Year: 2009

keep at it kid

I have a few different books brewing, they come and go

I keep trying

… writing stuff again.

This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while, I reckon there’s a book or two in me somewhere trying to sneak out. Trouble is, it’s daunting thinking of all the setting up that a book would need before you can crack on with telling the story. The best books are consistent with themselves and stay faithful to all the little things. Rules get set up that govern the world, if those rules get broken then the readers can quite rightly call you a fraud.

Pacing is critical as well, I’m picking that up from watching Stargate Universe. I’m still curious about this new series, although it seems very badly afflicted by StarTrek Syndrome. That’s an episode pacing style that has the cast fumbling to fix a problem, only to miraculously sort it at the end. SG Universe is similar, episodes tend to be slow-slow-slow until 5-10 minutes from the end when the pace goes ultra fast. And their problems get sorted out just in the nick of time. That pacing style seems rather jarring.

I’ve two options really for what I’d write in terms of the fictional setting. It would either be a Dungeons & Dragons style fantasy swords, sandals and magic world or it would be science fiction with starships. Worlds of magic are pretty easy, there’s a blank slate and the Rules that govern the world can be far simpler. You just make them up because you can ignore the laws of physics if you want to. Or bend them with that magic stuff 🙂 Just have to be careful not to plagiarise someone else’s world.

Science fiction on the other hand … That’s much tougher. This is where “being consistent with itself” bites really hard. You see it mainly with series that have grown and grown, with the backstory taking on a life of its own. David Weber’s Honor Harrington series is very good but is starting to suffer from “where do we go from here ?” On the other hand, Larry Niven’s Known Space books have a very strong theme running through because the Rules of that universe, while being quite tight, give a huge amount of scope allowing the stories to be about the characters.

Star Trek tied itself in hellish knots because of all the “Hey ! That looks cool, we’ll use it in an episode”. Plot devices that aren’t properly thought out come back to bite you later. There’s a quote in ST The Next Generation where the computer says “NCC 1701 D, the fifth Starfleet ship to bear the name Enterprise.” Which was fine when that episode was written but got broken with the series Star Trek Enterprise. Star Trek also suffers immensely from the demon of Time Travel, allowing this to happen in a series (unless incredibly carefully planned) opens up all sorts of cans of worms. Curiously, the fella who wrote this alternate non-Federation ST timeline avoids time travel completely. That’s a good read too, when you get around some of his phrasing 🙂

So – I’d like to start writing scifi but I’m a bit daunted by the amount of setting up that would be needed before getting down to the fun stuff of storytelling.

Things like :

Mechs or tanks ? (noone argues with a 100tonne Big Robot)
What type of guns ? (projectile or energy)
How much attention do you pay to physics ? (Star Trek and Star Wars are extremely badly behaved with respect to physics)
Military or civilian characters ? (Star Trek vs Firefly)
Socio-political situation (religion, wars, customs)

Choices made there define the whole world and the rules within which the stories must play out. “New technology” as a plot device can only go so far in changing or bending those rules. Stargate is a decent example of how new technology can change the rules but it has to make sense or the audience is lost.

Hey ! That’s enough about theory of writing fiction, why’s this come out again ?

There’s a few reasons, like reading some of the stories that come through the Eve alliance’s newsletter. I play sci-fi style games that have great stories, with Mass Effect being a great example. I also get scenes sparking through my head as well, there’s one running that involves a new spaceship in the yard having techs do inspections on it. Now there’s a scene where an author could lead a reader into how the ships are put together. Interesting for a techie, not likely to be much story there though.

Stuff I do with work occasionally kicks off ideas that, as is normal with me, lead off into tangents so lateral they’ve turned longitudinal.

For the fantasy world, I had the starting few chapters of a novel lined up which I reckon would have grabbed people. A fantasy setting is best with a party of characters to have fun with and the Monday night gaming gives plenty of ideas there. Question is though, how to carry it on. Novel’s gotta have a plot.

Riiight – that’s enough Wall of Text about writing a Wall of Text 🙂 Time to get back to listening to stuff while wondering if my blocking sinuses (and resulting slight sore head) will let me play that Internet Space Ship game 🙂

Desperate measures !

One of the things I’ve been watching again lately is Doctor Who. The repeats have just gotten to the end of season 4 and while I’ve been watching it on the telly off iPlayer through my cable box, the last episode just … isn’t … listing …

Grr !

Desperate measures time.

My newer laptop can’t help this time, as the TV output on it is Round Peg Square Hole and doesn’t fit the telly. So …

Old laptop gets resurrected (first time in a bunch of months)
Network cable is stretched across the room to give it internet
Telly hook up cables
And hoping for a decent video considering it’s old and tired

Here’s the result :

Picture’s a bit washed out from camera flash but there we have it, laptop beside telly feeding me Dr Who amidst a swath of cables.

Result 🙂

Not a bad picture too, although I think I’m getting a taster of the improvements HD telly makes with the two screens side by side. I think the laptop picture is doing HD while the telly is limited to normal definition. Yep, there’s a difference. Gotta be looking for it but there’s a difference.

Right – time to get back to Dr Who before I pack away the old laptop again for another 6 months.

