Pre-Christmas Update

Good morning all.

It is rather pleasant outside at just after 9 o'clock in the morning here in New Zealand, with some sort of roadworks happening just outside my window.

Anyway, as it's so close to Christmas and New Years, I figured to do an update. Not that there has been much of one really, as work has been super busy and my writing has somewhat dwindled. Still haven't heard from the publisher you suggested I rework a piece and resubmit, but no news is good news. Right?

Hope all is well with you though?

Update on November 2013

Things are slowly progressing here.

While waiting to hear about my resubmission I have had been rather busy, which is a good thing.  Work has certainly picked up, especially with the self review coming up.  That had been easy this time round, and all the paperwork emailed to the appropriate people up north; with the parting words of "time to countdown the hours until the weekend", which were replied to with full blown agreement.  Being busy generally means no time to think about the little things in life that somehow continue to baffle me to this day.

The last while has also seen me being busy over the weekends too, most recent being a parade from Dental School to the Octogan. You can read about it here.  I have also started research on a new premise, and have found a goldmine thanks in part to being connected to a friend of my friend and am now in dialog about certain information.  Then there are the collaborations.  One with my friend Nigel, which I need to get back into, and the other with my good friend Sam.  The preliminary draft with Sam is more or less done, and looks like it will be a novella - so yay to that.  All I need to do is start the next phase of editing and beefing it up.

The only drawback however is that with work getting busier, it has meant that my writing has been really relegated to the weekends.  But never mind, onwards and upwards.  No?

Two writing projects

I am super excited for two reasons; it's the weekend, and if that doesn't excite anyone than boohoo to you, and because of two writing projects that I am collaborating on. One of whom is done with my good pal Nigel, the author of Black Donald, and the other is with Sam.

Okay, so Nigel and I had tried collaborating once but I had to pull out due to other commitments getting in the way. The good news is that Nigel has turned that stalled collaboration into an awesome novel, titled Honourbound and is to be the first in a series. Personally, I am looking forward to its release sometime in the new year, as I think it's one of his better works. Nigel is also working on a sequel to Black Donald. As

Available at Amazon.com, Amazon UK and Smashwords

to what we're collaborating about now, you ask? All I can say currently is that it is in the style of John G. Hemry and Ian Douglas, and centres on the fictional Royal Navy Strategic Space Vehicle Orion and her crew.

The other collaboration is with Sam, a good friend of mine in the States and a meteorologist by profession. Sam also has one of the finest minds that I have used him to ensure my past work, which is resubmitted to a potential publisher, was logical and not too far fetched. Our writing project features a self governing colony on Europa in the year 2207, and the first chapter is explosive.

As for my own writing? Apart from the resubmitted Bukowski story, I have had plenty of hits and misses. It really depends on time, as work is getting busier and the like.

Still, we will see. Maybe one of my next solo attempts may get the creative juices flowing once more. It may mean another Bukowski story, but currently am unsure.

To boldly go

One of my all time favourite independent authors, who writes predominantly scientifically factual fiction, wrote a blog post asking if Star Trek's days are done? With the mixed reactions to the two reboot films by J.J. Abrams, along with good sales (and a healthy nostolgia for the franchise), there are calls for another television series set in Star Trek universe.

Steve says that . . .

The stories featured adventures in strange lands, or places where strange phenomena required the best and brightest to solve and overcome.  The aliens they encountered were very clearly designed to be caricatures of existing foreign peoples, and conflicts with them closely resembled conflicts with certain countries with which Americans were very familiar.  And a great deal of the world-building involved a cold-war-esque threat of armageddon with those various other races.

All of which was fine, for the late-twentieth century United States seeking to reconcile their position as world superpower with their own domestic problems, confident in its ability to solve any problem with a judicious use of technology, and hoping to be the country that would lead the world into a future with a decidedly American skew.

Let's face it, he has a point. Star Trek is very Americanisque in its point of view, right on down to the fact that not only do the aliens encountered by the crews of the three Enterprises and the starship Voyager speak English, but do so with an American accent. To a certain extent the franchise was Roddenberry's take on what America ought to strive for, an aspiration hindered by the likes of Russia (who are represented by the Klingons) and every other country opposed to American global dominance.

Steve points out that . . .

Our view of the world’s people has changed, too.  The American “melting pot” has pretty much finished simmering, and the domestic issues involved with different races living together is all but gone.  On the other hand, lifestyles and preferences have become more of an issue than ever before, and we’ve discovered that many Americans tend to be more isolationist than ever before.  Other countries seem much more like America than before, but strangely, America finds itself being simultaneously held up as an ideal place to live and a symbol of everything that’s wrong with the world.

