Pre NaNoWriMo warm-up story

So, I've been neglecting writing lately, and with NaNoWriMo just around the corner, I want to start again so that I'm in top form for the event :P. So, here goes with whatver my brain decides to spew out right now:

Marcus
Perhaps it was foolish of him; stealing a horse, running away, and then deciding that he liked it so much he would never go back. Then again, it seemed to him that he needed this change; it was like a breath of fresh air blown straight from a wet, clean rainforest. Even the dusty, unkempt horse he rode looked like a gleaming steed, complete with shining silver armour to his romanticised vision.

Still, he grinned with satisfaction as it trotted along the old dirt path, its pace fast enough to keep him on his toes. The trees on either side were bent and twisted, with many of them seemingly ready to snap and come crashing down on top of him. But there wasn't enough wind, he knew, so he banished the thought right to the back of his mind. What mattered was building a new life for himself; one of adventure.

Anyone else would have told him of the foolishness of his quest; especially had they known the particulars, but he would tell no-one. Not anymore.

It had been enough, the fight he'd had with his brother, otherwise known as the only person he trusted with his life. But that was over; a relic of the past. In a way it felt like freedom, being able to leave everything behind, with no strings to worry about. He could just wander around as much as he liked, until his food and money ran out, of course. There was that tiny little problem that he'd been ignoring as much as possible.

Still, he knew that he wasn't yet far away enough. He had been travelling for close to a week now, but he had to go further. As far as his supplies would allow he would go, if it took him another few weeks then so be it. He didn't care.

And so he continued, muscle aches and sores notwithstanding. He could very easily ride for all of the day and some of the evening. It was harder than it looked, but he developed endurance quickly and decisively. There was no more going back, he spent days telling himself that, moulding his face into a determined grimace. By the time he reached a small village far enough away from that which he had left behind, he was no longer a boy. He was a hardened traveller; strong and hardy.

The day he rode in on a tired old steed, a man named Alban watched. He was a blacksmith, muscled and strong, and he knew a good student when he saw one. Not that he'd had many, but he was in need of a helper. Despite his appearance, he wasn't getting any younger.

So, sporting a friendly smile, he walked up to the man on the horse and nodded. The rider seemed surprised at such a friendly and interested party, but he dismounted and countered with a forced smile of his own. He had spend far too much time with a grimace on for it to just disappear. Most people immediately guessed he had been travelling for a long time, even though it had been a short amount of time indeed.

"Afternoon, stranger," said the muscled man who'd come to greet him. The man had a likeable manner, and just a little, the runaway found himself able to smile.

"Afternoon," he parroted. "And who might you be?" he asked. Even though he was finding it easy to trust the man, he still wanted to find any ulterior motives.

"Alban. I'm the blacksmith here, and I thought you looked like a strong lad."

"Did you? Well, I guess you're right. Riding day and night will do that to a man."

Alban raised an eyebrow. "The horse held up all the way?"

"We weren't going fast, and he's stronger than he looks." In fact, he had been stolen from a particularly rich and disagreeable family. They hadn't looked after him well, so it had been an easy choice of target.

"Well, would you like to be a blacksmith then? I know a man on an adventure when I see one, but I also know all good things must come to an end."

"Alright. I very much like the sound of that." It was here. His fresh start.

"Good." Alban had definitely known the answer as soon as he'd asked the question. The man was a wily bugger. "But first, may I know my new pupil's name?"

For the first time, the young man's face broke into a grin. "Marcus."

Short Story 1: Dragonrealm

Let's face it, the long installment thing wasn't really working. It was a good exercise, but I have a better idea. Short stories! Let's begin.

Dragonrealm

'The scales of a young dragon are said to have the brightest of scales; each shimmering in the sunlight with an indescribable depth. Their brilliance sends a thousand shards of light back through the cool, clear air, where they fall gently wherever they please. It is a sight few behold, because these same scales are often owned the fiercest of beasts.'

'That's what we'll become?' asked Smarga curiously. He flapped his relatively tiny golden wings, and looked expectantly at his mother. She gazed at him fiercely as she always did, her own silver scales glinting slightly. They were unusual scales in that she could use them to almost look like a metal sculpture.

'No, my love, not if I can help it.' In years to come, Smarga would come to be amused at the difference between his mother's words and her aura.

