“Look,” one Warlock said, adjusting his pointy hat and looking generally displeased.  “You can’t just let anyone run around saying ‘Oh, look, I’m a Warlock.’  It doesn’t work that way.”

“What my colleague is trying to say,” another Warlock added, “is that there are standards.  Procedures.  You can’t very well just say ‘I’m a Warlock’ and it is so.  We have all traveled to some layer of Hell and back.  We have seen things that would reduce most people to drooling husks of their former selves.  He’s making a mockery of everything we stand for, and it’s kind of offensive.”  He averts his gaze, clearly wiping away a tear.

“I bet he’s never even been to Hell,” the one Warlock said, petting a small demon he called forth by sacrificing a small child.  “It’s quite lovely this time of year, mind you.  Hell, I mean.  You’ve got to wear sound-canceling headphones, though, or your ears will be bleeding in no time.”

Efforts to organize such as “Warlocks Against Charlie Sheen”, “Real Warlocks United”, and “Please, Oh God, Please Take Him Back CBS We Don’t Need Him Sullying Our Good Name” have all failed because Warlocks’ tend to suffer from extreme bouts of paranoia which typically end in murdering one another.

In similar news, rumor has it that Blizzard will be replacing the Warlock’s Destruction tree with an entirely new Charlie Sheen Tiger’s Blood tree.  Sources say that Destruction’s removal is largely because “only pussies roll Destro anyway.”

Instead of writing a long-ass post about how every president you know and love is a lying, thieving no-good-son-of-a-bitch (Eat your hearts out, you Fox News junkies), this will be a medium-length post on why I would be an amazing president (up until anyone with any sense of responsibility, duty, morals, or sanity throws me off the Whitehouse).

The First Family will be the First Family of the United States of Awesome. I’m not bogged down by a wife, children, or any pesky mistresses like most of these political types.  When I go out in public it will be with my inner circle comprised of cyborg bodyguards, ninjas, and the first dog will be a genetically modified wolverine that breathes fire.  Why?  Because people won’t think, “Oh, there’s the Pres and his family taking a pleasant stroll” as I go by and every member of the Secret Service loses their goddamn mind over where I may or may not be.  Oh, no.  People will piss their pants.  Hail to the chief, fools.

Republican or Democrat? Or this guy.  You can take those two parties and combine them in whatever way makes you vote for me.  Reublicrat?  Sure, why not.  Third party?  Let me level with you: nobody you guys ever try getting in office will get anywhere.  I mean, except for Ralph Nader, and that’s in the “he’s only getting closer to the grave” way.

Pundits aren’t above pandering. News pundits have a pretty solid following.  Just look at that Jon Stewart guy, that Stephen Colbert fellow, and whatever the hell Glenn Beck is*.  Droves of people who hang on their every word.  My solution?  I won’t be above pandering to the American people.  Sure, that may mean one or two…or twelve fart jokes thrown in a state of the union, but I’m willing to go the distance**.

I’ll be a President of the people. I’ll show it through bitchin’ photographic evidence.  Me helping bring peace to the Middle East?  Facebooked.  Mr. President Gorski (the new title will be Mr. President the Revered and Almighty, by the way; memorize it, people, because there will be a quiz later) helping to bring jobs to the jobless?  Check out my Twitter.  That hunting trip that Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh invited me on?  Sorry, guys, had a prior engagement, but you’ll all be happy to know that my Vice President only sustained minor injuries; nothing that couldn’t be fixed with Silly Putty and 100 proof whiskey.

Promises are meant to be kept. I won’t make promises I know I can’t keep.  Sure, everyone wants world peace, an end to famine, an end to major diseases, and other things of that nature.  I could take to the podium and say, “Hey, I’m going to fix everything ever.”  Can I?  Hell no.  What do you people think I am, some sort of miracle-worker?  I’ll be that realistic friend that helps the American people accept that, sure, you couldn’t make it into Harvard, but at least you didn’t get stuck going to Community College.  I may not bring an end to war, but I sure as hell won’t have a problem sending everyone to that Harry Potter addition to Disney on China’s dime.  I figure if we’re not so far into debt to China by the end of my presidency that everyone’s living in soup cans and driving mouse-drawn chariots, I’ve done something wrong.

