Well, almost. Next Thursday I'll be attending 'orientation' for an actual, physical day job, one which requires leaving the house for, oh, about 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Shocking, I know, but there comes a time in every young writer's life when he must pull up his britches, spit on his hands, etc., etc.
But, bonus: The job is kinda-sorta within my sphere of writing interest, so it's possible for good things to come out of it somewhere down the line. If I can make the right contacts... But now I'm getting ahead of myself.
Hey, how about some free fiction? I've been happy with my recent Elephant Words output, despite the fact (because of it?) that I've been traveling to some pretty dark places with my last few pieces. There's been straight-up reality-based horror, a bit of supernatural horror, a dash of the weird-and-creepy, and even a touch of metaphysical mystery.
But the piece I'm most fond of is this one, a direct sequel to a story I wrote last year while living in Viet Nam. It's no accident that these two are my only interrelated Elephant Words stories -- there's definitely more where they came from. I don't think I've figured out these particular ideas yet. They're still there in my mind, growing larger, moving towards each other and coalescing, like colonies in a petri dish, into something larger and more advanced. Something that would very much like to be written.
But... I still have to finish the first novel, don't I?
Lastly: Is it just me, or is The Onion getting better? First they come out with that hilarious robot overlord sketch. Then we get this fantastic article (granted, the headline's funnier than the actual text, but still). And then, just when they've got you in the comedy mood, ready and waiting for the next belly-laugh, they stab you in the goddamn heart with a genuinely powerful piece of writing.
Showing posts with label novel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label novel. Show all posts
March 30, 2008
January 1, 2008
Looking Forward
2007 was a 'transitional year'. And that's about the nicest thing I can say for it.
I got a lot of promising projects started, almost all of which have yet to come to fruition. I also started a lot of things that fell over and died horribly. Certainly, 2007 holds the undisputed record for Most Formal Rejections, Most Broken Promises, and Most Exciting Projects That Disappeared Down A Black Hole Without Any Word Of Explanation.
It was a year of hoping, trying and waiting, and there's still a lot of waiting left before I find out whether all of it was worth it.
On the other hand, I went to San Diego Comic Con, I got offered real work doing something I love, I wrote more short fiction than ever before, and I completed NaNoWriMo. I also made a few good friends in both the film and comics spheres -- a bunch of altogether excellent people who I know I can count on. You know who you are.
2008 is definitely not going to be a transitional year. No more hanging around waiting for something to happen. Quite the opposite, in fact. As most of you probably already know, I'm moving to Vancouver in a month's time.
Why Vancouver?
Well, I have friends who are also going, and the (vaguely-defined) plan is to rent a big old house together.
It's a big city, and the prospect of living in a big city is starting to sound pretty good after five years in the least cultural place on Earth.
It's within flying distance of the USA, without actually being in the USA. And there's huge opportunities there for freelance writers, or so I'd like to imagine.
But mostly, when I get right down to it, it feels like the right thing to do.
Here's to 2008.
I got a lot of promising projects started, almost all of which have yet to come to fruition. I also started a lot of things that fell over and died horribly. Certainly, 2007 holds the undisputed record for Most Formal Rejections, Most Broken Promises, and Most Exciting Projects That Disappeared Down A Black Hole Without Any Word Of Explanation.
It was a year of hoping, trying and waiting, and there's still a lot of waiting left before I find out whether all of it was worth it.
On the other hand, I went to San Diego Comic Con, I got offered real work doing something I love, I wrote more short fiction than ever before, and I completed NaNoWriMo. I also made a few good friends in both the film and comics spheres -- a bunch of altogether excellent people who I know I can count on. You know who you are.
2008 is definitely not going to be a transitional year. No more hanging around waiting for something to happen. Quite the opposite, in fact. As most of you probably already know, I'm moving to Vancouver in a month's time.
Why Vancouver?
