HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I'm only about 23 days late with this.


I don't really have anything new to report, just wanted to write a new post, basically. I touched up Gatekeeper's blog page a teeny bit, uploaded a script for a 1 minute film I wrote last year which you can check out now! The film is currently being edited but is nearing completion. I'm trying not to rush the editors because, uh, no one's getting paid for this. lol I'm beyond glad I managed to find a really dedicated team who stayed with this to the end.

Some other Gary news. A while ago, I contemplated posting The Unseen's manuscript here, but I don't think I'm going to do that. Reason being, I'm still working on it. I use the feedback provided by my critique group to make adjustments. Right now, I submitted chapter 7 to be critiqued, so basically what you have is the first, like, 3rd of the manuscript polished/as polished as it can be for now while the rest of it, err, isn't. I'm also handwriting, what I hope to be, my second manuscript, Yours, a horror/fantasy/romance novel. I never wrote romance before, but it was in my spirit to write one, so I'm currently reading a ton of romance novels to figure out the common plot points that make a romance story ~work. I've learned quite a lot so far.

I MAY decide to rewrite Barbarians soon, really take my time with it, figure out what didn't work (a lot lol) and try my best to fix my mistakes. People seem to really enjoy the dialogue and the premise itself, and so I don't want to abandon it, even if I wrote it during a hard period in my life.

LAST THING. I have two flash fiction pieces that I may revise and post here, so be on the look out!

A BIT ABOUT ME

I felt inspired to post videos of myself, mainly to 'capture' my life as a 20-something. Check it out!



You can find me on youtube as 'OnlyMeGary.' If you like what you see, subscribe!!!

AFROPUNK!

Why haven't I posted about this yet???

Anyway, Afropunk was last weekend and it's basically a festival celebrating Africa. I went last Saturday and it was AMAZING! I was there pretty much all day but it didn't feel like a drag at all. They have music there, food, and probably other stuff I should've gotten into but didn't. They were also selling clothes, art, and health insurance (lol).

I bought a ticket for Kelis. I saw her promoting Afropunk all over facebook and figured, "why not?" The festival was in Brooklyn after all, and I happen to live in Brooklyn. Kelis is one of my all-time favorites and let me tell you, she was worth EVERY PENNY of the $47 I paid for a ticket!

The festival was in Commodore Barry Park. On foot, it was a 51 minute walk from my apartment, but I could've taken a bus and a subway to get there. Well, it was such a nice day that I decided to walk it! It was an amazing walk. I love taking long walks like that because I love feeling ONE WITH THE EARTH, and seeing all of the different people and buildings. I also wanted to see if I could do it. When I started walking again after the accident, I couldn't walk five minutes without my legs getting tired. Gosh, you don't realize just how important mobility is until it's ripped away from you.

Anyway, the walk was great, and when I got to the park, I had to wait in line to show the people my ticket. The male line was QUITE a bit shorter than the female line, which, lucky me! After the security checked me and everything, I went in the park.

There were three stages, Gold, Green, and Red. Kelis, Lauryn Hill, and Grace Jones were performing on the Green Stage, which wasn't actually green. It was located close to the entrance, so I didn't want to lose sight of it. They had posters all over the park telling you who was going to perform, when and where. Unfortunately, I didn't recognize any of the acts performing on the Red and Gold stages, although I did stick around the Red Stage for a while when this band called Palaceburn was performing. I liked their song "So Gone."

I got to the park at around 1, and Kelis wasn't scheduled to perform until 5. I thought, "Oh phooney," but I decided to kill time by exploring. All of the clothes for sale were African or designed with African wear in mind, but I must say, the male clothes I saw were butt ugly, overpriced and over-sized. However, the female clothes looked nice! I also saw some jewelry for sale and thought of buying some stuff for my mother and sisters. Now that I think about it, I wish I did.

