Category Archives: General musings

General musings on life, the Universe and how stuff works

General musings

The dark art of prophecy


The nature of science fiction is all about how a change in scientific knowledge or technology can alter human society. To play the ‘what if?’ game with a vengeance. It is a literary tree with many branches. From the ‘hard’, based on an extrapolation of historical understanding, real life human psychology and proposed technologies, to space opera and sword and sorcery fantasies. It’s a prophesy game, which is the key dark art of the genre.

Most of the early prophets, like H G Wells in “War of the Worlds” and “The shape of things to come” had elements which have been since come to pass; substitute lasers for ‘heat rays’, mass airborne bombardment, poison gas. Wells saw all these things in humanities future. Jules Vern’s “Voyage to the moon” and “20,000 leagues under the sea” foresaw moonshots and submarine warfare, but not in quite the way he surmised. Arthur C Clarke is credited with predicting communication satellites, and in one short story the widespread availability of pornography via satellite TV. In Clarke’s version, his protagonist was going to use the technology to subvert Western society. Forget the title or what collection it’s in. Either “The Nine Billion names of God” or “Tales of Ten Worlds” I think. Used to have copies, but they either got read to death, or lost in one of many house moves.

Today I finished a dark, ironic, even cautionary little story about the misuse of satellite technology. What starts out as the ultimate weapon against individual terrorists gets hijacked by a couple of bored slacker programmers, who inadvertently create devastation by tinkering with what they think is a ‘simulator’ package. The premise and outcome are fairly straightforward, the mechanics of the story not so much.

At six thousand, six hundred and sixty six words I find myself, for my own perverse reasons, liking both length and content. What gives the story punch is the proposed technology is one of those ‘on the horizon’ things. Just on the cusp of possibility. To be honest, I’ll be surprised if something very similar hasn’t already crossed some defence analysts desk as a serious weapon systems proposal.

Without giving too much away, I drew heavily on my knowledge of computer networking and security, wide area networks, orbital mechanics and ablation in order to tie various elements into a plausible, dramatic whole intended to both amuse and stimulate. For some it might prove a bit too geeky, for others overly simplistic, but that’s the fine line walked when you’re trying to mix in complex story elements with the cynicism of experience. What can a character do when their carefully defended world is going to hell, and everything that happens seems to make matters worse? Simply because they’ve been pushed into making a beta level system fully operational.

When I have another few of these stories completed, at present I’ve half a dozen as ‘works in progress’, I’ll put them into a little eBook collection and give it a punt into the great nowhere. See what happens. In the meantime it’s back to working on ‘Darkness’ and ‘A falling of Angels’.

General musings

Amusing myself with my wifes iPad


NewMKJprofilePhotoAngie has long complained that my current online profile picture “Doesn’t do you justice.” So during a keyboard break I decided to borrow her iPad, which has a rather good camera setup, and had a bit of a play. Then decided to try a picture using a mirror. After a few tries, which should probably be best buried on an obscure hard drive at midnight with a stake through its casing, I came up with this. Which for once meets with her approval, and as a writer of science fiction, the ‘infinity effect’ using the iPad camera also amuses. Good grief, I’m even smiling and don’t look as much like a crazed axe murderer as I usually do.

The more I get to play with it, the cooler I think her iPad is.

General musings, Language

Developing ideas


One of the things I think, and this is purely the opinion of a nobody so who really cares, is that when writing a story of any kind, an effort must be made to dodge all the incoming cliché’s. Hear the tell tale whistle of a tired old axiom and hit the metaphorical dirt. This is where I am with both ‘A Falling of Angels’ and ‘Darkness’.

Sometimes, like with Heathrow Airport, these hackneyed old saws can’t be avoided, and for a short while story lines can become predictable and even a little tired. Which can turn original story telling from a journey into a commute, having to use the same old piece of highway or train track, seeing the same old sights with the same old companions. Knowing you’re going to end up in the same old places. Day on day. Year after year. Recycling the same old same old without a new angle rapidly gets dull and repetitious. Which is rather like where Hollywood went with their usual crop of Blockbusters Summer 2013. No wonder audience figures are reported as down.

When I write I’m always looking for a new angle, a quirk or random element. Something unusual, tragi-comic maybe, but always human, always drawn from my or other people’s experiences. It’s my belief that a story path should jump the tracks occasionally to give any reader a fresh perspective. Flesh out a critical character. Surprise, astound, engage a readers thinking muscles by adding a new depth or level of perspective. All that shizzle. Excuse the neologism, but with two stepdaughters in their 20’s, these things tend to creep in. As has been observed, children can do awful things to a vocabulary. Which can be fun until everyone starts doing it, which is where I came in, I think.

