Snickerdoodles of Mass Destruction
Now, I understand their hearts were in the right place, but, really, unless you're in the vampire chapter of the Girl Scouts, it's probably best to hand out cookies in the daytime. Getting a knock on the door at 10:30 p.m. is rarely a positive harbinger. I don't think it's lawsuit-worthy; it's just the polite thing to do. Just sayin'.
Writing update
Contest submission about 90% done. Still in drydock since there are considerable holes in the hull.
Today's Word: Improved
From One Word
Bright shiny world with everything made better, and done without any input by the masses. One man's invention for making life better. Happiness for everyone: The catch? You must cut off your right hand.
Friday, February 04, 2005
Hail to the Chief
A bit of a geek alert from the good folks at IGN.
In an unorthodox move that's sure to raise some industry eyebrows, Microsoft (developer Bungie's corporate overlord) has hired screenwriter Alex Garland (28 Days Later, The Beach) to adapt its hit videogame series Halo for the big screen.
Garland's a good writer. His latest novel, "The Coma," is taut, nearly gossamer yet potent (if predictable). Consider it the brain-injury version of "The Matrix" or a very well-written episode of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer." His first novel, "The Beach," is recommended, although it's a bit confusing and doughy in the middle (I thought the film adaptation was not that bad, all things considered). I still won't go near 28 Days Later because I know Garland will scare the bejeezus out of me.
That said, I hope Garland talks with Bungie's writers (names escape me, sadly) when he crafts the script. The first Halo game was a miracle hybrid of action and plot, something nearly absent in many first-person-shooter games. While great controls and spiffy graphics will lead your butt to the couch, a great story will keep it there, making you sacrifice hygiene and interpersonal skills as your avatar fights for survival. The story embedded in the first Halo game (which I'm assuming the movie will be based on) was so very cleverly told, smartly paying homage to sci-fi cliches (Marines fighting an alien horde, a supersoldier as the key to victory) while making the adventure seem vibrant around you. Halo is, and I put this bluntly, one of the best games ever made. And the way it was told is a large reason. If you haven't played it, go. It's out for the Xbox, PC and Mac.
Fingers crossed the rumors of Ridley Scott as director are true. Would love to have a smart action-horror film, a la Alien, all over again.
(on edit: There are three novels out based on the Halo universe. I'm told they aren't that bad. One novel ("The Flood") re-creates the first Halo videogame experience in literary form. A bit of a challenge, I'd imagine. A transcript of a videogame shooter would look rather bland on the face of it: Main character runs around, shoots aliens, reloads. Repeat until climax.)
A bit of a geek alert from the good folks at IGN.
In an unorthodox move that's sure to raise some industry eyebrows, Microsoft (developer Bungie's corporate overlord) has hired screenwriter Alex Garland (28 Days Later, The Beach) to adapt its hit videogame series Halo for the big screen.
Garland's a good writer. His latest novel, "The Coma," is taut, nearly gossamer yet potent (if predictable). Consider it the brain-injury version of "The Matrix" or a very well-written episode of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer." His first novel, "The Beach," is recommended, although it's a bit confusing and doughy in the middle (I thought the film adaptation was not that bad, all things considered). I still won't go near 28 Days Later because I know Garland will scare the bejeezus out of me.
That said, I hope Garland talks with Bungie's writers (names escape me, sadly) when he crafts the script. The first Halo game was a miracle hybrid of action and plot, something nearly absent in many first-person-shooter games. While great controls and spiffy graphics will lead your butt to the couch, a great story will keep it there, making you sacrifice hygiene and interpersonal skills as your avatar fights for survival. The story embedded in the first Halo game (which I'm assuming the movie will be based on) was so very cleverly told, smartly paying homage to sci-fi cliches (Marines fighting an alien horde, a supersoldier as the key to victory) while making the adventure seem vibrant around you. Halo is, and I put this bluntly, one of the best games ever made. And the way it was told is a large reason. If you haven't played it, go. It's out for the Xbox, PC and Mac.
Fingers crossed the rumors of Ridley Scott as director are true. Would love to have a smart action-horror film, a la Alien, all over again.
