DZ-Jay

Progress! This past week-end my Christmas Carol short story reached a milestone: Carol met the Ghost of Christmas Presents. I mean really met him, as in she introduced herself to him. She did: It's Carol's turn to scare the Ghost. Why is this a milestone? Well, apart from being the point in the story in which we finally get a glimpse at the titular character, the narrative has now completed the full arc of the Ghost's persona as it relates to Carol's point of view: He is a mysterious, ostensibly unhappy and malicious creature of legend who terrorizes Carol; then her fright turns to grave annoyance and a bit of anger as he just proves himself a nuisance, pestering her and stealing her presents; and finally, she learns that he is not a threat at all, not even an unhappy soul, just a mischievous little guy who loves presents and enjoys candy, but has no friends to play with. Carol's feelings towards the Ghost of Christmas Presents go from terror, to annoyance, to sympathy sprinkled with a bit of pity. For those who played the game, this arc is reflected in the cut-scenes as you advance throughout the 8 stages, culminating in their mutual friendship when Carol saves the Ghost at the end of the last stage. Or at least, that was my intention. It's hard to convey character dispositions and emotions in 8-bit sprites -- especially when you are also programming their movements and gestures by hand in Assembly Language (or instructing them using a home-grown scripting engine with many limitations). That said, and considering the limitations, I don't think I did a bad job at all. Anyway, it's a milestone in the story. I'd like to say it'll all be easy from here on, but I know that would just be a lie. I have no idea what's going to happen now. Well, that's also not entirely true. I do have some idea: I know what the next narrative beats are supposed to be and how it ends. I just have no idea how they will end up on the page. The end could be five pages away from this point, as likely as it could be 5 more 10-page chapters. I don't know. In any case, it does not matter: Carol's story will be as long as it needs to be. We're now at 30 pages in (after the last Great Font Re-Sizing Shuffle), so that's way more than the originally presumed 10 pages. Yet, I don't think it's too long -- not at all. I also do not think it's too short. It seems to me that it has the right number of words to describe Carol's adventure so far, and that's what counts. That's it for now. I need to go back to the story and finish up this chapter. See ya'! -dZ.

Agreed on both counts.

I agree with artrag. That would be a good faith gesture towards the community.

Then, I guess you won't mind if 13 months after you release your game, the ROM gets ripped and passed around the forum for free. -dZ.

Oh, but he wouldn't lie... he apologized because he didn't know he was stealing someone's work... P.S. Thanks for the heads-up.

Yeah. If I had to typeset that by hand, it would have taken me many more hours. And you know what? I probably would have done it just to procrastinate.

Update, I spent another 30 minutes adjusting the chapter title font size. I like it now, I think I'll keep it.

I was going to continue writing chapter 7 this morning and instead found myself playing with the font-sizes and paragraph spacing of the chapter titles. Darn! I am my worst enemy. Anyway, that took just about an hour (I am very dedicated to my fonts), so now I'm back to work. Only that instead of writing the story, I ended up over here, writing a blog post. Darn again! Oh well, let's embrace this moment. I'll convince myself that this is not a means to avoid working on the book, but actually a form of introspection to come up with narrative ideas and character motivations. Yeah, that's it. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. So ... considering that Carol is about to enter what will henceforth be known as the Candy Cove, I was thinking, "what is Carol's favourite candy?" In the game, the candies are just dots, and even though we describe Carol as an elf with a sweet-tooth that will eat as much candy as she can find, we never specify the type of candy other than to say that the dots were "bon-bons." Back then, those red dots looked to me like cherry-covered chocolate bon-bons, so that's what they were. Yet ... is that really Carol's favourite? Then it hit me, there's no question about it: Carol's favourite candy is of course, a peppermint candy cane! DOH! I guess I need to make sure the Candy Cove includes plenty of those -- I need to make sure that the "me" who is actually in control of the story (the one that the "conscious me" appears to have no command over) writes them down. I've given that "me" plenty of hints, so we should be good. I even titled the chapter "Sweet Candy Canes!" Then again, the "story-writing me" may decide to just fill the place up with licorice sticks or lemon-drops, and we'll probably discover that Carol loves those too. Oh well. At least she'll get some treats. That's it for now. Back to work, other "me"!!! See ya'! -dZ.

Well... actually, the 1st of September would have been too late. -dZ.

That's true! I'll need to test it out.

