Earlier this year, I noticed that I was having troubles reading one of the books I was leant by a friend. I’ve also noticed that a few of my favourite old books I have a bit more trouble reading than I used to. Movies don’t seem to hold the same enjoyment for me… Well, I’m sure you’re getting the picture. It all came to a head when my husband asked me to watch a movie with him. I agreed, but the movie he chose was called All-Star Superman.
This tells four or five different stories but all of them tell a part of the story of Superman’s Death. It’s a very fanboy-ish tale where Superman gets super-powered by a plan of Lex Luthor’s and eventually dies(I would say “Spoiler Alert” – but the death of superman was told long ago and lets face it… at this point, we all know that he gets better). I hated it. Not for any one reason but for a few different ones.
The first, stock dialog. Now I realize that it’s Superman and Lex Luthor and that by this point in their mutual careers they don’t really try anymore. It’s all been said, as the saying goes. They didn’t quite get down to ‘You’ll never get away with this” stock dialog, but what they did have wasn’t much better. Secondly, they’re not trying to do anything that they haven’t tried to do before and that makes for a story that comes across as uninspired. Not that the story wasn’t interesting mind you, but the way it was told came across as very “ho-hum this is my everyday”. I didn’t see much in the way of an internal fight within Superman… even with his death immanent, everything he did was very blasé. It couldn’t have happened differently, because he didn’t want it to come out differently.
Thirdly, for me at least (and this is very much a personal annoyance of mine), they only vaguely told the death of Superman. It felt like they were trying to tell four or five distinct stories and everything felt over-hurried and under-explained. I was informed by my husband that most of that was due to me not understanding 30 or more years of Superman history that the fanboys(the target audience) already know. There is little to no explanation of who/where/what/why and how’s of any of the story from the basic story of Superman to who the characters are (a superhero by the name of Samson? I’ve never heard of him, though I’m sure in the comics he had 3-5 books serve as an introduction). This is definitely not a story for those that don’t know the history.
What really bothered me in the end, was my husband’s insistence that it was good and he liked it. I know that my husband is going to have likes and dislikes that are different from mine but I couldn’t understand what he saw in it (I should add in the caveat here that he knew all of the characters and much of the history). Finally he reminded me, “You would have liked it two years ago. Even a year ago you would have still thought it was okay. You just can’t seem to move past your ‘training’”. I suddenly realized that he was correct.
Back when I was just starting down this path, I resolved to learn all I could about the craft of writing. I wanted my mind to subconsciously start adding things into my stories, helping me to foreshadow, plot, to write better than I was. And to my own credit, it worked. Though I still have a lot to learn and all of my writing will still need plenty of editing, I know that my writing has improved by jumps and leaps in the last year. Unfortunately, it also means that the Writers Curse has hit me.
Yes, writing is such a dangerous vocation that we have our own curse associated with it. I was told by a few of my favourite authors (both of whom I respect, for their impressive skill and because they both deign to discuss the art and craft of writing with me on occasion), Philippa Ballantine and S.M. Stirling, that the worst part about learning all about the craft was that eventually you reach a point where you can’t look at something just on an ‘entertaining/not entertaining’ level anymore. In my arrogance, I heard this but never really thought it would happen to me. Had I not been trying to do this for over two years at that point? I still enjoyed most of my old books and it couldn’t really happen to me anyway. Well, from my wisened old position of 3 years (face palm), I can tell you that it sucks.
Things that I used to like? They’re only okay. The product hasn’t changed since I bought it and yet, when I read them, I’m invariably putting them down, making excuses for not going back to them. Things I didn’t like are getting cleared out and given away. Things that I like… well, the ones I’m willing to go back to over and over again are becoming fewer and farther between.
It’s actually bothersome to realize that I cannot simply turn off my mind and enjoy a book or movie anymore, to know that for now at least, I’m too critical to enjoy many of the arts. I can only hope that soon I’ll either grow past it or that I’ll learn to embrace it.
Today is one of those days when I wouldn’t mind using #FML as a hashtag on Twitter. Not that its even been that bad of a day. All in all, it’s been a good day actually. I finished Nanowrimo with 56,331 words, an awesome total. In addition, I came in twelveth overall in the city for those that hang out on the Nanowrimo forums, and probably the top 20 of writers in Calgary if we count those who don’t. I had a friend visit today, last night was a TGIO party… all in all, it’s been excellent. The main problem stems from me. I have made a deal with my body; If it works harder for me in November, I’ll let it rest in December. So I still feel like I’m running on fumes, 7 days later… though it is getting better.
As if to make it worse, I’ve also been hit by a light bout of insomnia. It means that if I don’t head to sleep the moment I feel tired, I wake back up immediately. Normally this would be counted as extra writing time, but in December, it starts weighing on me, since I actually need to work. On the other hand, at least insomnia never lasts more than three to five days for me so I do know that simply waiting it out is a viable plan.
I do have more vacation coming up at the end of the month (Yes more… I take all my vacation late in the year) which will give me some good time to catch up on all the writing I’m not doing right now. This is why I’m not feeling too guilty about taking 15 – 20 days off to recover from the work of Nanowrimo. And what was that? Writing?
Yes, I have completely stopped writing… I need to get myself back into it, and this blog is a vital step towards that. I find that one of the hardest parts of Nano is to start writing again after December rolls around. However, I am going to make some promises to you guys.
1. I will be writing this year, and much more this month than in November.
2. I will have my novel rough draft finished for the end of February.
3. My music reviews will hence forth be finished within two weeks of receiving them.
4. This novel will be edited and I will start sending it out to publishers before the end of next year. In fact, if I’m lucky, I’ll have it done pre-SiWC 2011.
As for my story? Well, it’s actually been a roaring success this year. I am working on Chapter 14, of a probable 30 Chapter book, so I’m almost half way there. I have a complete story so far. Not much in the way of subplots… more a mention of such here and there. My story has thus far been written in order and the chapters are coming out mostly of a reasonable length (about 4K worth of words). The plot is making sense, I have good explanations for my world building that is fitting in. The only thing I’m somewhat disappointed in is that thus far, I’ve alluded to the war that the vampires are in but I haven’t actually come out and said it. This will need to rectified and will probably include me writing in a new character, a commander in the war on the side of the vampires.
I feel that my writing is definitely improving this year and with every book I write, it gets easier and easier to put together a cohesive story that works.
On a non-nanowrimo front, I have finished reading the High King of Montival now and while I can say that it is one of the best books I’ve ever read, I am quite annoyed with SM Stirling. This was originally going to be the end of the series… apparently now there are another two books coming out. While I love reading more of his books, which makes this somewhat a good thing, it is also a bit of an annoyance, since I was thought I was going to read the incredible and satisfying conclusion. Ah well, I can’t be really annoyed… it was too good a book for me to be actually annoyed! For those of you who asked, I have now started reading Geist and its almost as good as High King of Montival. I’ll review it as soon as I’m finished it and have just a bit of time.
In closing, How was nano for you? Did you get anything written? What have you learned about your noveling over the last nano? What books are you reading and what books do you think I need to review for you?
My first conference ever and it turned out to be incredible. I arrived a few days early and got to visit my Mom for a day and then I ran out to visit with a writerly friend of mine. We sat in and chatted all night and even watched the craft. She gave me a brilliant little rock light (I’ll see about including a picture in my next blog) and then the next day we headed out and went shopping. Now, me and her are probably the only girls in the world who can go out shopping, and come home with the oddest things. I came back with flavoured honeys, a mini cast-iron cauldron (I’ve always wanted some), a gorgeous card and an oracle deck. Wonderful stuff, but definitely not your usual run of the mill shopping.
