NaNoWriMo 2015 Waking Dream Week 4

Sorry this update came so late, I was busy finishing my novel. So yes I did it. Things got really crazy there towards the end, family drama, changelings were banished, Ellen started college, the twins had a birthday, a rather huge revelation about one of my characters and everything got settled at a haunted house. Oh yeah we had some fun this week, me and my characters. This book should have cleared up a few mysteries, while possibly creating some new ones, but everything will be settled next year with "Riding the Dragon" so see you then!

NaNoWriMo 2015 Waking Dream Week 3

Once again, I haven't made much progress, but I have some vacation time from my day job and I'm going to pound out some serious wordage this week. What happened in the book is in just a few chapters I was able to get Ellen back from the fairy world after a few interesting things happened there, but the weird thing is, the other Ellen got engaged to Nathan. Our heroes met Fickle Luna of the Ever Changing Moon and Jasper and Jade had a joyful family reunion, Ellen is not looking forward to the same happy ending.

If anyone was expecting another update on 7th Moon's animation, there is none this week. After getting a story board together with some character sketches last week, I'm waiting on the actual animation to be done, which means we are at the getting work done rather than talking about it stage. Not that I'm complaining, I'm sure it takes time and they need it, so I'll write and they'll draw and we'll check back in next week.

NaNoWriMo 2015 Waking Dream Week 2

So week 2 of National Novel Writer's Month and I managed to get through a few more chapters. There are new changelings now, Slade and Shayla the draconic counterparts of Jasper and Jade have switched places with them as well as Ellen switching places with the other Ellen in the fairy world. Ellen is now in the fairy world where she has met cait sith, mermaids, her parents King Oberon and Queen Titania and their servant Puck. Meanwhile, The other Ellen is getting in bed with Nathan, both literally and figuratively, much to the chagrin of Jason and Ralph who know it's not the real Ellen and are worried sick about their Ellen. It's going to take into next week for me to resolve those split storylines, but by next week Red Ellen should be back in Rochester and...well, that's for next week's update.

Meanwhile, another update for 7th Moon, we've got character models down for Hidariude, Keisei, Kichiku, and Seichei, and I just got the storyboard together, so they should be animating next week. As this is my first time doing professional animation, I have no idea how much longer this is going to take, but frankly I don't know what else is going to happen worth noting between now and when it's complete, so the next thing to say about this may be the final product, so stay tuned!

NaNoWriMo 2015 Waking Dream Week 1

National Novel writer's month has started again and it has been a difficult week for me, I have not made much progress. But I did try and now I am working on chapter 3, which is still a slow portion of the story. So far I'm just covering some parties with Ellen and her friends, her birthday her prom, and her cousin's wedding.  These are not terribly eventful, she's having a slow year so far, just kicking back and enjoying some down time with family. However she is noticing a mysterious new character named Ross, a DJ who happens to be working all of Ellen's parties. I really don't want to say anything about him, I know what he's there for, he's not bad, but I want to leave the mystery. He's part of a subplot I'm purposely trying to keep secret for now. Some details may come out in this book, but the big reveal will be in the last book. So I just have some fluff to ease readers back in, let them know what this world is like and remind them of the major characters. But things will pick up soon, next week when I hit chapter 4 we'll get started on the big story, the return of the changelings from the other side of the pairs in Rochester. But more on that in next week's update.

In other news, I just made a deal with an animation studio and soon we should get a 30 second clip of the battle between Hidariude, Kichiku, Keisei, and Seichei from chapter 6 of 7th Moon. This should be good, I'm so excited! I always wanted 7th Moon to be an anime and this is the first step, we start with one clip and soon we'll have the whole story made into an anime!

Distant Worlds the Music of Final Fantasy

This past Thursday I attended what may have been the most amazing thing ever, Distant Worlds Music from Final Fantasy as performed by the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra with guest conductor Arnie Roth and guest vocalist Susan Calloway. If you are not familiar with this concert, it is the music from the Final Fantasy video game series as performed by an orchestra. You can find videos of it on YouTube. You may think an orchestra performing music from a video game would be ridiculous, but Nobuo Uematsu managed to make music that was actually best performed by an orchestra even when he didn't have one to perform it. The concert has been around for eight years, at least in America where Arnie Roth brings the best he can select to local orchestras while video clips are played behind the orchestra.

This particular concert started with the "Prelude", signature notes on a harp followed by a chorus chanting along, then followed by the "Victory Fanfare" with live trumpets. Susan Calloway lent her voice to "Kiss me Goodbye" from Final Fantasy XIII "Eyes on Me" from Final Fantasy VIII and sang her song "Answers" from Final Fantasy XIV. The chorus brought a moving rendition of "Liberi Fatali" from Final Fantasy VIII and "Man with the Machine Gun" rounded out that game's contributions while Final Fantasy X brought us equally moving renditions of "Hymn of the Fayth" and "Zanarkand". There was a battle theme medley that included Clash on the Big Bridge, and a chocobo medley that was a little goofy with a clip of the baby chocobo nesting in an afro perfectly timed with Mambo de Chocobo. Honestly, as much as I love chocobos and loved this performance, it was probably the one number in the whole show that may have embarrassed the professional orchestra and chorus. I was disappointed to see "One-Winged Angel" was not on the set list, but Roth pulled it out as the encore performance, and it was spectacular, the one must for an orchestral performance. My favorite though was from Final Fantasy VI, a character theme medley starting with Terra's, a.k.a. the Overworld Theme, a.k.a. the theme of the game, followed by Kefka's theme, which still creeps the shit out of me after all these years(I'm still crying for those 16-bit castle guards) and ending with Locke's theme which is the only tune from the game badass enough to triumph over Kefka's theme.

I highly recommend you look up a performance in your area if you're lucky enough to be on the tour schedule. They were talking about it coming back, and already I can't wait. I leave you now with some pics proving I was in the front row and a couple of cosplay girls I couldn't help but snap a pic of. Tifa and a sexy moogle, kupo!