Summertime Writing: freewriting

This summer I want to try several activities just to experiment.

Writing things out, for me, helps in the future for future projects. I'll check out a few books from a library that have engaging activities and see what becomes of these experiments.

Why would I do such a potential messy activity?

Over time, stuff that is recorded has a way of becoming something else in the future.

However, if information isn't recorded then it can't become anything in the future.

The current book that I will use to try some exercises is Spellbinding Sentences by Barbara Baig.

This post is a freewriting practice from chapter 2, the exercise subtitled Be a Writer.

For that exercise, the author challenges the writer to sit down and type for 10 minutes without stopping in order "to write".

Freewriting is a prewriting technique used to produce raw material (content) in order to overcome potential writing blocks such as criticism or apathy. The technique may also be used to generate or create beginning ideas or initial thoughts.

I'm going to mix this exercise with picking a current event and trying to change the event into a fictional event.

A few days ago, the Toronto Raptors won the NBA Championship. In the game, Kevin Durant, one of the Golden State Warriors' main star, returned and was injured in the first half—a game where his team eventually lost.

Let me try turning parts of that idea into a fictional situation.

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First, keeping his initials, I'll change Kevin Durant into Keith Duvall.

For a genre, I'll change the situation into a western gunfighter situation.

Keith Duvall is a heroic, an African American former Union soldier who fought in the US Civil War.

After the war, Keith settled and built a cattle ranch in the expanding Western Frontier.

Several outlaws had ravaged the area in recent days and made off with several head of cattle.

He awoke that night hearing his cattle restless and commotion out at his barn.

Grapping his rifle, he shouted to his ranch hands to get their guns.

Outside, in the half moonlight night, he saw the torches bright like a swarm of fireflies around the large barn.

"Go right," he whispered and hand motioned to his help.

Taking position behind a large oak tree, he began to fire his rifle at the nearest bandits.

The bandits shouted to each other and then bullets began flying at Keith.

He felt pain as one tore through his lower leg.

In the skirmish, Keith was injured with his posy against the bandits in a shoot out.

Unfortunately Keith was injured—shot in the calf—early during the volleys of bullets.

Upset and in agony, he watched as many of his cattle were taken away. One of his main ranch hands was also injured.

He could not protect his ranch despite his prior victories in war.

He swallowed hard—a painful sickness swam in the pit of his stomach.

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In the future I'll try several more writing exercises, or whatever, during this summer.

Update

Since writing the last few posts, I've been trying to make more things.

Posting here disappeared to focus on several things.

Ken

Monsters statistics

I'm finally looking into doing something with monsters. Over the past few years, I've only had a passing interest in creatures & monsters. The first interest was just having a few monsters to test out ABS12. The second period was converting d20 into JAGS animals and helping to finish 5e x 5 Monsters. For 5e x 5, I drew and painted a few of the 5e x 5 monsters. While I have a few monsters more recent in One-Roll Fudge RPG, they were not the focus.

I'd like to make a huge volume of hundreds, even thousands, of monsters set in percentile stats ultimately. For now, I'm beginning to look into that possibility and beginning to explore if I really want to do that.

Review of past goals

Future Project Goals for 2019 and further

Revised from 2017 list

Here is a list of projects that come to mind looking over the current landscape of products and the blog. This list is mixed blog and RPG products. It does not include many secret projects which might come out of nowhere for strategic purposes, but are being worked on. It only includes prior mentioned projects. Several projects from that prior goal list have been removed but may still exist in various stages.

On top of the goal* list is:

Short term goals*

Products
5e x 5 Modern Characters - system
Aioskoru Campaign material - content feature sections of the Aioskoru world
Parallel Open Gaming: Powers
More Generators & Engines

Finish Story Mechanisms series
Continue Blood in Space series
Continue One-Roll Fudge RPG material

Mid Term Goals*

Also in the works is:

Next Mechanisms book
Release Common, Goblin, Orc, Dwarf, Demonic, and Halfling.

ABS12 Flexible Drama Escalator

First 2nd Edition Product

Long Term Goals*

Planned

Continue MERP vs RMX vs HARP comparison

Distant Possible Projects

5e x 5 Monsters II

*Goals are subject to change, reorder, or be dropped for unforeseeable reasons.

