Day 46 -- Insomnia?

So it's technically Thursday. It's 4:31 AM at the moment, and I have slept maybe 6 hours total today, all of the hours being from little naps.

It's official: Laptop + Internet + Travian = No sleep.

I'm surprisingly not tired, though. Maybe it's all the caffeine I regularly consume, or the lack of movement (aka burning off energy) that has brought about a sense of alertness. I feel awake. Refreshed. I can sleep for an hour and wake up ready to do a whole day.

Could I be showing symptoms of being an insomniac? Probably not. But it's still something to keep in mind.

But Travian is taking up a whole bunch of my time. I'm on it so much, I'm thinking of making my own Travian blog, just so people can see how I play and better their game, or maybe even better my own. :D

I need to do my Composition homework... we actually got to write a little blurb on a messy room. I'll stick that on WF sometime soon... haven't been on that site for a while... Travian takes up most of my day... :(

Day 44 -- Travian Starts Again

So I started Travian again on the 29th of May. I am now in college, as everyone should know, and I have way too much free time on my hands. So I thought, what better way to pass the time than to play Travian? So here I am.

There were quite a few so's in that last paragraph, as my Comp. professor would say. But so what? :D

For those of you that don't know what Travian is, here's about as quick of a rundown as I can possibly do: It's a RTS, or Real-Time Strategy for non-nerds, and consists mainly of building up resources and buildings and troops and then attacking the crap out of everyone around you. You play with tens of thousands of other real human players, so the experience gets pretty wild. Emotion plays a big part, because if you make someone mad... watch out!

I decided to play Romans, the easier of the three tribes, in my opinion. I have a couple friends playing with me now, like Andrew, Nissen, and Jon. I also have my old ally from server 2, Karen, so we should be able to do a little domination.

Only problem is... this takes a lot of time to do, lol. I spend about 3/5 of my day online now, building, raiding, messaging. No time for anything else, lol. :D

Another thing... while I was checking out strategies and such for the new server, I found this website with a guy selling a book on strategy. So I think to myself, hey this has to be a scam or something... But he's willing to give 12 or so tips for free so we can see he's genuine. TRUST ME: He IS genuine. :D Not to mention funny... Anyway, without trying to sound like an advertisement whore, here's his website: http://tips4travian.com/

Anyway, the main website is Travian.com, and I am registered in server 9. If you want to join an alliance with me, just message Darkdyer! :D

Day 37 -- Beginning of College

So I'm sitting in the computer lab of my college (DMACC), and I have this overwhelming sense of glee at the thought of me being free and out in the world to do whatever I want. So far, however, today consisted of burning a bunch of cash and walking. A lot of walking. BUT, I am now completely paid for class-wise, and I have also started to move into my campus apartment. My roommate is some Indian guy that has a quite large stack of video games, a laptop, Xbox 360, and a perfect gaming computer.

In other words, as best of a friend as a guy like me can get. :D

I don't have much in my dorm, and probably won't. Classes start tomorrow, and as of right now, the library and bookstores are about 20 feet away. So I'll make sure to buy my books in preparation for the work ahead. Tomorrow I have Principles of Macroeconomics and Intro to Philosophy. Sounds vividly exciting. But hey, it's a start. Thursday I'll be in Composition I, and that's definitely a me-friendly class.

Day 32 -- Last Day

Today is the last day of my high school career. After 13 long grueling years, it's finally over. In a matter of 3 days, I will be living on my own and going to summer classes. Even though I've been counting down the remaining days since there was roughly 110 left, it still seems as though this all suddenly leapt in my face.

SURPRISE! You're graduating this Sunday!

I'm like, holy crap! It definitely wasn't supposed to happen this fast. Yesterday I was dating my first girlfriend, and a week ago I was watching Gumbi on the TV with my mom. Now tomorrow I'll be graduating from college, and a week from now I'll probably be married and perhaps even with a kid. I ask myself, am I ready?

