Coming Up

It's the last day of Autumn and the last day of the story-a-day marathon. One more to write and then I can catch up on some reading and later, some editing.

Coming out in June (apart from the obvious train-wreck Bullet) that will be on my list of things to read:

Dreamveil by Lynn Viehl (Kyndred 2);

Ice Cold by Tess Gerritsen (Rizzoli & Isles 8);

Mission of Honor by David Weber (Honor Harrington 12);

plus the next Kate Daniels book (it's already out to rave reviews) Magic Bleeds by Ilona Andrews (Kate Daniels 4).

Of course, I may have to wait another month before the books are out here in Aus, but I'm patient, I am Zen, I am... having a birthday in the next few of weeks and see no reason why I shouldn't buy one or two for myself off the 'net as a prezzo.

Now I have to go and write that one last story. I'm trying to think of something brilliant, something pithy and meaningful... but it may end up something, um, just something.

Bullet Points

With Laurell K. Hamilton's new book, Bullet coming out next week, I thought it prudent to give authors, new and published, a little assistance in avoiding the deep, dark pit of Mary-Sue-ism.

For those who don't know what a Mary-Sue (or a Gary-Stu/Marty-Stu) is, here's a definition:

A Mary Sue is a pet character that the author exempts from realism and/or rules that otherwise govern a fictional world. The more that the author exalts this "darling" at the expense of the rest of the story, the more of a Mary Sue the character becomes. Mary Sue is impervious to failure and resistant to all in-story attempts at criticism and humiliation; any attempt at an external critique usually provokes an authorial temper tantrum. With a preference for style over substance, attitude over empathy, and romantic relationships above all others, the Mary Sue is nevertheless a popular character type due to her function as cheap wish-fulfillment. (PPC Wiki)

So, if you want to know if the protagonist you've worked long and hard on is a Mary-Sue, go to The Original Fiction Mary-Sue Litmus Test. Answer the questions and find out if your character is doomed. I got a borderline Sue for one of my characters, so I'll have to work on that.

As an added bonus, you can go to TV Tropes. "Tropes are storytelling devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members' minds and expectations."

(There are no official reviews of Bullet, but if you're canny enough to go to Amazon.com, you might find something of a... bullet point synopsis. If you don't want to know anything about it, don't read the discussion. Oops. Did I give it away? My bad...)

Headlining...

Just because PBW did one and I thought it a great idea for when I ain't got nuffink and I'm busy busting out short stories - or working on other pieces.

Generate your own news story here and have fun with it.

Storm From The Shadows

I've got a crick in my neck which is somewhat painful. Must be from reading David Weber's Storm From The Shadows.

This one thousand page tome takes place in conjunction with At All Costs and Torch of Freedom (which I haven't read yet, since it's still in hardback). The spiel:

Rear Admiral Michelle Henke was commanding one of the ships in a force led by Honor Harrington in an all-out space battle. The odds were against the Star Kingdom forces, and they had to run. But Michelle's ship was crippled, and had to be destroyed to prevent superior Manticoran technology from falling into Havenite hands, and she and her surviving crew were taken prisoner. Much to her surprise, she was repatriated to Manticore, carrying a request for a summit conference between the leaders of the two sides which might end the war. But a condition of her return was that she gave her parole not to fight against the forces of the Republic of Haven until she had been officially exchanged for a Havenite prisoner of war, so she was given a command far away from the war's battle lines. What she didn't realize was that she would find herself on a collision course, not with a hostile government, but with the interstellar syndicate of criminals known as Manpower. And Manpower had its own plans for eliminating Manticore as a possible threat to its lucrative slave trade - deadly plans which remain hidden in the shadows.

Now then. This actually sounds more exciting than it is. That's not to say the book doesn't build into a military confrontation with explosions and stuff, it's more that the book deals with political machinations and 'what ifs'. It's also not a book people should read without having read the series.

My biggest bug-bear with the book is how much could have, and should have been edited out. There is way too much reiteration of events and conversations and motivations. And for those people who have to wait for paperbacks, there was a bit of 'what the...?' for me.

