Salisbury.Fake Weekly Update, writing

Writing Journal #6

Singing Justin Bieber’s “Baby” while unwrapping a peanut butter cup is peak Saturday morning behavior, I think. I don’t know if this is journal number six. I could look, but that requires more dedication to a numbering system than I particularly care for currently. I don’t know “Baby” past the chorus, so it’s been just a repeat of “baby, baby, baby, ohhhhh” progressively more offkey.

I haven’t been stuck. Well, no, I have been. Stuck in chapter twenty of the Lazarus Rising first draft. I’ve come across things I’ll “fix in post,” I tell myself. Scribbling late into the night because insomnia has come to visit again. Who needs sleep when words give so much more to me? I probably do need sleep, because the headaches that have come from this lack of it are just debilitating sometimes.

But yeah, finally got through chapter twenty, and I actually made it through chapter twenty-one. Finished that last night, and then when I woke up this morning, I had some clarity to restart the gibberish I wrote to open chapter twenty-two before I passed out.

Currently, peanut butter cups are eaten, and water should be next to consume, but that requires getting up again and I just sat down to keep typing up chapter fourteen. I don’t want to get half a book behind on typing again, so I’m going to spend today doing some of that. After I have brunch/lunch with some friends.

Depression has been keeping me company as of late. I see it. I wave at it when I get home. I tell it how my day has been, knowing full well it’s been right there at my ankles the whole time. It knows my weaknesses. It knows my sadness. Not a bad roommate, really. More like a mother giving you the silent treatment and you aren’t sure what you’ve done wrong, so you’ll keep trying your best not to mess anything else up.

I hope you’re doing okay. I hope you’re able to see the sun, and I hope the warmth sticks with you longer than you expect it to.

Until next time, friends.

Salisbury.Fake Uncategorized

Game Review – The Callisto Protocol

(image from encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com)

I keep thinking about this game and how it made me feel, so I’m going to drop a review of it even though I’m not a gamer who plays. SPOILERS AHEAD so if you don’t want to read about the ending of this game, please feel free to skip this post.

Anyone who knows me knows my favorite games, tied for first (I’m being honest with myself) are Dead Space and BioShock. When Dead Space first came out, I was blown away by the design, the gameplay, the story, all of it just settled into my brain and was kind of the beginning of my love of science fiction. I’ve always liked science fiction, but Dead Space opened my brain up to the unsettling aspects of the unknown dangers in space. I know there are films and stories older than Dead Space, but I hadn’t taken part in those yet. Aside from Halo, I hadn’t really encountered that uneasy feeling of something ahead I couldn’t see, but knew it would be a problem. When the popcorn balls of Flood came swarming out of a hold in the first Halo game, that moment kind of kicked the part of my brain that likes the spooky space stuff into gear.

I begin with Dead Space because throughout the gameplay I watched of Callisto Protocol, I kept comparing it to Dead Space. They are incredibly similar in design and story. There are certainly different visuals and gameplay itself is different, but I think both games have elements that make them their own. I’ll start with the similarities:

  • Location has encountered unknown virus or disease taking over
  • Main character is the ‘go-fer’
  • Main character has a job unrelated to the primary functions people keep asking him to “fix” or “take care of”
  • Limbs seem to be the thing to remove in order to kill beasties faster
  • Cool guns/weapons
  • Figure of authority who is the cause of problems/doesn’t do anything to stop problems from spreading
  • Ambiguous ending (for main campaign play. Dead Space had two more games after, and Callisto Protocol had DLC that we’ll get into later)

The things Callisto did well:

