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 |  A hub for the "Book of Masks" universe. |
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The Interactives "The Book of Masks"  : A high school student discovers a grimoire that can make magical disguises."The Wandering Stars" : Sequel to "The Book of Masks.""Student Bodies" : A high school student is turned into a blue goo that can possess people.For non-WdC Members "The Book of Masks: Archives" : Dodges the "Servers Busy" barrier!"The Book of Masks (Abridged)" : Introductory storylines for new readers.Community "BoM/TWS Message Forum" : Community for readers of the interactives."BoM/TWS/SB Wiki" : Notes and documentation for authors. Spoilers!Current Polls None The Latest 4/24: Interactive: "Four in the Dark" 4/24: Public: "Four in the Dark"
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| And the post title isn't just a metaphor for what it's like to write this branch. About a week or two ago I started having trouble with a tooth -- off and on toothaches -- and the last two days it was really bad, and it's hard to write when your jaw is throbbing. I went to the dentist today, and he couldn't find anything wrong with the teeth in that area, but on looking over the rest of my mouth he decided I was grinding my teeth in my sleep and that was probably what was causing it. I'm getting a mouth guard. So that's another thing that's keeping the entries skipping like a rock across a pond. |
| Today's chapter— Interactive: "Sunday Fixings" Public: "Sunday Fixings" —is now up. And by "today's chapter" I mean, "the chapter that should have been up yesterday." But I'm making this thing up as I go along, and it's not so smooth. This is a short branch that is supposed to spend some time with Will in Kelly Cooper's skin and life. But there's not a lot for him to do inside her life, which makes it hard to make up a story for her. And on the other hand, what plot there is—him trying to figure out his relationship with Blackwell's, and Blackwell's relationship with Lucy Vredenburg, points toward evolutions that would probably force him out of the impersonation. So the kind of stuff that would pull the story forward would end this part prematurely; and the kind of thing that would keep this part going is hard to write because there's not much happening. It's straining my ingenuity, and I ran out of time the day before yesterday as I was trying to write. You should get a chapter tomorrow, though. I've got one written, at least. |
| Today's chapter— Interactive: "The Mother of My Enemy Is Me!" Public: "The Mother of My Enemy Is Me!" —is a revision of a previously published chapter. It deletes the last of the original chapter and substitutes new material. In making this revision, which expands the chapter in order to set up one of the commissions, I have had to delete the two chapters that originally followed it. One of those chapters will make a return in a highly modified form. I'm not sure about the other. If it does return, it will be a repost of the original chapter, not a revision. |
| Today's BoM chapter—"Of Curses and Even Worse Things" —may be new to readers of the non-interactive Archives, but it is a very old one. Tomorrow will bring another old chapter, and then on Friday there will be a revised version of yet another old chapter. Then, finally, some new stuff. In the meantime ... Yesterday I mentioned that after I finish some commissions I'm going to do something else for a little while. Here's more: I will be returning to a project I started a year ago, persevered in for some little while, then gave up in exhaustion: "Marvel Spider-Man: The Alternate Series" My bright idea: Take episodes of the recent DisneyXD animated series, mix them up in a new order, revise some of them, drop and replace others with new episodes, and create my own version of the series. This would eventually lead up to me writing my own version of the series's "Superior Spider-Man" storyline, which at that point had not aired in the US. I learned a few things from the exercise, the most important of which was that I absolutely suck at outlining. I'm not saying that the outlines themselves are bad. (Though possibly they are.) I mean that the process was ghastly. My brain works by improvising stories into being, and it seizes up like a bad engine when I try to construct the whole thing in advance in my head. I knew from previous experience that I didn't enjoy that kind of work, but the attempt to write three dozen outlines quickly ground me down to nothing. I wrote twenty-one treatments (and posted only nine of them) before giving up almost exactly a year ago. In March I resumed posting the treatments I had written, and I intended to continue writing, but after only one more treatment I gave up again. That left the thing four episodes short of filling up the first season. Exhaustion and frustration with the outlining process was one reason I stopped working on the project. Another was that the "Superior Spider-Man" episodes simply were not available to me. I don't have cable, so I relied on Amazon to supply the first 38 episodes, and for the last year that is all that has been available on Amazon. But in the middle of July Amazon finally brought out the rest of Season Two, including the "Superior Spider-Man" arc. I haven't bought it yet, and I still want to get this project done before I do, because I still want to write my own version of that arc, and then compare it to the official version. So that's my plan: Finish up the commissions, then bulldoze my way through some more alternate "Spider-Man" treatments. How far will I get? I don't know. That's the other big thing I learned from this project the last time I tackled it. Don't make grandiose plans. If this is the first you've heard of this project, here again is a link to it: "Marvel Spider-Man: The Alternate Series" . And here are some links to some of the more substantial blog entries where I talked about it:The idea occurs: "Spider-Man, Spider-Man, Messing Up My Writing Plans ..." Progress report as I watch the first season of the show: "When Everyone Is Spider-Man ..." More reflections on the first season: "Spider-Man: Pros, Cons, and Amateurs" My ambition grows: "Decisions, Decisions" The plan is described: "Immediate Plans" How I go about writing a treatment: "Project Development" And after lots of initial optimism, I hit a wall: "I'm Not Dead Yet" |
