Sunday, July 23, 2017

7/23/17 Quick Update (mostly Contestant 25-related: Main character change)

-New main character in Contestant 25, Darien Wilder, previously Dakota Warren. Thanks to LittleBigPlanet 3 a month ago, I have decided to keep my word in terms of what I said on Twitter in 2015 when I announced the novel (which was Agent 25 at the time) that the main character was female.

-Darien can be traced back to the 1999-2000 year, from a weird, strong dream had in 2000 after eating fishsticks for dinner, which resulted in me getting sick a few days later, I think, was a combination of stress and food poisoning. I was also in 8th grade at the time of the dream.

-As with the post from six months ago, the storyline is still the same. Darien is a 14-year-old charged by her U.S. Secret Service Agent parents with the task of saving the world from the villainous Sterling clan and the evil Japanese megacorporation they work for, 3654Tech, on her 15th birthday. The story still focuses on the history of video games, and still has a wacky cast of characters determined to keep Darien on her toes as she finds out the cause behind the case of missing video game controllers and consoles from history.

-This story has taken me 22 years to get perfect (yep, that's right--1995 - the year I started writing at the age of nine).

-Darien is inspired by my personality. Since she came from a dream I had in the 1999-2000 year, she is inspired by actresses Larisa Oleynik (The Secret World of Alex Mack, 10 Things I Hate About You), Jewel Staite (Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Space Cases, Firefly) and Katie Holmes (Dawson's Creek).

-Other inspirations include Amanda Kimmel and Parvati Shallow (both Survivor), Ciji "StarSlay3r" Thornton and Kat "Mystik" Gunn (both WCG Ultimate Gamer), Jessie Graff and Michelle Warnky (both American Ninja Warrior), and finally Cara Maria and KellyAnne (both MTV's The Challenge).  She is also inspired by my time playing as Blaze Fielding from Streets of Rage and Tyris Flare from Golden Axe on the SEGA Genesis--the first video game console I ever owned, respectively.

-The story also revolves around two mysterious Arcade Sticks: Magenta (whose "guardian" was female) and Azure (whose "guardian" was male). This idea came from dreams I had between the years of 1993 and 1995--a couple of months before I started writing when I changed schools. More on those characters later.

-I am now writing this and The Racer Diaries in Google Docs instead of Microsoft Word. From now on, all new writing projects will be written there.

Got a busy schedule, so I'll stop the entry here. Until next time, WM86/DFW

Sunday, January 22, 2017

Quick Update (sorry it's been so long) - 01-22-17


Been really busy and basically life problems kept piling up on me, so here's what I've been working on since October 2015:

-The 025 Diaries is now Contestant 25. The main character of this series is Dakota Warren, inspired by my personality, like before with Aaron Kirsch, a 16-year-old charged by his U.S. Secret Service agent parents with the task of saving the world. This story has many elements of The 025 Diaries from 2015 carried over and revolves around the history of video games, and still has the villainous Sterling clan who works for the mysterious mega-corporation 3654Tech as well as a wacky cast of characters determined to keep Dakota on his toes throughout the adventure while he finds missing video game controllers as part of an investigation by the FBI.

-Warrior25 is now The Gearbox Diaries. The main character here is Darren Wilder, also inspired by my personality and my passion for cars. The story here revolves around the sudden disappearance of famous TV and movie cars, including Danny Krueger's Subaru Impreza WRX STi from Born 2 Race (played by Joseph Cross), Johnny Tran's modified Honda S2000 from The Fast and the Furious (played by Rick Yune), Ricky Bobby's #62 Me Ford Taurus from Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (played by Will Ferrell), Cole Trickle's #46 City Chevrolet Chevrolet Lumina from Days of Thunder (played by Tom Cruise), etc.

One of the main antagonists, the ringleader responsible for the thefts is rumored to be driving what appears to be Nathan Scott's 1984 Honda Accord hatchback from One Tree Hill (played by James Lafferty) and has caught the attention of the FBI and the CIA as well as Interpol. They are determined to keep this from becoming an international incident, and they need Darren's help--as always--to save the world. Another main antagonist is inspired by Brian Tee and Rick Yune (both from The Fast and the Furious series of movies) mixed with James Lafferty (One Tree Hill, Crisis, Underground, etc.) that will also keep Darren on his toes--and rumor has it both antagonists have ties to the mysterious 3654Tech as in Contestant 25.

