This is one of the most unspeakably awesome things I’ve seen in a while – I certainly hope they do some more of them.
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A Scrap of Poetry
Posted: November 20, 2009 in writing updateTags: fantasy writing, novel writing, poetry, writing, writing update
Its been a long time since I last wrote poetry – back in school, and that was many a year ago. So its somewhat odd that a bit of poetry came to me recently – either that or I’m channelling something I once read. The first line popped into my head yesterday and while driving my brother to the airport this morning a few more flowed on from it.
Its a touch melancholy, but I think that is to be expected for poetry.
And here beneath the scattered gloom
Where all is naught but withered bloom
Whilst all that should and can not be
Has come between both you and me.
The question is what to do with it. Thanks to Tolkien, as a fantasy writer its almost expected to have some poetry floating around in stories. I may have to use this – either expanded upon or with some character trotting out a few lines as is.
Restarting the Month
Posted: November 18, 2009 in writing updateTags: fantasy writing, novel writing, Short story, writing, writing update
I think I need to reset the month. Or reload an earlier save point. There is actually a race in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series that can do that – the Yetis. Their species has gone extinct three times, but they have the ability to reload their lives to an earlier save point – and retain the knowledge of what caused their deaths so they can avoid it next time around. I could really use that.
Last month was a great month for writing – I made some real progress and started this month full of optimism. So far it has turned out abysmally. There is still time to turn it around, but it is getting harder to do so.
I should be writing – I want to be writing. When I’m not, I always have ideas and plots and characters and stories burning a hole in my mind pretty much every single second of the day. I’ve wanted to be a writer ever since I can remember. The problem is that when I sit down the words just don’t flow. All those scenes in my head, the words I set down just don’t match it. There appears to be a blockage between the head and the keyboard. It isn’t writer’s block as I am never short of ideas – in fact I have a lifetimes worth of ideas for novels and short stories crammed up in my head just waiting to get out. A large part of it I think has to do with self-doubt, a worry that, despite the images in the head, the stories won’t quite be good enough. Subconscious sabotage in effect. Trying to force the words hasn’t really worked, nor bribery or coercion.
What I think I need is someone to do all that writing for me – I’ll do all the brainstorming and plotting and creation of ideas and scenes and characters and the like and let someone else come up with the words to express it properly.
Its a nice idea, but not really likely, so its back to the grind I must go.
Clash of the Titans
Posted: November 12, 2009 in GeneralTags: clash of the titans, greek mythology, hades, medusa, movies, perseus, zeus
The trailer for the new Clash of the Titans movie has just come out, and at first viewing it looks like a bit of fun, sort of reminiscent of 300 in parts. What is more it has Sam Worthington as the hero Perseus, Liam Neeson as Zeus and Ralph Fiennes as Hades.
Upon reading the synopsis I became a little worried. Okay a lot worried.
Born of a god but raised as a man, Perseus is helpless to save his family from Hades, vengeful god of the underworld. With nothing left to lose, Perseus volunteers to lead a dangerous mission to defeat Hades before he can seize power from Zeus and unleash hell on Earth. Leading a daring band of warriors, Perseus sets off on a perilous journey deep into forbidden worlds. Battling unholy demons and fearsome beasts, he will only survive if he can accept his power as a god, defy his fate and create his own destiny.
Whoever is responsible for this has no clue as to Greek mythology at all. Hades was not evil – in fact he was a darn sight less vengeful than most of the Greek gods who were prone to smite mortals for the slightest transgression. Hades seems of late to have suffered character derailment – along with Anubis – simple for the fact he was the God of Death and the Underworld. Hades was in fact the elder brother of Zeus (along with Poseidon) and together they defeated the Titans.
Hollywood at times has a lot to answer for, regularly rewriting history and myths like this. There really needs to be an inquiry into it – and fines. Big fines.
The Thunder Child
Posted: November 8, 2009 in writing updateTags: fantasy, fantasy writing, war of the worlds, writing, writing update
I was quite young when I first started reading the likes of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells – probably in primary school from memory. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, Journey To The Centre Of The Earth, The Time Machine and of course The War Of The Worlds.
For me, the most memorable scene of The War Of The Worlds involves the HMS Thunder Child. It is remarkable – and a little saddening – that this scene has not once appeared in any of the film adaptation of the book.
The Thunder Child is a fictitious torpedo ram ironclad that in the book attacks 3 Martian war-machines that are attacking refugee boats, despite knowing precisely what would become of them. Despite being utterly destroyed, it takes two of the war-machines with it, and its sacrifice allows many to escape safely. Only 3 war-machines are destroyed in the entire book – and it accounted for 2 of them by itself.
I admit I have a soft spot for the Thunder Child and have used names similar to it before for ships in various stories. The current one I am writing, I found myself doing a homage to theThunder Child without even realising it at first. A lone warship taking on three more powerful enemy ships…though in this case it it fantasy and not scifi. Upon realising it, I renamed the ship the Stormchild in honour of the Thunder Child. Hopefully the scene will do the original proud.
Edit: Now with music.
September Report
Posted: November 1, 2009 in writing updateTags: fantasy, novel writing, writing, writing update
Two months of the year to go – November here we come.
September was quite a good month writing wise. I managed to get some writing done every single day. Admittedly a few days not much was written but at least something was. Overall the word count was just shy of 63K – half of that did come in a 7 day stretch of writing madness so I know I can do more if everything clicks.
