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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 5/14: Interactive: "The Family of Heather Dow" 5/14: Public: "The Family of Heather Dow"
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| I'm always nervous when I return from a hiatus, even a short one. Not that I think anyone will have burned the place down in my absence. I just worry a little about what might have accumulated while I was gone. Then I worry that nothing will have accumulated. Anyhow ... I promise I have not been playing Minecraft. I can't promise that I haven't been playing Civilization IV, though. Well, I could, sort of. I've been playing a mod of the game, not the actual game itself. It's one that gives the player lots of small challenges and puzzles, and I've been having fun trying one game challenge after another. It was more fun that dealing with the book. Okay, so about that Untitled Young Adult Novel. Oh, that Chapter 3 turned out to be a bitch! I still don't know if it's in anything like its final form. I spent a lot of time banging my forehead against it, which is one reason I kept going back to play Civilization instead. I tried revising the original version, but couldn't come up with an angle. Then I realized it was because the chapter just wasn't going to work in that setting with those characters (Charlie and Derek on the bus to the game), so I threw it out. But it took me awhile to come up with something new, and then to find a new angle into the new thing, and then I wasn't real happy with the results. I've fussed around with it some, and I think it will work for now. But I won't know for sure until I'm deeper into the book and can see if some of the stuff planted there is going to ripen. But, the new "Invalid Entry" is now up, and so is a tweaked version of "Invalid Entry" Tomorrow I will post Chapter 5, which was written a few weeks ago and has been waiting ever since. |
| I posted "Invalid Entry" in the [Untitled YA Novel] yesterday, but I didn't link to it. I was sure it was going to get heavily edited, and I saw no reason to advertise it. You can look at it if you want to get an idea of the "before" for when the "after" shows up, but that's the only reason. I wasn't thrilled with it when I wrote it—it was too much of an actionless "life vignette," and the story already had two of those—but I didn't know how to revise it. I suspected, though, that I would learn how to revise it after writing a few more chapters, so instead of worrying about it, I just pressed on. That's why you can read "Invalid Entry" now.I don't know that that did the trick, but I've an idea now for how to revise it, so that will be my project for today. Tomorrow you might get Chapter Five (but it will need some revisions in light of the revisions to Chapter Three) and then on Saturday, if my plans hold, I'll post the revised Chapter Three. In other words, you're not just getting a chapter at a time, like you get in BoM. You're seeing the crafting in action, only two days behind. Kind of like the Monty Python Novel Writing sketch on tape delay. |
| A great while back I opened up the floor to suggested locations in Saratoga Falls: business names, park names, street names, anything. I took almost all of them, I think, and incorporated them into the lore and onto a map that I made of the town. So now it's time for something similar. If you're the kind of person who thinks up names for bands—any kind of band, any kind of pop music—and want to see it make a cameo in BoM, suggest here in the comments. I can't guarantee that I'll use them, but I will incorporate them into the notes and when I need to introduce or at least mention a band that's playing at the Warehouse, I will draw from the list that you guys provide. EDIT: Thanks for all the suggestions so far, both public and private! |
| So, "Invalid Entry" of [Untitled Young Adult Novel] is now up, for whatever it's worth. Now I have to go write Chapter Four, because so far there's only three chapters. And I've been putting off writing Chapter Four because in it and Chapter Five I will be having to write a football game, which is a little beyond my area of expertise. |
| So, I think the only way I'm going to write this month's project— which was slated to start in October, but which kind of fell by the wayside as I did some more thinking about it —is by gritting my teeth and putting it up a chapter at a time, regardless of whether I feel like it's ready to start going up. So with that in mind: "Invalid Entry" Yes, that's a very generic chapter heading. But at present the book is called "[Untitled YA Novel]", and if you think that's uninformative you should check out the description. Anyway, I'm not going to say anything about it, even though I've got ideas, I'm just going to set it out a bit at a time and let people see it as it comes. And I'll try not to torture myself by watching an initial view count in the low double-digits dwindle to view counts in the single digits ... |