Like Contestant 25, The Gearbox Diaries also has a wacky cast of characters determined to keep Darren on his toes throughout his adventure while he multitasks in the most treacherous, extreme conditions possible between trying to become a stuntman in Hollywood and becoming a professional race driver.

-I am also working on something new: painting cars for every mod in the PC game NASCAR Racing 2003 Season, featuring characters from both Contestant 25 and The Gearbox Diaries in the world of NR2003. I have been working on this project since March 2016. Similarly, I am doing the same thing in other games such as WWE 2K17, but only for Contestant 25 characters, as they created their own Superstars in the world of WWE in said game--the PS4 version.

And yes, I must try to update here more often -- but there's just way too much stuff going on that's preventing me from doing so, and I'd like for that to stop. Until next time, WM86/DFW :)


Friday, October 16, 2015

Quick Update: 10-16-2015 / Upcoming Projects

-I am working on a new series called Project 025 (the working title was The 025 Diaries). The series follows the life and trials of teenager Aaron Kirsch, who is inspired by my personality.

Along the way Aaron meets a wacky cast of characters, such as teenagers who are NASCAR fans (two in particular are fans of Jeff Gordon (4x champion) and Tony Stewart (3x champion)), a street dancer from Compton, teenage video game reviewers who mostly review games by SEGA and Bandai Namco Entertainment (formerly Namco Bandai Games, then Bandai Namco Games), people who are fans of certain college sports teams, young dancers from Illinois and Indiana who started out in (get this) a night club, and more -- on the way to find the elusive "Midnight Child" -- and defeating the villainous Sterling clan and their evil corporation bent on world domination, as ordered by his parents who trained him for this kind of thing.

-Other projects I am working on are Gearbox Diaries (more on that later), and two YA projects -- one inspired by films such as Bring It On, Mean Girls, Freaky Friday, Clueless and Barely Lethal, and more; the other is inspired by all things Halloween and focuses on a mysterious character and his/her journal.

-Finally, I have switched my default font around as well when using programs such as Microsoft Office Word to write, making a total of 5 fonts I have worked with since 1998. They are Architect (Tekton), Courier New (2000-2014), Times New Roman, Gill Sans MT (2004) and now Calibri (2015-present).

That's all for now. Until next time, WM86 :)

Thursday, August 6, 2015

BREAKING NEWS: Change of plans regarding writing projects / new project announced

Due to unforeseen circumstances and life catching up to me again, I have decided to put Warrior25 on temporary hiatus. It will still happen--it's just that I had this feeling that I didn't want to start with a racing story first.

On the other hand, feeling inspired by back-to-school shopping, I have decided to work on a new project, which is yet to be named. I have decided to bring every character introduced in previous blog posts into the project. Like always, there are new characters planned, and the project is still inspired by a video-game adventure.

Until next time,
WM86

Thursday, July 30, 2015

Quick update: 7/30/15 / 2 new tools arrived

-I am still working on Warrior25; however, more character ideas seem to be coming. Oh, and did I mention I haven't made it past the first chapter because of this?

-This is my first blog post using a Surface RT, a hybrid between a tablet and a laptop. I got it in the mail on 7/2/15, but forgot the charger, which came from the other Surface I had that crashed with the "BitLocker Recovery" screen. This happened as I was stupid enough to leave my previous Surface in sleep mode for too long (and it was charging up), and when I went to turn it back on, the BitLocker bug happened. Microsoft has an update that stops the BitLocker bug from happening.

-I also purchased a new USB flash drive from SanDisk last weekend, which stores up to (get this) 128 GB of space. The last one I've had since 2013 had a cover fall off my keychain, dropping the outgoing drive--which was able to store 16GB of space--to the floor at times, and caused the light to glow, and sometimes the processing unit found in the drive to be exposed. I am in the process of getting a lanyard to place the new flash drive and keys on, as I am constantly getting tired of having to carry everything in my pocket at once.

-Back to Warrior25: Each teacher character working in driver's education (Ashton, Darren, Amanda) has a set of students. However, unfortunate events happen with his two friends, Darren and Amanda, so he has to teach their students. I may have mentioned this before, but Warrior25 takes place between 2012-13 (failed projects Project Dylan (actually 2011-12) and Redline Kid (2012-13)) and 2014-15. There are more teacher and mentor characters planned as well.

