AUTHOR BAD HABITS PT3

6. Shatner-style punctuation: Okay, I'm really, bloody, guilty, of...this. William Shatner (May God Bless this wonderful, powerful man. May he live long and prosper) mainly in his role as Captain Kirk, did tend to have a habit of over delivering his lines, pausing...between spurts of dialog...as if each...clusterof words...held such profound importance.

I tend to shove loads of those three-periods-in-a-row thingies, in my dialog, only to have to bloody well delete them all out again when I'm editing. It's an annoying habit I've got.

But, I notice lots of other writers do it too, using either commas or hyphens instead of the triple periods. I can only presume, like me - they must be hearing - William Shatner reading out their dialog - as if - it's - Shakespeare.

On a side note, did you know someone has actually put together an algorythm for doing a James T Kirk impersonation? Yup, it can be summed up as a simple mathematical formula. Something like:

Pronoun x3 (protracted in length) Rest of sentence /4 (compacted in length)

So, let's give it a test drive shall we?

We-e-e-e-e-e-e.........come-in-peace.
Spo-o-o-o-o-o-ck......you-can't-be-serious
Bo-o-o-o-o-o-o-nes........is-he-dead?
Sulu-u-u-u-u-u-u-u......shoot-to-kill.

FUN WITH TELESALES CALLS

I did a post on another blog a while back about the fun you can have with telesales calls. You know, I work from home, it can get a little lonely, so it's become something of a pleasant diversion playing around with these calls. At some point soon, I'll list the various games I play, they're all pretty harmless and something you can easily have fun doing yourself...that is, if you want to mess around with the mind of a hapless telesales person.

Anyway, thought I'd post this linky : http://howtoprankatelemarketer.ytmnd.com

Absolutely bloody hilarious....I'm still chortling to myself as I'm typing this now. The man's a true genius.

OHMYGOD....MY BOOK's A MOVIE!!!!!

A-a-a-nndd here it is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PvdbSvdJ0o

Alright, already...so it's just a little cobbled together trailer, and not some big movie deal. Oh well, who knows? Maybe some Hollywood suit might catch a glimpse of it and...?

Anyhoo..

I could carry on refining and tweaking this sucker indefinately. For example the still of the B-17 is an obvious candidate for some more footage. But time is limited, and I'm busy editing my second novel which I need done by the end of November.

So hopefully whilst not giving too much of the story away, this teaser will get casual YouTubers curious enough to follow the web link at the end.

If anyone's interested, all the movie footage was made from scratch using 3D MAX, which is a modelling and rendering package I used to use for work in the games business. It takes years to get up to a professional level on MAX, it's just such a huge piece of software.

It's reassuring to know that since I quit my job and stopped using it daily...I haven't forgotten my way around it. Anyway, I'll be using it some more. I'm planning on doing a similar teaser for my brother's book UNDER THE EAGLES. That is....when the editing on LAST LIGHT has been done, the first draft of the XXXXXXXX (sorry, keeping this under wraps) screenplay has been written, and Xmas is out of the way.

A THOUSAND SUNS - PROMO VID

Been working on a teaser video for my debut novel. It seems YoutTube/GoogleVideo are proving to be a pretty good way to get some coverage.

Anyway, the top image is the ol' Dr Strangelove shot - Nazi atom bomb hurtling down towards Manhattan. Rendered in 3d MAX with some post video fx (eg: film grain and motion blur) to make it feel like actual footage.

The second image is part of a montage sequence. This image shows one of the main characters, a Luftwaffe pilot tasked with flying the German atom bomb across the atlantic.

The last piccy is from the title animation sequence...the lettering flies in, and the eagle 'burns' itself into the skyline. Quite effective technique that, and quite...sort of ghostly, in a way. Which is exactly what I was hoping for.

I quite like this one in motion.

Anyway, should hopefully edit this and the other bits and pieces together sometime next week then upload it to YouTube and see if it piques anyone's interest

AUTHOR BAD HABITS PT2

(in a 'top ten' format...we all love that format really)

7. Brilliant AND Beautiful protagonists: why is it that the main character who's, for example, a forensic pathologist, has to actually be a BRILLIANT forensic pathologist? Not only that of course, he (or she) is stunningly attractive too, and of course incredibly funny and quick with the sassy comebacks. Oh...and yes, able to trade blows with the bad guy's henchmen, AND speak a second language fluently at a very convenient moment in the story. One thing that's guaranteed to have me tossing a book across my room is a SUPERhero. Gimme a regular guy who's just okay at his job, makes mistakes, doesn't fall into bed with every incidental character of the opposite sex, and you know...just looks pretty average.

Really ticks me off - characters like that. Crappy 2d hero stereo-types like that are why I never got any further than chapter 5 of The Da Vinci Code.

AUTHOR BAD HABITS

I'm getting incredibly irritated by the prevalent habits, tics an cliches employed by writers these days. I would say I probably complete one book in twenty at the moment- my bedside table is cluttered with opened or bookmarked novels that I'm never going to bother finishing. I'm not going to mention any books by name, I think that's probably a little unprofessional to get into the whole rubbishing-the-competition-on-your-own-blog thing. It's just naff really. However...instead, what I'll do is list some of the things that really, re-e-eally grate as far as I'm concerned. I'll go for the ever popular 'top ten' format. We al love lists don't we?