(on edit: There are three novels out based on the Halo universe. I'm told they aren't that bad. One novel ("The Flood") re-creates the first Halo videogame experience in literary form. A bit of a challenge, I'd imagine. A transcript of a videogame shooter would look rather bland on the face of it: Main character runs around, shoots aliens, reloads. Repeat until climax.)
Thursday, February 03, 2005
Today's Word: Incredible
From One Word.
The slamming, driving, soaring, bliss-making possibilities of the world made real.
I noticed Tuesday night during writing class that at least two people in class (out of 15) are writing sci-fi novels will pretty much the same premise: Main character dies in the opening, gets machine-revived in a new body, goes off to solve some sort of mystery.
Every story in class is set in Seattle, except for three.
One guy is re-writing "Y: The Last Man." without knowing it. Another guy a couple weeks ago was bemoaning a recent Hollywood film followed his novel idea nearly step for step. Tuesday, a classmate writing a young adult novel was all a-fret over character similiarities in another novel in the genre.
I consoled them, told them their stuff would be different. Maybe the things they had were minor character issues, or were archetypes common in a million other genre stories. I've been here before, felt that icy-grip of pained realization that "yep, my idea is in that guy's novel" or "oh man, that movie just took my idea."
It's taken a couple of years of hard work to get over that hump, and I'm not completely past it. An article yesterday in the New York Times turned my blood into mercury. After a couple minutes of deep breathing, no big detail. Just something else I need to think about as I build the novel. Here's hoping that the media glut will dazzle and distract the readers into thinking everything old is new again.
Speaking of the novel, wrote the end of Chapter 1 last night. The chapter is going to be my submission for the upcoming writing contest. Deadline in 19 days. Feel the burn.
From One Word.
The slamming, driving, soaring, bliss-making possibilities of the world made real.
I noticed Tuesday night during writing class that at least two people in class (out of 15) are writing sci-fi novels will pretty much the same premise: Main character dies in the opening, gets machine-revived in a new body, goes off to solve some sort of mystery.
Every story in class is set in Seattle, except for three.
One guy is re-writing "Y: The Last Man." without knowing it. Another guy a couple weeks ago was bemoaning a recent Hollywood film followed his novel idea nearly step for step. Tuesday, a classmate writing a young adult novel was all a-fret over character similiarities in another novel in the genre.
I consoled them, told them their stuff would be different. Maybe the things they had were minor character issues, or were archetypes common in a million other genre stories. I've been here before, felt that icy-grip of pained realization that "yep, my idea is in that guy's novel" or "oh man, that movie just took my idea."
It's taken a couple of years of hard work to get over that hump, and I'm not completely past it. An article yesterday in the New York Times turned my blood into mercury. After a couple minutes of deep breathing, no big detail. Just something else I need to think about as I build the novel. Here's hoping that the media glut will dazzle and distract the readers into thinking everything old is new again.
Speaking of the novel, wrote the end of Chapter 1 last night. The chapter is going to be my submission for the upcoming writing contest. Deadline in 19 days. Feel the burn.
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Visual aids
My wife, with her mad image-hosting skills yo, set up a couple pictures to help dispel whatever mental image you may have had of me.
The wife and I in Scotland, 2003, just as "shock and awe" were about level the cradle of civilization into rubble. We were halfway through a trip of England, Scotland and Paris when this photo was taken on a typically morose Scottish day. Just FYI, the back of my jacket is shredded after a ruckus with a castle gate. Also, I'm 20 pounds lighter and I have a less dorky haircut.
My wife, with her mad image-hosting skills yo, set up a couple pictures to help dispel whatever mental image you may have had of me.
The wife and I in Scotland, 2003, just as "shock and awe" were about level the cradle of civilization into rubble. We were halfway through a trip of England, Scotland and Paris when this photo was taken on a typically morose Scottish day. Just FYI, the back of my jacket is shredded after a ruckus with a castle gate. Also, I'm 20 pounds lighter and I have a less dorky haircut.