Well, I have friends who are also going, and the (vaguely-defined) plan is to rent a big old house together.
It's a big city, and the prospect of living in a big city is starting to sound pretty good after five years in the least cultural place on Earth.
It's within flying distance of the USA, without actually being in the USA. And there's huge opportunities there for freelance writers, or so I'd like to imagine.
But mostly, when I get right down to it, it feels like the right thing to do.
Here's to 2008.
December 11, 2007
Home, Alive
Back home now, after more than a month away. I was without internet access for a week, and it hurts more and more each time. Can we hurry up with the Technological Singularity already? Okay.
I detoured to Sydney on the way back for my US visa interview. It was even more nightmarish-citizen-processing-farm than you'd expect. Two-and-a-half hours of queue up, surrender your possessions, metal detector, security questions, sit down, watch looped film, wait in line, security questions, shuffle to next room, take ticket, wait in line, surrender your forms, wait in line, digital fingerprints, take ticket, wait in line, interview, and then you wander out of the building, dazed and blinking in the middle of a hot Sydney lunch hour. I passed the time by thinking loud subversive thoughts and chatting with my fellow processees.
Xmas is coming. The novel is still in my head, ticking and whirring and rattling at the bars. CAGES is cooking along, and my Elephant Words pieces are feeling like fun again.
And hey, look! A friend of mine made a cool new vlog post: http://www.sequential-one.com/blog/?p=1393
I detoured to Sydney on the way back for my US visa interview. It was even more nightmarish-citizen-processing-farm than you'd expect. Two-and-a-half hours of queue up, surrender your possessions, metal detector, security questions, sit down, watch looped film, wait in line, security questions, shuffle to next room, take ticket, wait in line, surrender your forms, wait in line, digital fingerprints, take ticket, wait in line, interview, and then you wander out of the building, dazed and blinking in the middle of a hot Sydney lunch hour. I passed the time by thinking loud subversive thoughts and chatting with my fellow processees.
Xmas is coming. The novel is still in my head, ticking and whirring and rattling at the bars. CAGES is cooking along, and my Elephant Words pieces are feeling like fun again.
And hey, look! A friend of mine made a cool new vlog post: http://www.sequential-one.com/blog/?p=1393
November 30, 2007
November 28, 2007
Organic Storytelling
I've always been a bit of a plotter.
Not to the point of distraction, but just enough to get by. Outlines, treatments, breakdowns; whatever helps me figure out the next scene in advance, so I'm not just typing in the dark.
Not so with the novel. Thanks to the mad momentum of NaNo, I long ago passed the point of plotted scenes. And it's kinda-sorta working.
You read about novelists whose characters 'speak to them', make their decisions, even surprise the writer. Until this month, I didn't really know what they were talking about.
Today, I discovered that a major character in my story is not at all who I thought they were. In fact, they're just about to do something horribly cruel and unusual to the main character -- an act of betrayal for which the main character, the (imagined) reader and myself will probably never forgive them -- and I had no idea. I've been writing about this character for seventy-five thousand words, and I only just found out.
How cool is that?
Not to the point of distraction, but just enough to get by. Outlines, treatments, breakdowns; whatever helps me figure out the next scene in advance, so I'm not just typing in the dark.
Not so with the novel. Thanks to the mad momentum of NaNo, I long ago passed the point of plotted scenes. And it's kinda-sorta working.
You read about novelists whose characters 'speak to them', make their decisions, even surprise the writer. Until this month, I didn't really know what they were talking about.
Today, I discovered that a major character in my story is not at all who I thought they were. In fact, they're just about to do something horribly cruel and unusual to the main character -- an act of betrayal for which the main character, the (imagined) reader and myself will probably never forgive them -- and I had no idea. I've been writing about this character for seventy-five thousand words, and I only just found out.
How cool is that?
November 24, 2007
Election Day Is Tomorrow
But I've voted already.
