Michele Lee

Hmm, that’s a hard one. Sonya is the one who really started it all. She was my first PC LARP character. She was a Toreador, who never really turned anarch or antitribu, but occasionally tipped off the other side when someone pissed her off. Eventually she became the Prince’s right hand woman mainly because she developed a habit of leaving right before the really nasty stuff went down. (I mean, even when she was banned from the city it turned out to be right before a huge war.)

I also have a soft spot for Lily, a teleporter & healer who I played in one of Jason’s Marvel games. (That’s also the game where Jason used IHF, my heavily researched and not-entirely-made-up disease from my Bloodwalker stories because he liked it so much. Always flattering when someone is inspired by your ideas.)

Of course I adored my Sun Elf fighter from the D&D game that just ended. And the Eladrin archer with a bear side kick from my friend Steve’s D&D 4.0 game.

I guess when it comes to RPGs I don’t so much have favorites as not favorites. The ones I love the best are from the longer running games, and ones that either came in on a pre-established concept with other people, or quickly became and important part of a group.

As for video games, that’s easier. It’s a solid tie between Rincewind and Death in the Terry Pratchett Discworld video games.

And this had us rolling the first time we saw it.

Full Meme List

Day 1 – Your first videogame
Day 2 – Your favorite character
Day 3 – A game that is underrated
Day 4 – Your guilty pleasure game
Day 5 – Game character you feel you are most like (or wish you were)
Day 6 – Most annoying character
Day 7 – Favorite game couple
Day 8 – Best soundtrack
Day 9 – Saddest game scene
Day 10 – Best gameplay
Day 11 – Gaming system of choice
Day 12 – A game everyone should play
Day 13 – A game you’ve played more than five times
Day 14 – Current (or most recent) gaming wallpaper
Day 15 – Post a screenshot from the game you’re playing right now
Day 16 – Game with the best cut scenes
Day 17 – Favorite antagonist
Day 18 – Favorite protagonist
Day 19 – Picture of a game setting you wish you lived in
Day 20 – Favorite genre
Day 21 – Game with the best story
Day 22 – A game sequel which disappointed you
Day 23 – Game you think had the best graphics or art style
Day 24 – Favorite classic game
Day 25 – A game you plan on playing
Day 26 – Best voice acting
Day 27 – Most epic scene ever
Day 28 – Favorite game developer
Day 29 – A game you thought you wouldn’t like, but ended up loving
Day 30 – Your favorite game of all time

A lot of my friends on Facebook are doing the 30 Songs in 30 Days Meme. I’ve been debating it but then I found this one: 30 Days of Gaming. Oh yeah! (Of course it seems to focus on video games, where as I, am not going to.)

Day 1: Your First Video Game

My first video game was Facemaker, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day and Summer Games all on the Commodore 64. For those who don’t know/remember it was essentially a keyboard that you plugged into your TV with game cartridges that slid into the keyboard. (Holy hell, I Wikied it and they rereleased the Commodore 64 last month. The new version looks the same, but had 4GB Memory and 1TB hard drive, among other goodies.)

Anyway, Facemaker (screenshot to the side) was pretty much a programming test where you built a silly face then programed it to do things. It was like the caveman version of The Sims.

It got boring pretty fast, but this being 82-84 or so I was all of 5, so when other things got too hard simple was good.

The Winnie the Pooh game was my favorite. It came with a map! You had to roam around the 100 Acre Wood, looking for objects that belonged to the Pooh cast that got blown away in a big wind and return it. Ten items to be returned and you win! (Hehe, video below.)

So seriously it was the first puzzle/problem solving game I fell for. And did I mention it came with a map?

Summer Games was harder for little Michele, but sometimes the other two got boring, so I played. I liked the pole vault and diving games best.

Oh, I have to stop myself from going on a complete tangent here and just blabbering about my computer-using history. (I always loved computers.)

As for the other kind of gaming my very very first game was table top Vampire the Masquerade/Werewolf the Apocalypse circa 1995/96. The game only lasted one session, but I was completely hooked. It was almost three years before I found another game that wasn’t filled with asshats who lied about when games were or outright told me I wasn’t invited despite them being run in my own basement. And that was the LARP where I met Jason. So, yeah, gaming, pretty important to me, even if I don’t keep up with the latest and greatest.