I took a while to look at some art I knew I wasn't going to buy, but I did get a free bookmark! Anyway, I bought lunch, chicken tenders and french fries and sat on a bench by the gold stage, just taking in everything going on around me. When I heard music from the gold stage, I threw my fries away (I only had a taste for them; I didn't want the whole thing), and made my way to the Green Stage. I guess all of the R&B acts were designated to the green stage. Two people performed before Kelis, and in between every act was a 30-min set by a DJ, who would start playing some bangin' music. The first performer I saw had a interesting voice, but her music didn't excite me much; I actually slept through most of her set. lol Whoops?

The second act had an amazing voice. She commanded my attention better than the first act did, but I wasn't crazy about her music either. The crowd was here for her though, so she must be big in the indie world, but I don't really care all that much about indie music (lol clearly), so...

Then Kelis comes on stage, a little plump but that was okay with me! I was too far from her to see that she was actually pregnant, I just thought she gained some weight with age and living the good life. Anyway, her voice was AMAZING. I've been obsessed with her ever since her performance. I cannot say enough good things about her performance. She was that good. She has this song called Cobbler off her album Food which I always loved, HOWEVER, I did NOT know the high notes reached toward the end was actually her. I just thought she did what Janet did in her song "This Time" and got an opera singer to do those notes. Kelis hit those notes with perfection! I always thought she had a unique, interesting voice, that's why I'm such a big fan, but I did not her vocal range was that big! I was such a happy fan.

I should have left after Kelis, because the act who was up after her surprised me and definitely not in a good way. When she finally got there, her performance started off perfectly. Her voice was amazing. But then her voice started to get huskier, and at a certain point, it was like she stopped singing and started hollering. Then the sound cut off. The crowd cried to have the sound turned up, and that seemed to do it, but then the sound went off again. People shouted to turn up the sound, but nothing happened. The act was still doing her thing, but no one could hear a thing, not even the band. Needless to say, I was pretty disappointed, and I'm not even a huge fan. The only songs (I could hear) she performed that I recognized were performed at the "end" (right before the sound went off). It was like her entire set was covers. Maybe she gets sick of performing the same stuff over and over again. Oh, well. I guess that's what happens when you've released only one album 20 years ago. :\

Grace Jones performed last, and I wish I stayed because it sounds like she killed it, but I wanted to see a movie (which turned out to be so lame), so I ended up leaving around 9 pm.

Anyway, I had an amazing time and wanted to document it somewhere so I'd never forget it! If Afropunk comes back next year, I definitely want to go again!! The event reminded me of Artscape, an event in Baltimore celebrating Baltimore's art scene. Only Afropunk is (obviously, this being NYC) higher scale and so not free lol. My one disappointment was (besides the act who followed Kelis) the total lack of funnel cake stands!!! I was hunting for a funnel cake; I just SWORE they had a funnel cake stand somewhere. They didn't. I will give Artscape that at least, they have funnel cake stands!

I'VE HAD WINDOWS 10 FOR A DAY...

...And I already like it better than Windows 8.1! The best thing is that I can play my RPGM2k3 games again, which means I can work on MMZ again! Yay!

Apparently, reception to Windows 10 has been mixed, but like, I don't see how? It is literally perfect. In my opinion, anyway.

WINDOWS 8.1 GETS ON MY NERVES

Hi all. Just when I feel like I've (finally) gotten (back) into the groove as far as MMZ is concerned, I can't play the game. I mean, test play works just fine, but the game crashes when I try to play it in the game's folder. So I tried to search the web for how to play RPGM2K3 games in windowed mode, but haven't had any luck. If you know anything, help a brother out! =(

THE FUTURE OF SUNNYDALE...

...Is bright! I just got my data back from Best Buy, and everything is as I left it. So glad! Maybe MMZ will come out after all! heehee We'll see.

ARTIST OF THE DAY!

