It has been some time since an update and I have been taking this time to write. I have a notebook on me in some form almost everywhere I go and I jot ideas, snippets, people, and ideas down. Then, when I am fresh, I transfer these into my writing journal. Sometimes these can spin out pages of brain fart; other times I only get as far as the opening line of something spectacular and then refuse to touch it because that first line is so perfect anything else is just going to ruin it.
I have been submitting my first short story to various science fiction and fantasy publishers. I have not had anything negative in my rejection letters. To the contrary, there have been some very positive aspects to the rejections.
A writer is tempered by their rejections.
I resubmitted the story to the fifth publisher tonight. Maybe fifth time lucky?
I have also been working on the novels and other constructs. There are five good, solid short stories that have gone from my writing journal into their own folders with plots and characters being developed. I even went to take photographs of a specific area in Brisbane that will be the scene for a post-apocalyptic story about a man's legacy and the future of the human race.
Wednesday, 7 November 2012
Monday, 10 September 2012
Brisbane Writers Festival 2012 - 50 years
If you are going to have a keynote as prickly as Germaine Greer, you might have expected some controversy, perhaps expected... maybe even requested. Needless to say, Germaine did not fail to inspire and denigrate, and I say she did an excellent job at both. I continue to be overjoyed that we have such an asset and great thinker among Australians, and constantly amazed how often her 'Dr' is ignored. I have rarely seen Dr. Germaine Greer, as if she is already a cultural common, but perhaps it makes her less confrontational by removing the 'Dr'.
I ran into a flustered Nick Earls on Thursday, I think, with a young child stuck to his side, rushing through the State Library of Queensland bookshop that had spilled out onto the surrounds, leaving a bottleneck at the signing tables and flocks and flocks of little people spilling and spiralling in clumps and lines, following amicably or pack herded. We only had a brief chat, but I had to ask myself - do I call him Nick or Mr Earls (could he also be a Doctor?)? I had just finished Welcome to Normal, his recent short story collection and I let him know how much I had enjoyed it, especially as I now look at my own material for short story development. The child dazed, slipping from his grasp, Nick smiled at me, thanked me, nodded, and then, with minder at elbow, he allowed himself to be guided through the munchkin throng, piles of books clutched in their little arms.
Although I hated the noise, the sticky fingers, the darting little imps under foot, I loved seeing them there babbling about the books, excited with finding something awesome, arguing about the characters, whose favourites where whose. I don't have kids, but one day I hope to, and I would have delighted in taking them myself to such an event... and in this, I disagree with Germaine. The fun for me remains in meeting people and talking about their ideas, from which all good books come. Fun is the spark of 'What if?' that is vital to creativity and imagination, innovation and revolution.
Nick backs Germaine, to a point, especially in that nasty little statistic (massive, really!) - forty-seven percent (47%) of Queenslanders "cannot read a complex newspaper article or the instructions on a medicine bottle", referring to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) collection under the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey. This gives a good layman description for the study from the ABS themselves.
But I wanted to take a look at this report with my own eyeballs. I always like to trace the source. Where is the 47%? I had difficulty finding it.
You could take it from the Media Release, which states that:
"Just over half (54%) of Australians aged 15 to 74 years were assessed as having the prose literacy skills needed to meet the complex demands of everyday life and work. Results were similar for document literacy with 53% and numeracy with 47% achieving this level."
If you do some simple maths (for example, 100 - 53 = 47), and then use the logical negation of the clause (that is, NOT), you could get:
Nearly half (46%) of Australians aged 15 to 74 years were assessed as NOT having the prose literacy skills needed to meet the complex demands of everyday life and work. Results were similar for document literacy with 47% (that magical 47%?) and numeracy with 53% NOT achieving this level.
Is this a fair interpretation of the summary information and media release?
Maybe, but the statistics really come from the summary and in the definitions. In the areas of prose literacy and document literacy, Australia had 46% and 47% respectively combining level 1 and level 2 competencies.
The report studied four key areas, although there are some interesting additional health skills being studied in the recent data capture. Two, prose and document literacy, are of interest in this discussion:
For prose literacy:
Just for reference, 38.1% of Queenslanders have a prose literacy level of 3 (Australia overall is 37.4%), which according to that Canadian study is the minimum level to deal with the live and work in the developed economies.
For document literacy:
Also for reference, 36.6% of Queenslanders have a prose literacy level of 3 (Australia overall is 35.5%).
This could also be where that 47% number came from, but the key issue here is not where the numbers fell - we have those gathered by the study, and if we accept that the numbers are measuring what they are supposed to be measuring then the gold is actually in the Canadian (and OECD) report.
For literacy level 3 is the "minimum for persons to understand and use information contained in the increasingly difficult texts and tasks that characterise the emerging knowledge society and information economy". It is intended to correspond to upper secondary education, and usually acquired through 9 years of regulated teaching to advance from level 2 to level 3, from my non-professional reading of this.
So now we can acknowledge that Dr Greer got the statistics correctly interpreted, and Nick even made a comment on the smugness of non-Queenslanders in the assessment (go check your own numbers for those in other states), but the relevance is specifically in reference to the OECD consideration that if you want to build a knowledge economy and a culture of innovative, you need to have level 3 or above in literacy.
To boil it back down to the main point, and as a writer, somewhat depressingly, nearly half of all Australians do not have this competency. Where the blame resides is for someone else to consider. But I would agree with Germaine and Nick that the statistics are concerning. We shall have to wait for the next set of statistics to start looking at potential trends.
For me, I would consider this:
The sunburned country; the lucky country; the literate country - pick two!
Other highlights at the festival included talking to Chris Cleave and Martin (Ed) Chatterton, as well as the launch of the Australian Writer's Marketplace.
The session with Chris had six of us sitting around a table and asking questions from technical aspects of writing, voice, structure, and use of common cultural items. I found a lot of the discussion in the room guided me to a little revelation that stories are stories, no matter what genre they happen to be told in. My characters in my science fiction novels would be just as much characters in a western or a romance, or a hard boiled detective novel. This story can be told in many ways and it might be that the original story concept is not actually the story that needs to be told.
The discussion also touched on marketing in different countries and timeliness of releases, to look forward into the future to identify the cultural pressure points that will exist and target a novel or a release of fiction toward coinciding with the questions the public will have at the time the event occurs. Chris's example is from his forthcoming novel dealing with veterans and the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan in 2013.
The session with Martin had less than 20 of us in a room with technical difficulties of Keynote to PowerPoint, but finally, a wall of books extracted from a travel bag, "Oh, yeah? I've published nearly 40 books!" The guy must know what he is talking about, and his jolly manner, despite writing a recent crime novel (A Dark Place to Die) was genuinely infectious. I suspect this is because Martin is not grown up himself yet, which is why I liked him so much.
In Martin's session we wrote a first paragraph to learn how to grab the reader from those first words, and as mentioned, we had some technical difficulties, the material in the slides included copies of his submissions in three case studies of his books. I found this information incredibly useful to get an eyeball on a real submission, and some trails of what paths could happen.
All in all, I really enjoyed the Brisbane Writers Festival - 50 years old - but I did feel it was very distributed across the area and it was difficult to tell who were general public and who were interested in the festival. There are bound to be pros and cons for this approach, but it would have been nice to engage more - perhaps that is just me being anti-social. I will definitely go back next year.
I ran into a flustered Nick Earls on Thursday, I think, with a young child stuck to his side, rushing through the State Library of Queensland bookshop that had spilled out onto the surrounds, leaving a bottleneck at the signing tables and flocks and flocks of little people spilling and spiralling in clumps and lines, following amicably or pack herded. We only had a brief chat, but I had to ask myself - do I call him Nick or Mr Earls (could he also be a Doctor?)? I had just finished Welcome to Normal, his recent short story collection and I let him know how much I had enjoyed it, especially as I now look at my own material for short story development. The child dazed, slipping from his grasp, Nick smiled at me, thanked me, nodded, and then, with minder at elbow, he allowed himself to be guided through the munchkin throng, piles of books clutched in their little arms.
