I'm Watching Someone Play Bioshock
—I'm Watching Someone Play Bioshock—
And it’s awesome. I found a full play-through of the game on YouTube (linked below) and, as of late, watch about thirty minutes a night (It’s 8 hours long.), reveling in its hauntingly beautiful atmosphere and immersive world-building and storytelling. Released in 2007, and developed by 2K, Bioshock chronicles the exploits of Andrew Ryan, an anti-society entrepreneur set on creating an isolated utopia apart from the moral and philosophical follies of the world. He takes his social experiment underwater—literally—founding the city of Rapture, an ArtDeco inspired metropolis complete with hospitals, theaters, and botanical gardens. But, as these utopian visions tend to go, things go south… Idk, I’m gonna stop here. Google it for a more eloquent synopsis if you’re interested. (Side note: Writing synopses is wicked hard—for me at least. The NIGHTLIGHTER synopsis was harder to write than the book itself.)
The new apart-from-the-Junk-Disko-Universe novel I’m working on (currently titled UNDERWATER CULT STORY IDEA on my Word doc) is loosely inspired by the Bioshock aesthetic. I dig the 1950’s vibe; the mysterious survival horror; the fanatic’s utopian-vision-gone-wrong; and the cool character design (especially Big Daddy). The underwater city is also super unique and interesting, and adds another level of external tension to the plot. My new novel marries Bioshock to Shawshank Redemption and Lord of the Flies. For now, at least. I just hit 25k words (aiming for around 85k) and still feeling good. Watching the YT stranger play Bioshock helps squeeze the creative juice. I like to have these passive inspirational outlets.
Ironic, because, as I write this, I’m not feeling very inspired. Feeling distracted tbh. Usually when I feel this way I want to solve the problem; I want to discover WHY. But that, most of the time, leads to paralyzing obsession. Which occupies all my head space. That’s not good. The better thing to do is to step away, I think…
I’m gonna do that now. I’m on spring break for a week. Maybe that’s it. Driving to Vegas tomorrow for two nights. Solo poker trip. Should be fun, and hopefully lucrative. Poker is great. You can sit and think and be in your own head.
K. That’s all for now. I’m gonna step away. More later.
-Taylor
TJH -- 03.23.2024