My zombie story, "What Mother Never Told You," is up at Electric Spec ezine. A great crop of stories this issue, if I do say so myself.
Thanks to the editors at Electric Spec as well. The story's beginning, in particular, was improved by the red pen. The suggested cuts forced me to rewrite the beginning to remove some extraneous stuff with which really wasn't in the same tone as the rest of the story.
I like to call my tale a "cozy horror." And I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
Tara Maya has an excellent post on poetic sensibilities in prose writing. It echoes my own sense of things.
When I saw that Madoff got 150 years in prison for his crimes, I figured he deserved it. Not as badly as the Enron assholes who took thousands of peoples' retirement pensions away from them deserved to DIE, but Madoff does deserve his punishment.
It occurred to me that Madoff wouldn't live to endure one hundred and fifty years of punishment...but I'd really like him to.
And it further occurred to me...what if we had the technology to extend the life of a man?
And what if we used that technology not for the average guy, nor for the rich...but for extending the life of criminals so that they die Five Freaking Minutes before their release from prison--after one hundred and fifty years?
I like that.
One hundred and fifty years in prison... In those circumstances, a really long life would become a nasty punishment.
There's a story there someplace...
Maura Anderson on Witchy Chicks has a good definition of "punk" subgenres--Cyberpunk and Steampunk--here. Check it out. Below, my understandings to add to the conversation.
Cyberpunk - To me, William Gibson is the master of this style, although Bruce Sterling is also well known for his work in the cyberpunk subgenre. These two essentially began it in the 80s! Read Gibson's Neuromancer or Mona Lisa Overdrive for your bible. Cyberpunk has an asthetic of tech-merged-with-man, computer reality as real as the world of our five senses, high tech with a fast, fast, fast paced motion like living inside a video game. Glitter, glam, details and jargon. Visually: Bladerunner. Often rather post-apocalyptic in feel, cyberpunk deals in society run by corportations more than government, taking the current trend of megacorps sucking control one corrupt official and dollar at a time from the governments and peoples of the world and investing it in themselves. Individual hopelessness fostering a man-versus-machine asthetic and a disdain for the flesh world (body as meat), rebels without a cause, punks as heros. Cyberpunk Review's definition here, Wikipedia's here.
Now, I've heard that some think cyberpunk is passe, a child of the 80s that has died a slow death. But, like the mullet, it hasn't quite disappeared from the scene! There are still some works in that vein coming out in print in the last few years; and the movies still embrace the look and feel. [And personally I find that dark fantasy, especially dark urban fantasy, has embraced a lot of what makes cyberpunk what it is. You have the gritty, dangerous feel. You have magic (standing in for tech) and a disdain for those without magic/supernatural powers, you have either vast supernatural forces or corporations (often of evil) threatening mankind's rule over itself. In short, you have much of what makes cyberpunk what it is.]
Some of my favorites in the genre: Gibson (Mona Lisa Overdrive, Neuromancer), Marianne de Pierres (Parrish Plessis series), and for movies Aeon Flux, Dark City, BladeRunner, The Matrix. Check out Cyberpunk Review to find more reads and films in this genre.
Steampunk - My take: Generally Victorian era with technology resembling modern 21st century tech, except things tend to be powered by steam or clockwork. Emphasis on flying craft and sometimes an organic design vibe reminiscent of Art Noveau or Art Deco. Wiki's take: "In general, the category includes any recent science fiction that takes place in a recognizable historical period (sometimes an alternate-history version of an actual historical period) where the Industrial Revolution has already begun but electricity is not yet widespread, with an emphasis on steam- or spring-propelled gadgets."
Books such as The Difference Engine (by Gibson & Sterling) and the graphic novel League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Films in the genre include The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Golden Compass., and the anime Steamboy. (That last title is a bit of a clue, isn't it?)
You can learn more about steampunk (both as a cultural phenomena and as a subgenre of speculative fiction) at Steampunk Magazine.
I bring you bad video quality, but it's my favorite clip from this season's American Idol, because it stars my two favorites from the show: Adam Lambert and Allison Irehita. (I hate the widescreen overlap so I've removed it. Drives me crazy.)
Check this out! An advanced ESP test using the Zener cards.
Via New Adventures in Fantasy Fiction, I found a link to Anthology Builder, a site that purportedly allows you to build your own anthology.