'Why? Aren't I a fearsome dragon?' He attempted a roar, but it ended in a slight cough, and his breath hadn't even been warm. He shook his head slightly.

'You will be, but we want to live in peace,' said his mother, and he gazed at her in admiration. She was so strong and beautiful. 'If we can avoid fighting those little short-legs, then we might live a long while.'

Still, Smarga didn't understand. 'But why? We're dragons,' he said, as if that was all that mattered.

His mother sighed and told him that one day he'd understand.

From that day forward, Smarga's mother attempted to teach him all she knew, with occasional input from his father. The goal was to make the adolescent strong enough to survive, with a sharp mind to boot. Thus Smarga grew into an immense dragon with scales of pure gold.

Then one day, someone was reckless, and all of a sudden the order was shattered.

It was perhaps to the detriment of all that Smarga was away hunting for the week, so when the first short-legs came for revenge, he was unable to help. The fall of dragonrealm was swift amd steady without the strongest there. 

And then the loneliness closed in. In an instant, Smarga was a lomely orphan who had to care for himself. 

Loneliness. The power of that was unprecedented. In destroying a family, it seemed that the short-legs had created their own vengeful dragon.

It was the beginning of the end. All over the land, a new name was know. Smaug. Smaug the terrible.

Writing: Sci-Fi Serial Pt 4

Welcome everyone, here's the link to part 1 of the serial. Without any ado really, here's part 4:

Chapter 4

Vast space was no longer the freedom it had once seemed for Paula. She had once thought of it as her only home, but ever since that day so many years ago it reminded her of what she had lost. It made her feel quite old, even though when it came down to it, she was only thirty, an age which was considered little more than a teenager in the age of extended lifespans.

She suppressed a sigh, while gazing absently at the blue and green screens she was supposed to be monitoring while her two crew members spent all day screwing each other at the back. A part of her had known it would be a bad idea to hire a couple, but there was nothing she could do about that for a while. She bit her lip in irritation, promising herself that she'd get rid of them at the next spaceport.

Just then one of the sensors bleeped, and she was forced from her stupor. She felt a pang of annoyance. It had taken her a long time to fall into that state, and she didn't appreciate being pulled out of it. Still, she always felt grateful that the brightly lit screens notified her when something was off, because keeping track of that much information was pretty much impossible.

The red type told her that they were in close proximity to an inhabited star system, while neural scanners detected her response. She ran her fingers through her messy brown hair, unsettled by the scanners, even though she'd long had microchips implanted in her brain. Everyone did, because without it, how could you interface with technology?

In any case, the spaceport was where they were going, because Paula needed to contact her superiors, and the only way to do that was through a spaceport communication. Besides, she needed information.

It was three hours before she was stood on rusty steel, holding back a grimace so as to not be rude. Her useless crew members were staying on the ship, but if she found two replacements, they would be kicked off in a moment. She didn't care what they'd do on this dump of a spaceport, but quite frankly she didn't care.

She didn't even know what they place was called, but it didn't matter. There was bound to be some kind of technology she could use, because otherwise the port would no longer be in use. Just how every single backward hunk of metal got their hands on such technology, she didn't know, but they were convenient enough as pit stops to be profitable. Every trader spaceship stopped by at one at some point, and there were a lot of trader spaceships.

After securing the door, Paula began to walk slowly through the smattering of people in the private spaceplane section of the port. There was no doubt it was the most neglected section, simply because it was that way in every spaceport in the inhabited universe. Trader vessels were much more profitable, simply because of their size. In fact, they were the sole reason spaceports of that kind existed.

The spaceports were a relic of the past and a dented metal beacon of the future. They were built and maintained by inhabited planets nearby, to make it easier for spaceship owners to refuel while flying trading routes. The practicality of lower gravity was a profitable idea, it seemed, and within a century there was a spaceport next to every major planet, as well as many of the minor ones. In fact, it was next to impossible to differentiate major planets from minor ones. Power was relative to neighbours.

Shaking her head, Paula realised she'd walked much farther than she had planned, if indeed there was a plan in her head. She let a grimace form from her immaculate features, engineered so by her parents. 

She was getting out of the spaceport as soon as possible; it wasn't negotiable.

Writing: Sci-Fi Serial Pt 3

Hey guys! Part three of the Sci-Fi story coming right up.
Part one can be found here.