Although I hated the noise, the sticky fingers, the darting little imps under foot, I loved seeing them there babbling about the books, excited with finding something awesome, arguing about the characters, whose favourites where whose. I don't have kids, but one day I hope to, and I would have delighted in taking them myself to such an event... and in this, I disagree with Germaine. The fun for me remains in meeting people and talking about their ideas, from which all good books come. Fun is the spark of 'What if?' that is vital to creativity and imagination, innovation and revolution.
Nick backs Germaine, to a point, especially in that nasty little statistic (massive, really!) - forty-seven percent (47%) of Queenslanders "cannot read a complex newspaper article or the instructions on a medicine bottle", referring to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) collection under the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey. This gives a good layman description for the study from the ABS themselves.
But I wanted to take a look at this report with my own eyeballs. I always like to trace the source. Where is the 47%? I had difficulty finding it.
You could take it from the Media Release, which states that:
"Just over half (54%) of Australians aged 15 to 74 years were assessed as having the prose literacy skills needed to meet the complex demands of everyday life and work. Results were similar for document literacy with 53% and numeracy with 47% achieving this level."
If you do some simple maths (for example, 100 - 53 = 47), and then use the logical negation of the clause (that is, NOT), you could get:
Nearly half (46%) of Australians aged 15 to 74 years were assessed as NOT having the prose literacy skills needed to meet the complex demands of everyday life and work. Results were similar for document literacy with 47% (that magical 47%?) and numeracy with 53% NOT achieving this level.
Is this a fair interpretation of the summary information and media release?
Maybe, but the statistics really come from the summary and in the definitions. In the areas of prose literacy and document literacy, Australia had 46% and 47% respectively combining level 1 and level 2 competencies.
The report studied four key areas, although there are some interesting additional health skills being studied in the recent data capture. Two, prose and document literacy, are of interest in this discussion:
- Prose literacy: the ability to understand and use information from various kinds of narrative texts, including texts from newspapers, magazines and brochures.
- Document literacy: the knowledge and skills required to locate and use information contained in various formats including job applications, payroll forms, transportation schedules, maps, tables and charts.
For prose literacy:
- Level 1 - Most of the tasks in this level require the respondent to read relatively short text to locate a single piece of information which is identical to or synonymous with the information given in the question or directive. If plausible but incorrect information is present in the text, it tends not to be located near the correct information;
- Level 2 - Some tasks in this level require respondents to locate a single piece of information in the text; however, several distractors or plausible but incorrect pieces of information may be present, or low-level inferences may be required. Other tasks require the respondent to integrate two or more pieces of information or to compare and contrast easily identifiable information based on a criterion provided in the question or directive;
- Level 3 - Tasks in this level tend to require respondents to make literal or synonymous matches between the text and information given in the task, or to make matches that require low-level inferences. Other tasks ask respondents to integrate information from dense or lengthy text that contains no organisational aids such as headings. Respondents may also be asked to generate a response based on information that can be easily identified in the text. Distracting information is present, but is not located near the correct information.
Just for reference, 38.1% of Queenslanders have a prose literacy level of 3 (Australia overall is 37.4%), which according to that Canadian study is the minimum level to deal with the live and work in the developed economies.
For document literacy:
- Level 1 - Tasks in this level tend to require the respondent either to locate a piece of information based on a literal match or to enter information from personal knowledge onto a document. Little, if any, distracting information is present;
- Level 2 - Tasks in this level are more varied than those in Level 1. Some require the respondents to match a single piece of information; however, several distractors may be present, or the match may require low-level inferences. Tasks in this level may also ask the respondent to cycle through information in a document or to integrate information from various parts of a document.
- Level 3 - Some tasks in this level require the respondent to integrate multiple pieces of information from one or more documents. Others ask respondents to cycle through rather complex tables or graphs which contain information that is irrelevant or inappropriate to the task.
Also for reference, 36.6% of Queenslanders have a prose literacy level of 3 (Australia overall is 35.5%).
This could also be where that 47% number came from, but the key issue here is not where the numbers fell - we have those gathered by the study, and if we accept that the numbers are measuring what they are supposed to be measuring then the gold is actually in the Canadian (and OECD) report.
For literacy level 3 is the "minimum for persons to understand and use information contained in the increasingly difficult texts and tasks that characterise the emerging knowledge society and information economy". It is intended to correspond to upper secondary education, and usually acquired through 9 years of regulated teaching to advance from level 2 to level 3, from my non-professional reading of this.
So now we can acknowledge that Dr Greer got the statistics correctly interpreted, and Nick even made a comment on the smugness of non-Queenslanders in the assessment (go check your own numbers for those in other states), but the relevance is specifically in reference to the OECD consideration that if you want to build a knowledge economy and a culture of innovative, you need to have level 3 or above in literacy.
To boil it back down to the main point, and as a writer, somewhat depressingly, nearly half of all Australians do not have this competency. Where the blame resides is for someone else to consider. But I would agree with Germaine and Nick that the statistics are concerning. We shall have to wait for the next set of statistics to start looking at potential trends.
For me, I would consider this:
The sunburned country; the lucky country; the literate country - pick two!
Other highlights at the festival included talking to Chris Cleave and Martin (Ed) Chatterton, as well as the launch of the Australian Writer's Marketplace.
The session with Chris had six of us sitting around a table and asking questions from technical aspects of writing, voice, structure, and use of common cultural items. I found a lot of the discussion in the room guided me to a little revelation that stories are stories, no matter what genre they happen to be told in. My characters in my science fiction novels would be just as much characters in a western or a romance, or a hard boiled detective novel. This story can be told in many ways and it might be that the original story concept is not actually the story that needs to be told.
The discussion also touched on marketing in different countries and timeliness of releases, to look forward into the future to identify the cultural pressure points that will exist and target a novel or a release of fiction toward coinciding with the questions the public will have at the time the event occurs. Chris's example is from his forthcoming novel dealing with veterans and the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan in 2013.
The session with Martin had less than 20 of us in a room with technical difficulties of Keynote to PowerPoint, but finally, a wall of books extracted from a travel bag, "Oh, yeah? I've published nearly 40 books!" The guy must know what he is talking about, and his jolly manner, despite writing a recent crime novel (A Dark Place to Die) was genuinely infectious. I suspect this is because Martin is not grown up himself yet, which is why I liked him so much.
In Martin's session we wrote a first paragraph to learn how to grab the reader from those first words, and as mentioned, we had some technical difficulties, the material in the slides included copies of his submissions in three case studies of his books. I found this information incredibly useful to get an eyeball on a real submission, and some trails of what paths could happen.
All in all, I really enjoyed the Brisbane Writers Festival - 50 years old - but I did feel it was very distributed across the area and it was difficult to tell who were general public and who were interested in the festival. There are bound to be pros and cons for this approach, but it would have been nice to engage more - perhaps that is just me being anti-social. I will definitely go back next year.
Wednesday, 22 August 2012
Introducing Incursio
I have been busy writing my way into a more marketable book, which sits in the Space Opera genre while retaining traditional science fiction with elements of military SF.
Behold, I present you with the Incursio One Synopsis.
Having progressed over the last few weeks through a defined process, I have created copious amounts of written words (not all of it good) that links with this story. The synopsis is structured according to the 3 Act literary structure and is supported by mind maps of plots and subplots, tables of characters wants and motives, as well as scene summaries that themselves are pages long.
I have learnt how to manipulate objects and rituals with the building of believable characters. The characterisation I have specifically focused on in this novel, as I have had frequent complaints that my characters are not as full as they could be.
Although the synopsis does not mention it specifically, the fact that it is numbered "One" should indicate that it is just the first of a series.
I have been working on this story for nearly 10 years, gathering the research, pulling in all the little details, thrashing out the chronology and the intents of the main actors, assessing where the pieces of humanity would fall when the end came. I have attempted to draft novels from this story, which spans about 100 years, without success - where do I start? which characters are special? where is a logical story that will fit in the pages of a book?
One of my early drafts started in World War 1, and I have entire chapters of various military scenarios against an alien invader matched with similar on the alien invaders parts, with different motivations, war gamed in my head until I found that in essence, humans are screwed if something comes after us... but I had to try to find something that was realistic enough for me to suspend my own disbelief while realistically finding a solution that might work.
