Flow My Thoughts, The Blogger Said

Can't stop

2010-03-29T22:57:00.005+01:00

Since printing out my novel, things have changed. I've completely failed at writing a blog a day, although it had pretty much become two every other day. I'm slipping back into old ways.

When writing my novel, I'd try and start around 9.30am and keep track of how much time I had until I had to leave work. I'd feel good if I had anything more than 5 hours in which to write. Now without a project on the go I find I'm looking at the clock trying to work out ways to kill time before work.

I've got a short story that I keep meaning to write but I'm just not feeling it. I think it's a decent enough idea and it's all planned out and it's worth my time but in many ways it's too similar to my novel. What i mean is that it's sci-fi but not excessively so and I feel inside me that what I want to write is something incredibly, indulgently sci-fi. I want to write a story with robots and spaceships and hovercars and laser beams. I want to lash on helping upon helping of cyberpunk and tech noir motifs.

I've got such a novel planned but that's just the thing; it's a novel. I can't be getting into writing another novel with my first one still on the go, can I? And yet I'm being drawn to it. Planning and writing little snippets of this new novel is brilliantly addictive and it's the only thing stopping me from wasting my mornings.

I guess if I've gotta write, I've gotta write.

73 - Ink

2010-03-24T21:37:00.003Z

I printed out my novel today ready to hand to my ladyfriend this weekend. I'm also emailing a copy to another friend and I could easily have done the same for first friend but it feels good to actually hold a physical printed out copy. It looks good, seeing all those pages there. I can see that I've achieved something. It looks like a big, hefty, long story. You know what? It looks like a novel.

I used pretty much an entire ink cartridge printing it out. Actually I used two. I bought one, took it home and it must have been faulty because try as I might, my printer wouldn't accept it. It was incompatible one minute, then it wasn't present the next and occasionally it was empty. Of course rather than go right back down town and return it, I sat for a good half hour taking it out and putting it back in again.

And I swore. A lot. I got incredibly angry. Nothing frustrates me more than a computer that doesn't work. I was fuming. The air was very blue around me and eventually I resorted to insulting my printer. This didn't work and I felt a bit bad about it afterwards, so I apologised.

Eventually I went down town, exchanged the cartridge and printed it all out. So yeah, a vaguely eventful day and I have something to show for it, kind of. In the future I'll just email it.

72 - Two little three-letter words

2010-03-23T22:34:00.004Z

I'm still riding a vague wave of euphoria having reached the end of my second draft today. I'd been aiming to finish tomorrow, maybe Thursday but the words couldn't wait to get out today. I feel good about it. Better than I did at the end of the first draft. I feel like I've achieved something. I didn't until now.

When I finished the first draft last year I felt as though I still hadn't written a novel. As I was typing the final 500 words today I could already sense that anti-climactic feeling returning. I expected to feel similarly underwhelmed and not any sense of achievement. Yet as soon as I wrote those two little three-letter words I felt good. Pretty bloody good.

In part this is due to the fact that the first draft trailed off. I wrote 'The End' but it wasn't really the right place to finish. I wrote a half-arsed epilogue that I eventually cut. Today I wrote a finite last line. Also, the first draft was really closer to a half draft. There were frequent parts where I'd written, 'Put in description in later draft.' 'Emotional scene here.' 'Sort this bit out.' It wasn't complete. Okay, so it's still shoddy and needs a lot of work but at least it's complete. I feel like I can honestly say I've written a novel now as opposed to before where it felt like I was still writing one. Hopefully with each redraft the sense of euphoria and achievement will become more intense.

71 - Who am I?

2010-03-22T21:18:00.008Z

author n 1 a person who composes a book, article, or other written work. 2 a person who writes books as a profession; writer. 3 an originator or creator.

creator n a person or thing that creates; originator.

novelist n a writer of novels.

storyteller n a person who tells stories.

writer n 1 a person who writes books, articles, etc., esp. as an occupation. 2 the person who has written something specified. 3 a person who is able to write or write well. 4 a scribe or clerk.

Can I say that any of these accurately describe me?

70 - The end is nigh

2010-03-21T21:12:00.000Z

When do you end a story?

Someone told me once that you should write a story until it naturally ends, then go back and remove the last paragraph, page or chapter. Many of us have a tendency to overwrite. Novels can often be compared to songs with endings that fade out over a very long time when often they need to end with an explosive drumbeat.

My story originally had an epilogue. I knew it had to be there. After the first draft I realised it was completely superfluous and unnecessary. Writing chapter 19 the other day I typed a couple of words that I realised could be the new ending. The novel could end there, two chapters earlier than expected. There'd be a whole lot unresolved but is that such a bad thing? For the time being I'm going to continue up until ch.21 but I'll keep this earlier ending it mind. It definitely pays to think about it all in a new light from time to time.

69 - The mind boggles

2010-03-20T12:13:00.006Z

I love a bit of Boggle. Actually, I love a lot of Boggle. I get the guys over, crack open some beers and play some Boggle. For those that don't know, it's somewhere between Scrabble and a wordsearch. You have 3 minutes to find as many words as possible, but you only get points for words you've found that no-one else has.

Among my friends, I pwn. The secret lies in the 3-letter words. They're only worth 1 point compared to 5 points for a 7-letter word but they're so easy to find. Most 3-letter words can be spelt backwards too or rearranged and, throw an s into the mix to pluralise them all. Most people overlook them. Crackin'.