Chapter 3

The moment he stepped onto the hard greenish dirt of the planet Tarsec, Gerald knew it would be perfect. The planet was the most densely populated of all in the Palao star system, and in terms of services and amenities, was surprisingly well catered for. There were a whole host of sensory augmenting movie theatres and games halls, as well as luxurious bath houses full of jacuzzis and automated robotic massage rooms. There were also bars and clubs, of the kind that every self-respecting planet could produce.

 The first thing Gerald did was establish a stronger link to Lark, so that he could walk around with the A.I.'s advice in his ear. He didn't want to be alone, something that was rare for a man of his demeanor. But, he was usd to a shallow form of company from people when he wasn't travelling, because of the chiselled features genetic engineering had gifted him. It was just a shame that the same engineering hadn't done anything much to his body, so he was forced to work out a lot.

It wasn't long before Gerald found a real estate agent and rented an apartment under one of his many aliases. It was there that he went next, to check that the key the young woman had given him worked, even though he knew it would anyway. Nothing was defective these days, but he still felt like he had to make sure everything was as it should be.

The next port of call was the spaceport. It was a slightly aged chunk of metal and glass, which had begun to rust somewhere in the last few decades by the look of it. It wasn't nearly as bad as the pile of spacejunk Gerald had been forced to stay at before, but he found the aged look disconcerting. His expertise was in mechanics, and he'd have to spend a lot of time in that spaceport, earning money to fund the next journey in a few months' time, if he was lucky.

By the time he re-entered the apartment he'd rented, it was early evening, and all Gerald had the energy to do was lie down and sleep. Outside, most of Tarsec did the same, which others woke up to begin the long night.

The planet had a full day-night cycle of about 30 hours, meaning that people without genetic engineering found the towns and cities rather difficult to adjust to, but most enjoyed the extra time of day, because sleep was something most people needed little of. So for people other than Gerald, who could stay in bed for extended periods of time, the night was the time to get out and drink, meet people, and ultimately have fun.

This behaviour stemmed from the rather strange way Tarsec had been populated, and somehow pulled itself up out of the ground. Initially it had been one of the now defunct UN camps, which catered for refugees from interstellar warfare by setting up self-sufficient places for them to live. They had never been meant to be permanent, but when the UN had been bakrupted, millions of people had been stranded in these camps.

The saving grace of these people was that the UN had somehow sourced a host of full atmosphere planets, which had meant that local and imported plants and animals could be farmed with relative ease. One thing had led to another, and within two centuries, Tarsec was a fully functional Class 3 planet with a wide range of services and enough trade routes to sustain the living standards at a very high level.

In other words, Tarsec was a miracle. Since the start of mainstream space travel, nobody had been kind to one another. The universe was out there, but also expensive enough that it was every man for himself. Bonds were lost, and in the end only small groups of friends endured the split together. But for refugees who had lost everything, surviving was all they had. So, as a result, the refugee planets had become some of the most powerful in the entire universe. They thrived against adversity.

Gerald, however, wasn't aware of just how powerful they were. It was just his luck that as well as being powerful, UN camp planets, as they were known, were among the most peaceful in the galaxy.

Writing: Sci-Fi Serial Pt 2

Hey everyone. Here's part two of my new story. Part one can be found here.

Chapter 2

As exciting as the voyage was to begin with, Gerald soon found himself becoming bored with the entertainment. It wasn't enough to have the most advanced spacecraft money could buy if you were bored out of your mind on it. He glared at the wires and screens around him, all the while knowing that they would help him reach his destination that much faster.

Palao, however, seemed so far away. While he waited, he had read a host of encyclopedia articles, all of which had praised the safety record of the settlements around the star. Then after a few hours spent bathed in the pale white light of the screens, he had come to the conclusion that none, in fact, were biased in the way they were written. It seemed far too good to be true, but Gerald had long had enough of shunning opportunities because of pale suspicions.

So he left the dark grey spaceplane on autopilot, and decided the best course of action would be to entertain himself would be to sit in his luxurious cabin and while away the hours. Just how he would do that was unclear, but at least he'd be comfortable lying in his oversized bed. He had some sensory augmenting games, some lewd sensory movies, and some impressive A.I. he could talk to.

