Mushin

"Just start writing.  Anything.  Gobbledegook."  

Ok, I can roll with that.

There’s a show that ran from ’85 to ’92 called The Ray Bradbury Theater.  It was a neat little anthology series based on short stories or novels written by Ray Bradbury, unsurprisingly.  For the most part, it was good, I thought…a nice alternative to The Twilight Zone, or The Outer Limits, or Tales From The Darkside.  The show opens with a scene of Ray sitting behind his desk in an office just PACKED with various toys, relics, all sorts of miscellaneous crap.  The intro goes thusly:

"People ask, “Where do you get your ideas?”  Well, right here.  All this is my Martian landscape.  Somewhere in this room is an African veldt.  Just beyond perhaps is a small Illinois town where I grew up.  And I'm surrounded on every side by my magician’s toy shop. I'll never starve here. I just look around, find what I need, and begin. I'm Ray Bradbury, and this is The Ray Bradbury Theater.  Well then, right now what shall it be? Out of all this, what do I choose to make a story?  I never know where the next one will take me.  The trip…exactly one half exhilaration, exactly one half terror".

That image kind of stuck with me.  I always thought it’d be cool to have a place full of things to inspire an idea, and a quiet place to write and create.   Times like these, I wish I had that luxury.  However, I don’t.  So, how do I write?  Frankly, I don’t know.  It just kind of happens on its own.  I have noted that there are a few conditions where it works out best.   I can’t have anyone in the room with me, no matter how quiet they are.  They can be in the next room over, and making as much noise as they like.  Just so long as they’re not in the same room.

Now, I don’t think I’m a good writer.  I’ve been told that I do dialogue reasonably well, but I don’t paint a very detailed scene.  It seems I just give a few important details, and leave the rest to the reader.   It also seems that I can just write CoH fanfic at the moment, probably because that world’s already defined.  The details are in place, I just operate within the framework.  If I had the interest, I could probably whip up a story in another pre-established universe.

Am I capable of creating an idea or a concept strong enough to carry its own story?  I don’t know.  I got the glimmer of an idea a few weeks ago from an old Star Trek TNG episode, but nothing’s come of it.  Maybe nothing will, but it’s an idea I bounce around occasionally when I have a quiet moment.

I’ve come to a conclusion about writing.  It’s really hard.  I flog myself with concerns about its quality like I do everything else.   But…I like it.  I don’t see myself wanting to make a career out of it, but I do enjoy it.  I’d like to try writing for my own pleasure, and venture out of the land of CoH fanfic once in a while.  I probably won’t.  The environment I live in isn’t really conducive to creative or even critical thinking.  I wish it could be otherwise, but it is what it is.   I could move, but I don’t have either the money or the courage to do that right now.  Someday, though…

What does this have to do with CoH?  

Not much.  Frankly, there hasn’t been any RP since 2XP weekend kicked off, which I doubt surprises anyone.  I remade Crescent Scorpion as a Broadsword/WP scrapper, since I realized there was no reason to wait to make him as a Brute.  I’ll level him up blueside when I get bored, and move him redside when I’m ready.  Piece of cake.  

I’ve also devised a new build for Cao Jian that’ll boost his already impressive survivability by softcapping s/l.  The downside?  Oh, between 4 sets of Kinetic Combat, and 3 sets of Reactive Armor, it’ll probably cost like 80 jillion inf to make. :P

In other news, Tenma finished his patron arc.  He’s about 2 bars from 48 at this point. 

Erik related his story to some of the TI’ers, who offered to help.  As he related the tale, it sounded more and more stupid to me, but the others seemed to accept it readily enough.  However, with the combined abilities and knowledge of the magic users in TI, Erik’s problem shouldn’t really be a problem for long.  So, if I’m going to do something with Erik and Loraan’s situation, I probably better do it soon.  Perhaps now would be a good time for the Mu to finally locate and confront the thief/former colleague?