Per the site, "Our story archives contain hundreds of reprints from quality magazines. You pick the cover. You pick the stories. You run the show." They use already published works and say they obtain rights to publish the works. Then you decide whose stories you want to print and print them. The books are bound, have cover art and sound like 'real' books...but I wonder about things like ISBN numbers and such, and whether this is something that might end up being controversial...
Any thoughts on this, people?
I don't intend to volunteer myself for the McKoala Claws of Shame & Rending but I do hope to get the rest of my story drafted out today. We'll see. My writing has been pretty consistently not since the big move.
And another story, "Another Shade of Pale," which has been hanging fire while I admit to myself the original structure isn't working and must be totally revised, is perking away merrily in the back of my head. I think I'm almost ready to slash and hack...
More rain predicted for the rest of the week. So long as lightning's not going to strike my office again, I'm happy. What's really exciting is when lightning strikes while you are sitting there. One struck about thirty yards away and blew half the equipment last summer. It's a wonder anything worked yesterday, given that it either struck the building directly or within a few yards! But only the telecommunications went. The lightning arrestors (I think that's what they're called) and a couple of the other pieces of the telecomm gear were fried, but remarkably no computers or anything else.
In other news, my life is rather dull. My tenant moves into the old house this week and I plan on celebrating by spending the rent money on paying off credit cards. How's that for exciting?
My blather post yesterday showed what I felt was a promising start to a new short story. For comparison purposes, here are the revised first three paragraphs as they exist today. Voila:
When twilight brought sirocco
winds sweeping through the mud brick alleys of ancient Aplinar and clawing
through the crevices of her tiny flop, Meida roused from a fitful and sweaty
doze to prepare for the evening. She
gathered her damp curls into a braid and donned the local fashion, a
loose-fitting salwar tunic and baggy kameez pants in the plain linen of the
working class, then draped herself in a dark blue chadri of a different caste
entirely--one to which, ironically, she was entitled, although that was not her
reason for the choice. Made of silk and
embroidered with a pattern of leaves and vines forming glyphs intended to guard
her virtue, the chadri was stifling, both because of heat and the magical cloud
it settled upon her aura. It would go
down the nearest midden as soon as she was done with it, and good
riddance. But for now it masked her
power and the various charms, gris-gris and mundane weaponry she carried on her
person.
She checked her gear one last
time, made sure all was ready for a hurried departure, and sketched a glyph of
aversion across both possessions and the rickety door. Then, in a ritual as old as her freedom, she
checked the rubies at forehead, wrist, ankle, neck and navel, ensuring they
remained bound against her skin, protecting her. As prepared as she could be, she pinned the
chadri to hide her face, and, with a sigh, donned the last necessary
discomfort, the fingerless gloves which hid the one body part women habitually
did expose in Aplinar, their plump and hennaed hands.
Immediately, heat filled Meida's palms like damp, hot coins to match the sweat pasting curls
against her nape, making her grateful for the wind when a moment later she
stepped outside. Discomfort, however,
was the least of her worries. She had a commission to fulfill and this night to
fulfill it. And all was in readiness except for the acquisition of a single
item.
If you compare the two, notice that, though the same general activities and ideas are expressed, there are a lot of different things going on. The prose is broader, for one thing, and the actions better described and blocked out. And I've added in more clarity about magic, the heat and mention some amulets that become important later. And the original third paragraph has been excised as indulgent and not relevant.
Admittedly, it's about 120 words longer now (333 versus 220ish); but I like it much better.
You can call this draft 2 for the purposes of examination, but I am only 2500 words into a 5000 word story. It's still the first draft. Now you see why I don't write that fast; I tinker until I am reasonably satisfied before I move on.
I'm certainly not the only person ever to develop this style of story construction. But it is what satisfies me. I have to rework until I get the details settled. I battered my head against a mental wall yesterday, trying to get the kernal of an old idea (which I'd already started as a book at this character's childhood, believe it or not) trying to get it to sprout. Once I managed that, I could move forward, letting my back brain feed me ideas. When I got stuck again, I started boring my coworker at work today with the details of the story, and that got me to the middle. Now I'm sort of stuck in a conversation, trying to get it right before i can move on from there. The biggest problem is the twist that makes the story hasn't come to me yet. Because I know I'll find the kernel of that solution in teh conversation I'm struggling with, where one character is trying to convince our protagonist to let him help her kill him, that it really isn't a trick. Meanwhile, he does have an agenda he's trying to hide...it's just not what she suspects! And the ending must be a surprise that is well laid and thus not such a big surprise. (I'm not asking much here, right?)