Having three strands to a series is not good for me, and I do love this series, I'm just not all that interested in politics (hah!) even as those politics are integral to the series.

I could also replace one character with another and they sound the same. Woe. Is there such a thing as too many characters? This is a galaxy-wide, epic space opera and the thought of an author (or two: Eric Flint co-writes the Crown of Slaves, Torch of Freedom part) coming up with individual voices for hundreds of characters - even secondary characters - must be a daunting task. But now, we have the vast Solarian League involved.

Weber has done an excellent job of compartmentalizing the various star nations and the characters within with their various 'must have this type of personality'. However, this deep into the series, I don't think we need the justifications or the endless infodumps of the who, the how and the why for technology or a character's attitude - we can, mostly, take it as given; especially after so many books.

Regardless of my nitpickery - and I could go on - the book neatly ends with a suitably ominous scenario. And for those who know their military history and can see the parallels in the story, a suitably clever solution.

Storm From The Shadows is out now from Baen; Mission of Honor is available as an E-ARC and will be published in hardback (damn their eyes) in July.

Welcome Home

...Jessica Watson, after an epic solo around the world voyage. Of course, she's now facing heavy seas outside of Sydney Heads, but nothing worthwhile comes easy. Mother Nature's last hurrah.

Young Jessica is an inspiration to all 16-year-olds, and indeed everyone.

And regardless of what anyone might think about letting someone so young do something so dangerous, Jessica has demonstrated outstanding courage and steely determination to complete her voyage.

You have done us all proud. Congratulations.

Con and condolences

Oh, shiny!

The World Science Fiction Convention is being held in Melbourne (again!) with the secondary name of AussieCon 4 in early September.

Apart from the announced Guests of Honour, author Kim Stanley Robinson, artist Shaun Tan and mega convention veteran, Robin Johnson, there are a number of other luminaries I'm looking forward to seeing.

Oh, yes, I'm saving my pennies!

Lessee, also attending are Australian authors, Trudi Canavan, Glenda Larke, Garth Nix, Kim Wilkins, Jonathan Strahan and others in our industry, but we've got more overseas ones as well.

On the list are: authors Carrie Vaughn, Robert Silverberg, George R. R. Martin Baen Editor, Toni Weisskopf, Editor, Ellen Datlow and that's not all of 'em; maybe there'll be others by the time September comes around.

* * *

We lost a great science fiction and fantasy artist in Frank Frazetta earlier this week. His body of work was remarkable and I send his family my condolences.

Iron Man

I’ve been writing, reading and watching Sci-fi recently, so it wasn’t much of a surprise to view Iron Man 2 (finally!) from a different perspective.

For example, I couldn’t help wonder if the suit had inertial compensators, and if so, where was it; whether it had any anti-gravity elements, what kind of servos, sensor suites, power units, armoury... and so on. I was thinking similar thoughts when Tony Stark developed his cure... and thought it a little too easy.

But the pyrotechnics were fabulous, all that flying and zipping around avoiding the droids and explosions and more zipping and ka-blamos and I do love a good bang; does that make me shallow? I am easily entertained...

Mickey Rourke was an absolute stand out. He didn't need too many words, his expression and actions said it better - gosh, he's good.

Gwennie was suitably overwhelmed by her new position and Robert Downey, jun., seemed to look tired and slightly out of sorts, until he found his cure and went off like a manic genius.

So. I'm glad I saw it - it's one movie that's an absolute must for the big screen. But only for all the speckie special effects.

Now back to the short story marathon - until Shrek 4 comes out...

Strike Two!

Another strike out in the attempt to see Iron Man 2. Same problem as Tuesday - no one but me. Still, I understand most people prefer to see movies - can you believe it? - at night! Or - hah - on the weekends! Who'd a thought? I'll try again on Sunday; that's part of the weekend, isn't it? See if it's true.

Hopefully, I won't strike out a third time; there are some films you just have to see on the big screen.

The marathon is scooting along, but the short stories are in a restricted forum - apparently, some publishers get bent out of shape if a story has first been posted on a forum before submission. I guess it's to do with publishing rights and what that means.

