A few branches to follow on...

It’s been a busy couple of weeks at work since The Dark Knight Rises was released. It has kept me very busy and been an exhausting time but the film itself is very good, but not quite as good as The Dark Knight, I believe. There are reasons for this but I will go into that at a later time, in a separate post.

New writing project

Well, I’ve finally decided to try and start some writing again. It wasn’t a total success but it did get me a little closer. I still haven’t found a way to inspire myself on anything I’ve been working on recently but I did go through some of the pieces I did for university and found a few things that I began to merge and expand on that I think could turn into a really nice little project.

It’s already standing out to me as something different to my favoured genres and styles. One of the pieces that I’ve selected was specifically written for a much younger audience and while that age group might change again, it doesn’t feel like a story an adult would read. This could all change, as I don’t write to a certain age or with an intended audience in mind. I write to tell a story, and as the story evolves and is put to paper, it will inevitably find its own audience. There will always be editing to be done to touch up on issues or loose ends and this project will be no different. I am quite excited and feel closer than ever to start writing again.

Birthday surprise!

My birthday is surrounded by my father’s and older sister’s birthday. IT’s an expensive time of the year for the family, having all three within twelve days. F1 is something we all enjoy but being at Silverstone has shown me I also enjoy the other races going on. My father is also a fan of the Touring Cars and as they are at Silverstone the weekend of his birthday, the three of us will be going down. I’ve never had the time to really get into it, but the small parts I have seen I’ve enjoyed and now I have a reason to make sure I get it sorted before October.

I really enjoy going to Silverstone – it’s a fantastic circuit and there’s always a great atmosphere no matter what the weather. I’ll walk around the circuit again, as I have done both times I’ve been before and I may even see if I can get some good pictures and put them up here. I’m always experimenting with things online. Photo’s in my blog, from a writer? This should be interesting!

Stephen King

Over the last few years, I’ve slowly been getting through Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series. I’ve just finished book five and have started book six, The Song of Susannah. They’re fantastically intricate reads and it can be confusing as to what is happening and where but they have kept me interested far better than any other books have recently. When I finish the last two, I think I will do a post looking at the series in its entirety. It will be interesting for me, if nothing else!

Stephen King is a fantastic writer, although I have found some of his stories can be repetitive. I suppose when you rule a genre like he does, this can be an easy trap to fall into. Each story is very well written and I hope I can branch out to other genres and stories to avoid this pitfall.

There are some other gems I have recently added to my book collection again thanks to a book voucher from MMU for receiving the Programme Leader’s Award. I spent £94 and still have £6 left, with another £10 card to spend, so a few more books are coming my way. I finally bought The Hunger Games books and the first A Song of Fire and Ice (or more commonly known as The Game of Thrones books). I have a lot of reading ahead of me!

Commitment

It's weird to think I haven't been to a seminar at university for over four months now. Weirder that my last exam was in May and more than that, it's been two weeks since I graduated. That one will take a long time to sink, I reckon.

All in all, life as a graduate hasn't been too different. I'm working full time now but the lack of funding from Student Finance means I don't get to go out as much as I used to and I'm still not completely ready to jump back into writing again. More on that later.

So, I'm going to put more time and effort into this blog. I'll be following up my RPG genre post and exploring tangents from it, maybe so movie and book reviews, as well as things I find interesting throughout the week. Consistency is the key, I hope.

Job hunting

One thing I've never been a fan of is job hunting. It's something that my friends and I, along with almost every other graduate out there, are going through right now. The problem I'm having is that there are very few entry level jobs, and all the things I've done in university seems to count for very little so far. In time, I hope that will change but I'm under no illusions that my current state of mind is still enjoying the freedom of not having a "real" job right now. I do have plans, and I don't want to be in my 30's/40's by the time they start to happen.

Those plans keep me tied to Manchester. I'm not complaining too much about this, as I love the place and want to stay here for the foreseeable future, providing the work is here. I think a lot of it now is who you know, not what you know, and being lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.

Hungary Grand Prix

It's no secret that I'm a massive F1 fan and this season has been fantastic so far. My only complaint is that I can't watch every race live, and through no fault of work (for once). I cannot afford Sky, let alone the sports package needed to watch every race on their channel. The BBC coverage is good but watching highlights is not the same, especially as I usually hear the result from someone or somewhere before I get to see the highlights for myself.

