Yesterday we went to the first of two parties we have in the works for the Labour Day weekend. This one was a dinner party at my parents' house. A couple of very old friends came into town and we had Estofado de Cerdo (Cuban Pork Stew), drinks and conversation.
Today is, in theory, rest day for us before tomorrow when we are going to another party, the previously mentioned Mahjong and hot pot party with Mark and Jasmine. Of course we still have stuff to do so it's not going to be an entirely restful day.
Reading Simon R. Green's "Daemons are Forever". It's an entertaining enough book, though rather derivative. The primary antagonists of the novel are 'Loathy Ones' who look like, act like, and are occasionally referred to as Kandarian Demons.
One of these days I will get to Evil Dead: The Musical and I will have front-row seats. Just not any time soon as it has left Toronto and is unlikely to ever tour through London.
Hopefully I can get some more editing done today. I didn't get any work done yesterday, with preparation for the party and all, and it is unlikely I'll get much, if anything done on it tomorrow.
Showing posts with label speculative fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label speculative fiction. Show all posts
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Bloggers at the Black Shire
It turns out that many of the local bloggers actually have a once-a-month meeting at my local pub. So I had a fun night out and got to meet a bunch of interesting people.
Anyway, got my hands on the latest issue of 'Skeptical Inquirer' today. It has some very good articles in it. There is an exceptional article discussing the flaws with research into correlations between violent media (particularly video games) and aggression.
Now my position is that violent media has been with us as long as media. The earliest extant written work in the English language, Beowulf, involves a graphic depiction of a troll getting his arm ripped clean off. Three of the four classics of Chinese literature contain graphic violence.
Shakespeare, the Bard himself, didn't shy away from the blood when Henry V exhorts his men into the breach even if they rebuild the wall with the bodies of the dead.
Now most video games are not Shakespeare. Even games based on classics of literature (Dynasty Warriors, I'm looking at you) tend to have... sub-standard... plot and dialogue. However the mass nature of the media does not change the fact that the violence is really no different.
Our stories should reflect the human experience, the love, anger, boredom, wonder, sex, violence, fear and joy of life. Censoring a medium, trying to restrict the stories we tell each other says much more about the would-be censor than it does of the people who consume the medium.
There was also an interesting article about the dreaded death-by-cellphone-rf issue. I have never subscribed to this particular fear even before I saw the science behind why this is a non-issue. Now that I have been exposed to said science I see that my lack of fear was well founded.
Speaking of fear...
We must all tremble because fake-rock-fabricator turned pyramid-power author Wayne Herschel is talking to the non-existent moderators of Wikipedia to get me and my shadowy cabal of manipulative manipulators banned. I'm really scared now...
Editing my book is going slower than I would have hoped. Copy-editing is the worst part of the writing process. To bad spell-checkers and grammar-checkers suck.
Anyway, got my hands on the latest issue of 'Skeptical Inquirer' today. It has some very good articles in it. There is an exceptional article discussing the flaws with research into correlations between violent media (particularly video games) and aggression.
Now my position is that violent media has been with us as long as media. The earliest extant written work in the English language, Beowulf, involves a graphic depiction of a troll getting his arm ripped clean off. Three of the four classics of Chinese literature contain graphic violence.
Shakespeare, the Bard himself, didn't shy away from the blood when Henry V exhorts his men into the breach even if they rebuild the wall with the bodies of the dead.
Now most video games are not Shakespeare. Even games based on classics of literature (Dynasty Warriors, I'm looking at you) tend to have... sub-standard... plot and dialogue. However the mass nature of the media does not change the fact that the violence is really no different.
Our stories should reflect the human experience, the love, anger, boredom, wonder, sex, violence, fear and joy of life. Censoring a medium, trying to restrict the stories we tell each other says much more about the would-be censor than it does of the people who consume the medium.
