The hardest line you've had to write

"What is the hardest thing you've ever had to write?"

I got that question a couple days back and it did get me thinking a little bit, what was/is the hardest thing I've had to write?

Now, this doesn't mean hardest as in most difficult and most challenging book a person could write, no it means what was the most emotionally trying thing that I've written. That was indeed a good question, what was the most difficult? Siege had a hard one or two, the main protagonist, of course goes through some trials and hardships, some were difficult to put down on paper, but they weren't the most difficult. Until recently they were, but not now.

The most difficult thing I've had to write came in the form of another book idea I had a few days back (damn me having a creative imagination). It was really between two of that book's main characters after the events of the book. It was a saying of the ultimate result of their actions, not the one they wanted but the one they got. It's full of bitterness, sorrow and the simple but brutal truth. That this was their fate, uttered by one of the two main protagonists knowing that even though they knew what they wanted, knew what everyone was wanting had tried for the simplest of things.

The phrase was simple: "It's over. We lost."

I answer questions

pitches, pitches, pitches

Hey all,

another quicky, here's an excerpt from another one of my pitches which I have decided to call [EXPONENTIALLY DELETED]. Enjoy!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sweat beaded on the sorcerer’s brow as he concentrated on the on the archaic language of power he spoke along with his nine brother sorcerers standing in a perfect circle with him. Within the circle lay a complex map of ancient and powerful images and runes, each glowing brighter and brighter still with each word he and his brothers uttered. Few others within the galaxy would know the language they spoke now, fewer still would understand it. It is a forgotten tongue, a forbidden tongue. Once, he would have been repulsed by hearing or knowing the language, let alone speaking it. It’s sometimes amusing how things can change in ten thousand years.

But he wouldn’t focus on that now, he couldn’t. They were at the height at their ritual now, the most pivotal part. Now these few moments could equal triumph or disaster. One wavering tone, one slight mispronunciation on any word, even one so minuet and insignificant word could tear their bodies apart and fling their souls into the ever hungry and waiting warp. Or worse. For nearly an hour they had been standing there, on blood soaked earth of the battlefield chanting, uttering, praying and dealing. With each word the runes burned brighter, each syllable was one step closer to completion, each moment closer to their arrival.

His body trembled with the effort of keeping immobile while he forced the words from his lips. Even after nearly a hundred centuries and hundred more times repeating this ritual, the words still felt wrong, felt unnatural. Indeed, they felt alive. Each time he had to make himself repeat the words taught to him many years ago by his lord he felt numb, he felt cold, he felt his soul growing closer and closer to the eternal damnation of the warp that awaited them all. Once he was taught to close his mind to the warp, even believed that they themselves could master it. Their arrogance, it seemed, had blinded them to the truth. The beasts of man had taught them error. An error they would never repeat by spilling the blood of the empire where they once made their claim.

Slowly, he and his brother’s voice grew louder and louder, calling out to the heavens and hells of the galaxy, to the deepest and most violent of the warp, calling the beasts to the slaughter they were to unleash upon the fools. The tyrant had wanted something so terrible and mortifying that the fools would drop to their knees as their sanity shattered along with their bodies. They would just that, so long as the tyrant held his part of the bargain.

The skies above them darkened to a horrifying shape of crimson, pulsing and convulsing bright fire and lightening, energy that swirled and changed color within a blink of an eye. The very ground at their feet cracked and twisted, nature itself was rejecting the words of power they spoke but was helpless to stop them. The blood soaked for so long within the earth rose up now and boiled at their feet, hissing and spitting at them, knowing what’s coming and rejoicing.

The sorcerer had never liked these beings, too barbaric, too simplistic, too damn pathetic. But the tyrant wanted them, or at least some version of them. If he really wanted to make a deal with them he should have been move specific, his loss. Wind whipped around them now, cruel and malevolent as the rest of the world around them now, changed like the sky and earth around them into a being of malice. The sorcerer shed no tear for they had done to this world, after all they brought it on themselves the fools.

