Cordilow's introduction
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Here's a little information about me.
Currently, I live in the northwestern United States. I work at a library. I started these fantasy forums (not Nabble).  I grew up playing with toy cars, Lego blocks (mostly the medieval and forest sets), Commodore 64 games (my eldest brother had tons of them) and all that. Then, there was school, house work, yard work and all that. Later, we got a Nintendo, Super Nintendo and a Game Boy. I watched a lot of cartoons classifiable as speculative fiction. I liked the stories and some of the fantasy-style ideas in Greek mythology. Some of the things I mentioned are largely my introduction to the fantasy genre. I always wanted to make games as a kid, and program in general. [I still want to make certain kinds, although I don't really play normal video games much, anymore—I would rather work on creative projects, read, etc.] I think my desire to make games was partly inspired by several things: • How you could hack into the BASIC code of any Commodore 64 program and change it • How my siblings tried to make text adventures • The paper Dragon Warrior text adventure in Nintendo Power, March/April 1990 • A board game called Wizards that my third grade teacher had us play (the whole class played, and we were only allowed to do so much each day we continued with it; I'm not sure how much like the normal game it was, since we had the entire class playing, somehow, though maybe in groups)—you know, the one with the pocket mouse that would fill all your pockets with gold • How fun I thought some games were (especially RPGs) Anyway, two of my brothers and I got into making maps. We would draw them on blank paper designed for newspaper that the newspaper person would give to us (in large rolls). We pinned them up on notice boards. We had colored pins to represent our characters on the maps. We put dots on them to mark paths for the pins (in the style of the aforementioned game called Wizards). We would roll dice to determine how many spaces you could go in a turn (I think that's how Wizards worked, too). I think some of our maps had a grid system instead of dots. Anyway, we started planning games. There seemed to be very little direct influence from such games as Dungeons and Dragons, oddly enough (although one of my brothers later had some influence from it in his style of games). I began planning my own game, which I fondly called "the game I want to make". I think I was in fifth and sixth grade at this time. My older brother had his own plans, but he seemed to focus on games for the moment rather than a game for the future (and in truth, I liked his more, as they were more functional and more artistic, although I liked the concepts and potential of mine more). So, I planned and planned—and planned and planned. I wanted it to be a video game some day—something like a super-flexible, graphical version of a MUD (although I didn't know what MUDs were at the time); it required too many calculations, and that's one reason why it didn't work so well in the paper realm. I had a ton of papers in a three-ring binder—maybe more than one (I still have the last one I used). Eventually, I used my ideas for writing, rather than what I envisioned as a revolutionary game (although this was much later, and I'm getting ahead of myself). One day, in fifth grade, I was reading a book by Robert Newton Peck (some Soup book or other—I read lots of those), in the classroom, during reading time. It was then that I first decided I would like to be a writer, although it wasn't until some time later that I made the attempt. I read books by Wilson Rawls, too, but at this time those were about it, as far as I remember. I liked reading, but it was time-consuming and I didn't often do it on my spare time (though there were occasions). Anyway, I started reading fantasy in seventh grade or so with The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien—that, and The Lord of the Rings were essentially the only fantasy novels I knew about, then (other than maybe the Narnia series, although I hadn't read it and a few children's books read to me in grade school). I began writing a story at this time—that is, when I had a study hall and time to spare. I continued writing in eighth grade. One of my older siblings took over the project after page 28 or 29 and he ended at 50-something, I believe. He illustrated it, too, but alas it is lost now, perhaps in the hands of another I knew. However, in recent years I miraculously managed to remember most of what I had written and so I recorded it for future reference. The grammar of the original was horrible, by the way, and the story was heavily influenced by RPG video games (I went even so far as to name my