I thought I'd talk a little bit about the writing experience. As I mentioned before, I am not a writer. I fancy myself as having a good command of the English language, and in my professional career I've had the opportunity to apply and polish my technical writing ability, but I've never written fiction before. In fact, other than two projects in high school, I've never even tried creative writing before. I wouldn't count those projects as any kind of experience, though. They were absolute crap. I haven't read them in several decades, but the bits I remember make me cringe just thinking about them. Eek! I sucked at it. Of course, back then I thought I was hot shit, but I imagine that being more of a mechanism of defense to convince myself that I really wasn't all that bad. I was, though. Ugh! So this is the first time I try my hand at creative writing and I have to say that ... it's weird. I suggested in the previous post that the story has taken a life of its own, and I meant that. That's the weird part. Well, good weird, if there is such a thing. Let me see if I can explain why I think it's so weird. In the past, when I wrote technical specifications or functional requirements (which I hate, by the way), the end result was something polished and useful that gave me pride. Whenever I read those specifications I could clearly see my hand and mind in it, and then I patted myself on the back for doing such a good job at expressing complex concepts in simple and accessible terms. Creative writing -- well, this Christmas Carol story, whatever we want to call it -- doesn't feel like that at all. It doesn't feel mine. It feels more like recounting someone else's tale; like when you watch a really good movie and then attempt to describe it to your best friend, trying really hard to convey the same sense of excitement, thrill, suspense, or mystery you felt when you watched it. That's the weird part: I made it all up, it exists (in whichever form an idea can exist at all) exclusively in my head. It's pure thought-stuff put down on paper by my very own hand -- and yet ... it really does not feel like I created it. When I wrote that Carol came up with a plan to trap the Ghost before he could steal a present from her, I ran to my wife and told her (and this is silly, but true): "Carol just figured out how to stop the Ghost from stealing her presents!" That's what it was. I didn't invent some new plot device for the story or came up with a bit of character dialogue, Carol had an idea and I was just so thrilled to discover it. This is the reason why I say I have little agency in the story. I don't know where this stuff is coming from, and even if at a more practical level I know it comes from my own imagination, it does not feel at all like it does. Honestly, making the video game felt a lot more creative than this. Moreover, this lack of conscious agency affects the direction of the story directly because even when I have a clear idea of what I wish to describe, the final passage may say something completely different. As if my hand were conspiring with some deep recesses within my brain to contradict me. Take for example the passage in which Carol meets the Ghost for the first time. As I originally wrote it, Carol gets terrorized by the Ghost, she is panicking because she doesn't know what's attacking her, and she screams. When the Ghost bumps into her and steals her present, she is scared and frustrated and at the edge of tears, so she whimpers a little before recomposing herself. I read that over and over and over, and it bothered me. I wasn't sure if I wanted to humanize Carol and scare her so much to bring her to the edge of tears. The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me because I thought that Carol was a stronger elf than that. So I decided to go back and fix that passage to make her more resilient. Only that, instead of elevating her, I doubled down on the drama: Carol is no longer at the edge of tears now, she breaks down and cries!!! OMG!!! That poor elf! Of course, she picks herself up with even more determination, and makes herself stronger by recalling her mission and everybody who's counting on her, and convincing herself that she must go on and complete her task. She is stronger for it, and I celebrate her even more than before. But really, Jesus! where the heck did that come from? So that's it, writing fiction is weird. It feels weird, in a bizarre good weird way. Does that make me a writer? I don't know. Honestly, I feel even less of one. At least in this story, I feel like I am just the historian who is recounting an old folk tale, putting the myth to paper for others to enjoy. It feels good -- good weird -- and I'm honoured to be chosen for the job. Santa Claus would be proud. See ya'! -dZ.

Guess what I did today... C'mon, guess! Yup, that's right: I played with the font size and margins again. I thought I had 21 pages, but I was wrong. It turns out I have written 27 pages! I feel so much more productive now. I think I'm done with the fonts and margins. It bothered me that the font looked so tiny before, and the truth is that it is a book intended for young children, so it shouldn't look too dense. It happened when I chose Baskerville. That font is very pretty, but boy is it compact. So I think I'll keep this size, at least until I decide to play with it again. Anyway, here's my progress. Just yesterday I started Chapter 7. That means that in just about a month I have written six chapters and all of 27 pages of story. Not bad for a World-Class Procrastinating Champion like myself. Not bad at all. Santa Claus would be proud of me. In Chapter 7, Carol discovers the lair of the Ghost Of Christmas Presents and observes him as he behaves at home. That's when she learns that he's not an unhappy and malicious spirit, but actually just someone who likes presents a lot and doesn't have friends to get them from. As in the game, the Ghost is a bit loopy and mischievous, but generally just a good chap. Carol will learn that soon. Well, that's it for progress right now. Until next time ... see ya'! -dZ.

