Music Monday on Thursday: How do you want to do this?

So, I've recently (like a year ago, but still) been able to fullfill a childhood goal and have started playing D&D with a group of my friends. I didn't think it would be too hard - I did play MMORPGs for more than a decade (still do, shoutouts to Everquest and WoW) and am currently working my way (slowly) through Balders Gate 3. 

I was wrong. So wrong. BDG3 helps, as it is part of the D&D universe. But you know what helps the most? The wonderful folks in my campaign. All but one of them are seasoned players, and they have taken my noob-ness in stride. Today's song is from my other newish obsession, Critical Role. It's like sitting down at my table! Friends (who are all voice actors, but still) gathering around a table to play D&D and I get to watch and learn! This is the opening theme from Campaign 3 and while I'm still watching 1, this is good stuff. 

Also, turn on the captions for the words, and you can see who is singing each line. Join the adventure, chose your actions...you can certainly try. 😈

Music Monday: It's come to this

 Y'all, anyone that knows me knows that this is one of my favorite songs. Back in the day when I was awake into the wee hours running around Norrath (Everquest), I always had music playing alongside the voices of my group on Teamspeak. Quite frequently this song was in the mix, and it will always remind me of charging up to an angry NPC...as well as swapping out my heals as fast as I could to keep the fighters propped up.

But now it holds a different place in my heart as the absolute theme song for my Nature Walker Trilogy, as well as a fantastic driving song...as long as I have cruise control set. I'm a GenX 80's child, and not ashamed to have this tune blasting. I can't believe I didn't have this one as a Music Monday before!

(Before any of you come at me for misogynistic tendencies...in my head, it's often she or they rather than he...)

Holding Out for a Heroby Bonnie Tyler
Where have all the good men gone and where are all the Gods?Where's the street wise Hercules to fight the rising odds?Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed?Late at night I toss and I turn and I dream of what I need
I need a heroI'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the nightHe's gotta be strong and he's gotta be fastAnd he's gotta be fresh from the fightI need a heroI'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning lightHe's gotta be sure and it's gotta be soonAnd he's gotta be larger than life, larger than life
Somewhere after midnight in my wildest fantasySomewhere just beyond my reach there's someone reaching back for meRacing on the thunder and rising with the heatIt's gonna take a Superman to sweep me off my feet
I need a heroI'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the nightHe's gotta be strong and he's gotta be fastAnd he's gotta be fresh from the fightI need a heroI'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning lightHe's gotta be sure and it's gotta be soonAnd he's gotta be larger than lifeI need a heroI'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night
Up where the mountains meet the heavens aboveOut where the lightning splits the seaI could swear that there's someone somewhere watching me
Through the wind and the chill and the rainAnd the storm and the floodI can feel his approach like a fire in my blood
I need a heroI'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the nightHe's gotta be strong and he's gotta be fastAnd he's gotta be fresh from the fightI need a heroI'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning lightHe's gotta be sure and it's gotta be soonAnd he's gotta be larger than life
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night

Music Monday: Lex and Em...and Alex

 [Again, spoilers ahead for Rift, read at your own risk.]

Oh, what a tangled web. You have Madelyne, who thinks that she knows Alex. She hears his voice through her headphones every night. They share inside jokes and memories of times spent in a virtual world. He listens. He understands. He is everything she has been looking for - and suddenly she has a way to be Em to his Lex.

This song makes me think of several scenes - Em, upon arriving in Tyrael and seeing it for the first time, then Em outside the cabin, looking up at the sky. Em receiving her tattoo. Em trying to separate Lex from Alex. "I'm gonna get you out of here/if I could catapult my heart to where you are."

Catapult

Jack Savoretti

Following the headlights

Got to find a way back to you

I can be the white knight

You can play the princess

We'll be running like outlaws

Hiding in the midnight

Break down them gates

Let in the sunlight

Throw me over these walls

High up in the atmosphere

If I could catapult my heart

Watch the empire fall

I'm gonna get you outta here

If I could catapult my heart

To where you are

You say you had your heart broken

What a stupid little thing to do

Now you're tied to a train track

But I'm a gonna come

And rescue you

Make no mistake

I'll do whatever it takes

To get over these walls

High up in the atmosphere

If I could catapult my heart

Watch the empire fall

Ooh I'm gonna get you outta here

If I could catapult my heart

To where you are

If I could catapult my heart

Oh throw me over these walls

Ooh high up in the atmosphere

If I could catapult my heart

Watch the empire fall

Ooh I'm gonna get you outta here

If I could catapult my heart

To where you are

If I could catapult my heart

To where you are

I'm gonna catapult my heart

Music Mondays: Opening Scene, Rift (Arcstone)

For the first Monday of a new month, I thought I'd leave the Orana Chronicles behind for a moment and talk about some of the music that inspired scenes in my latest release, Rift. Now, this novel is about a gamer who longs to live in her MMORPG rather than in her real-life but finds out that it may not be all it is cracked up to be.

I had a less intense opening for my first chapter, and then I heard this song by The SIDH. I turned it up, called up an image in my mind of Em in the landscape of the game, and the first scene wrote itself right in front of my eyes. The novel now opens with the main character, Madelyne, running through the game Arcstone as her avatar, Em. 

I thought of how it used to feel for me to run my "toon" through those richly drawn CGI worlds in the years when I used to spend a lot of my time in several MMORPGs. There was always music playing while I was gaming, and the same was true for me writing for Madelyne/Em. Just as I would enlist Imagine Dragons for the soundtrack for the Orana Chronicles, I feel like The SIDH would be just the thing for Arcstone.

If anyone is looking for me...

I just discovered that I can novel ON MY PHONE because I am an OLD LADY who doesn't understand TECHNOLOGY so I am now noveling on the bus and at other times that I can't get to my laptop (or shouldn't be noveling like... you know, at work...).

This year's Nano is a departure from my recent work - if you look here at my Nano dashboard, you'll see that I have all but devoted my recent Nano and CampNano time to an Orana Chronicle or similar. Not in many seasons have I started down a completely new path with new characters.

Okay, maybe it isn't completely new because there are MMORPG elements and fantasy elements. But sort of. Just hear me out.

Rift is the working title (and yes, I know there is a video game called Rift) and the story centers on Em (short for Maddie) who finds herself pulled from her modest flat in Paris into the world of an MMORPG (massively-multiplayer online role-playing game) that she plays. Everything in Arcstone is as she has seen it for years on her screen, including her online player buddy Alex's avatar, a demon called Lex. Em is not sure whether she is horrified or delighted - perhaps a bit of both?

But nothing in Arcstone is as it seems. Le Creáteur is hunting for Em and Lex in the game, and it will be up to them to figure out what he is after and how he managed to intersect the real world and the game world. Their developing relationship complicates matters too - is Lex really Alex, that Em has known for years? Is he also stuck in Arcstone just as she is? And if so, can she trust him?

Yeah, so that's the back cover blurb so far. It has already gone off the rails and has minor characters running amok, revealing information far earlier than I had planned. Em and Lex are behaving like randy teenagers. And the aptly named Main Character 3 is skulking around and NOT telling me who he/she is or why the skulking and peeping in windows.

I don't know what has fueled this new story. I had every good intention of working on either a revamp of The Baskervilles (after that amazing anonymous first-page feedback from Broadleaf 2019) or work on an upcoming collaboration with another amazing writer friend of mine, Tony Daniel. And then here comes Em and Lex and their story, and everything goes sideways.

And so far, it is the most exhilarating kind of manic sideways and I'm loving it. See you guys on the other side of 30 days or 50k words...whichever comes first.