The Cryton Chronicles

the cryton chronicle's secondary navigation bar

(10/6/2016)

I finally got around to updating the site some. You may not have ever noticed, but The Cryton Chronicle's has a second navigation bar. It's always been there, but you would have to scroll to the very bottom of a page as it's after the Footer (which it itself is expanded with blog entries). It was exceptionally hidden on the Home page, because you would have to scroll through all the News and Update posts. But those have finally been shifted to their own location. Here. And now the Home page has gone through some tweaking too, but there's much more to come with that.

As for the secondary navigation bar, it houses the links relating to myself and the site —  About Me, About The Cryton Chronicles, and News & Updates. There's also an Index, but that sucker is going to take a long time to set up, unless I find an alternative. About The Cryton Chronicles is split into three parts. Blog Content. Blog Series. Blog Hops. I wanted to specify and highlight each facet individually.

Beyond that, there have been some other minor tweaks and changes, but until something more substantial comes along, please check out these newly optimized pages and let me know what you think!

A to z challenge | 2016 | mda muscle walk

(6/14/2016)

I may have missed a few months, but I've been fairly active with the site since my last update. Most specifically, participating in the A to Z Challenge 2016, that took place in April, which consists of writing a blog post for every day in April (with the exceptions of Sundays). This was a blog hop that I undertook on all four of my blogs, so it was a huge accomplishment for me! That's a lot of writing! I've cooled off since then, but I plan to get some more entries in, across all of my blogs. If interested, here are some links to the A to Z Theme Reveal posts made for each:

I, Jak
Generation Jak
Dreams in the Shade of Ink
Meta MTG

From there you can continue on and read the A to Z entries if you feel so inclined. I hope some of you do.

I've also set up my official 2016 Extra Life Game Day profile, so for those who are interested in helping out some kids I'd request that you take a gander! I'm unsure when my own personal gaming marathons will take place, but once I am I'll have postings on both I, Jak and on Facebook.

On the topic of fundraising, I participated in the 2016 MDA Muscle Walk in May, and it was a blast! I was a part of Team Flaming Moe's and our Team Captain had a friend who made some amazing team shirts to wear for the event. We met and exceeded our team goal (2100$/1500$), so it was a huge success on that front. It was just as successful in seeing and hanging out with so many awesome people too. I believe the individual who set up the event even came over and spoke briefly to our Team Captain, which was very sweet. Looking forward to participating again next year!

So that's an overview of what I've been up to these past few months. There's more to come, so make sure to check back. Until next time!

EXTRA LIFE 2016, YOUTUBE, & GOOGLE+

(1/31/2016)

Hello everyone! It's been a while since I've updated you all. The last few months have been pretty busy. Well, January hasn't been all that bad, beyond the first week, so I can't help but attribute some bouts of laziness to the gap in time. The holidays, however, were packed with shopping and multiple family gatherings. I believe I had like five Christmases! That isn't including other random events and New Years Eve and my birthday. To be honest, I'm kind of glad it's all over. Maybe I've just been recharging. As it is, I haven't been completely inactive.

I completed the official Extra-Life 24 Hour Gaming Marathon in November, and I held another marathon of my own in December. We reached our donation goal, and many people (mostly family and gaming friends) were very supportive of the endeavor! It was great, and I am very appreciative of that support. I hope it continues, because I'm planning to launch my Extra-Life 2016 campaign even earlier this year! The goal is to get more people involved and more excited about the giveaways I plan to host. The giveaway last year was kind of a flop, though not really. No one (like, literally no one) participated, but many replied about passing on it being they don't really game and/or already own the games (or too many games in general) and wanted other people to have the opportunity to win them. This year I plan to be more vocal about the event, maybe even having two (if the first giveaway of the year ends up being successful). I mean, I already have a handful of the prizes already!

Beyond Extra-Life, I've been working on my gaming project. It's going very slow, unfortunately, and I really need to cut out some very specific time to work on it more. I was able to playtest it again, though, with the components added since the last playtest, so that was very positive and a lot of fun!

Otherwise, through the last few months I've been working on gaming videos. Currently they focus on game unboxings, but will shift into playthroughs and/or reviews, plus other randomness. At least that's the plan! This has involved setting up an official YouTube channel and Google Plus profile for The Cryton Chronicles. Some of it has been very frustrating, some of it a lot of fun, while all of it being fairly productive and a step in the right direction for some of the content I'd like to share.

I will have a blog entry giving more details on those plans and current projects soon, so keep a look out!

Hope everyone had a great holiday season and that 2016 is treating you all well! See you next time!

EXTRA LIFE GAME DAY 2015

(10/31/2015)

Just a quick reminder about the days ahead. I will be focusing on NaNoWriMo this month, and aside from my Extra-Life 24 Hour Gaming Marathon fundraiser on November 7th (check it out!), not much else. My goal with NaNo is to finally crank out some reviews, both games and movies, which I've wanted to do all Summer. I'd like a handful of reviews to post throughout December and/or January.

Then there's my gaming project that is coming along at a snails pace. I'm making progress, though. Took a small break, my mind became a bit frazzled trying to come up with so much content. I find stepping away helps me recharge and I should be able to tackle it again soon. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the release of Halo 5...

With holidays creeping up, it's going to be a busy two months, but I hope to keep updating the site and writing randomness to share with everyone. Until then...

Have a Happy Halloween!