Last year, we lost our dear eight-year-old black cat Maya to feline cancer. We missed her terribly and her step-sister Maddy (left) was lonely, sniffing around corners and sitting glumly on the couch after Maya was put to rest. A couple months later, we decided to get a kitten. This picture was taken shortly after we got Seamus (right). He was about two months old, and most of his atomic structure was, in fact, fluff. Back then, he was wary of Maddy, shakening visibly whenever she growled at him. Now, about a year later, he's an enormous boy. A furry missile with manic fits of indominable energy. We think, when he's an adult, he'll look like one of these.
Scene vs Narrative
From class last night. Two exercises. One short and chopped, hard on action. The other, long and flowing...Jane Austenesque.
The Mantis pinned Rayelle's wrist down. His bony knee sliced off circulation. A cold sick feeling ran down her trapped arm. Her free arm grasped for her knife. Just as she reached it, Mantis punched. Blue light filled Rayelle's eyes. Blood rivered from her sinuses to throat. She turned back, eyes blazing feral defiance. The Mantis pulled back in appreciation. Rayelle spat a chunk of blood.
The Mantis wheezed bitterly. Death rattled out in cold pieces. "Big Gregor ain't happy with you, girlie. You lost his shipment. You ran."
Rayelle spat again, painting Mantis' nose.
"You can stop now," she said. "I'll only cut your balls off."
Mantis leaned harder. Rayelle's hand was still-birth blue.
"Little girl, big mouth." Mantis said. "I heard you were the shit. Number one trader in Outermarket."
He brought his Bowie knife down. He pressed the blade on her trapped wrist.
This was the soul of Outermarket, lapped in a hundred languages and customs, unsure of the corners and dimensions, while all knowing the etiquette for tantamount survival of traders, for in here was the clockwork juju and mantras of buying and selling, scouting and arranging, and appraising, all woven into a complex quilt of sights, smells, sounds that breathe and shake with the heartbeat of commerce beyond the Green Zone, for here was where anyone could trade anything and theft was dealt with brutally, quickly, and sometimes with a cheering crowd desperate for entertainment and the outdated, sparse application of fairness, for they - all of the weary and the savvy and hopeful - came to the Outermarket for a chance at a slightly better survival, and this is the soul of Outermarket.
P.S. Had my synopsis critiqued. I did it all wrong, as I figured. A bit strange to have people read the summaried novel. No more secrets now, as if I stood up naked in class, turning all angles so everyone gets a good look.
From class last night. Two exercises. One short and chopped, hard on action. The other, long and flowing...Jane Austenesque.
The Mantis pinned Rayelle's wrist down. His bony knee sliced off circulation. A cold sick feeling ran down her trapped arm. Her free arm grasped for her knife. Just as she reached it, Mantis punched. Blue light filled Rayelle's eyes. Blood rivered from her sinuses to throat. She turned back, eyes blazing feral defiance. The Mantis pulled back in appreciation. Rayelle spat a chunk of blood.
The Mantis wheezed bitterly. Death rattled out in cold pieces. "Big Gregor ain't happy with you, girlie. You lost his shipment. You ran."
Rayelle spat again, painting Mantis' nose.
"You can stop now," she said. "I'll only cut your balls off."
Mantis leaned harder. Rayelle's hand was still-birth blue.
"Little girl, big mouth." Mantis said. "I heard you were the shit. Number one trader in Outermarket."
He brought his Bowie knife down. He pressed the blade on her trapped wrist.
This was the soul of Outermarket, lapped in a hundred languages and customs, unsure of the corners and dimensions, while all knowing the etiquette for tantamount survival of traders, for in here was the clockwork juju and mantras of buying and selling, scouting and arranging, and appraising, all woven into a complex quilt of sights, smells, sounds that breathe and shake with the heartbeat of commerce beyond the Green Zone, for here was where anyone could trade anything and theft was dealt with brutally, quickly, and sometimes with a cheering crowd desperate for entertainment and the outdated, sparse application of fairness, for they - all of the weary and the savvy and hopeful - came to the Outermarket for a chance at a slightly better survival, and this is the soul of Outermarket.
P.S. Had my synopsis critiqued. I did it all wrong, as I figured. A bit strange to have people read the summaried novel. No more secrets now, as if I stood up naked in class, turning all angles so everyone gets a good look.
