Yay, got another chapter of Freelancers posted last night. 
This one pushed the story over the 100,000-word point. And it's just barely gotten started. 
In this one, I went ahead and had Aria drop her little blackmail bombshell. Mwahaha. As for how she got the info, and how she found out so much about the Reapers and the current state of affairs...I just went with, "I have my sources." That leaves another surprise or two to spring later on.
Couple quick samples....
"I know something Sparatus and Tevos won't want to become common knowledge." Aria chuckled. "Goddamn kinky, those two."
"I've just finished a conversation with Tevos and Sparatus, during which I made damned sure they know the consequences of continuing their stubborn bull****. If they don't stop blocking you and start giving you whatever you need, I'll make sure Emily Wong, Khalisah al-Jilani, Battletits, and every other journalist with a modicum of influence are all over both of them like flies on a week-old corpse."
I actually thought about waiting until much later to spring this one, but then I realized doing it now might make the difference between the whole story finishing at 500,000 words instead of 750,000. Or something like that. 
In other news, YouTube is shafting me again. I uploaded the third video in the series I mentioned last time, and four days later, its status was still "processing." I deleted it and re-uploaded it two days ago...and it's still "processing." I'm seriously thinking about giving up on YouTube and looking for another outlet. Uploading this video twice, for nothing, used up ten gigabytes of my 100 gigs/month. I'll try converting the file into a different format and re-uploading one more time, at some later time, and if that doesn't work, I'm done.
Yesterday I discovered something wonderful, though--installers for the MEHEM and Citadel Epilogue mods plus a mod that lets the game go straight from the credits to the CE. I'd downloaded previous versions that required a separate save to use for the CE, and hadn't paid any attention after that. I decided to check for newer versions just for the hell of it, and there they were. Now, if nothing goes horribly wrong (which is how my luck usually works), it should flow seamlessly. 
That first segment of the game, though...ugh. So many things wrong with it. But after I got past that and started doing the rest of the missions, it's actually not that bad, aside from the total ass-pull that the Crucible is. I'm actually enjoying it, though, because this time I know there won't be a load of complete and utter nonsense followed by "rocks fall, everyone dies" waiting for me at the end.
While not trying to labour the point, the most disappointing thing about Tali was not actually seeing Tali, only a small pixelly photo. Regardless of whether a photoshopped stock image or an original piece of artwork/rendering, there was no face-to-face with un-hooded Tali for teh Talimancers.
Yeah, the reveal should've been that moment at the end of the Rannoch mission when Tali takes her mask off. Her face should've been fully rendered like any other character, instead of showing her from behind staring into the sunset and then doing a fade-out. I figure it shouldn't have been that difficult to render a face for one scene...but then, while watching Archengeia's playthrough a week or two ago, he pointed out something I hadn't noticed when I played ME3. Right at the beginning, when you're escaping the first Reaper assault on Earth, there are several points where people can be seen running through the streets below. I hadn't paid any attention before, but he zoomed in on them and it was crystal clear that the running civilians were just tiny sprites with maybe three frames of animation. And in a couple of places, they ran at weird angles, and at one point they were running sideways. So, maybe rendering Tali's face was just too much effort for the devs to put into the game. 
[snip]
I always pictured the facepaint as tribal markings and makeup. As such, I always figured Nyreen's face was simply more painted than the average turians. If you compare her face to Nihilus, they both have a lot more paint than we generally see on turians. Hell, Saren didn't bother with ANY, which I always assumed was another aspect of his Indoctrination. Some of the Eclipse mercs have facepaint that makes them almost look like another species (until you realize it's paint and not skull that you are seeing).
Hah..."Sixpak!" We totally had a discussion on mammaries, hair and such on this thread. Hair as a form of piercing is an interesting idea, and one I'd not considered. Still, I DO like the idea of tubulin structures, just to define them as something different from the keratin based fibers that humans have. But as I said, I left it intentionally vague in my story.
Never considered the containment suits as an analog for skin tone, interesting idea!
As for keeping to the writing schedule, I generally set deadlines for myself, even if I don't particular intend to adhere to them. I figure I'll at least accomplish half of what I set out for myself, which is some form of progress, haha! I found it a lot easier to keep to the deadlines after I had beta readers and reviewers. Once there were people waiting on my work, I felt a sense of urgency (in a good way).
Moreover, I posted bits of my story from time to time, simply to encourage moving on to the next part of the story. Otherwise, I was likely to continue editing ad nauseum. Having a beta/editor, as well as reviews on previous portions of the story, forced me to make peace with what I'd written and move on. Even today, I can take a look at my completed works and feel like tweaking. But at some point, I told myself "enough," and learned to be happy with the overall product. The betas and the fellow fans who read my work were just as responsible for the finished product...simply for instilling that sense in me!