Meanwhile, I'm terribly afraid this won't work when it's done, so my fingers are crossed. I hope this gets easier with practice.
And--color me surprised--I think I'm beginning to like writing short stories.
"Stop thinking some people are purely negative and evil. Every behavior has some positive intention behind it. Once you realize that, you can deal with “negative” people much better. For example, you can help them achieve their positive motive in a way that doesn’t harm anyone else." Vlad Dolezal, from his blog.
One of the things that can make me chuck a book across the room are TSTL (too stupid to live) characters who continually miss growth opportunities and retain the same flaws over the course of a series. By book three*, if the character is continuing to whine about her problems and yet repeating the same mistakes, I say shame on the writer for failing to recognize the need for character growth as well as plot movement.
Yes, you do need both. Plot movement implies character growth or at least change. From being clueless to clued in, grief stricken to more at peace, victimized to vengeful--whatever. You get the picture, though. Because one of the things readers expect about novels is that the characters grow and change as their lives advance. Like us, they do not remain static in their fictional worlds; characters face adversities and these leave their legacy in the form of scars, triumphs, newly won confidence, grief and the rest of the gamut of human emotions and outcomes.
And, during all the upheaval, you character's growth has to be shown as part of a transformative process.
One means you can use to do that is a technique called reframing. Vlad Dolezal in his blog has a nice article on the subject, and it occurred to me it would be a useful means of dealing with a character who is in some form of emotional conflict. Thought I'd fling that out there for you all to play around with.
Thanks to Anna Claire at A Novel Idea, I have discovered a witty blog written by a publishing intern. It's The Intern, and you should go read it Right Now. Because things like what she learned about authors (e.g. how strange they can be) is hilarious:
"...certain Authors are not real people and have only psychotic concerns—for example, one Author is threatening to sue because her author photo (which she provided) makes her chin look big. And another Author will only respond to e-mail written in pink, size 16, comic sans font."
I can just imagine. The drunken/crazy/neurotic/strange/OCD author stereotypes had to come from somewhere.
It’s usually true that the external desire will be a selfish want – something the protagonist wants for him or herself, and the inner need will be unselfish - something the protagonst comes to want for other people. This is a useful guideline because it clearly shows character growth. Alexandra Sokolov
An article I just found tells how the DRM (Digital Rights Management?) that Amazon plugs into your Kindle books basically ensures they own and control the goods you pay for. One Amazon customer apparently returned too many items--none Kindle related--and they arbitrarily made his Kindle account null. He could no longer access any of his Kindle subscriptions and couldn't download any of the Kindle items he'd already paid for. (Upon appeal, Amazon relented.)
How is that for ridiculous.
I got inspired to write a short story based on my desire to submit to the Way of the Wizards anthology I linked to last Thursday. Four hours, 216 words. Head banging against wall. Nails bitten. And not enough coffee (because the doc said I had to cut back, drat her.)
That's two and a half paragraphs. And now that I have the setting and main character in my head, I have to figure out the specifics of the plot, that thing upon which the story hangs. Oh, and decide upon the ending. Here's a snippet.
When twilight brought sirocco winds to sweep the streets of Aplinar, Meida rose from a fitful doze within her airless room and pulled on her mantle, which obligingly reformed itself into the local fashion, a dark blue chadri. She checked her gear again--still ready for a hurried departure--and sketched a glyph of aversion across both possessions and the door. Then she twitched the chadri scarf across her face and donned the fingerless gloves that hid the scars across the backs of her hands.
Immediately, heat filled her palms like damp, hot coins and sweat pasted curls against her nape, making her grateful for the wind when a moment later she stepped outside. Discomfort, however, was the least of her worries. She had a commission to fulfill and just until moonrise to fulfill it. And all was in readiness except for the acquisition of a single item, upon which hinged the entire enterprise.
Her contact in the market had best have the supplies she required. If he did not, his license to trade would shortly be revoked--through his nostrils, with a dull spoon.
It's still a draft, but overall I like where this is heading.
And I sort of have a logline*, too: In ancient Aplinar, a thief matches wits with a powerful magus, only to discover the object of her desire will cost more than she's willing to pay--perhaps even her soul.
*which Alexandra Sokolov statesshould have "a defined protagonist, a powerful antagonist, a sense of the setting, conflict and stakes, and a sense of how the action will play out."