I think I am. Heck, I hope I am.

Anyway. Just felt like venting for a little while. I won't be able to throw a post on here until the 27th or so. I won't have any internet access until then. Let's try this graduated mentality on for size, shall we?

Day 23 -- A Novel Idea

So I'm sitting here, thinking about my future writing career. Beings that I'm going to go into college to pursue a degree in English or whatever, I should probably think about what this will entail. I want to be able to publish my works for cash. Who wouldn't? I think I have the skills necessary to do this. I even have the motivation.

I have written a total of six works so far. I know, I know, this may not be much to those out there with fifty or sixty things done. But to me, it's a lot... because until August of last year, I had never finished anything. Nothing good at least. And I've been trying to write for six years now. Not a good ratio. But now I'm taking this seriously.

I have to look forward. I can't sit here for the rest of my life writing short stories and hoping to make minimum wage. That's not very likely. So I have to take all my writing prowess and dedicate it to a novel. But what idea? I have been told that "The Bloodlord" would make a great novel, and after giving it some thought I agree. The Blood Oath could create an underworld of magic, a dark fantasy of the likes that I am dreaming of. And the assassin idea? Great! I want to write a novel about that so much. Another idea would be a sort of expanding of "The Gray Eye." A sort of zombie apocalypse run by distinct clans of women that is challenged by holy powers. There would be a neutral group of plain wizards. Dark VS light, where dark is the main character's POV.

I'll have to figure it out. Anyone have any ideas?

I apologize, btw... the link from before didn't work. I posted it in the Writer's Workshop, so I can't link it for non-members (Thanks, Tiamat). I'll try to get some of it for the general population later.

Day 22 -- LIterary Maneuver

First of all, I have to say that I watched the latest X-Men movie this weekend. Finally. I think the one week wait that I had to endure was way too long. :D But it was amazing. Simply amazing. The movie had a 5-star rating before the firing squad scene... and never strayed. There were a couple cheesy parts, but those work in superhero movies.

Onto other topics. On the forum that I spend most of my time, there is a contest going on called the Literary Maneuver. I got pretty excited about it. Seemed up my alley, a good bit of training. The concept: Write a 500-word flash fiction that has to do with a main element. For this contest, the theme is "We'd like to know a little about you for our file." Pretty intriguing idea, and the first scenario that popped into my head was an interrogation. Too lame. I knew that would be done. So I settled for an idea about part of an interrogation that led to this guy figuring out he has special abilities that may have been erased from his memory. It was an easy write, about an hour, but the killer was editing it to be 500 words without detracting from the story. I'm done, just got to type it, but I think it turned out OK for my first time. I plan on a couple more of my own Lit Maneuvers to hone my writing and editing prowess.

Other news... finally finished typing "The Gray Eye." I posted it on WF, and hope to score a few crits. Here's the link: The Gray Eye.

Day 17 -- AP Calculus

It's finally over. Took long enough, in my opinion. This class has been challenging, from integration to derivatives to tangents and other crud. We took the test today, which cost about $44, and it took from 7:30 to 12:15. Wasn't in the least bit fun, except for the breaks and the camaraderie between me and my fellow Calc-Mates. The end of all of it sucked, but that's a different story. I'm thinking about making a t-shirt with a couple of the memories on it. Like "+C", and "It's beyond the scope of the text." The class was interesting, to say the least. And now all the worry is going to dissolve into watching movies for the last 11 days of class.

Worked on "A Small Touch" last night. Which was great. I realized that I really do have difficulty writing anything except action scenes and dialogue. I have no trouble with those. But when I'm trying to describe how the cold is affecting my main character so much... I fail. But I'm still trying. I have one and a half pages done. It should be about 4, just like "A Gray Eye." Speaking of that one, I need to start typing it.

