd never seen a chap who wanted tae defend his family honour before! Well sod ye, buddy!"

Tinkleblossom and Kurt both peered around the corner curiously, only to see a short, stout figure staggering up the alleyway towards them.

"Ach. Just on time. Ye'd be th' adventurin' types, aye?"

"Yes," said Kurt. "I am Kurt von Hellstrom. This is… an elf. Who might you be?"

"Jizzmatron Drizzlecock at yer service, laddie." He belched thunderously, then hiccuped, sneezed and wiped the snot which had escaped from his nose on the back of his hand. It was lost somewhere in his beard. Kurt grimaced. Tinkleblossom just shrugged and made a noise that sounded distinctly like "Meh."

"Well, pleased to meet you," said Kurt, regaining his composure quickly. "I believe we're expecting one more."

A booming voice echoed around the alleyway and smoke appeared as if from nowhere.

"That would be me!" thundered the voice, though there was apparently no-one else in the alley save the strange, wispy smoke. Suddenly, in a flash of light, another figure appeared and the smoke was gone.

"I'm Marlon," said a somewhat less thunderous voice which came from an old-looking man with a lengthy white beard. "Scholar of magic. I believe you were looking for someone with my talents."

"Aye," said Kurt, smiling. "That I was. Now that we're all here, I believe you should all take a look at this." He brandished the writ.

"Ach," grunted Jizzmatron. "Readin's fer sissies. Just give us th' short version, laddie."

"Oh," said Kurt, then shrugged. "All right then. Demon. Sealed in dragon statue. Deep in a dungeon. Protective magics weakening. Destroy it or die."

"Aye! Now that sounds like some fun!" cried Jizzmatron.

Tinkleblossom glowered at the writ for a moment before handing it back to Kurt.

"We should get moving," Kurt said. "It's quite a trek."

Four weeks passed as the adventurers picked their way to the abandoned Dwarven temple. It was an uneventful journey – led there by a local who knew the land well, the journey passed without incident. It was when the party descended the steps into the darkness that things began to get a little less straightforward.

"This is as far as I go. Oh, and you'll need these," said their guide, tossing a bundle of four dully-glowing swords to the floor. "They should make short shrift of that demon. Apparently. I don't know. Good luck."

The guide tossed his torch onto the cold flagstones at the bottom of the stairs and left the bewildered-looking party to their fate.

"So, err," began Jizzmatron. "What now?"

"We explore, of course!" cried Kurt. "Riches await!" He pulled out a lantern from his pack and lit it.

"You've got the light," said Tinkleblossom. "That means you get to go up front."

"I wouldn't have it any other way!" said Kurt, spinning around to face the corridor into the blackness with an overdramatic flourish. He was about to step forward, when Marlon spoke up.

"Wait," he said. "I feel the winds of magic. I should draw upon their power in case we need some… firepower."

Marlon closed his eyes and grimaced. Jizzmatron stifled a snigger and whispered "He looks like 'e's shittin' 'imself!" to Tinkleblossom. The elf ignored him.

As suddenly as he had closed them, Marlon opened his eyes again and looked at Kurt. He looked a little concerned.

"Um," he said. "I have a bad feeling."

"What do you mean, a bad fe-"

At that moment, a stone block started sliding across the archway at the bottom of the stairs. Tinkleblossom and Kurt both lunged for it to try and brace it with something, but it was too late. Now they were trapped.

"Oh well," said Kurt, unconcerned. "I'm sure there'll be another way out."

"Ye don't know Dwarven construction, clearly, lad," muttered Jizzmatron, but it was true – there wasn't much option for the adventurers but to go onward.

"Let's investigate this room a little," said Kurt, holding up the lantern. "It's… oh my."

As the adventurers' eyes slowly became accustomed to the gloom, they saw by the dim light of the lantern that the walls of this first chamber were lined with chests, suits of armour and piles of gems.

"We've hit gold!" yelled Jizzmatron. "Treasure!"