Full Meme List

Day 1 – Your first videogame
Day 2 – Your favorite character
Day 3 – A game that is underrated
Day 4 – Your guilty pleasure game
Day 5 – Game character you feel you are most like (or wish you were)
Day 6 – Most annoying character
Day 7 – Favorite game couple
Day 8 – Best soundtrack
Day 9 – Saddest game scene
Day 10 – Best gameplay
Day 11 – Gaming system of choice
Day 12 – A game everyone should play
Day 13 – A game you’ve played more than five times
Day 14 – Current (or most recent) gaming wallpaper
Day 15 – Post a screenshot from the game you’re playing right now
Day 16 – Game with the best cut scenes
Day 17 – Favorite antagonist
Day 18 – Favorite protagonist
Day 19 – Picture of a game setting you wish you lived in
Day 20 – Favorite genre
Day 21 – Game with the best story
Day 22 – A game sequel which disappointed you
Day 23 – Game you think had the best graphics or art style
Day 24 – Favorite classic game
Day 25 – A game you plan on playing
Day 26 – Best voice acting
Day 27 – Most epic scene ever
Day 28 – Favorite game developer
Day 29 – A game you thought you wouldn’t like, but ended up loving
Day 30 – Your favorite game of all time

It’s hard finding something to blog about when you’re pretty much in head down, ass in seat, work mode. You don’t want to do nothing but complain. Can’t prattle on about the project you’re working on (ahem, you can see my progress on the sidebar. Tomorrow I hope to break 10K.) because it’s not sold, or polished yet. I don’t want to bring a lot of the negativity I’m feeling lately to others, but it seems dishonest pretend all is well.

Truth is while I do get work done, and am enjoying a bigger word count, lots of cuddle time with my family and a cleaner house, there are moments of sheer desperation and frustration. It used to be that to get a job you put in applications, talked to the hiring manager and had an interview. Now it seems that the hiring world at large has taken a cue from the publishing world in that you send your work (in the form of a resume, which is nothing more than a query letter where you’re pitching yourself instead of an individual project) and then sit around and wait for a response that probably never comes, seeing as everyone these days only dignifies you with a response when interested. I always hated that about publishing, because how hard is to email a “no thanks”?

But then that’s just my opinion on the silent end of this relationship. It used to be that you could find someone to see you face to face, you could make an impression on them. On the writing end of things you could make yourself feel better by reminding yourself that it was a project being rejected or ignored, not you personally.

There is no such solace in job hunting.

So yeah, it’s overwhelming that McDonald’s is hiring college grads these days, not just the people at entry level position and who can’t or don’t want to do better. And it’s overwhelming that even though I know I’m a good worker (and a good writer) it’s next to impossible to even get someone to consider you these days.

So usually I try to break up submitting, stories and applications with other things, like reading (which doesn’t always help when you end up wondering how the hell that got published), organizing more stuff, or napping.

Then , if you’re like me, you realize you’ve slept most of a week away, or can’t even talk about your frustrations with your partner anymore because they snap in frustration at your frustration. Or once again you’ve tried to keep a blog positive and the messy stuff has slipped through.

This is not the blog I intended it to be, but my career isn’t where I intended it to be either right now. Not either side of it.

When you know you’re doing everything right you expect a pay off. I mean, if you eat right you expect to feel better and see your pants size go down, at least a little. But if you know me you know that’s not how my body works, so why would my life function logically either?

But hey, I’m about to break 10k on a project I’ve been writing on about a week. I’ve got Mo*Con to look forward to in a few weeks (and having already been paid for I pretty much have to go and not feel bad for spending that money because I spent it before this all started.) My garden looks good, and it’s supposed to be rain free for a bit, so maybe I can get the second plot done.

Also, I have to say, there’s been a rather large number of you excited about this WIP, which, if you haven’t seen is a book-length sequel to Rot. That really really makes a gal feel fantastic.

So like I said, good and bad. Moments of enthusiasm and inspiration, moments of despair and depression, but most of the time I’m trying pretty hard to not feel much of anything and just keep plodding forward.

Hope the rest of you are holding steady too.