December 14, 2011 | Reading Journal, News, Links

There's a theory that most people can be connected to one another, for instance, a famous movie star, within 7 degrees of separation. (I may have this idea completely wrong, but since I procrastinate blogging most of the notions in my head, I'm just going to go with it and see what happens.)


1) Big news this week was the release of our first Game of Thrones Season 2 teaser trailer, featuring the Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane) voiceover.

Cold Wind Tease

2) Some may argue that there's actually more footage in this "Making Of" video...



Either way, April can't get here soon enough!

3) Speaking of HBO (see what I did there?), it's been announced all over the web that Christopher Meloni, the former Law and Order: SVU regular lead has been cast as a series regular on True Blood season 5. According to The Hollywood Reporter:

(Executive Producer Alan) Ball describes Meloni’s role as “an ancient, powerful vampire who holds the fate of Bill and Eric in his hands.”

Ever since the news broke that Meloni was negotiating for a role, fans have suspected he may be part of The Vampire Authority, the council which rules over all vampires and gives its royalty their power.

4) Those of us in geekdom may recall the buzz a year ago, when Canadian webcomic artist AK Tettenborn of  "Twice Shy" did a parody of Law & Order: SVU - and a month later received the response from the aforementioned Meloni.

The day after the comic went up, I got an email from a man who told me he was Christopher Meloni’s assistant. According to this man, Ice T had seen my comic and sent it to Meloni, who loved it – and could I please mail them a few signed copies? Because Meloni wanted to get them framed and give them as gifts.

The news? Well, unfortunately, as Meloni moves on to become a vampire, so too does AK Tettenborn - she bid the world farewell from her very popular webcomic this week.

Well, all, after a year of Twice Shy, it's time to say goodbye. I've had a great time making comics for you, and while they're not all winners, some of them weren't bad, and a select few were pretty darned good.

ALOT* of them were pretty darned good, AK! Best of luck to you.

1) And speaking of Season 5 of TrueBlood... last night I finished reading Dead as a Doornail, book 5 of the Sookie Stackhouse Novels by Charlaine Harris.

Notable to me was this: This was the first story in the series where Sookie doesn't sleep with anyone! While most of the male characters still want to sleep with her, there was slightly more mystery than romance within.

Also notable, events from previous novels start to have more significance in this book - and - events from within this tale are going to be far more influential in future stories (presumably). In other words, the introduction of longer story arcs.

Overall, still an enjoyable series, though I fear I'm getting saturated - may have to mix things up. I probably won't, though. It's the holidays, lots of stuff going on... keeping it fast, simple, light and fun.

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Hmm. Not bad, did it in 5. Any of the above catch your eye?

* Yes, I realize I linked to another webcomic, not the one in question. That was today's theme. :-p

Writing Tip Posts, June 11, 2011

You may have noticed that I keep tinkering with the blog title and the "about me" section. That's why I persist in these little 'writing tip' posts - you can never stop improving the craft. And below you'll see the link that made me realize what I need to do differently on here. Everything in my life is a Work-in-Progress (WIP), and every week I get a little better, even if there are greater challenges.

If nothing else, I'm confident that I'm headed in the right direction.

You want proof? My little blog got a shout out this week! Yayy!! Thank you, Erin Reel! *happy dance*

What can I say, I'm often easily amused. I was out for drinks (Rum!) with friends on Friday night, and a coworker said to me the following day, "You're like Peter Pan." I said, "That's not a very masculine comparison." "Oh, no, you were just bouncing around and having fun."

Yes. Yes, I was. In a masculine way. (I got 939 on the boxing glove machine. Rawr.)

Now the post that made me see the light of day with this 'ere blog 'n stuff? Kristen Lamb (no surprise there), Why Writers Blogging about Writing is Bad.  'Nuff said.

Having said that, I'm sure I'm not the only starving, struggling artist in the world, and maybe we can learn stuff from each other along the way. So these posts shall continue.

Openings that Annoy. There's always so much dialogue about the first 5 pages, 5 chapters, 1000 words. Heaven knows I've revised my opening paragraph (what feels like) a thousand times. I'm THIS close to posting it on here in the hopes of constructive criticism. (I suspect I need more followers to get the feedback I want.)

Why publishers reject manuscripts and what you need to do to get noticed.

At Magical Words, a guest post by L. McKenna Donovan, Sharpening Our Narrative.

There are days when I'm not sure what to write, or not able to revise what I've already written. In other projects, I tend to write freely as the thoughts come together, then go back and revise while I'm still thinking about the topic. Most of the time, that turns out well. This post by Melissa Donovan caught my eye: How Freewriting Can Help Writers Overcome Procrastination.