By week two, he had spent only few hours sleeping, and the rest had been spent pleasuring himself in the way only someone who hadn't had sex for a long time could, as well as lifting weights and playing a shooter game based on one common on the original earth. It was entertaining enough, with steamy jungles and post-apocalyptic planets, but he had played it many times, so it wasn'tlong before he moved on to a spaceport simulation, which required keen micro-management, and tested his mind to the limit.

All the while, nothing around him changed. Various A.I. and hidden machines dealt with dishes and waste, as well as the course, so all Gerald had to do was wait. Wait, within in the smooth, bare white walls of his room, which he quickly decided didn't have enough entertainment built in. He had decided that the previous journey too, but for some reason nothing had happened. It seemed to him that he forever failed to live outside the moment. It was a wonder he'd managed to escape his pursuers for so long.

But they were the problem, weren't they? Living was cheap and easy if you knew how, but hard if you had someone on your back for no reason. He cursed the day his father had named him, because that had been his downfall.

Week three brought him more days of lounging around, and he began to wonder if his journey would ever end. He was scared to look at the softly glowing screens, because every time he wondered how he might feel if it turned out he was still many thousands of miles away.

It was much to his relief, then, when the A.I. running his main computer annouced loudly that they were less than a day away, right in the middle of a particularly graphic scene in one of his movies. Normally, he might have been annoyed, but it was his favourite A.I., with a welcome message.

The A.I. in question was Lark. The name was actually an acronym for Logical Artificial Robotic Krait, where Krait was supposed to be his actual name, but Gerald thought that was stupid. He much preferred using the acronym, and Lark didn't mind. The A.I. had been with him since the beginning, making it quite old, but very reliable. The voice was still the same real sounding but also unsettlingly robotic voice Lark had always had. Others talking to Lark would feel like something was wrong but wouldn't know what, but Gerald had long become used to it. Lark was his friend.

It was Lark who would accompany him in his initial scout of the territory of Palao, through some very clever networking technology he didn't understand, as well as through neural nanotechnology.

When it came down to it, Lark was the only reason Gerald had survived. He was alone, but at the same time he had the best friend he could have hoped for.

Writing: Sci-Fi Serial Pt 1

I'm bored. Very bored. I came into Uni expecting a computer lab and it turns out it's not happening and I have three more hours to kill. So, what better way to spend the time than a new, ongoing serial that can, in fact, help with my writing and descriptive skills, as well as provide entertainment for people online.

So, here it is:

 Chapter 1

Gerald hated the fact that in a few hours, he'd be forced to leave. It was always the same, and it was getting more and more difficult. He breathed in deeply, feeling the cool air fill his lungs satisfyingly, and gazed at his surroundings. The old spaceport was full of old machinery with a worrying amount of rust, with floors that hadn't been polished in decades.

His lip curled as he observed the way weary travellers trudged over the exposed concrete floor. This place was hardly the most exclusive of ports, but it was also in a great position for him. Him, who had spent his life running away from people he had never met.

 Tensing his legs in dissatisfaction, he began to walk briskly, even though he had nowhere to go as of yet. He could very easily have launched into a tirade about the unfairness of it all, so he attempted to distract himself by observing his surroundings; every bolt, every scratch. He could see everything, but as it turned out, none of it was sufficiently interesting.

In an instant, he had come to a conclusion. If he didn't leave immediately, then he would surely go mad, even though at first he thought he'd walk around to calm himself down. The rusty steel walls, however, were no company at all to a mind in turmoil.

The way towards the private bays was short, and just as rusty as the rest of the port. How it stayed, floating in mid-space, was anybody's guess, but it was good enough for him, and had always been. Still, it wouldn't take him long to forget the stale bread and metallic-tasting water that were the hallmarks of any of the old spaceports dotted around the galaxy. Next time he would choose a planet or something, not a piece of old space-junk.

By the time he had reached his small craft, he had thought of the smelly off-white toliets, sub-par healthcare and complete lack of entertainment services to leave while thinking 'good riddance'. In fact, it had been surprisingly easy to turn a mind he had been conditioning to just be happy to be alive. The reality was, living was not enough.

Walking into the cramped cockpit of his spaceplane was like a breath of fresh air; it was outfitted with the newest technology he could get his hands on, using any and every spare cent he had. It was always clean, and the green and red screens fed information from the advanced sensors the craft was covered in. All of it was real-time, accurate down to a hundreth of a second. Gerald sank down into his soft red chair, relaxing for the first time that day. 