"Be careful," said Tinkleblossom quietly. "It could be a-"

Sure enough, it was. Just as the dwarf was about to reach for the nearest pile of gold, there was a scuttling sound and suddenly a huge number of giant spiders dropped from the ceiling. The adventurers gave a shout as one, but they were too late to react and were soon engulfed in sticky webbing. Tinkleblossom, Marlon and Kurt managed to break free but Jizzmatron remained stuck. The others drew their swords and made short work of the spiders just as the dwarf managed to extricate himself from the sticky threads that bound him.

"Ach," he spat. "Ye could have saved me one."

"I'm sure there'll be more," muttered Tinkleblossom, wiping spider ichor from his blade and replacing it in his scabbard. "For now, we should search this room and see if there is anything useful."

Ten minutes later, the adventurers stood up, covered with dust and a few last sticky bits of webbing.

"This ain't no soddin' treasure!" bellowed Jizzmatron. "It's all fake!"

"What did you expect?" said Kurt. "Would you store your riches just inside the entrance?"

"Well, lad, ye coulda said somethin' sooner if ye thought that!"

Kurt twiddled his beard a moment, then looked at the dwarf with a smile.

"Well," he said, "There might have been something!"

Tinkleblossom sighed.

"Let's move on," said Kurt, brushing himself off and gesturing to the archway which was now visible.

The adventurers made their way onward into the darkness, slowly and carefully. Just as they were about to step through the archway, though, there was a gibbering sound and some knee-high green things skittered out of the inky blackness.

"Snotlings!" yelled Tinkleblossom, drawing his sword again. "This should be easy."

Sure enough, the adventurers made short work of the greenskins thanks to some fancy swordplay from Kurt and some lightning magic from Marlon.

"Now," said Marlon, "May we please move on?"

The adventurers stepped forward. Beyond the archway, the corridor they were in continued into darkness.

"What's that sound?" asked Kurt, holding up the lantern. "Uhoh."

There were tiny holes lining the walls of the corridor, and a soft swishing sound was slowly getting louder, until sand started seeping out and over the floor. It kept coming until it covered the floor. The section of corridor was completely covered with undulating sand. Jizzmatron slipped over and landed flat on his face just as a low gurgle announced the arrival of more guards – this time, orcs. The battle was made much more difficult by the undulating, shifting sands of the floor, with Jizzmatron and Tinkleblossom spending much of the fight face-down on the floor cursing and, on one occasion, at the bottom of a spike-filled pit which had managed to conceal itself beneath the sands.

The orcs were soon joined by some goblin spearmen – practically as soon as the first wave was dispatched, Marlon gave another "Uhoh" and the creatures leapt out from whatever shadows they were hiding in. Eventually, the party picked their way carefully away from the shifting sands, with Tinkleblossom dragging himself along the floor to get the last few feet, the number of times he had fallen over not doing wonders for his temper.

The corridor continued further and curved around to the left. With a roar, yet another band of orcs burst out of the shadows and attacked the party, this time accompanied by a small group of archers. One of them knocked Kurt to the floor, causing the rest of the party some concern, but Kurt managed to knock back a swig of a strange blue potion he'd found on the body of one of the goblins before he passed out. He immediately started to feel better – even more so once Marlon muttered an incantation and a strange green light enveloped him, knitting his wounds together and rejuvenating him.

"Aha!" cried Kurt. "A second wind! Take this!"

Kurt leapt to his feet, jumped back, drew his dueling pistol and fired a shot at a nearby orc, hitting it square between the eyes. Spurred on by the rejuvenation of their companion, the others made short work of the remaining greenskins and looked around the room.

"Do ye smell something?" asked Jizzmatron. "And it ain't me farts. Not this time."

"Mm," said Tinkleblossom. "Sulphur. Certainly smells like them."

"Was that a joke from ye, elf? Ah didnae expect that outta you."

"I'm full of surprises," muttered the elf. "This way."

Tinkleblossom led the party through another archway where the corridor split in half.

"Which way?" said Kurt. Jizzmatron sniffed the air, and pointed to the left branch of the passageway.

