The geek novels

At Morrow Planet, Mike starts a new meme, based on this article. So show your geek cred and bold the novels you've read:

1. The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- Douglas Adams
2. Nineteen Eighty-Four -- George Orwell
3. Brave New World -- Aldous Huxley
4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? -- Philip Dick
5. Neuromancer -- William Gibson
6. Dune -- Frank Herbert
7. I, Robot -- Isaac Asimov
8. Foundation -- Isaac Asimov
9. The Colour of Magic -- Terry Pratchett
10. Microserfs -- Douglas Coupland
11. Snow Crash -- Neal Stephenson
12. Watchmen -- Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
13. Cryptonomicon -- Neal Stephenson
14. Consider Phlebas -- Iain M Banks
15. Stranger in a Strange Land -- Robert Heinlein
16. The Man in the High Castle -- Philip K Dick
17. American Gods -- Neil Gaiman
18. The Diamond Age -- Neal Stephenson
19. The Illuminatus! Trilogy -- Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson
20. Trouble with Lichen - John Wyndham

12 out of 20, not too bad. Do I lose geek cred if I say I'd never heard of No. 20? I have read some of Wyndham's other work however.

Nanowrimo, Day 17, also SciFiction

Wrote another 1,748 words, bringing me up to 30,657. Not too shabby I think.
I don't have much more to say about that, so let's talk a little about SciFiction and the EDSF Project. First off, more than a hundred people have signed up to the Project. That's great! But there's still hundreds more stories to be appreciated, so if you haven't already, go sign up to write about a story!
While you're there, check out some of the appreciations that have already gone up. (For instance, Jeffrey Ford's appreciation of Gardner Dozois' "Fairy Tale.")
In other places, La Gringa called Ellen Datlow, the editor of SciFiction, and checked on her well being. Gringa says:

Anyway, it was nice to talk to Ellen. She sounds upbeat and positive about the whole situation, and is looking toward projects for the future. She said that she's been overwhelmed by the kindness and grace flowing in her direction out of the skiffy community the past few days.

Well, my dear Miz Datlow, on behalf of the skiffy community at large, may I just say this?

You have earned this community's respect.

I would like to add my own voice to that. She most certainly has. Datlow's work has been a presence in my life for as long as I can remember reading science fiction, fantasy and horror, starting way back with Omni magazine and through her many anthologies and right up to her Year's Best work and SciFiction. And then there's the influence she's had on the field. She has brought so many great writers in and (from accounts I've read) has had a terrific influence on their writing. Ellen Datlow deserves a magazine created just for her editing, and it should be done immediately. Anybody got tens of thousands of dollars to spare to create a good magazine? It would be worth it.

Elsewhere, Charles Coleman Finlay looks at how online fiction is surviving and urges everyone to contribute to Strange Horizons. He also mentions some of the other great online fiction markets that deserve money and attention: Ideomancer, Infinite Matrix and Fortean Bureau. I would also add ChiZine to his list. And I'm sure there's more. Do what you can for them.

SciFiction: What you can do

With the death of SciFiction, people are looking for what they can do. Well, I offer two things.
First, write to feedback@scifi.com and tell them how you feel about SciFiction. Don't be insulting and don't slam the SciFi Channel. Instead, tell SciFi Channel why SciFiction is great and why you are disappointed in seeing it go and ask them to reconsider their decision. Who knows, if enough people do this maybe they will actually think about it.
Second, check out The ED SF Project. (I believe that stands for the Ellen Datlow SciFiction Project, but I haven't seen it spelled out.) It's a blog put together by Dave Schwartz to show appreciation for the five and a half years of great stories SciFiction has put up.

Here's my idea.

By my count there are 320+ stories archived at the site. I'm willing to bet that there are that many SF writers/critics/fans/what have you who have some sort of presence on the web. So I'm thinking, let's all of us write an appreciation of one of the stories.