He wasted no time flicking all the switches to get the craft going, eagerness replacing all other emotions. Sometimes his mood variation surprised even himself, but he didn't let it bother him. He could very easily hide those emotions whenever he had to; other people never suspected.

It was two minutes before he was away, hurtling through the universe. The force pushed him back into his chair, but he loved the sensation. The stars seemed to be almost stationary in the blackness of the sky, but he could feel the motion pulling him through the neverending night. The reason for his love of it, he knew, was the fact that it made him realise the sheer scale of the universe, and how many places were left to explore.

Grinning in glee, he fixed his gaze on a far-off star, deciding in that instant that it was his target. Neuroscanners picked this up and instantly adjusted his course, while feeding him information. Dark blue writing projected across his vision, telling him the star was called Palao. It held three spaceports and an inhabited planet. In other words, it was perfect.

Behind him, the old spaceport was already far behind; a speck in the distance. His craft was a silver streak through the night sky, silent in the void. The overwhelming silence and Palao were all that was left. But his world was complete.

Clay and Knitting: Colourful Fun

So, yesterday I had some fun doing various small crafting projects, and I thought today is as good a day as any to post the results. To begin with, a little about my first project.

I like polymer clay, because while being bright and colourful it is easy to work with and can make the cutest earrings. So, with that in mind I started work on my sister's birthday present, which is pictured.

The birthday present is the ward from League of Legends, pictured in the foreground and unfinished in the background. I also made her that plant just below the weighted companion cube earrings, as it relates to one of the champions in LoL.

Then, still unsatisfied with the number of clay earrings in my collection, I decided that adding a few more would be a great idea.

Yes. I made Minecraft earrings. Each little cube of TNT is about 1.8 x 1.8 x 1.8 cm, to put it into perspective. The diamond swords look quite awesome, but they did turn out quite thin, so care is required when wearing them. I have fiddled with clay creations before and broken them.

Finally, to round off my day of crafting, I decided what better way to spend my evening than knitting? This particular project has been on my mind for ages, and now that it's finally underway I'm very pleased.

I have started making gloves inspired by the ones Hermione wears in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, for which I found the colour chart here. In my version, the arrows are pointing the wrong way because of the way it's knitted, but it's close enough. Any closer and I might just go mad, because so far other attempts to replicate these gloves have been fruitless. 

Anyway, that's all I have for you today. I'm now going to go off and... I suppose I should study. Bye!

Leaving Things To The Last Minute

I will freely admit that when it comes to this, I am your number one culprit, and so, in fact, would be most people. Nobody likes to do things a month in advance when they could be doing so many other things. So, they let the work sit, and they wait for when they really have to do it.

So, in the past I would have thought about work, decided I have ages to do it, and then end up doing most of it within a week or a few days of the due date. Granted, this isn't as bad as leaving things until midnight the night before, or other things one might do, but it's not ideal. The reason why is simple.

The more time you leave yourself to do something, the more time there is to address any problems. So, in this, my second ever semester of Uni, I have decided to get things done as soon as possible.

When you think about it, two or three weeks is really not that long, and if you leave something alone, you might not have a clear idea of what you have to do in the last week. This applies in terms of exam study especially, when staying up the night before might actually be detrimental rather than beneficial.

However, the number one area of application to this problem for me recently has been writing. In my recent blogs I keep telling whoever reads this that I will write something, and get away from the other things I like to do in my spare time, like youtube, gaming, crafting, and so on. But, as much as I tell myself that, I end up doing nothing. This is a problem, because as it happens today is the last day of Camp NaNoWriMo. My saving grace is the fact that I did an average of about 3k words a day for the first half of the month, making my life for the last part easy.

Having less to do, however, doesn't mean I should have left it. I could have done much more than 50k words this month, and that would mean more of my novel would have been done. The point is, I'm lazy and I feel bad about it.

So, I'm off to write now. And you who reads this, go off and do what you've been putting off.

Byee!

What To Do When You Think You've Fried Your Brain

ENB120. Electrical Energy and Measurements. This is something my head is finding very hard to deal with at the moment.

Normally, I can understand new concepts quite quickly, but in this particular subject there's just too much to collate, mostly because of the number of different units in electrical engineering. There's Joules and Coulons, Volts and Amps, as well as Watts and Ohms. Now I could very easily give up here and fail the subject, but I won't.