Families will need to be involved to maintain cohesive and logical flow of story over long durations, perhaps even dynasties, companies, or organisations that become characterised, like the Weyland-Yutani corporation. There is certainly more story in this concept.
Take a look at the synopsis and let me know what you think.
Behold, I present you with the Incursio One Synopsis.
Having progressed over the last few weeks through a defined process, I have created copious amounts of written words (not all of it good) that links with this story. The synopsis is structured according to the 3 Act literary structure and is supported by mind maps of plots and subplots, tables of characters wants and motives, as well as scene summaries that themselves are pages long.
I have learnt how to manipulate objects and rituals with the building of believable characters. The characterisation I have specifically focused on in this novel, as I have had frequent complaints that my characters are not as full as they could be.
Although the synopsis does not mention it specifically, the fact that it is numbered "One" should indicate that it is just the first of a series.
I have been working on this story for nearly 10 years, gathering the research, pulling in all the little details, thrashing out the chronology and the intents of the main actors, assessing where the pieces of humanity would fall when the end came. I have attempted to draft novels from this story, which spans about 100 years, without success - where do I start? which characters are special? where is a logical story that will fit in the pages of a book?
One of my early drafts started in World War 1, and I have entire chapters of various military scenarios against an alien invader matched with similar on the alien invaders parts, with different motivations, war gamed in my head until I found that in essence, humans are screwed if something comes after us... but I had to try to find something that was realistic enough for me to suspend my own disbelief while realistically finding a solution that might work.
Families will need to be involved to maintain cohesive and logical flow of story over long durations, perhaps even dynasties, companies, or organisations that become characterised, like the Weyland-Yutani corporation. There is certainly more story in this concept.
Take a look at the synopsis and let me know what you think.
Thursday, 16 August 2012
Writing Engine - Part 1
Many years ago, slaving through a degree, a friend of mine endeavoured to build an artificial intelligence to create music. Surely a noble endeavour, I had yet to be sold on it being possible. It's all very well to toss concepts into the proverbial melting pot and "see what happens". But this is hardly the best way to get results. Like primitive alchemy, or some cultish belief that if they build it then it will do something, the AI musician never turned out a note that I heard as music.
It certainly turned out notes, but noise output is not music. Music has a structure, a logic, even an underlying beauty and symmetry.
It got me to thinking way back then about the early Apraphulians computer made of pulleys and knotted rope that unravelled to generate an automated play of cutouts, including scene changes and backdrop movement. Which led me to check the source.
I am appalled to admit this, but ... I have been duped by an April Fool (Apra-phul) joke. Oh, I feel so dirty in the scientific sense.
Regardless of the legitimacy of the history, the concept could be implemented with words!
I started then on my initial considerations back in about 1999 for what I am terming a Writing Engine. Some of the linguistic and computer science studies overlap into what is termed a Rational Engine.
One of my early writing engines coded in C++ used Generative Grammar and an artificial intelligence text mining approached to the network produced by words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs. It could generate words in appropriate grammatical structures, and using windows of varying types, strings of sentences. Context and real meaning remained out of reach, unless hard-coded using an ancient information technology skill called "smoke and mirrors".
Semantic networks were still mostly theoretical and completely impractical at the time.
This concept would likely have gone completely untouched if I had not had a brain fart a few months ago. I don't know what triggered it, but, as some of my friends can testify, I had to smash out stuff on a white board that still now sits with scrawl all over it and numbered boundary curves with a legend on it.
I now have a structure for a 21st century version of what I had been intending to build. I am also teaching myself how to code mobile applications in Android. There are several good bodies of work that has taken place over the last 12 years, advancing key areas I needed to make the idea work.
So, this blog will assist as a sounding board, and perhaps provide some impetus to other similar projects that MUST be out there.
It certainly turned out notes, but noise output is not music. Music has a structure, a logic, even an underlying beauty and symmetry.
It got me to thinking way back then about the early Apraphulians computer made of pulleys and knotted rope that unravelled to generate an automated play of cutouts, including scene changes and backdrop movement. Which led me to check the source.
I am appalled to admit this, but ... I have been duped by an April Fool (Apra-phul) joke. Oh, I feel so dirty in the scientific sense.
Regardless of the legitimacy of the history, the concept could be implemented with words!
I started then on my initial considerations back in about 1999 for what I am terming a Writing Engine. Some of the linguistic and computer science studies overlap into what is termed a Rational Engine.
One of my early writing engines coded in C++ used Generative Grammar and an artificial intelligence text mining approached to the network produced by words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs. It could generate words in appropriate grammatical structures, and using windows of varying types, strings of sentences. Context and real meaning remained out of reach, unless hard-coded using an ancient information technology skill called "smoke and mirrors".
Semantic networks were still mostly theoretical and completely impractical at the time.
This concept would likely have gone completely untouched if I had not had a brain fart a few months ago. I don't know what triggered it, but, as some of my friends can testify, I had to smash out stuff on a white board that still now sits with scrawl all over it and numbered boundary curves with a legend on it.
I now have a structure for a 21st century version of what I had been intending to build. I am also teaching myself how to code mobile applications in Android. There are several good bodies of work that has taken place over the last 12 years, advancing key areas I needed to make the idea work.
So, this blog will assist as a sounding board, and perhaps provide some impetus to other similar projects that MUST be out there.
Tuesday, 7 August 2012
Byron Bay Writers' Festival
Forcing through the aggressive traffic from 3pm onwards on Thursday from my side of Brisbane. Managed to hit the entrance traffic from the Gold Coast at 5pm. In for dinner at nearly 7pm. Damned cold, but the log fire is nice. Hit bed early at 10pm to wake and be refreshed for my first day at the Byron Bay Writers' Festival.
My program consisted of meeting some interesting characters, who were, indeed, playing themselves. My sessions were about things like new languages to explain new concepts, the crafting of short stories, and how various authors have brought history to life through their creations. I listened to crime fiction authors and memoir authors and could translate a lot of the material to assist me.
I took copious notes and have several stories generating for later putting onto page.
There was a discussion regarding how language can play a role in innovation of science and economy. There was some good discussion about the use of the Industrial Revolution model of economics in current day and age, that is, where resources and capital are (in effect) infinite and therefore the capitalist expansion can continue indefinitely.
I found it somewhat disturbing that there was so much talk about getting a global economy correct now there was an understanding of the finite resources we have on the planet. My only question was regarding the involvement of off-world mineral mining and its impact on this new limited-resources concept. My concern is that they will get a "finite resource" model working just when we open up the solar system to resource harvesting/mining.
Does this suggest we should keep the Industrial Revolution model of economy for when off-world resource mining is (in effect) infinite?
I got to talk to lots of authors, like Tom Keneally, Jessica Watson, Nick Earls, Shane Maloney, Kel Robertson (with a sex change), Sulari Gentill and spent ten minutes talking to Michael Kirby and Fran Kelly about various things.
Compared to many other writer festivals I have been at, this one seemed specifically political. It was good to be around left-wing thinkers again. They have been seriously lacking in Brisbane recently.
I was most inspired by Sulari Gentill, who (ashamedly) I had never heard of before I went to the festival. I accidentally managed to sit in on several of her sessions and found her humour and smile infectious. She spoke about becoming a writer and how it had changed her life. She was also happy to talk to someone like me and share some of her insights.
The common threads I could see were the knowledge of something lacking inside yourself - this hole can only be filled by telling stories for me (and sharing them with others). If you don't embrace this writer, you fill it by finding hobbies that take up your mind-space. My hobbies have been widespread, numerous, sometimes brief, but all focused on gaining experiences to write about.
My entire aerospace career was undertaken to learn more about the field I wanted to write in - Science Fiction.
Sulari Gentill convinced me I am doing the correct thing. One day I'll have to thank her for inspiring me.
My program consisted of meeting some interesting characters, who were, indeed, playing themselves. My sessions were about things like new languages to explain new concepts, the crafting of short stories, and how various authors have brought history to life through their creations. I listened to crime fiction authors and memoir authors and could translate a lot of the material to assist me.
I took copious notes and have several stories generating for later putting onto page.
There was a discussion regarding how language can play a role in innovation of science and economy. There was some good discussion about the use of the Industrial Revolution model of economics in current day and age, that is, where resources and capital are (in effect) infinite and therefore the capitalist expansion can continue indefinitely.