Livia Blackburne: Improving Creativity: The Absorb Brainset and Twenty Ways to Describe Your Characters BFF.

I had a link recently about reading your work aloud. It's something I live by - being a former DJ probably helps me find the rhythm in the words, and since I have no skill with any musical instrument (other than a sound board), I'm sure this is a developed skill. Sarah Duncan has a good post on this, Rhythm in Prose. While mentioning her, this was also an inspiring, quick read: Learning from an Olympian.

On phraseology and rewording. This post goes well with some of the posts above.

Terri Giuliano Long does a guest post on Erin Reel's blog: 7 Ways to Pick Yourself Up After a Painful Rejection. Solid advice in there.

Former-agent-now-author Nathan Bransford has a really sharp post on How to Craft Mystery in a Novel.

Agent Rachelle Gardner advises Write a Break In Novel. wherein she makes several valid points, things I've noticed in sf/f debuts.

And to end this week's linkhappygoodness on a funny note, check out this video shared by agent and query shark Janet Reid. Oh My God, Yes.

Thank me now, thank me later, or even better - share some links in the comments to inspire and compel the improvement of our craft. Cheers!

Game of Thrones, Stupid-Ned-Stark meme

Link provided, courtesy of the folks over at Winter Is Coming.

I didn't do an episode review this past week. There was quite the buzz about Littlefinger's brothel scene, and I had some mixed feelings about it.

So, in anticipation of the events that will unfold tonight, I would like to share this meme with you.

More memes are here.

Writing Tip Posts, June 3, 2011

Longer list this week, as I've been heavy into revisions of Catalyst, and striving to reaffirm my goals and intents. Also, just maybe, I was lazy last week. Either way, there's lots of gems within this list. Cheers!
All done? Great post on Who to Query First?

Query Shark Janet Reid always has something helpful.
- How to Pitch
- How to Format an Email Query
- Yea, this.
Or maybe you're on the other end of that journey? What's a Newbie Novelist to Do?

Some very insightful posts at Magical Words recently.
- Beginnings, by Lucienne Diver
- What Else Does Your Character Want, by Edmund Schubert
- The Opening Chapter, by Diana Pharoah Francis

Literary Agent Rachelle Gardner reposted several good columns from her archives this week, amongst them Story vs Craft and What's the Story on Backstory?

Speaking of backstory, Do Flashbacks Make Your Butt Look Big? (Excellent analysis in this post, Ms. Blackburne.)

Kristen Lamb: Scene Antagonists - The Making of a Hero.

Hannah Moskowitz: How to Write a Negative Review. (I should have read this long ago, huh?)

Everyone likes numbered lists, right?

Non-fiction writers - Seven Tough Questions for Useful Proposals.
3 Signs You're Renovating a Condemned Novel
3 Things that Screenwriting Taught Me
8 Badass Books that were Rejected by Publishers
T.S. Welti offers 10 Ways to Improve Your (Re)Writing.

On rewriting, Scott Eagan debates whether or not to invest in a huge rewriting project.

One of my biggest issues in my revisions is how to handle dialects. So, I've kept this post bookmarked and keep going back to it for clarity.

Universal themes. Whether you're writing about lasers or Elves, catapults or catacombs, your work should contain A Deeply Felt Theme that will help the reader connect to your story.

Kim Wright: The Value of Reading Your Book Aloud. Something I have always done, and strongly recommend. 

If there's any helpful writing tip posts you've found recently, please share! Have a great weekend!

Writing Tip Posts, Week of May 25, 2011

In the midst of the long Memorial Day Weekend here in the States. Hopefully you're getting some writing done with an extra day off.

 

Short list of writing tip posts that I found interesting this past week.

 

• Jurgen Wolff talks about the authors guild and why you should join.

• Joanna Penn offers some Ebook Publishing Tips.

• Sarah Duncan on choosing the right point of view. And When the Right Person to Have Viewpoint is Wrong. Something I've been tinkering with, in my revisions, is shifting scenes to different perspectives.

• Along those lines, How Many Characters is Enough? Either way, Characters Must Come First in any Genre.

• At Novel Publicity, Rob W. Hart does a post on manuscript spacing.

• Kristen Lamb: What "Finding Nemo" Can Teach Us About Story Action.

• Meg Mitchell Moore, on Writing about Children. At SF Signal, What Guillermo Del Toro taught me about writing child characters.

• Lots of good information, but I suspect we all sometimes need a little jump in the mornings to knock out a reasonable word count for the day. Maybe this will help: Morning Meditations to Unleash Creativity.

 

Feel free to share any helpful writing tip posts in the comments. Otherwise, I hope some of these were useful to you. Have a great holiday weekend!