Yes, they had a voting booth set up at the Australian embassy here in Saigon. Meanwhile, out there on the streets, anyone who so much as loiters in front of an official government building is liable to get carted away by the green-clad police.
They actually do vote here. The people get a say in who's elected to Parliament -- they just all happen to belong to the same Party. Here's where a better (less tired) writer than myself would draw an amusing parallel with the current situation in Australia, what with our two conservative parties, Rudd's apparent spinelessness, etc.
But nevermind that. The whining can wait until after Howard loses. I just wish I could be home by the TV to watch his stammering, hang-dog resignation speech, but hey, that's why god made YouTube.
I should hit 40K on NaNoWriMo (70K on the book proper) tomorrow, and it's all downhill from there, baby. It's been a lot of fun, and scary at times, but I think I'm going to be proud of this thing in the end.
Finally, I am currently obsessed with androids. There, I said it. As if writing about them in my novel every day wasn't enough, they're now making guest appearances in my Elephant Words pieces. Such as this week's (Why breaking up with an android is hard to do) and the one from two weeks ago (In the future, Saigon will be full of androids, apparently). Last week's piece did not feature androids, but if I'd kept going with that concept, it very well might have.
Yes, they had a voting booth set up at the Australian embassy here in Saigon. Meanwhile, out there on the streets, anyone who so much as loiters in front of an official government building is liable to get carted away by the green-clad police.
They actually do vote here. The people get a say in who's elected to Parliament -- they just all happen to belong to the same Party. Here's where a better (less tired) writer than myself would draw an amusing parallel with the current situation in Australia, what with our two conservative parties, Rudd's apparent spinelessness, etc.
But nevermind that. The whining can wait until after Howard loses. I just wish I could be home by the TV to watch his stammering, hang-dog resignation speech, but hey, that's why god made YouTube.
I should hit 40K on NaNoWriMo (70K on the book proper) tomorrow, and it's all downhill from there, baby. It's been a lot of fun, and scary at times, but I think I'm going to be proud of this thing in the end.
Finally, I am currently obsessed with androids. There, I said it. As if writing about them in my novel every day wasn't enough, they're now making guest appearances in my Elephant Words pieces. Such as this week's (Why breaking up with an android is hard to do) and the one from two weeks ago (In the future, Saigon will be full of androids, apparently). Last week's piece did not feature androids, but if I'd kept going with that concept, it very well might have.
November 15, 2007
21K
Oh yeah. Read the yellow typewriter and weep: 21675 words. I am now less than 1 day behind schedule.
Incidentally, this brings the total wordcount for my novel proper to over 50 thousand words. That's, like, a lot of words.
That is over half of a real goddamn novel.
To celebrate, here's some lame linkblogging:
Now: Bring on 30K!
Incidentally, this brings the total wordcount for my novel proper to over 50 thousand words. That's, like, a lot of words.
That is over half of a real goddamn novel.
To celebrate, here's some lame linkblogging:
- Award-winning SF writer visits and reviews new 'Creation Museum', $27 million worth of drooling, retarded, Bible-thumping schlock. Plus, cavemen versus dinosaurs!
- Tired of arguing with the 'climate change skeptic' in your life? The BBC has a handy list of rebuttals for you to use.
- It's funny because it's true.
Now: Bring on 30K!
November 10, 2007
Short Update
I'm in Saigon, and it feels like home.
Do not believe the travel agents and the Lonely Planets. They will tell you Saigon is a big, dirty city, whereas Hanoi is a gorgeous wonderland full of great food and charming French colonial atmosphere.
These are filthy, filthy lies. You could not pay me to go back to Hanoi. Everything here is cheaper, brighter, faster, livelier, and tastier. Not even the Vietnamese want to live in Hanoi -- according to our friends, they all want to move south.