Presidents have some defining characteristic. I’ll be upping the ante by one-upping all of those dead bastards.  Sure, some of them never lied, some of them chopped down cherry trees, and some of them were pretty keen on breaking and entering or magical podiums.  Cutting down cherry trees?  I’ll cut down a forest with a plasma torch while robed in Smokey the Bear’s pelt.  Never lying?  Wouldn’t you like to know.  Paul Ekman will be hired on and paid a quarter every time I spout a line of utter garbage.  By this reasoning, Dr. Ekman will be the richest man alive by my second day in office.  Good luck writing catchy folk-songs about my presidential antics, fools.

Rest easy knowing I would never consider even contemplating going into politics.  I have more than enough fun writing fiction without the threat of being called a communist-fascist-socialist-whatever.

* Years and years in the future, scholars will still be pondering this mystery of life.

** Note to self: replace my speech writers with the writers from various Adult Swim shows to better serve these purposes.

Starting off, I felt the immediate wave of nostalgia.  By the end of Level 2, Act 1, I was starting to have doubts.  And then there were a million needless bottomless pits that resulted in, what I imagine, may have been the most legendary string of expletives I have ever produced in my life.  The only other video game I have played that made me swear this much is Demon’s Souls, and at least that’s supposed to be mind-meltingly frustrating.

Let’s look at the pros first, as to help maintain that this game isn’t a total failure to its legacy.  Sonic 4′s level design is fantastic, at face-value.  The PS3 graphics mesh with the side-scrolling gameplay and create aesthetically pleasing results.  Overall, the journey from level 1 up to, and through, the final boss, is a short but sweet one, and feels reminiscent of the old Sonic games (as Sonic Team intended).

Here’s the problem, though; I shouldn’t, as a gamer and a fan of this franchise, have to spend more time wanting to like a game than actually liking it.  That’s exactly what happened.  For all of the fun I had playing…level 1, I had to put about three times that effort into trying to like the rest of the game.  I have yet to complete the final stage, as it borders onto controller-breaking frustration for me. Spare me the “u r teh suck at gaming” comments, fools.  You can only do so much with the controls your given.  However, it becomes very easy to spot how each stage is essentially a pretty, and somewhat pathetic, amalgamation of stages from Sonic 1, 2, and 3.  If it’s not broke, don’t fix it; just don’t charge fifteen bucks for the same damn thing.

Then there’s the controls.  My god, what controls those are.  Things are kept pretty simple, as they should be with a Sonic game, and consist largely of moving with the control stick or the directional pad.  You jump, or spin-dash, with X, O, Square, or Triangle.  Where it gets goofy as hell is when you think you’re pressing down and prepping to speed across the screen and the end-result you get is an unfortunate jump.  Those auto-target jumping and mid-air dash should have remained relics of the Sonic Adventure games (and, perhaps, the DS installments; perhaps).  In a 2-D playing field, they only act as means to aggravate.  Specifically, the auto-target jumping.  This made trying the under-one-minute run of Stage 1, Act 1 into a nightmare for me.  I will pause, for a moment, and consider the possibility that I am doing it wrong.

The bosses were…meh.  I mean that as “somewhere between acceptable and mediocre, with a touch of shittiness here and there”.  The original wrecking ball boss makes an appearance (I won’t lie, I had a fanboy moment that has rendered me unable to look myself in the mirror without feeling some level of shame).  Then it’s a revived boss from Casino Night (Sonic 2), some horrifying combination of the Mystic Cave boss (Sonic 2) and the Aquatic Ruin boss (also Sonic 2), followed by some terrible revamp of what seemed like a combination of the Metropolis Zone boss (Sonic 2 again) and the final boss of Sonic Chaos (one of the Game Gear installments).  I never realized I could pack so much nerd into one paragraph, but there you have it.  I haven’t made it to the final boss yet, as mentioned above.