Reconciliation of Efforts

This blog doesn't get a lot of traffic. Truly, that's alright... it's expected with a new blog. You've got to build up readership.

Interestingly enough, I've never had any blog on blogspot that got a lot of traffic - although the last one is still averaging 50 hits a day for some reason. (I'm thinking it's the pictures.)

Anyway, this blog is what it is. As much for my own amusement, my own efforts towards becoming published and having a platform by which to express myself in terms of writing, speculative fiction and other geeky goodness.

I have written recently of my foray into reading "dark" fantasy. While "Catalyst" is not nearly as dark as I can get (I'd label it epic high fantasy), it's a direction that I intend to go in the series. It is the whole reason I built Zherlios, from the ground up, to facilitate my notion of the perfect fantasy world for me to play in. I read other authors' dark fantasy just to see where I fit into the literary scheme.

Meanwhile, I have still have urges to express. Dark, provocative thoughts, ideas, explorations. Ideas that float around in my mind. In the past, in other locations, when I have gone this route, those efforts have been well received.

In my mind, it does not belong here. So, I have ignored my own desires, and plugged along with this more "professional" public effort.

Do I want to soil my platform? Do I make myself unpublishable, because I am, perhaps to some, a wicked man? At first, I thought this might be the case - it is why I removed my book reviews.

Every author has their own interests. We've seen authors on their public blogs discussing medication, depression, anxiety, football, religion, rape, politics - we've seen authors on other blogs arguing over the quality of others' reviews.

They're still publishing.

I would prefer not to shock you. This is a nice, friendly place - with the exception of the occasional adult language when I quote from a book. Most of the time, I'm a nice guy. Maybe even a little boring.

I don't want to hold myself back. Writing is all about the honing and perfection of the craft, and it's an effort without end. Even when I am published, I know for a fact that I will be able to get better. I am reading authors lately who are much more skilled than I am - which just pushes this notion, that I must needs work harder, even further.

For these reasons, I have started another blog, a new playground for me to explore the more provocative aspects of my writing process. To dabble in flash, in prose, in poetry and scenes of a more adult and/or dark nature.

If such things are of interest to you, then please - stop on by. Otherwise, business as usual here.

Have a great holiday weekend!

Writing Tip Posts, Week of May 20, 2011

I spend more time these days reading and revising than writing new material. I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but it's a pretty established industry observation that all most authors are insecure of their work.

I find myself torn between wanting to put the finishing touches on this WIP, and begin the next - and avoiding all the traps and errors of the unpublished novelist.

But first? An amusing video!



Now since I'm about six months behind on keeping up with blogs and posting to this one, this post will be lengthier than what I have in mind.

For those further along in the process, here is The Best Agent Blogs of 2011, some of which were new to me. Also, Rene Sears answers Questions on Slush. That's a good start.

Before we take this whole thing too seriously... take it seriously, of course... but bear in mind that blogs about writing tips number in the millions these days - it's a way to draw traffic to the blog. As noted in my reading journal, what I'm getting from my reading is that VOICE and STYLE (and TALENT) are more important than following the rules. Livia Blackburne did an excellent post on this very topic.

Okay? Good! Now let me share with you some links that have caught my eye, or that I have found useful.

Toni McGee Causey, on The Art and Soul of POV, as recommended by Janet Reid, the "query shark".

Kristen Lamb always has some great advice. I am sure you'll see links to her blog quite often. Here are 5 Common Writing Pitfalls and a very extensive look into the Anatomy of Conflict.

Over at A Dribble of Ink, John Ginsberg-Stevens does a guest post on "Mind-blowing" Genre Fiction.

Jurgen Wolff has a nice three part series on writing descriptions, beginning here.

Jennifer Hubbard offers some advice on how to end your writing session.

Rebecca Serle: 7 Things I've Learned So Far. I was impressed by how many of those things I've either told myself or needed to hear.

Ten Universal Tenets of Story, 7 Unmentionables Authors Should Keep in Mind, and 3 Underhanded Ways to Show instead of Tell, courtesy of The Best Damn Creative Writing Blog.

I hope you find some of these links useful. Found a good writing tip article this week? Feel free to share in the comments.

Have a great weekend!

Free Reading, Giveaways, WFC Panel and Nano

You KNOW that I am procrastinating, but these things were so good, I had to share!

Great article on Urban Fantasy by Daniel Abraham. Specifically, the unwritten, yet understood limits of the female protagonist. Very thought provoking.

Nanowrimo! No, I'll do a post tomorrow on that. But this post by Chuck Wendig had me in stitches.

N.K. Jemisin's The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms has won a few awards this year. If you haven't already checked it out, you can read Chapter One here.

Speaking of The Knight Agency, they've got a great giveaway happening today.  One of the benefits of not having a huge following is that I can tell you about it without ruining my chances for goodies!

