In spite of many other distractions and obligations today, managed to finish second story. The morning was very slow, less than 500 words, as I had to go back and insert a key missing scene to make the story work. But that meant breaking up an existing flow, which I always find hard. And the scene was a hard one to convey.
The evening session, while shorter in length, was very productive and I finished the story with a nice twist and a good last line (I hope.) I am well pleased with the story, though only a first draft.
I am now at 10,880 words. 22% to target, but 26% of my time gone. And I am likely to have no opportunity to write on the long weekend, so I'm worried I am falling behind.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Day 7
Reached 9,245 words today = 18.5% of target; but I've used up 23% of my time. Given that the long weekend is coming up when I am unlikely to have many opportunities to write, I have to consider myself behind. Still, over 9,000 words is good.
I am 3/4 of the way through my second short story, which is linked to the first one -- same characters, different mystery. I'm surprised to find myself writing mystery, since that is not my genre.But thanks to a suggestion from my wife, I already have an idea for a third story in the set, so will probably stick to that through to the end of November.
I'm generally pleased with what I am writing, allowing always that I am leaving editing and revision until December and on. I have already detected a tendency to run on sentences and too many asides, but I'll deal with these later. I remain nervous about investing in story sequels when I do not yet know if the original short story is any good, but I guess ultimately that is no different than wondering whether the novel one is writing is any good...50,000 words is 50,000 words, and in the long run, if I can sell even half the short stories from the series, that would be more productive than finding the all or nothing novel was a no sale.
Monday, November 05, 2007
Day 5
So, I finished the short story I was writing tonight, at just under 5000 words. So I guess I actually have to start writing a novel. Unless I continue to develop the adventures of the protangonist of my short story. My wife just gave me a great idea for another in the series, if that is what it turns out to be. But they are both mysteries, which is not normally my genre. Decisions decisions....
The NaNoWriMo rules suggest not using previous partial novels, but rather starting fresh. I'm torn, because although I probably only have a few fragments and an outline for each of the six or seven novels that I have been writing in my head the last 40 years, I have been writing these in my head for the last 40 years. Part of me thinks that it is obvious that thisis the opportunity to finally get one of these down on paper, But another part of me accepts NaNoWriMo logic that if you use previous materials, you care too much about the characters to do the blind stream of consciousness writing required here.
But it would be great to see one of my long term projects finally down on paper rather than just in my head. But which one to go with?
The NaNoWriMo rules suggest not using previous partial novels, but rather starting fresh. I'm torn, because although I probably only have a few fragments and an outline for each of the six or seven novels that I have been writing in my head the last 40 years, I have been writing these in my head for the last 40 years. Part of me thinks that it is obvious that thisis the opportunity to finally get one of these down on paper, But another part of me accepts NaNoWriMo logic that if you use previous materials, you care too much about the characters to do the blind stream of consciousness writing required here.
But it would be great to see one of my long term projects finally down on paper rather than just in my head. But which one to go with?
Kasia art
These two pieces represent significant landmarks in Kasia's art development, and I thought I would share them because they are such textbook examples of developmental stages.
The first shows the first actual figure that Kasia drew -- everything up to that having consisted primarily of random lines, dots and squiggles, though she would readily identify such scribbling as pictures of family or trees or planes or etc. I was astonished that she went from scribbling on a page to this clear figure in one go. But note that the arms and legs emerge out of a single figure -- its all head. This is absolutely typical of this initial stage of figure drawing.
In the second drawing (annotated by her Mom) we see another figure, but in this case there is an attempt to identify a separate head, body and foot.
Saturday, November 03, 2007
Day 3
Not much luck at finding time to write, it being a weekend and the kids underfoot. So, grabbed a few minutes whenever I could to look through some of my existing novel / short story outlines, to see if there was anything worth recycling. Had I thought of doing the National novel writing month thing before, I would have sorted through all that ahead of time and been ready to go with something, but it was only mentioned to me the last couple of days of October, and it was only Nov.1 I decided to go for it. So I just started writing the short story that was currently in my head. That should be good for at least one more session, but then I will have to start working on an actual novel or at least some other stories.