World of the Fifth Sun progress 2014 to 1018

Summer of 2014

Everything really began in 2014 when during the summer I came across NaNoWriMo. Sometime around the mid or late summer I decided to try writing a novel during November. I remember checking out several books and taking notes on how to write novels.

I created Song and Fire, a short novel set in a world that I called the Ea, the World of the Fifth Sun.

2015

For a more complete look at 2015 summary, see my 2016 year end review of 2015 post.

I remember revising Song and Fire during January of 2015. While this first novel only sold a few copies, it spurred me to return to tabletop RPGs after 20 years. This book's mythology is that Ea is on the third planet on the fifth sun or 'sol' in a series of worlds, each proceeding world having been destroyed in a war of gods. I can actually easily move this story into an Aioskoru human region if I wanted to.

I began World of the Fifth Sun blog on March 13, 2015.

Exploring into RPG engine source documents

I created several documents which would inspire generator and engine products this year in 2018. 

Much of my Character Generator and flaws was initially created in the Stories vs RPGs series and resulting book.

July of 2015 my nephew in my family was tragically killed by a drunk driver.

I began my Rolemaster beta testing experience around this time as well.

In October, I began creating Aioskoru.

October 28 I began trying to build Aioskoru using online random content generators and learning to expand map techniques. 

November I wrote my 2nd novel, a collection of short stories for the World of the Fifth Sun which resulted in two of the short stories being released Worn and Lanic. Although only those two stories were ever published in one small volume, I still have the remaining stories unedited in my collection. I might be able to do something in the future with this old unreleased content.

I ended the year with more map creation techniques which resulted in techniques used in Quick free maps series and book in 2016.

2016

For a more complete look at 2015 summary, see my 2016 year end review of 2016 post.

2016 began by finishing my map making techniques. 

I then switched to fantasy constructed languages. 

Dice, card, and probability brought me to ABS12 creation series. This was actually my 3rd RPG game attempt after a WotFS Fudge and FAE versions which are actually inspirations for One-Roll Fudge RPG, which were never published anywhere. While A Basic System 12 (ABS12) V1.08 may not be great in it's entirety, pieces of that game are great and are actual pieces such as the Plot Generator and Fact Generator. 

In mid 2016 summer, I began selling products on DriveThru and RPGNow. First, maps were my topic. It quickly switched to Aioskoru and the Solo Game Engine and Fact Generator (which are pieces of ABS12).

In late that year, I began creating Fairy language, which is a test into the possible content of books such as Elvish Language. I've had words written for Elvish since earlier this 2016 year but have changed much of it in it's current form. It is based, however, on the same words. Fairy would be published first since I knew that I owned the rights to this invented language.

5e x 5 was really the emphasis at the end of this year 2016.

Comparing open gaming systems during this year also fueled my more recent Parallel Open Gaming Systems products.

2017

2017 began by finishing 5e x 5 products for a few months. Later, Character Gen (based on Stories vs RPGs) vs, Description Gen (item focus), and Motivation Gen  (based on Stories vs RPGs) were released. 

In the blog, I began with finishing my Fairy Language which I would release a year later in PDF.

My Aioskoru Myth Making series created early 2017 has yet to be published anywhere except on my blog.

The Star Frontiers blog series helped inspire me to complete 5e x 5 Future Characters later during the year. 

In the middle of the year 2017, my MERP Collectors Edition series helped to quench my RMX anger.

Next post

Tomorrow, I might look at some goals that I wrote at the beginning of 2017 and see if there is any inspiration there.

Looking back at 2018 WotFS blog

My blog was rather quiet during the beginning of the 2018 year. Most of my actual effort this year was releasing new content. It began with 5ex5 Future Characters at the beginning of the year. After that, I turned to one of my long-term goals of expanding the solo gaming series which I began long ago breaking off pieces of the ABS12 system.

Prior to 2018

What had began with the ABS12 solo game engine in 2016, and led to the release of Character Gen, Description Gen, and Motivation Gen in 2017, really expanding in 2018.