(Also, no I will not refer to Saigon as 'Ho Chi Minh City'. Nobody but bureaucrats, police and foreign guidebooks use the HCMC name. And if I understand the man at all, I'd say Uncle Ho would have been ashamed to find out what they named this place. It was Saigon before the Viets came here, and it'll be Saigon after the communists leave.)
Anyhoo, my latest Elephant Words piece is up, and lo and behold, unlike my last few it does not suck. It's ostensibly inspired by this here image, but it's really based on a friend of ours who has since moved back to the Mekong.
Also. I have a new NaNoWriMo wordcount widget. Check it out there on the right.
Do not believe the travel agents and the Lonely Planets. They will tell you Saigon is a big, dirty city, whereas Hanoi is a gorgeous wonderland full of great food and charming French colonial atmosphere.
These are filthy, filthy lies. You could not pay me to go back to Hanoi. Everything here is cheaper, brighter, faster, livelier, and tastier. Not even the Vietnamese want to live in Hanoi -- according to our friends, they all want to move south.
(Also, no I will not refer to Saigon as 'Ho Chi Minh City'. Nobody but bureaucrats, police and foreign guidebooks use the HCMC name. And if I understand the man at all, I'd say Uncle Ho would have been ashamed to find out what they named this place. It was Saigon before the Viets came here, and it'll be Saigon after the communists leave.)
Anyhoo, my latest Elephant Words piece is up, and lo and behold, unlike my last few it does not suck. It's ostensibly inspired by this here image, but it's really based on a friend of ours who has since moved back to the Mekong.
Also. I have a new NaNoWriMo wordcount widget. Check it out there on the right.
November 5, 2007
In Viet Nam...
...and incredibly tired. Wishing I was in Saigon already -- Hanoi isn't my favourite Vietnamese city.
Really, I had a lot of other stuff to say here about how everything's still mind-bendingly strange, yet it feels like we never left; how this country seems to mean very different things to different people; how good it is to eat this food again, and so forth. There was also going to be some whining about my NaNo wordcount.
But it'll have to wait, because my eyes are drooping and I need the sleep.
Really, I had a lot of other stuff to say here about how everything's still mind-bendingly strange, yet it feels like we never left; how this country seems to mean very different things to different people; how good it is to eat this food again, and so forth. There was also going to be some whining about my NaNo wordcount.
But it'll have to wait, because my eyes are drooping and I need the sleep.
November 1, 2007
NaNoWriMo, And Travel Plans
It's the most wonderful time of the year.
I'm talking about November. It's that time when -- instead of doing something sane and/or productive -- we put aside our daily lives to try and write 50 thousand words of a novel in 30 days. 'We', in this case, meaning myself and 80 thousand other deluded souls around the globe.
I did this last year, and I failed -- I only got halfway to 50K. Looking back, the reason why seems obvious: I was doing very well and enjoying what I wrote. This obviously caused me to overthink, slow down, wonder if I was doing the right thing. If this was going so well, I said to myself, maybe I should stop writing it all on the fly? Perhaps I should take the time to properly plot it out; treat it with some dignity?
So I stopped and, of course, did bugger all else with it for most of the following year.
But this year is different. This year, I'm ready and I'm not going to lose. Because I'm going to cheat.
I'll do this by continuing my novel from last year, rather than writing a new one from scratch. I've been working on it most every day for a month now, so I have a flying start. And I already started last night, thus giving myself a day's buffer on the wordcount. All these things are kinda-sorta considered cheating if you're going by the official rules of the competition, but that's just the sort of cheating bastard I am. Like I said, this year I plan to win.
But here's the twist: I'm flying to Viet Nam in 3 days.
Long story short: My partner happened to have November free from work, and we decided we'd like to go somewhere for a month. We found some very cheap flights, plus we have friends to stay with over there, so it all fell into place. Unfortunately, it adds a bit of a challenge to my writing regimen -- how do you get into a writing groove while travelling around Asia? How do you concentrate on your story when a hundred new sights, sounds and tastes are vying for your attention?
