Kickstarting Root Beer

Today's blog topics include: Kickstarting The Perfect Girl Drinks Root Beer; slightly rambly thoughts and feelings on Final Fantasy XIII-2; a new secret technique revealed!?

Tim Cody is currently: 
Working on: The Perfect Girl Drinks Root Beer 
Playing: Final Fantasy XIII-2 (PS3) 
Reading: Marvel: Civil War 
Watching: The Oscars 

T-minus five days and counting.

I've completed Final Fantasy XIII-2, so this Saturday the beard comes off, and the writing is on! Very exciting indeed! It was a fine break, but it's about time to get productive again.

The last few weeks have been spent finishing up all the planning phases: My outline continues to steadily grow, but more or less portrays a start-to-finish story; I figured out what to do with the miscellaneous couple living in my outline; I've contacted Sony in regards to acquiring the rights to reprint song lyrics, and as such, I'm about to launch my very first Kickstarter with hopes of raising the modest sum of $200.

Verses from Leonard Cohen's song Hallelujah will be used to bridge the overarching narrative of one chapter to create a sort of written montage effect. The song is absolutely perfect for the story and the characters, and I'm very excited to use it. I had to write the section of story so I could send Sony some reference pages--an interesting exercise, writing five pages from the middle of the book first!--and my editor and I agree that the song totally plays. 

Secret Technique #30: Time Lapse! 

Approximately five minutes after I began to spread the word of my Kickstarter (I was working on it and this blog post simultaneously), I reached my funding goal! But don't let that stop you from donating--maybe I'll be able to pay my editor and cover artist in money this time around, instead of in frappuccinos and coffee! You can find my Kickstarter right here: The Perfect Girl Drinks Root Beer Kickstarter. Beyond paying my editor and cover artist, additional funds will be used to buy some advertising space (likely on GoodReads) once the book is published (October at the latest).

A great big thank you to all backers! You have truly made my day. :) 

Secret Technique #46: Blog Topic Change! 

It's been a while since I've written about a video game, and I just finished Final Fantasy XIII-2. Final Fantasy XIII is in my top five favorite of all-time, so that excitement was stacked nicely on top of the natural excitement I feel for any new Final Fantasy releases to begin with. So how did I feel about the whole thing?

A little disappointed. :( (Minor spoilers ahead.)

At the time of this writing, I'm just a few trophies away from the platinum, so have pretty much every impression I could possibly have about the game. So why was I disappointed?

First: Snow's a douchebag. Everyone was telling me this from FFXIII, but I just didn't see it. Though he gets more airtime in XIII-2, and you get to see how he interacts with Serah. And so, I must ask, "Why is this chick with this musclehead tool-bag?"

Second (most importantly): To be continued!? And the director said on IGN that this is to leave room for DLC... What a crock, right? Not even a little to be continued--major cliffhangers! This would be totally fine if they were making Final Fantasy XIII-3, but just some DLC? Don't do me like this. This is Alan Wake all over again, only this time I'm going to actually buy the DLC to see the rest of the game.

So, in closing: While I did quite enjoy Final Fantasy XIII-2, will put in the last few (read: several) hours to get the platinum trophy, and will be purchasing any story-related DLC, I'm a little disappointed in its execution.

That's that and marmalade!