DZ-Jay

That's right. I have a similar phobia for cockroaches, and to me much worse that seeing a cockroach on a wall is turning around for a second to pick up a shoe to squash it with, only to discover that ... IT'S NOT THERE ANY MORE!!! IT COULD BE ANYWHERE NOW!!! OMG!!!!!!111one!!

What MIDI program are you using? I'm surprised it doesn't have an "export" function for MP3s. Also, it could be that the conversion program slowed down the tempo a little bit, stretching the song slightly. I suppose even a fraction variance would add up after 26 minutes, so the extra 40 seconds may be just that.

Guess what? Guess what??? Carol Greenleaf made it into the Snowflake Gardens -- finally! First, I moved the misty fog from the main corridor to just a side tunnel, which happens to be the entrance to the Snowflake Gardens. Because that side tunnel is covered in mist, you can't really tell what's there, and so it can be easy to miss or perhaps too scary to go through by the others. Then it's just a matter of getting Carol into that tunnel. She hid herself in the misty fog inside the side tunnel when she heard the Bad Toy approaching from the main corridor. Then, when he passed her by, she decided to continue deeper into the misty tunnel and find out what's on the other side. (And we know what lies there! Hehe!) That's it, just a quick update. I now have to figure out what it looks like and describe it in words (well, I'll have to let the "writing me" figure all that out). I was just so excited and relieved that she finally made it -- finally -- that I couldn't wait to post it here. I also was looking for a distraction. I've been sitting at this computer for several hours now and it's time for a break ... and lunch. See ya'! -dZ.

Sure. You would be forgiven for not knowing about it, but English is also my secondary language. I am Latin-American and Spanish is my mother tongue. And one of the elves proofreading the story is a Belgian friend who speaks Flemish as a first language. She has an English degree, so I trust her feedback. It seems international adults are fond of the Carol story. Now, if I can only get American kids to like it as well ... Hehe! Well, she's not really a Tolkien elf. She's a typical "Santa's helper" elf, as depicted in traditional American Christmas folklore: about 4 feet tall, with pointy ears, green outfits with pointy hats, smart and hard-working, and with just a touch of magic in them. They are cheery and merry, and full of Christmas Spirit and joy. In my mind, they are like a cross between a Fairy and a Hobbit, if that makes sense. On top of all that, Carol Greenleaf has a spirit of adventure and is very resourceful, like Bilbo Baggins ... or Laura Croft. -dZ.

Well, too bad. It's probably not your thing (it is really a Christmas fairy tale), but if you are interested, I wouldn't mind sending you an advanced manuscript once I complete it. I think it's important to get feedback, even though I'm scared to death of hearing that it's not good. Don't feel pressured to respond at all. I have two other elves, apart from my Wife and nephew, providing feedback and proofreading assistance. -dZ.

Yeah, I don't think it's going to grow that much more. I think it am a little bit over the half-way mark, so perhaps it'll grow to about 20K works in total. Then with a few illustrations peppered here and there, it'll probably make for about 80 to 90 pages in the current layout. Do you have children that may be interested in reading the Christmas Carol story? -dZ.

I just checked, and for the story pages only, 13,446 words, including chapter titles. I don't know how many it would be when translated to Hebrew.

Well, according to my word processor software, the story so far comprises: 13,789 words 275 paragraphs 1,229 lines 43 pages (including 4 leads for the title, dedication, and filler, and an extra page where I kept the passages I removed -- just in case I want to reuse any of it later) Storywise itself, I'm on Chapter 9, page 38. Not bad for a short story which I expected would go no more than 10 pages, but still not some Great American Novel. Not even close. Hehehe. -dZ.

It occurred to me that with all the pieces of the map I've been including in the blog, you could probably piece together the whole thing. -dZ.

