Posts Tagged geek blog montreal

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Writing Blog – Did I Write This Week? – Yarn Storytelling Edition

by on April 19, 2017 at 10:35 am
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek
If you look closely you can see that there's an email subject line called "Battlesweaters"

If you look closely you can see that there’s an email subject line called “Battlesweaters”

So about a year ago, 9to5 (dot cc) darling Al Lafrance (he attained the rank of “darling” by being a repeated guest on Go Plug Yourself and also writing a column here for a little while) asked me if I would ever be down to do a story at one of Montreal’s great storytelling shows: Yarn.

I told him I was definitely interested and was honestly kind of flattered that he asked me. To me (and yes, I know this is just my impression and Yarn goes out of its way to have stories from all over the place) these things are usually reserved for fancy pants performers and comedians. I mean, it’s not too much of stretch, I’ve got over 120 episodes of two different podcasts under my belt so I’m no stranger to talking and I stand up in front a few hundred people to announce roller derby for Montreal Roller Derby so I’m not stage shy. Add to that that I used to do Improv competitively back in CEGEP and I think I got this.

I mean, I hope I got this. The show is tonight. Feel free to come find out if I crash and burn terribly at 8 pm at Cagibi for Yarn, birds edition.

However, I couldn’t say yes at the time because a year ago I was in the thick of planning my wedding, and right after that we swung into looking for a new home.

Then a couple of weeks ago, he asked me again. I said yes, without any real idea of what kind of story that I would actually tell.

So I had to write something. Or, at least, formulate something that would translate into a story that I could tell. I’m not sure what anyone else’s process is for writing a story but I decided to write the entire thing out and re-work it and re-read it a few times a day until I more or less had the gist of it. And tonight I’ll just go up and let my improvisational side take over and steer the story in more or less the way I wrote it. I don’t think I work very well if I’m trying to force myself to commit something to memory.

I doubt that it’s a perfect process. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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DIWTW – Getting the Ball Rolling – Perspicacious Geek

by on April 11, 2017 at 4:12 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek
20170411_125022

LOOKOUT THE TRAIN IS COMING RIGHT FOR YOU

Did I Write This Week?

YES I DID.

This was a weird week for me.

I’ve been sleeping pretty poorly and a few things that have popped up here and there have prevented me from really digging into the process of editing and fine tuning the zombie story (last part is this week!). I do intend in entering the finished product into a writing competition though and that needs to be submitted by May 19th so hey, a deadline that I have to achieve.

However, with that project coming to an end my brain has been doing a good job of starting to really flesh out some of the loose ideas that have been kicking around for next project (the full blown book thing).

I’ve got a loose narrative that I will need to expand on already in mind, and at least a handful of characters that I’ve come up with to play it out. I’ve also spent a lot of time thinking about central themes and what a teenager might want to read about.

One of the hang ups that I keep getting caught up on is nailing down a tone, or a writing style that I will have to stick to for hundreds of pages. One of the fun things about blogging, or writing the zombie stuff, or writing the 9to5 comics is that I can flip back and forth between various voices and styles of writing. I know obviously that in more ‘advanced” level reading (Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting springs to mind in terms of wildly different voices depending on the narrator, and even A Song of Ice and Fire has different tones depending on which character is the viewpoint character) there can be a lot of variation. But when I think “book for teens” I don’t think the trend is quite as common.

As a bit of a test-run, yesterday I found myself starting to write what will ultimately probably be the prologue.

I really like the device when a prologue just sort of drops you into a scene and asks a lot questions, without really being tied directly to the main plot (even though it will tie-in eventually). It’s very cinematic. The opening scene of a movie crams a bunch of intrigue and suspense into the first five minutes, and then the opening credits roll and then we get to meet our main characters.

That’s kind of what I’m going for here.

The prologue could kind of stand alone as its own little short story, but it’s a fun way to try and find the tone for what I will ultimately be going for.

It wasn’t much, only a few hundred words committed to text so far, but it was kind of nice to have that ceremonial ground breaking of actually putting some of the ideas that I’ve had in mind for nearly a year now into a cohesive form.

Fun!

Keith does all sorts of things here on 9to5.cc, he works with the other founders on 9to5 (illustrated), co-hosts our two podcasts: The 9to5 Entertainment System and Go Plug Yourself and blogs here as The Perspicacious Geek.

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Endings Are Hard, Yo – Perspicacious Geek

by on March 14, 2017 at 4:28 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek
It's a snowstorm!