| "The World Smashers" (public) + "The World Smashers" (interactive) Today's chapter is a one-off, and except for a non-canonical extra that should be coming soon, will be the last until I resume publishing and writing in December. I'll admit that not much happens in it. It's only there to set up a commission. That commission will start appearing in December when I return to BoM, but while I am publishing those I will want something else BoM-related to work on. We've had a lot of polls recently, as I've asked which branches should get continued. So let's have another poll to tell me which of those choices you want me to prioritize. Depending on which choice gets voted on, there may be further polls. [Poll completed and deleted]: "Will Plus Jenny" wins with 50%. I'm going to let this poll run through the end of the month, so it will be open awhile. |
| So, today brings the last of the alternate timeline: "The Wrong Guy for the Wrong Girl" (public) + "The Wrong Guy for the Wrong Girl" (interactive)There are seven more chapters after this one, but I don't know when they'll appear. This marks the third time that someone who can plausibly answer to the name "Chelsea Cooper" has gotten mixed up with someone who can plausibly answer to the name "Gary Chen." Why so many times? Hypothesis #1: I'm just not very imaginative and keep returning to characters and relationships I've played with in the past. Hypothesis #2: I know these two characters inside and out, and I know that in certain very special circumstances they will fly at and into each other. I'll leave it to you guys to decide which is the superior hypothesis. I'll also leave it to you guys (and the one who commissioned it) to decide if you prefer this evolution to the official one. |
| So, many moons ago I was commissioned to write the story arc that would begin with "Operation Freaky Friday" and proceed through "Anne and the Air Head" I had to take a break in the middle of it when I ran out of days for writing BoM chapters, and when I came back to it I rather foolishly resumed writing (at "Double Dealing and Double Dates" ) without studying the original commission description too carefully. As a result, I wholly forgot that it was supposed to end in one particular way, and by following my instincts I ended it in quite a different fashion. Fortunately, I did look at the commission contract before publishing, and when I realized what I'd done, I put aside the ending I'd first composed and wrote up another, one more in line with the original commission. That's the branch that ends with "Anne and the Air Head" .Today, though, I return to the point of divergence to give you the three chapters that I originally ended the commission with. It takes off at the end of "Trading Confidences" : Chelsea and Yumi have been successfully switched. As the next morning dawns, Will wants to go check up on the new Yumi, but his friends need his help. Today's chapter—"The Misplaced Girlfriend" (public) + "The Misplaced Girlfriend" (interactive)—shows what happens when he goes off to find the new Yumi. |
| Today's chapter— "Gemini Falls" (public) + "Gemini Falls" (interactive)—brings an end to the branch that details the infiltration and piecemeal conversion of the Brown family. I've been wanting to write something like that for a long time, and a long time ago someone wrote me to say he was surprised that more hadn't been done with a MILF. Well, I guess we can scratch that off BoM's bucket list. Originally, I ended yesterday's chapter ("Strategery" ) with Sydney proposing the five plans that now end "Gemini Falls" . That's the best place to suspend the branch, but it left the plan inside the house still unfinished. So at the last minute I did a quick rewrite so as to push that choice a little further back. It does mean that the sequels to the other choices at the end of "Strategery" will probably be almost exact reprints of "Gemini Falls." It also means that "Gemini Falls" might not be the chapter that launches sequels. But if/when I do return here, I do like the idea of Will and Sydney having for a day or two to pretend to be brothers. |
| I thought today's chapter—"Strategery" (public) + "Strategery" (interactive)—would be the last in the branch. But I wound up doing a revision that would let me push on ahead by one more chapter, so we're not done here yet. You'll get the last one tomorrow. After that, to anticipate: I'll be publishing a three-chapter stub in an earlier storyline, so that the commissioner of that story can see an untaken path that I wrote before revising to send it somewhere else. Then there will be a one-chapter one-off to set up another commission that I'm supposed to be writing but won't publish until December. |
| Again, it was a short round of Plot Plinko, with "Show the book to Jenny" being the winner. I will add that one to the list of branches to work on when I resume writing for BoM. Thanks to everyone who participated. |
| The tie-breaking GPs in Wednesday's poll went to "The Search for Support" , so that's the one the new poll is for: [Completed and deleted]. It sends us down a storyline that rugal composed. EDIT: Wow, there were just all kinds of problems with the poll link. Well, I was in a hurry. |
| Yesterday's poll is still open because there's a tie: [Poll completed and deleted]. Sudden death will resolve it on it being broken by someone, either with a free vote or some GPs. Meanwhile, I have written the last chapter for this branch, and it will come on Sunday. EDIT: ... And finally a tie breaker came in with GPs. But I'll until tomorrow to put up a new poll. |