It looks cool. For your webpage, if you are writing the HTML, try the following codes for the symbols: é = é © = ©

Sounds good. What about the Celery Stalk game?

I know I mentioned it in the previous entry, but I've decided not to post the map nor any of the other illustrations on this blog. I rather not make any of the content public at the moment, at least until it is all finished. In the meantime, below is a small section of the Ice Cube Cavern map showing the Frosted Maze. Other areas included in the map, not shown above are: Entrance Hall (presumably where the first cut-scene happens) Haunted Hollow Candy Cove Krystal Keep Along with Frosted Maze, the map encompasses five major areas taken straight from the game levels. In my own personal copy (not the one Carol carries with her), I marked spots where you would find tunnels or passages to other chambers representing the rest of the game mazes: Icicle Lane, Freezer Burn, and Twisted Toyland. However, only the five above figure in this story. I should mention that the spirit of the mazes are what figure in the story, not their actual layout. The story is not a direct translation of the game, each one is its own thing. They both share a conceptual world and a feel, style, and an overarching arc of events; but they are not the same. For instance, it should be obvious that there is no scoring on the story, and there is no specific number of presents to pick from each of the chambers in order to move on to the next. The story happens more naturally, while the game is strictly governed by a specific progression and play mechanics. I also won't post the story outline, but I will mention briefly the main story structure: The first three chapters introduce the characters, the plot, the legend of the Ghost Of Christmas Presents, and the location where it will all take place: The Ice Cube Caverns. The next chapter has Carol enter the first and most colossal of the chambers in the caverns, where she marvels at its design and majestic structures. In the following three chapters Carol meets the Ghost, first scared out of her wits as he terrorizes her, then intensely annoyed by his antics, and finally she empathizes with him as she realizes he's just a mischievous spirit who likes to play pranks on others. For the next two chapters the Evil Snowman sets up a plot to capture Carol which backfires in a spectacular fashion, resulting in the Ghost getting trapped in an ice cube cage. In the last chapter, Carol endeavors to beat the Snowman and his plan, and rescues the Ghost from his icy cage, who in gratitude becomes her friend. She collects the remaining presents and sets off on her trek back to the North Pole, still in time to save Christmas. And finally, in the epilogue, we learn that Carol made one last gesture of friendship towards the Ghost, sealing their friendship forever, as Santa completes his Christmas deliveries and the entire North Pole celebrates one more successful Christmas thanks to the efforts of the famous elf they now call Christmas Carol. The End. For those paying attention, 3 + 1 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 10 chapters plus an epilogue. Yup, the outline just grew a new chapter. Go figure. I tell you, I don't seem to have much control over this thing. Well, that's it for now. Until next post... see ya'! -dZ. P.S. It should be obvious to everybody but I will just reiterate that all the materials, characters, and story elements, and everything related to Christmas Carol are the sole property of myself, James Pujals, and I retain all copyrights. I post these entries for my own amusement and to entertain anybody crazy enough to follow my progress as I write this story. However, none of it is to be used in any other context or for any purpose without my explicit and written permission. You have been warned, so don't take anything without permission. If you do, and I ever get to publish this thing and become rich and famous, I'm sicking my lawyers on you. Copyright © 2018, James Pujals

Not yet. I'm waiting for Pixar to call.

Haha! I wish. The main reason I planned it to be a short story is because if I tell myself "I'm going to write a novel," then I know that the sheer daunting enormity of the task would feed my procrastination eternally, and I'll never get it even started. This is part of my personal deception: As long as I tell myself I am writing a "short story," which I can finish in a couple of months, I can convince myself that it's simple and inconsequential, and not too much work. If my conniving brain tricks me into writing a novella, then it's not really my fault, honest. I didn't mean to! Anyway, I don't think it'll be too long, but it is already longer than the originally intended 5 to 10 pages pamphlet. -dZ.