Overall, the game feels like a huge letdown.  Unless Sonic 4: Episode 2 is a huge improvement, it better end with a sad scene involving Sonic being taken off life support and being declared dead.  In closing, I feel it only appropriate to give a list of things I would rather have done with $14.99 instead of spending it on this game.

• Purchase three-week old ham sandwich that’s been sitting on a sidewalk
• Betting a particularly stupid person $14 that they won’t eat 99 cents in change
• Setting the money on fire; I’d find a way to do so with the change
• Start a savings account in order to purchase an N-Gage (I kid; nothing’s THAT bad)
• Go to a 3D movie (really, you people love your gimmicks far too much)

• The celebration of Valentine’s Day dates back to prehistoric times.  The first official Valentine’s Day couple was the earth and a rather amorous asteroid; the dinosaurs, being quite the third wheel, were cramping the couple’s style and were dealt with accordingly.
• Cave paintings depict images of a yearly ceremony during which the happiest couple of a community is paraded around, showered in selections from the local flora, and then cast off the nearest cliff.  This practice was believed to help ensure a less insufferable year.  This practice still occurs in some parts of the United States to this day.
• The Boston Tea Party–the date of which has been the subject of dispute by scholars for quite some time**–was the colonists’ way of trying to share a romantic tea-and-biscuit snack with the king of Britain.  The colonists failed to realize what is now obvious (that being that you never try brewing tea in the ocean as it is full of unsavory things);  Britain threw a tantrum, the colonists decided that they should “see other people”, and there would later be a mutual defriending on Facebook.
• In some tribal cultures, the “valentine” is representative of an evil spirit that causes its recipient to turn into a drooling husk of their former self.  A medicine man, shaman, or witch–depending upon the culture–will create “valentines” for the low cost of the buyer’s firstborn.  The “valentine” is then given to ones enemy, or sold to a major American greeting card company for a less-than-impressive profit.
• Other tribal rituals involve the man cutting out his heart and handing it to his love-interest, who then takes the heart and purees it into a tasteful soup.  Or places it in some dirt and repeatedly clubs it with a large rock.
• Other than humans, bears are also known to enjoy a Valentine’s Day picnic.  It consists of a happy couple of bears taking a trip to a rural community, where they dine on a happy couple of humans.  An ideal bear Valentine’s Day involves there being some of the human couple’s dinner left, as nothing takes the taste of human out of one’s mouth like a good steak and a carefully selected wine***.

So there you have it.  A couple enjoyable facts* for Valentine’s Day.  Go forth, enjoy your over-priced chocolates and flowers (enraged hornets cost extra), and be sure to vomit your rainbows away from me.  Otherwise we may have to start a new Valentine’s Day tradition, in which I set happy couples on fire.

*Facts being used for its lesser-known meaning of “complete and utter bullshit I made up out of boredom”

**No actual scholars were available for their opinions, and so I substituted my own

***Or so I’ve been told, at least.

After much screwing around with a blank Microsoft Word document, I came to the conclusion I should totally write a blog entry.  On what?  Well, that hadn’t been determined.  Then I logged onto WordPress and was immediately reminded as to how disorganized this thing is…

What the next week or so, probably leaning more towards the “or so” given my workload (college, thou art a needy bitch), I will be reorganizing Pengy Press Productions.  Possibly by trying to just move shit into new categories.  Or just by taking the typical, simplified, “Kill it with fire” approach.  Whatever seems more appealing at the time.

In the mean-time, reader (or readers?), enjoy the semi-intentional blank space.

I preordered Cataclysm.  In case that needs spelled out for some of you, that means one thing.  I have embraced the object of my derision: I play World of Warcraft.

But Pengy, you hate WoW.  You made fun of friends who play WoW on a regular basis, you made fun of it as a game, and you pretty much swore you’d sooner throw yourself off a building before accepting it as a game.  Incidentally, I won’t be throwing myself off of a building.  Sorry if I got any hopes up on that one.