Sure enough, the corridor opened out into a huge chamber filled with a dull red light that was coming from a huge crack in the floor. At the far end of the chamber was an enormous statue of a dragon. It wasn't moving, but it almost seemed to be watching the warriors as they peered into the room.

Then, there was a roar, and a wall burst open. A huge brown shape charged into the room accompanied by a horde of greenskins.

"Minotaur!" yelled Jizzmatron. "Get back!"

The party steeled itself for what was likely to be a tough battle. Jizzmatron flung himself into the fray with aplomb, taking down orc after orc with his great axe. Tinkleblossom stood back and fired arrows into the fray accurately and carefully, eventually felling the minotaur with a lucky shot between the eyes. Marlon muttered incantations and lightning flashed through the air, striking orcs down left, right and centre.

Eventually, the bodies piled up and the warriors were victorious. But there was one thing left to do – and it was on the other side of a rickety-looking rope bridge.

Jizzmatron bravely volunteered to go first and stepped carefully onto the bridge. It wobbled under the weight of him and his equipment, but it held firm and he made it across, only to be face-to-face with the dragon statue. He drew the faintly-glowing sword that the guide had left the party with at the entrance of the dungeon and squared up to the statue.

"Make that hit count!" cried Kurt. "People are depending on-"

Jizzmatron didn't need telling twice. He swung the sword in a wide arc at the statue's head. The sword shattered, but not before the blade had struck true. There was a loud rumble and the whole room shook, but then the statue broke into pieces. Flames blew across the room, lighting a tapestry on fire and allowing the heroes an escape route. They ran through the dark tunnels as the rumbling grew louder and louder and escaped just as the "back entrance" to the dungeon collapsed behind them.

But now where were they? The landscape was unfamiliar. Kurt pulled out a pocket compass and pointed.

"That way," he said. "If my calculations are correct, that way should get us back to civilisation."

"Ach, let's hope they are," said Jizzmatron.

A week later, the adventurers were lost. Eventually, they came to a small village that wasn't on their map and stopped for the night, deciding to continue on their way in the morning.

It wasn't an easy journey. Marlon got struck by lightning on top of a mountain, meaning he spent the remainder of the journey naked, which certainly got him some funny looks from passing travellers. Tinkleblossom got swept off a cliff by a tornado and broke both his legs, but survived. Jizzmatron broke his ankle. And they got lost not once, but twice more.

Eventually, they made it back to a populous-looking town, with a wandering minstrel that they'd picked up along the way in tow. The guards were unimpressed with the minstrel's performance at the gates, but they allowed the ragtag band of adventurers in to the town. Before they sorted out accommodations, they decided to fix the various problems that they had encountered on the journey, fixing Tinkleblossom's broken legs, Jizzmatron's broken ankle and Marlon's singed robes. This ate into a considerable portion of the profits from their adventure, but by the time all was as it should be, the adventurers realised that they had enough to pay for some training.

Marlon, Jizzmatron and Kurt locked themselves away in the training camp for a week while Tinkleblossom went into the wilderness to be amongst nature for a while. Not one of them could possibly imagine where their adventures would take them next…

[So there you have it. A lengthy description of our first game of Warhammer Quest. All of the above events were randomly generated – as if that wasn't already obvious! But the real strength of the game is that it keeps up its "theme" and "feeling" throughout. Two of the three people I was playing with aren't big roleplayers, but the disaster-after-disaster thing that went on in the dungeon and on the subsequent journey home made it feel like the whole expedition had a real "story", however nonsensical.]

Changing Course

Hello everyone and thanks for stopping by, as always!

In an effort to write more on this site, I've decided to change tack a little from past entries. This blog started as a purely personal blog and gradually morphed into mostly games-related stuff. And fair enough, it's a principal hobby of mine. But I have all these unused categories going free at the top of the page so I thought I'd branch out and try to write a bit more on some other topics to give all of you lovely readers the opportunity to get to know me a bit better in some other areas. Plus, you never know, I might even pick up some more readers along the way – this was clearly demonstrated a while back when I reviewed Haunted Stereo live at the Hobbit (cue Pingback on myself… 'cause no-one else ever links to me :)) and I met a whole bunch of fine new folks as a result.