It’s a snowstorm!

So as you may (or may not, I don’t know who you are) have noticed, the progression over at Zombies and Loathing has been rolling on. It’s done. I have written all of it. It measures in at around 50 pages which I’m actually pretty happy with, I think much longer and it would overstay its welcome. I mean, it’s a zombie story that will be finishing about 4 years after the zombie crazy, so it has probably already overstayed its welcome.

But it was still nice to finish a thing.

I had the ending mapped out in my mind nearly 2 years ago, and I can tell you here and now (you’ll see in a few weeks) that it is not the best ending ever.

What happened?

I am not really sure.

I planted all the little seeds for the climax to come together in a way that felt out of nowhere but was actually tying in a bunch of little, seemingly insignificant little details that the narrator had dropped over the course of the story, but I’ve re-read what I wrote a bunch of times and it just doesn’t click the way I want it to.

Should I flesh it out more? Should I add more suspense? More observations from the St-Brigid?

I don’t even know. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Did I Write This Week? – The Crushing Weight of the World

by on February 24, 2017 at 3:08 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek
Hey I'm watching anime.

Hey I’m watching anime.

Did I Write This Week?

Oh hey, it’s Friday.

Don’t worry, there’s going to be a Zombies and Loathing going up this afternoon if you’re one of the two people who are paying attention to the progress over there.

That reminds me, I need to update the Table of Contents with the new parts. Grumble-grumble.

So what’s going on?

As you may have noticed, we’ve updated our menu bar! It makes more sense and is a little more logically laid out if you come to the site and don’t know who Jon, Scott, Keith and Sophie are. We still need to tighten up a few things up there, but I think it’s a lot cleaner.

Also, Sophie and then Scott have been sick over the last few weeks, which is why there hasn’t been a lot of movement over on 9to5 (illustrated). The snowstorm that triggered the storyline has passed and now the entire city is in the middle of one of those “February thaws” that happen all the time and are totally not unusual. I’m guessing the ending will pop up next week.

So I mean, stuff is happening. Slowly. Just not this week. Or at least, not up until today.

I have the ambitious plan of writing out the final chapter today, but we’ll see how that goes. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Did I Write This Week? – Perspicacious Geek

by on August 30, 2016 at 4:27 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

20160830_135840Did I Write This Week?

YES! But not as much as I would have liked to.

What Did You Write?

Once again trying to flesh out and finish Zombies and Loathing, I’ve got about 700 words of the next part down. I’m thinking that when I’ve got 3 or 4 of the final 6 parts completed I’ll start posting them. So there’s that.

Last week I spoke about the struggles of actually finishing a project. Back in June I talked about how I generally try to stay motivated without someone breathing down my neck and the reality that in all likelyhood there won’t be any sort of financial payoff.

I’d like to (and who’s going to stop me) expand on that a little bit.

Last time I really focused on writing for the joy of it, not taking yourself too seriously and kind of forgetting that maybe, if you’re incredibly talented, motivated and lucky, you could make some money doing the creative thing that you love.

This week I’m going to let myself dream a little bit and imagine what it would be like if someone told me “Hey, I would like you to write about this, and I will pay you.” Or, more realistically “Hey, I would like you to write about this, and I will give you exposure.”

What do you do then? You’re doing this thing (be it writing, making music, painting, pro wrestling, or whatever) and you’re all about just doing it for fun and for yourself. Now, somebody comes along and is wanting to make it a little more professional, either offering you actual financial compensation or some other intangible reward (like exposure and recognition). ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Did I Write This Week – The Perspicacious Geek

by on August 24, 2016 at 4:35 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

diwtwAs promised, my weekly log/confessional about whether or not I managed to make time to write.

Did I Write This Week?

Yes!

What Did You Write?

I finally got around to writing Part 14 of Fear and Loathing after the Bomb. That’s exciting, right? Remember in 2012 when zombies were all the rage?

I thought it would be fun to take my own little spin with the zombie genre and inject a little gonzo style journalism into the mix. I wrote 13 parts between April 2012 and March 2013, which, all things considered isn’t too bad.

Anyhow, I’ve got a pretty big problem creatively and that’s that I can’t finish things. When I start a story, I’ve got this idea of an outline. I create the characters, the premise, the setup but I almost never know how it’s all going to play out. I enjoy letting the story breathe a bit and let it grow a little before I actively think how I’m going to tie up all my plot points.