This weekend should provide an interesting race; a week after Fernando Alonso's third win of the season, the rule changes from the Red Bull engine mapping incident, and from today's practise sessions, the improved McLaren pace. While Friday practise is no evidence of pure pace, it is good to see the British drivers having a good start to the weekend, and hopefully they can carry on throughout the event. It will be even more interesting to see how much pace the Red Bull cars have actually lost, with the team saying it makes very little difference. If this is true, we could have five or six cars fighting for the victory on Sunday.

Safe to say I'm a little excited!

Writing again...almost

Ever since handing my dissertation in earlier this year, I've had very little motivation and inspiration to do any writing. It's annoying because I have a few projects on the go that I want to get back into but my random working hours and huge amounts of energy spent on job hunting has just stopped me from feeling any enthusiasm to any of them.

So, not only do I have a novel to redraft and a sequel to write in this year's National Novel Writing Month in November, I want to continue and finish the first draft of my dissertation by the end of the year as well as working on a sci-fi story too. Lots of projects and that's not even all of them. I also have an idea for another fantasy story and I'm pulling together ideas and pieces of information for that in the hope it will encourage me to write something - anything. I also hope this blog will help with this too. I'm going to post some pieces of writing here too, just to get it out there and maybe find some feedback!

Guild Wars 2

Less than a month before release!!! I'm going to spend a lot of time on this, but with enough will power, it won't interfere with the more important goals of doing some writing. I played the first two Beta Weekend Events but unfortunately I missed the final event due to the release of The Dark Knight Rises (an epic film that you should watch if you haven't already!). It just so happened to coincide with the release of the Sylvari and Asruan races, both of which I have been waiting to play since the BWE's began!

Then again, nothing will be spoiled for me on release, so there is a silver lining, and one I'm very much looking forward to!

Busy busy busy

It's been a bit longer than I had hoped since my last post, but I had to move at the beginning of the month and only just got Internet access back on my laptop - I didn't fancy writing a blog post from my phone!

I've set up a new e-mail address as well, and I do wish Google just had an option to change e-mail addresses or transfer control over easily, but that doesn't seem to be the case (unless I completely missed it and if so, I'm going to feel like an idiot...).

Other than moving, the big thing that's been going on for me has been the second Manchester Children's Book Festival, organised by MMU. The first festival took place in 2010 and it was a fantastic achievement and I was proud to be a part of it but this year has taken it to a whole new level for its second year. I missed most of the Family Fun Day on Saturday 30th June due top moving, which happened two years ago as well - I'm hoping to make sure this does not happen in two years time - but in the last hour, I managed to talk to a lot of the families attending and everyone had a great day with the zombie make-up being a big big hit!

Last night, Thursday 5th July, I volunteered at the Philip Pullman event and that was a fantastic evening with some interesting insights into his work and themes inside his writing, as well as a good way to get a bit closer to the author himself1 I'm a big fan of Philip Pullman's work, especially the His Dark Materials trilogy, which I did manage to get signed at the end. Hopefully there will be a photo to follow!

The man himself is a great role model for any writer, as he seems to be devoid of ego. He writes because he wants to, it's his passion and that's something I can really relate to as I feel the same way. There is nothing that I found I could dislike about him, even if I wanted to. He may have differing views on things from me but so do a lot of people and that has never stopped me from respecting or getting along with anyone. One day, I'd like to have a longer talk with him and go into further detail about things I found curious in his writing but there is hopefully plenty of time for that!

This afternoon I attended an event at the Museum of Science and Industry, here in Manchester. This was to announce the winner of the Midland Future Manchester competition, of which I helped judge the entries and create the shortlist that the winner was chosen from. The standard of the writing from these young people is astounding and very scary for someone like me, who can already see that in a few years, they will be at my level or even better. It shows that I can't stop writing for too long or risk missing out completely!

I do want to mention something else, on a much sadder note. Earlier this week, one of the F1 test drivers, Maria de Villota was involved in an accident during a straight line test and suffered serious injuries. It was her first time in the current F1 car and she has lost her right eye as a result of the accident, which is an awful thing to happen to anyone. Thankfully, while her condition is described as critical, it is also stable and anyone who reads this, I hope you join me and many other people all over the world in wishing her a speedy recovery. My thoughts also go to her family who must be suffering as well. It is a great thing that so many names in the F1 paddock are offering their support and wishes to someone who is new to this formula and it shows that even though each team is competing against each other, they are also part of a larger body that works together to help in the hard times.

A lot of people over the world can learn from this. Hopefully when they see communities and organisations doing this, it will happen more often and reach more people.

Guild Wars 2

There haven’t been many games recently that have excited me as much as Guild Wars 2, and in all honesty, there isn’t much coming up that can knock it from the top spot in games I want to play right now.

