Whilst I appreciate these quizzes don’t count as content, becoming a science-fiction/fantasy writer of sorts is something of a dream so I thought I’d share this with you.
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I am:
Robert A. Heinlein
Beginning with technological action stories and progressing to epics with religious overtones, this take-no-prisoners writer racked up some huge sales numbers. |
Which science fiction writer are you?
Which is cool. Stranger in a Strange Land was a deeply weird book when I first read it (I was 12) but it’s a masterful piece of storytelling.
I’ve been reading a lot of short stories lately. Neil Gaiman and Alistair Reynolds in particular; they’re learning me structure and tone of voice; both things I need a bit more practice with so that I can rein my imagination in and actually write something down.
Neil G seems to be master of two things in particular: atmosphere and singularly dark plotlines.
Reynolds has tight control over story structure, and space-operatic universe in which to play.
Me? I got nothing. This writing lark is hard. But I’m plugging away…
When I was fourteen, and the Weezer blue album was new, I remember having a conversation with my Dad. “Daddy,” I said, “when they sing: ‘I write these stupid words/And I love everyone’, do you think they mean they love every one, as in everybody, or every one of these stupid words?”
It was a question of some importance to me. And my Dad said “You know, Armand, I really don’t care.” It wasn’t an insensitive statement — he just didn’t understand why I was curious. I can’t remember if I was upset or not at the time; I suspect not, but rather just wrote it off as a generational thing.
And at various points over the last few years, I’ve lost my curiousity over things like that, and have been worried that I’ve fallen up a generation. But for the last few months, I’ve been curious again. Maybe it’s just that I’m doing more writing at the moment, of song lyrics, the novel etc. But it’s nice to think idly about these things again, as they flit in and out of the pile of things that matter to me. And its a big pile.
You may have noticed I’ve gotten slightly more, erm, esoteric in the topics of my posts lately. (oh no, a blog post about blogging, run run run!!).
That’s for a few reasons.
Reason number 1: I’ve gotten bored (bored bored BORED bored bored) with reading fifteen takes on the same thing. Google buys YouTube, Edelman fakes blogs, company XX launches new web2.0/social media tool, David Blunkett is crazy, David Cameron is tedious, here’s a video of one videoblogger interviewing another videoblogger etc etc. I mean, I still like finding out about those things but the repetition was wearing thin, so I won’t add to it unless I really really want to. And I should probably extend my blogroll…
Reason number 2: Despite the ridiculous traffic I’ve been getting (apparently around 1,600 unique visitors a month, between 14-16 RSS subscriptions per day, and a total of 700MB worth of traffic a month)… well, there was no real need for me to tell you that. Just showing off. But really, the point is, I’m writing this for me and I’m glad that some of you seem to enjoy it. But I’m not going to try to anticipate what other people expect of division6 and try to write a bit more from the heart.
Reason number 3: I have been inspired. Askaninja, Scary Duck, Ze Frank… these guys do stuff about nothing every now and then and they do it brilliantly. A show about nothing… where’ve I heard that before?
So I hope you like the ‘new’ division6. I will rebrand a little soon (perhaps following some of your suggestions) and am on the look out for a catchy tagline; something as ground breaking and inspired as “Scary Duck: Not scary. Not a duck.” — would be nice.
Writing the novel is happening in Google Docs. See how well it goes. Nice to not have to worry about where I save stuff, and not have to wait for a bloated Windows app to load… although not sure how well it’ll cope with multiple files if/when I get to that point.
Sure, there’s been some procastination, online chatting, gaming, TV watching and general timewasting, but the story seems to be coming together! It’s never as quick as I think it’ll be, but looking at my plan, I seem to be about 2,300 words into a story that’s going to be about 12,000 words long, so that’s some progress. The idea is that this will form the structure of the novel, and give me a sense of whether the story has potential, and is worth turning into a full book.
So far, there are mystery men in long coats, football, a pool bar, a curious metal plate, a crazy prophet, a robot in disguise, a bully, two heroes and a tripped out mother. It’s getting exciting! And I haven’t even introduced the baddy yet!
This bit’s really tough, though, as there’s no need for the whiteboard. I’ve done that stage of the writing and now I just have to sit around, by myself, tapping away until I get the story out. Still… a dream’s a dream, and you gotta give it a shot. Watch this space.
The last few days have been good. I mean, really good. My long-anticipated birthday celebrations went ahead, a significant number of friends made a significant amount of effort for me and I had a great time. Thanks to all who came along and wished me well; it meant a great deal to me and was appreciated.
Today, in the anti-climactic wake that ensues any great self-involved event, I busied myself with life-admin. Not the most interesting way, perhaps, to spend a day off, but I’ve finally cashed that cheque from the IRS, I’ve filed everything that was piling up on my desk, done the requisite loads of laundry, installed a Wiki in my webspace (purpose tbc) and… and this is a separate point, really, but…
I’ve decided on the main plot/motivations for the novel. I’ve even mapped out a scene-by-scene breakdown for a short story version which I’m going to try to write over the next week or so. If that works, once tested on a couple of unsuspecting friends, I’ll be able to work to expand it into a novel proper and see about sharing some elements of it with the world at large. It’s not quite there in my head yet but I now have a proper structure to flesh out and its very exciting. My whiteboard, needless to say, is currently full!
The only downside to the last few days (other than the fact that they’re over) is the fact that my camera went AWOL on Sat night. If you chance across a Sony DSC-T7 camera with lots of pictures of me and my friends on it I’d really appreciate it returned… do get in touch.
It’s a good buffer space, brainstorming site etc, but want to keep it as a short term store. Think that’s going to be one of the ways I motivate myself. To try to fill it up every so often, capture the information digitally, then wipe it clean and start again, hopefully a little further down the line. I’m still very much planning this novel, I’m coming to realise, and need to keep fleshing out ideas at least until I can give a straightforward answer to the question: “what’s your novel about, then?”
“My novel is about…
…a man coming to believe in himself”
…gangsters in London with big plans”
…pan dimensional aliens plotting sinister things and the forces of good that stop them”
…demons! explosions! football! death-defying stunts!”
…lemons”
Back to the whiteboard….
The work on the novel is ongoing, and still painfully slow. This is my latest writing-aid - a rollout whiteboard! Cheaper and more easily mounted than its steel-framed colleagues, it’s allowed me to do character mapping, multi-colour scene setting and other generally fun things.
Actually helps as a mode to motivation - I don’t know whether its the egocentric exhibitionist in me or perhaps some missed vocation as a teacher but I do actually love writing on the whiteboard. If only I could write the whole novel that way…!
Chris pointed me to this review of an early Star Trek: TNG episode. It’s very, very funny, and actually seems to be written by Will Wheaton, who played [[Wesley Crusher]]. But it highlights a choice that the writers made about Wesley: that they were going to make him a very straight-laced hero. Which is the polite way of saying, a complete and utter loser. Which is a polite way of saying all the worse things viewers thought about the character.
I suggested that [[Lobo]] might have made a more appropriate character base for the character - no-nonsense, tough guy, who swears a lot and lives by his own rules. And not even them. Lives by no rules at all. What a crazy cat he would be.
If only it were that simple. I am glad that this decade has seen a slight rejection of the traditional conventions of heroism - there’s a bit more darkness in the heroes lighting up the screen and stage. From Harry Potter to Ghost Rider to Spidey and back again - few have the tedious do-goodishness of Wesley.
[tags]startrek, comics, lobo, wesley, writing, heroes[/tags]
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