Why not? Because I have a desire to learn more, no matter how hard it is, but that doesn't mean my brain can keep up. So, I decided to blog about it because I have an idea.

This idea is simple: use lots of time. If I spend an hour going through things on my own, it's probably many times more valuable than having someone regurgitate information at me. So, I'm going to use that optimism that I cultivated in my last post, and use it to study.

Yeah. Study. Something I'm very bad at, but this time, I'm determined to do it, because I know I'll fail without it.

So, without further ado, I shall go do just that, and keep this blog post rather short and sweet. And then, I'll write some more of my rather neglected novel, and life shall be sweet.

Byee!

Keeping Motivated

Now here is a post which I think could become quite relevant to myself in coming months, and not just all you lovely people out there. This is because in study and other things, I'm not always the best at keeping motivated if the goal is far away.

First off, however, I should say that if you're doing something you hate for whatever reason, reconsider it. For example, if you're writing a certain kind of story because you think it would be more publishable, the chances are it won't be nearly as good as what you'd really like to write.

Anyway, with this type of thing, what I relate to with it best is maths. This is because currently I'm studying Electrical Engineering and IT at uni, so obviously maths is a core component. Now I've always been decent at maths, not brilliant, so I wasn't too worried about my first maths subject, but I did know that whatever happened I would have to study.

With this in mind, the time to study for final exams rolled around and I thought to myself 'study time'. In high school my studying habits were bad at best, and nonexistent at worst. So naturally I wasn't sure if I'd be able to change that much now that it mattered much more. However, I needn't have worried, because motivation, when you think about it, is easy.

It's as simple as this; if you're in the mindset that what you're doing is pointless or boring, or even both, you will not succeed. Similarly, if you really want to do well, and you channel that enthusiasm towards study or work, you will do very well.

What this means is that optimism it quite important, while pessimism will get you nowhere. If you think to yourself 'I'll never pass this subject', then the chances are, you'll find studying pointless. Similarly, if you think that what you're writing is pointless and 'I'll never get published', then you may keep writing, but you'll never actively edit and seek to be published, which is the most important part in becoming a writer. There are many famous writers who got rejected by publishers many times.

With the paragraph above, it is also useful to note that things which are badly written can become famous and well-loved. cough cough *twilight* cough cough (sorry twihards)

So, keep optimistic in all that you do. If you find yourself thinking 'I can't do that', stop and purge that thought. Stride through life, knowing that whatever you want to do, you can do. Because then you'll have enthusiasm and energy to channel towards it.

Youtube, Writing, and Common Colds

Hey Everyone, welcome to my blog and stuff. Right now, my head feels heavy and I feel like I need to sleep, but I'm also at Uni. So, don't expect this post to be coherent, but at the very least it should be entertaining, I hope.

First things first; I haven't written anything on my story since my last blog post, and I feel bad about that. I also feel like I'm way too tired to even attempt that, so... Ugh. At least my nose isn't blocked; that would be the icing on the cake. Wait, that doesn't make sense. The... chili powder... on the cake? 

With this in mind, I want to hypocritically take this opportunity to encourage every writer out there to try and write a little every day. Unless you're feeling like you need to hibernate for a month, in which case, give it a rest. 

Anyway, the second thing I want to say is that I have a Youtube channel now. And here's the link. It also has no views but my own and people I know, so understandably, I'm feeling a little apprehensive. But, humble beginnings.

I'll now lead on from that with something completely unrelated to do with the Uni lecture I've just endured. I just want to comment how demoralising it is to be sick and have the lecturer say 'you have to work much harder for a seven in this subject than the preceding one.' Also 'the failure rate for this subject last semester was 35%'. But, I won't let that get me down; it's only week 1.

And so we come to the end of that incredibly disjointed blog post, which I'm not particularly proud of, but whatever. It takes energy to write things which make sense, and my energy is currently being occupied by my body trying to fight my common cold. So, keep writing, Minecrafting, keeping healthy, and keeping on top of work/your studies/whatever.

Byeee!

Writing: Breaking the Genre

This post is for all budding writers out there. I have been participating in Camp NaNoWriMo, and after seeing that other participants like me had been given the opportunity to write pep talks, I thought about what I had to contribute. The result is this post.