Basic summary of why I started playing goes as follows.  I picked up StarCraft II: Collector’s Edition, which has a Mini Thor pet.  Not worth paying $15 a month for a game, I figured.  Then, one faithful day as I tried reinstalling my copy of Diablo 2 (Windows 7 seems to HATE Diablo 2 and old Battle.net).  My account decided it would be really cool to start up my free 10 Day Trial of WoW.  I’m an extremely cheap person, and I wasn’t about to let something free go to waste.  So began the debate to try WoW, which turned into me eventually getting World of Warcraft, as well as the two expansions.

Is it worth it?  Hell yes, it’s worth it.  I don’t play it any more than I would play other video games (something equally disappointing, I should note), the lore is pretty damn interesting, and being able to abuse a paladin or two online is pretty entertaining.  Worth $15 a month?  I’ll waste my money as I see fit.  To wrap this up…:

I’m CrazedPenguin, and I’m a Human Warlock.  Or a Troll Shaman, depending on which server I’m currently dying on.

Pokemon Platinum, the latest release in the series and the Pokemon Yellow/Crystal/Emerald equivalent to the Diamond and Pearl versions, was released to hordes of awaiting fans (in America, at least) on March 22nd.  With over 400 Pokemon, as opposed to the good old days with 150 (plus Mew), among other additions, the Pokemon games have certainly changed over the years.  Platinum is evidence that these changes have, for the most part, been improvements.

Platinum, like the other third game in each trio of Pokemon games (such as Emerald), focuses on a specific legendary: Giratina.  Instead of the Palkia-centric Pearl and the Dialga-centric Diamond, players will have to face Giratina, the Ghost/Dragon legendary Pokemon, atop Spear Pillar.  However, this story modification isn’t done lazily.  Instead of getting to Spear Pillar and Nintendo pulling an M. Night Shyamalan (yes, I did have to Google search his name) twist.  Team Galactic is more strongly woven into the overall story, making Giratina’s appearance on Spear Pillar, among other things, work a lot better.  The major focus on Giratina’s Origin Forme and the bizarre and confusing Distortion World brings something new and, dare I say it, exciting to the table.

In addition to Giratina-related tomfoolery, the Ghost/Electric-type Pokemon, Rotom, has been hyped up a fair amount with its appliance-possessing powers.  Rotom has several forms, and the type of each form is tied to what appliece it possesses.  Spiffy enough.

Speaking of legendaries, it would seem that knocking out Giratina during the inital encounter is all right.  I didn’t feel like risking it, but it would seem that Giratina shows up once again at the end of Turnback cave

The bonus of being able to catch a certain trio of Legendary Birds after earning the National Pokedex certainly didn’t hurt my opinion of this game, either.

In terms of other changes, there is now a means to record battles and share those recordings, etc., but I honestly don’t feel that’s nearly as big a deal as other changes; I imagine I’m somewhat alone in this opinion, but I have never felt the urge to watch myself duke it out with a trainer’s Bidoof (or to relive my epic victory against my friends).  It just seems like a bit of a trivial addition.

This is one series I will stand behind: Pokemon games provide hours of gameplay fun with the main story, followed by additional hours for those who wish to either create the ultimate team, or complete the Pokedex, or whatever.  Regardless the motivation, Pokemon is  a game with plenty of play and replay value.  With the DS’s Wifi capabilities it becomes even more fun, with chances to battle or trade with people all around the world.  Assuming the next Pokemon games, which I’m almost certain will happen sooner or later, aren’t a total deviation from the current formula, there’s nothing to worry about.  As for Platinum, I feel it has been one of the best installments in the series.  I’ll always play favorites with Pokemon Yellow, but that’s because each replay provided me a chance to choose between coddling Pikachu or tormenting the little electric rodent.

Pokemon Platinum is certainly worth purchasing.  That’s all there is to it.

I promise that there’s a reason for all of this rambling, and I’m getting to that. Kingdom Hearts started off a long line of sequels and side-games, more of which are still on the way at some point in the future, and I have to ask this: really, Square-Enix? Isn’t it about time to move on to something else?

Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories is the Playstation 2 remake of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, and it originally debuted as one of the features in Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix.