After I got to the conference the first thing I did was get my info for the weekend and then register for my hotel. While waiting to register, I struck up a conversation with the woman in front of me. She was attending the conference as well. Nervous, I asked her if it was her first year. I should have known better… she was a publisher of children’s books and a presenter. It was all right though. I made up for it by remembering to ask her what she was working on that excited her. Really the weekend only went up from there.
The class on Thursday was next to useless though. It was touted as a revision course, but it was actually just rewriting scenes. Had I not paid extra for it, I would have left the class and taken a different one. On the other hand, I met Samantha Herne, a great writer who also podcasts. She was a really great gal and I loved talking with her. Friday was great. The courses were always good and Patrick Taylors course on “How not to write a successful series” was incredible. Saturday was awesome as well, and I started getting my name out there. The big incredible thing for me on Saturday was my “Blue Pencil” meeting… a chance to meet with CC Humpreys. He took a look at my work, we chatted and he complimented my writing. He said, “No, your work is quite good. You’ve managed to make it all really creepy without actually saying anything creepy. That’s how to do it if you’re going to.” Let me tell you, I was so excited, I was practically bouncing.
At least until Saturday Dinner. I found Samantha Herne at dinner that night and sat down at her table… only to realize that she also had two authors, an editor and an agent sharing the table. The other girls at the table were more like me, in various stages of unpublishment (I think I’ve created a new word). Regardless, they were all awesome, and great to talk to. Table 7 rocks, does it not ladies? I was going to go and see the forensics stuff after dinner, but I was invited up for cocktails by the girls… and when an agent and author ask you if you want to join them for cocktails, the universal answer is “Yes”.
Great evening, absolutely incredible. The keynote speakers for Saturday were amazing (especially since I was sitting with both of them that evening as well)! Sunday was great as well. Ivan Coyote asked about “ways to motivate yourself to write” in her class and I suggested my favourite motivator, Nanowrimo. The last 20 minutes of the class were taken up with talk about Nanowrimo (she takes part) and sharing awesome Nano-related stories.
At the final lunch, it was fun, but sorta sad. We knew the fun was coming to an end soon. Robert Dugoni sent us away on the right note though “Today, we WRITE!” Should I ever get a copy of his speech, I will ask him if I can repost it here. The best speech ever! I wish I’d gotten a copy of it. Also, I even won a prize! A set of four books from Mira publishing and a reusable book bag followed me home in addition to the books I got there (Eeeek! I got Vlad the Impaler signed by CC Humpreys, who wished me luck on my book and the Skystone signed by Jack Whyte). Definitely an incredible weekend. I even got a potted plant from my Mom. Gorgeous Red and Yellow flowers… I only hope I can keep it alive.
The trip was more than worth it and I really hope that I can make it out for next year.
Also, very quickly, I bought Geist today (a picture will go up next time), The High King of Montival, and a copy of Warbreaker. My husband bought me a Nano gift as well… an awesome 15 minute hourglass timer with black sand! I got myself an awesome Moleskin journal as well… Dark blue with map lines on it. Just the thing to get my mind thinking and ready to write!
It’s been a while since I last posted, so let’s get started. Today I’m going to break the first rule and show not tell.
First off is a video today. As I’m certain you’ve all heard if you’ve been paying attention to my site is that Philippa Ballantines book, Geist is coming out, with a Canadian release date of October 26, 2010. I cannot wait to see it come out and in fact, I think that I’ll be making it my “nano-treat”. I do have a great little treat for all of you though. Philippa Ballantine and Tee Morris have gotten together and made a book trailer and if you haven’t seen it before it’s great.
Personally I’m not really sure how to look at these “book trailers” . On the outside it appears to be a really good idea, but I’m not sure if it is. On one hand I have always felt that’s really interesting to see what the author envisioned but on the other some people may be disappointed with a given book simply because the promise made in the video is different than the promise made in the book. While it doesn’t happen often with book covers when it does it can make a really good book come off as a cheap hack. On the other hand when this is done right it can make the book seem even better knowing not only have the author saw the book but how you saw it as well.
So basically I’m on the fence about this one and I’ll keep you updated as to when I make a permanent decision on whether these are good or bad. In the meantime though watch Philippa‘s video that I’ve put up on here. I guarantee that you won’t be disappointed. A friend at my work is going to be picking up the book as well, based solely on how interesting the cover picture is. I’m very impressed.
A lot of people are coming up with very interesting ways to show how much they love nanowrimo, and with the boards back up they have ample opportunity to share their creations with the world. One of my friends, whom I will refer to here as “Tim of the Awesome” has been put in novels around the world in a nano challenge the last couple of years. As he puts it nowadays “put me in your novel, add a couple thousand words and let the awesome flow.” While I heartily suggest putting Tim in your novel that’s not actually why I’m mentioning him today.
Tim (known as Hero on the nano forums) wrote a parody of that old spice commercial. Here it is for your viewing pleasure.
Hello Wrimos.
Look at your novel, now back to mine, now back at your novel, now back to MINE.
Sadly, it isn’t mine, but if you started writing 1667 words a day it could be as long as mine.
Look down, back up, where are you? You’re at your computer WITH THE NOVEL YOUR NOVEL COULD LOOK LIKE.
What’s in your hand? Back at me. It’s the remains of your silenced inner editor.
Look again.
THE EDITOR IS NOW DIAMONDS!
Anything is possible with NaNoWriMo.
I’m on a forum.
Definitely awesome is it not? I’ve heard that Tim may be planning on doing a live commercial version of this… if he does I will definitely have the video linked if not posted here. If you like this though go over to the nano forums and show Hero some love.
Another gentleman is making waves is one of the Toronto-Wrimo’s who uses the handle Errol. His new video, “good’Ol nanowrimo” is another brilliant example of people supporting things they love, doing it in creative ways and getting the word out there. Here’s the link for it.
I’ll be making my own video to go along with these “showing the love” examples later this week.
In other news, I finally finished reading Brandon Sanderson’s “the way of Kings”. All I can say on this is that the book is brilliant, well written, intelligent and thought-provoking. The only part that I wonder if it could’ve been done better is how he told Kaladin’s story. He did a present scene followed by a past scene for most of it. While it did work it didn’t seem to come off quite as smoothly as it could have, although I definitely don’t know how or if it could’ve been done better in this particular medium. Definitely a good read and I suggest you read it.
Finally I just want to quickly mention once more SIWC. I will be heading out next week on Tuesday for the beautiful lands of Abbotsford, Canada. I’ll be staying with a variety of friends and family for Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday I will be on-site signing in for my hotel room and preparing for my class on revision in the rewrite. I contacted the teacher last night and got homework help me prepare for the class. While it was a little overwhelming, it did raise my expectations of the class. I look forward to learning quite a bit and improving my novel in brilliant ways. If any of you are taking that course or will be over at the SIWC for the weekend look me up. I’d love to meet some of you in person.
Sorry I’ve been gone for a while. I’ve recently started a new diet, hoping to get my body healthy and perhaps even off its addiction to sugar. Because of that (and because I’m finally seeing some evidence of it working) I’m not sure if I’ve been feeling ill due to actually catching a summer cold or if my body is cleansing, a term I’ve heard used that means “flushing out unwanted/unneeded chemical buildup from the body” . I’m guessing that it’s actually a cold since last night I had a touch of fever and I’ve started developing a headache along with a few muscle aches as well. Either way, that’s a small excuse for my delay in posting.