10. Foreshadowing: usually this'll come in the form of a dream sequence, or a vision, hallucination, even a surfacing memory from the distant past. Occasionally it'll come in the form of a non-too subtle detail being inexplicably focused upon by the author. I really don't get why authors like to hint at their punchlines.

9. The Witty Narrator: I like the narrator to be an aloof and impartial observer. Describing things as is, NOT, butting in with wry and pithy asides. Certainly in 1st person, that's not an issue as you expect your protagonist to have his opinion on something, to have a sense of humour and use it. But the narrator?...He/she just needs to butt-out tell the reader what's happening and let the characters do all the emoting, cracking gags etc etc

8. Overweight novels: always seems...you get an author debuts with a fantastic, pacey piece of work, and then as the reputation (and sales) grow, the subsequent books get fatter and fatter. Quite clearly what's happening there is that the writer's ego is inflating - their editor thus feels less able to wade in with suggestions of sweeping cuts...because of course, the writing's so bloody wonderful, not a word of it can be considered superfluous. I just tossed aside a very fat book by a well known author that clearly hasn't been touched by an editor. There were appallingly dull, longwinded asides everywhere, utterly irrelevent subplots everywhere, and a seemingly endless cast of characters being introduced...virtually one every page...all of whom had lengthy backstories they needed to tell. *sigh*

(whinge 7-4 coming soon)

THE NEXT BOOK - editing.

I had a meeting yesterday with my editor and my agent to discuss the edits to my next book. It's always a tad disheartening when the feedback you get isn't 'It's a masterpiece...DONT CHANGE A SINGLE WORD!!!!!'

Alas, some words do need to be changed. This being my 2nd novel up on the blocks, I'm a little more used to the editing process, and ready for the grind ahead of me. Yeah...it is a bit of a grind.

See, as a writer, you sort of have this rather naive notion that having typed 'The End', it's done...the book is written, and a kind of end of term... school's out mentality kicks in. You flood out of your study, arms waving in the air, looking forward to a few months of chill out time before having to start gestating the next book....

...when all of a sudden your euphoria evaporates, and an email laden with editor's notes arrives, and you realise there's another whole month or so of rewriting ahead of you.

It's a grind, but then I know the book that'll come out the other end of this process will be much, much better. And when it finally goes to print, I'll look back and be so bloody thankful it wasn't the first draft (the one I thought was absolutely faultless, and didn't require a single change) that Mr and Mrs J. Punter will eventually get to read.

So...it's time to head back to the coal face. I've got some ideas how to fix that plot loophole, and I think I know how to ratchet up the tension in the XYZ's race to get to XXXX.

Deep breath...okay here we go.

MY NEWFOUND NERDNESS

See?....there's my lad, first thing this morning (getting ready for school) admiring - not under duress I might add - this fantastically crafted homage to Nerd-dom.

May I draw your attention to those ruins in the foreground, lovingly carved from polystyrene with a stanley knife, and exquisitally dry-brushed (yeah that's a Nerd term...too complicated to explain to you Norms). Look at that detail....phwoaarrr

Ahhhh...a masterpiece. I'm almost tempted to abandon the writing career, march on down to Games Workshop and offer myself to them as a Nerd-for-hire.

Nuts.

I've got some work to do on novel number 2. I'm lunching with my editor tomorrow and he'll want to discuss the edits I plan to do....and more importantly, what I've got lined up for book 3. I really need to stop stroking my battlefield and go and do some desk-time.

And no, he's really not going to want to look at the thirty-three other pictures I've taken of it. Must...resist...urge...to...bring...digicam...along to the meeting.

I'M NOT SURE....BUT I THINK I JUST BECAME A NERD

It was half term break last week. I wanted to find an activity that my lad and I could do together - you know - a little project that would bring us closer together...where we'd end the week surveying our handiwork whilst doing high fives and cracking open a couple of beers. (well okay, diet coke...he's 8)

I did some thinking. He's not really into much other than the Xbox, watching tv, playing some games on the PC...oh and I bought a copy of 'Space Hulk' off ebay some months back. He plays with the space marines, occasionally.

(By the way...to the uninitiated, Space Hulk is a classic boardgame; a very pacey dice-n-figurines simulation of the ol' bug-u-like aliens in dark scifi corridors experience.)

Anyway...

So I thought, maybe I can get him sucked into the Games Workshop habit. A trip down there later, and we had a squad of orcs, some more marines and a few paints. And he's off and running, doing a not-too-bad job of painting the little fellas up.

Come half term. I thought, 'I know...we could make a little battlefield together.' That was the plan. It would be me and him, embarking on a craft project together. Nothing too spectacular, just a sheet of plywood, some glue, some of that sprinkly-on grass stuff. After all I wasn't sure he would take to it, didn't want to spend too much, didn't want to frighten him off with too big a commitment.

That was the plan.