Here's the list. There are plenty of stories left to be chosen. I encourage everyone to pick one and write something about it. I've picked Marc Laidlaw's "Jane."
With all the attention this thing is getting (its been linked to from Bookslut and BoingBoing as well as every science fiction blogger in the universe), I must say I'm slightly intimidated. Not to mention I'll be writing an appreciation alongside people like Jeffrey Ford, Jeff Vandermeer, Ted Chiang and god knows who else. But it's a great idea and I think everyone who loved SciFiction should get involved and pick out a story.
Don't know which story to write about? Go to the SciFiction archive and start reading. Everything there is good.

Nanowrimo, Day 16: The plot thickens

Today I wrote 1,700 words on my Nanowrimo novel (still without a title by the way). I wrote from a different character's perspective and I think the interaction between him and a military man was written pretty well. I think I captured the ego one-upmanship between them. I'll have to wait to re-read it before I can decide how well it turned out. As always, I'm doubtful of my own abilities. Tomorrow's chapter will head back to character viewpoints I've been writing from all along.

Nanowrimo, Day 15: The halfway point

I've reached the halfway point in Nanowrimo and I'm up to 27,199 words. Today started out slow. I found myself unable to avoid my Avoidance Techniques (patent pending) and slowly worked my way toward the novel. However, once I got started the plot rolled right along. I split a few characters up, brought a couple of them together and headed towards some confrontations. There was even an action scene today. Not bad for one set of 1,900 or so words. I'm feeling pretty good heading into the second half of November.
Mike at Morrow Planet is trying to catch up. He's currently at 20,023 words. But his dedication to writing has even inspired his daughter to say her first sentence. Congratulations Mike.

HBO: Rome renewed

According to Rome's official Web site, the HBO show is coming back for a second season. This pleases me. I've been watching it all season long and was getting a bit worried about the show. There doesn't seem to be a lot of talk about it out there. This weekend's episode was particularly good with an extraordinarily bloody fight scene at the end.
The show isn't up to the quality of the Sopranos, but it's still one of the best things on TV right now. Anybody else watching this show? Like it or hate it, tell me what you think.

SciFiction has been cancelled

By now you've all heard the terrible news. SciFiction will be no more thanks to decisions made by the SciFi Channel. Here's Ellen Datlow's message about it. And there has already been some great commentary on this. And all of the links I've mentioned so far were really easy to find. I imagine there's a lot more people out there talking about this.
There's also Datlow's message board as well. Here's where they are discussing the loss. Of course, this means Datlow needs a job. Someone out there must be smart enough to create a magazine for her, or install her in one already in existence. She really is one of the best editors in the science fiction, fantasy, horror genres there is. This is the woman who discovered William Gibson. She has published all of the big names. I really hope she gets something new soon. In the meantime, check out her own Web site at Datlow.com.
This is a huge blow to the Internet science fiction community, as well as the science fiction community in general. SciFi channel is making a big mistake. How much could this be costing them? Certainly less than those crappy movies they make. And it adds prestige and, oh yeah, actual good science fiction to their channel. But prestige doesn't make you money.
There are other markets of course, but it's just sad to see. Take a look through the SciFiction archive and read some of the great stories available before the SciFi Channel takes them down.
UPDATE: You know, I'm starting to rethink some of my more sarcastic comments about SciFi Channel. I still think it's stupid for them to cancel SciFiction. However, I would like to note that it has been wonderful of them to put this up in the first place and to keep it running longer than most people thought it would. So, SciFi channel, thanks for what you have done for us, some of it has been really great. Now what are you going to do?

Nanowrimo, Days 11 to 14

I do indeed fall behind on Nanowrimo on the weekends. I wrote every day, but each day was just short of the 1,666 minimum I need. I was ahead of the game before the weekend began and I wrote about 1,800 words today, so I'm probably still ahead of where I need to be. In fact, my word count is now over 25,000 words, so I'm more than half way there. And tomorrow is the half-way date. But each day does drag a little. As long as I don't try to overwrite (push myself too far beyond the 2,000 word a day goal) I seem to be OK.
At Fast Fiction, Cybele is only on her fourth writing day and she has more than 16,000 words. She says she's behind where she wants to be, but I can't see her not making it at this point.
Not too much other Nanowrimo news out there. Hope everybody's keeping their word counts up.