NANOWRIMO 2015

(9/30/2015)

November fast approaches, and with it, the ever looming NaNoWriMo. I have only completed the 50k challenge once, that very first year. It was followed by a measly 15-18k in 2013 and 25k in 2014. I'm sure I wrote about the reasons behind my lackluster attempts in 2013 (and if not, it's not worth getting emo here), so I'll spare that rehashing. Last year I went off on a tangent and took the route of a Renegade. If I recall correctly, Renegades were participants who accrued their word count from other means, aside from attempting to write a novel. Poetry, short stories, blogging, etc etc. I fell under the blogging category mostly. It's likely where I'll end up this year too. I have my own personal projects I want to keep up on, but I'll be writing words nonetheless.

I bring it up because during this time frame it's highly unlikely I will be getting any site updates completed (as if I have over the past month). I tend to focus solely on my writing and everything else just kind of sits on the sidelines. I may try to edit the formatting of some older posts this coming month, getting some semblance of updates finished, but I make no promises. All of the creative writing ideas I had over the summer, aside from my current project, I've kept stashed away with the belief that I will be able to access them come November. We will see how that works out for me.

So, I'll do my best and if nothing else, hopefully come December, I will have a handful of material to share... or come January, once I've edited... or come... never. Time will tell!

BLOG ARCHIVES & REVIEW MUSINGS

(8/31/2015)

Recently I've only made a few tweaks to the blog pages. This involved updating the archives to drop lists and making the sidebars look cleaner. Hopefully adding the RSS feed will make it easier for people to be notified to postings. Otherwise, I've stuck to writing about Magic in Meta MTG on and off. With a new set being released this Fall, there will be a lot of spoilers and speculation on which cards will be highly sought after, aside from the new Expedition Lands; those are a no-brainer.

I hope to finally start up some simpler board game reviews, saving some of the meatier ones for NaNoWriMo this November. I've decided to opt out of writing anything novel related, much like the previous year, in favor of reviews. The main obstacle I face is my own lack of confidence in being able to offer both informative, yet fun reviews. Once I start writing one, I notice I get very matter-of-fact, until my personal critique. Maybe that's not so bad, I want to make sure people who read the review and walk away having a really good idea about how the game is played. I can act more "natural" when it comes to my personal opinions. I just worry about a large chunk of a review being dry and boring.

Considering I'm on the schedule of posting one review a year, it stands to reason that I don't have enough data to make an informed decision! I better just get on it, because I don't want to fail on my personal goal of writing a full review for each game featured in my A to Z posts from April!

BOOTING UP META MTG

(7/29/2015)

One of the biggest updates to the site this past month has been finally getting my Meta MTG blog up and running. When I was back over at Blogger I had the blog laying in wait, but it never surfaced. As much (and as long) as I've wanted to write about Magic: The Gathering, I just couldn't get properly motivated. Part of it was the realization that while the game is a huge passion of mine, I haven't exactly been active in playing it over the last year or two. For years I've been more of a collector.

Sure I love Magic. I most definitely have high interest in card speculation and MTG Finance. You'd be correct in assuming I like the game on a competitive level. But having interest and enjoying something is one thing, being actively engaged in some consistent capacity is another. What would I write about? How would I write about it? Who would give a damn? That last one still remains a question regardless!

Eventually I came across a handful of controversial issues cropping up within the Magic community. They dealt with the game on a more universal level, one that still stirred my passion for the game. These issues motivated me to finally become involved in writing about MTG. To express my opinions and weigh in on the topics currently at hand. Please, feel free to check them out. Chime in if you so fancy. Again, most of the topics are universal and not specific to the inner-workings of how the game works, and those that do are on a very fundamentally stripped level.

As of now, however, things seem quiet on the controversial news front. So what will I write about next in the world of Magic? The new set release? The upcoming changes to set rotation? Maybe nothing until the next big news item pops up?

Maybe I'll skip over to Generation Jak instead and finally take on more reviews. I've been slacking in that area for way too long...

There is still a shitload of modifying I have to do to my imported posts, which I explained in the last update, but I am no where near that ambitious at the moment. I'm just proud to have Meta MTG up!

Until next time!

A NEW BEGINNING

(6/26/2015)

Welcome to The Cryton Chronicles!

I recently shifted over to Squarespace from Blogger in order to more fully own my content and possibly, at some point, list merchandise. The importing of material went smoothly in some ways (the actual transferring itself was the simple click of a few buttons), while terribly in others. The lack of understanding Squarespace's blogging system (one that is sans some features I view to be industry standard), combined with the frustrating revelation that the formatting conflicted between the two blogs (not really surprising), has made this a slower transition than I had hoped for.

The need to go through and edit virtually every post in order to place excerpts and resolve formatting issues is one slow, tedious task. I'm attempting to work through them piece by piece. This should solely be an issue for older posts, mind you, as newer entries will be properly formatted. Just be mindful of this if you wish to explore some of the older entries on the site! Most are perfectly readable until I attempt to place an excerpt, which triggers the formatting bugs, but they should be temporary as I will be actively working on that specific post at that point.

This should likely be a blog post of its own, but I had nothing for my cover page, so this is a temporary filler!

Below are Featured posts from the various blogs I write and below those is the secondary navigator which will eventually be pages to give a more in-depth look about myself and the site. Hopefully everything is easy on the eyes and intuitive to navigate!

More updates to come!