The Seventh Sanctum has provided some really 'out there' prompts, but this is an excellent exercise in imagination dexterity. Win, pass or fail, the stories are on the page - and you can't edit what you haven't written.

Off and on the 'net

Took myself off to the movies yesterday to see Iron Man 2; sadly, I bumped up against the reality of living in a coastal village on a gorgeous day. Since I was the only one to turn up, the proprietor decided not to screen it. (Insert sad face.) However, he did give me a complimentary ticket for a future movie. (Insert happy face.) I think I'll reserve the ticket for a later film - and try for Iron Man 2 tomorrow.

My home area is filled with retirees and loud, action flicks aren't the most popular here. Maybe tomorrow, a more younger crowd will show up.

The short story marathon continues and I'm keeping up. Only 26 to go...

The Magic District has an interesting post on a writer's vices and Writer's Digest has 7 Reasons Agents Stop Reading Your First Chapter and this, 8 Basic Writing Blunders. All are useful reads.

Now, I have to got thrash out another story.

SAD

Story-a-day marathon time at Forward Motion. WOOT! Yes, thirty-one sometimes 'wow-out-there-for-creativity' and sometimes 'what-were-you-thinking,-writing-that-after-a-few-glasses-of-Merlot' stories, mixed in with 'well-that-was-boring-but-it's-done'.

...I haven't started yet. But that's okay, I'll catch up. I like my challenges with a bit of relish.

Most of the stories use a generator and I am looking at the scenarios. My fav place for story prompts is the Seventh Sanctum, which has buckets of generators to choose from or The Speculative Fiction Muse.

I might try some new ones, like The Do It Yourself Giallo Kit, or any one of the photograph websites for visual prompts. There are plenty of sites out there for inspiration.

I can write one out of every three from ideas that happen to drop out of my head onto the page. And now, I'd better get to it; with marathons, thinking you can catch up is a good way to not reach your goal.

Picture by Lazette Gifford - damn, she's clever!

Work, work, play!

So, I all but blew off my second deadline today; the boss is away for another nine days and I have no-one else to consult with on corrections.

I've been doing a photograph hunt instead for pikkies to add to the webpage.

Posted on Scribd is Huntress: Sacrifice as a freebie.

It means I have the whole weekend off to play with family who are coming down. Much joy, many photos from France, and copious amounts of alcohol to imbibe - can't ask for much more than that.

Oh. Right. Story-a-day marathon starts tomorrow. Well, I'll do that too. How bad can it be writing a couple of thousand words, trashed?

I'm werkin' here!

I'm up against two deadlines... okay, I've decided to let one slide since it was a pre-deadline deadline - and the webpage could go live as it is.

The book, however, was promised at the end of April and it nearly is; the end of April, that is.

Both have similarities. The webpage is down to the final editing of text and selection of appropriate photographs to go with, and I've got to check the links; the book is fifty pages short of the end and I keep going back to add description or more information or globally changing name spelling. Little stuff, irritating stuff, essential stuff.

I really need to get both finished. Twelfth Planet Press are calling for submissions for an anthology to be released next year and it just happens to co-incide with Forward Motion's yearly story-a-day marathon that starts on 1 May. My first story - or maybe the second - will be for the anthology. The theme is urban fantasy in the Roaring Twenties. Elliot Ness: Vampire Hunter anyone? Kidding.

So, I'm flat out like a lizard drinking. Yeah, okay, I'm on the 'net. I'll get off now and get back to it.

Hot, cold, wet

Yeah. It gives new meaning to the words "wet patch".

Män som hatar kvinnor... finally

Män som hatar kvinnor - Men Who Hate Women - was retitled The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for the English version.

The true title reflects the movie and the book, the second is a glimpse of art on counter-culture Goth and computer hacker, Lisabeth Salander.

I read the book and thought it a little slow. The story got bogged down in extraneous descriptions and minutiae of lead character Mikael Blomkvist's day. Thankfully, all that's been cut out of the movie and distilled down to its essential parts.

