1,659 words and some other cool stuff

I suppose I should be happy that I wrote so much, but I don’t feel like I’m making as much progress as that four digit number implies. I still feel like I’m stuck on this one scene, and even though a lot has happened, I don’t feel that it’s concluded in such a way that I can move on to the next one. And the next couple of scenes are going to be really cool, so I want to get to them at least before I go back to Utah. But oh well. The more I write, the longer this story seems to become.

Don’t worry, there’s more to this post than just rambling thoughts…

One thing I’m concerned about is how much religion is in this story. When is it too much? I’m not talking about preachiness or explicit messages–those are almost always bad, and I stay away from that. I’m talking about the religion of one of the cultures within my story. It seems that whenever I write from Saeed’s point of view, his religion comes up in a big way, and whenever I write from the point of view of the characters around him, something about his religion ends up coming to the forefront. Is this going to make it harder to relate to him as a character? Is it going to make him less likeable, more enigmatic, harder to relate with? I’m also trying not to make him seem too naive, but it’s kind of hard. I don’t know. Any thoughts on this subject would be appreciated.

While I was fiddling around today, I had this sudden urge to listen to game music from this way old DOS game called Whale’s Voyage. I found the game at this site for abandonware computer game downloads, and played it for a little while. The game kind of sucked (the graphics were bad, the controls were too complicated, the story was hard to follow, and the combat was hard to figure out and easy to lose), but the music was actually pretty good.

So I downloaded the game, started it up, and recorded one of the coolest songs. You can download it here.  It’s from this opening part where you build your characters and figure out everything about their lives. I hope I’m not violating copyright or anything by uploading it here. If I am, I’ll take it off.

Also, I think that this song from ocremix is way cool. I love listening to this kind of stuff when I write.

By Joe Vasicek

Joe Vasicek is the author of more than twenty science fiction books, including the Star Wanderers and Sons of the Starfarers series. As a young man, he studied Arabic and traveled across the Middle East and the Caucasus. He claims Utah as his home.

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