Samantha made this from scratch!

Well I attempted to write this yesterday, you know, on my birthday, but things kept coming up. It was a great day! For me, birthdays are what New Years is to others. It’s a time to look at what you’ve accomplished this year, and using what you’ve learned to make the next year better. This year, it was mostly about writing for me.

I realized that I haven’t done a writing update in awhile while I was thinking about what this coming year will mean to me as a writer. I’ve gotten behind on it. First of all, The Forest Awakens jumped up to 100% on my editing goal. It’s pretty good, grammatically speaking. The rejections I’ve gotten from agents have made me look at it under a new microscope though. They all like my writing, they all like the story idea, but they all also said they didn’t connect with the main character enough.

I’ve more or less come to the inevitable question that most writers probably go through. My assassin book has been sitting at about 20% completed on the backburner while I edited TFA, and now I have to decide if I want to work on the changes to my YA novel that agents have suggested, or if I want to put it aside for now and finish my new book?

Currently I’m leaning toward another draft of The Forest Awakens. It would be a big draft, basically rewriting many parts of it, although most of the current material doesn’t need to be cut, just have more added to it. We shall see over the next couple days, while I have a podcast to finish anyway.

Happy (now late) Birthday to meeeee!

Bioshock had one of the most interesting fantasy settings I’ve seen in a very long time; they took it even farther in the sequel. If you aren’t familiar with the series, Bioshock takes place in an underwater city called Rapture. It was a civilization not held to the rules of the surface world. The game’s focus is primarily on genetic research. Rapture had no rules stopping scientists from whatever they pleased.

I use “was” and “had” on purpose, the Rapture in the game takes place after the city, and her people, have begun breaking down. Genetic mutants rule the city now, with a little manipulating of course.  That’s what Bioshock does best, after all, the manipulating leaders who are always more than a little crazy.

The sequel has a new twist to it, now you are one of the Big Daddy’s from the previous game. With it comes some nice upgrades. Now you can dual wield your plasmids and your weapons. This was the first really great improvement over the last game. The second I found came with the hacking system. It’s simpler, and less repetitive, but it will also get your pulse racing a little bit when you mess up, and it’s much easier to mess up now.

The biggest improvement is the new creative strategy scenarios. In Bioshock 2 you really get to set up your battles much better than in the first. On top of that, you have a whole new set of weapons that will set many different sorts of traps for your enemies to walk through. You can really lay out where people will come from by looking around, and then plan your battles accordingly.  It’s fantastic.

And then there are the Big Sisters. These are just crazy. They are, at the very least, much  faster and stronger than you are. You know when you’re going to have to fight them though, so again you can plan ahead and setup some defenses. If you like the strategy of a good shooter you’ll like this, it’s not your every day run-and-gun, it takes some thought. This game is definitely worth checking out.

Hurray! I’m happy to finally announce the release of our of Tuesday Night Stories homepage! You can follow that link or you may have noticed it was now in the menu above as well. We currently have 4 full-length stories that you can listen to and download, and Founded In Battle will be added in full soon. In addition, I’ve decided to add the text to each story for those that like to follow along, and those who prefer to read a story instead.

It’s kinda funny that I am adding two football posts so close together. It makes me look like I am a big fan when I’m not really. I’ve never been against the sport though. Other than ice hockey, it’s even the only sport I enjoy watching. The Davey O’Brien award is a national quarterback award given to one college player every year.

My grandfather, Charles Ringler, founded the award. So it’s extra fun for my family to get to go. We take up about three tables in all (alright, about 2 1/2!). My grandmother always sits with the family of whoever is getting the award. It was fun getting to meet McCoy’s parents and grandparents this year. They were so very friendly. Unfortunately, Charles wasn’t able to come because of his health. But McCoy and Fouts spent part of the day with him before coming tonight, also very nice of them.

Colt McCoy of UT won the award this year. He seemed like a really nice guy. A lot of people I’ve seen get this award came across arrogant, but he didn’t at all. I guess that’s what comes from growing up in a small TX town, go Texas! Dan Fouts, retired player from the Chargers, won the Legends award, and his speech was absolutely hilarious. This award you DEFINITELY see arrogance during, but Fouts gave a good speech and didn’t come across that way at all. All around, it was great fun. Here’s a picture of my family all dressed up before we left.