  • World design
    • large prison moon that expanded across the entirety of the location. The depth of the prison is revealed to have an older, failed settlement underneath the initial location. There are several sequences of falling that help showcase the absolute behemoth of a world Callisto is.
  • Weapons
    • I thought it was ridiculously cool that you could 3D print your guns/upgrades. There was the standard “credits for upgrades” stuff throughout, but I enjoyed the animation for the printing of the upgrades every time it happened. The boom stick made such a satisfying sound when it hit enemies. That kind of small detail was one of my favorite parts of the whole game.
  • Visuals in general
    • The colors, lighting, textures, etc all played a part in making it an immersive environment. The design of the enemies (I called them gooey dudes and freezy boys depending on location) is gross enough to be what I’d consider a standard of the genre, but interesting enough to be distinguishable from other games. A caveat is the gooey dudes were a little similar to the clickers from Last of Us, but that’s a digression. When fighting on the surface of the moon, everything kind of had this grayscale effect to it that was really, really cool, and enemies kind of blended in if they weren’t frozen in place.
  • Sound design
    • Not only was the music a legit part of the environment, but the creaks and rumbles and splashes were all insanely fun. I started my watch-through not wearing headphones but quickly put them on because I couldn’t hear what Jacob (main character) was saying. The sound is binaural and wowzers. The anxiety is heightened when you can hear something ahead but you can’t see it. The voices of the security bots is also intensified when it sounds like they’re right next to you as you’re being stealthy.
  • Enemies
    • Speaking of the security bots, haha. As the location is a prison on a moon, the elements of security would necessitate bots of some kind. These bots are not the standard floating boxes. These bots are completely badass.
(image from fan art on a Reddit post: click to visit)

What enhances the security bots later is a misguided scientist’s attempt to combine biology with tech and all she gets is this monstrous metal gloopy being bent on killing everything. The reveal of these enemies is pretty cool because there’s the shiny metal, but also the muscle mass and sinew of mammalian biology.

What Callisto Protocol failed for me:

  • Main character is a bit boring
    • Jacob is a pilot, a courier. He crash lands on Callisto while delivering and is kept as a prisoner because he “knows too much.” I think this game fell into the trap of “meet here and we’ll decide what to do next” only to keep using that mechanic to propel the game forward. As Jacob, we do a lot of running to places to fix things I’m not sure a pilot would necessarily have the skill required to fix. There are some moments where the characters acknowledge this lack of skill, but he still manages to fix the things just fine. Josh Duhamel as the VA for Jacob was a solid choice, though.
  • Gameplay is repetitive
    • Not only do you have to keep meeting people only to have to meet them later on a different level for a different task, there’s a lot of repetition in those tasks. Changing a fuse to open a door is a pretty standard sci-fi horror task, but it seemed like there were very few doors we didn’t need to change a fuse for, or he had to cut the wires for something to open. The stealth kill animation is also very similar to Joel’s in Last of Us. I know there are going to be similarities, but even to the way the main character lays the victim down feels a little recycled.
  • Story doesn’t have much cohesion
    • This is strictly for main campaign gameplay. Once Jacob saves the life of a resistance member (Dani) from the virus, he sends her off in an escape pod. They’ve shared their memories so she has his knowledge of the situation, and he has hers of why she’s a resistance member. He then runs off toward the exploding prison like the hero he is. There is no explanation that makes sense to why Jacob “knows too much.” It’s revealed he has some kind of dementia, or amnesia, but there’s no explanation for that either. Supposedly this missing information is passed to Dani, but the player never gets that conclusion. For all we know based on the story presented, Jacob is just the victim of corrupt prison wardens and human security and he doesn’t actually know anything.
  • DLC felt like an insult
    • The main campaign takes about seven hours to complete. The DLC adds almost another three. Essentially 9 hours of total gameplay. It’s full of the whole “we need to do this before we can do that! Meet me here and I’ll open the door for you!” tactic, and that grows incredibly tiresome after a few hours. The continuation of that for the DLC is a disappointment because we don’t get to have proper exploration of the world or story.
    • SPOILER: (the DLC) it was all just in his head. The reveal at the end of the DLC that this was all a “could have been/might have been” as he’s dying in the scientist’s lab is such a slap to the face. When Jacob watches Dani fly off in the escape pod, he’s blown up. The prison doctor/scientist finds him and hooks him up to her machines. All of the running around he does in the DLC is just a dream he conjures while being kept alive so his memories can transfer. In the scheme of storytelling, this is such a cheap way to end a story you didn’t even bother to fill out in the first place. There’s no explanation for pretty much anything, and we’re left to wonder why we played the game so long if it wasn’t going to give us any conclusion.
      • ANOTHER SPOILER: At the very end, Josh Duhamel’s voice comes out of Jacob and he’s shouting that “hey, it’s me, Josh! I’m not dead! Hey!” This would have been fun to me if I hadn’t just witnessed it all being a dream. It felt like the producers laughing as they turned the lights off and left me in the dark as I asked why.

