Saturday, July 12, 2008

My New Direction

Får jag presentera, my blog! Refreshed and ready to face a world of text-based adventure!

- Speaking of adventure - I think it's time I leveled with you. It's time to knock down some walls, and explain some things I should have explained long ago. Sound fair? Excellent. This presentation will be done through the sacred medium of dance:
... ok skip that.

Let's just take it from the top. Remember the blog mystery? Yah, it's been a while. Well I'm both happy and terrified to announce that it was actually leading to something.
I was trying to leave the explanation until I'd reached the next step in the process, but I thought I'd come clean now and stop Luke from chasing me down with a hunting knife out of frustration.

So here goes!

A waaay back in 2005 I decided to move to Canada. Why? Well, every now and then you just have to try real maple syrup.. Hardly, I laugh at the concept! It was an attempt at forcing myself to start a project I'd had on the brain for a while prior. Vancouver was coincidentally both a perfect place to do it, and the place I could legally move to.. So in 2006 upon my arrival I began working on ideas, digging up old ones and subsequently throwing out most of them. Things that year were quite chaotic - I partied a lot and didn't take things too seriously - it was a good thing but to be perfectly honest nothing really meaningful got done. Despite this I made myself come back, and as 2007 rolled around I was able to hammer out some actual material.

What was this project? I affectionately refer to it as 'Le Drastique Boutique' - well, I would have if I were insane. In actuality it was an idea for a drama series.

By mid-07 I had stacks of material. Literally, I filled up notebooks as if they were bulkheads of the Titanic and carted them around with me at all times. (Note that I did learn on a number of occasions that I should keep them in a more secure place..) This is probably when a lot of you noticed I'd become a lot quieter, I'd work on it at every spare moment (I actually have a spot reserved for me at the local coffeehouse... ;) ). I had a friend here who helped me bounce ideas back and forth, and I basically began to live the project.
The idea had by then changed from what I had envisioned originally, but I thought I'd hit on something really interesting. I blocked out all the main details, and a while later I began leaving teasers on the blog - dropping cryptic messages and leading people around the web to find clues and answers. I thought it was fun, you probably thought it was annoying (?). Whatever it came across as, it was essentially a lead up. The puzzles all gave away something small about the plot, and it was a lot of fun seeing how people responded.

2008 rolled around. Now, briefly (and having just mentioned the teasers) I just want to say that I generally don't like telling people what I'm doing before I've done it. I may hint sometimes, but I dislike both giving away too much, leading people on, and talking myself up. It annoys people and detracts from my goal, which after all's said and done, is entertaining. On the flipside, I do love sharing once I've got to a point where I feel things are worth talking about. Well, a year later I've planned the entire series out, and have some really solid material under my belt. As of last week I began planning pitches. Now it's time to start sharing.

This blog is going to continue being a place where I babble about my mishaps and life in general, but it's also going to become a practical account of my journey getting this project off the ground. I know it's ambitious, but I'm set on making this happen. I hope you enjoy the coming entries, (and the new look!) I also hope you enjoy hearing my stories about the project, it's endlessly exciting for me to think about this coming to fruition. It's also frightening to think of how far I have to go yet, but when I sit and consider things, I realise it's something I've always wanted to do.

So what's it called? To be honest it took me a while and a lot of paper to settle on, but the name I finally chose to title the series is 'Frontier'.

Jimzip :D

6 thoughts are now mine:

Jimzip said...

Whew.. Ok well that's off my chest! Hope I didn't bore you all to tears!

Jimzip :D

Ashton said...

Yay! Congrats on the hard work so far and good luck on the hard work to come. I won't say much as I plan to email tomorrow. But yeah, yay and new site looks all pretty like. :)

Luke said...

Oops signed in my comment with the wrong account. lol.

Anonymous said...

Yay!! So proud of ya :)

I love the fact that you don't tell people what you're doing until you have something to show for it -- in fact the opposite is quite a pet peeve of mine

keep on truckin'! I'll be right here waiting in eager anticipation.

(still anonymous :D )

Anonymous said...

!! hey anonmous you stole my name!! i look forward to everything you want to share jim :) :) (see i did two smiles so you know its me) i liked the mystery too it was fun, but i didnt guess you wete writing.... yay!!

Dale said...

Somehow I knew you were workin on something spesh. :) sounds awesome and like you've done a very thorough job of planning everything out. Frontier is a good name too (ask Luke about my expertise when it comes to titles :)) and I can't wait for whatever tiny tidbits of information i can get about it!

The best of luck is what I wish for your pitching. If it's anywhere near as well-crafted as I think it will be, I reckon you'll be sitting pretty pretty. :)

Dalezip

..Hey I never said sign-off's were my thing. :P



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