Sometimes I really wish that I’d been smarter a year ago than I am now. You see, last year, severely understaffed at work, I decided that my “minor” aches and pains could be ignored. So, when I started having trouble clenching and unclenching my hands (more so my right than my left), I got annoyed at my hands. I didn’t attempt to slow down… after all, if it only bothered me when I attempted to use a dishcloth or a pencil I was fine. I use a computer every day and it wasn’t as though the inability to unclench or fully grasp something was stopping me from typing after all. I was also trying to write as much as I could on my breaks and whenever I wasn’t working.
Now those of you who have had tendonitis before are probably already wincing in horror. After all, most people would consider the inability to use their hands a relatively serious condition. I really have no excuse other than to say that I was obviously abusing myself for no better reason than I didn’t want to disappoint anyone, either my bosses or myself. When my hand finally started hurting just to type though, I had to stop. I worked till the end of the day and then went into the doctors to see what was up. It was then that I found out the cold hard truth that I still live with today. There is no cure for tendonitis, in fact, Western Medicine doesn’t even have a fool proof way of dealing with the pain.
I ended up having to take a week off, in which I was told to not use my hand at all. For the first day or so, I tried to peck the keys like a chicken, using the two-finger style so popular among the aged who never used a computer until they were adults and aren’t interested in learning such a skill now. Even so, I would occasionally forget and the pain would flare up, and I would put away the computer hoping that reading would help. At the end of the first week, I went back to work on light duties… which meant that I spent the next week or two printing off emails, since sorting paper required too much use for my hand to be of any help.
Nowadays, my hand still hurts, even though I started taking better care of my hand after that. I suppose that once you’ve damaged your hand that badly it never truly heals. Which is why weeks like this one, I remember that I really need to start using my DragonNaturally Speaking program on a more regular basis. The ability to let my hands rest for evenings at a time (if not the days my hands would like) would be immensely helpful. I don’t know about you guys, but one day, I would like to be able to live pain free.
In other news, I have finally begun actual editing on my Seirei story. I have finished a rough draft of the book, and now I’m going through and putting my scenes in order, writing new scenes that I realize need to be added and making certain that everything is ready for a polishing rewrite.
I understand that I’m probably using the terms wrong, which annoys me, but stick with me or better yet, correct me if you can. This is my first time really working on editing a manuscript. I had tried once before, but I was trying to edit for content and doing line editing at the same time. Later, my notes were a mess (as though the story itself wasn’t already) and I could hardly read them. That first novel should never see the light of day, but it did teach me that edits should be done, first for missing content, then a second time for altered content, and thereafter for line edits.
Yes, Holly Lisle may be disappointed with me for doing 3 edits, when she can do it all in one, but the way I look at it, she’d probably just be impressed that I was trying to get it done and out professionally. On the other hand, I’m hoping to take her classes eventually, and perhaps after I’m more used to the editing process all around, I can try her One-Pass Edit style.
On a final note, I have been listening to a book recently, that I would like to endorse wholeheartedly. I first found out about this book from Philippa Ballantine on Facebook, when she mentioned that she was hoping to read it soon. Knowing that I love what she writes, I decided to take a chance that we’d have similar reading preference. I’m still not certain if we do, since this book seems much more like Science Fiction than a Fantasy, but either way, the book is worth finding.
Called www: Wake, this book by Robert J. Sawyer is brilliant. I’m about ¾ way through it and it’s awesome. The idea is that a girl who has been blind from birth receives a new bit of technology that allows her not only to see the world she lives in, but the world wide web as well. It’s a great science fiction tale that revolves around the themes of consciousness, vision and the idea of how do we decide what is sentient and what is not.
I haven’t reached the end yet, but I am willing to say immediately, go out and buy this book. I have the audio version and I don’t think I can rave enough about this novel! I’m enjoying it so much that I’ve already bought the second book in the series, www:Watch because I know that if its anything like my Wake, I’ll love it!
I’ll be waiting eagerly for the conclusion to the trilogy, www:Wonder, coming out soon!
A few of you following me may have noticed something this week… That’s right. I changed my Twitter account from B_A_Matthews to BA_Matthews. Why? Well that’s simple. I had it set up for a different name originally. Now of course, I changed it and while it reads correctly on their page, it does not when I try to use it to validate web responses or posts. Having spent a few days trying to correct and change it permanently, I finally decided that I would be better served just starting a new account and closing my old one. Thus, the old account should have reached the end of its run on Friday, August 13, 2010. The new one is already up and I’m tweeting there already, so jump on the bandwagon and follow me (BA_Matthews). Also thank you so much to PhilippaJane (of Chasing the Bard fame) who was the first person to receive my message about my changing twitter account and set about following me on the new one.
Speaking of Philippa Ballantine, I follow her blog and though it was hard for her to ask, she had a request for all her readers. Since I’m not published yet, I’m sending the request through to you! Philippa’s new book, Geist (a paranormal romance) is coming out in October this year and I’ll be pre-ordering a copy for myself in just a few days after I get my paycheck. Her publishing company has already purchased the second book in the series from her (sorry, no set release date to my knowledge), and they are considering whether to contract her for the final two books that Philippa has planned in the series. Since I can’t wait to read this new book, I’d like you to help me let the publishing company know that her fans are eagerly awaiting this new series. The best part is that you don’t need to do anything to difficult. No writing letters to the publisher or pre-ordering her book. So what do you have to do? It’s easy. Just walk into your local bookstore, whether independent or a chain (personally I always head to my local Chapters), and ask about Geist. The bookstores will do the rest!
Moving back onto my stuff, I must admit, I haven’t gotten as much done the last day or so as I could have and I’m firmly blaming life for yesterday at least. I got home and collapsed into a sleep so deep that I didn’t walk up until the next morning. I tend to treat my body as though it were some sort of machine usually, as though it won’t break down or get tired. Couple that with the fact that I only tend to get 5 – 6 hours of sleep on weeknights (a little more on weekends) and it means that when my body finally demands a night of sleep I tend to give it what it wants. In my way of thinking it’s easier than trying to actually get 8 hours of sleep every night. One screw up night every month and I get about 2 extra hours every other day seems like a pretty good trade off to me.
This weekend looks as though it’s going to be a nice writing full one for me as well. I want to finish my Memories written in Moonlight novel this month. I have an assortment of about 10 chapters total to write or re-write before I can start doing a content edit of the book. Since I would like to have this novel done (or nearly done) to show Sandra Chang (Editor at Tor Books that I’ll be meeting with at SiWC) in October, I really have to kick my ass to get myself working on it. I will also be spending some time on my Dual Melodies storyline, given a chance, I’d like to kick out another chapter of that this weekend. I’d also like to work on the last bit of editing for Chapter 2 of Dual Melodies so I can put that out for you (or at least, part 1 of Chapter 2) this weekend. I’m also working on a poem to send in SiWC before September. Fortunately, the poem is finished, and I just need to play around with the editing and tighten up the wordcraft a bit on that. The last I plan on working on this weekend is a short story (no more than 8K words) for Pirates/Sorcery submission I heard about on “Get Published” earlier this week. They’ll be accepting submissions in November, and I want to have it ready to go on or just after November 1. In addition to the above, I have a Dark Urban Fantasy that I stopped working on last November in favour of my Seirei story… I think that I would like to pick that up again and finish it.