The spiel: Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared from a family gathering on the island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger clan. Her body was never found, yet her uncle is convinced it was murder and that the killer is a member of his own tightly knit but dysfunctional family. He employs disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist and the tattooed, ruthless computer hacker Lisbeth Salander to investigate. When the pair link Harriet's disappearance to a number of grotesque murders from almost forty years ago, they begin to unravel a dark and appalling family history.

The makers of the film have done an excellent job. The book has complex plots all weaved together to form a fascinating story arc. The film touches on these aspects and sets up the next movie The Girl Who Played With Fire with brief glimpses. However, those who haven't read Stieg Larsson's trilogy might be a little dismayed at some of the near miraculous resolutions. For example, the instant decryption of an important clue by Salander. She has a photographic memory, but that is only touched on in the film. I'm guessing the film makers assumed the majority of Scandinavia read the books.

Some of the scenes are brutal. The film does not shy away from the sexual violence that's integral to the story line. On the big screen, it's confronting. (I wonder how Hollywood is going to deal with it? The U.S. version is in development and due for release in 2012.) Salander is certainly ruthless in dealing with violence perpetrated against her.

The original title, Men Who Hate Women, should have been kept; the current title reflects nothing more than a curiosity. Throughout the books and the film, thoughtless and deliberate violence against women is explored. Blomkvist is almost a peaceful raft floating in the sea of blood and brutality, a refuge for Salander. That doesn't mean she needs a man to save her - her revenge is as nasty as the crime committed against her! She'll get justice her own way.

I would suggest reading the book before seeing the film for a better understanding. It's the first book-to-film I've appreciated in a long, long time.

Force of Nature

I've finally finished the second edits of Huntress: Sacrifice. I now have about nine days to put in the corrections and do another edit. At the same time, I now have nine days to finish writing the webpage for the local museum before it's supposed to go live. Bah, who needs a weekend?

* * *

Is this cool or what? It's lightning within the Icelandic volcano whose name no-one but an Icelander can pronounce.

I actually hunted around the 'net to find out why volcanoes can generate their own lightning, but the discussions varied from "I dunno" to the idea that the eruptions cause mesocyclones, thus generating the conditions for lightning.

I'm guessing no-one has managed to get close enough to take the readings they need to solve the conundrum.

While a lot of people seem bent out of shape over this (my sister is stuck in Paris... whatever shall she do?) it provides an opportunity for all those clever engineers to create an ash-proof engine. Remember Dante's Peak with that yummy Pierce... ah, the helicopter? Or 1991 when Mt Pinatubo went up in the Philipines? How is it we still don't have a totally weather-proof engine? That aircraft are still so fragile? The peeps who develop an engine unaffected by ash clouds, or smoke, or ducks could probably name their price.

Maybe Virgin Galactic have the right idea and we should leave terrestrial airspace. Just pop up outside the atmosphere and then down again. I have visions of it...

Big Oops, there

Family is staying the weekend and last night, we sat down to watch Julie & Julia. All I knew about Julia Childs was that she cooked with an awful lot of butter and yet lived into her nineties - not a bad innings.

The movie was great, without Norah Ephron's usual saccharine sweetness. Meryl Streep is a marvel at characterisation and expressed Julia's exuberance for life and French cuisine wonderfully. Amy Adams, too, was excellent as the woman who decides to complete all of the recipes in Julia's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year and blog about her efforts. Not the kind of thing I'd do given the amount of butter used in the recipes.

So it was with interest that I read the headline Cook-book misprint costs Australian publishers dear. Unwilling to take the BBC's word for it (I'm such a charlatan), I headed to the Sydney Morning Herald site where the news item came from. Sure enough, Penguin reprints book, peppered with an error, wants it taken with grain of salt. (Terrible heading I think.)

Head of publishing, Mr Bob Sessions, said: "In one particular recipe [a] misprint occurs which obviously came from a spell checker. When it comes to the proofreader, of course they should have picked it up, but proofreading a cookbook is an extremely difficult task. I find that quite forgivable [sic]."