Progress? Yup, we've got some of that. I started this project about a month ago. Well, actually, I spent a week just staring at the initial page I wrote six years ago. I'd like to say that I was planning the story arc and figuring out my writing style and narrative voice, but I was just staring at the document pretending to be a writer, while I looked for all sorts of other distractions like re-organizing my photos or updating my household budget (yes, I get very productive when I want to avoid work). Then I spent a few more days picking a font and selecting margin sizes. I must have looked at some 10 different resources online on professional typesetting and book binding and interior design. (I also tend to become a thorough expert on random ancillary topics in order to avoid doing the actual work.) I chose 11pt Bakersville, on a 7"x10" paper with 0.75" margins from the left, right, and bottom edges, and 1/2" margin on top. The chapter titles are in 18pt Cochin, bold. It'll do for now, until I decide I need a new distraction. It all looks like this: Pretty, innit? Finally, after all that important stuff was done, about three weeks ago (according to my Time Machine backups, I had to look it up because it feels like forever ago), I wrote the first paragraph in six years. It has been six years, really, almost to the day. Indeed, the Time Machine backups attest that the last time I updated the essay was on August 20, 2012. It's uncanny, but the first change since then (playing with fonts and margins) was on August 25, 2018. Weird. Anyway, so I started the project about a month four three weeks ago. I then took an extra-long Labor Day week-end the week after to work on it, and that's when I became really productive. That's when the story actually took shape. I wrote two whole chapters that week-end. Brief, perhaps two or three pages each (11pt Bakersville is sort of tiny), but complete. That wasn't all -- during that five day week-end I also wrote an outline for the story, settling on five chapters; drew three maps to help guide me through the geography of the world, including the Ice Cube Caverns; and invented whole new story-world elements such as an explorer who several years ago charted the caverns but did not complete the work on account of the Ghost Of Christmas Presents terrorizing him out of the place. His name was Ed Finnley, but he's a topic for some other time (literally, I'll probably reserve that for the sequel LOL!). Since then, I've combined the first two first chapters into one and added five more. I am now at 21 pages (in 11pt Bakersville on a 7"x10" that's something -- at least to me) and the outline has grown to nine chapters plus an epilogue. So, yes, progress. Based on my ever-changing outline, I seem to be about half-way through the story, but I have to admit that it has taken a life of its own. That sounds like a silly old cliché, but it's weirdly true. I know what I want to include as part of the story and I know how it ends. However, I honestly cannot tell what is actually going to happen in between the sixth chapter and the epilogue. I thought I did, but apparently I am not in full control of this thing. So far, every time I sit down to write a particular situation as I planned it, it ends up going in some unexpected direction, prompting me to either add a chapter to proceed with that new development, or replace an entire part of my originally envisioned arc. I can't describe how strangely alien this lack of agency feels ... Well, it feels strangely alien, so I guess I can describe how it feels. It's comforting to know that I still retain some command over this writin' thang. Well, that's it for now. I think I'll include the outline and the maps in a future post. See, ya'! -dZ.

Wow, that's awesome! -dZ.

That's interesting about Pippi Longstocking. I am familiar with the TV shows from when I was a kid, but did not know the story of the author. The idea of improvising the story as a bedtime tale had occurred to me (indeed, my wife was asking me to do that as well). I just always chickened out in the end, and just read a regular story. I should try it, though. Thanks. -dZ.

I ended the last post suggesting that my motivation for finally writing the Christmas Carol story book had to do with a very special girl. Actually two. A lot has happened in the intervening six years since I developed the game and wrote the original single page essay introducing the full story. Since the game came out in 2012, I have not only grown older, but I've become a grandfather -- twice! I've seen my granddaughters grow up from little drooling pod-people into beautifully cute little precious girls that call me "wello" (a cutesy and childish corruption of the Spanish "abuelo," meaning grandfather). The oldest is now 4 years-old and when she spends the night at our house, which is often, she loves for me to read her a bedtime story. Every time that I read a "Peppa Pig" or "PJ Max" or a Dr. Seuss' story, or whatever, my wife reminds me how they could be growing up with Christmas Carol, if only "someone were to just get down to work and write it down." (Yes, she's persistent like that.) Then recently it dawn on me that my little precious granddaughter is 4 years old today, but only yesterday she had just been born; which means that she'll probably be driving to college or getting married by next week -- and very soon she'll lose the magic of Christmas and Santa Claus, and adopt adult themes and tendencies. And it broke my heart to think that she would grow up without ever even knowing that there was a little blonde girl elf who saved Christmas in a world of magic and joy, by recovering the presents stolen by an Evil Snowman. And that was it. My wife gave me a look of "I told you so!" (more like "I've been telling you so for six years"), and now I'm committed to writing it all down before the end of the year. The plan is to finish the story by the end of October or early November, draw some illustrations to accompany it, and print at least one copy (probably more since there is often a minimum) to give to my granddaughters for Christmas. Then, on the very first occasion right after that, to read it to them as an episodic bedtime story. She will be 5 years-old in December, still well within the "Santa Magic" age. There's still time, but it's running out fast. So, I have a task and a deadline, and as you can see from the number of recent blog posts, my procrastinating tendencies are in full effect. No worries, though. I have a very strong motivation: I have a mission. The children of the world are counting on me. I must save Christmas. (And in any case, I can always count on my loverly wife to push me -- by guilt or whatever means -- to finish the book.) Next post, I'll touch on the progress of the book. See ya'! -dZ.

