Mice and NaNoWriMo

35k, so my goal for today is reached. My personal writing goal has been modified to take into account missing some days while I am in Delaware; if you are shooting for an average words/day rate to hit 50k, by the end of today you should have 28,322 (roughly 1,666*17). Spoilers below, so avoid reading this if you want to be able to read the mouse story when it is done without being spoiled.

I Like Lawful Good Heroes

“You were supposed to stop them,” Uzzah said, almost hissing as he drew nose to nose with Thomas.

“No. I enforce the council’s ruling. You’ll find I have done so. To the letter.”

Birds!; Mice and Mystics; NaNoWriMo

Birds!

I apologize for lack of blogging, especially for the next few weeks. Here is my one-paragraph review of Mice and Mystics. First, the minis, rulebook and physical stuff is pretty awesome looking. The cards and map tiles aren't extremely durable feeling, but they held up to a day of play just fine. The rules are crisp, easy to pick up and relatively intuitive. Having only played through the first two scenarios (and only partially through the third), one thing I thought was odd was not letting everyone have access to all six heroes in the first scenario to pick from. Splitting the party in the second scenario also was awkward feeling because the player who played Lilly had a pretty boring experience until we got there. Overall, I approve. Next time I play, I'll try and take some pictures of the board and give you some more important thoughts. Below the fold is my NaNoWriMo update.

On People Not Being Suckers

If it looks like it is fake, it is probably fake. A lesson someone in Denver is probably learning right now. Painfully so, in fact. On the bright side, if you live in the Denver area, I have a sneaking suspicion a position or two may be opening at this ABC News affiliate.

Journalists: Get it fast, but get it right.

I'm going back to NaNoWriMo, where the mice at least do their due diligence.

Mice and Mystics

I finally got to open my box of Mice and Mystics. From the rule book and the training video, it looks like a nice cross between Super Dungeon Explore and Warhammer Quest. This is a thing I can get behind. Pictures are below.

NaNoWriMo: Day 4 Update

Day 4: 7,400~ words. That puts me slightly ahead of the day to day words-to-day curve to hit 50,000. So far, I'm taking it slow and steady. I'm also keeping in mind that people publish Stephen King, so I don't need to worry too much about quality.

NaNoWriMo: Day 1

Today has been slow on the writing front. Namely, we're about 1,700 words after the first spurt of writing. There's still some more to get done today (namely, my goal is to get to the point where our hero and his trusty companion make it to the giants' lair, so probably another thousand words or so.) One thing I've found is that I actually like this story. I've decided that instead of giants and regular sized people, the story is going to be about mice and human scientists. I'm going to avoid spoilers, but I also like the ending. The mystical artifacts are actually things that have gone missing from the laboratory that the scientist wants back, which he enters into a pact with the mouse: If the mouse finds his missing items and returns them, the scientist will agree to stop his testing on animals and free the ones he has in captivity.

Now, since simply writing such a cheesy story (see what I did there?) was going to be too easy, I've added a layer of challenge. That is this: Since the main of the story is told from the point of view of the mice, who live in a small community in the sewers of any city, U.S.A., with everything above ground simply being The Sky (sort of like Fraggles and Outer Space, I realized after writing these first few pages), they should never call themselves mice. They also really shouldn't take much special notice of their mousey features. Having a tail or whiskers is normal to them. Like I explained to someone, we wouldn't have people say: "My brother, the human, said," so the mice are just mice. They'll not refer to rats as rats; their rather large, wild predators that hunt in packs through the sewers. Birds and stray cats on the surface are sky creatures; people are giants.

I don't know why the mice all have Biblical names (including minor ones), but I do like it. I also like that I've decided our hero mouse is not the most competent of the scouts; the story begins with him being caught trying to sneak out after curfew and being chewed out for his incompetent nightly excursions that have cost the community two of their other scouts. There are some obvious influences that you can see right away on the story (see the reference to Fraggle Rock above), but I also see obvious Red Wall type allusions. Probably Mouse Guard too, if I had read more than the Free Comic Book Day Mouse Guard story. Even though I haven't received my copy of Mice and Mystics, that's probably nestled somewhere in my subconscious and driving the plot and characterization. So, despite initially not being too in love with this topic, I am actually falling in love with the story potential and the characters.

National Novel Writing Month Tip 01: Write. No matter how bad or clunky the words feel: Write. You cannot edit an empty page. I think I should make that a quote for the blog and on my Facebook page, since it is probably the cornerstone of my developing writing philosophy.

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P.S.,

Do you want updates of the Mouse Story as I write it? Contact me, and if there's enough interest, I'll transfer the file to Google docs and post updates with my NaNoWriMo blog updates.

Failing Is Not Fun

In some cases, it is OK to fail. Some of the better scenes in adventure games is finding unique ways to kill our hero. I doubt they enjoy it, but whatever. Table top games are the same way, if the heroes easily triumph over every thing, that's not really fun. In real life, failure isn't ideal. Though, some endeavors take longer to get the hint. We played a game awhile back where winning was fun, but losing? Losing was just a slow, unbearable grind. I'm not sure how you make losing fun though.