Tag Archives: Projects

General musings

Saturdays


I’ve finally found my thread with ‘A Falling of Angels’ again, but it’s hard to settle down to work when half the house is in boxes, and the other half being sorted for disposal. My dog, Amos is fussing around my feet because all his favourite hiding places are being disrupted. Three more weeks of this to go. I’m packing books, trying to write course assignments and falling behind in just about everything else.

This isn’t me making excuses, I think. But I’m square eyed from all the screen work and need a bit of a break. It’s times like this that make me think I’ve bitten off more than I can comfortably chew. All I can do is bite down harder and let sheer bloody minded determination carry the load.

When I signed up for my courses, I didn’t actually bargain for doing them in the middle of a house move. Oh well. Headphones on for a favourite tune or two.

General musings

Not drowning quite so much


Still struggling a little. Real life is full of drama and getting in the way of actual creative writing. House move to be organised, packing, studying, college assignments to be written, job hunting, landlord arrested (Two squad cars in the yard, neighbours scandalised). All these things happened over the last couple of days. It’s been very frustrating. Over the last week I’ve been sorely tempted to throw up my hands and shout “Oh, what is it now!” to the unforgiving air at every new interruption.

Fortunately the sun is shining and for a change I got a full nights sleep last night. Our suite is a tip, full of half filled boxes and moving impedimenta. For the next three weeks this is going to set the tenor of our existence.

Technology

Biting the bullet


What with everything going a little sideways in the last seventy two hours, I’ve compounded my various felonies by signing up for Simon Fraser University’s Certificate in Technical Communication course. Three modules, the first of which is now bought and paid for. Most of the ground I’ve covered as paid work before, but as the saying goes in BC “If you haven’t got the right piece of paper”. My XML and HTML are a bit rusty, I need to get totally au courant with the Canadian style guide, and I’m fine with editing PDF’s, but now with WordPerfect I have the best tool for any writing job. Might even be worth my while buying Corel’s PDF editor, although I’ve already got an old Adobe 5.0 licence and software buried somewhere in my collection.

Now Angie’s on the home stretch of her biology teaching course, which the Education Ministry have insisted upon, the educational burden will shift onto my shoulders and she can relax and enjoy the Summer. However, my April and May will be spent head firmly wedged in English textbooks and burnishing my CV until it gleams. I have DreamWeaver if need be as a web site builder, and a spare domain name to experiment with, so away I’ll go. I also need to put in some serious work on my professional online presence, which is a bit sketchy at present.

Of course this will mean delays on the creative writing front, but as that doesn’t pay many bills, it will be done during ‘leisure’ time only. ‘Darkness’ has just undergone a major narrative restructure, and between now and Tuesday when we head off to the UK for a week, ‘A Falling of Angels’ will be getting similar treatment. If I’m really lucky, I may even get some writing time in while we’re on the move or hanging around in England. If not c’est la vie.

General musings

Improved proof reading


Finally installed my copy of WordPerfect yesterday, and was promptly reminded what an utterly superb word processing and formatting toolbox it provides. Proof reading is an absolute breeze using Reveal Codes. Editing likewise. Going through a current work in progress, it highlighted several errors I’d repeatedly missed using Word and OpenOffice, including a massive tranche of unwanted tab settings and assorted code. I’d long ago forgotten what a superb piece of word processing software it is. In the words of the advert ‘It does exactly what it says on the can’. Admittedly WordPerfect is for the advanced user, but once you’ve learned the basics, it’s not that hard.

On the home front, I’ve just celebrated my fifty seventh birthday, am signing up for a Techcomm course, and Angie and I are flying to the UK on Tuesday to undertake one of life’s sad duties. This interferes with main project writing and the prospect of being crammed into an alloy tube for ten hours like so much toothpaste is hardly enticing. Then the infernal hanging around in airports waiting for boarding and security. It’s not so much the travel I hate, I love watching the world skim by. Sitting in a passenger seat, or better still the drivers. That’s not the issue. It’s more the sheer fuss surrounding getting from A to Z and all stations in between. Still, we’ll do what we always do; grit our teeth at the indignities, then try to smile and forget the annoying impedimenta as best we can.