Talk about your ultimate geeky reference tool! Mother Earth News has a DVD of their archives--from 1970 to 2008!--for a mere $10! You can't beat that. (You can also pay $30 for a whoohoo package with extras, shown at the top of the page; me, I prefer the no frills version further down.) UPDATE: My bad, it's $30, not $10. Bad web design caused me to mistake the price for the previous item as the one for the archive DVD.
Also, for learning about old time methods of taking care of biz, you can scare up the Foxfire books. From Amazon, "In the late 1960s, Eliot Wigginton and his students created the magazine Foxfire in an effort to record and preserve the traditional folk culture of the Southern Appalachians. This is the original book compilation of Foxfire material which introduces Aunt Arie and her contemporaries and includes log cabin building, hog dressing, snake lore, mountain crafts and food, and "other affairs of plain living."
From Liana Brooks' blog, an anthology opportunity:
Way of the Wizards, John Joseph Adams editor. Payment: 5 cents per word ($250 max), plus a pro-rata share of 50% of the anthology’s earnings and 1 contributor copy. Word limit: 5000 words. (Stories may exceed 5000 words, but $250 is the maximum payment per story, and stories 5000 words or less are strongly preferred.) Write about real magic wielders using magic. Being different appears to be a plus. Submissions: July 1, 2009 to March 31, 2010... So you have plenty of time!
I've been reading a couple of books that I read twenty or twenty-five years ago--long enough ago I recalled nearly nothing about them until I started reading. Mote In God's Eye and Destination: Void were books I recall enjoying immensely. But sadly they are so dated they are a bit difficult to read for me now, although there is still so much good it outweights the outdated.
MIGE is filled with sexist gender roles like women wearing only skirts and being considered by the male characters in terms like "she was strong-minded for a woman" and such. And D:V has 1966 computer terminology and references to obviously solid-state electronics, as in hand-flipped switches, diodes, capacitors, and "software" that is apparently hardware, message "tapes" and all sorts of things that sound idiotic considering the current level of technology.
But you know what? The stories still work. You do have to fight to get past the 'packaging' that dates them, but the stories are still really well written, gripping stories.
Because stories are about common issues of humanity, not about the trappings. The trappings are important, but the reader can get beyond that to the human story if it's written well. And these are both classics and they're written exceedingly well. (I particularly love me some Frank Herbert.)
As far as our own writing goes, however, it might behoove us to be a touch less specific about some of the scientific details that might possibly be outdated later on. Nothing wrong with science being spouted; but if we set things in the future using a badly thought out projection of technological growth, we might feel a bit embarrassed later on when we discover we were wrong.
Got an email from Wildside Books, where they state that for a limited time if you buy a $10 or greater p riced book, they will give you a second one free. Check it out here and see if you are interested.
The email, as follows:
Anyone who's been following
Wildside Press knows we've been in business for more than 20 years now. In all
those years, we've published more than 10,000 different books. In the early
years, we used to just warehouse the books in the publisher's basement. And
there they would sit until sold.
Well, there are still some copies sitting there after all these years. And
the publisher's wife has decreed that the time has come. ALL MUST GO -- OR ELSE!
(What the "or else" is, we don't dare contemplate!)
So, we've decided to give a lot of them away. More than a thousand books,
in fact. Here's the deal: Every time you buy a Wildside Press book with a price
of $10 or higher, we'll GIVE YOU A FREE BOOK from the vast basement stockpiles,
up to a maximum of five. That's right, buy five Wildside Press books at regular
prices ($10 or up) and we'll give you five more from the list below. Just detail
your choices in the comments section of our online order form at www.wildsidebooks.com -- plus some alternates, in case we run
out -- and number your choices in order of preference. We'll do our best to give
you your first choices. (If we run out and you didn't list alternates, we
reserve the right to substitute something else just as good as your first
choice.)
Anyway. Some of these books are signed. Some are limited editions. Some are
slipcased. Others are leftovers from conventions. They may not always be in 100%
perfect mint shape. (After all, they've been through two household moves and
been shuffled in and out of boxes for convention sales.) But we guarantee
they're worth every penny you're not paying.
Here's the list . . .
THE CONSCIENCE OF THE BEAGLE, by Patricia Anthony. Her first-written
science fiction novel. It came out from Ace years ago; we did both a hardcover
and a trade paperback before the Ace edition. It's a fast, exciting SF read:
Terrorist bombings rock the colony planet of Tennyson, and only Major Dyle
Holloway's crack investigative team stands a chance of solving the crime. We'll
give out the hardcovers first, then the trade paperbacks.