| New poll: [Poll completed and deleted] New chapter: "Sunday Dress Up" (public) + "Sunday Dress Up" (interactive) |
| Well, that didn't go the way I expected. I was expecting to get a nice, long series of polls out of this. Something to keep us interested and occupied during the 45-day hiatus. I wasn't expecting you all to vote instantly for the one unwritten choice at the end of the first chapter. I promise I will honor your choice—I was intending to do something with it anyway—but I still want to find an undeveloped branch deeper in the interactive to work on. So let's start over again: [Poll completed and deleted] |
| I am just about done writing new chapters for BoM: today if I'm in shape to do it after getting a crown replaced, I will finish composing the 30th chapter I intend to publish, which will fulfill my September commitment to give you guys a month's worth of content. I will even give you a bonus, as I will have to write at least two or maybe three chapters beyond that to get the current branch to a stopping point. You will be getting new chapters at least through Saturday, and maybe Sunday. I've written some additional chapters beyond the month's commitment, which means that I have a running start on December's chapters when that month comes. And I may be back early, in November, with some more chapters that I have been commissioned to write. But to keep us all interested during the hiatus-to-come, how about we do some polling? It's been a long time since we've played "Plot Plinko", and I think I'd like to let you guys pick an area for me to write in. "Plot Plinko" is the long way of doing it, but it means we're likely to end up in an area that hasn't been explored. To review the rules: We start at the beginning of the interactive, and you guys vote for which choice you want to see the plot continue with. The next day we advance to the winning chapter and vote for the next plot choice. And so on and so forth, until we reach a dead end, which is where I will pick things up and continue. First poll is here: [Poll completed and deleted]. Further rules, describing voting procedures and how to give your vote extra heft with GPs, are described there. EDIT: To answer a question in the comments, it doesn't matter if the choices lead to chapters I wrote or which other people wrote—all will be available as choices to vote for. The idea is to find a place that the voters want to go. * * * Meanwhile, I have to thank thatdude and an anonymous benefactor for dropping way too many GPs on me yesterday, and for the generous words they appended to the gifts. It's been a long time since I've thanked the people who have sent in small tips as well, but I know I have to thank Easy as well for the small but consistent donations he has passed along to me. They really do lift the spirits! |
| New chapters are up! I've decided to pick up one of the places we left Will and his girlfriend Sydney. They have decided to create their own Brotherhood of Baphomet by hijacking the bodies of some of their classmates and turning them into magical robots that they can inhabit. In the branch I've picked to continue, Will (who is being persecuted over his romance with Sydney) decides that the school's "Caveman Club" would have the kind of beefy guys he wants control of. If you are reading the interactive, start with "Clubbing a Caveman" , which is a short one, and proceed on to "Rhapsody in Brown" .If you're reading the public chapters, you'll have to pick up the story a little sooner with "Group Activities" , where Will acquires some new troubles. That will lead in to "Any Club That Would Have You as a Member" , which combines several short chapters into one, before fetching up in "Rhapsody in Brown" .This is a branch I had started a couple of months ago, but it died in the bud with "Rhapsody in Brown," and I'll have to hustle a little to stay ahead of you. At the moment, I have only 2/3 of the sequel chapter written. EDIT: And now I've got the chapters for Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday written. Three cheers and a tiger for me, if I do say so myself. |
| Well, the results of yesterday's poll kind of surprised me: You voted to move the sophomores up to the senior level. But in thinking about it, I can see it leading to some fun stuff, so I'm very happy to respect the results. But it means no more polling. Meanwhile, today's chapters—"Twenty-Five Places to Hide" (public) + "Twenty-Five Places to Hide" (interactive)—bring us to the end of the current branch. I would have posted another chapter in the line if we had continued polling down through yesterday's chapter, but I guess I'll have to poll you some other time on which direction you'd want things to go from here.Do you get a chapter tomorrow? One way or another you will. I just have to figure out which branch I want to pick up. |
| ... for another day: [Poll completed and deleted] Also, another chapter: * "Blasts from the Past" (public)* "Blasts from the Past" (interactive} |
| ... a new poll [Completed and deleted] ... and new chapters: "The Last Day of Life as Lindsay?" (public) + "The Last Day of Life as Lindsay?" (interactive). |
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