I had two pepper steaks yesterday. Good as they were, two steaks / one day, is not a good idea for any reason…
Category Archives: Personal
Asterix in Brussells
Sorry, misleading post title there. It’s really Armand in Bruges, where I’ll be Eastering with my family, so there will be no flurry of posts this weekend. The good news is there may finally be a photo or two when I get back.
Aside: has anyone else had a massively inflated number of easter related email forwards this year? They’re really irritating. Although the one with the deaf bunny and the sore bunny was quite amusing.
Slingshot (or: how David slayed Goliath)
My brother’s just launched the website of his film company, Slingshot Studios, an all-digital film production company. It’s a pretty ambitious project – making relatively low-budget films come to life through digital production and using innovative new technologies to make it all work effectively.
I’m really excited about where he’s going with this: its a great concept and I know he’s working with some very impressive people. And my brother’s always had a flair for identifying the things that make stories work, so is well suited to the task.
Toured his offices at Ealing Studios the other day – also very impressive. What can I say, I’m itching for a role as an extra (and possibly a credit as a writer, once I get my stories off the ground ;)).
You know its time to refresh your Nano when…
…You skip through everything but the “Jack Johnson” tracks. I really need some new music…
Liveblogging nothing
So, I seem to be liveblogging an evening watching TV. I’m going to stop now, because this can serve no purpose ;)
On loving characters
One of the things on my to-do list is to write up a bunch of blog posts on specific topics is to write a few posts that have been brewing in my head. Before I forget why ‘Batgal/Buffy/Serenity-loving characters’ is scrawled on my to do list, I thought I’d fire off a couple of posts.
Arvind’s written about the hero mythos before (as have others…), but I’ve noticed of late that all my favourite television is massively character driven. Buffy and then Firefly/Serenity, Stargate SG-1, LoTR, the Bartimaeus trilogy, the Peter Hamilton novels (ok, all my recent sci/fi & fantasy) – but also books like Catch 22 (still on there as one of my favoure books ever), and Chabon’s brilliant Adventures of Kavalier and Clay — all really focussed on character development, and making people come to life that you really care about. The Sci/Fi / fantasy element is only necessary for the additional enjoyable escapism, I think – its the character led fiction that I love.
Thinking about my own writing, I want to try to go down this route. Every time I’ve set pen to paper in the past I’ve always led with something pathetically post-modern or puerilely philosophical. The next challenge has got to be working the philosophy and plot around characters my readers will like. Which is why I plan to make use of the A3 pad my sister bought me yesterday to sketch out some ideas and characteristics I’d like to see…
It’s so exciting! Feels like I’m actually getting somewhere. At least I now have a new list of thank yous to write in the acknowledgements of the book – when its eventually written – “Buffy Summers, Earl Hickey, Bill Adama, DEATH, Arthur Dent, &c’ – characters and heroes, one and all.”
Procastination and inspiration from Earl
Have found that I’m putting off the most trivial things lately – replacing the blade on my razor, doing the laundry, erm, blogging, and more. The attitude of ‘I’ll get to it eventually’ has me standing knee deep in a pile of slowly mildewing laundry and dust an inch thick around the base of my monitor.
I’ve bought a dustbuster, and made a list, inspired by Early Hickey. I’m going to cross off everything on my list if it’s the last thing I do (I haven’t yet written down ‘lose two stone’ but that may find its way onto the list…)
Ready to write?
I think I’m getting there. My Dad (who’s visiting) always used to say to me: “Read a thousand books before you try to write one. Read ten thousand.” Back in the days when I lied to my family to impress them with the quantity of reading that I’d done (I used to be an inveterate suck-up, much to my brother’s annoyance), Dad might have thought I was getting fairly close to this.
Since I was six, however, I have actually done a fair chunk of reading and over the last seven or eight months I’ve consumed about a hundred books in the genre(s) I’d like to write under the guise of ‘research’. Actually, its just been hella fun, and a good post-work diversion, but the essence is: I think I’m nearly ready to put pen to paper.
Not to actually start writing – but to start mapping out characters. Story arcs. Sketching floor plans of buildings that will feature. That sort of thing – think I need to get the detail right. But its all quite exciting.
Think I’m going to go buy an A3 pad and some magic markers today…
Fiddling…
…new blog feed, http://feeds.feedburner.com/division6. Not sure why even trying this, but why not…?
Busy like a monkey on amphetamines
Gosh its been a busy week or two. One of the busiest weeks at work since I started – and have had busy weeks before, I promise – parents imminent arrival, plotting a summer break, looking after Mousecapades for Gem and getting over the remnants of last week’s flu – a two day weekend is just completely inadequate!!
But beginning to feel in the driving seat again, which is good – and will mean I do a little more blogging and Linklogging too – so apologies for temporary radio silence.
Interesting things that I’ve done/seen thoug: reading the Jonathan Stroud books, seeing Good night and good luck, both of which are awesome. Have also watched a lot of Transformers Cybertron, which is a world improved on the recent Japanese dubs, ‘Robots in Disguise’ and ‘Armada’, and has some of those appealing story arcs that keep you hooked…
Anyway, more to come. Good night, and good luck!