Um... no, not forgiveable. Laughable, absolutely, forgiveable, not on your life. The problem? A line in a tagliatelle recipe that called for salt and freshly ground black people - instead of 'pepper'. I don't know about you, but I think there are two letters wrong here, not something a spellchecker or proofreader would miss unless they were lazy. And the excuse that the correct line is in many recipes and that cook-books are hard to check, is no excuse at all.

I doubt Penguin will be so sanguine in the future, since it cost them $20,000.

The lesson today is to really check your work lest some unfortunate words cause dismay, or finanicial loss.

Oh, and Bon Appetit!

Dragons Ahoy!

How To Train Your Dragon was a lot of fun - even in a theatre full of kids, and the popcorn delayed.

The artwork was beautiful, especially on the dragons. I imagine there were varieties no-one thought of. Toothless, the Nightfury, bears a striking resemblance to Stitch (from the Disney film Lilo & Stitch) and an oversized, winged axolotl; the other dragons are equally spectacular... well, you'll have to see the film.

The Vikings are suitably big, rugged and bloodthirsty - except, of course, for our hero, Hiccup, who is thin, weedy and very unViking-like. He's an inventor and consistently gets himself into trouble whenever the dragons attack. This time, his invention downs a Nightfury that he befriends and trains. Misunderstandings, deceit, suspicion and an epic battle follow.

The flying scenes are better than Avatar and the final battle, man, I was so impressed by the CGI. The fire, the water, the movement of the flesh under dragon skin!

For me, the chatting children, the shushing of the adults, the crunch of popcorn consumed and slurping of soft drink all faded away under the visual beauty of the film. That might be just me, but I love kids' movies; they can present complex issues in a simple way.

Oh, and I saw the shorts for the next Shrek movie. I'm just gonna hafta see it!

Clash of the Movies

I took myself off to see Clash of the Titans yesterday. I have vague memories of the Harry Hamlin version on television, along with other Ray Harryhausen movies like Sinbad.

Clash of the Titans won't win any awards, but it's great for 90 minutes or so of focusing on eye candy. The special effects are great but the storyline is only loosely related to the real Perseus legend. But... no matter.

I loved the Djinn, all shining, crystal blue gaze and bark-textured faces; so cool and lends to the mythology of the piece. The fight scene with the scorpions was frenetic and the sneaky Medusa was, well, sneaky; kind of reminded me of Angelina Jolie in Beowulf.

Liam Neeson was all shiny and a little bit perplexed as Zeus, Ralph Fiennes suitable evil (and channelling Voldemort, I think) as the smoky, dark Hades - not as sinister as he could have been, but the bad guy nonetheless.

I only have one question about the movie: why did Perseus have a marine haircut, when everyone else had long flowing locks?

Will I buy the DVD? Hmm... probably; I love these kinds of movies. I don't watch 'real life' films, I get enough real life in... real life. I like escapism - although I will make an exception for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Today, I'm off to watch How to Train Your Dragon - probably with a bunch of kids. I love popcorn films, too.

Sensitive history

I've been working my ring off for past week on three pages. Yep, three pages of text for the webpage I'm working on. It's taken three weeks to complete nearly forty other pages for the site and downloadable fact sheets.

I need no approval for those pages, but I do for the three; see, they deal with Indigenous history and information and thus require cultural sensitivity. While that has been monumentally frustrating, it's also been an education.

When I was at school back in 19... blah, we were taught about Captain James Cook discovering Australia, Captain Arthur Phillips of the First Fleet, various governors and important white people who formed this nation. Nothing was ever taught about indigenous affairs and yet, they were an important part of our history.

Who knew, for example, that the Aborigines had a resistance group who tried to save their land from the English settlers and convicts?

Pemulwuy saw Cook lay claim to Terra Nullus, Empty Land, and to the arrival of the First Fleet. He understood what it meant and set about causing as much trouble as possible. To him, it was war, the British were invaders upon land sacred to his people and he led raids against the farms and farmers, for food and for revenge for the atrocities committed against his people.

