Re: Story Related OOC

[Seth Ruggeri]

Now that I'm free from the oppressive weight of page after page of research papers, I can finally do some more enjoyable and far less stressful writing. As per Ethan's suggestion, I've taken the posts related to the cult and created a new thread which Claude and I will develop on at a later date. I've also finished up deBenneville's screening so hopefully in the coming days he'll begin working his way into O, Town of Little Bethlehem. Really enjoying the standoff right now between Pearse and Jessamine by the way. I eagerly await Jessamine's response to Pearse's last statement in particular.

[Ethan Ramey]

I'm bullying Jessamine to get a post up (as well as continue work on the site), but I'm also curious as to what's happening in Little Bethlehem. As stated before, Claude and Seth are our only eyes and ears in the town, so a post to continue that thread is much anticipated.

[Samuel Kircher]

I'll hopefully be getting a post up soon (hopefully before Blake answers Pearce) with Kircher interacting with Allie. We've been conspiring getting her more involved, and now will be the chance to bring her into some more light, I hope. Not to detract from the epic showdown of 2010 that is Blake/Pearse, though...

[Ethan Ramey]

Indeed, it might take all of 2010. (I'm sorry, I couldn't resist!)

[Mr. Pearse]

Great to hear, Samuel.

As a little reality check, it has been 21 days since we've heard from Jessamine.

It has been 38 days since we've heard from Claude.

Although I haven't been a model poster, at my very worst I've taken a week and a half to write an adequate reply, and that's been with other posts between. And I promise you, I'm juggling a few other things up here.

If you like the site and want it to continue, stop killing it. Gigantic kudos to Mr. Ramey for keeping the dream alive.

[Jessamine Blake]

Okay, I read this. And felt duly chastened. And ran off with my tail between my legs to post.

Of course, you neglected to mention that for ten of those twenty-one days I couldn't have posted anything on the main story anyway, since I was waiting for you to make a move. In light of the fact that I waited ten days for you, it doesn't seem so terrible that you waited twelve--not twenty-one--for me, does it?

Please put these things in perspective in the future, Mr. Pearse. No doubt once summer starts and I'm sitting behind a desk all day with nothing to do but answer a phone a couple of times an hour, I'll post with much more regularity. I don't think my interval of inactivity was in any way egregious or excessive, all things considered. Also, I think the fastest way to kill the site would be to turn posting into a chore by nagging people when they don't post fast enough for your liking. I don't want to be harsh, but the fact is that I could post every two or three days, but there's no guarantee that they would be good, or even decent, and they would certainly not be substantive. I know it's frustrating when you have to wait for someone else before you can do anything, but that's part of collaborative writing, and I would rather wait a little longer and have a really good piece of writing to read and work off of than be able to write more often but have a crap product to show for it.

On a much less belligerent note, I'd like to point out to Samuel that he referred to Allie's horse as a mare, even though she consistently refers to it as a "he." "Mare" is not interchangeable with "horse," but refers to an adult female horse. A male horse can be called a stallion if it is still fertile or a gelding if it has been castrated.

[Mr. Pearse]

If my post was duly noted, your reply is duly noted in turn. I should stop trolling BB in the middle of late-night library marathons. Of course, since that's what I'm doing right now, I'm not very good at taking my own advice.

I'm sorry I misrepresented your situation. That said, my purpose in being such a persistent asshole is not so I can write more frequently. It's so I'll continue to have a site to write on at all. Posting activity on all fronts has plummeted drastically since I started this adventure in late January. By taking the liberty of a few more days than usual to write a reply (as each of us has), we set a precedent whereby the next poster takes the privilege of waiting even longer. The result sees the story die a slow, prolonged death, as happened to ToP. You can already see it evidenced in the last visit times under the "Memberlist"; where most of us used to check in on BB every day, we're now checking in every couple of days. Soon, it might be a week between visits. And then even longer.

Overseeing this kind of enterprise is a unique managerial challenge compounded by two big problems. First, since I do a lot of things, it's hard to keep the site on anything but "cruise control." This means that, as a manager, I have difficulty investing the time to make this endeavor a success. The second problem, however, has to do with a wider lack of initiative. It is absurd how often folks promise to post "any day now," and how frequently such language stretches into weeks. I've tried approaching this through a wide range of solutions, but complicity is only encouraged by hand-holding. Sometimes you have to be an asshole to get things done. This approach still isn't particularly effective, but it's more effective than the present alternatives, and I intend to stick with it until someone suggests something better.

You didn't ask for insight into my mindset, but there you have it. So I'm not at all sorry for bullying, but I am sorry for exaggerating. Plus your post was so lovely, it was well worth the wait.

Expect a response by (barring drunken mayhem) Thursday night/Friday morning.

[Seth Ruggeri]

Not to shift the subject at hand too much, but I do have a request for everyone who is currently waiting for someone else to post or for those who just have a little extra time. A while back, I mentioned creating character sheets for our expanding cast of secondary characters. According to my count in this thread we have total of 16 characters to make sheets for. Ethan has created the majority of these at 7 characters and I take up the remaining bulk with 5 of my own creations. That being said, both Pearse and Jessamine can create sheets for their characters when they have the time. I plan to have the first of mine up either later tonight or by tomorrow afternoon.

In regards to Jessamine's latest post, I do have one point I'd like clarified. Laney refers to her "favorite customer" being amongst Pearse's group and I was wondering if you're talking about Ethan or some other character. I ask because the transition between the description of the "pale nervous figure" and "favorite customer" made me think you were describing two separate people at first. Either way, I'm still quite intrigued with the most recent happenings in Hospitality and Hostility. Keep up the good work!