I found it somewhat disturbing that there was so much talk about getting a global economy correct now there was an understanding of the finite resources we have on the planet. My only question was regarding the involvement of off-world mineral mining and its impact on this new limited-resources concept. My concern is that they will get a "finite resource" model working just when we open up the solar system to resource harvesting/mining.
Does this suggest we should keep the Industrial Revolution model of economy for when off-world resource mining is (in effect) infinite?
I got to talk to lots of authors, like Tom Keneally, Jessica Watson, Nick Earls, Shane Maloney, Kel Robertson (with a sex change), Sulari Gentill and spent ten minutes talking to Michael Kirby and Fran Kelly about various things.
Compared to many other writer festivals I have been at, this one seemed specifically political. It was good to be around left-wing thinkers again. They have been seriously lacking in Brisbane recently.
I was most inspired by Sulari Gentill, who (ashamedly) I had never heard of before I went to the festival. I accidentally managed to sit in on several of her sessions and found her humour and smile infectious. She spoke about becoming a writer and how it had changed her life. She was also happy to talk to someone like me and share some of her insights.
The common threads I could see were the knowledge of something lacking inside yourself - this hole can only be filled by telling stories for me (and sharing them with others). If you don't embrace this writer, you fill it by finding hobbies that take up your mind-space. My hobbies have been widespread, numerous, sometimes brief, but all focused on gaining experiences to write about.
My entire aerospace career was undertaken to learn more about the field I wanted to write in - Science Fiction.
Sulari Gentill convinced me I am doing the correct thing. One day I'll have to thank her for inspiring me.
Wednesday, 18 July 2012
Writing, not posting
Just a quick update while I am between things.
I have placed the Battle of Korunai on hold for a few months, but this is nothing new. It happens from time to time, and some of the recent chapters have needed to sit and distill for a while. I found two chapters I had severed from the current draft and some of it can be salvaged to tell parts of a section I needed to write. This fills in more than half a chapter, but needs a good solid review.
Short stories seem to be something I have never really considered before other than writing exercises. I am starting to pull them out from various locations and archive folders. I have even started one as a writing exercise in mythic structure, but the patterns generated by the character are starting to really work, so I have spun them off into their own capture mechanism.
These were initially intended to dovetail with one of my cyberpunk novels. I painted the background with that brush, but there is no reason to think they are in the same universe... although they could be.
My character is a hardened private investigator on the mean streets of Brisbane 2030, investigating insurance claims, missing items and data theft. I have started creating cases for her and one is almost complete (and good). They are between 4000 and 10000 words, but have four distinct parts and adhere to a strict mythic structure.
I am thinking in a few weeks I will need to find a writers group - I have had one recommended to me - and see if I can get some review on my work... then submit it somewhere and try to publish it.
I am also working on some blog posts, but have yet to complete anything (apologies). Give me time to write!
I have placed the Battle of Korunai on hold for a few months, but this is nothing new. It happens from time to time, and some of the recent chapters have needed to sit and distill for a while. I found two chapters I had severed from the current draft and some of it can be salvaged to tell parts of a section I needed to write. This fills in more than half a chapter, but needs a good solid review.
Short stories seem to be something I have never really considered before other than writing exercises. I am starting to pull them out from various locations and archive folders. I have even started one as a writing exercise in mythic structure, but the patterns generated by the character are starting to really work, so I have spun them off into their own capture mechanism.
These were initially intended to dovetail with one of my cyberpunk novels. I painted the background with that brush, but there is no reason to think they are in the same universe... although they could be.
My character is a hardened private investigator on the mean streets of Brisbane 2030, investigating insurance claims, missing items and data theft. I have started creating cases for her and one is almost complete (and good). They are between 4000 and 10000 words, but have four distinct parts and adhere to a strict mythic structure.
I am thinking in a few weeks I will need to find a writers group - I have had one recommended to me - and see if I can get some review on my work... then submit it somewhere and try to publish it.
I am also working on some blog posts, but have yet to complete anything (apologies). Give me time to write!
Wednesday, 27 June 2012
EOFY 2011-2012 direction
I have been giving some serious thought to all the bits and pieces; the clues. The grand puzzle of writing before me. The recent Writers Surgery outcomes were valuable, and I have used that in conjunction with a quick survey of how I write and the massive amounts of material I have managed to save over the last 20 years.
My model of what a writer was has significantly changed since I last investigated it some 20 years ago. It no longer works sufficiently to assist, so I need a new model that works.
I found an interesting idea - something akin to the PhD-by-publication that occurs these days in academia. The general concept is that a thesis is the product of the PhD. It has a summary, and a conclusion and some guff in the middle.
The standard academic model of a PhD-by-publication is (extremely simplified and genericised):
Again, I acknowledge extreme oversimplifications. Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful. Thanks, George!
A novel would then have an introduction and conclusion wrapped around a set of short stories with a common theme. These common themes would be character based and, often, chronologically and causally linked. Thus you have a novel generated from a set of short stories. My universes are broader than novels and are composed of both short story bits and novels, novella, and probably some micro-fiction.
Why is this so important? Because I use what I have always termed "snippets" to get into characters or scenes. ALL of my novels have the first two or more chapters removed after I get the characters and style/feel for the novel.One of my novels, I have an entire "novel" of 10 chapters I wrote until I sorted out the main character was not the person I should be following... so there is a second novella told from a completely different perspective.
These all fell into the zone I humbly title CRAP in my documents. At some point bits are removed (sometimes whole chapters) to the CRAP folder. Some of it, no doubt, is crap. But some of it could easily be transferred into short story format for publication. These can be quite interesting as they often tell of different sides to characters. I have stumbled upon some of these gems over the years and found myself caught reading them with fresh eyes - never even remembering I had written it... but there it was in my system (akin to my own handwriting).
So, I have been looking at my universes as thesis, where the stories I have identified are individual chapters that need to get published somewhere. They may or may not link. They may or may not have characters that are used elsewhere. I need to conisder at a later stage if I would "re-write" key historical aspects if I happen to describe them prematurely in the universe. Additionally, I had a chuckle when I thought about establishing some sort of semantic network engine to screw with (watch this space).
After all that procrastination, what I really need to do ... is write.
My model of what a writer was has significantly changed since I last investigated it some 20 years ago. It no longer works sufficiently to assist, so I need a new model that works.
I found an interesting idea - something akin to the PhD-by-publication that occurs these days in academia. The general concept is that a thesis is the product of the PhD. It has a summary, and a conclusion and some guff in the middle.
The standard academic model of a PhD-by-publication is (extremely simplified and genericised):
- Three or more papers are published on a specific theme in reputable and relevant journals.
- The papers are ordered to form a thread.
- An introduction is added to frame the thread and guide the reader through the papers.
- A conclusion is added to summarise the thread and provide the reader clear conclusions and completion information, often including bibliographies and appendicies.
Again, I acknowledge extreme oversimplifications. Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful. Thanks, George!
A novel would then have an introduction and conclusion wrapped around a set of short stories with a common theme. These common themes would be character based and, often, chronologically and causally linked. Thus you have a novel generated from a set of short stories. My universes are broader than novels and are composed of both short story bits and novels, novella, and probably some micro-fiction.
Why is this so important? Because I use what I have always termed "snippets" to get into characters or scenes. ALL of my novels have the first two or more chapters removed after I get the characters and style/feel for the novel.One of my novels, I have an entire "novel" of 10 chapters I wrote until I sorted out the main character was not the person I should be following... so there is a second novella told from a completely different perspective.
These all fell into the zone I humbly title CRAP in my documents. At some point bits are removed (sometimes whole chapters) to the CRAP folder. Some of it, no doubt, is crap. But some of it could easily be transferred into short story format for publication. These can be quite interesting as they often tell of different sides to characters. I have stumbled upon some of these gems over the years and found myself caught reading them with fresh eyes - never even remembering I had written it... but there it was in my system (akin to my own handwriting).
So, I have been looking at my universes as thesis, where the stories I have identified are individual chapters that need to get published somewhere. They may or may not link. They may or may not have characters that are used elsewhere. I need to conisder at a later stage if I would "re-write" key historical aspects if I happen to describe them prematurely in the universe. Additionally, I had a chuckle when I thought about establishing some sort of semantic network engine to screw with (watch this space).