In the end, in 1802, he was shot dead, his head removed and sent to England for scientific investigation. All up, 3000 Aboriginal body parts were sent as part of biological curiosity. Pemulwuy was a pest, a troublemaker, according to Governor King who signed the shoot-on-sight order for any Aborigines seen around the Parramatta area. Guns were always going to win out since the Aborigines brought spears to the fight.

The British did not see the land as being occupied. The definition of civilisation was settlement, and the indigenous people were wanderers, following the food, never setting up villages. The French and Dutch had already looked at the land and declared it harsh and worthless, moved on, although we still have Dutch and French names for suburbs or areas.

For more than a century, this country has been divided between the rights of Aborigines and those of British settlement. We're still divided, though to a much lesser degree: instead of a re-enactment of James Cook's arrival at Farm Cove, we have an Indigenous Woggan Ma Gule or Morning Ceremony at the site and celebrations of what it means to be Australian. The flag raising is more to do with celebrating citizenship than historic origins. History, it seems, is of little importance when bringing diverse ethnicities together.

I agree. Previous Australia Day celebrations were tainted by groups protesting 'Invasion Day'; but I don't think we should re-write or disregard the good or the bad of our history. Both are important and make us who we are today.

Prince William - recently in Australia - has announced that he will try to find Pemulwuy's head and the other remains. The indigenous fighter is a hero to the Aboriginal Nations here.

And this year for Anzac Day, commemorative ceremonies will be held for the 500-800 Indigenous personnel who served during the First World War. It's about time; a soldier is a soldier no matter his skin colour and should be treated with the same respect.

In the meantime, I need to get back to work; I have to finish this project before I can get to my editing. Thankfully, these three pages are the last of the big stuff, everything else is of the editing and formatting ilk.

Words to consider

There's an interesting interview over at Writers Digest with writer Sue Grafton.

Of particular note is this:

What about this voice you talk about, the Shadow?
My problem is I can’t get out of my own way. Shadow knows how to write books. Ego does not. So when I’m trying to put together a book, Ego is the one saying, “I’ll do it, I’ll do it, I’ll do it.” And I’m going, “No you won’t. You don’t know what you’re doing.” Shadow is just that still, quiet voice in your soul that tells you if you’re on track or off track.

I find this compelling because it is so true. And, I think, it's the reason why so many newbie authors fail. Ego.

How many times have you heard that 'writing is easy; I could write one of those romance books, no problem'? How many know that's smirk-worthy? How many have half a dozen unfinished works? How many thought the idea was a good one at the time? I know I've got a bundle on unfinished books squirrelled away.

Ego, if you let it loose, will only get you so far. It's the quieter, more considered voice that takes you to the end; and it's the quiet voice that goes back to the beginning while ego is doing a smug happy dance, to edit. Ego is that excited part that can't wait to get to work on that sparkly, scathingly-brilliant new idea, while the quiet voice is considering characters, plot, scenes, descriptions... All that hard stuff.

I'm guilty of this every November. Come October 31, I'll have something vague and ill-formed in mind. In the morning, the empty page awaits and off I go, no matter what. Some years I've been fortunate enough to have a relatively well-formed main character. Most years, I just let the ego run wild - that lasts for a week, maybe two, when ego is just so over it and the hard work to get the word counts done starts.

At the end of the interview, Ms Grafton gives this advice to new authors:

My big gripe about newer writers is they’re not willing to put the time in. Somebody’ll write one book and they’re asking me who my agent and my editor are, and I’m thinking, Don’t you worry, sweetheart, you’re not any good yet. Give yourself time to get better. Writing is really hard to master. You learn by failing over and over, but a lot of people don’t care for that, thanks. I always wish new writers the greatest good fortune. It’s a helluva journey — I’ll tell you that.

Yep, I've still got the first book I wrote... somewhere dark so it can get therapy... and it will stay there with the second and third books for company.

Doing the work teaches us what works and what doesn't; only when the quiet voice is happy should it see the light of day.

Of course, sometimes that quiet voice is silent, asleep and unconcerned. That's my excuse an' I'm stickin' to it.