Jessica Sutta :) (Apparently, this video is too sexual for some people, but I haven't actually watched it in full yet, so I have no clue of the video's quality, but I'm posting it anyway so dwi =P)

So, the story on her is that she was 1/6 of the Pussycat Dolls, but she was kind of overlooked, esp during the PCD era, but I always had my eye on her. She was just so c00t, and I was really impressed by her dancing. Plus, I guess I always kind of root for the underdogs.



The songs Jessica is featured in are sublime, if you're into dance music and all that. I absolutely love this one. "Make It Last" is another really good one.

So then Doll Dominionation rolls around and the group basically emplodes. The token ginger (red hair<3333), Carmit, had left the group by this time and Jessica dyed her hair red, but I'm pretty sure nobody noticed. XD

Anyway, Jessica is still out there doing her thing. She's been working on her debut album since the beginning of time, which I will be the first to buy, even if I'm the only one. I'm not convinced it will ever see the light of day, but in the mean time, I'll just enjoy the random song by (or featuring) Sutta that should surface. Like this one. :)

A NIGHTMARE IN SUNNYDALE IS STILL IN LIMBO

It would be my luck if Best Buy is able to retrieve everything on my hard-drive except 'Sunnydale' and MMZ. XD I just called them. They're still trying to save my files from my damaged hard-drive, but will call me when they have a significant update.

Well, you know what they say, hope for the best but expect the worst! I still have the beta version of Sunnydale on mediafire, so if need be, I can download it again and play through it a fourth (!!!) time and make all the changes I made again. Either way, the game WILL come out. I put way too much time in it.

As for MMZ, if that game isn't saved, it's probably gone forever. =(

A NIGHTMARE IN SUNNYDALE IS MY MOST EXPENSIVE GAME EVER

Not hard, when my other games cost all of $0 to produce. =P

Basically, 'Sunnydale' has endured two computer crashes, the first which almost took 'Sunnydale' (and everything else I've done ever) out with it, but the game was saved by Gillware Inc, for a truckload of $800. My, I guess, now old computer randomly crashed last Thursday. I mean, at least the other time this happened, my computer fell, but this time, my computer just stopped working randomly. That morning, it was working fine, but when I came home from work, it wouldn't let me sign in. The DELL screen was on loop. And then eventually the automatic repair screen was on loop. What a drag.

Hopefully, best buy is extracting the data from my hard drive as we speak. Luckily, I had my writings up to date, but my games, including Mystery Man Zero, hadn't been updated (on my flash) for well over a year. Last year was hard enough without the few actual good things to come out of it being rendered obsolete via a computer crash. >.<

Anywho, gillware's services and best buy's geek quad combined has cost me over $1,000. Or close to. I still have Sunnydale's script done, but I've made soooooooooooooo many changes to the actual game, even after I gave the game to testers, so if Best Buy calls me tomorrow or Wednesday and says they were unsuccessful in retrieving my data, I'll be really, really disappointed. Crushed. And then I'll demand a refund.

PS: Omg, the weather lately has been a-mazing. Does this mean Spring is finally here??? 'Bout time!

Tis the season for updates!

Since it is unlikely I'll update anymore this year, I'll say happy holidays now!!! Yay!!! 2014 is almost over! Lord knows I can't wait.

ANYWAY, for about two weeks now, I've been writing a short story. It's my first, but I figured if I can write a whole novel, surely I can also do a short story. I started writing it after talking to a friend, who encouraged me to try to get something published. While I doubt it's at that level yet, I am happy that I was able to "finish" something this year.

So the story is called "I Found You," about a specter desperate to live again, even know all she knew is dead and gone. She befriended a human girl, and then jacked her body, so the story follows her past and thought processes. I submitted it to a writer's org, and someone called said the story was atmospheric, which was kind of the vibe I was going for. Yahoo! I named the story after a dance song called I Found You lulz. Maybe I'll post it someday.

I Found You

I don't know how long this is going to stay here, so, uh...read while you can???

