The Iceman Cometh: 2009

Christmas night... 6 days to go in 2008. I will not post again until January. Much work to be done at the store, and here at home: rolling away the remnants of this Yule, not to be seen again until November 2009 or thereabouts.

I am pissed. I lost pretty much all the writing I got done last week. It was only a few paragraphs and some scattered editing, but it was good work, done in a good spirit. Windows updated and I apparently had not saved my work, only minimized the fucking window. Fuckfuckfuckfuck-frickin'-fuck.

Can't even think about picking up where I left off. Where I left off is now in an alternate reality, some corkscrew dimension where I actually behave like a sentient biomass. What the hell does one do when one's own gross incompetence is the reason for one's artistic malaise???

I mean, fuck.

Song of the Woodland Wolf

No carle the axe whetteth on oak-laden hill;
No shaft the hart letteth to wend at his will;
None heedeth the thunder-clap over the glade,
And the wind-storm thereunder makes no man afraid.
Is it thus then that endeth man's days on Mid-earth,
For no man there wendeth in sorrow or mirth?

Nay, look down on the road

from the ancient abode!

Betwixt acre and field

Shineth helm, shineth shield.

And high over the heath

Fares the bane in his sheath;

For the wise men and bold

Go their ways o'er the wold.

--William Morris, The Roots of the Mountains

Eyeing the saddle, though not back in it yet

Been writing some this week, fleshing out a chapter in my novel The Woodreeve's Tale. The plot grows more complex, despite my initial wish for a simple, straightforward adventure narrative. The Woodreeve's apprentice, the Witch, the thanes, even the Black Paladin are all beginning to demand a more sensitive approach to their motives.

It is becoming the bane of my writing. I can no longer write simple characters. They clamour for my attention (even the undead ones do). But no matter. I'm enjoying myself, and that -- more than any narcissistic need for validation via publication -- is at the moment what's got me writing again.

New DVD's reviewed below!

Tropic Thunder, Doctor Who: Season 4, and Mongol are now rated and added to my movie list.

New Additions to the MERP Library

At last... after being MIA from my Middle-earth Role-Playing library for over a decade: the perils of the Gorgoroth Plateau are at my fingertips once again. Gorgoroth is a wonderful read, if the land it details is not particularly accomodating to adventurers. Just reading about the treasures on display in Sauron's Forge gave me goosebumps... not that any PC's (even Dwalin, even -- dare I say it -- the legend that is Roon Dorozhand, son of Roon, et. al.) would survive its traps to see them.

I also managed to acquire (at embarrassing cost) another copy of Minas Ithil, this time with its accompanying City Map. The city of the Tower of the Moon is profoundly valuable to adventures in and around Mordor, though without the City Map it is much less so. At any rate, I now have all the ICE publications that cover the Mordor area, with the exception of the small adventure module Gates of Mordor. I will skip that, though, because it looks boring.

What I envision -- among the other campaigns that will most likely never materialize -- is a series of adventures centered at Minas Ithil, circa. T.A. 1640 or thereabouts. Just the thought of adventuring in the lands most heavily under Sauron's direct influence gives an edge to adventures therein that other settings lack, unless they be Moria, the maze of warrens beneath Mount Gundabad, or Dol Guldur.

Two Emperors

Caesar's Palace, Vegas, baby!

I lost two dollars. :(

Four days in Vegas was one too many... might have been better if it weren't a company business trip. But the food was good, and I went to a showing (my one and only, probably) of Cirque du Soleil's "O" at the Bellagio. It was very strange, very beautiful, very European. I enjoyed it immensely, and would easily go again, were I (again) given a ticket.

Naugrim

Apparently issue #4 of Other Minds online magazine will be ready

for download August 1. That, according to the site news. I will believe it when I see it, given their penchant for being late with nearly every issue. It should be interesting, though, since the entire volume deals with the Dwarves. A brief summary of the coming issue can be found at the site, the link for which is near the bottom of this Web page.