Personal Goals and Dragon Age

2005 was a crazy year for me. I think it'll always be thought of as my personal Renaissance; so many things changed, and things I thought up during this time are still having a clear effect on my life.

One of the two stories that I started conceptualizing during that time (the other being the recently-completed Revan's Shadow) has only within the past year been taking true form. Like RS, I tried to start writing it dozens of times. Typically, it was scrapped within the first chapter. I never realized it then, but revenge stories, by definition, aren't very deep. Unless you're Park Chan-wook or Quentin Tarantino, it's very difficult to make them work and, for that matter, make them work well.

So toward the end of last year, I just stopped trying to make a bloody, action-driven revenge story and tried to make it real. Not only that, but I put more of myself into this story than any other that has come before it. It's my most honest work yet. Needless to say, it got beyond the first chapter this time. In fact, I just crossed the 90,000 word mark, officially making it novel-length. And it's nowhere near completed, which is interesting.

I'm excited to see how the story will turn out, and if my dueling storylines will sync up with each other properly, which is what I'm most worried about.

In other shamelessly self-indulgent news, my review for Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening is the most helpful review for the game on Amazon, which is also interesting. Even now, I'm still waffling on my opinion, since I really did like this..."expansion." I just hate that it cost $40 when it really didn't need to, which just touches on video game pricing which is a whole other argument for a whole other day.

And just a quick blurb on The Book Depository, which I first found out about on The Speculative Scotsman's humble blog: I ordered Matt Stover's Traitor for the low, low price of $5, and since everything on their site has free shipping, I got a pretty good deal. Now comes the waiting, which is always painful. In the meantime, I think I'll ponder why an American like myself was instantly wary of ordering from a place called "The Book Depository."

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