Courageous Creativity

My wife checked out a book from the library called Courageous Creativity; the tagline is Advice and Encouragement for the Creative Life. I've read the first 60 pages so far and it's really good. It's about encouraging you to use your creativity and create. For example, write.

I finally wrote the first chapter of my book down one week ago. This is a book that I've been working on in my head for years and years. Plotting out the characters, major events, major themes, that kind of thing. But only now am I starting to write it out. I also wrote the first little bit of chapter two as well.

Chapter 2

            Casey sat down on her couch.

            She opened her laptop and scanned her emails. Nothing new. That was worrisome. Casey stood up and paced around the living room of her apartment. How long had it been since she had heard from Harriet? Two weeks? Something was definitely wrong.

            She remembered the day she heard the news. She was sitting in that very room, working on her research into ancient civilizations, when one of her three roommates came in.

            “Casey,” she said, “you have to see this.”

            Casey sat up straighter. “What is it Nel?”

            Nel walked over to the coffee table and grabbed the TV remote. “Look,” Nel said, and turned on the TV.

            “—let it cook for fifty to fifty-five minutes,” the person on the TV was saying.

            “Huh?”

            “Shoot. Sorry,” Nel said, pulling up the channel guide. “It’s just that in movies and shows and such whenever a person has some news story to share, when they turn on the TV it’s automatically on the right channel.”

            The news station came up on the screen. It was currently in the middle of showing a Coca-Cola commercial.

            “And it always turns on right at the beginning of the news story the character was thinking about,” mumbled Nel, then turned off the TV. “Forget it, here, look.” She took out her phone and pulled up an article.

            Casey looked over at her roommates phone, and soon began to feel chill.

            That was three weeks ago.

I'm probably going to change the very beginning of that. Sitting down on a couch isn't that exciting. Anyway, that's my blog post for this week. 

The Fallacy of Time . Chapter 1

The Fallacy of Time

Book One of the Temportation Trilogy

Chapter 1

    Brandon raced up the stairs.

    Panting and sweaty, he rounded another corner. Under normal circumstances, he would rest, take a break, breathe and get his strength up. He wasn't able to do that now, however, figuring there were two men running behind him trying to kill him.

    Brandon heard a gunshot ring out and he instinctively ducked. He had survived for twenty years in his violent village in Africa, he would certainly survive here. It didn't hurt that he also had a couple of tricks up his sleeve.

    Rounding the corner in the stairwell, he burst through a door into a hallway. He raced down it, and heard noise coming from up ahead. What? There shouldn't be anybody here! thought Brandon. One of the main reason he had chosen this particular building to try to escape was because he thought it didn't have any innocent bystanders. He didn't want anyone getting hurt.

    Down the hall, he could hear the two men running up the stairs. In front of him, a custodian walked out of a side office.

    "Hey! No one's allowed in here! What are you--" the custodian was cut off as Brandon pile drove him back into the office. They both crashed down onto the floor, and Bradon put his hand over the man's mouth.

    "Listen," Brandon hastily said, "There are two men behind me trying to kill me. You need to hide, and you need to make sure that they don't see you. Got it?"

    The custodian had a look of terror across his face. Brandon released his hand. "Do you understand?" Brandon asked again, getting up from off the floor. Out in the hall, noise could be heard of running feet. The custodian nodded, his eyes still wide. "Good," Brandon said, and stuck his head out the door. 

    The door to the stairwell opened, and two men emerged. Tall, black, and muscular, they looked similar to Brandon. Brandon focused, and a few seconds later, the guns the men were carrying vanished. There was a soft whooshing sound as the air rushed in to fill the void their weapons had made. "Not again!" cried one, as Brandon dashed back out into the hallway and ran away from them. Brandon knew they had other weapons on them, but that bought him a few moments.

    Thankfully, those few moments were enough, as Brandon reached the end of the hall and turned the corner. He could hear the men running after him again, and by this time Brandon figured they already had other guns out. Brandon ran for the exit door. Ahead of him, two guns materialized midair in the hallway and clattered to the ground. As Brandon sped past them he reached down and grabbed one. He reached the exit door and spun around, firing the gun back towards the corner. He heard one of the men curse. Good, thought Brandon, and then he opened the emergency exit door.

    Or, at least, he tried to. Brandon winced as his shoulder collided with the door, which he thought would budge but for some reason refused to. The alarm in the building did start to go off, though. Brandon was frantic now. He looked up and saw a sign on the door. It read: Emergency Exit only. To Open, press on Handle and wait 30 seconds. Doors will then automatically open.

