Current Projects

Posted: January 4, 2010 in fantasy, Pure Escapism, writing update
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We are a few days into the year already and time for a brief update on what is in the immediate works. So far I am off to a slow but steady start, having hit the 1K minimum daily goal each day. Once the ball gets rolling that will pick up to better figures.

Right now the goal is to finish off three stories that are in the works for the Pure Escapism range of short stories.
Also the rough drafts are coming along for two as yet unnamed stories. The first is in the Primal Tales setting, the sequel to The Hall of Black Trees, and picks up on the story of Braega, Tudhala and Alia. The other is a follow up story to Ray and his Human, which I never expected to write more about, but another idea came to me, featuring the rather common SF trope of green alien princesses. Of course, this being a rather non-serious setting, things don’t go as expected.

There are a couple of ideas floating about for the next part of the story of Nhaqosa the Minotaur, but they are waiting until the other three are done before they get a look at.

And then there is the novel. I have come down to a decision at last – it’ll be the as yet unnamed Australiana fantasy setting mentioned previous but most likely with a lot of steampunk elements thrown in as well. Rather over the top, but it should be fun. Trying to finalise details and then it’ll be off with the first rough draft.

First Trailer For The Next Doctor Who

Posted: January 3, 2010 in General
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With the airing of the second part of The End of Time, the curtain has been drawn on David Tennant’s time as the Tenth Doctor. Now it is the time of Matt Smith as the newest, Eleventh Doctor. It also marks the end of Russell Davies as being in charge of Doctor Who, and Stephen Moffat taking over. Given he is responsible for the best episodes of the New Who (Blink, The Girl in the Fireplace, The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances) this can only be a good thing.

The BBC have released a short trailer for the upcoming season on Doctor Who and it looks to be a lot of fun.

The Weeping Angels are back!

Of course, as with every other time the Doctor regenerated there are those complaining the show is ruined. Ruined! The Doctor changes – that has always been the way of it. I much preferred Eccleston’s 9th Doctor to Tennant’s 10th but it didn’t stop me watching and enjoying the show. And for those complaining that the preview shows The Doctor firing a gun and hitting someone and complaining that is is un-Who, go back and watch through the various Doctors. They’ve used guns and fought before. Despite the Tenth Doctor being a technical pacifist, the very first time we meet him he fought a sword duel and dropped an alien off the top of a spaceship to his death. Give Matt Smith a chance and remember – he won’t be the last Doctor either.

Goals for 2010

Posted: January 2, 2010 in General, writing update
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After last years effort, I’ve decided not to make nay new years resolutions this year, but instead set some goals I’d like to achieve. Okay, there isn’t much of a difference, but goals don’t feel as binding as resolutions. At least that is what I tell myself.

1. Write every day.

I find writing a bit like rolling a stone – once you’ve got it up to speed it rolls along, but if it isn’t moving, it takes some effort to get it rolling again. Stopping for any amount of time is a dangerous thing. One day becomes two becomes a week and before you know it you haven’t written in months. I may need to change my schedule a bit by doing some writing first thing in the morning before anything else. The goal would be to try an aim for a minimum of 1000 words a day. In theory it shouldn’t be too hard.

2. Stick to a novel and finish it.

Last year I worked on at least four different novels, and not surprisingly none got completed, even though a lot of writing got done. Two of them had the first draft completed. The problem was I kept moving on, getting new ideas and wanting to work on them. So this year I plan to choose one story and see it through to the end before starting a new one.

3. Write more short stories.

Last year I did manage to write a fair number of short stories, but quite a few of them were reworking of previous draughts and ideas. This year I want to pick up the output. What I’d like to see is trying to get a new short story written every fortnight (though one a week would be nice.) The stories would mostly be expanding on the current storylines, of Nhaqosa the Minotaur, the Cahuac Cycle, Cara’s Choice and Primal Tales, but with additional ones making an appearance.

4. Blog more.

The last couple of months saw little in the way of blogging done. I’d like to pick up the frequency of posts, and to make them more interesting. Also to comment more elsewhere on other blogs and forums, and also to twitter a bit more – though for that I’d have to learn to blather on a bit more.

Sir Peter Jackson

Posted: January 1, 2010 in Uncategorized
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News coming out of New Zealand is that Peter Jackson, best known for bringing us the Lord of the Rings movies is know Sir Peter Jackson, a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

New Zealand had scrapped knighthoods from their honours list back in 2000 when the previous government was in power. Their new conservative government has since reinstated it and Sir Peter Jackson was made a knight in the first New Years honours list since they reinstated the title.

