Monthly Archives: February 2013

Cerberus

Old text in new stories #WritersBlock


I’ve been digging through all the odd ideas I’ve jotted down for the Cerberus volume ‘A falling of Angels’ and rediscovered this fragment, ostensibly written on an ageing ThinkPad 600E in 2009. At least that’s what the file creation date originally told me. With the feeling it began life even earlier, I took a deeper look at the content creation details in file properties which gave me an even earlier date. 2006. Good grief.

“You want?” The piercing punctuated pusher was high on her own merchandise, pinpoint pupils and twitchy as a cat on fire.
“Yeah! You got?” In the noise of the crowded bar they both had to shout to hear each other. By gestures she got him to follow her out into the cooler night. He started to sweat as the cool air hit his skin under his leather coat and stab resistant shirt. She beckoned him into a doorways shadow, away from the watchful eyes of CCTV.
“Switch.” He tried to act cool. How was this supposed to go?
“Oo, gonna cost yo’ baby. Cool nineyfivehunnerd.” Her tone was mocking. All of fifteen years of age. He felt suddenly very old.
“What do I get?”
“Y’all see when yo’ git it.” A flash of an urchin grin as she stuck out her new model cred tab. “C’mon hunky, gimme.” She eagerly ran a studded tongue over black tinted lips, iridescent violet hair sparkling in reflected streetlight.
“’kay.” A blue spark of laser light flickered and the deal was done.


It has rhythm, cadence, tension, and although it’s a bit pulp fictionish, the text has a good feel. Now all I have to do is bolt it into the current story structure.

Technology

Old stock and a series of freebies #SelfPublishing


Got talking to a work buddy yesterday afternoon about publicity, Facebook and Twitter. He suggested giving a freebie eBook away as a kind of loss leader. Just to “Get the conversation going” as he put it. As I’m working evening shifts all this week, I’m using my day times revising some of my back catalogue of short stories ready for free release via Smashwords. Smashwords seem to have the widest distribution for various eBook formats, rather taking the pain out of providing separate editions for one group of platforms.

I think a good chunky read can be boilerplated together from a mix of sci-fi and supernatural stuff that doesn’t really fit in with my currently themed body of work. On the other hand, it’s amazing what you find when you start digging on your hard drive. Found a couple of short, thousand word pieces that fit in beautifully with the narrative for ‘A falling of Angels’, the next in the Cerberus series. Another few story fragments that can be hammered into fully fledged, and quite satisfying prose with a minimum of effort. There are a few that rage, a few that weep, and a couple with built in quirky smiles, like ‘Polish Ted’. Many of them set in an England I am all too familiar with. Although a few years ago I did rewrite a version of ‘Polish Ted’ for a US setting under the title ‘Cold Warrior’, and as a story it still worked beautifully. I might even bolt that one in as a ‘contrast and compare’ exercise. Just run the stories one after the other. See what the feedback is like. It’s as easy a way to put a 100,000 word collection together in a relatively short period of time.

Plenty of entertainment. For free. Give me a month or less.

Observations

More thoughts on constructing Timelines #WritersBlock

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Have been working on events timelines as a tool to make sure I don’t lose the thread of a story. This helps when constructing multiple character story lines to knit together at or around the denouement. Coupled with research on carbonaceous chondrite, and a few other associated topics made interesting by recent events, this has ground the writing process to an almost complete halt, or should I say hiatus.

The timelines are helping though. They are the anchors of stories and a ready reference for the Cerberus series, and the final volume of the Stars series, which had somewhat lost its narrative thread in the last nine months. Now with the assistance of formalising my timelines, I have a far clearer idea of where individual story threads have to go in order to reach the desired conclusion.

In addition I’ve been trying to get out a little more, in between work – eat – sleep – write, but the only sci-fi meetups seem to be over in Vancouver, which means two lost working days if I decide to go, ferry timetables and public transport being what they are. Living on Vancouver Island is fine, I love the space, but occasionally find it a little isolating.

My last visit to a Vancouver writers event with neighbour Kenn didn’t go anywhere much, as it was more of a ‘literary’ event. Several people I spoke to weren’t much interested in Science Fiction; indeed I seemed to hear a lot of “I don’t like Star Trek.” or “I don’t like Star Wars.” from what I’ll call the ‘anti’ faction of literati. Which seemed to act for them as a blanket dismissal for the genre. Okay, but that’s rather like saying you don’t like Fantasy, but have never read Terry Pratchett, Jim Butcher, or Christopher Stasheff; or because you find the Bronte’s and Jane Austen shirt wettingly dull (“Oh Mr D’Arcy – I am undone”), but never read Defoe, Hardy, or any of the other great 18th & 19th Century novelists. Maybe because someone doesn’t like the idea of ploughing through Plato’s ‘Republic’ they end up ignoring the whole corpus of early Greek literature, never mind entertaining Roman poets / satirists like Juvenal. Which has made me less than enthusiastic about spending time on such events.