There was also an interesting article about the dreaded death-by-cellphone-rf issue. I have never subscribed to this particular fear even before I saw the science behind why this is a non-issue. Now that I have been exposed to said science I see that my lack of fear was well founded.
Speaking of fear...
We must all tremble because fake-rock-fabricator turned pyramid-power author Wayne Herschel is talking to the non-existent moderators of Wikipedia to get me and my shadowy cabal of manipulative manipulators banned. I'm really scared now...
Editing my book is going slower than I would have hoped. Copy-editing is the worst part of the writing process. To bad spell-checkers and grammar-checkers suck.
Monday, August 31, 2009
The joys of novel writing
So I'm reading through my first draft and I realize that I drop one of the main characters about half way through the book. He's just... gone.
Now the book is the first volume of a trilogy and he has lots more stuff to do in the later books but it just left the book feeling unbalanced. So I took a longer chapter that needed some splitting, cut it in half and tacked 2500 words about him to the end of the first half.
This solves the problem of having not enough about this crucial character and, simultaneously, provides me with an even 20 chapters. I like that number.
It also brings the novel up to 96000 words which is edging on the upper limit of what I wanted but that's alright too long is better than too short at this point.
I have had a request to post a short story up here. I may do so sometime in the next few weeks but it will take some time. Although I do have some short story ideas I want to flesh out the novel has to take priority and, at this point, it needs more work.
Turning to Wikipedia, I've been very active in a discussion on the notability of this random pseudo-scientist from South Africa. This guy touts this nonsense about how all the pyramids in the world are starmaps and, well, the whole ancient astronauts thing. Anyway I seem to have angered his fan club and they are now accusing me of having a vendetta against him.
A little hint to the "pyramid power!!!" people: I don't even remember this guy's name when I am not looking at it on my watchlist. That is how unimportant he is to me. I don't know him, don't care about him, and don't have anything against him. He could very well be a very sociable fellow in real life. But his books should be shelved in Sci-Fi / Fantasy. And apparently a very small number of people think his hair-brained theories are actually real! And that is just silly.
L. Ron Hubbard silly.
Just made plans for Labour Day. Huo Guo and Mahjong with some good friends of mine. It's going to be sweet.
Now the book is the first volume of a trilogy and he has lots more stuff to do in the later books but it just left the book feeling unbalanced. So I took a longer chapter that needed some splitting, cut it in half and tacked 2500 words about him to the end of the first half.
This solves the problem of having not enough about this crucial character and, simultaneously, provides me with an even 20 chapters. I like that number.
It also brings the novel up to 96000 words which is edging on the upper limit of what I wanted but that's alright too long is better than too short at this point.
I have had a request to post a short story up here. I may do so sometime in the next few weeks but it will take some time. Although I do have some short story ideas I want to flesh out the novel has to take priority and, at this point, it needs more work.
Turning to Wikipedia, I've been very active in a discussion on the notability of this random pseudo-scientist from South Africa. This guy touts this nonsense about how all the pyramids in the world are starmaps and, well, the whole ancient astronauts thing. Anyway I seem to have angered his fan club and they are now accusing me of having a vendetta against him.
A little hint to the "pyramid power!!!" people: I don't even remember this guy's name when I am not looking at it on my watchlist. That is how unimportant he is to me. I don't know him, don't care about him, and don't have anything against him. He could very well be a very sociable fellow in real life. But his books should be shelved in Sci-Fi / Fantasy. And apparently a very small number of people think his hair-brained theories are actually real! And that is just silly.
L. Ron Hubbard silly.
Just made plans for Labour Day. Huo Guo and Mahjong with some good friends of mine. It's going to be sweet.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
More on Brust
As I mentioned in my last post I've been reading a book called "Dzur" by Steven Brust. Now part of what I enjoy about Brust is his willingness to experiment with the structural elements of his books.
Within this particular volume each chapter is preceded by a short passage recounting a course of an extravagant meal the protagonist has at the beginning of the story. Now I love to cook and so I find this particular peculiarity to be especially pleasant.