Jean-Luc Godard observed that any given story should have a ‘beginning, a muddle, and an end‘, with the codicil “But not necessarily in that order”. By way of comparison, I often see posts about the ‘rules of writing’ on LinkedIn forums, only to observe that there seem to be as many rules as there are writers. I suppose, having thought about it, the key is applying your own singular world view. If other people like it, great, wonderful, fine, but as many a marketing manager stuck on a failing campaign has noted; what should doesn’t always. So it is with developing an idea into a narrative. Which is where I keep on getting stuck. Between what might be original, and what I think constitutes good.

As soon as I’ve worked out a relatively cliché free story direction, I’ll be able to move on. Today that involves stepping away from the keyboard for an hour or three. Making myself useful on the domestic front before evening shift.

Cerberus, General musings

Shaking off the negativity


Lot of negative waves at home and day job at present. Angie’s under pressure with a total change of work system and practices, which has a knock on. I’ve been acting as her ‘receptionist’ and fending off some of the time hogs to let her get back in control of her workload. This has eaten into creative writing time.

Walked into evening shift yesterday afternoon to be told we had to be nursemaided off the premises by ‘Security’ from now on because some whack job has been threatening other staff. No idea why, we’re one of the least offensive and most people friendly organisations I’ve ever come across. The problem is; Whack job, obviously what is called a ‘borderline personality’ has extended his threat to everyone else who works in our little office. Our Executive Director is very upset, and I can’t recall the first time I ever heard her swear, but I heard her curse last night. As for the rest of the staff, they’re rattled, which has a bit of a knock-on effect all round.

For myself, I don’t react well to being threatened, even by proxy. Never have. Not unnaturally the hackles go up and get in the way of everything else. I’m usually pretty well controlled, but where petty bullies are concerned I have a tendency to go straight into combat mode. Which rather impacts on the rest of life. Left alone, the stress and anger stains and corrodes the creative impulse. Gets in the way.

As part of a coping strategy, my own anger at being under unjustified threat has been faced down and held up to richly deserved ridicule. This morning I took a time out to corner my own red beast, give him a richly deserved spanking and tell him to play nice. To mind his own business until he’s really needed. Writing about it helps. As for whack job, there’s a handy little article on borderline personalities in the October 2013 issue of Psychology Today, which is getting yet another read through.

Thinking about the threat situation dispassionately, there’s some extra material here. A rich seam of narrative to be mined and refined. In ‘Falling’ my hero has to break up with a slightly goofy and predatory girlfriend, and I think I’ve just found the key to unlock that story element. Where their relationship starts out as a ‘no strings’ kind of deal, it morphs, as these situations are wont to do, into a morass of suspicion and jealousy, which will no doubt end with my hero getting slung out of a very cosy gaff. Well, who’d have thunk it? An extra story layer. Well I never. Inspiration comes from the strangest quarters. My irony meter just went into overload.

Today I am also looking at the ‘Freemen on the Land’ movement, watching videos, examining their philosophy. listening to what they say. Looking at what their opponents say. The reason for this interest, an iteration of their philosophy is putting in an appearance in ‘A Falling of Angels’ where the ‘Freemen’ find themselves as an organising factor in a massive refugee camp. Literally creating their own parallel society, and at the same time both helping and hindering my mind reading detective in his hunt for the killers. However, that’s enough of a giveaway for the moment.

General musings

Today’s earworm


Woke up this morning with the Casino Royale theme running through my head.

Yeah, a James Bond day. Why not?

General musings, Observations

A paucity of inspiration


I can’t do it. I’m stuck. I’ve edited and re edited. Proofed and corrected, but as for new output, I’m grinding around in a circle like a tank with one track. Endlessly covering the same small circle. Under inspired.

Everything has ground to a halt. Short stories, screenplays, novels, everything. Nothing is working: the ‘what if’ game, the get on with other things gambit, nothing. Fortunately I’ve been here before, and know that if I kind of take a sneaky sidestep, and quit battering my head against a metaphorical brick wall, I’ll see a way around or through. Sooner or later. Just take a time out, use my eyes, peoplewatch, walk, talk, do the Zen thing and the answers should present themselves. I hope.

