You ever just start talking with someone about literally nothing and it becomes something?
Like you say something, they say something and it spirals out of control and becomes a fun concept the two of you created? That’s the best.
Anyway, even though the first week of chadabshire.com has come and gone, the second week is just getting started.
The second week, of course, is business week. And the second week is a week of firsts.
The next Storygank premiers Wednesday and the next Adventure launches Saturday. I’ve had a blast in researching and writing, as well as agonizing over every single detail to the point where I forget to breathe sometimes, but I’ve also had a lot of fun in simply living the stories.
I’ve been exploring various avenues in storytelling for years and I try to ask myself every time I sit down to put the final touches on a story an important question: Why does this even matter? If someone, gun to my head, asked me to justify a story, could I do it? If not, better get back to writing and figure that out.
But for these next stories, I could. And when I was able to do that, I felt confident I could reach even deeper into what makes the next Storygank so gankable and the next Adventure so adventurous. Again, with the reminder that it’s OK to “bury the lede.” That’s storytelling Chad. There’s a rising action and climax, remember? You big goof.
Gank, by the way for those of you unaccustomed to the term, is getting surprised by an opponent in a video game, usually MMORPGs, and more often than not, dying to them. I’ve been both a victim and a deliverer of such a fate, usually more on the receiving end. But it relates to these stories I’m writing about in the sense that they surprise and strike me unawares. I’m not expecting them to resonate so deeply with me. It’s a genuine feeling of awe that I’m left with when a piece of media I’ve been gnawing on can just do it.
Meanwhile, the next adventure coming up was a joy to remember. I knew the story I was going to tell, but as I was writing and re-reading and re-writing and re-re-reading, I found that I was remembering additional details. Reliving that day, an hour or so really, one keystroke at a time, was a trip. While it was only about an hour, those 60 minutes were chockablock with insanity. In a good way. The way that makes it a story worth telling and not a memory just worth keeping locked away to smile about sometime.
I think you’ll dig both stories.
This week also marks the first week I’m not getting too awfully grossed out by black coffee. In an effort to cut out the unhealthier aspects of my go to drink of that good, good brown water, I’ve just been taking it black. There’s almost a joke there if you watch Game of Thrones. I don’t, so I can’t make it.
Crazy, I know, right? It just wasn’t my thing. Tried to read the books and they were OK. Maybe I just needed to give them a little bit more of a go? Watched the first season in its entirety and liked it pretty well and got halfway through the second season and it just lost me. When the thing came from the person and did the thing to the other person and I’m just supposed to accept that yeah, that can happen in this world by the way hope that’s cool, I was kind of done.
Oh, and while on the subject of coffee, I did manage to snag my first Ko-Fi, along with three others.
And from the depths of my very being:
Thank you.
You have pitched in to support me and my work. It means a lot to know there are those out there who are picking up what I’m laying down. Again, you don’t have to support me if you can’t or just plain don’t want to. Your eyemeat looking at the words I’ve strung together is plenty enough. That said, if you’d like to, click the blue rectangle at the bottom of this or any other page.
Stay tuned. And email notifications are coming soon.
Thanks for reading.