DUSTINLUCA.COM - the PORTAL for Dustin Luca

Forums locked, comments disabled

Effective immediately, the forums are closed and comments on new news stories are being disabled because of an influx in bots on this page.

It isn't like the forums are being used anyways. If the time comes, though, where people wish for the forums to return, I will reactivate them. I don't see that happening for a long time though, at least until I get a novel published.

Anybody wishing to contact me can do so either through AIM (xLucaAjay1) or email (dustin.luca@gmail.com). Additionally, I can be found on Steam through the username FAPPYcat.

FINISHED

As of eight minutes ago, the first draft of my first novel, 'the Cradle,' is finished and ready for editing.

I went into the challenge of National Novel Writing Month knowing that I could hit 50,000 words if I keep up with the writing expectations, but I was never sure I would see the end of the story before the end of the month...

...until about three or four hours ago when I wrote the first 4,000 words of the day.

If I was a drinker, I would be downing a bottle of champagne right now. Instead, I'm passing for ginger ale.

Thank you's are due to everybody who supported me. :)

Teh winnar!

In just 18 days, I have won my first ever participation in National Novel Writing Month.

In seven days, with a word total much higher than the 50,066 I currently have, I will verify my word count and receive the certificate that will probably hang on my wall for the rest of my life.

No words can describe how happy I am right now.

Halfway there!

As you will note by the Cradle Tracker above this news post, I am more than halfway to the NaNoWriMo goal! Additionally, I'm around 20% through the actual story itself, so I actually need to start writing..... faster..... if this is to be done by the end of 2008.

Coming in November...

In three days, I officially kick off possibly the largest project I have ever undertaken - writing a novel.

November is National Novel Writing Month, and for over 100,000 people around the world the month serves as a perfectly acceptable excuse for birthing a 50,000 word novel within a 30 day period. Most of the people who sign up for the challenge, around 85 percent of participants in fact, fail at the challenge - usually because, if you think about it, 50,000 words is a lot.

It's a task that demands a minimum of 1,667 words of coherent, organized thought out of a writer every single day. For some, it isn't that hard - especially if you write for a living. But for budding college students, people with social and work lives and anybody else who isn't a word-processing machine, the challenge is very difficult. The failure rate is evidence of this.

But I am going to try it anyway.

My project, which has gone under three names so far (Project NaNoWriMo, then Project Solar and now "The Cradle"), is officially fleshed out, researched, pre-written and ready to... start getting written? I have a 25,059-word storyline written out that catalogs the tragic adventures of Tom Harrington, a 25-year-old Earth History graduate student who gets caught up in one of the most destructive extinction events in Earth's biological history.

The skies burn with ultra-violet light, the oceans turn red and most of the planet's surfaces disappear under a blanket of fresh glaciations as the Earth plunges into its first historically recorded ice age. But for those that cope, there is light at the end of the tunnel - a far-away civilization known by many but visited by few. A civilization that protects man and his interests, his dreams and his will to reach the light at the end of the tunnel.

A civilization known as the Cradle.

Track my progress at http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/312822 and, provided that I start using it again, right here on my official website.

Sorry about the downtime guys...

Here at HAPPYcat Productions, all (two) of us have recently gone back to school, and unfortunately have had our Tyrian cybernetic implants forcibly pulled from the base of our skulls, traded in for a 3,500 page Norton anthology of everything William Shakespeare ever published (and that's just one of the courses).

We're still tossing around ideas for the ninth episode, but we're just not finding the time to work on it. In fact, some of you that have been watching their Friends lists to see when Dustin comes on may also notice that... um... he hasn't been coming on.

(I haven't even finished the Ebon Vanguard quests yet, for the love of god)

Anyway, we're hoping to get back into the swing of things sometime soon, but right now we're not quite sure when that will be. But don't take this as a hint that STARNEWS23 will be gone forever! It will definitely be back... just, when there's more time to work on it.

:)

Thank you, everybody, for your support! Anybody wishing to keep in touch with me (Dustin) in the downtime can just smash the contact links on the main menu.

Where da downloads at

Just an update regarding certain files in the DOWNLOAD section missing...

It was brought to my attention by a fellow guildie of mine that the high resolution download for episode six was missing. After looking into it, I realized that all of the high resolution downloads were missing for episodes one through six, not just episode six.

So, in the week ahead that will be spent largely preparing episode nine, we're also going to look into hosting methods that are better than FileFront.

August news from HAPPYcat Productions

August is a pretty busy month for us here at STAR, but I think you can say that August is a busy month for just about anybody who plays Guild Wars.

This week (Wednesday, in fact), we'll be putting episode eight, titled "Fiery Tempered Mesmers," online. We'll be taking a few days off, and then diving right into episode nine, currently untitled, so that it can be released before Eye Of The North comes out on August 31.

That episode's release is currently aiming for inbetween the preview weekend and August 31. So we'll see you all online during the preview weekend. Until then... go, I don't know, do whatever it is you Internet people do.

DO IT FOR THE LULZ

Witty news post title

Episode seven is finally done and online for public scrutiny!

Also, as if it wasn't said two news posts down, this episode, as well all releases from here on out, features standard widescreen definition (16:9 pixel aspect ratio), and with it comes HIGH DEFINITION. So, if you absolutely have to see how cute the STARNEWS logo in the scroller is in the highest detail possible, then the 300MB download is the one for you.

Tomorrow (Wednesday the 25th), I will alert the community sites about episode seven, which should put news posts appearing on those sites at some point before or during the weekend.

New episode WEDNESDAY; PROMOTIONS REVEALED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Final production tasks for episode seven of STAR are now under way, and with that the new episode, titled "IN KISU WE TRUST," will be wrapped up and ready for release tomorrow.

But, because I'm distracted easily, I'm preparing to release the episode on WEDNESDAY. I've been regurgitating a lot of media from this episode though, namely to guage feedback from various trustworthy people in my life (i.e. Steph, Korak, etc.), but I figured I would also toss one of these out to all of you guys.

EAGER TO KNOW WHO HAS GOTTEN PROMOTED, AND WHO AT STAR GOT DEMOTED? If not, then DO NOT CLICK THIS LINK!

JULY 23 update! I FIXED THE LINK, NOW IT WILL NOT TAKE YOU TO OLD 404 STUFF I HAVEN'T EDITED SINCE I GOT THE DOMAIN!!! Also EP7 IS DONE. RELEASE TUESDAY NIGHT!