Today (I’m actually writing this in March, during a quiet moment) is June 1st, three months before the publication date of this:
If your library is like mine, today is the day you can log onto the library website and request that they purchase Game of Cages. Would you do that please? Libraries bring in new readers, and me, I love them.
Thanks.
1) Never plan a crime through unsolicited queries.
2) The next step in the development of our robotic overlords is complete.
3) How many companies think to put ASCII art in their html codes? Warning: using View Source on that site is probably NSFW.
4) This one is for Hannah Wolf Bowen (and everyone else, too): A Batman costume… for your horse.
5) Forced perspective, using Legos. Really amazing.
6) The scale of celestial bodies.
7) A unique promotional idea. I don’t think it’s such a terrible idea, mainly because the idea is going to get her more attention than the actual actors she hired. Still, promoting your book based on pretend enjoyment doesn’t really work for me. I’d be more swayed by honest responses.
Check this out. John Scalzi and Wil Wheaton are putting on a benefit anthology for the Lupus Foundation of America. They’re accepting stories for a contest–with the winning story included in the antho. Entries have to be between 400-2,000 words, will earn 10c a word if accepted and have to be based on the crazy illustration posted at the link above.
Me, I’m working on a little story to submit (in my Copious Free Time) but my son (who’s 8 years old) was inspired to write a little something himself. It’s not long enough to meet even half the minimum word count, otherwise I’d submit it for him. Instead, I’ll post it here.
He doesn’t have a title for it (see? he takes after me) and I didn’t do a thing to it except type it out. Here you go:
Hi, I’m Wil. I’m the leader of the leader of Warriors with Oversized Unicorn Kittens With Wings And Extra Extra Long Spears And Infamous Clown Sweaters. We have set up a base on the top of a volcano. The Orc Warriors With Lots Of Metal And Round Hammer-Things set up a base down in the valley. They don’t go up because it’s a long walk and we don’t go down because we’re scared of heights.
Then one day I decided to go down and overcome my fears. I closed my eyes and moved down. After one second, I opened my eyes and turned to meet John, leader of The Orc Warriors With Lots Of Metal And Round Hammer-Things.
He threw his hammer-thing at me. He missed.
“Ha ha!” I said. “I have got you now!” I threw my extra extra long spear. It missed, too.
“Awww!” I said, and we went back to our bases.
The end.
Yeah, the illustration shows an axe rather than a hammer-thing, but I chalk that up to a misperception in the heat of battle.
Hope you guys are having a great day.
My son and I are watching PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE.
OMG.
On Thursday, my color inkjet printer finally gave up the ghost. It had been iffy for a long while–the paper feed hasn’t worked correctly for years–but if finally started chewing on the paper, and when I reached in to clear it, it sprayed multi-colored ink all over my hand.
I didn’t wash it off quickly enough, either, and I still have weird colors on half my left hand, 36 hours later.
Worse, I no longer have a color printer. The truth is that I don’t use it much; my black Samsung laser printer is great, relatively cheap on a per-page basis, and super reliable. Is it worthwhile to drop a couple hundred bucks on a replacement? We don’t use it often, but we do use it. Not to mention an expensive vacation coming up and a looming (and equally-expensive) family emergency coming up. Dunno yet.
On another note, while waiting for a bus yesterday, I saw a homeless man with a really alarming look about him. Judging by his features and reddish-brown beard and hair, he was a white guy, but his skin was a blotchy purplish-gray. The internet suggests he might have an excess of silver, but at the time I was worried he’d fall over dead right there.
Writer Livia Blackburne writes about the way to grab a reader’s interest. The concept of a “knowledge gap” is interesting but not useful for my process. She does a good job covering the importance of context, though. Check it out.
I am annoyed. And bored. What, you wonder, is annoying and boring me beyond all the things that bug me every day, like the day job or whatever? Books that are supposedly thriller with action and violent clashes, where the author decides it’s vitally, vitally important to explain shit to me.
What about THE TERMINATOR? Let’s see what explanations we get in this movie:
Arnold appears in a blast of unnatural energy, butt naked. He demands random strangers give up their clothes. Stranger stabs him, to no effect. Arnold plunges his hand into the guy’s chest and pulls out his heart.
What has been explained so far? Nothing. But things are happening.
Kyle appears, but is obviously not so superhuman. Linda Hamilton appears as a normal (but stunningly hot) woman, and Kyle starts looking for her. Silent guy steals a bunch of guns from a gun shop (murdering the owner, too) and starts killing every Sarah Conner in the phone book, even showing up at Hamilton’s apartment and gunning down her roommates [1]
Kyle stalks Hamilton, and shoots Arnold. Arnold takes two shotgun blasts to the chest and doesn’t die.
And so on. What has been explained so far, in the manner of “As you know, professor…” exposition? Nada. Among the guns Arnold wanted was a futuristic plasma rifle. Kyle has a nightmare about massive war machines rolling over piles of human skulls. The Terminator-cam shows machine-like readouts.
All that establishes that it’s science fiction(ish) but you don’t hear the whole thing about Skynet, time travel, John Conner, until the car chase is well underway.