KH Re:Chain of Memories has some strong points, I will concede.  The obvious benefits of having this game on the PS2 are improved graphics, the addition of voice overs, etc…

The voice acting in Re:Chain of Memories is decent enough.  Having a voice to go with the characters that didn’t end up getting them in Kingdom Hearts II (for whatever plot-related reasons there may have been) was a nice addition for characters like Vexen and Marluxia.

Another minor update is the battles against the members of Organization XIII, which now take place in a new, different arena of sorts.  Most of them, anyway.  There were a few additional boss battles added to the game, as well, in its transfer to the PS2.

The cutscenes, both with the Organization XIII members and the heroes, are a nice touch as well.  It’s hard to not improve upon having the characters standing in fixed positions, talking through speech bubbles alone, I suppose.  At least they made the little bit of effort to make them look that much better?

Okay, giving this game praises is proving to be harder than expected.  It’s actually surprisingly difficult, I’m sad to say, since I do generally tend to overlook some potentially glaring flaws in Squeenix games in order to see the high points.  There’s only so much you can really find good about a remade game, especially one that didn’t really merit being remade.

The game mechanics of Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories are the same as they were on the Gameboy Advance.  You battle with cards, you progress through worlds with cards, and you get to the aforementioned worlds with cards.  Anyone who has picked up this game, or its predecessor, can easily sum up this game with one word: cards.  It adds an interested element to gameplay and, more specifically to the Kingdom Hearts series, reduce the temptation of button-mashing.  It can work, but not nearly as well.  The reason for this is simple: enemy cards of a higher value, as well as ones with a value of zero and premium cards, can be used to negate your cards (it’s called a card break).  Trust me, I’ve tried button-mashing through a few boss battles.  This lead to a few unfortunate instances in which I mistook my Gameboy Advance as a frisbee.  The same thing applies to Re:Chain of Memories.  While this is great in terms of forcing the player to strategize a little more, it’s still a bit of a pain in the ass to have to use cards.

Another factor that adds to the frustration of using cards for the battle system is that there are limitations to how you can arrange your deck of cards you’re using, but this is really more of an issue with the leveling system as a whole.  I understand that the limits are set on how many of each card, of each value, players can have in their decks.  It would be ridiculous if you start the game and make your way through it with the ability to have all cards with a value of 9, and limitless cards in your deck.  What I am saying is that it would be nice if there was some middle ground.  Perhaps add a little to each of the stats (HP, Card Points, and Sleights) or, at the very least, add a little to HP and CP.  Yes, the current system forces players to really choose what they think is the best to boost.  Yes, it forces players to level up a good bit to progress.  There are probably ways that make this less of a pain, but that doesn’t change the fact that they make it a pain.

The opening-the-path-through-each-world-with-specific-numbered-and-colored-cards aspect remains the same, so much so that it requires little comment.  There are a few new cards thrown in to mix things up, but nothing really revolutionary.

All of this comes back to the fact that it’s a remake.  Remakes are a creature often looked down upon on principle, and almost always clustered in with the likes of games based off of movies.  They have potential, but it depends on how well the folks working on the game tap into that potential.

One key problem that the Square-Enix has is its love affair with making sequels and prequels.  Squaresoft had the never-ending Final Fantasy series, which seems to be crawling further up its own ass with each new installment, and Enix had titles such as Dragon Quest.  Admittedly, I can’t be as harsh with them, as I never really bothered with Dragon Quest beyond the Monsters games.  Squaresoft and Enix becoming Square-Enix was a great way to gather all of those sequel-and-prequel-loving folks up in one convenient spot so they can show gamers how overrated new ideas really are.  That’s a whole different series of complaints, however, and not worth really delving into at this point.

Simply enough, Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories was a mediocre game. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad, and short of sending Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix over in its entirity, Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories doesn’t stand so well on its own.  Play it over someone else’s house, but don’t bother spending the money for your own copy unless you’re a real die-hard fan.

However, barring the short review of a few aspects of this game that will follow, this entry’s purpose is to give players a few ways to have a little more fun with gameplay.