When I say that every element of the Christmas Carol game was part of an overarching story, I mean everything. Every little thing had a bit of background and mythos behind it to give it weight. Carol was smart and resourceful because her job was to explore the world to find all children and ensure that they were added to Santa's list. That job makes her Santa's most trusted elf. The Evil Snowman is evil because his eyes, which gave him a soul, were two pieces of black coal cursed by a fairy, a long, long time ago. One winter, some children inadvertently set the coal on their freshly built snowman and unleashed an evil spirit upon the world. The difficulty levels are ranks, because Santa's Elite Elf Squad (of which Carol is one) are organized as a para-mililtary group, like the Boy Scouts really, where you start as a "Novice" wrapping presents, work your way to a "Helper" making toys, then to "Ranger" who help Santa scout out the world as he travels delivering presents; and finally make it to "Master," were you are a toy designer and team organizer and leader. The caves have candy because they are the lair of the legendary Ghost Of Christmas Presents, and he likes to haunt during Halloween (he's a ghost, of course) and loves to collect candy. The Ghost in the game constantly switches directions and targets because he is absent-minded and forgets quickly what he was doing. And that's not even considering the cut-scenes, which were short vignettes depicting the interaction of the characters within their world. Most of them have nothing to do with the game mechanics, and are there just to advance a bit of the story arc (which is why, for example, Carol scares the Snowman with a fiery torch in a cut-scene, but there is no such weapon in the game). Don't get me wrong, I did design the game levels and devised proper mechanics to make it fun and challenging. My point is just that all of it follows a story and depicts a bigger world which lived in my head. Anyway, I always thought that it would be a good idea to write it all down as a children's book. It's definitely the sort of story that the 8 year-old me would have loved. I even wrote the first chapter: a single page that introduced the plot by having the Snowman sneak into Santa's Workshop and steal the presents. I thought it was good; the few people who read it thought it was good, including my wife; but there it remained, just a single page essay. My wife thought the story had so much potential that year after year she pushed me to write it -- and year after year I procrastinated expertly, like the master that I am. Six years. To me it has been just a mere blink of an eye, but to some ... specifically, to a very special girl, it is even greater than a lifetime. I'll touch on the motivations behind this story on the next post. -dZ.

As I mentioned in my first post, I started a project to write a short story based on my Christmas Carol Intellivision game. It is something I've been wanting to do for the past six years. You see, that game was much more than a silly Pac-Man clone to me, it was an experience: not only was it my very first video game (which was a huge accomplishment for me, The World's Greatest Procrastinator), but it involved much more than writing code. I love Christmas. It reminds me of my childhood, and I still try to keep its magic alive by maintaining my family traditions and coming up with my own ones. Plus, I've been blessed with a wife who is equally inspired by the Christmas Spirit, so we tend to go all out for Christmas -- we celebrate the season from December 1st (I refuse to move it earlier, no matter what the stores and advertisements say!!!), all the way to ... er, February? March? sometimes April. Yup. Christmas finally ends when my wife makes me takes down the increasingly decaying tree and disassemble the Lego train running around it. Anyway, I digress ... where was I? Oh yes, Christmas Carol: The Experience. So, it was no accident that I chose a Christmas theme for my game. (Well, it was sort of out of the blue, sure, but I still contend that the same circumstances would never had happen at any other time of the year, and I certainly would not have been as inspired or motivated by any other season.) One consequence of that motivation is that the game was not just a collection of game mechanics and 8-bit graphics. I built a silly and whimsical world in my head and every element in the game had to fit within. It started as a small thing (just an elf, some presents, then a ghost) and then it just grew into a larger world. An entire story and mythology formed in my mind, and as the game progressed and got bigger, it reflected this growing magical world. Sure, because it started as a Pac-Man clone, some things were there because of the work I had done already. However, even those things like the Pac-Man maze, dots, and power-pellets had to fit within the Christmassy world in which Carol lived. I had to find a way in which they fit, or else I would take them away. That was my rule. So the maze became an ice cube cavern; the dots, candy; and the power-pellets, magical snowflakes. Some may think that these were just simple translations or placeholders for the sake of the theme, but they were much more than that. You see, it wasn't just a maze with dots and power-pellets any more: Carol Greenleaf was an elf with a sweet-tooth who loved candy, she was on a mission to save Christmas, exploring the dark and scary Ice Cube Caverns, which were imbued with some ancient magic that manifested as glowing snowflakes. There's quite some depth in that. Anyway, that's enough for this post. I'll continue with this topic on the next one. -dZ.