For those of you in the know, GW2 isn’t ready yet but we have had two Beta Weekend Events so far and these have given people who have pre purchased one of the three editions of the game an idea of what is to come on the official release. I have to admit, I did go all out and buy the Collector’s Edition of the game, something my bank balance and wallet have not quite forgiven me for yet, but come the official release, I have no doubt I will spend more time playing the game than doing anything else, including spending money!

I admit, one of the biggest concerns I had about GW2 was this massive free world where everyone would play together. It just screamed World of Warcraft to me, and all the issues I had with that game came with it. However, the BWEs convinced me most, if not all my concerns had been addressed.

Before I go any further, I haven’t played WoW for a very long time now, so some of these issues may well have been resolved, but I also don’t like paying monthly for a game and that’s where Guild Wars stood out.

With a mass environment, I was worried that anyone could come along and steal my kills, and the loot that came with it. If I’m going to spend time doing quests or finding items, I don’t want that time increased almost infinitely by people coming along at the last minute and stealing the kill, and the subsequent loot, and I’m sure this is true of most gamers. GW2’s answer is a simple one; no matter who is involved in the kill, you will all get the experience depending on how involved you were in the fight. The loot is personalised to each player as well, so no one else can even SEE my loot, let alone take it. This was clear early on in the first BWE and it gave me a good first impression.

A break away from Guild Wars is the lack of heroes and henchmen. It is quite feasible to wander around on your own or to team up with people in a more organised fashion but even those in a party don’t have to be in the exact same spot and with the vast areas available, it is easy to come and go as you please, as long as you’re considerate of the party’s goals!

It’s good to see people around the game outside of towns and outposts. It took some getting used to, but it gives the game a more real feel to it. GW1 was about socialising in outposts and guild halls but in GW2, that element is removed and the whole world becomes a social encounter. Random world events draw random strangers together in a PUG-like fashion but without having to commit yourself to an entire mission or area. The freedom almost encourages more cooperation. Throughout both BWEs, I have seen very little in terms of flaming or trolling. This might, and probably will change come release but it’s encouraging to see at the moment.

I haven’t spent too much time looking at crafting skills yet, but from what I understand, GW2 requires materials and recipies to create new items to use, but only two types of crafting skill can be active at one time. You can still find items and weapons from events and combat but I’m guessing that this is not only a money maker but will have some of the stronger weapons available. Unique weapons, in whatever form they’ll take, I have absolutely no idea about. I’m hoping they have better looking skins and the collector’s value, just like the unique weapons in GW1.

Guild functions haven’t been too prominent so far in my gameplay experience so far. Considering the game is called “Guild Wars 2” this is a bit of a surprise but I’m hoping there are some surprises for the release. Influence gained from quests seem to have a role in unlocking things but the full extent of what these features are, I’m waiting to see. Any of the people in my guild who see this, may well educate me and cause a subsequent update or edit to this post but I’ll cross that bridge later. My guild is up and running and hopefully the official release of GW2 will bring an even bigger resurgence of the people I have been playing GW1 with for the last seven years.

The Auction House is an interesting addition. The idea of being able to buy or sell anything, anywhere in the game means you don’t have to be in an outpost like in the past. In theory, it also keeps chat channels free of people trying to sell or buy things and focus more on the social and gaming events going on. Granted, you have to go to a trading post to actually get the items, but that doesn’t seem like a bad trade off in the larger scale of how the world is set up.

Like many, many others, the Sylvari are a huge point of interest that we haven’t seen yet. Whether there will be another BWE before release where this race will be available to play or we’ll have to wait until release is unknown and the same question needs to be asked of the Asura. I have had a look at the Charr and the Norn but so far, the human areas and stories are appealing to me more. Perhaps I have a grudge against the Charr for their part in GW1 and as for the Norn…well, they’re big, brutish and usually drunk so I SHOULD be happy with them unless I’m seeing a reflection of myself in their environments. Hopefully, we will be able to make more than five characters when the game is released.

Overall, I’m very excited for the official release of GW2 and the additional bonuses to come from the Hall of Monuments from GW1 will still keep me playing right up until release. Any free time will be spent in Tyria for the foreseeable future on the games release and I’m looking forward to seeing all the rest of the features the game has to offer!

The RPG Genre

Sometimes I find myself thinking that offline RPG's are getting too easy and are just not the value for money they once were, especially since they're more expensive with every generation of console released! I won't pretend I'm not biased - I'm a Playstation guy. I had the PSOne, PS2 and now the PS3, as well as currently owning a PSP. The original Xbox controller didn't sit well with me, it felt awkward and it was heavy! I could've used them as weightlifting tools. However, while they got better for the Xbox360, I still wasn't sold. That, however, is a discussion for another day.