THE WHITE MISTS OF POWER, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Signed, numbered,
slipcased edition of her very first novel. Originally published at $40.00. The
only storyteller in the history of fantasy/science fiction to win one Hugo Award
for writing fiction and another for editing, Rusch here brings us a dynamic
fantasy of magic, manners, and intrigue. Two travelers, unbeknownst to the
other, both set out to journey to the palace of Kilrot: a brash bard with a
mysterious past, and the heir to the throne who's been prematurely declared
dead...
NIGHT, by Alan Rodgers. This is a great horror novel, originally published
in mass market paperback by Bantam Books. We did a signed, numbered limited
hardcover edition -- bound in black, with white or yellow title stamping.
Original price was $35.00.
IN THE FOREST OF FORGETTING, by Theodora Goss. The incredible debut
collection from the World Fantasy Award-winning short story writer! In these
postmodern gothic fairytales, we meet such unforgettable characters as Miss
Emily Grey, a sort of dark Mary Poppins who exists to grant children their
hearts' desires -- often at a high price. Hardcover.
THE TARZAN TWINS, by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Yes, it was
Burroughs' first YA novel! Twin cousins of the Lord of the Jungle are summoned
to Africa to join their legendary relative and his Waziri warriors -- but when
they get lost along the way, adventure follows! Our edition features a new intro
by Mike Resnick, too. Trade paperback.
IF WISHES WERE HORSES, by Anne McCaffrey. A magical YA tale by one of the
great masters of modern fantasy! Young Tizra and her twin brother Tracell find
their world abruptly changed when their father is unexpectedly called to fight
in a war which promises to last much longer than the usual three-day skirmish.
Their mother, the village healer, enlists the kids to assist her in caring for
the conflict's refugees. Paperback.
SPICY ADVENTURE STORIES, December 1939. The famous "Spicy"pulp magazines of
the 1930s and 1940s are among the rarest and most sought-after publications by
collectors, featuring a titilating mix of fantasy, horror, mystery,
action-adventure, and suspense, punctuated by episodes of torture, sadism, sex,
and other risque elements. This issue includes stories from Robert Leslie
Bellem, Lew Merrill (Victor Rousseau), Hugh Speer, Ken Cooper, Clayton Maxwell,
Clark Nelson, and Harley L. Court.
Discovered a cool band, Cake, who were out for quite a while during the 90s but may not actually be together any longer. Anyhow, I give to you, Comfort Eagle. The video is just the music, but this song has a really cool groove. Rather hypnotic.
Also, I may be doing more links and fewer embedded videos as they are now widescreen and overlap the righthand column on the blahg.
I knew I forgot to mention something important. Happy Solstice, people. I hope you are enjoying a lovely summer weekend.
To celebrarte, here's a solstice bit of art I did a number of years ago. Block print. Orange paper. Woo woo.
The authors show that peak CO2 levels over the last 2.1 million years averaged only 280 parts per million; but today, CO2 is at 385 parts per million, or 38% higher. This finding means that researchers will need to look back further in time for an analog to modern day climate change. Science Daily article, "Carbon Dioxide level higher today than in past 2.1 million years."
Cake borrowed from CakeWrecks.
Fathers' Day is always a bitter day for me, so forgive my attitude in advance, okay? I really, really appreciate wonderful, caring, participating fathers. Fathers who, despite jobs, divorce, or geographic separation, manage to make sure they are part of their children's lives and that they are cared for. Even more, I want a father like that...because I did not have one. In fact, my father was an abusive son of a bitch who has much to apologize for yet won't admit he did anything wrong. (And I'm talking things for which he should have been locked away for a long time.) I'm just waiting for the man to die so I can piss on his grave. It's the only reason I have kept in touch, I swear. Just so I know when he dies and can celebrate. I haven't seen him since I was 17 and he arrived, uninvited, to my high school graduation and expected my brother to give up his ticket so he could attend. We sent him packing with a flea in his ear.
My brother, on the other hand, manned up and did his best to ensure his daughter was a part of his life and he a part of hers--despite an acrimonious divorce and continued harrassment by his ex and her family. It didn't work out so well thanks to court systems that favor the mother no matter how insane and abusive to the child; but my niece loves her dad and lives with him now and they are getting along famously. It's to dads like my brother I wish a Happy Fathers' Day and it's to dads like him I want to say a big thank you...especially for the rest of us who didn't have dads like you. It gives me hope, actually.