Nanowrimo, Day 9

Not much to say really. Day 9 took slightly longer to get rolling, but still didn't take all that long in the end. I did about 1,800 words, which is not bad.
On the Web, well I haven't seen much actually. Mehitobel Wilson (who wrote a great horror story, The Mannerly Man," in The Darker Side) started up Nanowrimo only to be derailed by an actual writing contract. Can't blame her there. Also specficrider is up to 10,000 words.

Looking back on Babylon 5

Abigail Nussbaum at Asking the Wrong Questions has a great look at what was right and wrong with Babylon 5. My feelings on the show are very close to hers, except I don't have the excuse of being 15 when I first watched it.

Nanowrimo Day 8, still amazed at my good fortune

I've completed another 1,800 words today. My plot has moved along and some new complications have occurred to me. This is all to the good. I'm really happy with how easy this has been so far for me.
In the past, I've always met resistance pretty early and get behind. This year I'm ahead. My chapter process is working well. Part of the reason I believe that's helping me is that I don't try to do too much. I work on my idea and get it finished in 2,000 words (or thereabouts) and I don't try to move onto the next thing in the same day. Instead, I let my subconscious stew over the plot and characters and usually by the next morning I have somewhere to go with it all.
Anyway, I think that's why it's working. Who knows, maybe tomorrow I won't be able to write more than 100 words.
As for Nanowrimo on the Web, one thing everyone must check out is the blog Paperback Writer. In just the past few days, she has had Ten things for writers that cost nothing, 12 step editing and 10 things for Nanowrimo'ers. I'm going to be checking this blog out more and more often.
Found through Paperback Writer, Wired News has an article on Nanowrimo.
And that's it writing wise for me today. Good luck writing.

Nanowrimo, Days 5-7

Well, I've made it through the weekend intact. I've written three more chapters, each over the 1,666 words and one over 2,000. I've got a total of 13,529 words now.
Things are going exceedingly well with Nanowrimo this year. Well, the writing sucks, so exceedingly might be an overstatement. But I'm not feeling stymied, it just seems to flow from me. Characters get deeper as I go, action develops and plot moves on.
Unfortunately, I still don't know where I'm going with all of this. I need to think further down the line and where all these characters are going to end up and what they are going to achieve. All in its good time though. In the meantime, I'm just glad things are working.
I see there is another blogger (and speculative fiction writer) who is doing Nanowrimo. Good luck Ruth Nestvold.

10 scary scenes

My friend, Millie, has posted a little article I wrote on 10 scary movie scenes. Check it out, and check the rest of the site out. She's got some interesting reviews of scary movies at FearScene.

Nanowrimo, Day 4, moving right along

Another day complete. I wrote 1,919 words. Pretty good, best day since the first day. And it moved along well, no slow searching for where to go like yesterday. All well and good. But tomorrow begins the real test. It's the weekend. Normally, I'm not online (so don't expect much in the way of updates until Monday) and try to spend as much time with my fiancee as possible. Squeezing in some writing may be difficult. I know I can take out my AlphaSmart Neo in the morning and get some writing done while she watches her Food Channel shows. Unless of course we have some errands we have to do. An obstacle to be overcome.
In fact, this is where my chapter plan may run into problems. In past years, I could get a lot more words in ahead of time and not struggle the next day. (Although, I'd then end up struggling somewhere else down the line.) But with the chapters, I like to end one chapter and then spend one night thinking about the next. This way I come to it fresh and ready to go. But if I fall behind, making that up will be tough. Well, I'll report back on Monday and tell you how it all turned out.
Meanwhile, there's been some more writing about Nanowrimo.
At Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, the contest inspires Sarah to write about first novels, deadlines and rewriting.
At Return of the Reluctant, Edward Champion offers the writing advice of Jack Bunyan. It's not pretty.
Writer Jim Winter is using Nanowrimo to write his novel Road Rules, here's the category that has all the entries about it.
Paperback Writer offers ten things for Nanowrimo'ers.
And through that same Web site, I found a link to this piece of advice:

I am so insanely tired of all the nanowrimo idiots who post about their characters and how they have a journal and what they had for lunch... STFU about your novel. No one cares. STFU about your characters. You are an attention-starved moron.

And I've always been one to take good advice when I hear it, so good night and good luck for the weekend. See you for more of my attention-starved twitterings on Monday.

Lemmy before Welsh assembly: Legalize heroin

Lemmy, mastermind of Motorhead, appeared before the Welsh assembly and called for the legalization of heroin. Here's some quotes:

[Heroin] turns them into thieves and liars.
It removes them from the social circle. All they are thinking about is junk.
They will do anything. They will sell everything they've got and steal yours and sell that.

You can't keep people from doing what makes them feel good. The reason they do heroin in the first place is because of the oblivion it gives them.

Lemmy's presentation wasn't light hearted. He meant it. Here's part of his motivation:

He met junkies on the music scene and described how one woman he lived with tried the drug "to see what it was like". She died within three years, and was one of many people he said he had known killed by heroin.
He explained how his hatred of the drug was so strong he once turned in a dealer to the police, who then went to jail. But he said the dealer was freed in about six months.

In another story, Lemmy's quoted on why the drug war doesn't work:

If you send a young heroin user to prison he will “certainly be a criminal when he comes out“.

“Probably, they will also be brutally sodomised by long-term prisoners and polarised against society in general, and force of law in particular.”

Reading from a pre-written speech, he went on: “You have tried heavier and heavier policing – it hasn’t worked has it?

“Know why? It’s because you cannot keep people from doing what makes them feel good.

“If a junkie has a regular supply of heroin, most are quite able to do a job.

“They will never rehabilitate until somebody – you – gives them a chance to.”

All this just makes me like Lemmy all the more. I saw Motorhead in concert back in the late '80s and they were terrific. Lemmy was practically a stand-up comedian on stage. And, of course, the music blew me away.
A few months back, I picked up Lemmy's autobiography "White Line Fever." This just makes me want to take it off the shelf and read it all the more.
And if you want more of Lemmy's sage advice, check out the Motorhead Speaks section of their Web site, where Lemmy answers questions like:

Q: Hi this is for Lemmy.

I am Oliver and I am starting a band. Do you have any tips and can you think of some band names for me? I have been a big Motorhead fan for years and I still am. I also came to see your concert at Apollo.

Lemmy: (1) Don't get any married men or men w/live-in girldfriends in the band! Names? Ripsaw/Stranglefoot - I dunno!! Good luck.

Nanowrimo Day 3, the first slog

So, I've completed another 1,800 words today. It took me longer this time and I found myself easily distracted. However, my chapter idea still seems to work. I am usually able to round out an idea in at least 1,666 words. Still, I've yet to write anything I feel good about. This is to be expected from Nanowrimo, its purpose is just to cause writing, not to make it good. That's for later. But if one good sentence happened to pop out, it certainly would make me a tad happier.
There's been some interesting commentary about Nanowrimo online. CAAF of Tingle Alley has begun the event and finds herself already behind. Don't worry, you'll catch up. Just look at Cybele's stats from last year, and she made it.
Meanwhile, Meg Mccarron has some thoughts about the event:

NaNoWriMo annoys me for reasons I can't totally explain, and I suspect has something to do with snobbery, as much as it has something to with my (I think) more valid annoyance with the "No Plot? No Problem!" dictum and the Mo's popularization of wordcount bars. I can write 3,000 words of crap no problem. But then I have to delete them all. Because I had no plot. And that was a problem.