The one consolation is that we’ll be seeing more or less our entire diverse little clan over the next few days, so that can’t be all bad.

General musings

Prezi


I’ve been thinking about experimenting with the way a story is told for some time now. A new tool has dropped into the box called Prezi, which is intrinsically a tool to create shareable presentations. I’ve decided to convert a couple of short stories into this format when I make the time. Just to see what they look like as a kind of visual précis.

In the meantime, progress on all other projects is slow. There’s too much going on in the real, paying the bills part of my life at the moment, and when I’m done there rarely seems to be enough energy to plough full steam ahead with ‘Darkness’ or ‘A Falling of Angels’. Maybe I should do the Prezi thing to help clear the junk out of my head, post a link or two and see what feedback happens.

Angie wants us to move, so a lot of time is currently being spent on looking for a new home further south. I need, and am actively looking for, a new job in the Victoria area to help pay the bills. I’m also signing up on Simon Fraser Universities Techcomm courses to update my billable skillset. All of which detract from writing the next books. Although I’m sure there’s time to be squeezed into the schedule somehow.

General musings

Site maintenance and short fiction


While struggling a little with the major projects, I’ve amused myself with rearranging the site menu a little, creating a sub page and section for short stories no-one would really be interested in.

First offering is an odd little tale entitled ‘Christmas in Space‘. I’ve got a few others, but I’m wondering whether I’m brave enough to let them out into the public domain. For what that’s worth.

Cerberus

Heading those chapters


There’s been a trend for some time with TV shows for episodes given punnish titles intimating brief hints about the episode content. While with ‘Stars’ I went for the rather dry numerical convention like with a technical document. In the Cerberus series I’ve taken a leaf out of the TV playbook, and gone with the pun. Not so much in ‘Head of the Beast’, but definitely in ‘A Falling of Angels’. Three sample chapter headings being ‘Breaking the bad’, ‘The End of a Beginning’, and ‘Lloegr’ (Which means ‘England’ or more poetically ‘Lost Lands’ in Welsh). For an additional example, I’m currently writing a chapter entitled ‘Travelling in Hope class’ which starts to take my hero back to his beginning, and final confrontation with the current bad guys. Possibly. While pursued by another bunch of bad guys who have him pegged as a terrorist. Kind of.

It’s complicated. A lot of fun to write, but quite involved.

Language

Switching to WordPerfect


For Christmas this year I’ve decided; I’m treating myself to a full copy of Corel WordPerfect. I’ve always liked its functionality as a piece of word processing software, and liked the way I could always get deep into the code of a document. Unlike Microsoft Word, or Lotus, or OpenOffice which are basically very similar. All right, they’re fine for the basics, but when you need to turn out a document untrammelled by spurious code, you can’t beat WordPerfect. The ‘Reveal Codes’ command is the kicker as far as I’m concerned. It reaches the parts all the others can’t or won’t. Takes the Bloat out of the Bloatware, and makes a nice clean job of it. Especially when outputting XML or HTML formats for web based documentation.

I’ve always liked WordPerfect for its virtuosity as a piece of word processing software, although it requires a higher level of expertise than all the others put together. Yes, maybe the menu system looks a bit complex and old fashioned, but once mastered, you can do far more with it as an application. What has brought this desire to change on is my increasing frustration with the self correcting facilities in Word, OpenOffice or Lotus. When saving across formats, I tend to lose language settings and special characters, which in documents over 50,000 words long means a lot of extra proofing and re-reading. I’ve tried switching these features off, but even then MS-Word, OpenOffice Write and Lotus keep on losing the details, which is very frustrating. I actually gave up working in MS-Word when I found code fragments creeping in and ruining anything up to two months of work during document conversion. Yes, fine, Word can output PDF’s, it’s fairly intuitive, but because the code structure is not completely transparent and correctable, Word and its various clones won’t let you clean the whole document up properly. This has previously cost me time, money and energy that I could better spend elsewhere. There’s also the issue that WordPerfect is often the choice of Law Offices because it is more secure than most.

With the climax of ‘A Falling of Angels’ looming on my mental horizon, I’d far rather be writing than constantly correcting stuff that was already corrected.

