CHRONO TRIGGER!!!!

It's no secret that video games inspired my storylines and writing. In fact half the plotlines in Genocide are evolved forms of the easy plots I saw as a child.

Chrono Trigger was probably the best game I've ever played. Somehow, even 20 years after it came it out, I find myself playing it again and again each year.

So I got the DS version this time, and the game is still good. In fact, it's got new areas. Of course the new areas are like a dude getting ahold of a map editor, but I still am giddy with new Chrono areas.

So here's the thing. I keep thinking I've grown out of video games because I can't sit through an Xbox360 game for more than an hour. Then comes this and I waste three hours getting stuff. Games just arn't the same as they used to. They don't draw me in as the old stuff does. Guess that makes me a traditionalist.

Chrono Trigger is a game that I can still play and find something new, and the storyline was that good. Go pick up the DS version and relive memories.

A moment on Tiger Woods

Since ESPN won't say anything about it, and only Jim Rome is telling it like it is, I figured I'd give my take on this whole Tiger Woods/Masters/Cheating thing.


First things first: I'm not a Tiger Woods fan. I never hated the guy, I've just never been a fan. There is no denying that he is the best golfer of this generation and probably surpasses the likes of Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan, and Nicklaus (three of my personal favorites...who I wasn't really around to enjoy). What drives me nuts about Tiger isn't really him, it's how everybody can't shut up about him. A couple of years ago when Tiger had his knee surgery, every network continued to yap about him even though he wasn't there.

It got really bad during a major (I think the US open, but don't quote me on it) where the network in question had half the coverage on the actual golfers and the other half talking about what Woods did the year before when he played. He's a media whore who gets ratings and overshadows everyone else on the course.

Now before you send hate mail, I will once again state-he's earned every bit of it. He's that damn good. I just don't go ga-ga over him simply because everybody else does, and I don't like the way he's on top of the world. Good guy, great golfer, can't stand seeing one person in a sport. It's the same reason I can't stand Brett Favre...but then again he's an overrated, premadonna, piece of...well we're getting off subject.

I really don't give a shit about what Tiger Woods does off the golf course. And neither should you. He's got a personal life, let him fuck it up. If he wants to cheat on his wife and impregnate porn stars (allegedly), let him. It has nothing to do with golf.......

....BUT! The problem is, he's been built up as a role model for kids and adults alike. Half of his sponsors have taken him because he's a do-no-wrong athelete. He's never been in jail, he's never been high off coke, he's a decent guy. Jordan during his time with the Bulls was the same way. I'm not saying Michael Jordan cheated or he didn't cheat, but no one really talked about it because Jordan knew how to handle it. You didn't hear about any scandals going on in Jordan's day besides a small gambling problem (whatever Jordan did is his buisness anyways, point is, he held up pretty well).

Tiger on the other hand, as the new Michael Jordan, didn't get things so smooth; he got caught. Whether it's because his family wouldn't cover it up, or because his wife was sick of his cheating, HE GOT CAUGHT. Now, because he's the person in society that he is, it's only fair that Tiger just simply comes out and says, "Look, I'm not the guy you think I am." That's it. We don't need details of who with, how much, what checks he's scratching for his wife to keep her around etc.

Tiger, just own up, explain what happened and walk. Why should you give two cents? So these families as well as these sponsors know, that you arn't the person you've been marketed as.

The rest doesn't matter. Members of the media following his kids is flat out tasteless, and what goes on between him and his wife in divorce preceedings is irrelevant. I do kind of wonder why you'd cheat on that hot Sweedish blonde of yours...but I won't go there.

Unfortunately, Tiger didn't do that. He held a press conference to his friends and wouldn't take questions. Later on had interviews taking questions and dodging the bullets that followed. If he simply said "I cheated on my wife" right from the start-none of this probably would have gotten so out of control...I THINK.

The flip side is what he was doing Thanksgiving evening. He was on a public street, in an Escalade, asleep, barefoot, while his wife took a 9-iron to the windshield. That probably would make a section in a local Florida paper, so I'm curious to what happened. THAT'S newsworthiness. That's all I want to know. Don't give me this crap "It's personal."