All of the negatives I’ve listed do not detract from the fact I loved this game up till the end. The ending left me bitter and annoyed, but everything else was fantastic. There are similarities to Dead Space, yes, but I think overall Callisto is its own game and I think if we can forgive a shit ending, we can appreciate the game that got us to that shit ending. The visuals, especially the lighting with the sort of neon colors against the darkness of a failing environment, were so cool. Sound design was also amazing to me.

I think I originally gave this game a 6/10 because of the ending, but I feel like that’s harsh considering how much fun I had until that point. I will give this an 8/10.

Salisbury.Fake Weekly Update, writing

Writing Journal #5

I don’t necessarily have writer’s block, I have lack of interest in writing at the moment. I’m still trying to write, though, and so some of the stuff that comes out is useable and other bits are more scrappable.

I am not discouraged by this, though! Sometimes taking breaks is necessary. Give a brain a bit of a rest. I’m doing some reading, though. Currently I’m reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, and The Temptation to Exist by E.M. Cioran. I may review one or both of those! May also just read them, haha.

I considered doing a game review of a game I recently watched a playthrough of, but I sometimes feel like a poser when I try to talk about video games. I’m not skilled in the slightest at playing them, so I usually watch games (without commentary). Big, big space horror fan.

Back to writing: I’ve done a few things with the language I made up for the Maker series, like named a metal and started … doodling? I guess would be the word for it, but seeing how sentence structure would work. Different cities would have different structure sometimes, I think, as a way to differentiate their cultures/accents/etc.

I think that’s about all I have in terms of an update for now. Until next time, friends.

Salisbury.Fake Uncategorized, Weekly Update

Where Do I Go From Here?

I feel it poking at the back of my brain, trying to wheedle its way into my skull. To bury itself where it feels most familiar, most comfortable. I am surrounded by what-ifs and why. Can’t you just let me breathe?

I wish I had answers and timeframes, and understanding of the deeper parts of fear. I just have a promise to keep trying. Keep doing. Keep rising out of bed, keep putting my shoes on and still be a person where it’s expected of me.

I want to hollow myself out and climb inside. Wrap the cavity around me and tighten it with screws. Let me get to know the woman I’ve become. Without being asked why I changed. Why I became.

It’s okay not to be okay, of course, but how long do you let that be your maxim? Your guide through life? When does it stop being a thing you tell yourself for grace and becomes a thing you tell yourself to hide?

Hide with me, I beg the moon. Hide away with me from all the sunrises coming for me, so I can stay with the part of me I don’t know yet, the part I’ve been running from this whole time.

Is it right, I ask my back patio, to leave the tired parts of my mind behind, to stand guard against the darkness seeping in through their fingers, while the rest of me pushes forward a brightness I know is false? Is it right of me to do that?

I wish I could tell you, I say to the pillow I tossed onto my mattress last night. I wish I could tell you why I can’t find the pieces. I just can’t.

I’ll keep looking, though, don’t worry.

Salisbury.Fake Weekly Update, writing

Writing Journal #4

I’ve been working rather steadily on the first draft of the third book. Lazarus Rising. Not the religious connotations it might seem to have, but kind of? Based purely on Tobias (the creator of Telaroth) liking the story of Lazarus so much he used the name as a way to distance himself from the problems he caused. It goes so much deeper than that, of course, but this book is one of the first we see into Lazarus. Characters go into the sister-world and it is truly one of the coolest places to spend an afternoon in my head.

I am currently doing some typing so I don’t have an entire book to type in a few months when I have the first draft done. But I’m writing chapter sixteen now. Just scootin’ right along.