    30 seconds! I don't HAVE 30 seconds! Brandon thought in a panic. He turned and fired a few more shots down the hallway, then turned back to the door. He looked at the locking bars in place and focused. There was a small woosh of air, and the bar disappeared. Brandon crashed through and then slammed the door behind him. Turning, he then bolted up one more flight of stairs before emerging on the rooftop.

    The building he had chosen for his escape was 30 stories high. He ran to the edge of the roof and looked out over the railing into the city stretched out before him. He couldn't help but be impressed. America. So this is what it's like. All his life he had never been. It was too bad that a recent archeological and scientific discovery that threated the very foundations of society was the only reason he was here. It would have been nice to visit in less deadly circumstances.

    The door to the roof slammed open again. The two men burst through, guns raised. They looked over at Brandon and pointed. So, Brandon did the only logical thing to be done.

    He jumped off the roof.

    As Brandon plummeted down, the men ran to where he was just standing. Brandon knew they couldn't follow him. Well, they could, but then they'd end up splattering onto the sidewalk below. Brandon had other plans for himself. He spread his body out horizontally and stuck his arms out in front of him. In an instant, a large blueish-green hang glider appeared around him. 

    If anyone had been looking up at him the very next second, it would have looked like the hang glider had been on Brandon for the past few minutes. Of course, they would have been completely wrong.

    They also, of course, would have been completely right.

    Brandon grabbed the steering bar of the hang glider and moved it to the left. He tilted up and the glider flew him through the air, over the street far below, and away from the building where two men now stood on the roof, despondent.

Why the Moon Knight finale underwhelmed me

So, like, Ammit growing larger and larger was due to her eating souls, right? But then Khonshu just appears and he's that giant as well. So, like, how? Does their size really matter? 

Okay, so what was the point of the giant monsters/gods fighting each other? Because it looks cool is the answer, because plot wise it really doesn't do anything. There's no stakes. We're not told or know what the consequences will be if giant Ammit does beat giant Khonshu. Plus, going back to the first paragraph here, their giant-ness doesn't really matter because they don't affect their environment or anything. And do people see them? If their fight had consequences or stakes the scene would be a lot better because it would actually matter, instead of just being there to look cool.

To fix it there should have been some sort of stakes attached. Like, a time limit before Ammit becomes too powerful to be stopped, based on the number of souls she collects. Which, once again, was really weird. So Harrow gets the Ammit statue, but then just waits to break it open? And then after Ammit is released, what then? We know it's bad, but why? We don't really get to see the consequences of it besides some of Harrow's followers run around Cairo grabbing people's arms and judging them? Could that not have happened before? Won't it take weeks and weeks just to get to every person in that one city, much less the world? 

This stuff isn't explained. It's not like they didn't have time to explain it; episode six was the shortest. The reason I don't think episode six works is because the stakes and consequences and time pressure are not very well established to the audience. Or they don't make sense (like Harrow's followers having to run around the entire city grabbing everyone's arms). As a result, there's a bunch of cool action, but all the build up just falls flat. (Oh no! They'll release Ammit! That means, uh, that bad things will happen, uh, faster ? ? ?)

As one person online stated, and I agree with, the post-credits scene was the best part of the whole episode and overshadows the episode itself. I liked that part.

And before the credits Marc/Steven just wakes up in bed and I'm like, uh, where's his wife? Why is his leg still tied to the bed? But mostly the where's Layla question. That bugged me.

So that's my opinion. Good action scenes, cool characters, I like how Harrow was all bad-a at the end, and Layla getting powers was kinda cool but nothing was really built out of that, and the stakes and time constraints weren't well established, so there really wasn't any tension. 

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.

Found one book from our childhood, looking for another

I finally found it! After all these years! The scroll of truth! Posting your political opinions on Facebook doesn't change anyone's mind. Nyehhh! 

But in all actuality, I did finally find it after all these years of searching.  Eric made a blog post a while ago with things from our/his childhood that he fuzzily remembers but couldn't quite pin down. LINK to that blog post. The #6 entry is as follows: Mid-to-late ‘90s-early-to-mid ‘00s. It was like a Usborne puzzle book, full-page full-color illustrations each spread containing its own puzzle, kind of deal, though I remember it being significantly fancier and more difficult. It was separated into different sections/periods in which the story takes place; there was a medieval period, an Underground Railroad period, a future period with aliens, etc. I remember one chapter in the Underground Railroad section was named Midnight Rendezvous, because I had no idea what a rendezvous was or how it was pronounced. At the end it turned out that all the sections interconnected to tell a single story, and one artifact from one time period turned out to be a macguffin from a different time period under a different name, that kind of thing.

Well, I was also really curious because I too remember this one. Every so often I would try to find it and search it up online, with no hits. Until last week.