Looking through the files, I was distressed to find my most developed novel so far is missing. I'll have to see if I can track down a hard copy out in the garage somewhere. But there are still five or six others that I have in more or less complete outline form, so will have to choose which to go with for the rest of the month. I was a bit shocked to see that some of these outlines are dated from the 1970s or earlier. I know that one of my novels I actually started back in junior high and have been thinking about off and on for the last 40 years. Not sure that is the one I would go with, even if I could find the scribblers full of grade 9 notes (that was pre computers afterall, so no chance of that being in the computer files) but I do have a certain fondness for it, and it is odd how my hero in that book all those years ago was the age that I am now....
Spent half hour this evening rereading and revising short story so far...probably bad idea in terms of hitting 50,000 word quota by end of the month, but will help get momentum up for writing the next two scenes which are less developed in my head than what I've already got down. I went to see if my revisions had actually reduced my word count, but the NaNoWriMo is down just now.
Looking through the files, I was distressed to find my most developed novel so far is missing. I'll have to see if I can track down a hard copy out in the garage somewhere. But there are still five or six others that I have in more or less complete outline form, so will have to choose which to go with for the rest of the month. I was a bit shocked to see that some of these outlines are dated from the 1970s or earlier. I know that one of my novels I actually started back in junior high and have been thinking about off and on for the last 40 years. Not sure that is the one I would go with, even if I could find the scribblers full of grade 9 notes (that was pre computers afterall, so no chance of that being in the computer files) but I do have a certain fondness for it, and it is odd how my hero in that book all those years ago was the age that I am now....
Spent half hour this evening rereading and revising short story so far...probably bad idea in terms of hitting 50,000 word quota by end of the month, but will help get momentum up for writing the next two scenes which are less developed in my head than what I've already got down. I went to see if my revisions had actually reduced my word count, but the NaNoWriMo is down just now.
Friday, November 02, 2007
Day 2
Only 955 words today, but still averaging the required 1500/day. I'm relatively pleased with story so far; although rough and in need of editing, it is generally holding together.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Halloween
Kasia (as unicorn, sans head portion), Tigan's friend Emily (as dead cheerleader), and Tigana (as Hippie).
National Novel Writing Month
National Novel Writing Month has started (November 1) and I have taken the plunge and signed up, my family responsibilities and crushing day job commitments notwithstanding. Made 2000 words today, a decent enough start, but we'll have to see if I can keep that up.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
NeoOpsis wins Aurora
The magazine I review for, NeoOpsis won an Aurora for "Best Work in English, Other" earlier this week. The Auroras are for best Canadian SF.
NeoOpsis editors and publishers Karl Johanson and Stephanie Johanson.
Photo by Nina Munteanu
Other award results and photos from the Aurora Awards ceremony are here
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Kasia Artwork
Right:Title: "My Mom, Dad and me, fixing my sister's leg"
Original 8.5X11
October, 2007
Age: 3yrs. 11 months.
Below: Three other fall art projects:
What?
Tim Horton's donuts shop located in new Wellness Centre at University of Lethbridge.
I have to walk through the new Wellness Center at the University of Lethbridge each day to reach my office, while construction of the new Education tower is itself completed -- we currently only have access through the rear door while they finish the front entrance and atrium.
So my question is this: Who puts a Tim Horton's outlet in a Wellness Center? We just spent x millions of dollars to build a facility with the province's biggest climbing wall, an indoor track, weight rooms, gyms, and a ton of exercise equipment, and then put a donut shop next to the exit so people using the facility can grab a few calories on the way out?
What am I missing here?
Camelot
An amusing uTube video forwarded by John Herbert:
Camelot
But it and the millions of other videos like it raise an important pedagogical point: In her fabulous paper, "Conflicting Cultures: Promoting Academic Integrity to the Millennial Generation" Selinda A. Berg (University of Western Ontario) makes the telling point that the millennial generation is surrounded by examples (like the above) of the creative mashup -- people take images and sounds from various other peoples' original works, and creates something new. Although these mashups clearly violate the originators copyright, they are considered (by the millennial generation) as original compositions. So then these same kids come to campus and are told that their original compositions -- consisting of paragraphs put together from 15 different articles and books -- is plagiarism and they're going to face this or that draconian punishment. Berg asks how academia can simply ignore that these students are not entering university blank slates ready for the professoriate to write on, but fully acculturated adults -- whose culture says that mashups are the norm and admirable?