Transnational Tech Lust
So I'm pacing around the tech department at University of Washington's bookstore, treating myself with a piece of eye-candy before I slouch off to writing class. The store is a Apple showroom. Sparse in the middle, mesas arted up with gear mushrooming from the floor. Full of Macs and screens and other toys. I finally get my eyes on the new iPod Shuffle. I nearly laugh at it. So damn small. It's the size of a pack of gum, only lighter, sleeker and ripped from some alt.future where everything is bright, cool, and precise. It looks like a newborn piece of technology, maybe a pre-me. Locked away in an incubator as it struggles to grow and thrive. Next to its larger, bulkier iPod brethren, it's a runt. But oh-so-adorable. It's a tech-kitten, all petite and dainty. You cradle it gently, thinking it is going to break. And in your hands, it's nearly weightless. It is just the right size for electronics for me: Any smaller and I get fidgety about cortex implants.
It's a five-second revelation. Next to me, trying to strain a better view, are a couple of young Japanese girls. We all eye-dance with each other. They smile and I know what they want. They're smitten with Shuffle, too. I place the floor model back and step away. Their turn to fondle snow-colored plastic. They nod, step up, and thank me; we're all dreamy-eyed. Caught in the pull of consumer electronic toys. Me and them, boy and girls, white and Japanese. All under the sway of cross-cultural techno-lust for a device without words, only icons. I know now why Air Jordans sold a zillion units. It's beyond marketing. It's design and desire, sleekness and simplicity. It's guitars, cheeseburgers, and everything else that just is. No instructions needed. Apple makes items that are intuitive. You push start, you click the icon, you drag and drop. It's no surprise the funky, international, andro-urban appeal exists, but it's sweet (yet vaguely cultish) when you cross paths with strangers and have that same gleam in your eye.
One Word still has "Tossed" up. So, no entry.
So I'm pacing around the tech department at University of Washington's bookstore, treating myself with a piece of eye-candy before I slouch off to writing class. The store is a Apple showroom. Sparse in the middle, mesas arted up with gear mushrooming from the floor. Full of Macs and screens and other toys. I finally get my eyes on the new iPod Shuffle. I nearly laugh at it. So damn small. It's the size of a pack of gum, only lighter, sleeker and ripped from some alt.future where everything is bright, cool, and precise. It looks like a newborn piece of technology, maybe a pre-me. Locked away in an incubator as it struggles to grow and thrive. Next to its larger, bulkier iPod brethren, it's a runt. But oh-so-adorable. It's a tech-kitten, all petite and dainty. You cradle it gently, thinking it is going to break. And in your hands, it's nearly weightless. It is just the right size for electronics for me: Any smaller and I get fidgety about cortex implants.
It's a five-second revelation. Next to me, trying to strain a better view, are a couple of young Japanese girls. We all eye-dance with each other. They smile and I know what they want. They're smitten with Shuffle, too. I place the floor model back and step away. Their turn to fondle snow-colored plastic. They nod, step up, and thank me; we're all dreamy-eyed. Caught in the pull of consumer electronic toys. Me and them, boy and girls, white and Japanese. All under the sway of cross-cultural techno-lust for a device without words, only icons. I know now why Air Jordans sold a zillion units. It's beyond marketing. It's design and desire, sleekness and simplicity. It's guitars, cheeseburgers, and everything else that just is. No instructions needed. Apple makes items that are intuitive. You push start, you click the icon, you drag and drop. It's no surprise the funky, international, andro-urban appeal exists, but it's sweet (yet vaguely cultish) when you cross paths with strangers and have that same gleam in your eye.
One Word still has "Tossed" up. So, no entry.
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Conflicting realities
Incredibly insanely frustratingly exhaustingly maddeningly busy.
Deadline time at work. And then I have class tonight. My synopsis is a harmless bumbling monster with too many blunt edges. Not the sleek space rocket I was hoping for. Last night, I was getting my bag packed for class, and I found a good example for a sparse telegraph-style example of writing a synopsis that would have really helped if, you know, I checked my bag earlier in the week. I have the organizational skills of a loud sneeze.