After all that procrastination, what I really need to do ... is write.
Friday, 15 June 2012
Writer's Surgery - Outcomes
On June 14th, 2012, I met with Peter Ball at the Queensland Writers Center to make use of the Writer's Surgery service. I was specifically looking for feedback based on 20-pages of manuscript plus 1-page synopsis in the areas of manuscript development, finding a market, and approaching publishers/agents.
I would recommend the service!
I found the experience to be positive and insightful. It was excellent feedback and I have found it quite valuable over the last 24 hours. I suspect it will prove more value as I make use of the advice over the rest of my writing career.
The first question Peter asked me was how rough I wanted him to be. I got the impression that if I had burst into tears at that point, he would have been less robust with me. I'm fairly certain he did not give me all guns, but he managed to walk that fine line of encouraging yet finding fault with enough to make me realise there is still so much more to learn.
He recommended the following books to get a better grasp on the story structure and technical skills required of a writer:
Note - you do not need an agent, but some publishers do not accept unsolicited manuscripts. A manuscript received from an agent is considered to be solicited, not unsolicited. They are also useful for avoiding common pitfalls of writing contracts (or writing "writing contracts" to be clear). It was pointed out that the best way of getting an agent is to request their services to finalise a contract that has already been bagged. This is also obviously not the most common or most likely outcome.
We also spoke about the different markets for my novels, initially focused on the Battle of Korunai novel, but expanding out to the other novels and genres, as well as short stories. These markets were quite different.
The Eureka moment for me here was that I had focused on my military science fiction because it was relatively easy for me to write. The story was clear, the characters (for me, at least) were defined by their duties and the actions they would perform, but it is a small market. Compared to general science fiction, military science fiction is so small, there is really only one publisher out there - Baen.
On indication that I wrote short stories and smaller fiction/science fiction works, Peter recommended that I should consider publishing some of these. I had always considered my short stories to be bits and pieces I had written to get a handle on the characters or a specific part of the story. Some of them work, some remain incomplete because they worked through a topic to the point I needed.
There are some that are now called flash fiction or microfiction that can be under 1000 words. I never even knew there was a category for these. Some of the Borges-like material I have written and continue to write is in this area sometimes and I have enjoyed fleshing out the bare skeleton of the story and being a word-miser.
But you want the gory details of the assessment of my manuscript, don't you? You want to hear the painful wails and see the shreds of a writer's ego ground under booted heel?
Here is the summary for Battle of Korunai:
I will let this excellent discussion sit a few days and consider what I am doing. Any comments? Feel free to post them.
I would recommend the service!
I found the experience to be positive and insightful. It was excellent feedback and I have found it quite valuable over the last 24 hours. I suspect it will prove more value as I make use of the advice over the rest of my writing career.
The first question Peter asked me was how rough I wanted him to be. I got the impression that if I had burst into tears at that point, he would have been less robust with me. I'm fairly certain he did not give me all guns, but he managed to walk that fine line of encouraging yet finding fault with enough to make me realise there is still so much more to learn.
He recommended the following books to get a better grasp on the story structure and technical skills required of a writer:
- "The Writer's Journey" by Christopher Vogler
- "The Weekend Novelist" by Robert J. Ray
- "The 10% Solution" by Ken Rand
Note - you do not need an agent, but some publishers do not accept unsolicited manuscripts. A manuscript received from an agent is considered to be solicited, not unsolicited. They are also useful for avoiding common pitfalls of writing contracts (or writing "writing contracts" to be clear). It was pointed out that the best way of getting an agent is to request their services to finalise a contract that has already been bagged. This is also obviously not the most common or most likely outcome.
We also spoke about the different markets for my novels, initially focused on the Battle of Korunai novel, but expanding out to the other novels and genres, as well as short stories. These markets were quite different.
The Eureka moment for me here was that I had focused on my military science fiction because it was relatively easy for me to write. The story was clear, the characters (for me, at least) were defined by their duties and the actions they would perform, but it is a small market. Compared to general science fiction, military science fiction is so small, there is really only one publisher out there - Baen.
On indication that I wrote short stories and smaller fiction/science fiction works, Peter recommended that I should consider publishing some of these. I had always considered my short stories to be bits and pieces I had written to get a handle on the characters or a specific part of the story. Some of them work, some remain incomplete because they worked through a topic to the point I needed.
There are some that are now called flash fiction or microfiction that can be under 1000 words. I never even knew there was a category for these. Some of the Borges-like material I have written and continue to write is in this area sometimes and I have enjoyed fleshing out the bare skeleton of the story and being a word-miser.
But you want the gory details of the assessment of my manuscript, don't you? You want to hear the painful wails and see the shreds of a writer's ego ground under booted heel?
Here is the summary for Battle of Korunai:
- The synopsis and chapters are missing character; the story does not reach the reader at a personal level.
- Without a knowledge of the tactical situation explained by the story, it misses a thread of humanity (Oh! The vogonity!). It was recommended I need to get personal hooks in the characters for readers to understand the emotional context that they are in.
- There was some discussion about who was the protagonist and who was the antagonist. I have written the two admirals as almost interchangeable with regard to their roles in the classic story structure and this is not a common way of doing it (and may lose the readers).
- From initial material, the protagonist is Leonap, not Dax. There was more interest in Leonap than I had intended as he is clearly a flawed character. Readers want to see him change from a non-hero into a hero.
- There were queries about why Dax was the way he was. He needs some vulnerabilities to allow personal identification. What is the vulnerability that will change the hero into the non-hero?
- The material needs a lot of context that is missing; needs a description of the situation. The first paragraph of the first chapter needs to be re-written to identify they are on a ship, they are exhausted, and there needs to be some conflict starring the protagonist. I need to personalise the context of exhaustion and battle-readiness. Peter made the fair criticism that if you removed the synopsis from the sample, there was not sufficient context in the first chapter to identify any of the above aspects (on a ship, exhausted, etc).
- I should ruthlessly move through my manuscript and use "The 10 percent solution" to cull adverbs, "that" and "had", minimise "was", change paragraph descriptions into emotive action with as little pre-story as possible. Remove dialogue tags that are superfluous; "said" is invisible so do not use it; don't use "asked" if there is a "?"; some style issues for action following dialogue. Favourite quote, "No one likes a protagonist who smirks".
- There were a whole heap of little bits and pieces
- My names were too difficult to pronounce or too long. Read names out loud to see if they flow. Take Earth names and just slightly alter to provide the reader an easy grasp of the foreign name. Don't use ship names that are also titles. Could consider some alliteration, but need to make them identifiable.
- Capitalise "the Fleet" and then use these terms rather than the long and ungainly names of combined fleet star nations.
- Find other ways to do dialogue tags; put emotion into action.
- Readers want to see descriptions, not read descriptions. It is more interesting to convey this in a physical way, through actions of characters rather than through descriptions.
- Don't provide twists just to give twists (I had considered bringing the readers to assume the race was human only to find out later it was not). I was told that, from a reader perspective, it would be my fault for tricking them or my fault for not giving them enough material to see the twist resulting in an unhappy or unfulfilled reader.
- Build the relationships between the characters. Peter identified a major risk in the novel is that all the characters and ships become almost interchangeable. There is little difference between the two sides in literary terms and this needs to be differentiated further in the literary sense. He recommended I identify the main characters and then identify the relationships between them.
- Chapter 1 has no interpersonal relationships at all.
- Chapter 2 has good context and clear interpersonal relationships with some good immediate conflict between characters.
- Some of the same actions were described in the same way. If an action is something that is going to occur often in the novel, then you need to find new ways to describe the same thing. the example provided here was in relation to ships firing their guns. Peter made the criticism that this was described in almost exactly the same way in diffent spots in the manuscript.
- I need to let the readers in to the world I have created and never keep secrets from the editor. I wasn't, but this is just a warning.
- Synopsis needs to be centered around the characters and then identify the conflict between the characters. It needs to identify the protagonist and antagonist. What is going to be the essence of the back of the book? I need to bring the character relationships into the synopsis.