Camelot
But it and the millions of other videos like it raise an important pedagogical point: In her fabulous paper, "Conflicting Cultures: Promoting Academic Integrity to the Millennial Generation" Selinda A. Berg (University of Western Ontario) makes the telling point that the millennial generation is surrounded by examples (like the above) of the creative mashup -- people take images and sounds from various other peoples' original works, and creates something new. Although these mashups clearly violate the originators copyright, they are considered (by the millennial generation) as original compositions. So then these same kids come to campus and are told that their original compositions -- consisting of paragraphs put together from 15 different articles and books -- is plagiarism and they're going to face this or that draconian punishment. Berg asks how academia can simply ignore that these students are not entering university blank slates ready for the professoriate to write on, but fully acculturated adults -- whose culture says that mashups are the norm and admirable?
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Matthew Hughes and the Archonate
Having recently hosted a virtual book tour here, I thought I'd participate in another book promotion, this time by one of my favorite Canadian SF authors, Matthew Hughes.
Hughes first SF book (I'm still looking for a copy of his first ever book, Downshift, which was a mystery) was Fools Errant. I picked it up out of my self-imposed duty to read every Canadian Sf ever written, but immedately fell in love with his writing. Fools Errant is a highly entertaining novel of the far future when the sun is slowly diming and the humanity has largely been everywhere and tried everything and those left on Earth are suffering a kind of drole enui. In this, the first of the novels set in the Archonate, we follow the adventures of one Filidor Vesh, a rather fopish young gentlemen press ganged into an adventure that in spite of his initiall shallowness, causes Vesh to rise to the occasion and well, turn out to be a decent enough fellow after all. The adventures were continued to good effect in the sequel, Fool Me Twice
Practically every reviewer on Earth has compared Hughes to author Jack Vance, and his Archonate series to Vances "Dying Earth". Well, okay, I do kind of get that; it does fit. But the comparison that first came to my mind was not Vance, but H.H.Munro, better known by his pen name, Saki. Any one of Munro's macabre Edwardian protangonists would have found themselves very much at home in the Archonate. Think of Saki's continuing characters, Clovis Sangrail or Reginald, and you pretty much have everything by Matthew Hughes.
Let me give you a quick for instance. In this opening scene from Fools Errant Filidor is trying to slip out the back door of his club to avoid receiving a summons:
Who talks like this? (Besides Saki's sly young protagonists, Clovis and Reginald, I mean?) But wouldn't it be a much more interesting world if people did?
Both books are highly recommended, and were subsequently issued in the omnibus volume, Gullible's Travels
Next, I subscribed to Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, for the sole purpose of reading Hughes Guth Bandar novellettes. in which monk-like order of scholars explores the collective unconscious of humanity in its physical manifestation as "The Commons". Journeying through the Commons is both dangerous for our protangonist, and hilarious for the reader, as we encounter archtypes with which the reader is more familiar than our hero -- he wanders into the Big Bad Wolf and the Three Little Pigs at one point, for example, but in the adult-what-our-subsconscious-really-meant-by-it-all kind of way. Very good stuff! (The complete Guth Bandar saga in novel form, The commons is forthcoming from Robert J. Sawyer books later this month!).
Hughes next novel, Black Brillion, was a bit of a cross over, with some of the ideas from the Commons entering the world of the Archonate, but it worked pretty well. Here we meet for the first time in book form, Luff Imbry is your basic master criminal/con man, pressed into serving the forces of the law, at least temporarily.
Hughes other series concerns his master detective, Henghis Hapthorn. A number of Henghis Hapthorn stories first appeared in Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, and were subsequently collected as "The Gist Hunter & Other Stories", It too is set within the Archonate, but with the difference that magic is intruding into their world, disrupting the rationale causation that is the basis of Henghis' investigations. Think Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes set in Vance's Dying Earth, and you pretty much get the idea. But Hughes solves the eternal problem of how to have someone to explain the mystery to (i.e., his Watson character) through the unique approach that Henghis has a split personality with whom he argues his cases. The first novel, Majestrum concerns a plot against one of Earth's leading families; the second, Spirial Labyrinth, follows Henghis into a world dominated by magic. Both books are again, highly recommended, and are independent of the other series.