General musings

We are now officially cool….?


My wife now has a 4th Gen 32Gb iPad (With cellular data package) for work. iPads are supposed to be ‘cool’, therefore so are we, I think. Possibly. Maybe. Is it possible to be ‘cool’ when you’re over 55? I don’t know.

A lot of Angie’s high school level learners have Mac and iPads, and throw out documents in Mac format. They use Apple’s video messaging as opposed to Skype. Therefore she needs this piece of kit to work and communicate with them more effectively.

Playing with her new iPad on the deck via the house wi-fi while drinking a very nice Belgian beer, chilling and watching some serious boats go by, it is interesting to see, close up, how an iPad works. Very intuitive, polished, and slick. I can see why some folk get fanatical about them.

Me, I’m sticking with my old Acer Windows 7 laptop until it breaks, or gets so slow it’s not worth booting. Then I might, if budget allows, look at a MacBook as a replacement. I’ve always looked at it this way, it’s no use buying a sports car (iPad) when what you really need is a van (PC). Although the iPad 10 hour battery life is very appealing. Like with our Kobo eReader, battery life is crucial when you’re far from home and travelling with no available charging ports.

Anyway. Thanks to Marc, Victor, Scotty, and the guys in the ‘engine room’ at Nanaimo Future Shop for great, dare I say ‘awesome’ service and letting us make up our own minds. Having the Apple guy in store is a seriously good piece of service end marketing on Apples part. Hope we didn’t give the boys too much of a hard time. We’ll be back.

General musings

How to deal with Internet Trolls


Picked up this link from LinkedIn this morning. Apparently there are people with nothing better to do than post defamatory views on the works of others. Known as ‘trolls’. Not the dark Scandinavian monsters of legend, hiding under bridges to waylay the unwary, nor cute hairy little dolls sold as souvenirs. No. These trolls are most often sad, twisted, and rather lonely individuals with a keyboard and no real friends ‘trolling’ as in fishing terms, web sites and forums for attention. Most likely they are powerless people on an ego trip.

The best way to deal with these people is not to engage. ‘Do not feed the trolls’ being the cardinal unwritten rule of most comment threads. Because that is what they want. ‘Feeding’ / engagement, attention. To snag your ID from your e-mail address reply so as to impersonate you. A better idea is to let them batter their worthless souls senseless by simply removing their abusive / insulting posts from your web site comment threads without mention. In short, send them to electronic oblivion. Deny them the vindication of existence. Damn their sayings with faint praise if need be, but preferably do not even acknowledge their existence, or the existence of their insults, ever. If necessary ‘down arrow’ their reviews or mark their ‘review’ as ‘unhelpful’. Trust me, there are all sorts of ways to deal with these stalkers rather than the hi-tech. Psychology will always be your friend.

For the technically minded there are other, but more intensive, answers. Go on a ‘troll hunt’ if you must, but only if there is no other recourse. I posted this advisory comment as a rough guide on how to proceed over at ‘TheBookChick’

May I offer a little advice. The Internet is not anonymous. It is relatively easy to track these abusive posters down via their IP address if you know how. Even if they do the normally cowardly troll trick of hiding behind what are called ‘Anonymous proxies’. There is always a trail of electronic breadcrumbs.

With their home IP address you can track the point of origin of the abusive poster. Using ‘Whois’ (Type into search bar and use one of the many free services), Find out their service provider / employer and lay formal complaint that their user / employee (Cite time of posting and IP address) is in breach of their terms of service for posting abusive and insulting material. Ask a lawyer if you need to go all formal on your antagonist. If that fails, with the evidence at your back, simply threaten to publicly post that such and such a service provider / organisation encourages abusive posting.

Remember, trolls are creatures of darkness, they hate the light.

Which is rather provocative, as there are as many ways to block as there are to discover, and an IP address is not a phone number, permanently linked to one subscriber. The Media Access Control number, if you can find it, is a unique identifier for each individual web accessing device. Oddly enough, this can be tracked relatively easily if your abuser is not ultra careful with their wireless device using public Wi-Fi. A simple web search will throw up all sorts of tricks and tools for this very purpose.

In short, everything anyone does on line can be recorded and tracked. Find the IP address, which is the number divided into two or three letter groups by full stops (It will be in the header information of their post), and go to somewhere like IP Tracker online. For advice on how to track down the anonymous abusers to their source from a cops standpoint, may I recommend this article as a good starting point. This article is also useful, with several handy pointers on where to look. Yes it means extra work, but if someone is hurting you, what recourse have you got? While not infallible, there are resources like ‘Real IP’ and ‘Visualware’ or ‘Visualroute’. Although for the non-technically minded, the above will be little real help.