In addition, me and my husband will be going to see “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World” on Tuesday… I’ll let you know about that one if it’s any good, although I’ve heard brilliant things about it! Plus, housework over the weekend, and a few family visits. Yep, a very busy weekend, but honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Oh, two more things! SM Stirlings book, “The High King of Montival” will be coming out on September 7, 2010. It’s the final book in his Emberverse series and is setting itself up to brilliant! I’ve pre-ordered mine (and one for my Father who also loves the series). I suggest pre-ordering the book or buying it on its opening day. When publishers and reviewers see a novel get a lot of notice its first day out, they tend to pay it a lot more attention and this series deserves that interest. Also the pagan band Omnia’s newest album, Wolf Love, is coming out either this month or next. These guys are my favourite band out there (sharing that position with Gaia Consort, now known as the Bone Poets Orchestra). If I’m lucky, I’ll get to be the one to do the review of their new album for PRN! Check out this band and give them a listen to my favourite song, Alive on You-tube. You can’t go wrong picking up one of their albums!
Until my next blog, keep writing and I’ll see you next time!
Today, while listening to Writing Excuses podcast on style editing, I realized that I tend to remove too much of my voice during the editing process. I took the advice to heart that I was going to want to leave everything in and that I was going to have to be super hard with myself to come out with anything good. Realizing that this was what I tended to do my writing made me stop for a moment though. I know I need a few classes in editing properly, but until I can take those classes, this was excessively useful. It reminds me that my style is what will get readers to stick with me and that by trying to remove my voice from my writing, all I’m really doing is a disservice to myself. By doing that, all I’m telling others and even worse, proving to myself are those dark fears that my style isn’t good enough. Telling myself “I am…” is the fastest way to make it so. Therefore I’m going to stop that immediately, and instead work on a plan to counteract the flaw.
It also reminded me that there are different types of editing, and that until I’m better at editing I may want to take the time to do all three instead of slopping all of them together. It’s something worth thinking about, and something that I think will help my writing immensely as soon as I puzzle out how to do it properly. More on this when I give it a try on my next bit of writing to come out, I’m sure.
I found the time to go see Inception as well, earlier this week, and I must admit that I was impressed. And even though I also gave Sorcerer’s Apprentice a good review, please don’t think that means I give most movies a good review. In general, I’m actually pretty tough on my movies and movies only get a really good rating if they were exceptional. Let me say now, that Inception is.
It’s not just the CG (which is amazing) or the acting (which was emotionally charged), or even the way it left you feeling (incredible and active)… no, what really stood out for me here was the story told and the rules given. You can’t carry a movie on CG or good acting alone… there has to be an engaging story and the movie can’t break the disbelief, otherwise it has failed in its task.
As an example, while I enjoyed the movie “Avatar”, there were a few moments that pulled me away from the movie. Why send in ground troops for an aerial bombing? Why not blast the area from space? Why “Unobtainium” and is that strange metal related to “Atmospherium” of The-Lost-Skeleton-of-Cadavra fame? Why were the aliens humanoid in shape when almost every other native creature had at least 6 limbs (a throwback of genetics, perhaps)? On the other hand, character motivations were good, the acting was good, the new technology succeeded. To quote Howard Taylor (Schlock Mercenary and Writing Excuses podcast) “It was the best ‘Fern Gully’ remake, ever!”
It was good, but it left me with too many bad queries, questioning the science, the intelligence of the enemies or the intelligence of the writers (Open Rant – Unobtainium… I still can’t get over that. Come up with something different. “Garonomium” or “Skotepinium” perhaps. I don’t care if it sounds silly, so long as it’s not an obviously understandable word with the last letter or three taken off and “-ium” tacked on the end – End Rant). Now, following the common book saying that a gun seen in the first act must be used in the second, I’ll compare this to Inception.
The technology in Inception, while not described fully, was good. It had its own jargon, equipment and uses which were explained as they became pertinent to the story. And they did this smoke and mirrors well enough that you don’t even notice it being done. The story is solid and even with the “apprentice” character introductions to what you can do with the technology and the inevitable “working montage”, the story wouldn’t have been complete without it. The characters were intelligent and even the apprentice caught on quickly. I can’t think of an instance where anybody got caught by the same mistake twice. Even the character whose flaws were noticeable compensated for their arrival whenever he could.
The movie didn’t break disbelief fortunately; the scenes looked awesome and were done brilliantly and they were all stitched together seamlessly. The only scene that almost took me out for a moment was a single gunfight near the end of the movie where I thought it was unreasonable and added in simply to hype up the movie goers. Even in that instance, directly after the fight they explained why the scene had been necessary and discussed how they were to deal with the repercussions drawn up from it. I loved the chance The characters all stuck to their motivations and yet, I don’t think any of them were obviously cliché. They looked, acted and felt real because the scriptwriters took the time to make them so and the actors furthered this by truly getting into their roles. Even Leonardo DiCaprio gave a worthy performance!
If you were wondering whether to see this movie, I would suggest doing so. If you only see one movie this summer make it this one.
In other news, I ran into a friend of mine from the Nanowrimo group here in Calgary yesterday (Hey Kai!). I was quite embarrassed since I had convinced her to participate in Julno, and then had done so badly at it myself. I haven’t done an actual count yet, but I think my total in fiction words is sitting at 2 – 5K for the month. Now, I know this happens every year at this time and I had been hoping to break myself out of the rhythm. While I wasn’t able to succeed, this gentle nudge (perhaps more of a trip since she managed to get about 25K and she started on the 16th) from my friend reminded me that I do have control of this, and that while I may like to say “I get Writer’s Block from May to September”, it’s not true. I get a severe case of procrastination and don’t WANT to do anything during this time.
I did manage to come up with a plan to help me out which mainly involves me listening to podcasts designed to kick my butt, get me thinking and therefore writing again. Writing Excuses isn’t quite as good for this (since I’ve listened to every episode 2-3 times now… What can I say… I get very bored at work), so I pulled out the big guns. An old episode of Tee Morris’s Podcast “The Survival Guide to Writing Fantasy”, aptly named, “Easy Distrac- – Oh hey, A Butterfly!”. While the podcast is now over, I really enjoyed it and he’s been kind enough to leave up the audio files. This episode details how what I’m doing is definitely procrastination. And while Writing Excuses gets me eager to write, Tee’s way of slapping you in the face and reminding you that if you want to write for a living then you have to consider it a business is exactly what I need right now. Offhand (since I’m being distracted anyway), Tee Morris has the sexiest male voice ever. Give him a listen on Chasing the Bard, a podcast novel by Philippa Ballantine and I promise, if you like sexy voices, you’ll swoon (if you like the ladies, listen for Phillipa herself… Gods that woman’s voice could make me “curious”.)
Oh, I also heard the best quote ever today. “Disneyland is like falling in love, someone’s taking your hand and you go on this enchanting evening and you look into his eyes and its all romantic and nice. Six Flags is like being repeatedly fucked hard over and over again until you just leave shaking and exhausted, but ultimately better for having that experience.” Thank you Alex Day… I think you may have just made mine.
Earlier this year, I noticed that I was having troubles reading one of the books I was leant by a friend. I’ve also noticed that a few of my favourite old books I have a bit more trouble reading than I used to. Movies don’t seem to hold the same enjoyment for me… Well, I’m sure you’re getting the picture. It all came to a head when my husband asked me to watch a movie with him. I agreed, but the movie he chose was called All-Star Superman.