Australia also scrapped the title, but there is no move to reinstate it, so there is no chance I’ll ever become a Knight, alas.

How Did I Miss This?

Posted: January 1, 2010 in General
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As I may have alluded to once or twice in the past, I’m a bit of a Doctor Who fan. Looking forward to the second part of the 10th Doctor’s last show and the beginning of the 11th Doctor’s show this year.

It is therefore something of a surprise that I hadn’t run across this video earlier – Time Crash, a short video featuring the 10th and 5th Doctors for the 2007 Children In Need Special. It took TvTropes to alert me to its existence.

A New Year

Posted: January 1, 2010 in General
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And here we are at the start of another year – where did that last one go?

New Years Eve was interesting. The day was stinking hot – 38C (around 100F for those not in the modern world yet.) For here that is hot. Never really cooled down either and is still quite warm this evening. Evening started off with a domestic down the road that led to the police turning up – later on, towards midnight I thought another one was going to start up in another part of the street.

There were fireworks down on the water, but nature provided a far more spectacular display. A thunder storm swept in over the mountain, lighting up the sky. At first you couldn’t see the lightning as it was hidden by the clouds, but you could see the glow from each strike reflecting across the whole sky. Later on there was an almighty bang right above and the skies opened up in a deluge for a few minutes. it cooled things slightly, but not completely. I’d turned off computers and TV by this stage just to be sure and then had to spend the next hour or so looking after my brother’s puppy who was going through his first thunderstorm and got a little agitated. He wasn’t too bad about it, but didn’t jump out of my arms after 15 seconds like normal. He just needed reassuring I guess and eventually settled down.

So that is the last year and a new pone begun. Looking back, my resolutions for last year were kind of epic fail, especially in regards to my writing. The last couple of months saw almost nothing done. I think this year I’ll stick clear of resolutions, but instead go with intentions. At least last year I discovered how not to write a book – this year hopefully I discover how actually to write one.

The Wolfman

Posted: December 11, 2009 in General
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Hollywood always seems to be doing remakes – sometimes they work, other times they don’t.

There is one coming out that I am looking forward to – the remake of the classic 1941 werewolf movie, The Wolfman. Werewolves rate up there amongst my favourite mythical monsters – far above vampires, or at least their modern incarnations. Hopefully the movie turns out well.

Fantasy in an Australiana Setting

Posted: December 2, 2009 in fantasy, writing update
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This is something I have touched on before, that most fantasy stories are set in a medieval European setting – or at least what American writers think is a medieval European setting. Sometimes it can venture into an Asian setting, but you don’t see much beyond that. The world of Mist and Shadows does have elements of that, but it also has other elements, with a wide variety of cultures and time frames and landscapes.

As an Australian I have snuck in some Australian feel to parts of it – animals, landscape, a bit of language, that kind of thing. Nothing too major. But recently a new idea (yes, another) has been playing around in my head.

I guess it all started when reacquainting myself with the Dark Sun setting, ready for the 4E version of it. As part of that – as you do – I checked out its TV Tropes page. One of the pages there was of Death Worlds, which listed Australia as a real world example. Hardly surprising given the sheer amount of vicious, venomous and downright deadly wildlife we have, not to mention the tracks of inhospitable terrain. (Warning, clicking on a TV Tropes link could see you trapped there for hours.)

Another item read at about the same time was the Badass of the Week entry on Australia. This one contains very strong language, but is a hilariously over the top view of Australia.

All this got me thinking – people enjoy the over the top renditions of Australia and the characters of the like of Steve Irwin and Crocodile Dundee. Why not stick it all in a fantasy setting – the death world nature of its wildlife and terrain, the monstrous prehistoric animals, the mythical animals, the characters and slang. It’d be something rather different.

Then I stumbled upon a couple of post on the Giant in the Pen forums of people adapting elements such as that for RPGs.

And so the idea came about of a story (or group of stories) playing well and truly up to the ocker, death world nature of Australia. I have the plot and am starting work on it, and so far its been fun.

Of course playing Fallout and Borderlands probably is also a reason behind all this.

November Update

Posted: December 1, 2009 in writing update
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And here we are in December already.

Apparently we just had November, though in terms of writing I barely noticed it and I’m not sure why. I went from my best month in October to my worst month in November in which I got almost nothing done. It was a little depressing. Only highlight was the fact that towards the end I did start getting a few god ideas and at least started thinking of writing again.

Lets hope December is an improvement.

Muppets Rhapsody

Posted: November 27, 2009 in General
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Another amusing little video courtesy of youtube.

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