The single-player experience is relatively enjoyable, and isn’t much different whether played on PC or XBOX360.  The AI controlling the Infected, the Director, makes it so that no additional playthrough of a scenario is the same.  Different points at which the player will get rushed by Infected, where ammo will pop up, and so on are all determined by this devious Director.  This has resulted in quite a few nasty run-ins, for me, that ended in me swearing.  A lot.

The process of moving from Safe Room checkpoint to Safe Room checkpoint will vary from player to player, dependent upon the Director’s shenanigans and the player’s experience and abilities in FPS games.  Sometimes, it’s a stroll between Safe Rooms and other times you may find yourself pissed you used that health pack earlier.

Playing co-op, and this much I’ve only experienced on the XBOX 360, is enjoyable enough.  The split-screen gameplay can be a bit of a nuisance, but that’s more an issue of the TV that you’re using and not a problem in the gameplay.

One last aspect of Left 4 Dead that absolutely demands recognition is the lighting effects.  The lighting effects in Left 4 Dead are exceptionally good.  Example: you’re navigating the hallways of a hospital.  The lights are dimmed in most rooms, of in quite a few, and you have to find your way to the safe room.  You fire off a shotgun round to take out some Infected ahead of you…and the flash from the gun firing illuminates just a little of a doorway to your left, revealing some parts of the Infected that are just barely past that doorway.  Very cool stuff.  Perhaps, however, I’m just easily impressed.

And so, as this game has gotten plenty of love and praise, and a few less kind words, from virtually every major gaming publication, I now feel it necessary to do a little extra.  The following are a few fun ways to really enjoy playing Left 4 Dead, a fair number of which are for cooperative play.  I do not recommend, nor do I condone, any of these things in online play; you’ll only piss people off and, really, some of them won’t even work.

The first couple, such as this one, require playing with someone unfamiliar with Left 4 Dead.  You’ll also need a Witch.  This could go one of two ways, but the first one is generally more amusing.

Once there’s a Witch around, it’s time to send your helpful partner in zombie-killing over to check things out.  This is a little more effective if you just have the person shoot the Witch, but not as much fun as if it’s dragged out a little more.  Tell the person to sneak up on the Witch in question, to make sure they get ready for that ideal head-shot.  Yeah.  It’s infinitely more enjoyable if they’re easily startled or surprised, because when they finally do shoot that Witch and it goes completely nuts on them, there’s a good chance the person will at least jump a little.

Alternatively, you could shoot the Witch.  However, it would come after you, obviously, so I would only suggest this for a cheap shock or to just slow down process and prolong the gaming experience.  I occasionally go for the Witch just because it’s entertaining to irritate her.  However, I should also admit that I’m not the best gamer in regards to FPS games, so it’s mostly for the thrill of watching the Witch go ape-shit crazy.

If things have gotten boring, and you’re in need of a nice rush of Infected to liven up the journey to being rescued, all you’ll need is a conveniently placed Boomer.  It’s especially enjoyable if the other player is unaware of the Boomer’s presence, though this is difficult since Boomers make distinct noises (as do the other Special Infected) and the other Survivors tend to freak out and announce that there’s one close by.  Inconvenient.  However, if the situation plays out just right, shoot the Boomer when it’s getting close enough to the other player that the resulting Boomer Bile shower hits them.  You should be busy, at least for the next half a minute or so, when the resulting Horde of Infected comes rushing down every available path to smear your brains all over the ground.

Other means of livening up gameplay include seeing who can take out the most Special Infected, who can prevent the other player from taking out Special Infected the most, and so on.  Obviously, Left 4 Dead has quite a bit more to offer with its online play, too, which I would strongly recommend checking out.

Overall, Left 4 Dead deserves the praise it’s received since its release, and will likely continue to receive.  It’s not perfect, but it’s definitely a great game and a nice twist on the typical zombie apocalypse nonsense.  And, though so people will disagree, it’s got the perks of being not nearly as ridiculously difficult as Dead Rising tends to be, upping the enjoyability considerably.  The bottom line is this: Left 4 Dead is a game worth picking up, whether you get it for the PC or the XBOX 360.