But since the synopsis is incredibly huge, I'll have something to whittle down. Tonight's effort is a bloated first draft, but I do have a well-detailed map about where I'm going. Good and bad. E.M. Forster is quoted as saying something to the effect that if the plot and characters all too well mapped, then you aren't doing your job as a author. You know, letting the situation evolve and change in dramatic ways. That's the strange thing about writing: You have factions nagging you to map out your novel, and then other groups saying to play it loose. Akin to drafting blueprints while blindfolded. Go figure. Or not. It might be too constricting.
No new entry on One Word as of now.
Incredibly insanely frustratingly exhaustingly maddeningly busy.
Deadline time at work. And then I have class tonight. My synopsis is a harmless bumbling monster with too many blunt edges. Not the sleek space rocket I was hoping for. Last night, I was getting my bag packed for class, and I found a good example for a sparse telegraph-style example of writing a synopsis that would have really helped if, you know, I checked my bag earlier in the week. I have the organizational skills of a loud sneeze.
But since the synopsis is incredibly huge, I'll have something to whittle down. Tonight's effort is a bloated first draft, but I do have a well-detailed map about where I'm going. Good and bad. E.M. Forster is quoted as saying something to the effect that if the plot and characters all too well mapped, then you aren't doing your job as a author. You know, letting the situation evolve and change in dramatic ways. That's the strange thing about writing: You have factions nagging you to map out your novel, and then other groups saying to play it loose. Akin to drafting blueprints while blindfolded. Go figure. Or not. It might be too constricting.
No new entry on One Word as of now.
Monday, January 31, 2005
Today's Word: Tossed
Rejected or relieved, depending on the cultural antenna. The act of blurring the ingredients of a salad into one equally disturbed mass. Being jostled around as the airplane crashes.
Speaking of tossed, I'm out last night zapping pixels and I nearly vomited during a racing simulation when the faux-Indy car I was in bounced and skidded around on its X, Y and Z axes. I have no idea of auto racing is that queasy and bumpy, but it felt verging on cartoonish as my avatarmobile flipped end over end, landing Blues Brothers-style on its four tires only to keep slamming forward. What I was doing was irrelevant to reality, a virtual hero quest in the form of simulations and pixels rushing by to infer great speed. None of it mattered, but the illusion felt right, including the dull ache of losing (still possibly being seasick from the jostle of go-go racing action, but the results were clear: I got trounced).
Minor flashforward to Iraqi elections, with another virtual reality already in progress, thanks to American media. People didn't die in vast numbers, so there you go. Success. Despite no real idea of who is really winning. It's just the kabuki itself that counts. Purple fingers and the same news footage of the jubilant Iraqi woman waving an orange book. BBC news this morning querying if the turnout and voting meant a vindication for Bush and Blair. And I'm thinking, yeah, it does. A false war based on false information about a false threat spread by fakers who call themselves journalists. Deception maintained across the board. Here is the end justifying all the means. Tens of thousands of Iraqis dead. A cracked infrastructure. Nearly 1,400 dead American soldiers. Shattered international relations. It's all better now. Well, maybe. Who knows? It's the tsunami effect: We won't know the outcome until the water recedes. But it makes good virtual closure for the Americans watching on TV, that pesky Iraq is all better now. And just in time for the Michael Jackson trial to start. End one TV show, start another.
And, speaking of madness and entertainment, here's something to give those American radio wacky DJ "Morning Zoos" a run for their money.
Rejected or relieved, depending on the cultural antenna. The act of blurring the ingredients of a salad into one equally disturbed mass. Being jostled around as the airplane crashes.
Speaking of tossed, I'm out last night zapping pixels and I nearly vomited during a racing simulation when the faux-Indy car I was in bounced and skidded around on its X, Y and Z axes. I have no idea of auto racing is that queasy and bumpy, but it felt verging on cartoonish as my avatarmobile flipped end over end, landing Blues Brothers-style on its four tires only to keep slamming forward. What I was doing was irrelevant to reality, a virtual hero quest in the form of simulations and pixels rushing by to infer great speed. None of it mattered, but the illusion felt right, including the dull ache of losing (still possibly being seasick from the jostle of go-go racing action, but the results were clear: I got trounced).