"Man Wrecks car and falls asleep while wife breaks in with 9-iron"

That would so be in a newspaper even if it wasn't Tiger Woods. He needs to stop manipulating everybody, make himself out to be a victim and swallow the pill. Say what you were doing, that you are NOT the man we thought you were, and call it a day.

Afterwords golf news can go back to being sucky...

Editing 101

I've had to edit the shit out of Genocide. The problem when I started was, I didn't know where to begin. I'm too cheap to buy a book, and I couldn't really find a simple blog on what the hell to do (so watch, I get a million emails with links to the blogs I missed).

Let's get this out of the way: Trimming sucks. It's redundant, boring, and tedious.

Luckily, I've learned a lot with my trimming run, so I'll run you through the neccessary steps to trim that novel to a decent contender.

Thanks to the wonderful misery I caused an agent friend of mine, She passed on a few good things about editing I can pass on to the rest of ya's. Her little suggestions have helped me, and I'm sure combined with my regimen it can help you too. By the way, my pronoun misusage and choppy segments in the flow of things is still apparent...neither me nor my friend could fix it...errr..nevermind.

With that said, it aint gonna help you wiht nagging problems in continuity or storyline progression. I've had to live with the fact my writing is just flat choppy, and I can't write a few sentences the "way" they are supposed to be written to save my life...but that's neither here nor there. This is polishing folks.

So the first question is...why trim? Well if you're anything like me, you write opus's that are wayyyy over the 110 mark agents look for. Fact: Agents are going to form reject your ass almost every time if you submit a 120k manuscript. Genocide clocked in at 160,000 words. Count everything that 'should' have been thrown in and it easily would have ran over 200k. Most of the later stuff was thrown out as I realised I was running out of space. Edited, even in a directors cut version, knowing what I know now...I could probably have everything in 150k range, extras and all.

Get your rough and lets get this thing ready.

Read it over once and make changes: Read it and start deleting repetitive phrases, cut scenes out, etc.

Do it again After reading it twice, once more means you can get the point across and have an idea of what's going on.

Take a month off There's a rumor that you should take a year off after writing before editing...unless you want to be 50 years old when your writing gets published, I don't reccomend it. You can clear your head in a month easily, don't take a year, that's bullshit.

Find all usages of the following words: Even, That, Just, Going to --ing, Was --ing, were, had, did, didn't, but. Proof and delete. Word has a nifty feature called Ctrl+f, just type find and go through the whole manuscript. Read the sentence beforehand and anything in the prior paragraph to make your decision. Here's a direct sentence. "Kelita had known that Andrea was getting stronger." I repleaced it with this. "Kelita knew Andrea was stronger." See how much better that is? THere are exceptions, but most of the time, you can think of a better verb than the ones used. Change those --ings to --eds, think of some new words. Along the way you'll catch more redundant sentences and can change those. This will lop off 20,000 words easily. Again, don't just take out all usages, read your sentences and decide if the word isn't needed or maybe you can rewrite it to work better. Chances are you can make the writing less redundant using these words.

Read again, take out uncessary descriptions Readers arn't idiots. they don't need to know the bedroom was on the right and a guest room was on the left (This in fact was a description in Genocide...changed to between)they don't need to know someone reached for, grasped and drank...just drank. Don't worry if you arn't making long paragraphs of descriptions...some people can do it. I can't do it, and it isn't a big deal if you can't either. Fiction should invoke someone's imagination anyways, so don't feel a need to completly jack up the animation.

Hopefully this helps. It's helped me. I may not know much, but believe me, your writing will improve drasticly. There are certain things you can work around...in my case, my limited word set looks passable for this. At this point I'm under 110 (the threashold where they won't form reject you), so obviously I wasn't an exception to that rule...and I'm not like some lucky buggers who can get away with it. When people say "exceptions to go over 110" they really mean EXCEPTIONS, meaning it most likely isn't any of us.

And Here We Are

Here's my website...kind of a mess isn't it? Just to complicate your life I've decided to tell GoDaddy to fuck themselves and used the servers on blogspot. If somehow Genocide gets huge I totally understand the posibility that I need my OWN website. For now, this gets the job done. I'll add some more stuff later, for now, I'm gonna go drink beer.