I will let this excellent discussion sit a few days and consider what I am doing. Any comments? Feel free to post them.
Tuesday, 5 June 2012
Rabbit Hole II - round-up
The Queensland Writers Center Rabbit Hole II event has finished once more and despite the pain in my fingers and a numb bum, I made excellent progress on my novel. I am still trying to sort out the statistics and assorted data. I made the 30,000 word target for the 22 hour event. My brain is a little fried.
On the first day, the event ran from 6-8pm and I was able to progress through 2468 words on chapter 6 of Battle of Korunai. This was specifically the early section of the chapter when the admiral has lost his prey - it was a little dry to write.
On the second day, the event ran from 10am to 8pm. I worked primarily on chapter 6 and 7 of Battle of Korunai. I also completed part 6 of the Air, Steel & Soul story post. I only have one or two more story posts before I am up to where we are in game time, but I am catching up. The daily count for this day was 10286, taking the total to 12754.
The third day was also from 10am to 8pm and I was extremely daunted to think I needed about 18000 words to cap it. This, being more than my entire previous count was, I thought, beyond me. But, I knuckled down and pressed really hard on the pen and generated 18500 (and a nice round number) on chapters 6, 7, and 8 of Battle of Korunai and a handful of short story starts, including 'The Fylonshmap Thruster' which is previewed at Rabbit Hole Online Tumblr.
Everyone was helpful and positive. I found the comradery in getting into the writing spirit was excellent, and the wonderful incentives were amazing. LOLCats at 1000 words, various writing challenges for Dymock's book vouchers, 500-word excerpt at Tumblr at 20,000 words, and a selection of e-books at 30,000 words...
I also got to know a bunch of talented writers with lots of different knowledge, skills, interests, and projects. I look forward to seeing how they progress as well.
I now have about 30,000 words on my novel I did not have before coming into the Rabbit Hole.
Additionally, I did some checking. Although the early chapters of Battle of Korunai were written much earlier than Rabbit Hole, these were discarded once the characters and story shaped up properly. Of the formal chapters that have made it to version 2.0... about half were written at Rabbit Hole events.
I'll be back again for the Rabbit Hole III in November. Who's with me?
On the first day, the event ran from 6-8pm and I was able to progress through 2468 words on chapter 6 of Battle of Korunai. This was specifically the early section of the chapter when the admiral has lost his prey - it was a little dry to write.
On the second day, the event ran from 10am to 8pm. I worked primarily on chapter 6 and 7 of Battle of Korunai. I also completed part 6 of the Air, Steel & Soul story post. I only have one or two more story posts before I am up to where we are in game time, but I am catching up. The daily count for this day was 10286, taking the total to 12754.
The third day was also from 10am to 8pm and I was extremely daunted to think I needed about 18000 words to cap it. This, being more than my entire previous count was, I thought, beyond me. But, I knuckled down and pressed really hard on the pen and generated 18500 (and a nice round number) on chapters 6, 7, and 8 of Battle of Korunai and a handful of short story starts, including 'The Fylonshmap Thruster' which is previewed at Rabbit Hole Online Tumblr.
Everyone was helpful and positive. I found the comradery in getting into the writing spirit was excellent, and the wonderful incentives were amazing. LOLCats at 1000 words, various writing challenges for Dymock's book vouchers, 500-word excerpt at Tumblr at 20,000 words, and a selection of e-books at 30,000 words...
I also got to know a bunch of talented writers with lots of different knowledge, skills, interests, and projects. I look forward to seeing how they progress as well.
I now have about 30,000 words on my novel I did not have before coming into the Rabbit Hole.
Additionally, I did some checking. Although the early chapters of Battle of Korunai were written much earlier than Rabbit Hole, these were discarded once the characters and story shaped up properly. Of the formal chapters that have made it to version 2.0... about half were written at Rabbit Hole events.
I'll be back again for the Rabbit Hole III in November. Who's with me?
Friday, 1 June 2012
Rabbit Hole II
I have participated in the Queensland Writer's Centre Rabbit Hole writing event three times now. I am not sure where the number 2 came from, but I am happy to have an extra memory that no one else does. Some people might call that crazy, but I am sure there is a reason for it.
Today was the start of the event. It is primarily to help writers write. There are 3 days to complete 30,000 words or "THE END", whichever comes first. In both my previous attempts at the Rabbit Hole, I have failed to complete this challenge, so I am hoping this will be my first time to make the grade.
It is from 6 to 8pm Friday night, and 10am to 8pm both Saturday and Sunday. For the first two hours, I was able to generate 2468 words on chapter 6 of the Battle of Korunai. To be honest, I was a little disappointed by this, however, I have generated a heap of detail on the content specifications for the next four chapters.
Some of the earlier chapters have been in the vicinity of 5000-6000 words when scrubbed and edited properly, so it is possible for me to write the next three chapters if I can get into the zone. Additionally, I want to get the next installment of the Air, Steel & Soul blog completed.
Clearly, it is not like I have a lack of things to write.
So, tomorrow we begin again at 10am for the Rabbit Hole. I am really hoping to make the 20,000 word mark tomorrow if I can.
Today was the start of the event. It is primarily to help writers write. There are 3 days to complete 30,000 words or "THE END", whichever comes first. In both my previous attempts at the Rabbit Hole, I have failed to complete this challenge, so I am hoping this will be my first time to make the grade.
It is from 6 to 8pm Friday night, and 10am to 8pm both Saturday and Sunday. For the first two hours, I was able to generate 2468 words on chapter 6 of the Battle of Korunai. To be honest, I was a little disappointed by this, however, I have generated a heap of detail on the content specifications for the next four chapters.
Some of the earlier chapters have been in the vicinity of 5000-6000 words when scrubbed and edited properly, so it is possible for me to write the next three chapters if I can get into the zone. Additionally, I want to get the next installment of the Air, Steel & Soul blog completed.
Clearly, it is not like I have a lack of things to write.
So, tomorrow we begin again at 10am for the Rabbit Hole. I am really hoping to make the 20,000 word mark tomorrow if I can.
Monday, 28 May 2012
Blog update
It has been about a month since I started blogging. I am finding that it has both benefits and downsides.
On the positive, it is providing an avenue to test my writing in a new forum. The publishing and formatting tools in online environments are primitive at best without resorting to hand-coding HyperText Markup Language (HTML)... which I thought had finished back with a little program called HotDog, if I remember my Information Technology (IT) background.
I am currently running five blogs with different flavours:
I have found that even just transferring material into this format takes some time (like the Courtly love letters), while constructing material in the format can also have its own problems (like Air, Steel & Soul). Anonymuncles has heaps of draft material (I rant a lot but never publish it), but this Author Journal hardly ever has any.
Readership countries and search terms (or entry points) are varied. I even had my Battle of Korunai synopsis access via a search on some search engine of: book review 'space opera'. Google, Facebook, and webmail services are the most common reference sites.
I have also added RSS update feeds, but these remain untested just yet. If they work 'off-the-shelf' then all the better. I will subscribe soon to test them and confirm the required functionality. There will also be some cosmetic tweaks over the coming weeks, but not weeks and weeks of tweaks. Primarily these changes will be to enhance readability of the content.
The blogs have also allowed me to identify flavours in my own writing. My novels are all quite different - military sci-fi, cyberpunk, and space opera/cyberpunk. Air, Steel & Soul is fantasy and at this stage, I have no real plans for a fantast novel... at least none that are anywhere near mature for sitting down and writing yet. I am, however, getting requests - which is nice. I have seen other authors start periodic blogs like this and end up compiling it all into novels or novella, usually in electronic format, but I am still a bit of a traditionalist - I want to smell and feel my novel.
I had someone suggest I could write romance recently. I thought about it in my youth - just punch out some Mills & Boon classics for a few bob. Ssshh! Don't tell anyone, but I have even read the writers guidelines and wrote a chapter or three ... in my youth. I no longer have the material. I couldn't imagine reading the stuff, so it was somewhat difficult to write it without feeling like I was producing something up there with Days of our Lives in literary terms. This is certainly not meant as an offence to those who do. These days, I see it as another form of writing, of which there are many.
But the value of the blogs comes down to the questions of quality of writing and skill with words and stories... and market for the guff I write. The blogs have taken some time away from my investment in my novel writing, but I think it is 'keeping me honest'.