This tells four or five different stories but all of them tell a part of the story of Superman’s Death. It’s a very fanboy-ish tale where Superman gets super-powered by a plan of Lex Luthor’s and eventually dies(I would say “Spoiler Alert” – but the death of superman was told long ago and lets face it… at this point, we all know that he gets better). I hated it. Not for any one reason but for a few different ones.
The first, stock dialog. Now I realize that it’s Superman and Lex Luthor and that by this point in their mutual careers they don’t really try anymore. It’s all been said, as the saying goes. They didn’t quite get down to ‘You’ll never get away with this” stock dialog, but what they did have wasn’t much better. Secondly, they’re not trying to do anything that they haven’t tried to do before and that makes for a story that comes across as uninspired. Not that the story wasn’t interesting mind you, but the way it was told came across as very “ho-hum this is my everyday”. I didn’t see much in the way of an internal fight within Superman… even with his death immanent, everything he did was very blasé. It couldn’t have happened differently, because he didn’t want it to come out differently.
Thirdly, for me at least (and this is very much a personal annoyance of mine), they only vaguely told the death of Superman. It felt like they were trying to tell four or five distinct stories and everything felt over-hurried and under-explained. I was informed by my husband that most of that was due to me not understanding 30 or more years of Superman history that the fanboys(the target audience) already know. There is little to no explanation of who/where/what/why and how’s of any of the story from the basic story of Superman to who the characters are (a superhero by the name of Samson? I’ve never heard of him, though I’m sure in the comics he had 3-5 books serve as an introduction). This is definitely not a story for those that don’t know the history.
What really bothered me in the end, was my husband’s insistence that it was good and he liked it. I know that my husband is going to have likes and dislikes that are different from mine but I couldn’t understand what he saw in it (I should add in the caveat here that he knew all of the characters and much of the history). Finally he reminded me, “You would have liked it two years ago. Even a year ago you would have still thought it was okay. You just can’t seem to move past your ‘training’”. I suddenly realized that he was correct.
Back when I was just starting down this path, I resolved to learn all I could about the craft of writing. I wanted my mind to subconsciously start adding things into my stories, helping me to foreshadow, plot, to write better than I was. And to my own credit, it worked. Though I still have a lot to learn and all of my writing will still need plenty of editing, I know that my writing has improved by jumps and leaps in the last year. Unfortunately, it also means that the Writers Curse has hit me.
Yes, writing is such a dangerous vocation that we have our own curse associated with it. I was told by a few of my favourite authors (both of whom I respect, for their impressive skill and because they both deign to discuss the art and craft of writing with me on occasion), Philippa Ballantine and S.M. Stirling, that the worst part about learning all about the craft was that eventually you reach a point where you can’t look at something just on an ‘entertaining/not entertaining’ level anymore. In my arrogance, I heard this but never really thought it would happen to me. Had I not been trying to do this for over two years at that point? I still enjoyed most of my old books and it couldn’t really happen to me anyway. Well, from my wisened old position of 3 years (face palm), I can tell you that it sucks.
Things that I used to like? They’re only okay. The product hasn’t changed since I bought it and yet, when I read them, I’m invariably putting them down, making excuses for not going back to them. Things I didn’t like are getting cleared out and given away. Things that I like… well, the ones I’m willing to go back to over and over again are becoming fewer and farther between.
It’s actually bothersome to realize that I cannot simply turn off my mind and enjoy a book or movie anymore, to know that for now at least, I’m too critical to enjoy many of the arts. I can only hope that soon I’ll either grow past it or that I’ll learn to embrace it.
Today is one of those days when I wouldn’t mind using #FML as a hashtag on Twitter. Not that its even been that bad of a day. All in all, it’s been a good day actually. I finished Nanowrimo with 56,331 words, an awesome total. In addition, I came in twelveth overall in the city for those that hang out on the Nanowrimo forums, and probably the top 20 of writers in Calgary if we count those who don’t. I had a friend visit today, last night was a TGIO party… all in all, it’s been excellent. The main problem stems from me. I have made a deal with my body; If it works harder for me in November, I’ll let it rest in December. So I still feel like I’m running on fumes, 7 days later… though it is getting better.
As if to make it worse, I’ve also been hit by a light bout of insomnia. It means that if I don’t head to sleep the moment I feel tired, I wake back up immediately. Normally this would be counted as extra writing time, but in December, it starts weighing on me, since I actually need to work. On the other hand, at least insomnia never lasts more than three to five days for me so I do know that simply waiting it out is a viable plan.
I do have more vacation coming up at the end of the month (Yes more… I take all my vacation late in the year) which will give me some good time to catch up on all the writing I’m not doing right now. This is why I’m not feeling too guilty about taking 15 – 20 days off to recover from the work of Nanowrimo. And what was that? Writing?
Yes, I have completely stopped writing… I need to get myself back into it, and this blog is a vital step towards that. I find that one of the hardest parts of Nano is to start writing again after December rolls around. However, I am going to make some promises to you guys.
1. I will be writing this year, and much more this month than in November.
2. I will have my novel rough draft finished for the end of February.
3. My music reviews will hence forth be finished within two weeks of receiving them.
4. This novel will be edited and I will start sending it out to publishers before the end of next year. In fact, if I’m lucky, I’ll have it done pre-SiWC 2011.
As for my story? Well, it’s actually been a roaring success this year. I am working on Chapter 14, of a probable 30 Chapter book, so I’m almost half way there. I have a complete story so far. Not much in the way of subplots… more a mention of such here and there. My story has thus far been written in order and the chapters are coming out mostly of a reasonable length (about 4K worth of words). The plot is making sense, I have good explanations for my world building that is fitting in. The only thing I’m somewhat disappointed in is that thus far, I’ve alluded to the war that the vampires are in but I haven’t actually come out and said it. This will need to rectified and will probably include me writing in a new character, a commander in the war on the side of the vampires.
I feel that my writing is definitely improving this year and with every book I write, it gets easier and easier to put together a cohesive story that works.
On a non-nanowrimo front, I have finished reading the High King of Montival now and while I can say that it is one of the best books I’ve ever read, I am quite annoyed with SM Stirling. This was originally going to be the end of the series… apparently now there are another two books coming out. While I love reading more of his books, which makes this somewhat a good thing, it is also a bit of an annoyance, since I was thought I was going to read the incredible and satisfying conclusion. Ah well, I can’t be really annoyed… it was too good a book for me to be actually annoyed! For those of you who asked, I have now started reading Geist and its almost as good as High King of Montival. I’ll review it as soon as I’m finished it and have just a bit of time.
In closing, How was nano for you? Did you get anything written? What have you learned about your noveling over the last nano? What books are you reading and what books do you think I need to review for you?
My first conference ever and it turned out to be incredible. I arrived a few days early and got to visit my Mom for a day and then I ran out to visit with a writerly friend of mine. We sat in and chatted all night and even watched the craft. She gave me a brilliant little rock light (I’ll see about including a picture in my next blog) and then the next day we headed out and went shopping. Now, me and her are probably the only girls in the world who can go out shopping, and come home with the oddest things. I came back with flavoured honeys, a mini cast-iron cauldron (I’ve always wanted some), a gorgeous card and an oracle deck. Wonderful stuff, but definitely not your usual run of the mill shopping.