The wind shrieking around them in a such a pitch a banshee would be deafened, the sorcerer and his brothers raised their hands and heads high, shouting even above the wind, the language of power’s volume surpassing even this minor annoyance as finally their ritual reach its crescendo. The runes burned a blinding red and golden light streaking above them and blasting through the blood red sky, a beacon of pure hate and rage, guiding their guests to their place of honor on the world. The sorcerer opened his eyes in unison with his brothers and roared one final phrase.

‘Tarreacky she’takcae!’

The beacon of light before them burst, cascading light over them. Winds whipped by them as the light exploded around them, sending their robes flying across their chests, but they stood firm. The sorcerer knew everything had gone perfectly, and that should have brought some feeling of satisfaction, but nothing came. He had long stopped feeling joy or pride at completing this ritual. No, it was too easy, nothing to be learned and nothing to be gained anymore from this. After ten thousand years this was no more an experience, it was a chore.

As quickly as the light came, it vanished along with the wind. Where there was an intricate circle of runes and symbols lay a scorched creator, still smoking from the completed ritual. The sorcerer lowered his arms, scowling. He had grown tired of this, for the last two centuries he had done nothing but this ritual over and over with his brothers. There was no challenge anymore, no real foe, just a chore. Their lord, however, had promised that soon they would face a good enemy, challenging one, an old one. Whether or not the sorcerer believed that he did not know, but it was convincing.

Real quick

Hey all,

Just a quick tid-bit of one of the pitches I'm working on currently. Check back for more..... Eventually.

----------------------------------------------------

I kneel before the shrine of our lord and primarch, hands clasped together as I still mouth silent prayers and litanies of purification. It had been a long while, I know, since my brothers left to attend the proper rites prior to donning their sacred power armor. I know I should be among them, preparing my own and readying my soul and body to become one with the armor, as I have done countless times before since earning the red adamantium of a Blood Angel almost two centuries ago.

But yet my soul cries out for more purification, more sense of righteous blessing from my lord Sanguinius and the Emperor, Beloved by all. Time has been a blur here as I kneel before his angelic effigy, doing little justice to the angel that it is supposed to represent. I know not how long I have knelt, but my soul begs for more, no matter how long I pray, no matter how long I beseech Sanguinius for the righteous sense of duty held so high and strong by my brothers.

To a normal human attempting to praise the Emperor for as long as I have now, they would surely need to stand and turn away for food or water. But now I require no such needs so often as they. I open my eyes and raise them to the perfect cream-white marble statue of Sanguinius at the heart of the shrine.

‘I am Astartes,’ I intone. ‘I am the Emperor’s wrath made manifest, to smite the foes of the Imperium, be him traitor, xeno, or heretic. For I am Francesi Castigon, a son of Sanguinius, a protector of Mankind. Aye, I am indeed an Angel of Death.’

Stuffs....

57 here---

Well, that was a rather long hiatus.....

Kind of busy on my end, but since this is spring break I have enough time now to actually do shit. Hoo-ray.

Anyway, Let's discuss the biggest news (currently) in gamesworkshop land: Grey Knights.

Well, these guys have been needing a new codex for a while now (almost as bad as Dark Eldar and look what happened to then recently). And in true GW style they're getting a whole new model line, and they still look pretty damn good. With the addition of the Storm Raven into their ranks, not to mention a lot of their regular troops get the deep strike ability it's easy to say that these guys are now going to be fairly fast on the battlefield.

But let's break a few of these guys down, shall we?

First we have the "Strike Squad." These are basically the regular troops with nemesis weapons (probably going to do something that isn't being a power weapon) with the ability to deep strike onto the table. Big shock, for every five guys in a squad they can take a special weapon keeping true to the regular SM squad layout. The only difference here is that they can be giving "Psybolt ammunition," which increases their bolter strength by 1 (probably 5-10pts per guy).

Next is the "Interceptor Squad." The only cute things these guys can do is once per game make a jump to any point on the table within 30''. This will really piss some opponents off when at the last point in the game they suddenly jump and contest or claim an objective. It also looks like some can take special close combat weapons (Thunder Hammers, etc.).

Right after we have the "Purifier Squad." These appear to be the Grey Knight equivalent of the old SM veterans, 2 attacks each, can take special weapons (close or ranged I assume) and are fearless. They do have an exclusive (until I see other wise) psychic power where if passed every enemy in close combat will be wounded on a 4+.