While she's grumpy about the whole thing, she is vaguely supportive of at least some people doing it. She elaborates in her comments section. It's certainly worth a read.
This in turn prompted David Moles to consider easy writing vs. hard writing. It's only slightly related to Nanowrimo, but is fascinating nonetheless.
Meanwhile, on the Morrow Planet, Mike blogs about the issues he's facing achieving 50,000. He also has a neat widget up showing his progress. I should get one for my site, but I'm just not sure I want to spend the time.
If you're looking for more wrimo antics, check out this Live Journal community.
So all in all, Nanowrimo is keeping the blogosphere busy. It's certainly giving me something to write about.

Nanowrimo Day 2, still chuggling on

My Nanowrimo novel continues. I've written another 1,700 words. So far so good.
In writing this year's novel, I tried a new approach. Instead of just writing my 1,666 words a day, no matter where it leads me, I structure my writing around chapters. Each day brings a new movement to the story. So if I make it through Nov. 30, I will have 30 chapters. I decided to do this because in the past I would find myself hung up, unable to move away from the setting, character or idea I was working on. How do I make the transition to the next one? If I had lots of time, I could have just worked over what I'd already written and see where it should go. Doing things by chapters, I'm forced to work on a new thought each day and each day complete that thought.
So today's chapter was the world's largest infodump. It was 1,700 words on the back story of a giant monster crossing America. My characters live in the after-effects of that crossing. If I revise this novel, this chapter would be the first thing to be edited out. I would much rather have the background exposed naturally through the course of the novel. But in doing this, it helped me get a stronger notion of what has happened and how I shall proceed from here.
Tomorrow, it's back to my main characters, including introducing a new one.

Nanowrimo begins

Well, my first day's work is complete. I've written 2,305 words, about 300 more than my goal and about 700 words more than what I usually get done. This could be my best start yet (although, unlike Cybele, I don't keep track of my progress each year.) The writing has started out very clunky, but that's how these things usually proceed. I'm not going to worry about that until it's all over.
I've already introduced a monster, mutants and a bit of background on my giant monster. So it should be at least some fun.
How's everybody else doing?

Happy Halloween

It is that most wonderful of holidays filled with goblins and ghouls and ghastly things. And where will I be for all this dark tomfoolery? At work. As usual. Working for a daily newspaper can be frustrating. But for all you trick-or-treaters and costumed partiers, I'll be with you in spirit.
Most of today, however, is consumed with National Novel Writing Month and my preparations. I really shouldn't have waited to the last minute to create characters and plot this thing, but that seems to be my modus operandi. It will be interesting attempting this again after last year's break. Can I do 2,000 words a day? Will I be frustrated with myself? Will I reach new levels of joy in my writing? All will be answered in the next 30 days. Same weird time, same weird channel.
I do know that my novel will focus a giant monster, mutations and a quest. There also might be a tired, cynical adventurer in there as well. I hope I can pull it all together and make it fun.
For all of you other Nanowrimers out there, good luck and I'll see you at the finish line.

On the Blindside by Sonya Taaffe

I've just read Sonya Taaffe's story On the Blindside over at Anna Tambour's Web site. (I like that she's been reprinting stories, I'm going to keep a closer watch on her Web site.)
The story is a look at the intersection of the mundane life with the fantastic and its long-term effects. As I read it, it seemed to me an alternate take on Caitlin R. Kiernan's concept in her story "Onion" (which is one of my favorite short stories). After reading Taaffe's journal, I see she notes that Kiernan's "Murder of Angels" covers similar material (I'm so far behind in reading Kiernan's books.) In Taaffe's discussion of the story, she looks for other works that cover similar territory, mentioning things like "Lud-in-the-Mist" and "Moonwise."
Check out the story and then read Taaffe journal entry, it's worth your time if you're interested in literature of the fantastic.