I just discovered (because I'm incredibly unobservant) that William Hammet, aka Billy, has had John Lennon & The Mercy Street Cafe published. Only a year and a half ago, I'm that observant.
link: <a href="http://www.goodreads.com">my link text</a>
Yesterday, the US Senate, in a unanimous voice vote, officially apologized for slavery and the Jim Crow era following the Emancipation Proclamation. About time. It took a black man becoming president, I guess, to rub the noses of the good ol' boys in the obvious fact that there actually was something to apologize for.
I love that line! Now, as to where I heard it, you should check out a cool site, Suvudu, where you can both download free ebooks and read a number of interesting articles, including this one by Alan Campbell, where he discusses some of his personal slush, false starts and just bad ideas. I've had a couple of experiences like he describes where you open a file to see what you were thinking (because you don't recall writing that file at all) and seeing something that baffles you. Hence the post title.
But the free booty is a draw if you like free ebooks. I prefer paying too much for old copies of the actual paperbacks, myself. Nothing beats a book in hand...except two books. Or five. Or just more than you had before. (Can you tell I like books?)
Hey kids, here's one you know you want to tackle: Horror stories set in the milieu of Oz!
Shadows of the Emerald City. Submission period ending: July 31st, 2009. POD Anthology. Pay $20 and one copy. "Stories should come in under 10k words. Now I say should, because I'm not going to leave something amazing on the floor because it's 11k words, but it had better be something very special to be seriously considered. Anything in the 5-10k range is perfect. Unpublished work preferred, but please query if you have a previously published work that you think would fit this collection." And "what we want to see are horror stories based on the world of Oz. This includes the characters, the settings, the world itself. We're deconstructing an American institution, so we'd like to see what you can come up with. Blood and gore, or explicit sex? By all means. As long as it reads as part of the natural progression of the story and not some fucked up penthouse letter. Scare us. Disgust us. More than anything though, give us a reason to turn the page."
Tentative Publication Date: Fall 2009.
Thanks to Cat Rambo's post on this one.
"The craft of writing must be learned. The art of writing cannot be taught, but the craft of writing can. No one can teach you how to tap inspiration, how to gain vision and sensibility, but you can be taught to write lucidly, to present what you say in the most articulate and forceful way. Vision is useless without the technical means to record it." From the Introduction of The First Five Pages, by Noah Lukeman
ChickLitGrrl over on Blood Red Pencil has a post that discusses how to fix problem plots. If your book lacks a certain something, you might use her "Eight Questions for Writers" article as a starting point. Or read The First Five Pages.
Excerpted, here are CLG's questions:
They do say a picture is worth a thousand words. Does this inspire you at all? This moment of abject terror brought to you by Awkward Family Photos, a site that has many pictures that might inspire you with an idea, a scene, or give you something in the nature of a laugh.
A musical Monday song and dance-a-thon, as suggested by Al Yankowic on a Twitter tweet a while back.
Liana Brooks had a link a while ago to this Daily Galaxy article on bacteria that collect metal and produce electricity. The idea of an organic battery, or other means of powering, say, prosthetics, combat armor, smart weaponry (recall my smart bullet post a while back?)...
So many ideas, so little time...
Charles Gramlich has a "four play" meme on his blog (posted Wednesday) and I, feeling bored, decided today I'd waste some time oversharing with you all. Please consider yourself tagged if you want to be.
Four Movies You Can See Over and Over
Mama Mia
My Name Is Nobody
Star Wars
Young Frankenstein
Four Places You Have Lived
San Francisco, CA
Salt Lake City, UT
Greenfield, MA
Schofield Barracks, Oahu, HI
(In total, I've lived in ten states: CA, HI, UT, NH, ME, VT, MA, WA, TX & AR.)
Four TV Shows You Love to Watch
Dead Like Me
Dexter
X Files
American Idol
Four Places You Have Been on a Vacation
London, UK
Paris, France
New Orleans, LA
Sedona, AZ
(Several road trips across the US have taken me to a number of tourist spots over the years. I've visited innumerable houses of kitch and things like the World's Largest Axe, which is an hour drive from my house in New Brunswick.)
Four of your favorite foods
Really good artisan bread, particularly if there are garlic and olives baked in;
Pad Thai
Carne Asada burritos from La Cumbre's in San Francisco
Red beans and rice, properly seasoned.
Four Websites You Visit Daily
ditto: everyone on my Google Reader who post every day. You know who you are.