-Since the days when I tried to write Insert Coin (2010-11), I have been obsessed with making certain writing projects inspired by a video-game adventure. This explains why, starting with The Story of Aaron, I have placed a "1-1" underlined on the upper right hand corner of my documents, similar to how Louis Sachar--one of my favorite authors and one of my inspirations to write since my days at both Adams and Underwood--did in There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom, a book I read when I was younger besides Sideways Stories from Wayside School and Wayside School is Falling Down as well as the 1994 finale, Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger. I think Sachar placed the chapter number followed by a period while aligning said text to the right.

-Speaking of inspirations, some of mine in regards to writing are (in no particular order): James Patterson, R.L. Stine, the late Stephen J. Cannell, Survivor host Jeff Probst (he's a writer, too), CSI trilogy and Whodunnit creator Anthony E. Zuiker (like Jeff Probst, he's a writer, too), Nicholas Sparks, One Tree Hill and Royals creator Mark Schwahn, Rocko's Modern Life creator Joe Murray and a bunch of others I don't have enough hours in the day to list--the sky's the limit!

Whew, I think I just said a mouthful.

Until next time,
-WM86 :)

Monday, June 29, 2015

Quick update: 6/29/15

-I know it's a shame, seeing what I've been through in 2014, but I have decided to combine The DFW Diaries and The Story of Aaron into a new final project, Warrior25 (when I mean final, that doesn't mean I'm going to stop writing). This move means that all the characters I wrote in both stories (except for narrators Aaron and Dusty) are going to be in this writing project I am currently working on since Fathers' Day weekend. (I had life problems sneak up on me again...)

-Like Diaries and Aaron, the story first starts in California with a new narrator, named Ashton Hobbs. His story is inspired by my adventures in life as a babysitter and a 1-time caretaker (in 2009), and--of course--my personality. His story is also inspired by my dad's mentoring at-risk teens, and still, like I said before in an earlier post, his job as a substitute teacher since 2006. I have also brought Darren and Amanda from previous failed projects back as well.

-This Aaron this time around is an automobile enthusiast, a gamer, and a lover of music. When he and his friend, Tyler get their driver's licenses, the adventures start coming in, like, for example, helping a teen in Hemet buy her first car and it was her 16th birthday.

-However, they soon realize that they are in way over their heads when Ashton tells Aaron of a dream he had upon seeing a mysterious teen in blue walk to the DMV just as soon as Aaron and Tyler left.

-That character, however, is still inspired by dreams I had of a character from 1993-2012, and some things I read about Josh Hartnett (The Faculty, O, Pearl Harbor, Hollywood Homicide) and James Lafferty (One Tree Hill, Crisis, etc.), but this time joined by Cameron Bright (Motive, the Twilight series of movies, etc.), backed up by--still, of course--all my research I've done on the state of California (as always) from 1998-99 to now. The dream leads Ashton to believe that the teen in blue is a CIA agent, but Aaron and Tyler don't buy it at first.

-There are characters planned that are inspired by some of my favorite YouTube users, and some of my favorite Wipeout, American Ninja Warrior, and Survivor contestants.

-I am in the process of getting a new Surface RT tablet sometime this weekend. It is where I wrote The DFW Diaries (my first story written on a portable device, saved to a 16GB flash drive) before life caught up to me again. As you may have guessed, I had a feeling my old Surface was either hacked, or crashed because I had installed way too many apps.

-Again, I have got to start updating this blog more often...
Until next time,
WM86

Monday, May 4, 2015

Quick update: 5/4/15

-I turned 29 three days after my last post a month ago.

-I am in the process of working on a racing story. It (yet to be named) will be somewhat inspired by a video game adventure, like The Story of Aaron where I named chapters "Stages". Returning will be some characters from stories I've written in the past 20 years (1995-now), along with new ones exclusive to this series. Idea gathering has just begun for this untitled series as of the week of 5/3/15.

-Speaking of The Story of Aaron, I am putting it on temporary hiatus, as life outside of writing has caught up to me again just like the mid-to-latter half of 2014.

-I welcomed a new item to my family of writing tools (and you may have heard this before): a wireless USB keyboard. To be more specific, it's a Jeff Gordon USB wireless keyboard, with his 2015 3M colors. Sadly, 2015 will be his last season to race full-time in Sprint Cup. When I went to purchase it online, my dad told me to instead get a Jimmie Johnson version of it, but I've been a fan of Gordon the same year I started writing, which is 1995. I may collect other wireless keyboards in the future.

-Speaking of the wireless keyboard, I am in the process of writing my first story using it, and it may very well be the project yet to be named as explained above.

-I may begin writing original stories on this blog.

-I may begin reviewing items I own on this blog as well.

That's all for now.
Until next time,
-WM86