spells). I still like the story (it was basically a fun-loving, fantasy adventure story of sorts with no end planned), even if it could have been presented better. Many of my current ideas have sprung from it. Eventually, some friends introduced me to Terry Brooks, and I realized there was a fantasy genre beyond Tolkien, fairy tales and mythology. I would have been reading a lot more long before, I think, had I known about the variety. Anyway, in high school, I read a lot of Terry Brooks, and Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, as well as some other authors here and there. I tried to write new stuff in ninth grade, and I did write a little, but I mostly just developed my ideas further until right before I graduated high school. I got stuck, or I didn't portray the feeling I wanted. So, I halted my writings for a few years, seriously intending to go back to them later. Then, I tried some things and and my writings went on. I wrote full rough drafts for two fantasy novels, as well as some partial drafts (a pre-write, a re-write, and the beginning of another one). I went on a mission, for my church, to Kentucky and southern Indiana from December 1999 to December 2001. I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (you'll know that if you visit my hymn site). After my mission, I returned home, started writing again and then went to college (studying computer science and music). A year and a half later, I transfered to a university and studied Language and Computers and Computing and Information. Two years later, I had to put school on hold for undisclosed reasons (of which there are many), and that's where I am today—some day I plan to finish, but I'm not aiming for any particular major (although I have minors) seeing as I don't want to work for a corporation and a degree is not one of my highest aspirations in life. My highest ones are undisclosed, and quite personal. I didn't write much while going to school. Now, I'm trying to focus on it a lot more. My current projects are proving challenging, though not impossible. I have to create many things about the world of my stories yet—mostly, I need to get the customs down, I think. My interests: • Writing (fantasy, poetry, editing, grammar, etc.) • Reading (fantasy, historical fiction, other fiction, books on animals, origami, etc.) • Programming (mostly in Python, so far—although I've done a little in C++, Java, Visual Basic, etc.—I have considerable interest in Lua, but I haven't done much with it yet) • Language (the study of language in general—not necessarily a particular foreign language, although I am quite interested in some of those) • Music (engraving, pennywhistles, low whistles, piano, music theory, composition, Celtic music, Asian music, hymns, choral music, instrumental music, singing, etc.) • Inventing my own ways of doing things (systems, philosophy, etc.) • digital clipwatches • Asian things (especially Japanese and Chinese) • Celtic things • Scandinavian things • Thai food • Old cultures and things (not modern) • The public domain • GNU licenses • Linux (I use gNewSense these days, although I've tried many distributions—I like the non-proprietary philosophy.) • The FSF (Free Software Foundation) • Visual novels (not graphic novels—visual novels are software, somewhat like video games, only more story or simulation oriented) • Text adventures • Hypertext fiction • Camping • Capture the flag and other so-called 'night games' • Listening to audiobooks (especially from Librivox) • Summer (and early fall) • Plants • Evergreen forests (especially pine) • Heat—I like it over 88 degrees F outside and over 75 inside (it can be as hot as it wants, though, but those are my ideal minimums). I'm considering declaring war on air conditioners (especially in the spring), although I've nothing against fans if it's 90+ degrees F. out or it's one of those odd nights where I can't sleep unless it's cooler (fans help, though—air conditioners just make me cold). • Ponds, lakes, rivers, oceans, etc. • Animals (fish, reptiles, amphibians, cats, etc.) • Memorization • Forums like this one Other Nabble forums I own: • Poetry Forums • Dream Forums • HymnWiki forum Other websites I administer: • http://www.hymnwiki.org/ (This is a wiki for hymns. Feel free to contribute.) • http://mhd.tiddlyspot.com/ (This is just me messing around with the idea of hypertext fiction for the first time.) Some of my favorite websites: • http://n2.nabble.com/ • http://www.librivox.org/ • http://www.lilypond.org/ • http://www.tiddlyspot.com/ • http://www.wiktionary.org/ • http://www.isfdb.org/ • http://www.renpy.org/ • http://www.cpdl.org/ • http://www.thewhistleshop.com/ • http://www.pygame.org/ • http://www.wxpython.org/ |
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