| Today's chapters— Interactive: "The Curious Miss Cummings" Public: "The Curious Miss Cummings" —bring that particular branch to a conclusion, at least for now. There is a chance I'll continue it at some point, but it depends upon the person who commissioned it. (Or other people who want to make a point of commissioning a continuation.) Tomorrow brings a quasi-hiatus for WdC members, but new chapters for non-members. I have been commissioned to continue a very old branch, one that has not been fully published in the "The Book of Masks: Archives" edition of BoM. There are only two chapters I need to publish to bridge the gap, and I could publish them both right now, but I'd like to stretch out the schedule a little so that I can pad my backlog a little more. So tomorrow and Thursday will bring chapters for Archive readers, but nothing new for WdC members. To get oriented, go to "A Yumi Life" and read it and the fourteen chapters leading up to it.On Friday members and non-members alike will get the start of a new, 5-chapter commission that will launch with a new choice off that chapter. Well, sort of a new choice. In fact, I'm going to use that commission as an excuse to delete and write new versions of some old chapters that will expand what had been a two-chapter arc into a five-chapter arc. And that commission will then lead to a second, different 5-chapter commission that will continue it. Once that commission is finished, I will publish a 10-chapter commission in a different part of the interactive. After that we'll have to see, because I think I'm going to take a hiatus from BoM for a little while. I've been working non-stop at it for a couple of months now, both with new chapters of my own and with editorial help to other authors. I will definitely continue to provide the editorial help (if it's needed) but I've got a couple of suspended non-BoM projects that I want to pick up again. (BTW, I was reminded yesterday that the original chapter title had already been used. I think there are several chapter titles in BoM that have been used more than once, but because this one was pointed out to me, I edited it to change it.) |
| I haven't got anything to say about the new branch that I didn't say yesterday, so I'm just posting this so that there's an obvious, easy-to-find shortcut to it: Interactive: "Putting on Paulina" Public: "Putting on Paulina" EDIT: I had to change the title, because I discovered the original title had already been used. Okay, I'm pretty sure there are other duplicate titles in BoM -- given how many chapters there are, there have to be! -- but in this case, the two chapters titled "The Perils of Paulina" were too close together to not notice. |
| Today's chapter— Interactive: "Do As I Do" Public: "Do As I Do" —completes a five-chapter commission, plus the six chapters I wrote in order to get to the commission's starting point. The ending will probably frustrate, but as this entry title says, Always leave them wanting more. You'll probably get more, eventually. The commissioner has said he wants more, and I hope today's chapter doesn't change his mind. I know he wanted the story to push farther along than I actually took it, but given the kind of psychology and personality Will shows in other branches, I felt like these chapters needed some extra motivation in order to take the story down some paths it doesn't elsewhere explore. What's next? Tomorrow I start publishing another commission, for ten chapters, in an area we were just in: a sequel to "The Sophomore Candidates" . I won't be returning to the branch I was working on, though, but will launch a new, parallel branch off that chapter.The story so far: Will and his friend Caleb have been playing around with masks. After Will lips off to Chelsea Cooper and she sends her thuggish boyfriend to beat him up, Will uses a mask to escape, first into the life of Chelsea's boyfriend, then into the life of a pothead. Neither is very pleasant, so he has randomly leaped into the life of a sophomore girl and is using her to pick what he hopes will be a more permanent alias. Two possible aliases have been chosen in other branches; it is time for a third one. |
| So, last time (in the entry immediately below) I explained some revisions that had occurred in BoM. Briefly: A branch got deleted, and then a heavily revised version of it was posted in a slightly different place. This was to correct some technical errors so that another author to continue that branch. I came in this morning to find in my Inbox (among other missives) an email from the original author of the deleted branch, a retort from the author of the revised branch, and a publicly posted chapter that doesn't add anything to the interactive but does eloquently state the original author's grievance. This present post just to say that I'm aware of what's going on and I'm trying to find a solution that will please the various parties. * * * Meantime, yes, I forgot to post a chapter yesterday—lots of piddly stuff that drove it completely from my mind—but I have posted it now. Interactive: "Dark Talk on a Dark Night" Entry: "Dark Talk on a Dark Night" It doesn't get to where people are expecting it to get, not yet, but I felt like the story needed some character talk before taking a pretty large step into territory that's not really been explored before. |
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