I’ve been thinking more and more about submitting a few short pieces for magazines/journals/etc, but I know next to nothing about that process. I have a few friends who are regular submitters and they’ve offered advice, so when I get the confidence to start collecting rejections, I’ll implement what I learn from them.

Sometimes I beta read as well, and one of the things that surprises the people I read for is how fast I get it done. So, I’ve considered maybe turning that into a side hustle. Get some dollars for a hobby? I don’t know. I truly enjoy reading through people’s work and seeing how I can help them tell the story they want to. I don’t really do line-edits, but I do broader content and some typo assist. I keep waffling back and forth on asking for money for it, though, because it is something I really do enjoy.

But my father told me once never give my work away for free.

And the part of me that breathes words says the delight I get from doing this kind of thing is the payment I need or even want.

Things to think about, of course.

Aside from that, I have a secret-not-so-secret project looming for the summer months, and I’m excited about that in the sense that it’s a piece I never really thought I’d publish. It’s a romance novel of sorts, and one I’ve worked on for yeeeeears and years. Never putting it anywhere more than a now defunct forum.

I will get the first draft of Lazarus Rising finished, and then work on Daisy while Lazarus steeps. When I get to the fourth book in the Maker series, that’ll be a challenge because I’ve never written a draft–first person or third. Everything else has at least been through a first person POV version. Uncharted territory ahead, and it’s exciting but intimidating all at once.

Thanks for reading this ramble of writing thoughts. Until next time, friends.

Salisbury.Fake Life

Just Do Your Best

I’m not sure how to start this one, so I’m just going to dive right on in there.

When I was a kid, I danced for about nine years. Ballet. I did the whole competition stuff, but I also did a private studio that didn’t participate in competitions. We would dance in local events, though, and there was this Christmas festival every year where members of groups and communities could decorate a Christmas tree and people would “buy” the tree. Proceeds went to charities or something. I might not have the full details on that because I was little and didn’t understand why I danced at this thing, I just knew I did.

One year, I’d asked my dad to be there. I don’t remember why, but it was really, really important for him to be there. He had dental surgery that day, and the pain meds he was given ended up making him sleep through my performance.

My dad arrived at the venue and knelt on the floor and just hugged me so tight and said he was sorry he missed my dance. He even showed me the inside of his lip as proof that there was a reason he wasn’t there. The regret in his eyes and the way he hugged me for what felt like an hour while kneeling on that hard floor, all because he thought he had failed me.

But he was there. He did show up.

I still feel that hug to this day.

I have more dances for him to see. They’re just not ballet. People won’t remember everything about you, but they’ll remember you trying. They’ll remember you being there in whatever way you can. I hope you continue to be here. And I hope you are a little gentler on yourself because you are doing your best.

Salisbury.Fake Weekly Update, writing

Writing Journal #3

I’ve finished chapter eight of Lazarus Rising’s first draft. I’m writing from Fogg’s perspective in the beginning of this book, giving him some space to be seen. Not that he deserves such a grace given who he is. Some of the feedback I’ve gotten on Keeper is how dark it is, how violent Frankie ends up being in some instances. I guess I never really saw it as violence if she’s just using what she learns in defense of herself. Because that’s what it all ends up being, self-defense. I suppose I could probably leave some of the finer details out, but what I’ve enjoyed about my writing growth while working on the whole Maker series is seeing how I can use the darker sides of myself to propel a story. How I can give voice to the parts of me that otherwise wouldn’t be expressed. I’m not a murderous psychopath. But someone in my stories is, so I can take them as far as I want to, knowing I am safe from their evilness.

That then begs the question: how much of it is author-insertion? Do I have thoughts of violence? Do I run through the scenes that appear in my books like I want them to be realities? I don’t want them to be real. That’s the beauty of living in fiction, I can put people who don’t exist through extraordinary ordeals to show just how much they can handle–or not handle–and come out on the other side of it. It’s a wonderful thing, the power of creation. I don’t want the world to burn in reality, but I can sure write it doing that very thing in a book.