Cute Overload
Wunderground (for the weather)
My own blog, to check the comments. (Is that narcissistic or what?)
Four Places You Would Rather Be
Sedona, AZ
San Francisco, CA
New Orleans, LA
In a secluded cabin near a lake here in Maine
Four Things You Hope to Do Before You Die
Publish four best sellers, of course!
Four Novels You Wish You Were Reading for the First Time
There are so many good ones! I think I'd have to say 2001 A Space Odyssey and Moon of Three Rings, because those two books were seminal in making me a science fiction hound; and for a followup pair probably the Deed of Paksinarrion by Elizabeth Moon (all 3 volumes), and Patricia McKillip's Riddle of Stars trilogy. But there are so many good books! Hundreds that gave me that feeling of wow! and me not wanting to leave that world, ever.
I confess to a mad, fan grrrl crush on Adam Lambert. So what if he's gay? He looks like Elvis--only better! And so what if I could, um, be his mom. He's just adorable. He and David Bronstad* from Color Splash. I want to adopt them both.
*
This Opportunity Thursday I'm going to switch it up and provide you with opportunities that are not for submissions, but which are for furthering your writing education...for free.
You can do this yourself, too: Google with the string "online writing course fiction" and you can find a number of interesting sites.
University of Wisconsin has a free fiction writer's course. This one in particular stood out for me. Check it out here.
Education Portal offers a list of free courses offered by universities here.
Elearners has a list of online courses, some of which appear to be free. Their site is here.
Fiction Factor online magazine for writers. Some nice content here.
Seems revision thoughts are being telepathically beamed into our brains lately. Not only did Nathan Bransford have a great post with a great checklist for revisions yesterday, but Blood Red Pencil's guest blogger, Alexandra Sokoloff, has a few relevant thoughts on that subject as well. I particularly like the list of the various Acts and their components. Might be useful for structuring a novel, hint hint...except when it isn't.
However, don't just go rushing off to edit, kids. Don thy foil helmets* and pause to consider your own process instead of following some mythical Pied Piper off into the mythical land of million dollar advances and New York Times best seller lists.
And by that I mean, consider your own writing style and what you have learned about the craft of writing-- and keep weaving your own process in with these editing rules. You have a style and voice (or are developing one) and you presumably have internalized much of the basics about writing. So you are at the point where you are bending rules, or maybe experimenting a bit with structure. If you follow the list Ms. Sokoloff provides for structuring your story, it might not work to tell the story you envision. Not that I'm saying chuck these rules/suggestions out the window. Not all of us can be a James Joyce who writes idiosyncratic books like Ulysses without punctuation for massive sections (and all the other wackiness that frankly makes me find the book unreadable) and still be called a brilliant writer; and not many of us would want to write that sort of book. But we can all be ourselves while we communicate our stories to others.
So amidst all the lists of things to think about, and Rules that Must Be Obeyed (unless they aren't), don't forget to be yourself. It's what will sell your novel in the end, you know.
*See, this guy is a free thinker. And a fashion plate. (Picture from Wikipedia)
Pure research for its own sake is probably the best way we have of discovering random things that eventually lead to dramatic breakthroughs that save lives, promote health and all good things.
But research can also be a double-edged and dangerous things. Because we humans have a tendency to take neutral stuff, even stuff that can save lives, and twist it to ugly things. This study disturbs me for that reason. Imagine if the military had that sort of stuff and used it as an interrogation method. Get someone seriously jonesing for a drug he's never taken. While they might be tough-minded enough not to crack, add that withdrawal trauma to waterboarding or whatever other official "non torture" method of interrogation is in use at the time, and the victim might crack faster.
I can see using this in a novel. I do hope no one uses it in real life, however.
But this dichotomy brings to mind a useful trait of devices that can be used for good or ill. We need radioactive materials developed as sources for medical instrumentation and scanning devices, or for scanners at border ports, or to source the power of space probes. We dread it because of nuclear bombs, North Korea becoming worryingly shrill and waving the "I'll nuke you!" flag just yesterday (re conflicts in the DMZ) being the latest example of why.
But this edge of danger to an item, a technology, a device can be really fruitful when used in a story. You have a technology that has major benefits for life, the universe and everything...but it can also end life as we know it. Whether that technology is your MacGuffin and your characters are chasing after it or trying to remove it from the hands of terrorists (24 anyone?) or it's just an ancillary item that suddenly is used in a surprizing way (I rather like this approach) after an innocuous introduction, tech like that can be very useful to your plot development.