Well, it won't be that bad. We lived in Viet Nam for 3 months last year, so I know Saigon like the back of my hand. I won't have to spend all my time worrying about what food to eat, which sights to see, how to say please and thankyou and all that crap. I already know all the best cafes and wireless spots. So as long as something else doesn't pop up to compete for my attention, I should be able to make it through November with 50k words.
Something like a contract to write a feature film script. Like the one I just received today.
Goddammit.
Oh, and if you're interested in watching me fail in real time, you can check out my wordcount here at my NaNo profile. And if anyone else who reads this is doing NaNo, let me know and I'll add you as a Writing Buddy. God knows we need all the support we can get.
I'm talking about November. It's that time when -- instead of doing something sane and/or productive -- we put aside our daily lives to try and write 50 thousand words of a novel in 30 days. 'We', in this case, meaning myself and 80 thousand other deluded souls around the globe.
I did this last year, and I failed -- I only got halfway to 50K. Looking back, the reason why seems obvious: I was doing very well and enjoying what I wrote. This obviously caused me to overthink, slow down, wonder if I was doing the right thing. If this was going so well, I said to myself, maybe I should stop writing it all on the fly? Perhaps I should take the time to properly plot it out; treat it with some dignity?
So I stopped and, of course, did bugger all else with it for most of the following year.
But this year is different. This year, I'm ready and I'm not going to lose. Because I'm going to cheat.
I'll do this by continuing my novel from last year, rather than writing a new one from scratch. I've been working on it most every day for a month now, so I have a flying start. And I already started last night, thus giving myself a day's buffer on the wordcount. All these things are kinda-sorta considered cheating if you're going by the official rules of the competition, but that's just the sort of cheating bastard I am. Like I said, this year I plan to win.
But here's the twist: I'm flying to Viet Nam in 3 days.
Long story short: My partner happened to have November free from work, and we decided we'd like to go somewhere for a month. We found some very cheap flights, plus we have friends to stay with over there, so it all fell into place. Unfortunately, it adds a bit of a challenge to my writing regimen -- how do you get into a writing groove while travelling around Asia? How do you concentrate on your story when a hundred new sights, sounds and tastes are vying for your attention?
Well, it won't be that bad. We lived in Viet Nam for 3 months last year, so I know Saigon like the back of my hand. I won't have to spend all my time worrying about what food to eat, which sights to see, how to say please and thankyou and all that crap. I already know all the best cafes and wireless spots. So as long as something else doesn't pop up to compete for my attention, I should be able to make it through November with 50k words.
Something like a contract to write a feature film script. Like the one I just received today.
Goddammit.
Oh, and if you're interested in watching me fail in real time, you can check out my wordcount here at my NaNo profile. And if anyone else who reads this is doing NaNo, let me know and I'll add you as a Writing Buddy. God knows we need all the support we can get.
October 20, 2007
4 Good Reasons To Be Happy
- Gutsy Gibbon (a.k.a. the latest version of Ubuntu) has been released, and unlike many poor, unfortunate souls, I manged to update without completely borking my system. It's running very nicely, in fact. So if you're thinking of getting onboard the happy Linux train, now would seem to be a good time. Remember, Nelson Mandela wants you to. You wouldn't let old Nelson down, would you?
- A film I wrote is currently shooting. I elected not to visit the set, as that would have required sleeping three nights in a small, hot room above a pub in the middle of the desert, along with ten other people. Still, I'm sure they're having fun without me.
- Interestingly enough, we're the first film in Australia to shoot on a RED camera. This is, I suspect, a big deal. The DP is certainly happy about it.
- The excellently-monikered NaNoWriMo begins next month. It's a competition (that isn't really a competition at all) in which contestants try to write a 50k word novel in 30 days. I plan to continue, and with any luck finish, the novel I started last November. I've already geared up to the required daily wordcount, so come November 1st, I should be able to hit the ground running.
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