Got my Literary Maneuver for WF done a couple days ago. It ended up being 580 words instead of the 500 it was supposed to be, but I have no motivation to edit it. Heck, I don't like editing anything. My English teacher gave me a crit for "The Bloodlord," but I haven't done anything more than just look at it. I've got a problem with this senioritis.

A so-called friend of mine has pretty much crapped out on me, though I meant for it to happen. He's acting extremely immature, which gives me a reason to dislike the fellow. He needs to grow up. Hopefully sooner or later. I came to the realization today that the people in high school will judge you mercilessly just so they appear more popular. Once a person is out of that zone that they were in for 13 years, they really find out that people don't know what you did to so-and-so and etcetera. You have a clean slate. And when they found out you're a nice guy... feel's good. No more senseless popularity-searching. So in 11 more days... no more of this. I start anew. All my friends are in my writing groups, or people I rarely see. And I'm okay with that.

Day 11 -- Nonviolence and First Publish

Got a new idea for a story. It's called "A Small Touch." I realized looking back on all my finished works that they are 80% violence, with the exception of "The Gray Eye." So I decided to write a story that isn't violent. The story is about a young teenager who runs from home after his dad abuses him... in his mind, for the last time. The only problem is that it's winter, and he has no where else to go. After stumbling around in freezing temps, he hallucinates that he sees a small orange flash. He follows it into a sheltered alcove, and it turns out the flash was a fairy! Though they can't speak the same language, they can still mime their conversation. The fairy ends up keeping the kid warm due to that strange fairy magic, and he sleeps soundly...

I thought it was a good idea. What do you all think?

As for my first publish... it wasn't exactly a major moment, but I did put The Bloodlord in the school newsletter this month, and scored a whopping 10 extra credit points for it! Yesss, as Napoleon Dynamite would say. I realized that there was an edit problem, and now I have a solid line where there definitely wasn't supposed to be one. But I can deal with that. No money for it, duh, but my writing has now been distributed to the main school population. So far, I've been asked twice if I was a serial killer. That's because the story is in first person, and everyone assumes I did these things.

Kind of hard, wouldn't you think? I can't exactly channel Oath and send hellfire into people's bodies, let alone fight perfectly with a dirk and dagger. I found it humorous.

And as of 8:30 this morning, I've had 31 hits that weren't by me.

Day 9 -- Mind of Me

So I realize that I can't get the real font that I want. This Safari won't allow me to get it. Kind of frustrated by that, but I think if I'm really careful I'll get over it.

I started drawing a comic about a year ago. It's supposed to be about my sarcastic musings, whatever they are about. It's pretty interesting to me. One of the comics I wrote had to be about one day when my mom asked me to help talk to her about whether or not she looked good in Victoria's Secret lingerie. Didn't happen, thank goodness, but it was the idea that she had talked to my sister about trying on bathing suits. Odd, in my opinion. So I posted one here, down near the middle of the blog. It's just my latest. In art class, I plan to color it on Photoshop, and I'll post the finished product when I'm... finished. Enjoy! I'll post more later.

I finished LOBT (Living On Borrowed Time) yesterday, which pretty much made my day. Now I have 5 finished works. I'm going to type up The Gray Eye (my necromantic story), and post it on WF soon. Then I'll see if I get some decent crits. That place is dying. I may have to abandon ship and find a new forum.

I got a profile pic on Facebook! For all millions of fans, look me up there sometime. Name=Joshua Wilson. It's the odd picture of half a kid's face. That'd be moi.

I got about what, 20 hits that aren't by me now? Not bad. Keep the traffic up. If there's something you want to say, and the whole "comment" deal doesn't work, just e-mail me sometime at chronofraz@yahoo.com. I'll be sure to hit you back!

Day 4 -- Blank Mind

I actually have a blank mind when it comes to what I would title this blog. I mean, I can think of a bunch of things, but none of them are witty and/or amusing. So here's Blank Mind.