It can also increase tension when something "bombproof" goes awry. An example of this is in Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan series. She has a drug called "penta" which when used causes people to spill their guts. The drug has vast implications because torture is not needed. And we the readers chug along not worrying for Miles our protagonist until he's captured by an enemy and is injected with the drug. Then we learn that a very few, including her protagonist Miles Vorkosigan, have an idiosyncratic reaction. Penta doesn't work on him! It works somewhat in that he can keep babbling to the point he says nothing really, because if he can segue into reciting something like Shakespeare he can't stop until he gets to the end. I thought that was a clever device, because it both was funny, and it served to give the reader the sudden worry that Miles might be tortured instead of just questioned. This added lots of tension!
Besides all that, itsn't it always intriguing and pleasing when something seemingly mundane suddenly arises as a great big nasty bugaboo? As a reader I like having something 'normal' become part of a clever plot twist. I suppose the danger is in being too clever, or trying this too often. Like Goldilocks, that little housebreaker, you need to find what works juuuust right.
Excellent checklist. Check it out here.
A blog I stop by frequently for interesting ideas and plain old feel good tips is Vlad Dolezal's "Fun Life Development" blog (formerly known as "An Amazing Mind".) A recent post on "The Hawthorne Effect" is an interesting tidbit of information which I thought useful to share for your future story plotting needs.
Basically, the Hawthorne Effect is that, when people know they are being observed, they are more efficient. They don't need to even try; they just are. The trick is, though, that you cannot be critical, you have to be neutral when you let someone know they are being observed. So, you can have your evil genius use this principal by just mentioning to his lackeys, "I notice that you are using five bullets to kill the enemy when Evil Minion #5 is only using three," walking away and laughing while the Evil Minions automatically strive to do better.
Or something like that.
Seriously, though, you can have a cop utilize this human trait to effect, or your hero, or an artificial intelligence that is seeking to manipulate humanity (for their own good, of course.) A parent can do so as well.
Might be a fun bit of business to use, or you could hang major plot elements off this concept.
The cool thing about The Hawthorne Effect is that it only improves the behaviors observed. It could cause backfiring and poorer performance, though, if you do not word the mention neutrally and make the object of the experiment think s/he is being manipulated, criticized or ordered about. If they feel out of control, you have lost.
Courtesy of Jaye Wells' response in this League of Reluctant Adults post (these guys are silly and a Cool Site to follow, in case I haven't mentioned them lately) I bring you a fond or not-so-fond memory of Times Gone By. And the funniest damn review on Amazon I've seen lately. Prancing. *Snort* (Pun intended.) HINT: Look at the second review down.
Holy Zebracorns, Batman!
PS just got the edits for my story. Amazing how much was left intact. I have to adjust the beginning now, though.
Perhaps you recall my caption contest from a while back? You don't? Well here's a visual aid:
And I bring this ass-inine topic up not to once again prove my tacky tasteless sense of humor, but as an introduction to a whole line up of tattoo disasters at my new favorite time waster, Tattoo Disasters! (Thank goodness it's not that long yet.)
With the advent of gps and other technology for tracking people, I thought it worth a mention in relation to writing your urban fantasy or science fiction. Particularly if you want to extrapolate from current tech to give your characters something new to use (or to complicate your plot and make life more difficult for your characters.)
GPS systems and cellular phones can be traced. This is likely old news to you all; but it is worth mentioning as a starting point. Particularly since it can be used to track people by the bad guys as well as the good ones (cops and spys, oh my!).
What if your vampire hunter is 'tagged' with a teensy tracking device unbeknownst to her by a device such as this one? Driveok, the site, advertises this device for tracking where your kids go; but it could be used by criminals, by cops, by vampires or werewolves or any paranatural critter! It utilizes a gps device that is also a cellphone, and the thing apparently calls and gives you text messages. You could have this thing update you with times at particular locations or real-time tracking data so you can follow it by receipt of the text messages! How cool (and disturbing) is that?
These units are only a couple-three hundred bucks and have low maintenance fees for subscription. Or, you could have your very own hightech system set up by your baddies.
And this can be updated for futuristic worlds such as having space craft tracked that way--presuming the ftl communications issue is resolved in your world. Or you could use the time lag to your plot advantage.
I'm a writer of science fiction & fantasy who dreams of the day she can run screaming to the bank with the advance check for the next Great American Novel.
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