NaNoWriMo

Over the past few years, I've wanted to participate in the NaNoWriMo. I've gotten damn close to finishing this monolithic artistic task in the past, but alas, I've fizzled out before I finished.
I think since this year I'm not looking for a new job or flying to a new country/traveling during November.
This might be the year I finally do this.
What do I do?
50,000 words plus change in 30 days, at 1,667appx words per day.
But.. I can't start until November 1st.
I've had an idea for a story that I've been wanting to type out since two years ago, in '09 and I've sorted out the "story-world", the characters, places, and so on. There's been flash writing moments since then where I've tried to piece together a chapter here and a chapter there of the story. Too bad I can't use any of those chapters for this, as only writing from the 1st until the 30th counts for the NaNoWriMo. I can, however, make an outline and map out the story in advance if I so choose to do so.
Light background of the story?
The chapters in the book will revolve around the voyages of a space ship and its' crew, as takes place in the fictitious "Phoenix Solar System." I have no running title, maybe one will come to me as I get closer to completion...
There are three major powers in the Phoenix system; the Paradisian Union, the Solar Federation, and the Exodusian Kingdom.
All of the eight planets and fourteen inhabited moons in the system are affiliated in some way with one or two of the major powers in the system.
The captain and first mate are cousins who were orphaned but later fighters in a system-wide war between the superpowers known as "the Great War."  Their vessel, the Furritus, is a long range cargo vessel / passenger ferry which the two acquired by cheating in a high-stakes game from its' previous owners; a crew of smugglers and pirates...
The Furritus travels from planet to planet trying to eke out a living, carrying cargoes and passengers around the system. Though highly illegal without a salvage license, sometimes the vessel will salvage derelict spacecraft. Also, the laws and trade rules differ from planet to planet and even station to station, which turns into a profitable affair for smuggling forbidden and otherwise taboo items here and there. Most of the time however, the cargo is legit. As long as they agree to stay out of the way of the crew and not sabotage the ship, passengers or 'fares' are sometimes taken between ports the vessel is heading to.

The idea that I'm running with right now is that the first half of this body of work will be strictly about character development and how main characters came to become part of the crew. The latter half will be chapters/episodes using the established characters.

What's worked whenever I've felt compelled to write before has been to type the story and have each chapter in its' own word file rather than everything in one block of text. It somehow makes organizing the story easier for me when I do that.

A major influence/inspiration for this story for the first time I attempted the behemoth NaNoWriMo came after watching all of the long cancelled TV show, Firefly. Although, there are tons of sci-fi tales about life among the stars and planets. I've been a fan of Darkstar One as well. I'd like to write more than just a tale of space pirates, but damn if that's not fun to write.

Any more writing and I think this would qualify for chapter one...

Dwarf Fortress: The Nerd-ening

Unless you haven't been living under a rock, with the shades drawn shut to block out that damned glare-on-your-laptop sun, you've probably never heard of Dwarf Fortress.
Check it out

I'm not even using the latest version, and I had to find a tileset patch that made the game visually appealing. Here's a tileset patch. Because the game uses ASCII symbols and feels like gaming in braille without a tileset.

But enough cryptic talk about it let's get down to the basics.
What is Dwarf Fortress?
DF is a civilization/city building sim that places you in charge of a settlement of dwarfs. You don't directly control the dwarfs, but you can designate what tasks they're going to do, where they will build things, etc.
You start off with seven dwarfs and right away you need to start building a shelter. Then you need to think about food supplies, and water. Then, what to do with all those rocks and metals you keep finding? .... and so on and so forth; the game has a steep learning curve and there are tutorials online Such as those made by Capnduck on youtube that really help you figure out the basics. There's also a handy wiki that's fairly useful.
Half the fun of it is figuring it out for yourself of course. My first fortress all died of thirst because I embarked on a spot without any water.. The second fort died off because I hadn't figured out farming.. The third, managed to survive much longer once I'd figured out food/water/shelter, but was wiped out by goblins because I hadn't thought to create a militia of dwarfs and arm them. Now, most of the forts that I build usually get abandoned in favor of me restarting because I get tired of a location, or I get bogged down in all the micromanagement of over 40 dwarfs.
So you see, as you progress along with your fort, there are tons of obstacles that come up and utterly wreck your fort. If you play sink time into this game know that your fortresses are almost always going to fail in an amazing way, but each time it's fun because you learn from your mistakes and make a better fort the next time around.
If you ever liked building massive castles with legos as a kid, Dwarf Fortress is a good indie-game for you.

First Post Ever

Here I am, getting all with the times by setting up a blogger account.
Why blogger?
Livejournal's been passe for years and everybody and their brother's found me on Facebook. Xanga? Dead to me.
I'd like to think that maybe, just maybe, there's going to be a theme or trend with the things I'll post here; as I've seen many others do before me with this site.

So, here goes!