It was also interesting for the fact it threw me completely out of what had been planned – a new story idea sparked and now sits at 44K on the first draft and still going. I had planned to take part in NaNoWriMo this year but I’ve done too much on this to start something else new.
The short stories seem to have taken a back seat just for the moment – only two Cahuac ones were written. I do have a few more lurking around that need writing but just don’t seem to get around to them.
Plans for this month are to finish off this rough draft I’m working on – not sure how long it’ll turn out to be but already its about the longest rough first draft I’ve written. It’ll need a lot of work once the rewriting starts as it had no plot initially and quite a few things have changed from how it started out.
I’ve been poking around the Wheel of Time books of late – not reading them as such, more studying how they – and a few other books – are written and put together. I first stumbled upon WoT sometime in the very early 90s – around the time of the third book, The Dragon Reborn I think. Hard to believe it still isn’t finished and apparently isn’t due to be until late 2011, some 21 years after it first started.
Looking through them got me a bit nostalgic – not for the books themselves, but for something. Back around 1994 I first started using the internet. Yeah, that long ago. It was very different back then – web browsers didn’t exist for starters and it was much, much smaller. Most things were text based, using such programs as Gopher, IRC and Telnet. Even back then there were games on the internet, the forerunners of today’s MMOs. They were known as MUDs, MUCKs, MUSHes, MOOs and the like, entirely text based worlds where people got together to do things. Some were pure hack and slash games, others were pure RPGs.
The first one I ran into was Discworld MUD, a game that still runs to this day. It was a hack and slash game based on the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett, and as such full of weird humour and the like.
I moved on when I found other, pure roleplaying ones and I wasted a number of years on them.
One was a Wheel of Time based MOO called Angreal. I played it from its start until its sad demise, made a lot of friends from all over the world who I have sadly lost touch with and played a number of great characters.
There was Breac, a wolfbrother early on but he disappeared when a new rule limiting the number of alts we could have came into play. Likewise there was Nessan the gleeman – really the Forsaken Asmodean in disguise. Bedwyr was a Domani Lord and General of the Queen’s Army. He was an odd but fun character – utterly loathed all nobility in general but totally loyal to the queen. He ended up dying in battle, when, already mortally wounded, he leapt from a tall cliff taking a Myrddraal with him to his death.
The two main ones were Tal, First Spear of the Rahien Sorei, Tal of the Jagges Spires Sept of the Taardad Aiel.
The second, and my main alt, was Heric Jennet, a common born Mayener. He went to the White Tower for training, ended up bonding as Warder to Eris Sedai of the Brown Ajah and rose to become one of the pre-eminent Blademasters of the game with students of his own. He wasn’t your normal Warder as he had a terrible anti-authoritarian streak and became something of a big brother to a lot of the Novices and Accepted. On the other hand he was an extreme disciplinarian for the young men in training who might one day become Warders of those young woman training to be Aes Sedai.
I did play other games – notably Pern based ones. My main characters on them were T’lis, a bronzerider on Harper’s Tale MOO and G’kar, a bronzerider on Star Stones MOO.
Looking back, I certainly miss playing them – it certainly helped my writing, sparked my imagination and met a lot of interesting people. I may even have a look around to see what is still out there and trying to get back into it one of these days, if I have the time.
Trafalgar Flag and Waterloo Chair
Posted: October 22, 2009 in GeneralTags: history, napoleon, nelson, trafalgar, waterloo
When it comes to the Napoleonic Era, I’m fairly intrigued. So it was with great interest I recently found out that not one by two fairly significant artefacts of the period are up for auction.
The first is the chair Napoleon Bonaparte sat on before his army was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo. I’d rather have the chair Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington sat on, given he was the one that defeated Napoleon, but he probably didn’t sit in a chair.
The second is the only know remaining Union Jack that flew at the Battle of Trafalgar. Battle-scarred, it flew over HMS Spartiate during the battle which saw Lord Nelson soundly defeat the larger French-Spanish fleet.
Both are expected to go for around £15,000. If I had the money to spare, I’d like to have them – especially the flag – but alas such things are well beyond me.
Captain Mal Reynolds Returns
Posted: October 21, 2009 in GeneralTags: castle, firefly, nathan fillion, tv shows
Before any Firefly fans – and I count myself as one – get too excited, Firefly isn’t returning.
I am instead referring to Castle, which stars Nathan Fillion, and specifically to the promo for next weeks new episode.
Yes, that is right – Castle (as played by Nathan Fillion) dresses up as Mal Reynolds (as played by Nathan Fillion). Its bizaare, its surreal and its what I love about the show – it doesn’t take itself too seriously. It is also not the first Firefly reference that has been seen in the show, and there has also been a reference to Dr Horrible’s Sing-along-blog which Nathan Fillion was also in.
Looking forward to watching the episode and seeing how it plays out.
Of Progress and Names
Posted: October 17, 2009 in fantasy, writing updateTags: fantasy, fantasy writing, novel writing, writing, writing update
This last week has been wild.
Seven straight days of hitting the 4K+ mark of words. 30,403 words written in total. All new. That is almost as much as I managed for the whole of last month.
I had hopped after the first couple of days I could keep the progress up and have been both pleased and surprised when I was able to. It was a bit tiring at times and I wasn’t certain I’d do it, but I got there in the end. As much as anything it has proved to me that I can do it, I can write consistent output.
The one thing that has failed so far is the names – normally I have no problem with names, but for whatever reason so far it has failed me. Apart from a couple of them, none are going to last – what are being used so far are place holders. Unless I can think up some of my own, I may have to ask for ideas..
Mist and Shadows 