We get a 3 day weekend this week. Yay. It means I have to go home and deal with my father for an extra day. He'll probably be working, and if I'm lucky I'll play some Chrono Trigger on my DS. If not... I'll be pounding out an outline for the upcoming AP Calculus exam and writing LOBT as well as a new non-violent idea I have. It's about this guy that is newly homeless during the winter. A fire-fairy helps him survive. It's supposed to be touching. We'll see if I'm capable of writing something like that.

Only 19 hits so far. And I think that only 5 or so are other people. Most of them are me logging in to write more, check my hits, and get on my music website. Lovely. Thanks to Mr. Stewart and Mr. Paulsen, I now have a couple followers. Thanks, guys. Hopefully you find this at least slightly amusing.

Wrote a little bit to a friend on Facebook. He's changed quite a bit since I was friends with him in 8th grade, and now he tells me that he was faking that the entire time. Just like I was faking my attitude to get popularity back then. Surreal. Got DetentionVeteran on WF talking to me daily. Keeps me interested.

Nothing else to say, except I'm currently typing my first finished satirical story, The Duel. I'll post bits of that soon.

Found this on another deviantArt (http://almowali-al7ur.deviantart.com/art/Blank-111102673)

Day 3 -- The Bloodlord

A while ago, around March 10, actually, I started writing a short story called The Bloodlord. I got the idea while thinking about the Twilight series. About vampires. I mean, in my opinion, those books were kind of geared toward pubescent girls to have a fantasy. I like the idea of vampires, so I switched it to be darker and relate to magic. I ended up with assassins that drink blood to get magic, called Oath. I have the full story here at Writingforums.com: The Bloodlord (3,317 Words)

My favorite part is the beginning: Killing is an art. Blood is its paint. And I am its artist.

Awesome, right?

I made one of my favorite action scenes as well, and here it is:

"I had my first throwing dagger out of its sheath and into one of the nearest guard’s chest before the rest of them had a chance to fully react, causing him to fall back from his chair. Then one of the guards was smart enough to upturn the table, sending the playing board, tiles, coins, and beer in my direction. There was no way the rubbish could have reached me, but it was a reasonable attempt to distract me long enough to bring their weapons to bear and not be so flat-footed. It didn’t work, but my second lightning-fast throw still sunk into the mahogany wood of the table.

It was crucial that I did not let them ready their blades, so I burned more Oath into summoning a ball of hellfire which I summarily threw at their makeshift cover. The fireball blew apart the table with explosive force. Then I threw another dagger through the hole for good measure, whipped my fighting dagger out instantly after that, and leaped forward.

I easily ducked under a wild slash and responded with a double thrust. I spun the blades around and opened up a deep stomach cut with my dirk and deflected another stab with the dagger. Then I swept up and gutted the only standing fighter from crotch to throat. My dagger stabbed out and drove through the forehead of the guard clutching at his stomach."

I had a lot of fun with that one. It reminded me a lot of the Drizzt novels that I try to pull my writing style from.

So anyway, there's my latest work. I'm still working on Living on Borrowed Time... I hope to get that one up and ready soon. But then again, I am a slow typist. :D

EDIT: Took the above picture off of this guy's deviantArt (http://fc05.deviantart.com/fs40/f/2009/037/e/3/_assassinscreed__by_Kermodog.gif)

Day 1 -- First Post

Hey. Nice to meet you, reader. *Handshake*

I've been trying to find an outlet to publish my writing. I am currently a user on Writingforums.com, but I don't seem to get enough feedback there for my liking. I also tried posting it on deviantArt.com, but that was horrible. Not a single comment. I'm looking for a crit, here. I mean, read my shit all you want. But at least leave me a comment or something. Good or bad.

I write fantasy fiction. You know, the good stuff with wizards, elves, dragons, swordplay, and plenty of magic. So if you're interested in that kind of stuff, you have found the perfect place for it. I hope you enjoy reading my shit as much as I enjoy writing it.

Also added another blog that I'll put flash games and other random crap that doesn't belong on such a sophisticated page as this.