My favourite RPG series is the Final Fantasy series by Square Enix (or at the time, Squaresoft). The stories were long and extensive, keeping me interested even if I deviated from the main story plot. FFVII and FFVIII are probably my favourite games of the series. Three and four discs respectively, there was so much going on in that world that by the time I had done it all and completed the game, I had no problems with going back to the start and playing it again, changing my choices to unlock new things. Add to that that each game had new characters and gameplay features; it stopped them from being boring when the next one came along.

Even now, two consoles and many years later, I find these games to be much more of a challenge than their more recent counterparts. FFXIII and FXIII-2 are both good games in their own rights but I can't help feeling like the longevity isn't there anymore.

FFXIII is almost a completely linear game. You will follow the story and the maps give you almost no choice in that. When you reach a later point in the game, you can deviate a little but such is the level differences that any journey will require a lot of grinding and effort. After the game, you can return and complete what you missed, which is fine but that then makes restarting the game defunct, except to experience the very linear story again, and even that wasn't a great story in my opinion.

FFXIII-2 is the second attempt at a sequel to a Final Fantasy game, the first being FFX-2 (which I'm currently pretending did not happen). It takes almost the opposite approach and goes for a game that almost encourages non-linear play. It's almost as if Square Enix can't make up their minds as to where the balance lies in this respect and have gone from one extreme to the other. Continuity is there though, with a very similar battle and gameplay system and the same characters but it's the freedom to do what I want, when I want, how I want and to change it whenever I want that appeals more to me than FFXIII.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, is probably one of the best games I've played offline even if it's not my favourite. Its predecessor, Oblivion, was also very non-linear and I found it hard to even find the story arc. It was supposed to be a free roaming RPG and it was, but very daunting. Skyrim rectified that problem and started you down the story and gave you the basics of how to play before letting you decide what to do – and there is so much to do! I’d be lying if I said it was so vast that it was impossible to complete but it is, and again, the story arc is relatively short in comparison to the size of the game.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is another game I really enjoyed but again, found it very short. Once the story was finished – that’s it! There’s nothing else except to go back through the game and do it again, differently. That’s fine, but while I got the game towards the latter end of 2011, it’s now been over six months since then and I still have little interest to play it again. I give it points for being vivid enough to remember, but it loses those and more by not inspiring me to play again.

It seems that graphics are becoming more and more important to game designers as opposed to story, difficulty, content and gameplay. I’m still drawn back to games such as FFVII and FFVIII, despite their graphics being a lot less advanced because the games are more enjoyable to play opposed to looking at. Further to that, even earlier games such as FFVI using 2D sprite images still have a strong appeal – they’re harder to play and that’s a lot more fun, at least to me.

The PS2 will always hold a special place in my heart because it seems to have found the best balance between gameplay and graphics. Games such as FFX or the Kingdom Hearts series looked good and played better. If I could rule the big companies in charge of these games, this is what I’d tell them to look at for inspiration.

I’ve not spoken about online RPG’s, two of the biggest examples being World of Warcraft and Guild Wars. I’ve been a GW fan and player for almost seven years (partly because I can’t afford to pay a monthly fee for that long at the moment) and there were things about WoW that didn’t engage with me but one thing for online RPG’s is the constant updating of content and gameplay to keep their audiences interested. Of course, overcrowding can detract from story arcs onto the people and that’s not for everyone but on the other hand, not enough players can make it hard to do certain things in the game. I enjoy online gaming but you have to pick your time, whereas you don’t with offline or console gaming.

Then again, with Guild Wars 2 and the new WoW content coming over the summer, a fresh surge will be introduced into both audiences and it will be interesting to see what each side has come up with to beat the other!

Being a Writer...

Quite simply, being a writer SUCKS.

Why? Well, being a writer is not a stable career choice on it's own unless you become The next J. K. Rowling or Steven King. There are others who do it, but those are two examples of people who have made it work. Most people have to supplement their writing with another form of income, sometimes not even directly related to that field and that can only impact on the amount of writing they get to do, and influences deadlines and such.


With the introduction of E-books, piracy becomes an issue. I doubt it'll ever be as a big a problem as it is in the TV/Film and Music industries but it is there. Then again, E-books are usually pretty cheap pretty soon after release but I'm pretty sure that doesn't solve the problem entirely.