General musings

Anticipating future fashion

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I’m in the middle of a story sequence that takes my hero and his not so dumb girlfriend through Rome on their way back to solving the main mystery in ‘A falling of Angels’. In the story, they are being stalked by a Sardinian boy with an unknown agenda. Also in the story, Rome, like so many major cities, is beset by a plague of enforcement cameras and sensors. Much to the annoyance of the public at large, and in response Paul Calvin, mind reading Detective Sergeant.

In response to such a circumstance, I find myself wondering if veiled hats might not make a comeback.
Audrey Hepburn Veiled hat
Originally part of ‘Widows weeds’ or to keep direct sunlight off delicate skin, the history of the veiled hat goes back to the 1200’s. Since then, net veils and veiled hats have popped in and out of western fashion for centuries. At present they are perennially popular at events like weddings and funerals, and occasionally as part of a stage outfit. Not so much at street level, but even there appearing more of an upmarket status symbol.

Perhaps using some form of Anti-infra red fabric, or ‘dazzle’ configuration, they might even cross the sex barrier to be adopted by security conscious men. Stranger things have happened.

I’ll write it and see how it feels.

Update: As an alternative, perhaps polarised sunshields might take off. Sun or ski goggles that cover most of the exposed face, or at least the visible brow and cheekbones most facial recognition software relies upon for its efficacy.

See this link for how modern facial recognition software works.

Cerberus

Characters I love to hate


Back deep in the narrative guts of ‘A falling of Angels’ at present. In order to add another layer, I’ve decided to expand the role of my mind reading detective characters current girlfriend. Because he’s made a nuisance of himself with the powers that be (as usual), he’s been suspended for a month this time, and since she has lost her job, they’ve gone on holiday together. While on holiday, and in response to exposing another clue about his past, his girlfriend demonstrates practical surveillance busting skills which solve several issues. Nothing out of character, rather using her known skill set to best advantage. Flirting with a sales assistant to distract, using her initiative.

In the days when I used to watch Doctor Who, the characters who used to annoy me most were the Doctors ‘Assistants’ who would, at a story critical juncture, scream, break a heel, get captured by the monster and be generally about as much use as a chocolate kettle. Just so the Doctor can leap into the Tardis and save them. The other kind were the über feminists who were oh so much better than everyone else. If you’re going to have a useful female character with a life longer than a single episode, you’ve got to flesh them out a bit. Let them kick a Cyberman so hard his batteries fall off, be smart enough to blind a Dalek by sticking masking tape over its silly monocular eyepiece, vent a villain out of the airlock occasionally without needing the Doctors sonic screwdriver sort of thing. A bit more than just a victim, but not so much they take over the show. In Doctor Who, my particular favourite remains (Predictably) Louise Jameson as Leela during Tom Baker’s sojourn as the Doctor.

It’s what I hate about teen slasher movies. The helpless cheerleader stereotype who you know is going to get killed in the first few minutes because she can’t do anything but totter along on four inch heels and scream for help as the implausibly dressed villain stalks after her. Female (and male) characters need depth to be credible, otherwise they’re just yawn worthy. They have to be able to spring surprises now and again. Display hidden strengths. Not too many, and always in line with what we understand about them as people. Human enough to be fallible, but not so infallible as to lose their humanity. That’s what keeps me awake through a movie or book. By the same token, stereotypes induce almost instant somnolence.

Ergo; Marcy, who first appears as Paul Calvin’s slightly slutty waitress girlfriend from ‘Head of the beast’ develops into a better defined character in ‘A falling of Angels’. She does things only she could do for reasons which matter to her, and in addition we learn facts about her designed to make a male reader nod with respect, and a female reader identify with. Both have to do with her family. Layers upon layers, a personality built up as she (and he) drive the story forward. It’s added over eight thousand words to the MSS over the past three days, and they all stand up to scrutiny. Another twenty thousand words or so and I’ll have finished this particular volume in the series. Yippee.

General musings

Just a walk in the dark

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Not much writing done today. Spent a good chunk of this morning sitting waiting while my car was being serviced. As I was leaving the house I grabbed my proof copy of ‘Head of the beast’ to pass the time. It’s a little wordy in places, but the dialogues fairly snappy, and as reads go, its as pleasant a walk in the dark as most places. I was so engrossed, the three hours at the dealership just flew by. Seeing as I wrote it, I’m quite pleased with the end result.