I wasn't talking about the facepaint. Sorry I didn't make that clear. My problem with the female turians in the games is the structure of their faces and heads. Nyreen and others just look kind of like they're an offshoot species or something. Though now that I've thought about it for a while, I kind of like the idea that there might be different ethnic groups that have different face/head structures. Like I mentioned last time, turians from more northern areas might not get as much sunlight and haven't developed the long crest/horn things for extra protection (which might be another reason for that cloak Nyreen wore sometimes). It kind of makes sense to me, being from Oregon--it's not even that far north, but where I lived on the coast hardly ever gets any sunshine. Cloud cover and rain is almost constant, and I was always white as Elmer's Glue. After moving to Tucson, my arms got sunburned within a few days, then once I got through the peeling-skin stage, I'd get sunburned all over again within a few days. (Wanted to buy some sunscreen, but could never spare the money for it.) And now I've got a tan on top of my left arm from spending so much time driving around, but my right arm is still only slightly tan on top, and everything else is pale.
Huh, I totally forgot the conversation about mammaries and whatnot. I'm not nearly old enough for Alzheimer's to start kicking in, so I'm figuring it's some sort of brain damage or mental trauma from working at a Walmart in a small, turbo-hick town. In a one-hour photo lab, no less. *shudder*
The idea of tubulin structures is definitely interesting. 
And for some reason, I've just had a mental image of a synthetic deciding to try using fiber-optic strands as hair. Heh. But anyway, that's one of the cool things about fanfiction--each author can try different ideas like these. And for me, the benefit of chucking most of the stuff from ME3 is that I'm not locked into any of the choices they made that I don't agree with. Because our choices matter, after all. 
As for a writing schedule...hah, I wish I could be that organized. Years and years ago, I didn't exactly have a set schedule for writing, but I set a daily 5,000-word minimum limit for myself. And I stuck to it for a long time. There was one night when I was chugging away on my first novel, I ended up writing 9,000 words before I was too burned-out to continue. Nowadays, my work schedule varies from week to week, and there are other real-life things hat keep getting in the way. I try to set a minimum limit of one scene per day, but the way things have been going over the last few years, I'm hardly ever able to stick with it.
I totally agree on procrastinating more when you have free time...there are so many distractions. It's easier to "budget" your time when you are busy...as it forces you to adhere to a schedule.
However, if writing were my JOB, I daresay I'd figure SOMETHING out, what with wanting to get paid and all, lol!
Like I said above, I'm not able to budget my writing time due to life being kind of chaotic. I really wish I could, though. But if it were my job, yes, absolutely, I'd figure something out, just like you said. If writing were my only source of income, I think that would be proper motivation to keep at it regularly.
Many professional writers I met said they hire an 'office' so they go 'off to work' and get away from the distractions of just being at home. I think one said it was also handy that they didn't have an internet connection there. Ah, to be a full-time writer...
When I lived on the Oregon coast, I'd often take my laptop and drive out to one of the beaches, find a secluded picnic table with view of the ocean (and sometimes the sunset), and spend a few hours writing. There were always distractions like people passing by, and I'd keep getting self-conscious. And the weather there was always so cold, I usually couldn't sit there for more than a few hours before my fingers would get too cold to continue typing, or it would start raining. Here in Tucson, I've got a balcony I could sit on, but after my laptop died, I just stick to my PC. Sure would be nice to have a distraction-free workplace where I could sit and write all day. Maybe if I'm ever able to get another laptop and afford the gas to drive to a library or something....
Well, back to work on another of my books. Got some serious catching-up to do on several that I've been kind of stalled on for a while....
Edited to add: Okay, I also posted the new chapter on FanStory, and a couple hours later this...interesting...review came in:
I can see the outflow of deep emotion from the heart in this work. An emotion depicting a betrayal of love and trust. Yes, it'd happens and it will continue to happen inasmuch as man's heart construction is not written on his face. Nicely rendered. Exquisitely composed.
Um...okay. I'm glad the reader seemed to like the chapter, but...I'm not sure what the hell those two middle sentences are about. I'm pretty sure there was no betrayal of love and trust happening anywhere in the chapter.
Hmm. I wonder how many other authors get reviews like this. We've already talked about reviews that bash our work, but has anyone gotten a review that just made you stare at the screen and mutter, "What the ****?"
Retour en haut
I really want to get KOTOR again so I can do the romances. Good thing I'm on Steam and Origin now. 
), and a couple of Skyrim oneshots, and something I'm slowly working on re: Bio/System Shock/HL/multi-verse/stuff, which I mentioned a little while ago (love mah Liz 