I’m going to keep going for tonight, and get as much done in chapter nine as I can. I’m almost done writing Fogg’s bit, and then I’ll have a chapter interlude for the Unbound, and then it’s back to Frankie. The page number formatting for this is going to be a nightmare, but I will get it done.

And that’s all I have for you today. Until next time, friends.

Salisbury.Fake writing

Timmy In the Well – a poem

I wish I could be seen with eyes
that know the reason why
I hide my smiles behind
questions I leave unanswered.
So you think you have
the knowledge of my spheres,
when I have buried so deeply
the things I love about myself
to keep them safe, to keep them mine.

I think I remain alone
so no one finds the pathway
through the labyrinth, the hedges
of superficial vulnerability
I install so no one sees just how
far my aching runs, how dark
it is in the permafrost I brick
around my heart; so no one
ever sees how hard I try
to be happy.

Salisbury.Fake Weekly Update, writing

Writing Journal #2 – Description

Back when I was a wee writer lass, I used to spend a lot of time on what I now consider “unnecessary description.” We’ll get into that here shortly, I just want to put a disclaimer of sorts here that I am not saying the writers who do this are bad. There are audiences for pretty much any kind of story written. I will also say when I was a younger reader, I did sometimes prefer the description I’m about to go into. As I’ve gotten older, however, I find it is less satisfying to have such direct references and specifics in a story. I like to wander a bit and imagine with some of the vaguer choices.

What I mean by direct references is the name-dropping of brands of clothing, specific types of furniture, exact songs playing during a moment, the color of the paint on the walls, the down-to-the-very-last-detail of the kitchen.

Telling me the main character is wearing Converse is only important if that plays a massive part in their characterization for the whole story. “Black and white shoes worn to the point of needing tape to be held together” indicates the importance of the shoes far more than the brand name does. The fraying, dingy shoelaces, old sharpie drawings of stars and smiley faces. These shoes are beloved, and it is far easier to see that through the description than being told what it is.

It’s the same as giving me a specific song playing in a moment. Unless that song becomes pivotal to the story later on, don’t tell me what song it is. I think book playlists are marvelous because it gives a vibe, but it doesn’t force me to think of a specific song. Giving me the opportunity to see a scene and feel it through the more purposeful description, such as “vibrant violin music played softly in the corner on an old record player” allows me to sink further into the moment far more than “Vivaldi’s Winter was playing.”

One of my favorite books of all time, I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith has this magnificent moment where the main character is dancing with her sister’s betrothed, and she loves the piece playing, but she doesn’t find out what it is until after the dance has completed and a major moment happens for her. Debussy’s Clair De Lune is also mentioned, but again it’s after being described by the main character within the context of the moment it’s happening.

To reiterate, I don’t necessarily think there’s anything wrong with using direct descriptions. There are audiences for such a thing, but I find it’s so limiting while writing, and relying on those specifics kind of takes away the wonder of a really good description.

This is a ramble. If you made it this far, thank you. I’ll see you next week.

Salisbury.Fake Weekly Update, writing

Writing Journal #1

One of the things I plan on using this blog for now is a kind of writing journal, where I drop all the stuff I’ve worked on during the week/day/lifetime/etc. For this inaugural entry, I give you:

  1. Finished chapter three of the third book in the Maker series (first draft)
  2. Wrote a personal essay that may or may not be a future blog post
  3. Doodled little scenes between two of my main characters.
  4. Outlined in my head a few ideas for a romance novel I’m looking to get printed this year. It won’t be offered for sale, but I want a few people to have it, so I’m going to do that one for myself.
  5. Considered once again putting together a compendium for the language I made up

And that’s all the tales I have for you from this week. I did start chapter four of the third book (Lazarus Rising), and I’ve started with the perspective of a different character for this one. Usually it’s Frankie being front-and-center, but this time we’re starting with Fogg, baby. The first section of the book will be his perspective, and we’ll see some of his backstory and some of the current events being unleashed now that certain things have happened.

Thank you for stopping by. I hope you are doing well, and if you are not, I hope it stops being a beshmapasen for you soon.