On the subject of long distance travel, plans this year are still a little fragmented, but Angie and I are definitely going to visit England and possibly Southern Ireland. There is family to see, discussions to be held, decisions to be made. June looks like the most likely month.

After that, who knows? I have no Timeline for that, although a trip to the Okanagan to pick up some cases of decent wine is definitely in the early planning stages. Canadian wines are definitely worth a look. After much tasting on a trip last year, we found a rather nice non-vintage Pinot Blanc, and found several vineyards producing quite quaffable Gamay and Pinot Noir based reds. This might come as a surprise to the rest of the world, but not all Canada is the ‘Great white north’.

Astronomy

Naming the new moons of Pluto #Astronomy


With the recent discovery of two moonlike objects around ‘not quite a planet’ Pluto, there’s an online poll to name the new worldlets via this link. Personally I’d have selected Scylla and Charybdis, but those weren’t on the list of twelve options, so I voted for Cerberus (But of course) and Orpheus, the mythological hero who had to pass said legendary guardian of the underworld in a failed bid to recover his lost love, Eurydice.

For some odd reason I wondered whether some of the names were already taken, like Persephone, but apparently not. I’m normally a lot sharper than this, but since that bout of gastric upset the other week, I’ve been feeling rather post-viral. Rather run down and tired all the time. Friends tell me this is the aftermath of the Norovirus, and can last up to three weeks. Oh joy.

Observations

The importance of constructing timelines #WritersBlock


It’s often been said that the difference between fact and fiction, a line that can get increasingly blurred the more you read various accounts of events, is that fiction has to make sense. It has to have structure, logical consistency, whereas reality so often doesn’t. As I’m building up a body of futuristic work, it’s dawning on me that I need more than my usual conical collation of scribbled notes as a reference. I need a formal timeline to refer to, to ensure that logical sequences are adhered to.

To this end, I’ve been building up a series of linked spreadsheets as a reference database. These contain a series of seminal events for each of the Cerberus and Stars series. The premise being if you know where a story is going to, it makes the writing easier. Forming a reference to go back to for each novel in a series. In effect creating my own fictional galaxy. Mainly as a tool for me to refer to, like the compilation of space combat tactics I’ve been putting together, called the ‘Windsor Doctrine’. It’s only a few pages long at present, and I’ve had no time to do any artwork, but there’s potential there as a companion volume.

As I’ve been turning out ‘product’ over the past ten years or so, it occurs to me that the more modern reader needs much more than just a simple narrative. There is a faction that want detail, the more visual element. Not just the book, but the movie, the Manga comic, Anime, and more western animated series, not to mention action figurines. In the fullness of time, my rough timelines may just become that, forming part of a larger, themed body of work. However, for the moment they will remain a tool to circumvent any writers block.

Cerberus

Head of the Beast proof copy arrived today #SelfPublishing


Took a walk down to the post boxes today and found, joy of joys, that the proof paperback copy of Head of the Beast had arrived. 152 pages. 25 chapters. 70,000 words. In real terms looking terribly small, and feeling very light considering its length. My baby. Fruit of my over active imaginings. Head of the beast proof copy
It’s an odd sensation, holding the results of all that hard work and finding the result so small. Overall? I’m very pleased with the starkness of the look, although I might think about textured or matte covers in future as they don’t get quite so easily marred by every sweaty fingerprint. Perfect? No. Reading through, I can see ‘improvements’ to be made, but that’s just me. There has to be a point at which your baby bird has to leave the nest and try to fly.

I’ll proof it over the next few days and see how I feel about approving the distribution then.

Observations

A reply to popping the Kobo question #SelfPublishing #BookMarketing


While I was Hors de combat recently, those nice people at Kobo sent me an answer to my query regarding Kobo eReaders as a distribution platform for the Cerberus eBook series. The best word for their response has to be ‘comprehensive’. I’m still working my way through the ramifications.

Essentially, since I own all the rights to the work, I can create special editions so long as they are marked with a separate ISBN via Kobo, or whoever’s existing publication platform. This seems to indicate I’ll have to go through Kobo’s own self publishing programme, as I can’t afford the prices they’re asking for commercial ePub conversion and Metadata services. Not sure about Amazon and the Kindle, although this may prove to be a similar situation. Last time I checked, I was led to the conclusion that the Kindle agreement required exclusivity to a given title, although at the moment I’m not sure.

This merits further investigation, and since my brain is only slowly returning to full function, I will be taking my time about it.

On the plus side, I’ve found a local proof reader for a reasonable price.