Products released

Chronologically plot, theme, mood, emotion, outdoor, indoor, animal, knowledge, sound, body language, flash rpg, human, dream, dialogue, career, foe, communication, behavior, relationships, twists, flaws, scene actions, transitions, 3 conflicts, reaction scenes, social & mental traits, and emotional reactions were tools released during this year culminating in the two mechanisms books and the setting all-in-one. I feel good about this years batch of products. Some are more successful than others.

Flash RPG Blog series

With this blog, I didn't return to writing until Flash RPG was released. I began with 5 examples of using Flash RPG in late May to early June leading up to Flash Fiction Appreciation Day.

Character Mechanisms Blog Series

In October, I created a series using the tools of Character Mechanisms. Dakota was the resulting character created during this period of 9 posts.

November Writing Month

During the month of November, I completed a project to writing a game system and setting. One-Roll Fudge RPG and an unreleased Aioskoru setting was created during this month. This setting information hopefully will provide inspiration and direction in the future. It certainly felt fulfilling to write some fiction after a few years of rules and list creation, which are satisfying in a different way.

MeWe establishment instead of G+

I've established a small presence on MeWe for social media.

December Story Mechanisms Blog Series

During the month of December, I began and haven't finished yet a story generating series using Story Mechanisms. This series I plan to continue into January of 2019.

Blood in Space Blog Series

I wanted to get some hands on experience with other Fudge systems. This series I plan on continuing into 2019.

A comparative look at MERP vs RM Express vs HARP

I sort of continued a MERP series that I started a few years ago with this possible new series. I don't know how much more I can sustain this series. It is ranked lower on my priority since these products are rather old and low priority. I did learn a lot about myself already from this initial comparison.

Next post

I want to go back to my annual reviews that I have done in the past and see how this blog has progressed so far. Doing so might help me figure out a new direction for 2019.

Story Mechanisms: creating a story profile instructions (part 7)

Click on image to enlarge

Story sheet after this session which includes this 2nd Conflict

This is the sheet of what has been created so far.

https://www.rpgnow.com/product/257257/Story-Mechanisms

Expanding the story part 3

So far in this series I've made a basic story structure sheet, began constructing a story by selecting the basic story elements, decided to star the main character Dakota, created an argument opening scene between Dakota and Rowan, wrote an inciting event, and created a first conflict from that inciting event.

Next, I'll roll for a second conflict.

Second Conflict

Why: flashback to original cause of conflict

What I will do with this writing challenge is maybe begin with Dakota going to try finding Rowan and then begin to question what happened. I will then do a flashback I will test to find out if Dakota finds out what actually happened to help explain why and maybe help for the final conflict.

Roll for difficulty challenge of second conflict.

Moderate, Inconvenient

This probably should use soul for social ability and investigate skill.

Roll for resolution for soul & investigate = (fair (0)+ fair (0)) + roll (6) =  A die roll of 6 automatically succeeds. Despite the challenge you succeeded with great effort and luck.




Several people knew Rowan a little bit.

Despite being mostly reclusive, Rowan did speak with a few.

Rowan would speak about the great historical Expansion-age as a great elvish time in history, almost a golden age. Most interesting to Rowan, was the ancient magical arts. Rowan tried to learn everything in books and at the site about magical use, historical battles involving magic, and even the dark arts.

Dakota, through great effort and a little luck was able to track down the last known home of Rowan.

Dakota walked towards the home that Rowan had been living in recently.

Several families lived in this part of the village.

Asking around, many didn't know Rowan's name, and was known however when being described.

Finally, Dakota found the last known home.

It was empty—not even a single piece of furniture.

Asking around brought no answer at first. Dakota however, persisted deep past nightfall. When Dakota was about to leave and go home,  one person finally nodded yes. One person described a few days ago, that same day that Dakota had hit Rowan, as the last day seen there.

Rowan had come home kicking at rocks, hitting the wall, and slammed the door shut.

The following day, Rowan packed up a handcart filled with belongings and left the home, heading towards the northern gate.



Next posts So far, the story has resolved the first and second conflict. The next post will go into the final conflict.