Tag: Final Fantasy XIV

Motivated!

On By Dan MelnickIn PersonalLeave a comment

The cycle continues! After running myself ragged two weekends ago, I spent most of last weekend being the laziest bum this side of lazy-bumsville. And it was awesome!

I got my running in, wrote some and had a couple hefty chunks of Final Fantasy XIV too. So, everything I wanted to accomplish on my lazy Friday got done. On top of that, my main character in FF can almost touch 50 and no longer is dressed like a sex slave. AND, not only am I 3/4 of the way finished with my latest novel, but the Pitch to Publication contest has me motivated to knock this thing out by the end of the month. If my rough outline to actual word count conversion is working, it’s looking like I’m about 25k from the end. I just want to fist bump everybody I see. I’m so motivated. Aren’t you motivated? I can’t stop saying motivated!

The weekend wasn’t entirely selfish either. We cleaned up the house some by getting rid of old clutter to replace it with new clutter. We also tackled the nursery some more. It’s functional, as in two babies could live there, but it’s not the most organized. Or so I’m told. Every time I think it looks nice, my wife either dumps more stuff in there or she just rearranges everything and leaves piles to sort through later. The babies won’t care which drawer holds their burp cloths! But I’m learning one of the first lessons of being a new dad, I suspect: keeping my mouth shut when my wife is on a rampage.

We also watched the World Cup. We’ve been following it since the beginning of the tournament and now that it’s over, it’s kind of bittersweet. I’ve grown used to looking forward to the next game during the week. We’d usually go over to the inlaws and watch it on their screen and I’ve have a text thread going on my phone with a bunch of people back home. Each game was always a mini party. So, the buildup was great and the payoff was definitely worth it, but now that it’s over, I’ll miss the festivity around it.

There’s a lesson in there too right out of Inside Out but I don’t want to ruin the movie for anyone. We got a chance to see that one too over the weekend. We used to ration our movie theater experiences like nobody’s business, but with the babies about a month away it doesn’t take much convincing to get us out there while we still can. So yeah, Inside Out is amazing! I figured, I’d like it. With the current state of Disney and Pixar, it’s pretty safe to guess that anything they come out with is going to be good and I gotta say that I was definitely not disappointed. The story was great, the music was awesome, the voice acting was freaking perfect and the whole package just left me with all the warm fuzzies I was hoping for.

Wow, looking back, that was quite the weekend wrap up! Oh, and happy belated 4th, people. The day in which we celebrated Will Smith saving us all from the aliens …

Welcome to Earf.

The Boy Blunder

On By Dan MelnickIn Writing ProcessLeave a comment

I got caught up on word count. See, I told you I would.

I also need the weather to hold out so I can mow the grass tonight. Otherwise, it’ll put a damper on the epicness of tomorrow. Here’s the deal:

I have the day off for the 4th. I plan on running when I wake up. Then I’m meeting the inlaws out for breakfast. Come back, get some writing done. Play some video games – probably Final Fantasy XIV so I can catch up to Heavensward – and maybe see a movie that afternoon. What’s that you say? The most perfect day ever? It’s pretty damn close. I’m really excited about it and hope that cutting the grass won’t somehow sneak into my dream day.

I did the math and I’m just over 3/4 of the way through my novel. That was farther than I expected, but I’m getting to that point where I’m ready to put this sucker to bed. Instead of the fatigue like last book, this time I’m getting excited to finish. There are still plenty of things that need fixing and tweaking, but I want to get the bulk of the story finished this month. I’m using Pitch to Publication to help my pacing.

Although, in an ironic – some might say, unfortunate – turn of events, my entry email got all messed up. Why haven’t Microsoft Word and Gmail learned to communicate with each other correctly, yet? It’s not like each of them is a popular choice for their chosen medium or anything …

The ending portion of the entry email is to include the first 10 pages of your manuscript, double spaced. Well of course it didn’t copy over correctly and while I was busy fiddling with the paragraph and line spacing, I must have hit the plain text function and then hitting backspace somehow sent the email. Wonderful. Thanks Google. Hopefully a contest in which the reward is editing service will overlook an editing blunder in the application. Fingers crossed.

All of this attention to my work is having me second guess my protagonist. Don’t get me wrong, it needs to be him for the story to function, but I can probably make him more relatable. At least include some better flaws or something. I’ll think on it and get back to you.

The Quest for Pants

On By Dan MelnickIn PersonalLeave a comment

Now that the wife is off for the summer (well until January now), it means that I don’t have to go home to let the dog out at lunch anymore. While that means I get more work done and can then leave that work earlier, it’s only been two days but I already miss my puppy. Her and the video games.

My lunch at home was when I’d get some prime video game time. It wasn’t long enough to delve into anything on a console, so it usually revolved around Hearthstone and Final Fantasy XIV. I’d binge on one, get burnt out and then start up the other. But now that Hearthstone is on phones finally – thanks Blizzard! – I can play that anywhere. That meant I’d been doing some serious work in FFXIV trying to hit 50 before the expansion comes out.

I like the game. It’s pretty. I might have liked World of Warcraft more back in my heyday of video game playing, but that’s because I felt like there was more to do in WoW. Each zone had more quests and more places to explore. FFXIV is pretty linear. That said, however, I love the main storyline quest in FFXIV. I don’t always read each and every text box, but I appreciate that there’s a throughline that’ll get you from start to finish. I love RPGs and I love progression hooks. I like to think about character customization even when I’m not playing. After stressful days at work, sometimes it’s just nice to go home and bit the ever living piss out of a bunch of kobolds. But there’s another progression hook that’s got its claws in me deep …

For those of you who’ve ever played a MMO or any kind of role playing game in general, you know that loot and more specifically gear is pretty important. Now, I’m not always lusting after the most epic gear sets out there – I just don’t have the time – but there is something I do care about … Pants. Or lack thereof.

Here’s how my character looked a couple weeks ago:

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He was so ridiculous, I had to take a screenshot of him lounging on a behemoth like some kind of androgynous king. I don’t know who’s job it is over at Square Enix to design all of the armor choices, but … this? …. What? How is that …

Fine. Whatever.

So I dug in and really started questing, got a bunch of levels, ran some dungeons and on my last venture, I won some pretty sick pants. It was on a Sunday where the wife was doing something and I told myself I’d just play for an hour or two. That hour or two soon changed into OK I’ll play for however long it takes me to find a pair of freaking pants. So back to that dungeon, I see the pants drop. They’re for monk, my class, and the stats are awesome. I’m psyched. Those two hours had become more like four … maybe five … but it was all worth it. I’d finally found me something to cover those man thighs. Hey, I’m all for wearing whatever you want, but exposing just the inner thigh. Seriously? I’m supposed to be some world renowned bad ass adventurer but I looked like the Village People wouldn’t even take me in.

With baited breath I equipped my new pants …

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I went from Village Person reject to sex slave …

And then we went on vacation.

Now I don’t go home at lunch. I don’t have an opportunity to fix this. I can’t find new stuff. I can’t level up. I just think about those booty shorts. I had thought my quest for pants had come to an end, but it appears that it has just begun …

Sigh.