Here’s the trick: First, they show the crazy stuff. Then they explain it.
Here’s what they don’t do: They don’t introduce the Terminator by having him describe who and what he is. They don’t have Kyle arrive two days before the Terminator does to chat with Sarah Conner about this threat to her life that’s going to come later. They don’t have a second Kyle-type person show up just after to do the same thing. They don’t open the story by making Sarah face a half-dozen Terminatinos–weak, non-threatening baddies who don’t pose a serious challenge even though they’re armed and she isn’t.[2]
No, they show the weird and the scary, then they explain it.
Now, (obvious-alert!) movies and books aren’t the same thing. They don’t have the same requirements, the same pacing, the same inputs. They’re linear in very different ways. Also, novels can be much more digressive and can spend much more time with setting and secondary characters.
And those are good things. I love that books have this flexibility. But really, if you’re going to write about conflict, fights, action, then don’t spend a bunch of page space expositing without making me interested first.[3]
Simply: Don’t tell me about shit if I don’t care about it yet.
[1] And I’m going to take that song lyric “Ya ya ya ya It’s a mistake” to the grave.
[2] No, I’m not going to name the book.
[3] Yeah, it’s easy to get this wrong. The scenes that were supposed to make a reader interested in teh exposition might not be all that interesting. Maybe the exposition comes to late, or there isn’t enough of it. Some readers think I don’t have enough exposition in Child of Fire [4]; that’s fine. There are no hard and fast rules.
[4] They’re wrong, but I love them anyway.
1) Cut paper art.
3) Subtitles for the Asian DVD release of THE TWO TOWERS
4) Everyone loves looking at creepy dolls, right?
6) Why the bad guys in River City Ransom say “BARF!”
7) All of today’s links came from Sherwood Smith’s Birthday thread. There are many, many more wonderful things there, including a bunch of videos that I can’t check out and can’t link to. Wish Sherwood a happy birthday (and treat yourself to one of her books, if you haven’t before), check out the other wonderful links, and maybe you can offer something yourself.
1) Five reasons it’s still not cool to admit you’re a gamer.
2) Mr. Know-It-All, I just found out that one of my favorite sci-fi writers is a raging homophobe. Should I prevent my son from reading the jerk’s books? Huh. I wonder who they’re talking about?
3) Weeks ago, we borrowed Cosmos from the library to share it with our son, but he refused to even be in the same room when we started it. I’m pretty sure he thought it was high-fiber. This auto-tuned video made him change his mind.
4) Solar Water Disinfection. via Martha Wells.
5) Alcohol, a burrito, and Captain America. The “real” Cap would never be this big of an asshole.
6) I’m sure this will become a quality motion picture.
7) Best of all: The first issue of Awesome Hospital is complete online!
The GOP has put up a site (for now) asking regular folks to suggest ideas for their agenda. Of course, everyone who contributed did so in a serious and respectful manner…
“I should have the right to name my children using numbers. If I want to name my child l33t, I should be able to name him that, darsh gone it. Who is the guberment to say that I can’t name my children using numbers?”
“we should make english the official language of the US and stop spending tax dollars on translations for mexicans! if english is good enough for baby jesus, its good enough for americans. ”
“Give a pair of truck nutz to all americans! Because there’s nothing more manly and american than a pair of balls hanging from your pickup truck. Take THAT Al Qaeda!”
“Please put an end to the liberal elite trampling my rights to be free in a country founded on freedom. This only applies to me and other white people who were born here, though, nobody else.”
“Build a wall along our borders. Not a wimpy fence. China did it and the toursim dollars the wall brings in will more than pay for the cost. I’m thinking a 1000 feet high and a 100 feet or more thick. A man made mountain range. That’ll keep people out! P.S. Canadians are a bigger threat to our security than we realize. Did you realize the late Peter Jennings’ Canadian, yet hosted an American news program? They can blend in unnoticed into our society and our border with them is totally demilitarized!!! They can just sneak across and pretend to be Americans, with their stinkin’ European-wannabe socialism. P.P.S. Maybe anchor some mines along our coastal waterways so no one sneaks in on boats. ”
“let’s take away all of the guns from everyone and build a giant robot that has thousands and thousands of guns that will be fired and reloaded automatically by mechanical parts ”
“I think we should free Xenu from the electric mountain trap. Xenu would be able to get rid of two of America’s major problems: Bin Laden and Tom Cruise. All praise XENU! ”
“I think all americans should bathe in Nuclear Waste. This has been shown to be an effective tactic in the past of transforming the human body into something more powerful and superhuman. With a nation of powerful mutants, not only would we prevent ourselves from being invaded, we would have a wildly powerful offense with millions able to fly, shoot lasers from their eyes and take bullets. Ninja Cats would still prove to be a problem.”
“I would like to see a river of fire built between the US and Mexico. I would also like level 12 mages to guard the border just in case. ”
“Stop listening to so-called “scientists” with their “facts” and “knowledge”. Jesus didnt need science and neither do we! ”
“Force the Grand Ole Opry to reinstate Hank Williams, Sr. “