Finally, in terms of troops/infantry is the "Purgation Squad." In short, devastators. They can take the heavy/special weapons offered to the army and put them in one squad (though of course you can have multiples of said squad). They do have a power that let's them shoot at enemies regardless of line of sight.

Finally, for new units, we have the.... Interesting "Dread Knight." It says in its cannon that these things were made to take out monstrous creatures/Greater Daemons. And it looks like it could, it could either have two things called the "Nemesis Daemon Hammer" or the "Nemesis Great Sword." It has three choices for a ranged weapon, which I'm not going to get in to, but still this thing looks fucking scary. Most Monstrous creatures you don't want in close combat with you, and this guy looks like no exception. I'm saying this thing can't cost more than 120-150pts base.

As for SC's there's only one new one called "Lord Kaldor Draigo." Apparently he's a "grand master," which sounds like the equivalent of a chapter master, but Grey Knights have to be different. The only thing this guy's got going right now is a strength 5 sword that turns strength 10 when fighting daemons and a storm shield. I'm expecting this guy to cost at least 225pts.

That's it for Grey Knights right now, I'll let people know when I hear more.

Cheers---
57

That was annoying

57 here---

Remember my last post, "I hate my computer sometimes"?

Probably, because really, something amazingly bad and annoying happened over the last week that incapacitated for the better part of a week. Something that prevented me from checking any of my regular news and caused me to get really, really behind on my writing.

I was on stumbleupon.com, just doing what one does on stumbleupon.com does. It was..... going. I was rather surprised when, suddenly all my browsers close, and this one "program" opened up telling me I was horribly infected with spyware. Well, I tried a few things (system restore, trying to use norton, etc.) and they didn't work.

It was at this point really I realized that this wasn't an anti-spyware program, no, it was a god damn virus.

So, I had to take it into a repair shop and get it fixed, which took a whole week. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm thankful to the guy for fixing it (not to mention having his shop here in Delaware), it was just annoying not having my computer to get to work on a few things.

Well, that's really it, I'll have more stuff coming over the next few days, just to keep content going, like maybe a review for bulletstorm, but we'll see what we see.

Cheers,
57

I hate my computer somtimes

I really do.

Albeit, it's probably my one connection to the outside world sometimes, since I'm stuck here in the middle of fucking nowhere Ohio, with no car and the urge to use my phone on the same level as punching a fucking grizzly bear. So, it is the only way I communicate with people, even at the minimum level it is.

But you know what happened today that just pissed me off? Of course not, that's why you're reading this. Anyway, here's what happened.

If you've been following the weather, then you'll know that a major snow storm has been raging through the midwest in recent times, and by that I mean its been shitting snow and rain. First it rained, the rain froze on the ground and created a sheet on ice on the ground about an inch or so thick.

Kind of a good thing in my book, since my classes were canceled today. So, I got up at noon (something I haven't done on a weekday in a while) got some food, chilled and what not. While walking back to my dorm, the weather shitting snow on my face, I realized this would be a good day to catch up on the pitches I've been writing (or not) and just relax until ten when I go out again to party.

So, I get back to my dorm and open up the Space Marine battle novel that's going to be one of my pitches to BL (The Blood on Khartas) and I was going to start writing. There was one problem.

It opened up in Microsoft Word 2007.

Now, that may not be a big deal to you normal people, but it was to me. Why? Because I still use 2003 because I got it for free (and as a college student I do not like paying more than $60 for something). I do not know why it did this, I don't have 2007 on here, so it baffled me. Whatever, I thought, Easy fix.

But a little voice in the back of my head told me, Check siege.

So I did. And low and behold, they're all in 2007. Now, being the computer moron I am, I didn't know how to decode this back into 2003, and I failed at downloading open office on here a while back. So, I then spent an hour converting those files into PDF format and copying and pasting them into another 2003 document.

I have no idea how this fucking happened, I don't have 2007, nor opened anything recent in 2007, even then when I did when I went back to my writing they were still in 2003. But really, what the fuck?

I hate my computer sometimes.