I don't have much progress to report today. Although I spent several hours working on the story yesterday, I feel like it was all spent just spinning my wheels in place. I wrote almost an entire page before I halted and decided I didn't really like the way it was going. After that, it just got worse: I wrote and re-wrote paragraph after paragraph, and never got past the same spot. All in all, it was a frustrating day, to balance the ecstatic and successful day before, where I completed chapter eight and started on nine. My goal yesterday was to get Carol through the Eastern Passage tunnel, which she took out of the Candy Cove, and into the Snowflake Gardens, which lie at the very center of the Ice Cube Caverns complex. I've been looking forward to getting that done for a while since the Snowflake Gardens cave is where some of the cool things happen which lead to the Boss Level er ... I mean, to the third act and exciting climax of the story. Every chapter since the fifth one has started with the title "Snowflake Gardens" with my expectation of getting Carol there ... only to end up describing some other place or adding another sequence; and every time I end up extending the story outline and moving the "Snowflake Gardens" to the next chapter slot. Don't get me wrong, every one of those "new" chapters just included stuff that I needed to put, but either didn't account in my outline or didn't know where to fit it adequately. Anyway, the current slot for the "Snowflake Gardens" is Chapter 9, which is where I find myself right now. I thought for sure this was it. I mean, there is nothing but an almost straight corridor, the Eastern Passage, from the Candy Cove to the Gardens; and back in Chapter 7 (before I interjected a new eighth chapter), I left Carol more than half-way through that tunnel. I thought perhaps she'll hear the Snowman in the distance or see some Bad Toy tracks in the snow, or something similar that would spook her; but overall, just let her walk the distance and get her into the frosted "Snowflake Gardens" already! (Yes, I'm trying to adopt Carol's "F" word now. I think it's cleaner to have it programmed in my head if I'm to have grandchildren around. ) And that's where it all went wrong. The best laid schemes of elves and snowmen, as they say, often go awry. I had this cool idea: I thought that the entrance to the Garden, which was a doorway inlet in the western wall of the northbound tunnel Carol was in; would be covered in a thick mist. Neither Carol nor anyone would be able to tell what was inside. The Ghost and the Snowman would have been scared of it and never go in, and Carol would be afraid to even try ... except that she hears the approaching Bad Toy and freaks out, so she runs in and ... discovers the beautiful and magical (and still yet without specific form and description in my mind) Snowflake Garden! Ta-da! Simples. Well, it didn't quite go that way. The "writing me" conspired to go in a different direction -- as, apparently, he is wont to do. First, he put the mist in the tunnel itself. Carol then thought the tunnel was blocked by a great big wall, and only discovered the mist after approaching it with trepidation. By then, she was already enveloped in it and couldn't see where she was. It was all written quite nicely, and it flowed well with the rest. Below is an excerpt of this passage: What bothered me gravely is that it brought with it several problems which were not there before, and which I now had to solve. First, it blocked Carol's way in a blinding fog. How is she to find the entrance to the Snowflake Gardens now? Perhaps she could stumble upon it by feeling her way with her hands on the wall, but that would have her discovery rely too much on random chance, which we've already had quite a bit so far. Then, there's the matter of the Snowman's and the Ghost's access to the Gardens. If there is mist all over the tunnel, and they must have gone through it on their way to the next chambers, why wouldn't they have gone through the entrance to the Snowflake Gardens? Was it also random chance that let them through to one end and not the other? It also made Carol's escape much more cumbersome and error prone. If indeed the Bad Toy tracked her to the Snowflake Gardens, but there's no way to find your way through the thick fog in the tunnel leading to it, how does she know where to go to find safety? More of that fortunate luck, I suppose. The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me, and the more I became convinced that it just wouldn't work well. Moreover -- and this was turning into a big thing already -- it would delay yet once again her discovery of the Snowflake Gardens! I was beginning to think those gardens were just a figment of my imagination and weren't really there at all! (Well, they are a figment of my imagination, but ... oh, you know what I mean.) So I stopped that train right in its tracks and determined to go in another direction -- something closer, perhaps, to what I originally intended. However, I don't think I ever recovered after that. I tried a few things, then a few others, but nothing seemed to click. And Carol still has not arrived at that darn frosted garden! So I decided to stop for the day, and give up on my own personal goal for Monday, which was just to get Carol there. It was frustrating and discouraging. Now it's the next day, and I'm fresh with vigor and motivation, and I am once again determined to get Carol to her next destination. I have resolved to fix what's broken in that narrative, patch it up as appropriate, and move on. Let's see how it goes. Until then ... See ya'! -dZ.

LOL! I didn't check, I just assumed. For all I know, there was the single patch he was after that he could never get and now he found it. Hehehe.

Well, I thought about it, but I think Jason has won every single one so far, so it couldn't be ... no?

Is it an "Explorer's Club" Pitfall patch with the Intellivision box art?

Is it a circular Beamriders patch?

Is it a patch for Worm Whompers?

Is it ... hmm ... Intellivision branded panties?

Is it a game patch?

Is it an Intellivision console dust cover?

Is it an Intellivision-branded T-Shirt?

Do we each get 20 questions? Is it 20 questions in total? Or is the topic of the thread just metaphorical?

Is it made of fabric?

Is it a variant of some game?

Is it a Cuttle Cart 3?

The book I'm writing is completely independent from the game, so there is absolutely no need to have played the game beforehand. In fact, I expect that the audience for the book will not be even interested in Intellivision games. I just thought that since I'm writing this blog from the perspective of "I'm turning my game into a book," that if you're not familiar with the game then my comments would not make much sense. I realized that a lot of my posts allude to things in the game, which I guess is my way to keep it grounded in the AtariAge world. Anyway, give the game a try and let me know what you think. Every two levels you get a new cave introduced by a cut-scene. The animation sequence gives a brief introduction to characters or depict short vignettes of the characters' antics. All together they sort of tell a story of Carol hiding from the Snowman and encountering the mysterious Ghost, then discovering that the Ghost is just goofy and playful. Also, you get introduced to the Bad Toy and the Snowman makes a trap to catch Carol, but instead catches the Ghost. This leads to the boss level where the toy robot melts the Snowman into a snowball, and both are hunting Carol, while the Ghost is trapped in an ice cube. And finally, at the end, when Carol completes the boss level, the cut-scene shows her beating up the toy with the left over twig-arm of the Snowman (now Snowball), lighting it on fire with the resulting sparks, and thawing the Ghost out of his cage. They then become friends. The End. That's pretty much the story I'm writing, except now with a lot more detail and no 8-bit cut-scenes. -dZ.