‘Head of the beast’ is a dark little story which speaks about how mundane the horrors can be, how those who are paid to cope with the darkness manage it, and how seemingly lofty motives can lead to appalling outcomes. As far as my sci-fi writings are concerned, it’s fairly typical. A mixture of the horrific and mundane. Rather like real life, really.

Ergo I’ve changed the header tagline from the rather anodyne ‘A science fiction writers web site and blog’, to the mildly blasé ‘A walk in the dark’. Which, I feel, is a little more me, and far more representative.

Have picked up the thread with ‘a falling of angels’ and am busy piling on the words as well as tidying up a loose end from ‘Head of the Beast’. Well I like it. Perhaps that’s all that matters.

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’.

What if

Today’s ‘what if’


This morning I’m busily rounding off a 3000 word short story. Essentially it’s about a brand new anti-terrorist technology so good it not only eliminates individual threats, but also cannot be traced back to its source. Just another tale set in the not so distant future. Called ‘Keyhole’ it’s not part of my main story timelines, just one of those oddball tales that pop out of the woodwork between my ears every now and then.

Don’t know what I’m going to do with the story once finished. Despite what I think is rather a deft and savage twist in the plot, I don’t really think it’s that commercial a piece of work. Maybe I’ll do nothing. Perhaps lump it with a few others as part of a short story collection eBook at some stage.

Cerberus

Even in the quietest moments


Trying to move on with projects when your workplace is subject to unpredictable interruptions is difficult. So it has been for the past few months. Angie’s been panicking a bit over her Teaching History course exam, and I’ve found myself roped in to help with revision. All in all, what with new shifts, cuts in hours, hunting for a new day job, planning to move house, and a heap of other incidentals, finding the time to concentrate and write consistently has been at a premium. Even in the quietest moments there have been things clamouring for my attention, distracting from the job in hand. Next doors anti-social birds and my dogs habit of random fits of barking when there’s no-one there don’t exactly help. I don’t mind him calling me when there’s an issue, but barking at things which aren’t there, or a quarter mile away are not conducive to serious endeavour. So working on ‘A falling of Angels’ and ‘Darkness’ has proven quite an effort of late. Any sudden interruption sends my birds of thought fluttering off to the far reaches, and they’re a bugger to coax down from the rafters afterwards.

Normally speaking, when in a noisy environment, the human mind is rather good at filtering out the constant rivers of aural trash. When you’re in the ‘zone’ it’s like having headphones on, and the nervous hindbrain is lulled to a lower stress level, leaving the frontal lobes free to do the fine carpentry of narrative construction. Low flying aircraft noise, tugs in the narrows pulling log booms, gardening machinery, all these can fade into the background. Background music or documentaries help. But when the interruptions are random and unpredictable, the filters can’t work, and writing suffers.

It’s easy to write, any damn fool can string a sentence together and use a spell checker, but as good old Sam Clemens once noted, fiction has to make sense, real life doesn’t. You can’t just fling any old nonsense down on the page and hope it works. Within the framework of the narrative, premises must lead to conclusions, causality must be rigorously observed. Threads tied off. All that shizzle.

I do keep plot notes, I do try to write character traits down, but, and this is the big but; characters have to develop. They have to change with each major event or they simply become cardboard cutouts of stereotypes. Their humanity has to alter with each new challenge, just like with real people. Fixing them to a page can sometimes be akin to nailing jelly to the wall. Especially when inspiration keeps striking like random meteors. Those “Hey, what if?” thoughts constantly intrude. And if the story is changed, well nothing happens in isolation, everything has to be accounted for.

What is often not appreciated is how hard this is to do. At least for those of us who have real lives. Dogs to walk, day job to do, meals to cook, chores etc. Finding quiet time to let the consciousness roam without distraction and find answers to the many questions. Since Angie took her exam two days ago, the distractions are fewer, and I’m beginning to pick up the threads again. Yet again. Today I’ve sorted out a few gaping holes in the plot of ‘a falling of angels’, or at least nailed narrative planks over the worst of them, and I’m starting to write properly again.