Now I am off to consider entries for some short story writing competitions in horror and general genre. There is even flash fiction, which is under 1000 words. I am new to that concept, but will try my hand. Another writing exercise.
On the positive, it is providing an avenue to test my writing in a new forum. The publishing and formatting tools in online environments are primitive at best without resorting to hand-coding HyperText Markup Language (HTML)... which I thought had finished back with a little program called HotDog, if I remember my Information Technology (IT) background.
I am currently running five blogs with different flavours:
- Author Journal (this blog - which has had a change of template after complaints the text could sometimes be hard to read)
- Bartitsu & neo-Bartitsu
- Air, Steel & Soul
- Anonymuncles: comment monkey
- Courtly love letters
I have found that even just transferring material into this format takes some time (like the Courtly love letters), while constructing material in the format can also have its own problems (like Air, Steel & Soul). Anonymuncles has heaps of draft material (I rant a lot but never publish it), but this Author Journal hardly ever has any.
Readership countries and search terms (or entry points) are varied. I even had my Battle of Korunai synopsis access via a search on some search engine of: book review 'space opera'. Google, Facebook, and webmail services are the most common reference sites.
I have also added RSS update feeds, but these remain untested just yet. If they work 'off-the-shelf' then all the better. I will subscribe soon to test them and confirm the required functionality. There will also be some cosmetic tweaks over the coming weeks, but not weeks and weeks of tweaks. Primarily these changes will be to enhance readability of the content.
The blogs have also allowed me to identify flavours in my own writing. My novels are all quite different - military sci-fi, cyberpunk, and space opera/cyberpunk. Air, Steel & Soul is fantasy and at this stage, I have no real plans for a fantast novel... at least none that are anywhere near mature for sitting down and writing yet. I am, however, getting requests - which is nice. I have seen other authors start periodic blogs like this and end up compiling it all into novels or novella, usually in electronic format, but I am still a bit of a traditionalist - I want to smell and feel my novel.
I had someone suggest I could write romance recently. I thought about it in my youth - just punch out some Mills & Boon classics for a few bob. Ssshh! Don't tell anyone, but I have even read the writers guidelines and wrote a chapter or three ... in my youth. I no longer have the material. I couldn't imagine reading the stuff, so it was somewhat difficult to write it without feeling like I was producing something up there with Days of our Lives in literary terms. This is certainly not meant as an offence to those who do. These days, I see it as another form of writing, of which there are many.
But the value of the blogs comes down to the questions of quality of writing and skill with words and stories... and market for the guff I write. The blogs have taken some time away from my investment in my novel writing, but I think it is 'keeping me honest'.
Now I am off to consider entries for some short story writing competitions in horror and general genre. There is even flash fiction, which is under 1000 words. I am new to that concept, but will try my hand. Another writing exercise.
Wednesday, 23 May 2012
Writer's Surgery Update
Thanks to the tireless efforts of personnel at Queensland Writers Centre (QWC), I now have an appointment with Peter Ball to get feedback on approaching publishers/agents, manuscript development,
and finding a market on June 14th. I'll provide more details post that point.
In the meantime, I have just finished part 5 of Air, Steel, & Soul. This story follows some real people playing characters in a role playing game that merges traditional undead and fantasy adventure plots with steampunk, magepunk, and dragon wars. These instalments document the adventures (or misadventures) that occur along the path of the campaign story.
I have also been investigating opportunities in competitions, but I have never really tried my hand at short stories. Perhaps I am just procrastinating... Is there a term for procrastinating when it is writing and not speaking? I shall have to investigate that further. Some time when I have the time... not to procrastinate.
Additionally, I am preparing for the Rabbit Hole 2... which is a program by QWC to write 30,000 words or "The End" in 3 days. In past Rabbit Holes, I have had a great time as well as been very productive. Preparation has involved scrubbing up some of the content specifications for the Battle of Korunai so I can just chip away at some more chapters. I have also started looking further at some of the other content specifications that could result in some quick novel completion.
More to come... hopefully.
In the meantime, I have just finished part 5 of Air, Steel, & Soul. This story follows some real people playing characters in a role playing game that merges traditional undead and fantasy adventure plots with steampunk, magepunk, and dragon wars. These instalments document the adventures (or misadventures) that occur along the path of the campaign story.
I have also been investigating opportunities in competitions, but I have never really tried my hand at short stories. Perhaps I am just procrastinating... Is there a term for procrastinating when it is writing and not speaking? I shall have to investigate that further. Some time when I have the time... not to procrastinate.
Additionally, I am preparing for the Rabbit Hole 2... which is a program by QWC to write 30,000 words or "The End" in 3 days. In past Rabbit Holes, I have had a great time as well as been very productive. Preparation has involved scrubbing up some of the content specifications for the Battle of Korunai so I can just chip away at some more chapters. I have also started looking further at some of the other content specifications that could result in some quick novel completion.
More to come... hopefully.
Wednesday, 16 May 2012
Update of various projects
The Writer's Surgery material is in and I expect I will hear shortly about the progress, given the earliest proposed date for discussion is early June through the Queensland Writers Centre.
The Rabbit Hole II will be happening also in the first few days of June. I have participated in this writing marathon (30,000 words or "The End" in 3 days) for the last couple they have hosted. Not sure why this is #2, because it will be the third I have participated in. I'll be ramping up to that by reviewing my content specifications in preparation to write much more on Battle of Korunai and perhaps some blogging. I am thinking blogging should not be included in the word count, but we will see how close I get to the limit.
Additionally, I have been putting together some other blogs:
The game has been run twice in the same week for the first time ever and has resulted in some interesting outcomes that will soon be documented. I still am not up to the same spot as the game is, but that just means I have more to write... urgently.
I have also started investigating competition opportunities. Most of these seem to be for short stories, which I am not really all that keen on, but I have never really put my hand to. I guess I am about to.
Trying to hang in there.
The Rabbit Hole II will be happening also in the first few days of June. I have participated in this writing marathon (30,000 words or "The End" in 3 days) for the last couple they have hosted. Not sure why this is #2, because it will be the third I have participated in. I'll be ramping up to that by reviewing my content specifications in preparation to write much more on Battle of Korunai and perhaps some blogging. I am thinking blogging should not be included in the word count, but we will see how close I get to the limit.
Additionally, I have been putting together some other blogs:
- Bartitsu & neo-Bartitsu, to document my discoveries in these arts, possibly with chuan fa thrown in for the fun of it. This has had some surprising interest since I started it.
- Courtly love letters, which is a selection of love letters I have written with the permission of those who were recipients (watch this space as I have a few there and will be starting to release them soon).
The game has been run twice in the same week for the first time ever and has resulted in some interesting outcomes that will soon be documented. I still am not up to the same spot as the game is, but that just means I have more to write... urgently.
I have also started investigating competition opportunities. Most of these seem to be for short stories, which I am not really all that keen on, but I have never really put my hand to. I guess I am about to.
Trying to hang in there.
Tuesday, 8 May 2012
Writer's Surgery application submitted
I submitted my application for the Queensland Writers Centre (QWC) Writer's Surgery using the Battle of Korunai as the sample material. I had to submit the application plus a 1-page synopsis and 20-page writing sample.
I requested feedback on approaching publishers/agents, manuscript development, finding a market, and formatting and presentation. The first three are what I am really after, but the formattting and presentation I added as this is the first time I have used this sort of template and have no idea about presentation from an author perspective.
I have placed my work into the genre of speculative fiction, which includes science fiction and fantasy in most of its guises as well as cyberpunk. The Battle of Korunai is definately in hard military science fiction. Another I am working on is well within cyberpunk while another straddles cyberpunk and hard military science fiction.
It would be great to just have the money to fund expenses to enable me to complete these things. Writing daily professionally is a dream of mine - one I have had since a small boy.
I requested three consultants in order of what I considered to be relevance to my work and current location in the writing profession:
Angela was recommended to me based on a discussion of my position and writing maturity. Peter looked interesting as he has a similar genre... or at least closer than anyone available. Sally seemed to have extensive background in non-fiction publishing of which I have a lot of stuff, but have never really considered if (or how) to publish it.