In other news, Sunnydale is close to having a beta ready. All I really have to do are the final boss sequence and the endings. My last finished game was four years ago, so I'm excited to get this one out there.

I still work on MMZ when I can. I must be honest folks, I have no idea where this game is going. It started out sort of sci-fi, and while I haven't lost that vibe, I don't know what it is now. It's exciting and frustrating at the same time. Still, I know how badly people want this game, so I will try to finish it and have a download as soon as able, preferably a download that isn't crap. =P

That's all for now. Happy holidays and stay safe (which I didn't do last year @_@)

- A Clyde

ANOTHER SONG OF THE DAY

I'm actually a big Kylie fan. I own all of her albums aside from the first two and X. Kiss Me Once, I think, is a superb album, even better than Aphrodite, which I also really, really liked.

Anyway, this is my favorite song from the album, which has become one of my all-time favorite Kylie songs. It's earned it! =D

I really just wanted an excuse to update. =P Oh yeah! I finished a draft of a short story this week and am going to read it (try to, at least, it's 2100 words but I think it may take me over 4-7 mins to read...) tonight! Wish me luck??? I'm also going to submit it to a writer's group of which I am a member, and depending on the feedback I get, I may post it here for a while!

SONG OF THE DAY

I've been obsessed with this song all day. Her album's really good! The girl actually has some good pipes. =)

- A Clyde

Pondering

Sooo... I'm thinking about uploading a pdf of The Unseen's third draft. Oh, what to do? I haven't tried to get it published at all, and emb services was a bust when I first tried it (apparently, their horror editor had resigned), but I may try it again this week... I know I talk about it a lot, so maybe uploading it wouldn't hurt??? I dunno, I'll have my mind made up this afternoon.

Minor Updates

The Me page was in dire need of an update/revision, so I sorted that all out. I also moved "Barbarians" to where I put all my other shitty screenplays are because it sucks. One of these days, I will write a good screenplay. ONE OF THESE DAYS! *holds up fists*

I resumed my search for editors for The Unseen and googled Ebm Services, suggested to me by a young lady I met at a writer's conference all the way in JUNE. O.O I also reached out to Harbor Light Writers in June as well, a writers' org of which I was apart before I moved to the big apple. 7/20 is their next meeting, and they will probably be the second (my friend Steve was the first; he's a really good editor, btw) pair of eyes to glimpse upon The Unseen's third draft. So I'm excited yet nervous all the same!

- G Holt

PS

Random, but my favorite song atm is Kelis' "Forever Be." It reminds me of me, which I know sounds vain, but it is what it is. =P

Btw, her Food album is really good! I think it's her best yet?

Nightmare Update

Aside from Dracula's ending, the writing for the game is all done. Dungeon construction is done as well, so all that's left is copying what I have written and pasting it in the game. I didn't write it "correctly," so the process is taking longer than I expected it to (I do this for Gatekeeper and it's a breeze), so the game is ~almost done. Are you excited??? I sure am. My last completed game was Complete Chaos, which was, uh, a while ago. I also started working on Mystery Man Zero again, which had some trouble a few days ago (it crashed >.<) but should be all right now. After Sunnydale is completed, it's a toss up between Gatekeeper and MMZ as to which one will be completed first.

I haven't written much for Total Chaos in the last few weeks. The project isn't dead! Far from it. I just haven't been motivated lately, but surely I will, soon. Writing is really mentally draining, you know?

PS: I added a bunch of Nightmare videos on my youtube channel! I'll get around to adding them here when I feel like it (probably tomorrow).

Some Nightmare Stuff

If personal drama hadn't happened in my life, the game's script could've been finished by now, but as it stands, I'm going to start writing for the final dungeon today! The end is almost here, are you excited???

That's really all I have to report. I'm still working on Gatekeeper and my soon-to-be novels, so bear with me!

I just really wanted an excuse to update my blog. =)