Aim For The Heart: October 2008

Yesterday was the release of Fallout 3. If that sentence makes sense to you, I don't need to explain how highly anticipated this event was. If it doesn't, you're probably not going to find this post all that interesting.

I took a vacation day yesterday. This may seem like a weird thing to say when you consider that I don't actually have a job. But I didn't do any chores (except go to CostCo, and that's because I was already over there), and I didn't write. I was back home and had the game installed by 12:30 and was able to start playing immediately.

And it was everything I'd hoped it would be. I can see the Oblivion engine underneath it, and I've seen on the official forums that the modding community has already started figuring out how to mod the game, even without an official construction set. So we should be seeing new content fairly soon. But even with vanilla Fallout, I'm loving the game. I upped the difficulty to Hard, because I found VATS made the game a little too easy. I'm also walking around with a ton of junk that may or may not have any use, plus ammo for guns I don't have and guns with no ammo. I've already become addicted to one drug (Psycho, I think), and I have a tendency to stay slightly irradiated. I also have a tendency to completely ignore the quest I was just given when I head in the direction of the building where it's located and then wander into half a dozen other places.

So far I've visited an elementary school, a water treatment plant, and a sewer, and I'm about to head into a grocery store tonight.

My consensus: if you liked Oblivion and like a post-apocalyptic game world, you'll love Fallout 3. If you hated Oblivion, but only for the fantasy elements, you'll probably really like Fallout 3. If, on the other hand, you hated everything about Oblivion, I doubt you'll like Fallout 3 at all.

As for me, I have an incentive to get everything done quickly today, so that I can get back in and try to survive the horrors of the wasteland.

Over on The Swivet, agent Colleen Lindsay's blog, is a guest blog post by Courtney Summers, soon-to-be-published author of Cracked Up To Be. Go ahead and read it; I'll wait.

One sentence particularly stuck out to me when I read her post:

"I decided the next novel I wrote was going to be a total uhm... balls-out experience and it was going to be everything I wanted it to be."

The reason this particular sentence struck such a chord with me was because this was exactly what I decided to do with the book that was eventually picked up for representation. I was afraid at first to make a heroine who was cold-blooded, efficient, didn't hesitate to squeeze the trigger. Much of the female-oriented action I'd read had heroines afraid of guns, or in the process of giving up the business because it bothers them, or very uncomfortable with the role they had in life.

But characters in movies often engage in acts of violence without remorse, without regret. I thought to myself, what if my heroine didn't hate her work? What if she knew exactly who she was and still liked herself? What if she didn't waste her time trying to avoid shooting the bad guy and just...shot him?

Would she still be a likable character? I still liked her. But would anyone else? I decided I didn't care. This was the story I wanted to write. This was a story I wanted to read. Even today, having read both Phaedra novels about twenty times each, I still like reading them. The books are dark, though often funny (well, they're supposed to be, anyway), but most importantly, they're books I enjoy.

I knew The Harrison Files (the novel I signed with Janet on) was the one. It was the first book I wrote where I felt it. It was my "balls-out" writing experience. It showed, too, and the book garnered much more agent interest than any of my previous efforts. It eventually led me to sign with one, and it told me there is a market for people who like their fiction hardcore, violent, and unapologetic.

If you find you're holding yourself back, trying to write a character a certain way because you're afraid other people won't like her, let yourself go. Take the gloves off. Let it all hang out and see if you don't make a character who comes alive on the page.

So this Saturday was our Rock Band party. We had a fantastic time with a great bunch of guys, and I hope we can have another one again soon. Besides me and Joe, we also had our gaming friends Pat and Mike, plus Joe's friend from work, Andy, and his roommate (David) and best friend (Eddie). I'd never met the latter three men before, so it was also great to meet cool new people. And they were, too! Not only were they nice guys, but they were also willing to get up there and sing.

I've been trying to play guitar on hard lately. (So the next person who chooses Disturbed's "Inside the Fire" as the last of a three-song set when I'm playing on hard gets popped over the head with a plastic guitar). I can tell it's working, because medium is starting to seem slow now. I'm missing easy stuff on medium because I'm not paying it enough attention. There are still some medium-difficulty songs that are a challenge ("Down With The Sickness" is killer), but I can tell I'm ready to move on for the most part. I never thought I'd be able to play hard before, which makes me think some day I'll even attempt expert.

Then one day I'll challenge Tom Morello to a real guitar battle, and he'll be like, "Whoa, do you know how to play guitar?" and I'll be like, "Yeah, bitch. Bring it. I can even play...on expert." And he'll be like, "No way, dude. Just take my money and go." Then he'll cry.

It has finally come to pass. Yes, that's right, ladies and gents. We have an honest-to-god oven again. And it's a beautiful thing: digital readout, buttons, the whole thing. It's like something out of a faerie tale. A modern, 21st century, faerie tale.

Gonna roast some chicken tonight. Envy me.

Watched The Descent on Friday while I worked out. Decent movie, nothing exceptional. It used a few cheap scare tactics, like a flock of birds exploding into flight. Stingers, I think they're called. Or something like that. But overall, it was creepy. It made me think of a d20 Modern adventure: a group of adventurers go into a cave and things go horribly awry. The movie had a fantastic set and the caving scenes itself were gripping.

Saturday night was Iron Man. Now that one was amazing. Robert Downey, Jr. was fantastic in the role. I love his casual, sort of stuttery acting style, and the movie played to his strengths. I don't know the comic story, so like all the other comic book movies, I base my opinions solely on the movie. Also, if you want another fantastic Robert Downey, Jr. movie, I love Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. That one's just damn funny.

Spent the rest of my weekend playing Lord Of The Rings Online and Rock Band 2. RB2 is an improvement over RB1, though not a drastic one. One nice feature: they have a "No Fail" option you can choose, so you'll never fail out of a song. It's a nice feature if you're having friends over who've never played before, and you don't want them to get frustrated when they fail out of their first song. Or small children who just want to play the music.

I paid the $5.00 to import my RB1 songs (all but 3 of the 58 are available), so once everything is unlocked, I'll have about 160 songs to choose from, plus another 20 when their free downloads are available. This week's DLC includes several I'll likely buy, include a couple of The Offspring songs and "Bad To The Bone." I mean, who wouldn't love playing that one at a party?! I've been doing a lot of stuff on Hard difficulty, even on the drums sometimes. And who would've thought the song with the most energy is Bon Jovi's "Livin' On A Prayer?"

That song seriously rocked as the audience was screaming out the chorus and cheering. This is saying something coming from me, because on the whole I'd rather hear new music than old. But when I'm playing Rock Band, even the old stuff is a real blast.

And I think we've finally gotten the whole oven situation sorted out. It looks like we'll have one by next weekend. Finding an oven was such an ordeal, you'd think we'd gone on a search for the lost ark of the covenant. But now, finally, we'll have an oven younger than we are.