Tag: blogging

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.