Juiced On Writing

Yesterday I joined Second Life. I joined because of the opportunities for writers within Second Life. Two days in, and I’ve found that I’m probably the most inept newbie at Second Life encountered for some time in the virtual world. Perhaps a second life is just not for me.

Firstly I must begin this with the “statement of truth” – I was never a gamer. I did manage an extremely high score at space invaders the first year it came out – on a school calculator, would you believe it? And I once managed in pacman (the original) to set an all time record of never getting to the centre without being gobbled up.

After that, I really have let myself go. Happy to think of myself as the “cerebral – my imagination is just fine inside my own brain, thank-you-very-much” type, and let those who can play on the Nintendo DS or Wii board have their own pleasure. Mine is in books and the internet.

Why Second Life?

I’ve been aware of Second Life for a while now. I’ve long been a user of quite a few social media services such as Twitter and Facebook, but currently a lot of writer’s are just starting to utilise those. Second Life, however, has much more to offer – including chat, and real-life educational institutions with virtual domains in the worlds of Second Life.

Now, there are promises that there is a lot for writers in Second Life – virtual communities, learning opportunities, even book promotion opportunities. In fact, several real-life authors have launched their books within Second Life, and held book readings and virtual book tours through the environment. I wanted to go and see these.

Then, recently, I happened across Joan Kremer’s excellent blogsite, Writers in the Virtual Sky, a blog designed to help writers into Second Life. Joan has just begun a series of entries helping a newbie into Second Life.

Wanting to join into the writing communities and events held in Second Life, I took note of Part 1 of Joan’s newbie guide and followed the series of links she gave me in that blog post. After reading up on as much of Second Life as I could, and watching quite a few tutorial videos, I thought I was ready to go.

Two Days In, and Lost

Yesterday I registered, and immediately hit problems. My laptop – which is good enough to do intense graphics work with digital scrapbooking, still gave the Second Life viewer a problem. I apparently (and I’m taking this personally) don’t have a good enough graphics card. Which might explain some of the rendition problems. Or not.

Although I registered my financial details the process didn’t give me the SL$250 promised either. Shaking my head, after being forced into a name for myself, I arrived at Orientation Island, expecting to have a series of tutorials available, step by step.

I spent a couple of hours there, wondering or flying around, with nobody else talking to me. All of the newbies looked as haunted as I felt. And I wasn’t able to teleport out to the mainland like all the signs suggested. One mentor took pity on me, and gave me the route out, which wasn’t obvious. After landing on mainland I went about grabbing all the freebies the blog tutorials told me to do – because apparently appearance is all-important to a girl and all that. And I wouldn’t want to be spotted as a newbie, would I? Um, that would probably become obvious anyway, despite how scintillating I might look.

I went from being a trucker type beginner avatar to a trucker type troll, as far as I could work out. Whereas everyone else in the world seemed to have chosen to make themselves into seven foot amazonians with big gavity-defying boobies and high heels, I wanted to look more like what I do in real life. So I chose the “chunky” body shape offered to me as a freebie, and then spent five hundred hours trying to adjust the face so that I didn’t look like a troll. To no success, I was sure.

After this, I went looking for the money trees. Everyone said you should. Search for the money trees, go there and pick the money – you only have your first 30 days, they said, but if you schedule and plan, you can get SL$1000 out of your efforts.

I went and found several money trees. They all had no money left, or the tree itself had upped and disappeared. Frustrated, I spent £6 on some real Second Life money, only to find that I was untrusted and could only purchase SL2000. Still, that was enough to send me scuttling to buy my first real purchases – which unfortunately came up with an asset server error and put back the purchase to the SIM, but didn’t give me back my money. Tentatively, I went and tried a second purchase – of some hair this time. And it worked. But the hair didn’t, in that my troll-proportioned head is ten sizes larger than the hair, and my skills at stretching the objects to fit – not helped by my graphics card problems – mean I’m wearing red corkscrews now coming out of my forehead, if you take a close look.

I’ve also encountered a dozen people today who seemed to want to speak to me – in Japanese, Spanish, and some other languages I couldn’t recognise. I got myself two pets – a cat who sits on my shoulder and a flying bat – and immediately felt slightly less lonely. It’s a wonder what an animal will do, even in virtuality.

I changed my attire today, to make me feel better, into that of a fairy. And my proudest purchase is a pair of granny glasses – chosen to make me look – well, more writerly. Unfortunately the fairy wings gave me little prowess, as I landed at one money tree, and couldn’t make the picking work, so the poor woman who owns it took pity on me, and basically sent me SL$5 with some tips to get my camera working – it still doesn’t. And my boobs are still far too droopy but hey – they’re like that in real life too.

So far, after Day 2, I’m lonely, out of pocket by SL$250 of missing asset, unable to fly properly, unable to work out where the Animah animations are that you’re supposed to script somehow to make you move better, unable to pick money off trees, and I look like a little “chunky” fairy troll. Whether I’m willing to step foot into any writer’s place is yet to be seen. Writer’s can’t be too het up about appearances and virtual clumsiness, can they?

If you enjoy a laugh, I’m taking snapshots as I go. You’ll find them in the flickr stream on the sidebar of this blog. Don’t let my own ineptitude put you off. I’m sure it must be easier for everybody else.

LinkMes:

• Writers in the Virtual Sky
• Me in Second Life (for as long as I last) – find me under the SL name of PacificBlue Hanly.

10 Things I Can’t Work Out in Second Life:

1. Boxes – why do I need to get things out of boxes, when I seem to be able to wear them straight out of my inventory anyway?
2. Cameras – what about laptop users who don’t have a mouse?
3. Scripts – why?
4. Flying feathers – why again?
5. Camping on chairs for money – I did this, and the server spat me out for not doing anything for half an hour. Why?
6. Why is everyone taller than me?
7. Where are all the men?
8. Body shapes show completely naked females – including the nipples and landing strip underthere hair, but for men there are no genitalia on display. What’s with this?
9. That whistling noise when you’re flying is quite depressing. Movies use the same sound-byte when a character can’t think of anything, or they are completely and utterly alone. How do you get rid of it?
10. What’s the best home for writers? (Don’t answer that – I’ll try to find it for myself but is there anything like the Rough Guide to Second Life which might give me a chance?)

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