It’s probably not the best way to write, but I’ve never really claimed to know what I’m doing.

At some point or another I figure out my ending and then I stop actually writing. Part of the joy of writing for me is figuring out exactly what story I’m trying to tell and I’ll admit, once I figure that part out the process loses some of it’s luster.

This has pretty much been a problem for me for as long as I can remember. My first “serious” attempt at writing something was some kind of a sci-fi epic about a space station built around the remnants of Earth that had been blown apart in a nuclear war. The explosion had knocked Earth out of the orbit of the Sun so humanity could no longer actually survive on its surface so humanity built this space station around the remnants of the planet. I’m sure the science doesn’t hold up. I’m also sure I was about 13. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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People Who Scare Me On My Commute – Perspicacious Geek

by on June 23, 2015 at 4:55 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek
top-10-tattoos-guys-should-never-get_4

Maybe you were a POW and no war prison can hold you down?

With all the excitement of the Montreal Fringe Festival last week I really didn’t have very much time to devote my creative energy to this blog. Now, what I would normally do in these circumstances would be to write another blog about Mad Max but I feel like maybe, just maybe, that ship has sailed.

Instead I’m going to talk about some people that bother me on the way to work and why.

People With Barb Wire Tattoos On Their Arms

Listen, this isn’t scary, it’s dumb.

What are you trying to say about yourself? That you would actually wrap your arm in barb wire if you could, but since you can’t do that all time you’ve chosen to have an artist’s interpretation of it on your arm forever? Is it because you’re so tough that you want people to know that at any given point you might wrap your arm in barb wire?

Are you a big fan of the film Barb Wire?

Do you know what I think when I see you? I think you make bad choices. I literally have a tattoo that includes a severed leg, a bumble bee, a wolfman and a pair of pants. Yet I still think you make bad choices. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Games With Dialogue so Bad They’re Good (Looking At You DmC) – Perspicacious Geek

by on January 20, 2015 at 4:35 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

This isn’t an argument that video games are legitimate forms of expression. I think we’re passed that point now. With games like Last of Us, the Bioshock series, Journey and a myriad of others from the past few years (not to mention our beloved childhood storytellers Squaresoft and the Final Fantasy series) I think we all know that video games can be art. However, I think we can also all agree that not all of them are. Even technically sound, fun as hell games with amazing graphics might look really cool and still fail at having great, or even good, stories.

For instance, I absolutely love the Army of Two series. They’re not the best third-person shooters cover-based shooters in the world but they are among the rare games that are designed to be two-player co-op. That, with the ability to play split screen on the same couch with your friend is a huge draw in the modern age of video games. They’ve got fun mechanics, acceptable graphics and I’ve had a blast playing through all three games in the series. Story wise though? Not so great. Despite having played all three of them I can basically tell you nothing more than “a bad guy has done and/or is doing something bad and two dudes need to stop them and kill a million other dudes.” In fact, upon writing that sentence I have just realized the Army of Two is basically just a modern day retelling of Bad Dudes. Anyhow, fun game with almost no focus or attention paid to a complex story.

30-capture_04012011_105727That’s not what we’re talking about today though. Today we’re talking about games with good stories and terrible delivery. A few things jumped up when I started thinking about this topic. Namely a slew of original Playstation games. I played a lot of JRPG titles back in the day and terrible translation often made the delivery of otherwise wonderful stories downright terrible. Final Fantasy Tactics and Legend of Dragoon spring instantly to mind. Both games had their merits in terms of story but in the delivery? “I had a good feeling” is just the tip of the mis-translated folly of these games that are comprised of thousands of lines of text being translated under a deadline. Tactics has one of the greatest stories in video games but the hilariously bad translation of some of the dialogue stuck out so badly that they completely redid most of the dialogue on the “War of the Lions” re-release, they pretty much retranslated the whole game.

Of course, Capcom took it to another level with the absolutely God-awful full motion video segments of the first Resident Evil game (not to mention the terrible voice over throughout, who can forget the “master of unlocking” scene?). Somehow, in those early days we could consider a game to be “great” despite the delivery of the story being so crap. It was sort of like the “so bad it’s good” philosophy of watching a B-movie. If the gameplay was good, and the story was fun, even if it was terribly translated and voice-acted, the game could still be considered a success and an amazing game.

It had been years however since I had experienced anything like that until I played DmC, the PS3 reboot of the Devil May Cry franchise. Naturally, this game was released by Capcom, masters of video game camp. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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