This Camp, my goal is a standard 50,000 word goal, which is well on track, although I haven't done any today yet... anyway, the point is I have a large amount of a novel. This novel is about a female elf whose home gets attacked by centaurs, after which she decides to fight them and eventually take back her home.

You may be wondering at this point, what this disjointed introduction had even slightly to do with a pep talk. But, what I realised when thinking about pep talks and my own novel, was how steeped it was- and still is- in the genre of fantasy.

Now, there's absolutely nothing wrong with this. My point of difference in this was the fact that my novel is in the point of view of the elf, which was something I'd never seen before. Now, yours may be similar, or different, or maybe you might even have a bog standard thriller. I will add that if you want to write a bog standard thriller, it's up to you. What i want to encourage now is stepping into the grey areas of genre.

When deciding on what my current novel would be, I thought it would be nice to try out a different genre. I thought I've done fantasy, I want to do something completely different. But in the end, I wrote another fantasy anyway. It was because I didn't know how to do a completely separate genre.

There is a simple solution to this, however. What I want you to think about it taking your favourite genre, and editing it. What i mean is, take an element of thriller or sci-fi and throw it in. Add in a character that is a one-eyed talking bat, or create an eccentric inventor who solves murder mysteries.

I blog this in all seriousness. Because if one day you deliver me a book where the protagonist is a six-eyed giant demon or one where the main characters are dragons who use sci-fi-esque technology, you will be my hero.

Underwater Building in Minecraft

This post will deal with my method of building things underwater in Minecraft, but it should be noted that I use Creative Mode. I suppose you could also use this method in Survival, but that would require methods of breathing. For this purpose, ladder creates a bubble of air, as do slabs.

So, without further ado, here's the method:

Step 1: Resource Packs

It should be noted that in this, resource packs, or as they used to be called, texture packs, are not essential. I prefer how underwater looks in texture packs as opposed to normal Minecraft. In the image above, the top image is that of the normal Minecraft textures, and the bottom image is that of the 'Dokucraft, the saga continues' texture pack available here.

Step 2: Build a Box

Here i just built an underwater box of materials out of wood and glass. In this step, you should note that you can't place ladder, torches, levers, doors, or beds on glass. This could be a problem, seeing as there's not point building an opaque box underwater, but you just have to make sure that for certain parts there is a wooden floor, as in the above image. Also, instead of torches, you can have glowstone either as part of the wall, floor or ceiling, or even outside the box where it will shine through the glass, as in the above image.

Step 3: Fill it in

A box filled with water isn't much use, so the next step is to break your way in, and fill it in with an easily recognisable block. You will have to break your way out in the end, but you'll just end up with a solid box anyway. Then, you have to go in the proper way (through the ladder down into your underwater building) and break all those filled in blocks, leaving behind a dry box.

Step 4: Fix the Ceiling

See those water droplets? Not ideal at all, are they? Luckily, they are easy to fix. This is because if you have a glass ceiling, there will be not water droplets at all. So, all you have to do for wood or other materials is build a layer of glass on top and your ceiling is fixed.

Movement:

Note that if you break a hole in your floor, as above, you can leave or enter that way without flooding your interior. This is a lot easier than going the proper way each time, especially if you have a very deep complex. 

You should also note that redstone underwater is very difficult, but if you build any redstone above ground first to determine the size of the box you have to encase it in, it can be done. Any spaces, however, will have to be two high so you can walk around.

Final Thoughts:

I hope you enjoyed my first (well, not technically first, but the first one wasn't much) blog post, and I hope it helps you build underwater in Minecraft, because the results can be very cool.

Welcome One, Welcome All.

So. I have a new blog. It's interesting, because I never thought I'd write one before two minutes ago. The whole reason is because my twin sister has a blog and... I thought it would be a good outlet for my thoughts. So, to begin with, an overview of what I will be posting:

What I Will Post:

I will post anything I feel like to do with knitting, sewing, cosplay, writing, reading, movies, TV shows, music and games. Yeah. I know.

When I Will Post it:

Whenever I feel like it. I really don't have any idea how much time I'll spend on this, but I'll try to post once a week or once a fortnight about interesting things.

Anything Else?

I think not. There's nothing more for me to say, but I think I'll post a bit about Minecraft to begin with, because that's what's been consuming my life, as well as my twin's, who is, by the way The Fantasy Intellectual.