After I got to the conference the first thing I did was get my info for the weekend and then register for my hotel. While waiting to register, I struck up a conversation with the woman in front of me. She was attending the conference as well. Nervous, I asked her if it was her first year. I should have known better… she was a publisher of children’s books and a presenter. It was all right though. I made up for it by remembering to ask her what she was working on that excited her. Really the weekend only went up from there.
The class on Thursday was next to useless though. It was touted as a revision course, but it was actually just rewriting scenes. Had I not paid extra for it, I would have left the class and taken a different one. On the other hand, I met Samantha Herne, a great writer who also podcasts. She was a really great gal and I loved talking with her. Friday was great. The courses were always good and Patrick Taylors course on “How not to write a successful series” was incredible. Saturday was awesome as well, and I started getting my name out there. The big incredible thing for me on Saturday was my “Blue Pencil” meeting… a chance to meet with CC Humpreys. He took a look at my work, we chatted and he complimented my writing. He said, “No, your work is quite good. You’ve managed to make it all really creepy without actually saying anything creepy. That’s how to do it if you’re going to.” Let me tell you, I was so excited, I was practically bouncing.
At least until Saturday Dinner. I found Samantha Herne at dinner that night and sat down at her table… only to realize that she also had two authors, an editor and an agent sharing the table. The other girls at the table were more like me, in various stages of unpublishment (I think I’ve created a new word). Regardless, they were all awesome, and great to talk to. Table 7 rocks, does it not ladies? I was going to go and see the forensics stuff after dinner, but I was invited up for cocktails by the girls… and when an agent and author ask you if you want to join them for cocktails, the universal answer is “Yes”.
Great evening, absolutely incredible. The keynote speakers for Saturday were amazing (especially since I was sitting with both of them that evening as well)! Sunday was great as well. Ivan Coyote asked about “ways to motivate yourself to write” in her class and I suggested my favourite motivator, Nanowrimo. The last 20 minutes of the class were taken up with talk about Nanowrimo (she takes part) and sharing awesome Nano-related stories.
At the final lunch, it was fun, but sorta sad. We knew the fun was coming to an end soon. Robert Dugoni sent us away on the right note though “Today, we WRITE!” Should I ever get a copy of his speech, I will ask him if I can repost it here. The best speech ever! I wish I’d gotten a copy of it. Also, I even won a prize! A set of four books from Mira publishing and a reusable book bag followed me home in addition to the books I got there (Eeeek! I got Vlad the Impaler signed by CC Humpreys, who wished me luck on my book and the Skystone signed by Jack Whyte). Definitely an incredible weekend. I even got a potted plant from my Mom. Gorgeous Red and Yellow flowers… I only hope I can keep it alive.
The trip was more than worth it and I really hope that I can make it out for next year.
Also, very quickly, I bought Geist today (a picture will go up next time), The High King of Montival, and a copy of Warbreaker. My husband bought me a Nano gift as well… an awesome 15 minute hourglass timer with black sand! I got myself an awesome Moleskin journal as well… Dark blue with map lines on it. Just the thing to get my mind thinking and ready to write!
It’s been a while since I last posted, so let’s get started. Today I’m going to break the first rule and show not tell.
First off is a video today. As I’m certain you’ve all heard if you’ve been paying attention to my site is that Philippa Ballantines book, Geist is coming out, with a Canadian release date of October 26, 2010. I cannot wait to see it come out and in fact, I think that I’ll be making it my “nano-treat”. I do have a great little treat for all of you though. Philippa Ballantine and Tee Morris have gotten together and made a book trailer and if you haven’t seen it before it’s great.
Personally I’m not really sure how to look at these “book trailers” . On the outside it appears to be a really good idea, but I’m not sure if it is. On one hand I have always felt that’s really interesting to see what the author envisioned but on the other some people may be disappointed with a given book simply because the promise made in the video is different than the promise made in the book. While it doesn’t happen often with book covers when it does it can make a really good book come off as a cheap hack. On the other hand when this is done right it can make the book seem even better knowing not only have the author saw the book but how you saw it as well.
So basically I’m on the fence about this one and I’ll keep you updated as to when I make a permanent decision on whether these are good or bad. In the meantime though watch Philippa‘s video that I’ve put up on here. I guarantee that you won’t be disappointed. A friend at my work is going to be picking up the book as well, based solely on how interesting the cover picture is. I’m very impressed.
A lot of people are coming up with very interesting ways to show how much they love nanowrimo, and with the boards back up they have ample opportunity to share their creations with the world. One of my friends, whom I will refer to here as “Tim of the Awesome” has been put in novels around the world in a nano challenge the last couple of years. As he puts it nowadays “put me in your novel, add a couple thousand words and let the awesome flow.” While I heartily suggest putting Tim in your novel that’s not actually why I’m mentioning him today.
Tim (known as Hero on the nano forums) wrote a parody of that old spice commercial. Here it is for your viewing pleasure.
Hello Wrimos.
Look at your novel, now back to mine, now back at your novel, now back to MINE.
Sadly, it isn’t mine, but if you started writing 1667 words a day it could be as long as mine.
Look down, back up, where are you? You’re at your computer WITH THE NOVEL YOUR NOVEL COULD LOOK LIKE.
What’s in your hand? Back at me. It’s the remains of your silenced inner editor.
Look again.
THE EDITOR IS NOW DIAMONDS!
Anything is possible with NaNoWriMo.
I’m on a forum.
Definitely awesome is it not? I’ve heard that Tim may be planning on doing a live commercial version of this… if he does I will definitely have the video linked if not posted here. If you like this though go over to the nano forums and show Hero some love.
Another gentleman is making waves is one of the Toronto-Wrimo’s who uses the handle Errol. His new video, “good’Ol nanowrimo” is another brilliant example of people supporting things they love, doing it in creative ways and getting the word out there. Here’s the link for it.
I’ll be making my own video to go along with these “showing the love” examples later this week.
In other news, I finally finished reading Brandon Sanderson’s “the way of Kings”. All I can say on this is that the book is brilliant, well written, intelligent and thought-provoking. The only part that I wonder if it could’ve been done better is how he told Kaladin’s story. He did a present scene followed by a past scene for most of it. While it did work it didn’t seem to come off quite as smoothly as it could have, although I definitely don’t know how or if it could’ve been done better in this particular medium. Definitely a good read and I suggest you read it.
Finally I just want to quickly mention once more SIWC. I will be heading out next week on Tuesday for the beautiful lands of Abbotsford, Canada. I’ll be staying with a variety of friends and family for Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday I will be on-site signing in for my hotel room and preparing for my class on revision in the rewrite. I contacted the teacher last night and got homework help me prepare for the class. While it was a little overwhelming, it did raise my expectations of the class. I look forward to learning quite a bit and improving my novel in brilliant ways. If any of you are taking that course or will be over at the SIWC for the weekend look me up. I’d love to meet some of you in person.
Sorry I’ve been gone for a while. I’ve recently started a new diet, hoping to get my body healthy and perhaps even off its addiction to sugar. Because of that (and because I’m finally seeing some evidence of it working) I’m not sure if I’ve been feeling ill due to actually catching a summer cold or if my body is cleansing, a term I’ve heard used that means “flushing out unwanted/unneeded chemical buildup from the body” . I’m guessing that it’s actually a cold since last night I had a touch of fever and I’ve started developing a headache along with a few muscle aches as well. Either way, that’s a small excuse for my delay in posting.