Writers are rarely goign to be famous icons for people to look up to. Discounting Shakespeare, what other writer do we learn about year in and year out through our education? I don't think any writer is included that much and then there's the whole conspiracy theories surrounding him and UGH. I hate Shakespeare anyway, but that's another story.


Despite this, being a writer can be really rewarding. I've met people who have read my work and it's had a substantial impact on them. It's surreal and I suppose it's quite like a musician hearing the same. It give syou the drive to go on but the task of writing a book, even one the length of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (set at just under 77K words) is a huge ask, taking an enormous amount of time. This may be the average book length but I've noticed more and more books being longer and longer, adding to the task.


I've found instructing writing workshops to be really fulfilling and valuable experiene for myself. With it being outside the mundane learning of our curriculum, students are actually interested in what you have to say. I don't think I could go into a school and teacher five days a week, I just don't have the interest in what they HAVE to know but to do that, yeah, I enjoy it a lot.

I've been writing for years. I have a novella being converted into a novel (at some point), another novel in its first draft and being reviewed by some varying readers and working on my university dissertation, which is part of another novel I want to write. Normally, I have a much bigger drive to write than what I have this time (and with such an idea and strict deadlines) I'm happy to devote myself but lethargy has taken over. January blues? Perhaps but I've never really noticed them hit me much until this year.


Writing a book is largely rewarding to the writer, more than anything. That sense of accomplishment is brilliant. I've heard so many people say "I can never write a book but I really want to try" or something along those lines and all I can say is to just do it. You never know until you try and failing is part of the course. Things have ot fall apart so we can find what works and what to take with us.
There are several things you need to write a book:

• Patience - it takes time and a lot of planning or you'll find yourself with characters and scenes not making any sense overall
• Research - Anything relating to your story or genre. I write in fantasy and sci-fi mainly, so I read a lot of books in those genres, watch a lot of films and play a lot of games in those genres. You pick up things without even realising it
• Determination - You'll hit walls. You'll have days where you're just not in the mood. That's fine, don't give up, just do something else and let your mind relax a bit. It's hugely taxing to write a book. Give a short story a go
• Originality - No one will give you the time of day if it's not original. The whole thing doesn't have to be original. A lot of stories are based on myths and/or concepts writers have come across themselves and want to explore or take in a new direction. That's great, but you need SOMETHING to set you apart from everyone else doing the exact same thing. The deeper that aspect, the more involved it is to your story, the better it will be to your reader
• Audience Awareness - Know who you're writing for before you write it. Sounds simple, right? Wrong. Research into the market of what people want to read and tie it in to what you can do. Writing a book that appeals to the majority of readers/everyone is something few writers can do. If someone does figure it out, let me know
• Experience - You can't write about something you don't know or that you haven't researched. I'm not saying if you're writing about drug use and abuse to go and do drugs. Quite the opposite, there are people out there who would be willing to talk to you about it, or plenty of things in books and articles (both online and in print) for you to learn about it. They have stories to tell just like you and that's a good common ground to start from

Redrafting is hell. It's also one of the most boring parts to writing but very important. I don't know about anyone else, but I hate reading a book with a typo, or where grammar is wrong. It annoys me as a reader, never mind as a writer. Find a friend to help you look for such mistakes.

Through all this, there is nothing else in the world I can imagine being, or doing. Writing is my passion and if being a writer really does suck, then I'm going to be in a sucky career for the rest of my life. I hope some of you decide to join me!


Phew! Hope this helps some of you and answers some questions you all seem to ask me :) Drop me a line if you have other questions or you want to discuss something further. For now, back to the grind!

Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows

I FINALLY got to see this film last night! Took me long enough, considering I work in a cinema! Ach well, better late than never.

Having heard mixed reviews about it, I didn't have my hopes set too high (but I do think Downey Jr. is superb as Holmes - and also Iron Man!) but I have to say I thoroughly enjoy it, perhaps more than the first one.

The first film was very much a light hearted story and despite the setting of the the film and characters being quite dark, they were the points of light and were of outstanding contrast - a brilliant balance. It didn't require a lot of concentration to watch, meaning it's a good film to actually settle down and watch or have on in the background.

Game of Shadows was a little different. The characters were portrayed darker than in the previous film and their relationship strained but not lacking in care and wit at each other's expense. This film had a much faster pace and you had to keep up and pay attention or you were going to be left behind. There were fewer scenes focused on the interaction of Holmes and Watson and these were merged with other things going on. It worked, but it lost something for me there.

Two different films but both worked wonderfully. I'm finding it hard deciding which one I like more. The darkness and edge of Game of Shadows or the lighter and boyish original. Very hard to decide...