Let’s start with the beginning of the process.  You have an idea, an idea that you believe is so phenomenally new and exciting that people’s eyes will explode from their heads upon reading it.  Naturally, you want to share it with the world.  What do you do?  Grab your cell phone, open up your e-mail, or open your mouth to tell the nearest person, right?  Most writers I know, and I, am guilty of doing exactly that.  Fight that urge.  Keep the idea inside.  Think of it as keeping your idea safe from the outside dangers that could kill it before it reaches its prime.  It’s sort of like the process of wallpapering your house with Mr. Yuck stickers and effectively blocking every available outlet with those plastic outlet plugs (very technical terminology here, people).

First off, hold onto that idea until you can get it down somewhere.  If you’re the kind of writer who likes carrying a notebook on your person, get to it.  Otherwise, keep it in the back of your mind, but not so far to the back that something like the ever-important decision of what fine dining establishment will be delivering your dinner boots it out of your thoughts completely.  When the opportunity presents itself, get the idea down on something.  If that something is a digital medium such as an MS Word document, be sure to make a back-up copy.  Label it as something you will remember, so as it doesn’t get mistakenly deleted.

There is a distinct difference between going around and talking about an idea and getting help for that idea.  It’s so clear, in fact, that it almost doesn’t bear mentioning.  For the sake of covering everything, however, I feel I should elaborate.  It’s a necessary evil to occasionally seek out help during the writing process.  Whether that help is simply the proofreading of a work or running an experimental something-or-other past another writer, the need to ask for help will invariably rear its ugly head.  That’s okay; nobody’s perfect.  What you’ll want to avoid is outlining the entire plot of your story, the entire overview of your article, or whatever the piece of writing may be.  What you’ll end up doing is letting that idea loose into the wild where it, under-developed, will wander out into the busy streets and get hit by a car.  I’ve never been one for metaphors and the likes, but I think the picture is pretty clear: by sharing your idea, in excessive details, you are letting it go before you should.  Even in seeking help, it doesn’t hurt to be careful in exactly what details you give away and what ones you hold onto.

Now that your idea is safe and sound, the process of taking care of it comes into play.  This is where individual writing styles will determine what happens next.  I, for example, will sit down and make sure I work on the idea until I can’t think of anything else to type, or some outside influence demands I stop.  Say, for example, if the power goes out.  I’m the kind of person who takes an idea, throws additional details that I feel will help the idea onto it, and then cleans it up until I have what I feel is a relatively well-polished work.  Some writers prefer outlining, others jump right into the writing and fix it up from there, like I do.  Regardless of how you write, it’s always a good idea to, and please pardon the cliche, strike while the iron is hot.  It will ensure that none of the juicy details are lost along the way, like how the protagonist’s love interest in your tragedy is really his (female relation goes here), from the future.  Ridiculous example aside, the point remains: the sooner you begin to work on the idea instead of letting it sit and wait in your mind, like some sad, lonely leftovers in the back of the fridge (at least your idea, unlike those leftovers, will not grow green fuzz and begin to stink up the place, though).

Once your idea has started to develop–it’s started to walk on its own, it’s been potty-trained and all that good stuff–and has really begun taking shape, it’s usually a good idea to keep up with it regularly.  This step depends heavily upon the size of the project for which the idea was intended.  If it’s something shorter, like an article for a magazine or a poem, it will take a lot less time to work on than a novel would.  It’s not necessary to set up a schedule for keeping up with your idea, but just be sure to keep taking care of it.  Plenty of ideas die simply from neglect, and the numerous half-finished, half-assed stories saved on this computer, as well as a few of my others, act as proof of that.  Remember that going back and editing your work during the writing process is a sure-fire way to bring any idea, regardless of its potential, to an abrupt end.

With the proper love and care, a fully nurtured idea can go on and become something great, whether it’s just something for your friends and family to read or an article slated to be published in a major publication.  It’s all a matter of holding onto your idea and making sure it doesn’t bite the dust before it sees the light of day.  So, to once again echo the advice of my professor, nurture your ideas and, of course, enjoy helping those ideas reach their full potential.