[Jessamine Blake]

I will try to work on character sheets in the next few days, probably as a means of procrastinating on my many homework assignments.

The "pale nervous" person is the antecedent of "her favorite customer." But I kept identification vague purposefully, so you'll just have to wait and see what unfolds. Does that help?

[Ethan Ramey]

Why don't we change the name of this thread to Story OOC or something?

[Seth Ruggeri]

That was beginning to bother me too. Now this thread is more appropriately titled.

[Mr. Pearse]

So I spent awhile trying to churn out a meaningful post, but I realize that doing so won't be possible until Allie posts, since there's almost nothing I can contribute right now. So...make it happen.

[Seth Ruggeri]

Sorry for the delay on my end. While I was working on some of those character sheets, I had an idea for a post I wanted to make as Moira, which should help explain a bit of background information on the character as well as lead up into some more info on Seth's arrival to the Badlands. As per the norm for me however, I've had to deal with some unexpected interference over the last few days, this time in the form of trying to get an error in my final grades fixed. I hope to have something up over the next few days.

[Mr. Pearse]

Awesome post, Allie. Unfortunately, Jessamine/Ethan/Pearse's contribution at this point would still be minimal, so I think we need to wait to see where Samuel takes this.

Meanwhile, I'll look forward to reading the slew of material which Mr. Ruggeri has no doubt spent every waking moment of the last week compiling. At least, when he hasn't been occupied by other, more serious things. Communication, buddy!

[Samuel Kircher]

Hey, at least now we've finally got something akin to a true Western going on: a good ol' dust-up 'twixt a lawman and a rebel (or outlaw, or whatever Allie deems she is). Nevertheless, I'll try not to disappoint with my next post.

[Claude Delacroix]

Okay, sorry for the month of April turning into a bit of a lost weekend, guys. The important thing to note is that I'm back to grace you with my horrible writing again.

Because I'm just that spiteful.

[Allie Johnson]

lol Oh Claude, how could you? It was just beginning to get lively around here! ... >.>
well, maybe not so much. haha

This post is mostly to let you all that are in santa anna (2 n's? 2 lazy 2 look.) know that I am not disappeared. However, every time I tell everyone to expect a post from me, it doesn't happen until 3-7 days later. So basically, I'm going to post soon.

[Seth Ruggeri]

My next post is up. A bit shorter than my usual fare but for the time being, I'm interested in getting more dialogue between Seth and Claude going. In the meantime, I'll try to have character sheets for Moira, Flora, and Rosa up in the near future. I'll also try to have another story post I've been working on that explores Moira's background a bit as well as the events leading up to Seth's arrival to the New Mexico Territory up sometime soon as well.

[Jessamine Blake]

Oooh, secondary character sheets. Yes. I'll be doing one for at least two of the girls in my house, as well as one for Enna Bates.

Also, the other day I was working on a map of Jessamine's whorehouse as a reference material, and Ethan Ramey suggested that perhaps we should have maps of all the current plotted locations. I think this is an excellent idea and could really help us to solidify this universe we're creating. So far, I think the locations that have been written in are Little Bethlehem, Santa Anna (specifically, Jessamine's whorehouse), and Ethan Ramey's homestead. The only other location I can think of that's been mentioned in game is Mr. Pearse's ranch.

Perhaps an overall map of these areas in the territory, to give an idea of their relation to one another and also to reinforce the concept of the sheer SIZE of this area we're working with...and then possibly some more specific maps as details of each plotted point come to light in the story?

[Allie Johnson]

alright that took forever, but there it is. I have tried to keep her as normal as possible, but if anyone reads that post and thinks 'geez Allie thinks she's a god or sumthin...' then let me know. It didn't seem like too crazy of a feat when I wrote it.

[Mr. Pearse]

Just to clarify, Ethan/Jessamine is up next, right? If you want me to swing something, I can.

[Ethan Ramey]

Looks like Whit... damn. *Ahem* Looks like Kircher/Jessamine are the next reasonable posters, which will definitely require some collaboration between them both. This assuming that Kircher follows into the whorehouse. Otherwise, we need to know what he does before we can reasonably act.

I'm currently wondering if the rest of the players in Santa Anna might have noticed this commotion. It's a small area, Pearse and Jessamine are exchanging words, but everyone else is waiting with baited breath and I can't imagine a dust-up (even a fairly quiet one) would escape notice. Thoughts?

[Jessamine Blake]

No way it would escape notice. Especially the extra-sharp awarenesses of Pearse and Jessamine (not to toot my own horn or anything). I've mentioned this to Mr. Pearse and Samual Kircher. And I've also laid the first brick in the collaboration bridge between myself and Mr. Kircher, but he hasn't gotten back to me yet.

So...just waiting on you, Kircher. Just waiting on you.

[Mr. Pearse]

Kircher, where are you? I want to write again.

[Jessamine Blake]

I haven't heard anything from Kircher in awhile, and I was getting pretty restless. So I decided to just run with something. I hope nobody's too upset with the sudden action sequence, but it seemed unlikely to me that the Kircher-Allie confrontation would conclude without becoming a complete fiasco, considering all the noise that would be made by glass breaking and women shrieking. So I wrote some for my characters, allowed them to react the way I thought they would, and I hope it turned out fine. I feel my quality is dropping in all the action (story) and inaction (site). And I'm not the only one who was eager to get to write again, I know. So maybe this will get the ball rolling?

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