So from this week forwards, this blog will be… a blog, as opposed to a games blog. You'll still find games writing here, of course, but there are plenty of other things I'd like to talk about. My last few video games articles have also been posted over on Bitmob, so do go check me out (and comment!) over there if you like what you see. You'll also see a couple of my articles on Good Old Games, which should be your first destination for picking up… well, good old games. Check out my articles on Rise of the Triad and Simon the Sorcerer.

Right. On to other matters.

My Dan and Charlie project that I discussed in my last post has been proceeding nicely. It's been fun to "roleplay" these two characters and imagine the situations they have been getting into and how they interact. In practice, it has also been an interesting experiment in separating out various facets of my own personality into two separate people. Those who know me well will have already spotted this, but I also think it's a potentially interesting way of telling a story from different perspectives. My research on the subject is admittedly limited, but does anyone know if anything similar has been done before, outside of ARGs such as Perplex City? (Perplex City is, I confess, where I got the idea from in the first place, although those characters' stories were rather less mundane) I'd be intrigued to see how other people have approached it.

That's it for now. Like I say, this change in approach is largely an excuse to get me writing more on a broader variety of different topics, so assuming I have a bit of self-discipline about this I'm sure I can find something interesting to say on a semi-regular basis. I hope I don't disappoint. 🙂

Meet Dan and Charlotte

So I've been a bit lax on the creative writing front for a while. I thought I'd rectify that with an experimental fiction project I've had in mind for some time.

I present to you Daniel Harris and Charlotte Bristow, two twentysomethings who live in the glamorous city of Southampton. Daniel and Charlotte have the same birthday (29th August) and both studied English at the University of Southampton. In fact, they sat next to each other on a number of occasions. But they don't know each other. They don't even know the other one exists. Not yet, anyway.

They don't have a lot in common. Dan is depressed, lonely and increasingly turning to drink. Charlotte is happy, hopeful and uses the word "party" as a verb. However, both of them enjoyed their study of English and are pedantic to a fault, and they do have a few interests in common. Both of them are struggling to work out what to do with their lives now university is over, and are temping to pay the rent.

This project, which I haven't given a name to yet (working title "Dan and Charlie") is an exercise in improvisatory blogging. I will be playing the role of both Dan and Charlie and improvising their fictional lives, perhaps with a little fact interspersed here and there for local colour. After all, I too live in Southampton and studied English (along with Music) at the University of Southampton, so after all we have a bit in common… conveniently. It will be an interesting exercise in "method acting" (for want of a better description) for me, and an exercise in self-discovery for Dan and Charlie, who are both new to blogging.

If anyone actually reads the blogs, thinks they're real people (so no-one who knows me directly, then) and feels the need to comment or interact with Dan and Charlie (who have their own email addresses and eventually will find their way to at least Twitter and possibly other social networking sites if I can be bothered to "network" that much on behalf of both of them), that may well inspire their independent storylines to develop in particular directions. I have a few "events" in mind for the pair of them and, of course, they will come across each other at some point. What happens from there remains to be seen.

I intend to blog on behalf of the pair of them fairly often. It'll be an interesting exercise in creative characterisation and allow me to keep myself in practice of writing stream-of-consciousness first-person narrative if nothing else – maybe it won't go anywhere, maybe it'll develop in interesting and unexpected directions. Who knows? We shall see.

One rule for those of you reading this: don't let on, at least not on their sites. As far as readers of their sites are concerned, Dan and Charlie are real people, and it'd be cool to have them interacting with strangers and see how that develops their own personal stories. Comments will be moderated and anything "out of character" won't be approved by either Dan or Charlie.

Well, this will either be an interesting exercise or I'll end up with Multiple Personality Disorder. We'll see. I hope you enjoy the mundanity of their everyday lives.