Minor flashforward to Iraqi elections, with another virtual reality already in progress, thanks to American media. People didn't die in vast numbers, so there you go. Success. Despite no real idea of who is really winning. It's just the kabuki itself that counts. Purple fingers and the same news footage of the jubilant Iraqi woman waving an orange book. BBC news this morning querying if the turnout and voting meant a vindication for Bush and Blair. And I'm thinking, yeah, it does. A false war based on false information about a false threat spread by fakers who call themselves journalists. Deception maintained across the board. Here is the end justifying all the means. Tens of thousands of Iraqis dead. A cracked infrastructure. Nearly 1,400 dead American soldiers. Shattered international relations. It's all better now. Well, maybe. Who knows? It's the tsunami effect: We won't know the outcome until the water recedes. But it makes good virtual closure for the Americans watching on TV, that pesky Iraq is all better now. And just in time for the Michael Jackson trial to start. End one TV show, start another.
And, speaking of madness and entertainment, here's something to give those American radio wacky DJ "Morning Zoos" a run for their money.
Sunday, January 30, 2005
Your Grand Vision, in 1000 words or less.
Writing the synopsis for class. Needs to summarize a 350-page novel in five pages. I working from a previous synopsis that's as valid and reliable as the maps of the coastal United States that the pilgrims had c. 1620. Two versions of my fantasy, the old and new, butting up together, and I'm trying to make it all fit.
No, I'm trying to write while my Xbox keeps calling me.
Cut off from news and gaming. Television as silent as a virgin's bed. Typing away, cutting and paste. Narrative surgery, weaving subplots together. I'm writing a book report on a novel that only exists in my head. Only two chapters are real, plus a handful of scenes. There's a intimadation going on here, writing up a summary of your vision. Purpose of exercise: Write something that will convince your future publisher to love your manuscript that they'll give you money to see how it turns out. I stare at the hundreds of books in my office and I wonder if all the authors represented felt the same sort of absurdist fear. Commodified dreams. A game of show and tell. I have a story, you have money. Is my story worth that money? The bookcases lie to me, because those books are the winners. No bookcases for the rejects.
Back to the synopsis. Did an oral version for class Tuesday, and when I got done I think I stunned my classmates. But the outline still feels too spongy, too shifting. So, refine, refine, refine. It's pan-sifting for gold.
Today
- Write
- Critique group
- Pixel-on-pixel violence in downtown Seattle for birthday get together
- Then dinner
And somehere in there: Finish laundry, shower, be nice to wife, and not turn on TV or Xbox.
Writing the synopsis for class. Needs to summarize a 350-page novel in five pages. I working from a previous synopsis that's as valid and reliable as the maps of the coastal United States that the pilgrims had c. 1620. Two versions of my fantasy, the old and new, butting up together, and I'm trying to make it all fit.
No, I'm trying to write while my Xbox keeps calling me.
Cut off from news and gaming. Television as silent as a virgin's bed. Typing away, cutting and paste. Narrative surgery, weaving subplots together. I'm writing a book report on a novel that only exists in my head. Only two chapters are real, plus a handful of scenes. There's a intimadation going on here, writing up a summary of your vision. Purpose of exercise: Write something that will convince your future publisher to love your manuscript that they'll give you money to see how it turns out. I stare at the hundreds of books in my office and I wonder if all the authors represented felt the same sort of absurdist fear. Commodified dreams. A game of show and tell. I have a story, you have money. Is my story worth that money? The bookcases lie to me, because those books are the winners. No bookcases for the rejects.
Back to the synopsis. Did an oral version for class Tuesday, and when I got done I think I stunned my classmates. But the outline still feels too spongy, too shifting. So, refine, refine, refine. It's pan-sifting for gold.
Today
- Write
- Critique group
- Pixel-on-pixel violence in downtown Seattle for birthday get together
- Then dinner
And somehere in there: Finish laundry, shower, be nice to wife, and not turn on TV or Xbox.
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