Thursday night...or should I say friday morning....3.30am to be precise - I've turned his bedroom into a workshop, I've spent about £100 on nerd-tools and supplies, and I'm knee deep in insulation foam granules, glue, paint, sprinkle-on-grass up to the elbows, paint smeared across my face; basically it's that scene in Close Encounters where Richard Dreyfuss's character is building a model of 'Devils Tower' in his sitting room. My lad's bailed out on me two days previous and I'm all alone, getting a little too obsessed with the fine details, wife's gone to bed, my lad's having to sleep in the spare bedroom, and I'm there (accompanied by the first chatterings of the dawn chorus birds)...cackling to myself, marching a little army of orcs up a hill towards a beautifully crafted defensive position manned by a Terminator squad of Imperial marines, armed with bolters and power swords.

I remember that. Then I remember being awoken just after 10am by the wife. I never did manage to make it to bed - there was a small puddle of sleep-drool amongst the polystyrene ruins in the corner of our.....what am I saying?...my battlefield.

Point is, the father-son project kind of went a little off-piste. I'm seeing the warning signs of all embracing nerd-dom, (like the time I bought the Federation costume for....ah, no forget that.)

But hey, it's finished. It's done. It looks good and I'm hoping my lad will get some fun out of it.

But it's not finished, is it? There's that bit in the corner could use a few more boulders...

I....uhh....I have...to....go....now....

MICHAEL J FOX

I suspect everyone's seen this impassioned plea by Fox in support of the Maryland Democratic candidate, and the pro-stance on stem cell research. It was hard to watch. Painful.

I grew up on the Back to The Future films, as a kid he was one of my idols. I was surprised at how much it hurt to see him like that. It's not like we were buddies or anything, it's not like he's family; but still it was hard.

I think perhaps because we was so cool...once upon a time, to see this disease bite into him so visibly....sheeeesh. So, anyway, then we get the comeback from US shock-jock Rush Limbaugh that it was an act, exaggerated...that or he'd deliberately not taken his medication so that the symptoms would be that much more noticable when he did his bit to camera. I felt was pretty damned low.

But...I suppose, there's the counter argument, that if you enter the political arena, you're fair game. Arguably he might have over-acted, or deliberately 'forgotten' to take his meds. I think if I want to be reasonably bipartisan about this....I have to accept it's a possibility.

Anyway, Michael offered his response to that. Check it out...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=o8lsjfjgAA8

You know what? I had a residual warm spot for the guy before all this blew up...a hang over I suppose, from my teen years. Well, after seeing all of this, I can now say I greatly respect the fella. And I'm further angered - and disturbed - at how mainstream US politics has drifted off somewhere strange and become dictated by oddball, theologically-influenced cul-de-sac issues.

This is the 21st century for crissakes. I simply find it unbelievable that religious sensibilities are defining the boundaries of future medicine.

But hey...don't listen to me jibbering away, make sure you hit that link above, and listen to a guy who's about a thousand times more eloquent than me on this subject, despite....being handicapped by Parkinsons.

UNDER THE EAGLE....photoshop fun

A movie poster I mocked up for Simon some years back. Can you work out which actors faces were used for Cato and Macro? Bloody obvious really....and shame on anyone who gets it wrong.

:P

OOO-ERRRR!!!

This 'ere new blog allows the easy posting of piccies. Splendid - sort of opens up a whole new world of mischief for me.

Okay then...

...the stunningly attractive fella on the left here, is moi. You can think of me as Captain Picard's younger, slimmer, and generally sexier, non-Federation brother.

Alright already, I confess. I used a little Photoshop.
I had to airbrush out the full head of hair and add a few wrinkles, because, frankly, I was looking just too damn good.

(I was a little concerned transient readers might think I used a scan of some gorgeous catalog model to pass off as myself.)

*sigh*
Okay, sod it. I look like this. Alright? Not great, I know, but passable. Anyway, I'm a writer fer gawd's sake - I'm not going to be modelling thongs anytime soon. So look, I'll be sure to post piccies in my future posts. Should be fun.

*makes evil little chuckling sounds*

iBLOG let me down...so here's a brand new blog

*sigh*

After eight dutiful months of making regular, incredibly witty, compelling blog posts, building up a huge worldwide audience of regular readers, who signed in daily to avidly devour my scribblings...ahem....iBlog have proven way too unreliable to use.

So now, back to scratch, a brand new blog. Oh well. Still, it looks very nice, and I'm sure we'll all get used to it.

Alrighty then. Anybody whose managed to follow the breadcrumb trail from the old blog to this new one, well done. The coffee's on, help yourself.

And hey, you...yes, you over there! That's right, you - the fella sitting at the computer; do me a favour, please, I'm beggin' ya!!! Reccomend this blog to two people you know, and hopefully I can recover some of that readership I spent the last bloody eight MONTHS BUILDING UP!!!!!

Ahem...sorry about that. Better out than in, s'pose.

Anyway, welcome dear reader. I make this solemn vow; I shall entertain you, intrigue you, maybe even squeeze a chortle - per chance a guffaw - out of you, every now and then. If you'll just come back to me. Okay?

Ach...enough grovelling already. I had you at 'sigh', didn't I?

;-)