I've even tried my hand at cooking a dish derived from this fantasy feast and it worked quite well; Mr. Brust seems to have at least enough knowledge of good cooking to devise recipes nearly as novel as his books.
The other thing I like about Brust is that he keeps his stories short and simple. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't get intimidated by epics. It's just that I find that some of the excesses of Robert Jordan and his ilk tend to tire after a while. A fantasy author whose books don't generally seem to exceed the 100,000 word mark is a refreshing change.
Of course there is a down-side to it. I'm almost finished!
Oh well... I guess it's to the library with me again.
Within this particular volume each chapter is preceded by a short passage recounting a course of an extravagant meal the protagonist has at the beginning of the story. Now I love to cook and so I find this particular peculiarity to be especially pleasant.
I've even tried my hand at cooking a dish derived from this fantasy feast and it worked quite well; Mr. Brust seems to have at least enough knowledge of good cooking to devise recipes nearly as novel as his books.
The other thing I like about Brust is that he keeps his stories short and simple. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't get intimidated by epics. It's just that I find that some of the excesses of Robert Jordan and his ilk tend to tire after a while. A fantasy author whose books don't generally seem to exceed the 100,000 word mark is a refreshing change.
Of course there is a down-side to it. I'm almost finished!
Oh well... I guess it's to the library with me again.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Initial Post
Well, this is it, I've finally got around to starting one of these things. I should have been blogging a while ago, I mean, it's not as if I don't like to write. I just always found that by the time I finished the writing that I hope to one day get paid for I was feeling tapped.
Anyway, I picked up a delightful new Scotch, McClelland's, which has a sharp lemon sort of nose but tastes strongly of campfire smoke and peat. I sat down for a glass and picked up a new guilty pleasure of mine. "Dzur", a novel by Steven Brust, is a tight and entertaining fantasy novel of gangsterism and soul-eating super-weapons. It is certainly worth a read.
Speaking of reading, I am now in the edit phase of the first draft of my own novel. This is the second time I've taken a crack at a long work of fiction; the first work being just barely readable enough to sheepishly show to my wife and family. This time I'm much more satisfied with the result although it requires a great deal more polishing before it's ready for an agent to look at.
Over on Wikipedia there is lots of fun coming from the Ancient Astronaut types. I just don't get why people feel this compulsive need to download rather simple feats of monolithic architecture to fictitious aliens; it just seems, well, silly. Face it people, it's not hard to build a pyramid. A basic knowledge of levers and a heap of manpower is all it takes and the ancient civilizations who built the darn things had both.
I'm all for people having an active imagination; I only become concerned when they mistake a fantasy for reality.
Well that's all for tonight, more to come in the future.
Anyway, I picked up a delightful new Scotch, McClelland's, which has a sharp lemon sort of nose but tastes strongly of campfire smoke and peat. I sat down for a glass and picked up a new guilty pleasure of mine. "Dzur", a novel by Steven Brust, is a tight and entertaining fantasy novel of gangsterism and soul-eating super-weapons. It is certainly worth a read.
Speaking of reading, I am now in the edit phase of the first draft of my own novel. This is the second time I've taken a crack at a long work of fiction; the first work being just barely readable enough to sheepishly show to my wife and family. This time I'm much more satisfied with the result although it requires a great deal more polishing before it's ready for an agent to look at.
Over on Wikipedia there is lots of fun coming from the Ancient Astronaut types. I just don't get why people feel this compulsive need to download rather simple feats of monolithic architecture to fictitious aliens; it just seems, well, silly. Face it people, it's not hard to build a pyramid. A basic knowledge of levers and a heap of manpower is all it takes and the ancient civilizations who built the darn things had both.
I'm all for people having an active imagination; I only become concerned when they mistake a fantasy for reality.
Well that's all for tonight, more to come in the future.
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