That's right my friends, I finally found it. It is called the Usborne Book of Superpuzzles. (The Midnight Rendezvous puzzle is on page 100 btw.)

I can now check that off the list. 

I tried looking for the other ones on Eric's list, but haven't been able to locate any more.

Here's a book from my childhood that I want to find: It was a children's book that was all black and white illustrations, reminds me of Chris Van Allsburg illustrations. It was a Halloween book about some trick or treaters that went into an old house and it was bigger inside and one page there was a door on a small island in the middle of a giant ocean and the door was non-Euclidean because if you looked at the backside it was normal but if you looked through the frontside a giant staircase rose up. And the kids at the end eventually meet with the real monsters that were running the place and they hung out and laughed and watched as other kids entered into the house before they left. Anyone know what book this is? I've been trying to find it but can't.

Starting to write, make a game

Starting something is so hard. Like, I have a couple of book ideas, but just getting started on writing them is almost too much than I can bear. There was that one short story I wrote about a year ago, but I was only able to do that because I just sat down and wrote the whole thing. With a book it's a lot longer and so not really possible? 

With games it's a bit different. Because I can sit down and start making a game. And then improve on it, add mechanics, figure out cards, and so forth. Except, you know, with a written book you know when you're done, because it's, like, written out and people can read it. I've only finished a very small handful of games I've started. (And some, like We Three Kings, I've finished completely but they haven't been played.)

So why can I start making games but not start writing books? It's like, all I need to do is write a chapter or something. And then the next chapter. Except often I never write the next one. (For example, Paths of Zarahemla, where I wrote the first chapter, but then just outlined the next chapters instead of writing them.) 

So what can I do?

Beats me. 

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

Easter

Did you know that the word Easter has its roots in a pagan goddess of fertility and Spring? And yet this one website tries to say it has its roots in the religiousness of the Jews and Passover: "'Passover' comes from the Hebrew word 'pesach,' which means to pass or spring over. And in most European languages, the word for 'Easter' also has this root."

Like, dudes, it's okay if your religious holiday doesn't have 100% of its roots in religion. It doesn't need to. It's fine. But some people get so hung up on the pagan origins of some Christian holidays that they freak out.

Like, Christmas was created around a pagan holiday in order for it to be a big deal. "Around the time of the winter solstice, Romans observed Juvenalia, a feast honoring the children of Rome. In addition, members of the upper classes often celebrated the birthday of Mithra, the god of the unconquerable sun, on December 25." This huge celebration was happening, and so the church leaders decided to celebrate Christ's birth on that day to make the holiday more important.

As a result of these pagan roots, some, uh, let's just say "interesting" people on my mission were completely turned off from celebrating Christmas. So much so that they wouldn't even consider getting baptized, because our living prophets celebrated Christmas. (It was pretty funny and sad to watch as they tried to prove to us that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints celebrated Christmas, and I'm just like, yeah bro, I already know.)

The moral of this story is: an unhealthy or unnecessary fixation on one point could prevent you from embracing the fullness of the gospel. Those guys on my mission were too over-fixated on Christmas not having purely Christian roots, which led to them not joining the church.

Don't be dumb. Easter is a celebration of the resurrection of Christ, even if the roots of the name are pagan.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

Welp, I'm 32.

 On April 2, 2022, I turned 32 years old. Assuming I live to be 96 years old, 32 is a third of 96, so right now I should be having my tri-life crisis. (Kind of like a mid-life crisis, but a third of the way through instead of half.)

I made a motivational video (posted on April Fool's Day):

I am also working on an idea for a new game, again, and it's coming along. Okay, I say new game, but it's not a new game, it's an old game idea I had a long time ago and I'm dusting it off to see if I can actually make it work this time.

I do that sometimes. I have an idea for a game, and work on it for a bit, and then it stalls and I get stuck so I shelve it for a bit and work on other stuff. And when I come back to it later, it looks fresh and I'm able to look at it through fresh and new eyes. Plus by then I'll have had that much more experience. 

I've mentioned this before, but when working on a game there comes a point where you have to playtest it. A bunch. And as of right now, I don't really have that. But that's fine, because I haven't really reached that stage with my prototype anyway. So hahaha.

General Conference was this weekend, too. It's funny, with all the crazy stuff that's been happening in my life right now my birthday was/is one of the last things I've thought about.

So I'll close my post to a link to a couple of Kickstarters I've backed in the last few months, one of which I won't get anything from except for bragging rights that I helped back the most successful Kickstarter ever, and one where I will get something, a game, but in, like, a year. Because that's about how long it takes Kickstarter games to get to you.