[rant] – Begging the Question

Today I’m doing something a little bit different than usual, for no particular reason. Well, I guess I can explain it a bit better than that. The truth of the matter is, I often perform lengthy rants on various, random topics that happen to be on my mind at the time. For once, I decided to actually write most of one of these rants down, and that’s what’s below. For a bit of background on this particular rant, I was inspired by this morning’s sermon. The church I attend (every Sunday morning) is a nondenominational Protestant Christian church. I think it’s fairly representative of the majority of the moderate (in the sense of not being extremist), conservative (Republican), fundamentalist (evolution-denying Young-Earth Creationist), vaguely homophobic (homosexuality is a sin and God hates sin, but loves sinners) Christianity that most of the United States seems to consist of, or at least is particularly notorious for.

[compass] – Chapter XI: A Proposition for the Lord of Chaos

well hello again. Another chapter for you. Seriously guys! If anybody’s reading this I’d sure appreciate a comment! Just one! Just say hi!

like I don’t mean to sound desperate or anything, but the reason I write these is so people can read them. If nobody’s reading it’s, like, what’s the point? It’s like talking into an empty room. Useless and kind of silly. I mean, I guess the big difference is that if you talk into an empty room nobody can hear it unless they’re there at the same time but if you write to an empty blog, someone might eventually read it later?

well whatever. Enough metaphors, let’s go:

[compass] – Intermission: What’s Inside the Black Box?

“So, what are you calling it now?” A scientist wearing a chemical-stained white laboratory coat and thin silver-rimmed glasses was leaning against a stainless steel table, which was covered in various liquid-filled beakers and test tubes. Opposite from him, sitting on a wooden desk piled high with stacks of loose paper, was a man in an unbuttoned business suit and a crooked red tie.

“Shyne,” the man in the tie said.

[compass] – Chapter X: We Seek The Fountain

hi guys! Lysis here. I wrote something! Woo! If you read it leave a comment! Yay!

I don’t really have much to say right now. I could ramble on about irrelevant nonsense if I really wanted to but who wants to read bullshit like that anyway? No, today you get off easy.

see you on the other side:

[body] – Prologue

oh, hello there. If you’re reading this any time close to when it was written, I’m surprised. Well, unless you’re one of my Twitter followers I guess, since I’m sure I’ll tweet this out to everybody on the off-chance it catches someone’s attention. It’s been a while since I posted anything here and that’s not because I haven’t been doing any writing this last month. I’ve actually been doing quite a bit, just not in Compass or Slayer or, in fact, in any of my stories. My attention has been occupied writing for various roleplays on ZU, including a couple that I’m running (so help me god., and Thirty Days). I won’t talk about those now though. Maybe another day.

because I feel bad not updating this in so long, I’ve decided to post a little something I came up with…oh, a few weeks ago? I don’t know exactly, but it’s yet another story idea which will probably not go very far. All I have now is a basic premise and a prologue which sets that premise up. Oh, and a few simple details about the main characters, but those are my own personal notes. I’ll just be posting the prologue here, to give you all something to read. Don’t expect much more out of this project for a while, if at all.

it’s not exactly the most original premise, although it has potential. At the moment I only have a few vague ideas where I’d be taking the story. Well, anyway, enough rambling I guess.

[compass] – Chapter IX: “Take Ya Bare Hands!”

this chapter came quick! After I posted that last chapter yesterday, I was feeling creative and started writing the next one. Then I finished it. Wrote the whole thing in one night. I even wrote the prologue last night, right before going to bed. Speaking of which, the prologues seem to be getting longer. They’re not supposed to be but whatever.

wow, hey, nine chapters already? Can you believe it? Who would have ever guessed it would get this far? Still have a long way to go if I can keep it up. Is anybody even reading this still? I’d sure appreciate some kind of feedback. Even just a heads-up or hey-I’m-still-reading-this. You know, if that’s not too much trouble.

just, I dunno, drop a comment or something. Get going:

[compass] – Chapter VIII: Tackling Dragons

well well, imagine that, I managed to get it done after all. Actually it wasn’t that difficult, it turns out that what I had written already was almost enough all by itself. Just finished it off with a couple more paragraphs and it was good to go. Would have been up a while earlier except for two little issues that came up.

first of all, I forgot about the prologue. Every chapter begins with a prologue and this one didn’t have one yet, so I had to write that. Got to stretch my creative muscles on that a bit, it was a refreshing bit of writing compared to the usual stuff, as is generally true of the prologues. I threw in a bit of alliteration too, which is something I like to do every so often.

second of all, I can hardly move! I must have slept in a weird position or something, because the muscles on the side of my neck and back of my shoulder (real muscles this time, not creative ones) have been hurting all day. Kind of slowed down my writing process.

but through toil and trial I prevailed. Here’s the product:

[compass] – Chapter VII: Land on the Horizon

ugh, I’m tired today -.-

lost a whole hour to Daylight Saving Time! Well anyway, here’s the latest chapter. With this, we’re all caught up. It’s the longest chapter yet. I don’t care to check right now but I think it’s like twice as long as the first chapter was? Whatever, it doesn’t matter. The length of the chapters is not a big issue. I just write what I write and end it when it seems like a good place to end it. I usually compare the lengths of new chapters to the first chapter, since I think the first chapter has a reasonable length and if I write something significantly shorter or significantly longer I might want to consider editing it.

I haven’t worked at all on the next chapter since the last time I mentioned it, which was before I started posting the chapters here…I still hope to have it ready to post for tomorrow though. I’ll have to work on it later. Tomorrow. Not tonight. Too tired. Just read this bleh:

[compass] – Chapter VI: Two Pieces, Divided

directly continuing from the last chapter (which was, somehow, incorrectly numbered…) I don’t really have much to add here. This chapter finishes setting up and introducing the new old character, Kartaikian. As with superhero origin stories (just as an example—Kartaikian is no superhero), Kartaikian’s origin story has changed over time while keeping many of the same key elements. Desert ruins in the distant east, a dark shadowy spirit with uncertain motives, a mysterious green sword…

wait, we haven’t got around to that last one yet, have we? Well, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves then. Read on:

[compass] – Chapter V: Oh Such Great Tragedy!

now it’s time for something completely different. Well okay, maybe not completely, but we’re going to a different place and a different time to follow different characters. Just for a bit. We’ll get back to Noé and the gang soon enough. For now, we’re introducing a new character. I probably shouldn’t say too much about this character before you’ve had a chance to actually read the chapter, so I won’t, but I’ll give you a little history if only just to pad this introduction out a bit.

I mentioned in the first chapter that a while ago I started a story about an old character of mine on a forum somewhere. This is that character again, rewritten after years of development in my head. There are a few similarities between this chapter and that old story I wrote, which might count as callbacks, but they’re mostly for my own benefit since nobody who is reading this has probably read that. For one, the name of this chapter was taken from the name of a chapter in that old story. This chapter is essentially a reimagining of that same chapter from that old story, the events retold from the perspective of this new version of that old character.

actually there’s two old characters, not just one. The other character used to serve as the primary villain of the old story but I’ve reimagined that too. Anyway, don’t let me bore you with this nonsense, let’s get to the good stuff: