Been Lettin' Things Slide

I haven't been feeling well lately. I caught a cold which turned into Laryngitis which turned into a lingering cough which just recently began to subside. Between feeling ill and finishing draft 1 copy editing I haven't even been twittering, let alone actually sitting down to write a blog entry. Hopefully that's in the past.

This summer has been marked by injuries for me. Of course I was almost run over by an SUV and bunged up my knee in the process, I think I mentioned that some time ago, but I also fell down a flight of stairs at my friend's place in Toronto. Fortunately I am on the mend and my maligned left leg has regained enough stability that I have started doing Qigong again.

Hold the boat you say, Skeptical Simon, who maligns spiritualism does Qigong?!?

Ok, well let me explain, I practice a form of Qigong called Iron Thread which combines breath control with isodynamic exercise. It is a good workout with meditative qualities that are beneficial. It does, however, involve low stances and puts a fair amount of pressure on the knees and ankles, the two things I injured.

Getting back to the point where I could comfortably do this again was a watermark for my recovery.

Turning to other things, as I alluded to previously I have finished copy editing draft 1 of my novel. Another of my beta-readers has volume 1 while Pam finishes up on volume 2. Once I get Volume 1 back from my beta-reader I will be getting to work on inputting the changes and incorporating beta-reader commentary into the master copy of the book. Then it'll be time to print draft 2 and pass it around to more of my beta-readers.

My planned writer's group seems to be coming to fruition. I have now got 3 serious responses to my adverts. I'm working on trying to arrange a time for the four of us to meet and hash out the structure. I'm very excited. If you are in the London, Canada area and are yourself working on a non-fan fic speculative fiction project and you are interested let me know. You can post a comment here on the blog saying you are interested or you can reach me through facebook; I am reticent to post my email address to the blog at this time but you can find it on the notices posted at every branch of the London Public Library.

In the political world Canada is aflutter with rumours of impending election. Too bad the only party worth voting for doesn't run candidates outside of Quebec. Outside of Canada all eyes are on Honduras.

If you don't know, the situation is this:

The rightful president of Honduras, Zelaya, came from a center-right party. After assuming the presidency his politics shifted strongly to the left due to the crushing poverty that right-wing, pro-business interests had caused for the majority of the Honduran population.

The hammer fell when Zelaya tried to propose a referrendum on whether to hold an assembly to discuss changes to the constitution. The conservative factions lied and claimed Zelaya was trying to extend his term beyond the constitutionally allowed two terms. The conservative supreme court then convicted him without trial and had the military exile him in direct contravention of the very same constitution they claimed to be protecting.

Well, needless to say, every South American state (excepting Colombia if I recall correctly) has opposed this blatantly illegal coup d'etat. Recently Zelaya returned to Honduras and has received shelter in the Brazilian embassy. The response of the Junta? Tear gas the Brazilian embassy.

Disgusting.

Please write to your member of parliament, your congressman, or (for my readers outside of Canada and the USA) your duly elected representative and call on them to act against the band of thugs who overthrew the democratically elected President of Honduras so that they could keep the people poor and the small elite rich.

District 9

No blog yesterday because by the time I got home from District 9 I was too wiped to write anything. I am not going to give away any details about the movie because I hate it when people do that but I am going to say this:

Go to see this movie.

It was the best science fiction movie made this decade.

Seriously.

The best.

Hands down.

I do like hard Sci Fi. I really do (unsurprising for a Sci Fi author I suppose) and I have seen a lot of science fiction movies. This beat nearly all of them. It did so by doing what Science Fiction does best: taking contemporary, down to earth issues, and then expressing them through a lense of the fantastic.

Now, fair warning, this is a thinking man's splatterfest. This movie is gory and make no mistake about that. But if those who like intelligent Sci Fi can deal with the gore they will find one of the most effectively crafted tales to come out of the genre in a good long time.

For the fans of the pretty explosions and zappy lazers fair warning must also be given. This movie occasionally stops the relentless tides of violence to demonstrate the basic humanity of the protagonists and to provide well-handled social commentary on contemporary issues such as racism, poverty and genocide.

I will say that Neil Blokamp and Peter Jackson have crafted an uncompromising movie. It is unsurprising that some critics have panned it. I have to express my disagreement with them.
Regardless of how they are percieved by Mr. White, the Prawns are not Spielberg-type aliens. I would say more but that might provide spoilers.

Anyway, I fully intend to get the DVD as soon as it comes out. This is a movie to watch more than once.

In other news, I finished another two chapters in the endless saga of copy-editing my novel. I have my edit-copy coil bound in two volumes and these two chapters represent the end of editing of the first of these volumes. I am also getting feedback from beta-readers about the book which leaves me very optimistic for it's eventual fate while (thankfully) providing me with lots of useful stuff to consider for the second draft.

I've already decided to rewrite the first three chapters in order to include two of the protagonists who were previously introduced in chapter 5 earlier.

Finally I have finally got a response about the writer's group I have been trying to form. Looks like this thing might actually go somewhere after all!