Personally I prefer the ‘do not engage’ option with abusive attention seekers. My attitude towards them can be amply illustrated in this little known quote from Douglas Adam’s character Zaphod Beeblebrox; “Hey, I’ll just turn my charisma down a notch, they’ll soon get bored.” Think of it this way; if you weren’t heroic, they wouldn’t be trying to pull you down.

General musings

Rambling on and on


‘A Falling of Angels’ is still work in progress. A very slow work in progress. Editing, re-editing, proofing and spell checking, but not much in the way of actual creative writing. Still, I’m happy with the way the story is developing. My lead character is driving the main thread along steadily, and the side plots and protagonists are suitably venal and unpleasant. They, particularly my gay club owner and highly intelligent crime boss feel nicely three dimensional. He, like villains always should be, is far more fun to write than my ‘hero’, the telempathic Detective Sergeant Paul Calvin, forever on the brink of losing both job and children.

Progress on ‘Darkness’ is likewise sporadic. There’s been too much going on outside world; shift changes at day job and Angie wanting to move. Now my shifts stretch to midnight, with the resultant knock on to domestic life. Makes it hard to settle down to a narrative. I feel like I’m just rambling purposelessly.

There’s an odd kind of feel to events, too. It’s unusually cool for August, with the temperature on our deck barely scraping up to the sixties Fahrenheit. According to the forecast, the trend is going to continue for the next week or so, when normally we’re restocking on sun block. Very odd. Maybe September will be sunny.

General musings

The five best Science Fiction TV shows, ever.


Of all the best Science Fiction series, not movies or one off specials ever aired on TV, I have five firm favourites which I can watch again and again. Presented, like in all contest formats should be, in reverse order;

Fifth: A tie between ‘StarGate SG-1‘ and ‘Enterprise‘. Two worthy franchises.

Fourth: Red Dwarf (But not ‘Back to Earth’ – A shockingly bad end to a fantastic belly laugh of a series.) A small cast forever on fine form. A perennial.

Third: Farscape. Not so much for the Jim Henson creature creations as for what was done with them by the writing, direction team, and the actors.

Second: Babylon 5 (Series 2-5) Michael J Straczinski’s epic. Great story arc.

First: Firefly. Joss Whedons magnificent writing shines through. Great character development, smart stories, and snappy dialogue. Possibly the best Sci-Fi TV show of all time. Until something better comes along.

General musings

I don’t normally do Fantasy, but


Last night I dreamed a complete fantasy world. Social structures, storyline, the works. No context at all. No apparently external inspiration. Although I have been watching Discovery Channel features on Ancient Rome and Persia of late.

I fell asleep on the sofa studying for my VHF ROC(M) certification last night after evening shift at day job. Coming to this morning with a crick in my neck and a world in my head.

It’s got slaves, Sorcerer Kings, Frost Giants, Five Empires, and rare sacred trees which are the source of all magic in the world. Since I don’t read Fantasy outside of Larry Niven, Jim Butcher and Terry Pratchett, don’t think I’ve read anything remotely like it. I’ve been watching ‘Game of Thrones’ of course, but who hasn’t? My fantasy realms are nothing like those of George Martin. My world is actually modelled upon an Earth where the Ice caps reach down to Southern Britain and a great shallow inland sea covers most of the continental USA. Where there is a magical trading empire that rules the seas to the fire mountains of the East, through the midland channels across the Vastian Ocean to the Silk Empire and all her vassal states. Where the great Valley state runs along the inland sea to the great sacred waterfall of the Lantan Emipire.

That’s all I’m saying until I do a little more research and begin to write properly.

Two pages of notes inside an hour and accelerating. Evening shift tonight, then six clear days to work on my other projects.

All this out of one uncomfortable night. Wierd or what?

General musings

Things I wish I’d known at 18


1. Don’t waste your energy.
Decide what you’re going to write about and stick with it. Experimentation is fine, but these should always be left for tinkering at weekends, like a mechanic might work on restoring vintage cars as a hobby. Keep the day job until the big bucks come your way.

2. Work at it.
Determination be thy friend. Don’t give up on a project. Finish it. All it requires is an act of will. Nothing else will do the trick.

