by Mike Shea on 23 November 2004
I always seek to make this page easier for my vast four readers so today I eliminated the "reading, writing, playing" section over on the right. I'll just tell you about it here instead. This will let me archive old habits and also help people see when I change them.
After 30 years, I finally finished the Stephen King's Dark Tower series. It was wonderful but I plan to write a full review sometime soon. I also finished and enjoyed American Gods by Gaimen.
Since then I got into a H.P. Lovecraft mode. I read parts of Tales of the Cthulhu Methos and picked up the paperback of In The Mouth of Madness and others to carry around in my cargo pants. I ordered the Arkham Publishing version of Dunwich Horror and Others so I'll have a nice hardback of the best Lovecraft tales in quality archival quality paper.
I wrote a short story of my new Everquest 2 character, Pavlen. I titled the story Leaving Home. I also wrote a review of Everquest 2 for Mobhunter and Caster's Realm as well as Loral's Guide to Raiding and How To Find a Group both for Caster's Realm. I have a couple of other Loral stories coming out soon set after Natimbi. My plan is to get Loral out of Taelosia and over to Kuua so I'll be up to date. I need to write some non-EQ-based fiction but nothing hits me really hard. I'm sure I'll have a Lovecraft-style story but I'll probably do it in EQ's world.
I'm playing Everquest 2 and loving it but I still plan to play EQ mostly. World of Warcraft came out but it's evil.
Moleskinerie posted my Writing Tips PDF article and I got some nice feedback. I heard that quite a few folks are linking to it and one person said she gives it out to her students. How cool is that?
I still love my Moleskine plain pocket notebook and Pilot G2 pen. I use a .7mm black G2 refill inside of my Waterman Expert 2 fancy schmancy pen. Some day I will lose it and stick to either a normal G2 or a Pilot Dr. Grip. The G2 ink is acid free and the most perminant ink I could find. I took a Moleskine page, wrote on one side with a fountain pen and a G2 on the other. I soaked it in water and watched the fountain pen ink run right off. The G2 ink looked brand new. For $1, its the best pen you can buy for both daily use and the long term recording of knowledge. God I love this pen and notebook. It's the best $12 you can spend.