First of, let me just comment on "America finds itself being simultaneously held up as an ideal place to live and a symbol of everything that's wrong with the world". That goes without saying. Like its predecessors, the United States of America had evolved out of an idea that had all the noblest of intentions; to be free from oppression and be equal, along with freedom of speech and to have a separation between government and religion. To a certain extent that is the ideal of every western democracy on this planet and, as history has shown us time and time again, not everyone shares these idealisms.

In the post 9/11 world, such idealisms have become a flight of fancy; overused slogans.

In a world where we are tightening our borders and increasing survaillance on the population at large, along with many of us accepting that sacrificing certain things for the greater good of a safer country, the Star Trek premise is no longer representative of today's society. Henceforth we don't need an outdated idea being recycled over and over again.

But let's hold on a second.

Let's have a listen to the opening sequence to every Star Trek episode:

"To boldly go"

"To seek out new life"

To me these two things are very noble endeavours, especially since the early shows, and those in later reincarnations of the franchise, strive to show that we could solve a problem by working together.

So what that the envisaged future is a utopia? Is it not what we all strive to achieve, even a portion of what Roddenberry saw for us. Star Trek had been the reason why children wanted to go into science or engineering and even medicine, because the likes of Scotty, Spock and McCoy showed what good they do. Heck, the entire franchise did its best to show that there is always a beacon of hope if we came together and worked as a team, or that it is okay to turn to your best friend for help, et cetera. Steve mentioned that Firefly is more akin to today, which I agree. I can easily suggest the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica and Caprica as more representative of today. But they are not Star Trek. They do not seek out new stuff and meet new people, they just survive in a cruel world.

I do not see the franchise as outdated, not when there is such a huge following of devoted fans. Gene Roddenberry had given us a guideline, a set of themes to follow. Surely, if he was to be alive, he would ensure that Star Trek evolve with the times without losing its charm that first captivated audiences.
  

Music to get you writing, what's yours?

So I'm listening to Aqua while writing this blog, as am hoping to get into the groove to look over some edits for "With Prejudice"; a short novel of sorts within the speculative and spy/crime thriller genres. If you haven't heard of Aqua, then you're missing out.

I know that some of my writing friends write to music, whether it be classical music to set the mood for the 1800s to the latest techno for a more futuristic settings. What about you, what do you listen too?

Possibility of test drilling off the Otago coast in 2014

I just came across an online article from our local newspaper about the prospect of a test drill for oil and gas off the Otago coast, and that it could happen sometime in January next year.  The article could be found here.


If the drill tests prove successful, and by the looks of things Anadarko is taking it seriously by investing over US$100 million into the project and ensuring that it filed the correct forms with the New Zealand Environmental Projection Authority (even though they don't have to), it would be an economic boost for the region.
I know that there is a certain amount of opposition to the idea of drilling so close to our shores, considering the oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico back two years ago. Then again, oil spills tend to get bad press anyway. But surely we need the tests to be successful, and for Anadarko setting up offices here in Dunedin, because we need a return of industry. We have lost so much recently due to the Recession and globalisation, where production is moved off shore because cheaper labour and the like.

To me that alone is sad.

Dunedin had been at the heart of New Zealand's gold rush, and mentioned by the Dunedin Public Libraries. Going from that to where we are today is disheartening to say the least, considering how much potential there is here. Anandarko is offering the region a possible boom and seem to be on the right track by ensuring the test is done without endangering our environment. I personally think that we ought to give Anandarko a chance, and if they stuff up than we can go all up in arms and give them grief.

show don't tell

I am writing this more out of irritation than anything else, largely because I had to put down two ebooks and wonder why the heck I wasted money on them.

Then I remembered, it was the pretty covers.

When I was writing the early draft for Compromised, my friend Nigel had this tendency of

hammering one thing the most; and that was to show, don't tell. I had a hard time doing just that in my early writing endeavours, as soon in Exit Strategy. He has a point, and one of those days I will ask him or one of my other writing buddies to guest post about it.

For now, you're stuck with me.

You see, a story is like a movie, largely because we - as humans - are very visual, at least from what I could ascertain. Perhaps that is why movie blockbusters are so attractive, and the current levels of CGI involved definitely help, as they are visual slug fests.The same goes for fiction.

We're very visual in our approach to things, and most often then not it is simpler to show how to do something than tell. The same goes for writing fiction. To get a fair idea what I mean is to go check out Robb Grindstaff's website. In addition to being a pretty awesome fiction writer, Robb has a strong background in editing.