3. Ignore naysayers.
What might matter to a professional literary Critic might not be the view of the public at large. In fact this is probably axiomatic. Same for family and friends. Everyone has a different agenda, and they all want your attention right this minute. Our lives are bombarded by trivial little voices who simply can’t wait to start wagging their mouths. These little voices are sappers of karma, time vampires who sink their attention seeking little canines into your creative neck and insist, without bothering to read more than a couple of paragraphs that you’ve written that “You’re wasting your time.” They will almost always be wrong.

4. Don’t rush it.
Great. You’ve finished it. Your great work. Now put your magnum opus aside for a week before reading it like a reader would. Tighten up sentence structure. Eradicate those excess articles. Punish those pleonasms. And spell check, spell check, spell check. Take your time. Get it right. This is important.

5. Don’t worry about publisher rejections.
Everyone gets rejected. You, me, everyone. Publishers will take on what they think they can sell and make money on. They, like you and me are mere mortals and therefore subject to the immutable cosmic laws of cock-up. They guess, go with their gut instinct, or are simply too busy or hard up to plough through a ‘slush pile’ of unknowns. This provides a very large rabbit hole for your literary tour de force to fall through. Simply tidy and reformat your work, then resubmit after a year. By then it is likely that they will have hired different readers, have actually drunk coffee that morning, or decided to look for new markets. Well, enough to get the story you’re trying to tell. We all have off days. Some more than others. And even closed minds open occasionally.

6. Believe, but not too much.
So you have a cause. Whoop-te-do. So have half the idiots on the planet. People with ’causes’ are at the root of half the world’s evils. They believe hard and too much. So don’t be one of them.

7. Read primary sources.
Not newspaper reports based on press releases. Dig deep for the scholarly papers on your subject and read carefully. Trust but verify. If you’re going to write about it, research. Read more than one source. It will pay off, eventually.

8. Remember that people like drama.
Drama fulfils a deep human need for stimulation. The thirst for the new, the immediacy of novelty. Everyone, apart from autistic souls who can’t connect with others.

9. Learn the ‘rules’ of writing.
Mainly to learn how to break them properly. Always remember that ‘rules’ are sometimes only guidelines. “For the guidance of the wise, and the adherence of fools.”

10. Make time for yourself.
Time outs are important. Chill, step away from the day to day craziness. Stop reading the news and blogs that drive you nuts. Make friends and spend quality time with them. Drink coffee, watch the birds. Do whatever makes you most relaxed. Whatever form that takes.

11. Ease up on the illicit substances.
Getting drunk or stoned is human. We all do it. Well, most of us. Either to celebrate or decerebrate, maybe both. Sometimes we need a little chemical assistance to soften the blows of life. Have a session, a binge to ease the pain. The trick is not to let intake take over.

12. Don’t forget family.
Even if they are…. well, let’s not go there. Remember birthdays, send a card or message. Stay in touch and be civil at the very least. When the chips are down, they’ll be there for you. Even if you behave like an idiot most of the time.

13. Learn the power of ‘No’.
Sometimes, no matter how much you care about or respect someone, you are going to have to refuse them. Learn to do it gently.

Here endeth the lesson.

General musings, Stars Trilogy

Unscrambling storylines


After my recent brain fart storm, I find myself scrambling round the MSS of ‘Darkness’ tidying up loose ends. In making one story / character change, I’ve unleashed a cascade effect. While this does not alter the planned ending, it has sent the intermediate story skittering off in a new direction. Whilst this is not a completely unfortunate happenstance, it’s a lot of hard work reading and re-reading to clean up the glitches. Massively time consuming.

All this, day job, and Angie wanting me to help with her Canadian History Teachers course. Just been reading the unit on accounts of first contact in British Columbia by the Simon Fraser expedition, and to be honest it’s so dry I can hardly keep my eyes open. Great cure for insomnia. Although I’d prefer a large whiskey.

General musings

Morning at the Office


Morning at the officeJust another day in the ‘Office’. Although you can’t see the Deer, Raccoon or Rabbits from here. The odd passing truck or car. Out on the water there’s just sail boats and the occasional Gin Palace passing through. Day job later, but only a six hour shift, then back here for half past five. Which after supper gives me two more writing hours until sunset.

Working more on ‘Darkness’ than any other project at the moment, as the story thread I’m following is quite robust. Nine thousand words in the past five days. Not bad, could be doing more, but at least the ideas are flowing.