neils clark

All tonight I’ve been working to make some final changes to the manuscript’s resource section. While grabbing a random bit of data for that, I saw my name on a slashdot article.

Sweet.

Niftier than that, I was really happy to see that some of the comments below the slashdot fold were becoming more sophisticated. People are starting to get specific bits and pieces of why some types of ‘play’ are more or less healthy than others. Some are also showing a much clearer view of what videogame and MMO worlds are; that is to say that they are experiences and, in some cases, places.

Neils Clark :: Oct.07.2008 :: Games :: 2 Comments »

I haven’t felt particularly inspired this week, but it’s high time I report that the first completed draft of the manuscript went out the door and to my editor this Monday.

I don’t have many good reflections, pieces of advice or other whimsy things to say about the experience thus far. That is, save for the ones I’ve already offered or might soon offer close friends. No idea yet how much it’ll cost, when it will release or where you might pick it up. I’m content to put those things out of my mind, at least for the time being.

What has been on my mind, and I’m not sure why, is a quote from one of the first books to strike at my mind. The variety of strike that sends sparks in a dozen directions. The sparks that bounce chaotically from surface to surface, as though alive. “Consider,” has become, “Imagine.” The word imagine repeats itself over and over inside of my head, in a tone that suggests I should be grinning. Right now, I am.

For the probability of error increases with the scope of the undertaking, and any man who sells his soul to synthesis will be a tragic target for a myriad merry darts of specialist critique. “Consider,” said Ptah-hotep five thousand years ago, “how thou mayest be opposed by an expert in council. It is foolish to speak on every kind of work.”

Imagine.

Neils Clark :: Oct.03.2008 :: General :: No Comments »