Sometimes I really wish that I’d been smarter a year ago than I am now. You see, last year, severely understaffed at work, I decided that my “minor” aches and pains could be ignored. So, when I started having trouble clenching and unclenching my hands (more so my right than my left), I got annoyed at my hands. I didn’t attempt to slow down… after all, if it only bothered me when I attempted to use a dishcloth or a pencil I was fine. I use a computer every day and it wasn’t as though the inability to unclench or fully grasp something was stopping me from typing after all. I was also trying to write as much as I could on my breaks and whenever I wasn’t working.
Now those of you who have had tendonitis before are probably already wincing in horror. After all, most people would consider the inability to use their hands a relatively serious condition. I really have no excuse other than to say that I was obviously abusing myself for no better reason than I didn’t want to disappoint anyone, either my bosses or myself. When my hand finally started hurting just to type though, I had to stop. I worked till the end of the day and then went into the doctors to see what was up. It was then that I found out the cold hard truth that I still live with today. There is no cure for tendonitis, in fact, Western Medicine doesn’t even have a fool proof way of dealing with the pain.
I ended up having to take a week off, in which I was told to not use my hand at all. For the first day or so, I tried to peck the keys like a chicken, using the two-finger style so popular among the aged who never used a computer until they were adults and aren’t interested in learning such a skill now. Even so, I would occasionally forget and the pain would flare up, and I would put away the computer hoping that reading would help. At the end of the first week, I went back to work on light duties… which meant that I spent the next week or two printing off emails, since sorting paper required too much use for my hand to be of any help.
Nowadays, my hand still hurts, even though I started taking better care of my hand after that. I suppose that once you’ve damaged your hand that badly it never truly heals. Which is why weeks like this one, I remember that I really need to start using my DragonNaturally Speaking program on a more regular basis. The ability to let my hands rest for evenings at a time (if not the days my hands would like) would be immensely helpful. I don’t know about you guys, but one day, I would like to be able to live pain free.
In other news, I have finally begun actual editing on my Seirei story. I have finished a rough draft of the book, and now I’m going through and putting my scenes in order, writing new scenes that I realize need to be added and making certain that everything is ready for a polishing rewrite.
I understand that I’m probably using the terms wrong, which annoys me, but stick with me or better yet, correct me if you can. This is my first time really working on editing a manuscript. I had tried once before, but I was trying to edit for content and doing line editing at the same time. Later, my notes were a mess (as though the story itself wasn’t already) and I could hardly read them. That first novel should never see the light of day, but it did teach me that edits should be done, first for missing content, then a second time for altered content, and thereafter for line edits.
Yes, Holly Lisle may be disappointed with me for doing 3 edits, when she can do it all in one, but the way I look at it, she’d probably just be impressed that I was trying to get it done and out professionally. On the other hand, I’m hoping to take her classes eventually, and perhaps after I’m more used to the editing process all around, I can try her One-Pass Edit style.
On a final note, I have been listening to a book recently, that I would like to endorse wholeheartedly. I first found out about this book from Philippa Ballantine on Facebook, when she mentioned that she was hoping to read it soon. Knowing that I love what she writes, I decided to take a chance that we’d have similar reading preference. I’m still not certain if we do, since this book seems much more like Science Fiction than a Fantasy, but either way, the book is worth finding.
Called www: Wake, this book by Robert J. Sawyer is brilliant. I’m about ¾ way through it and it’s awesome. The idea is that a girl who has been blind from birth receives a new bit of technology that allows her not only to see the world she lives in, but the world wide web as well. It’s a great science fiction tale that revolves around the themes of consciousness, vision and the idea of how do we decide what is sentient and what is not.
I haven’t reached the end yet, but I am willing to say immediately, go out and buy this book. I have the audio version and I don’t think I can rave enough about this novel! I’m enjoying it so much that I’ve already bought the second book in the series, www:Watch because I know that if its anything like my Wake, I’ll love it!
I’ll be waiting eagerly for the conclusion to the trilogy, www:Wonder, coming out soon!
A few of you following me may have noticed something this week… That’s right. I changed my Twitter account from B_A_Matthews to BA_Matthews. Why? Well that’s simple. I had it set up for a different name originally. Now of course, I changed it and while it reads correctly on their page, it does not when I try to use it to validate web responses or posts. Having spent a few days trying to correct and change it permanently, I finally decided that I would be better served just starting a new account and closing my old one. Thus, the old account should have reached the end of its run on Friday, August 13, 2010. The new one is already up and I’m tweeting there already, so jump on the bandwagon and follow me (BA_Matthews). Also thank you so much to PhilippaJane (of Chasing the Bard fame) who was the first person to receive my message about my changing twitter account and set about following me on the new one.
Speaking of Philippa Ballantine, I follow her blog and though it was hard for her to ask, she had a request for all her readers. Since I’m not published yet, I’m sending the request through to you! Philippa’s new book, Geist (a paranormal romance) is coming out in October this year and I’ll be pre-ordering a copy for myself in just a few days after I get my paycheck. Her publishing company has already purchased the second book in the series from her (sorry, no set release date to my knowledge), and they are considering whether to contract her for the final two books that Philippa has planned in the series. Since I can’t wait to read this new book, I’d like you to help me let the publishing company know that her fans are eagerly awaiting this new series. The best part is that you don’t need to do anything to difficult. No writing letters to the publisher or pre-ordering her book. So what do you have to do? It’s easy. Just walk into your local bookstore, whether independent or a chain (personally I always head to my local Chapters), and ask about Geist. The bookstores will do the rest!
Moving back onto my stuff, I must admit, I haven’t gotten as much done the last day or so as I could have and I’m firmly blaming life for yesterday at least. I got home and collapsed into a sleep so deep that I didn’t walk up until the next morning. I tend to treat my body as though it were some sort of machine usually, as though it won’t break down or get tired. Couple that with the fact that I only tend to get 5 – 6 hours of sleep on weeknights (a little more on weekends) and it means that when my body finally demands a night of sleep I tend to give it what it wants. In my way of thinking it’s easier than trying to actually get 8 hours of sleep every night. One screw up night every month and I get about 2 extra hours every other day seems like a pretty good trade off to me.
This weekend looks as though it’s going to be a nice writing full one for me as well. I want to finish my Memories written in Moonlight novel this month. I have an assortment of about 10 chapters total to write or re-write before I can start doing a content edit of the book. Since I would like to have this novel done (or nearly done) to show Sandra Chang (Editor at Tor Books that I’ll be meeting with at SiWC) in October, I really have to kick my ass to get myself working on it. I will also be spending some time on my Dual Melodies storyline, given a chance, I’d like to kick out another chapter of that this weekend. I’d also like to work on the last bit of editing for Chapter 2 of Dual Melodies so I can put that out for you (or at least, part 1 of Chapter 2) this weekend. I’m also working on a poem to send in SiWC before September. Fortunately, the poem is finished, and I just need to play around with the editing and tighten up the wordcraft a bit on that. The last I plan on working on this weekend is a short story (no more than 8K words) for Pirates/Sorcery submission I heard about on “Get Published” earlier this week. They’ll be accepting submissions in November, and I want to have it ready to go on or just after November 1. In addition to the above, I have a Dark Urban Fantasy that I stopped working on last November in favour of my Seirei story… I think that I would like to pick that up again and finish it.