One of of the best things about going to this thing every year, despite the fun of getting to dress all fancy and meet professional athletes of course, is the food. MMMMMmmmmmm! This year was delectable as always, but the desert is always the most fun. This year it was orange cheesecake on a crazy-rich chocolate crust, I looove cheesecake, have I mentioned, love it. See picture below for mouth watering goodness.

P.S. Sorry about the feed problems the last couple days, if anyone noticed. Was tinkering with the blog and, of course, I should have left well enough alone. Fear not, for I have fixed what should not have been broken!

I wanted to drop by and wish everyone a great Valentine’s! It’s fun when it ends up on a Sunday, since more people have a tendency to have some free time today. Samantha and I have had a whole lot of fun today, and I’m promised a fantastic dinner that is yet to be announced. Surprises are great fun.

I have a lot to share with you guys since I haven’t had the time to post much lately. It’s important to me that we keep the podcast episodes coming consistently for you guys, but that means some of the in-between posts get pushed aside at times. I think things are calming down now though.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Alright, I’m not all that into football I admit. But I enjoyed the hell out of tonight’s Superbowl game. I was rooting for the Saint’s all the way, and not just because they were the underdog (but I do really like rooting for the underdog!).

It was fun getting to root for Drew Brees since we went to the same high school. Not like we were friends or anything, I just think it’s kinda fun. I was a total geek in high school. Certainly not out partying with the football players. Shocking right? The fantasy writer was a geek in school?

Even if I’m not all that into football, this game was crazy fun to watch.  Both quarterbacks did a phenomenal job. Good times. I didn’t see the interception coming, but what timing!

The streets of New Orleans are going to be partying it up for quite awhile I’m guessing. Especially with Mardi Gras coming up soon! Congrats Saints!

Sorry, folks. TNS is going to be a tad bit late this week. This one was a challenge to write, so I sent it off for recording too late for it to be ready tonight. It should be up soon! I appreciate your patience.

Dragon Age: Origins is one of the coolest games I’ve ever seen, RPG or no. Among RPGs it holds up, and even surpasses, some of its greatest predecessors (which were also all made by Bioware in my opinion) . It was more fun than Baldur’s Gate 2 and Planescape, even. Of course the playing style just gets more and more easy to use with each new game they release, such as the intelligently redesigned menu system in Dragon Age. But the game itself makes you care about the characters more than any RPG I’ve seen.

The World (top row): Dragon Age took a traditional Tolkien world of races: Human, Dwarves, Elves; and all those bad guys of course. The screenshot  on the left is from the Dwarven city. What’s cool about the world in this game specifically is the detail of each race choice. When you start the game you are thrown into the midst of 6 very cool stories. On top of that, each race has very serious political and racial tensions, and you can easily change the story by taking one stance or another. I’ve never felt so guilty playing an evil character before. I even went so far as to quit playing the evil dwarf path because I felt like a real bastard, it’s fantastic.

Dragon Age truly begins once you leave your home, for a number of excellent reasons based on who you play of course, and venture out into the world. Here is when you really start to see what the High Fantasy genre has done to video games. The two biggest themes I saw in this game came from two series, The Songs of Fire and Ice (by George R. R. Martin) and The Wheel of Time (by Robert Jordan). In the game, Gray Wardens (ahem, warders?) are an elite force who must save the world. You guessed it, you must join the Gray Wardens.

The Characters (bottom row): The people you meet in the game are the best example of the new age of RPGs. I mentioned above that I thought they took lots of hints from the high fantasy genre, and I’ll emphasize it even more here. Characters are what high fantasy is all about. The depth you get to know people in this game make you care about each and every one of them, for better as often as worse. The interactions between them is hilarious, and the voice actors make it all even better still.

Even characters you don’t get control over have distinct personalities. You end up hating or rooting for most of them as well (Bann Teagan comes to mind). If you only play this game for the interactions between characters, you will still absolutely love this RPG. I would definitely recommend trying it out if you are into fantasy (which you should be, if you are on my blog, right?!).

Oh yeah, and be blown away by this video, I recommend viewing it in HD.