All in all, a Canadian author well worth checking out!
Here is a link to Hughes' website, the Archonate.com and a link to an audio of a CBC interview which captures his personality pretty accurately, from what I've seen from him online.
Hughes first SF book (I'm still looking for a copy of his first ever book, Downshift, which was a mystery) was Fools Errant. I picked it up out of my self-imposed duty to read every Canadian Sf ever written, but immedately fell in love with his writing. Fools Errant is a highly entertaining novel of the far future when the sun is slowly diming and the humanity has largely been everywhere and tried everything and those left on Earth are suffering a kind of drole enui. In this, the first of the novels set in the Archonate, we follow the adventures of one Filidor Vesh, a rather fopish young gentlemen press ganged into an adventure that in spite of his initiall shallowness, causes Vesh to rise to the occasion and well, turn out to be a decent enough fellow after all. The adventures were continued to good effect in the sequel, Fool Me Twice
Practically every reviewer on Earth has compared Hughes to author Jack Vance, and his Archonate series to Vances "Dying Earth". Well, okay, I do kind of get that; it does fit. But the comparison that first came to my mind was not Vance, but H.H.Munro, better known by his pen name, Saki. Any one of Munro's macabre Edwardian protangonists would have found themselves very much at home in the Archonate. Think of Saki's continuing characters, Clovis Sangrail or Reginald, and you pretty much have everything by Matthew Hughes.
Let me give you a quick for instance. In this opening scene from Fools Errant Filidor is trying to slip out the back door of his club to avoid receiving a summons:
"I believe you to be Filidor Vesh," said the dwarf.
"You are entitled to your beliefs, however ill-founded," Filidor replied. "No doubt you will wish to search further for this Vesh, rather than impose your presence upon a man called hence by urgent affairs."
The dwarf transferred his grip from Filidor's mantle to his arm. His gaze swept quickly over the young man's features. "This belief is supported by the evidence, since you answer to a point the description furnished me."
"You are plainly the dupe of some prankster, who abuses the dignity of your years by sending you on a fool's errand," said Filidor. "Were I you, I would seek out the rascal and thrash him."
Who talks like this? (Besides Saki's sly young protagonists, Clovis and Reginald, I mean?) But wouldn't it be a much more interesting world if people did?
Both books are highly recommended, and were subsequently issued in the omnibus volume, Gullible's Travels
Next, I subscribed to Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, for the sole purpose of reading Hughes Guth Bandar novellettes. in which monk-like order of scholars explores the collective unconscious of humanity in its physical manifestation as "The Commons". Journeying through the Commons is both dangerous for our protangonist, and hilarious for the reader, as we encounter archtypes with which the reader is more familiar than our hero -- he wanders into the Big Bad Wolf and the Three Little Pigs at one point, for example, but in the adult-what-our-subsconscious-really-meant-by-it-all kind of way. Very good stuff! (The complete Guth Bandar saga in novel form, The commons is forthcoming from Robert J. Sawyer books later this month!).
Hughes next novel, Black Brillion, was a bit of a cross over, with some of the ideas from the Commons entering the world of the Archonate, but it worked pretty well. Here we meet for the first time in book form, Luff Imbry is your basic master criminal/con man, pressed into serving the forces of the law, at least temporarily.
Hughes other series concerns his master detective, Henghis Hapthorn. A number of Henghis Hapthorn stories first appeared in Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, and were subsequently collected as "The Gist Hunter & Other Stories", It too is set within the Archonate, but with the difference that magic is intruding into their world, disrupting the rationale causation that is the basis of Henghis' investigations. Think Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes set in Vance's Dying Earth, and you pretty much get the idea. But Hughes solves the eternal problem of how to have someone to explain the mystery to (i.e., his Watson character) through the unique approach that Henghis has a split personality with whom he argues his cases. The first novel, Majestrum concerns a plot against one of Earth's leading families; the second, Spirial Labyrinth, follows Henghis into a world dominated by magic. Both books are again, highly recommended, and are independent of the other series.
All in all, a Canadian author well worth checking out!
Here is a link to Hughes' website, the Archonate.com and a link to an audio of a CBC interview which captures his personality pretty accurately, from what I've seen from him online.
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