PS There’s an impending crash, bang, wallop from when I trip over the network cable.

That Saturday's pizza – imagination hadn't turned back on after bugs so it was a Meat Feast

Wednesday's – Hawaiian

Last Saturday's pizza – Carne Mista from Bella Pasta. Really wanted something pasta-ish from the pasta place but I'm not a fan of their latest menu.

What kind of pizza did you get? 🙂

Cos I think I need them at the moment 🙂

That post last week, where I said I’d take those cold symptoms, lock them in a box and stuff the box somewhere to give it a good ignoring. Lol – guess who got put in the box instead of the bugs ? 🙂 Heh heh heh, apart from Wednesday (yes, right after that post got dispatched …) it wasn’t too bad.

It just coincided with a week I was planning to have as rest and recharge … I don’t think it changed much of what I did though, which was listen to lots of music, catch up on recorded stuff and have a crack at the occasional game. Not much Eve, which I reactivated a week or so ago, cos I wasn’t particularly feeling like being involved with the rest of the human race.

Until Saturday … when I went Pizza Hunting. Rejoined Human race, Human race didn’t quite know what to make of it. (Human race being a dazzingly cute cherub in the pizza shop taking the form of a blonde possibly half my age – i.e. jailbait) Truth, I wasn’t impersonating a particularly impressive member of the human race at the time. Pizza was worth it 🙂

Recorded stuff – lots of Stargates. I still think Babylon 5, closely followed by Farscape is the best sci-fi on telly, Stargate SG-1 definitely gave them a good run for their money. I’m up to the end of season 3 now, great early years in this series (fantastic entertainment value), it’s a shame it went on probably a couple of years too long. Not sure what to make of Stargate – Universe, needs more time.

House, shaken up again, still good stuff. Regenesis, wanna watch this again from season 1 – it’s intelligent drama with strong and highly amusing characters. Warehouse 13, fluffy stuff, still watching out of curiosity. (What’s the line about his men would follow him anywhere, if only out of curiosity ?) Flashforward definitely has my attention now.

Music – been raiding music stuff again 🙂

Impressed with : Roberta Flack, Cardigans First Band On The Moon (album with Lovefool), Dr Who season 4 soundtrack
Not so impressed with : Paramore’s latest – sounds like the other two but not as good. Bit disappointed.

So – couple of hectic days back at work, got stuff done plus I had a few major victories in making people laugh. “Im in ur filez editin ur commentz”. I like to make other people laugh cos it makes me feel better too. No-one’s noticed the haircut though. Or maybe they have and they didn’t want to say anything 😉

Still not back to full form after the bugs and I have an early start tomorrow, so it’s time to wrap this one up before I start rambling and babbling. Oops – Too late !

Improving 🙂 Wednesday was the bad day for me. Thursday not so bad, not decided to rejoin the human race yet though (as Scottish Power Rep Boy found out today! muahaha) so no pizza trip yet …

Mebbe tomorrow or Sunday 🙂

I hope you're feeling much better now. There are certainly a few bugs doing the rounds. Mine is a particularly nasty little critter.

Lol – as so often happens with me, a week away from work is accompanied by bugs …

Seems I share that this time around, most of my friends around Bristol seem to be suffering from bugs in one shape or form. For me, it’s an extremely runny nose with the accompanying sinus trouble. Not much sleep last night but I don’t seem to be feeling the effects of that.

But hey – my bugs aren’t too bad at the moment and I know other people have it worse. So it’s time to do what I usually do with stuff that slows me down, stuff it in a box and lock it away. What else have I been up to ?

Trip up to see my mum & dad, always worth it. Drove 3 different cars in 3 days, the Focus I own and the Mazda they’ve had for a while. The third was something a little more special 🙂 My dad’s retirement gift to himself is a Mazda MX-5 and if various of my muscles weren’t unhappy with me at the moment, I think there’d have been many more thoughts of WANT ONE 🙂 It’s still another 18 months though before I can change car and I’m hoping something good will come from hybrid car technology.

Gaming again on Monday night, first time for a while. I have another Bashara this time around, think Girl With Big Sword. Our party this time around is all about getting in fast, doing huge amounts of damage and clearing the bad guys before they know what hit them. First encounter this time around, blue dragon matching the blue dragon on my t-shirt of choice on Monday. Next week’s t-shirt is either going to be my Alien t-shirt or my Send In The Wookie. We shall see 🙂

Right – time to get back to catching up on all the telly I have recorded, there’s lots of it 🙂 Hopefully I’ll improve tomorrow, enough to take a trip into the centre of Bristol for a music raid 🙂

PS I see another music post coming on soon …

🙂 Me fine, just having trouble figuring out something new to put on the blog. Been doing stuff but somehow it doesn't seem to want to translate into me tapping fingers on the keyboard.

Yep – I got lucky a few years ago to get picked up by a project with some very special people 🙂 There are a few highly annoying people around (hence me grabbing this week off to get away 🙂 but I don't comment about them here cos I prefer to focus on the good instead of the bad 🙂

PS Trying to add you in on my FB but it's struggling to complete the "add friend" bit …