In addition, me and my husband will be going to see “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World” on Tuesday… I’ll let you know about that one if it’s any good, although I’ve heard brilliant things about it! Plus, housework over the weekend, and a few family visits. Yep, a very busy weekend, but honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Oh, two more things! SM Stirlings book, “The High King of Montival” will be coming out on September 7, 2010. It’s the final book in his Emberverse series and is setting itself up to brilliant! I’ve pre-ordered mine (and one for my Father who also loves the series). I suggest pre-ordering the book or buying it on its opening day. When publishers and reviewers see a novel get a lot of notice its first day out, they tend to pay it a lot more attention and this series deserves that interest. Also the pagan band Omnia’s newest album, Wolf Love, is coming out either this month or next. These guys are my favourite band out there (sharing that position with Gaia Consort, now known as the Bone Poets Orchestra). If I’m lucky, I’ll get to be the one to do the review of their new album for PRN! Check out this band and give them a listen to my favourite song, Alive on You-tube. You can’t go wrong picking up one of their albums!
Until my next blog, keep writing and I’ll see you next time!
Today, while listening to Writing Excuses podcast on style editing, I realized that I tend to remove too much of my voice during the editing process. I took the advice to heart that I was going to want to leave everything in and that I was going to have to be super hard with myself to come out with anything good. Realizing that this was what I tended to do my writing made me stop for a moment though. I know I need a few classes in editing properly, but until I can take those classes, this was excessively useful. It reminds me that my style is what will get readers to stick with me and that by trying to remove my voice from my writing, all I’m really doing is a disservice to myself. By doing that, all I’m telling others and even worse, proving to myself are those dark fears that my style isn’t good enough. Telling myself “I am…” is the fastest way to make it so. Therefore I’m going to stop that immediately, and instead work on a plan to counteract the flaw.
It also reminded me that there are different types of editing, and that until I’m better at editing I may want to take the time to do all three instead of slopping all of them together. It’s something worth thinking about, and something that I think will help my writing immensely as soon as I puzzle out how to do it properly. More on this when I give it a try on my next bit of writing to come out, I’m sure.
I found the time to go see Inception as well, earlier this week, and I must admit that I was impressed. And even though I also gave Sorcerer’s Apprentice a good review, please don’t think that means I give most movies a good review. In general, I’m actually pretty tough on my movies and movies only get a really good rating if they were exceptional. Let me say now, that Inception is.
It’s not just the CG (which is amazing) or the acting (which was emotionally charged), or even the way it left you feeling (incredible and active)… no, what really stood out for me here was the story told and the rules given. You can’t carry a movie on CG or good acting alone… there has to be an engaging story and the movie can’t break the disbelief, otherwise it has failed in its task.
As an example, while I enjoyed the movie “Avatar”, there were a few moments that pulled me away from the movie. Why send in ground troops for an aerial bombing? Why not blast the area from space? Why “Unobtainium” and is that strange metal related to “Atmospherium” of The-Lost-Skeleton-of-Cadavra fame? Why were the aliens humanoid in shape when almost every other native creature had at least 6 limbs (a throwback of genetics, perhaps)? On the other hand, character motivations were good, the acting was good, the new technology succeeded. To quote Howard Taylor (Schlock Mercenary and Writing Excuses podcast) “It was the best ‘Fern Gully’ remake, ever!”
It was good, but it left me with too many bad queries, questioning the science, the intelligence of the enemies or the intelligence of the writers (Open Rant – Unobtainium… I still can’t get over that. Come up with something different. “Garonomium” or “Skotepinium” perhaps. I don’t care if it sounds silly, so long as it’s not an obviously understandable word with the last letter or three taken off and “-ium” tacked on the end – End Rant). Now, following the common book saying that a gun seen in the first act must be used in the second, I’ll compare this to Inception.
The technology in Inception, while not described fully, was good. It had its own jargon, equipment and uses which were explained as they became pertinent to the story. And they did this smoke and mirrors well enough that you don’t even notice it being done. The story is solid and even with the “apprentice” character introductions to what you can do with the technology and the inevitable “working montage”, the story wouldn’t have been complete without it. The characters were intelligent and even the apprentice caught on quickly. I can’t think of an instance where anybody got caught by the same mistake twice. Even the character whose flaws were noticeable compensated for their arrival whenever he could.
The movie didn’t break disbelief fortunately; the scenes looked awesome and were done brilliantly and they were all stitched together seamlessly. The only scene that almost took me out for a moment was a single gunfight near the end of the movie where I thought it was unreasonable and added in simply to hype up the movie goers. Even in that instance, directly after the fight they explained why the scene had been necessary and discussed how they were to deal with the repercussions drawn up from it. I loved the chance The characters all stuck to their motivations and yet, I don’t think any of them were obviously cliché. They looked, acted and felt real because the scriptwriters took the time to make them so and the actors furthered this by truly getting into their roles. Even Leonardo DiCaprio gave a worthy performance!
If you were wondering whether to see this movie, I would suggest doing so. If you only see one movie this summer make it this one.
In other news, I ran into a friend of mine from the Nanowrimo group here in Calgary yesterday (Hey Kai!). I was quite embarrassed since I had convinced her to participate in Julno, and then had done so badly at it myself. I haven’t done an actual count yet, but I think my total in fiction words is sitting at 2 – 5K for the month. Now, I know this happens every year at this time and I had been hoping to break myself out of the rhythm. While I wasn’t able to succeed, this gentle nudge (perhaps more of a trip since she managed to get about 25K and she started on the 16th) from my friend reminded me that I do have control of this, and that while I may like to say “I get Writer’s Block from May to September”, it’s not true. I get a severe case of procrastination and don’t WANT to do anything during this time.
I did manage to come up with a plan to help me out which mainly involves me listening to podcasts designed to kick my butt, get me thinking and therefore writing again. Writing Excuses isn’t quite as good for this (since I’ve listened to every episode 2-3 times now… What can I say… I get very bored at work), so I pulled out the big guns. An old episode of Tee Morris’s Podcast “The Survival Guide to Writing Fantasy”, aptly named, “Easy Distrac- – Oh hey, A Butterfly!”. While the podcast is now over, I really enjoyed it and he’s been kind enough to leave up the audio files. This episode details how what I’m doing is definitely procrastination. And while Writing Excuses gets me eager to write, Tee’s way of slapping you in the face and reminding you that if you want to write for a living then you have to consider it a business is exactly what I need right now. Offhand (since I’m being distracted anyway), Tee Morris has the sexiest male voice ever. Give him a listen on Chasing the Bard, a podcast novel by Philippa Ballantine and I promise, if you like sexy voices, you’ll swoon (if you like the ladies, listen for Phillipa herself… Gods that woman’s voice could make me “curious”.)
Oh, I also heard the best quote ever today. “Disneyland is like falling in love, someone’s taking your hand and you go on this enchanting evening and you look into his eyes and its all romantic and nice. Six Flags is like being repeatedly fucked hard over and over again until you just leave shaking and exhausted, but ultimately better for having that experience.” Thank you Alex Day… I think you may have just made mine.
B.A. Matthews is an amateur author hoping to make her way into the world of published works. Her novels and short stories tend to be Fantasy, slipping into Dark Fantasy often as not. She also used to write music reviews over at Pagan Radio Network (www.paganradio.net).
I am currently working on two novels, Falling through the Threshold and a book tentatively titled Dual Melodies.
B.A. Matthews tries to update her blogs once a week and her various writings under the Pages section twice a month.