I've been stalking google for uploaded videos from the World Fantasy Convention that took place over this past weekend. My diligence paid off today, when author Blake Charlton put up 4 Videos from the epic fantasy panel.

I'm so excited I couldn't wait to share. Now, if you don't mind, I have to get back to my procrastination!

Water Cooler - Friday, October 22, 2010

Random bits and pieces from the speculative fiction world.

Top of the list this week: Don't purchase books from Dorchester. Yes, apparently they are not compensating their authors. Bad form! Read the story here. Good luck to those authors who are trying to get their rights and compensation straightened out.

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Geeky signage! (How can I go from serious to stupid? I do it because I can.) I like this one to attach to all my posts. You can find a ton more here on Flickr.

Edit: Apparently the picture is not inclined to show up. Lame. I'll leave you the link.

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Since I reviewed a couple of series this week, I thought I'd point out another. Steven Till reviewed Pillars of the Earth.

My biggest concern going in was how they were going to fit a 900 page book into the span of eight hours. I was impressed with the amount of information they crammed into such a short time period without really losing anything. Overall, I’d give the series a A- .

I may have to give that a look.

While I'm at it, SQT's first impressions of Spartacus:BaS Season One.

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UK cover art for Steven Erikson's The Crippled God, the final book of his Malazan series.



Pretty sharp cover. Suvudu provides the synopsis here.

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Solaris released their 2011 publishing line up.

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Tor is hosting a Pyr giveaway contest.

The Official Rules: To enter, leave one comment on this post—duplicates won’t count—by Saturday, October 23, leave a comment in Facebook, or reply on Twitter. The 5 winners will be chosen randomly. Please check your email on October 23rd and 24th; if we don’t hear back from the winner in 24 hours, another winner will be chosen.

Hurry!

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Barnes and Noble announced they will be selling the Nook at Walmart.

The popular NOOK devices are expected to arrive on Walmart shelves beginning as soon as October 24, in advance of the holiday shopping season.

The NOOK eBook Readers will be prominently featured as the premier eBook Reader in the consumer electronics area. Many Walmart stores will feature a NOOK-branded eReading area where shoppers can see and touch a demonstration device.

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Kudos to Jasper Kent's new marketing strategy: Vampires that don't sparkle.

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Like multiple links in one easy to find spot? Grasping for the Wind does them daily! I envy his tenacity.

Genre Reader does a frequent "Today in Fantasy" post that is always nicely done, as well.

For an industry perspective, check out Eric's Friday Round over at Pimp My Novel.

Or Nathan Bransford's This Week in Publishing.

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That's all I've got for today. What sort of news are you interested in?

Have a great weekend!

Random Things of Interest

I'm chewing on a new catchy feature, this thing, where uh, it is basically random internet links! I am certainly *not* the only one doing it!

But it's telling, no? We see if we like the same things? Fun, exciting, or NOT COOL YOU SUCK! I don't know. Let's try!

Okay, by way of weblog camaraderie, this blogaraderie (I am a master of language OR NOT), let's begin...

I was reading Bryce's post It's News to Me, and found this SF Signal post, which contained a link to the best vampire powerpoint presentation ever. It's a little lengthy, so wait til your lunch break. (Oh, and because I couldn't NOT look, a rendition of Steampunk Sarah Palin. The horror!)

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Mead! The drink of the gods. Tis a funny thing, to write about the stuff, and to never have tried it, no? Well, now you can try to make your own, with this mead making e-book. Am I being asked to promote this? No, he probably doesn't even know I'm mentioning it; I just think it's cool.

Edited to add: Well, hell, the dude's got a video!



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Getting a little buzz on Yahoo, this 2 minute Star Wars video.



The timing of this video was all the more interesting, as Lucasfilm recently announced that it would be reproducing the Star Wars saga in 3D. And yes, you aren't the only one who is horrified by a three dimensional Jar Jar.

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Speaking of, scientists have discovered a new (potentially) habitable planet. Sharpen your pens, sci fi writers.

(And come up with a better name than Gliese 581g, for crimony's sake.)

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In the "Why it's a miracle that humans haven't gone extinct" category, a viral video of a Ukrainian lion trainer getting chomped on.



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I predict this year's hot new Halloween costume will be "Cigar Guy". Here he is, knocking out Sonny Liston...



If you haven't heard of Cigar Guy - he was standing in the background when a photographer got nailed by an errant Tiger Woods shot.

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I have some actual news and publishing information to share, but I think that I will wait and put those together. My guess is that if you need to know something bad enough, you can find it. My goal here is to show you things you might have missed. (Or really, reasons to mock/praise randomly.)

Have a great day.