So, in summary, this is my first formal step on putting my writing into the hands of professional writers for review and consideration. Although I only emailed it in 2 hours ago, I am hoping for a reply any minute! Will keep you posted.
I requested feedback on approaching publishers/agents, manuscript development, finding a market, and formatting and presentation. The first three are what I am really after, but the formattting and presentation I added as this is the first time I have used this sort of template and have no idea about presentation from an author perspective.
I have placed my work into the genre of speculative fiction, which includes science fiction and fantasy in most of its guises as well as cyberpunk. The Battle of Korunai is definately in hard military science fiction. Another I am working on is well within cyberpunk while another straddles cyberpunk and hard military science fiction.
It would be great to just have the money to fund expenses to enable me to complete these things. Writing daily professionally is a dream of mine - one I have had since a small boy.
I requested three consultants in order of what I considered to be relevance to my work and current location in the writing profession:
Angela was recommended to me based on a discussion of my position and writing maturity. Peter looked interesting as he has a similar genre... or at least closer than anyone available. Sally seemed to have extensive background in non-fiction publishing of which I have a lot of stuff, but have never really considered if (or how) to publish it.
So, in summary, this is my first formal step on putting my writing into the hands of professional writers for review and consideration. Although I only emailed it in 2 hours ago, I am hoping for a reply any minute! Will keep you posted.
Thursday, 3 May 2012
Blog start-up
Finalised my three blog 'flavours' today.
They are:
They are:
- Air, Steel & Soul is a blog that will initially be updated based on the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition game currently being played. I am the game master (dungeon master) for this game and have designed the world and the story for the characters. Several of these characters are played by other people who contribute to the world and story as they play either each episode or as 'cameo' appearances. This blog should be updated after a gaming session is complete, but there is some back story that needs to be written to catch up to the current game.
- Anonymuncles: the comment monkey is a blog that will have me commenting on science, politics, and is expected to be quite cynical. I will be providing references within the material to back up the arguments or to provide evidence (or just topical relevance) or for additional information. This blog should be updated once a week with something.
- Author Journal is a blog (this blog) that will document and update any interested parties as I move toward professional writer in published format. Initially this will be focused on technical elements or professional content and is not expected to include material or excepts from the material being discussed unless it is relevant to discussion. This blog should be updated as needed, but no less than once a week.
Wednesday, 2 May 2012
Korunai status
Writer's Surgery preparation
I am putting some effort the last few weeks to preparing my Battle of Korunai manuscript in an appropriate format for it to be provided as background information for a session with an expert. The Queensland Writer's Centre (QWC) offers a service for members to consult with a professional mentor who will read a sample and provide guidance called the Writer's Surgery.My original templates for production of the chapters are in 'Arial' font. I find them easier to read and enables a flow in the story. I had never really considered it stylistic... but it IS.
Standard manuscript submission formats are in a mon-spaced font, like Courier New or Times New Roman, double spaced and 12 point.
The sample provided to QWC includes a 1-page synopsis and a 20-page sample of material. There were no further requirments, so I grabbed a template for manuscript preparation (a Microsoft Office template) that looks about right in all the needed areas and transferred the first two chapters. In my old template, these were 6 pages for the first chapter and 16 for the second. I did some modifications on the template, but will admit that I have yet to really learn all the bits of it.
I was pretty sure I could get both the first and second chapters into the sample material. If it carved off the last page of chapter 2, then it would probably be leading to a small rise in literary tension in the story without the resolution that would usually occur...
I know some of my readers hate getting caught at these points and often demand to know what happens next. I try to provide only full courses of literary material, lest I have people harrass me to complete it.
But, back to the story... So, I transeferred the material into the new template. Chapter 1 was now 10 pages, and chapter 2 was now 30 pages! Now I was only going to get about half the first chapter. I may not have captured audience interest by this point. I would hope that I had, but I usually give a novel a few chapters and rarely just put something down.
This initially freaked me out. But then I decided to print it out and take a look at it. The change in font and spacing really made a difference from an editor perspective. I was immediately able to identify a bunch of superflous words... lots of 'the' and 'that' that were not needed.
So, I printed it out and sat down and did a brutal review in editorial terms - the way I have done to numerous technical writers over the years.
I managed to cut the first chapter down to 5 pages and the second chapter down to 27 pages. So, nearly 4 pages of guff removed. The manuscript is much tighter now and I will add this process to the end of my develpment and review cycle.
I'll be submitting this in the next few days after I sleep on the changes, then print it all out and eyeball it. Looking forward to the June appointment to discuss it.
Monday, 30 April 2012
Cranking things up
Update
With recent life upheavals, it has become clear to me that I need to pay a little more attention to my life dream to become a writer. So, I have decided to migrate some of my ramblings into online environments.I hear that is done these days through web logs (Blogs for the uninitiated).
So, my plan is to get something into these at least once a week, but please do not hold me to that. :)
I have a writing engine. I have built this writing engine over years using systems engineering techniques and document control systems to maintain records of all my writing. It contains material for the last decade. Some of it is very mature (but I just don't like it) and other stuff is idea-level.
Out of this mass of more than 1Gb of writing, mindmaps, spreadsheets, reference material, images and schematics, I found a set of 'those most likely' to get my foot into the book publishing caper.
Battle of Korunai
A miltary science fiction novel set in a period with solar sails and ships of the line. The mad Estillian emperor has broken a truce and launched a massive assault on the Tayvan empirial defences. Admiral Dax has been blockading small squadrons of Estillian and their Listiccan allies ships, but one manages to slip past him under Admiral Leonap. Dax pursues Leonap to stop him from joining with other fleet elements, but loses him and must return home in failure.Meanwhile, the combined Estillian-Listiccan fleet integrate further fleet elements to become one of the most destructive forces ever assembled. After an engagement with another blockade team, the Tayvan Admiralty is informed and Dax is again dispatched to ensure the enemy fleet was not a threat.
Finally, the two space fleets come together in a clash of cold space and hot steel. Should I be telling you the ending here? These two great armada wrestle to command the space-lanes. The battle is decisive and the victory sound, but a hero of a civilisation will die in its defence.
Untitled 1 (working title only)
A cyberpunk novel set in Brisbane in 2040 with a rising health and drug epidemic, massive corruption of police enforcement, licensing, gambling, prostitution and welfare have caused 'corporate states' to provide services to geographical zones within council boundaries. Shinobi City Group (SCG) is an asian enclave in Fortitude Valley providing food, accommodation, security, and employment for all who are within its zone.Washi and our hero (not happy with their name just yet) are employed by SCG as security for the zone but find themselves caught up in the downfall of the organised crime in Brisbane, including police and government. SCG uses the corruption as terrain in their plans to annexe more control of the region. Guns, martial arts, gang warfare and political intrigue combine as our hero and sidekick fight and negotiate their way to a new corporate golden age in Brisbane filling the power vacuum as the corruption network, police and government falls.
Incursio One
A cyberpunk/space opera concept that spans from 1900s through to the 2100s; this series is expansive and has many novel opportunities. It has taken me years to get the universe sorted in my head to start plucking the relevant sections and characters to tell the story that needs to be told. This novel is about the first campaign waged to rid the Earth of the alien incursion. It weaves conspiracy theory around various activities to create a rich tapestry of material to draw from.It starts roughly in World War 1 with the abduction of several soldiers and the foo fighter legacy. These fighters lead a fifth column aboard the ships and on the alien colonies while alien activity increases to a point where access to space is destroyed around 2020 and the alien sympathiser wars tear the UN apart.
From the breaking of the UN comes a new planetary defence council that attempts to unite the planet and drive the invaders off it. The main characters are from Australia, as Australia is the only nation capable of quickly reconstructing launch capability to respond to alien threats. They are also the first nation to secure their borders from further incursion.
The first novel describes the actions from WW1 to the formal declaration by the Space Defence Directorate (SDD) of air superiority over Earth once more. But in so doing, it becomes clear the alien infestation is both still rooted in bases on the Earth, Moon, and beyond and that they intend to cause humanity grief, if not extermination.
Conclusion
So that, as they say, is that. This is my focus at the moment in terms of novels and I have some other writing projects on the side... like this blog. :)
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