We played 3 rounds the other day on the super-size cube.
Nick got 41 points.
Matt got 48 points.
I got 75 points.

In fact I got 35 points in round 2 alone. I need to find some more competition.

68 - 11 > 10

2010-03-19T16:57:00.001Z

I just saw an advert for the new series of Doctor Who and I'm pretty sure I already prefer Matt Smith to David Tennant. I could quite easily write thousands of words as to why only I can't be arsed. I can very easily say that I definitely prefer Stephen Moffat to Russell T. Davies as a writer.

The little ad gave me a shiver down my spine, quite literally and I really can't wait for the series to start. With a far, far, far, far, far superior writer at the helm and, in my eyes, a much more suited actor playing the part of the Doctor, I can't see how this series shouldn't be the best yet.

I might eat my words in a few weeks time, but I'm pretty excited. I think I'm almost as excited about this new series of Doctor Who as I was excited at the prospect that David Tennant and Russell T. Davies were finally leaving the show.

67 - Murder

2010-03-18T22:02:00.003Z

We give birth to characters. We give them life. We grow up with them. We give them back stories. We get inside their heads and they become a part of us. And then we kill them.

Why?

Because they annoy us? Because it's their time to die? Because it's necessary in order for the plot to continue? Or simply for a shock tactic that will keep readers/viewers interested?

A character's death should serve a purpose. Okay, sometimes that purpose is to not have a purpose. Sometimes killing off a character simply for shock value can be a great way to breathe new life into a piece, but only if done well. Generally character deaths should give birth to something else, no? We can't just go around killing off character after character. Spooks quickly got into the habit of introducing characters just to kill them off and generally it's more of a shock if a character survives.

Like everything else in writing there's no exact formula for killing off characters. I know there are many examples where it works brilliantly and many where it doesn't. We can all think of a TV series where they kill off one of the audience's favourite characters. Sometimes it works. Often it reduces the audience.

I think the best way to know if a character has been killed off well is if we regret their death but we don't regret the decision to write them out. If done expertly, we actually mourn these fictional people's deaths. We feel like we want to go into their world and save them and yet, we know the piece is better for their death. We know that these raw feelings that have been awoken in us should be treasured. For fiction to make us feel like this is phenomenal. We're glad and yet we love these characters. We want them to survive. We want them to have happy endings.

66 - Words etc. #2

2010-03-17T13:20:00.003Z

Seeing as there are words I love, it's unsurprising that there are words I loathe too. Strangely enough a lot of these seem to be popping up recently. These are some of them:

eclectic - This is a word that is thrown about with creative magazines. I hate it because it's a word that tells you pretty much nothing but is used constantly in these types of situations. It's a word used to give credence and uniqueness and yet does neither. All it tells us is that this particular creative magazine is a mishmash of various things which is pretty much the least you expect from such a publication.

enthusiastic - This is a word that constantly comes up in job ads and we're probably all guilty of using in cover letters. Point is most people find it hard to be enthusiastic about their job and we're going to fake enthusiasm in order to get a job. It adds nothing.

should of - It's fucking 'should have.' Think about it. If you said, 'I should of gone out' and then went out you wouldn't then say, 'I of been out.'

'adverbs' - I don't hate the word 'adverbs,' I just hate adverbs in general. More specifically I feel they are overused in fiction. 'He slammed the door loudly.' Can you slam a door quietly? 'He whispered quietly.' 'The phone rang suddenly.' 'He raced quickly down the road.'

65 - Yellow

2010-03-16T23:02:00.004Z

Aberystwyth had a shitload of fantastic bookshops. I spent many an hour and many a pound in them. In one I bought A Wreath of Stars by Bob Shaw. It was a book I'd never heard of written by an author I'd never heard of and, if being honest, about 90% of the reason behind me buying it was the striking yellow dust jacket.

I loved it and found another two of his books in another bookshop just down the road from the first; The Palace of Eternity and Orbitsville. Neither were published by Gollancz and they both had fairly standard '70s sci-fi covers.

In fact I hadn't come across another classic yellow-cover Gollancz book nor a Bob Shaw book since leaving Aberystwyth in May 2008. However, down in Brighton over the weekend I found two more Bob Shaw books both with beautiful, simple yellow covers. One was The Peace Machine and the other was Night Hawk. The latter was signed and therefore quite expensive and I'm now feeling gutted that I didn't buy it.

Point is, I can't quite wrap my head around the fact that both Bob Shaw and these beautiful yellow books only seem to pop up in bookshops in coastal university towns.

64 - Free roaming

2010-03-15T21:04:00.004Z

I've been playing the Just Cause 2 demo and I've developed a bit of a crush on it. Not because it's a particularly good or original game, but because of its environment. Okay, so only a small portion is available to explore in the demo, but videos show lush jungle, waterways, cities, snowy mountains and suburban towns. I can't wait for the full game.

I'm a sucker for open world games. I like the idea that an entire world has been created and the missions only take you in a jagged crisscross through it; there's a whole other world out there to explore. My favourites of the genre aren't necessarily the best, but those that provide the most satisfying places for exploration.

GTA: San Andreas stole hours upon hours of time. I never completed the missions. In fact I never got off the first island, I just waited for my brother to complete it. I'd spend hours driving around Mount Chiliad, or over those huge fields trying to find all the farms. I'd happily take a cycle through every alley, or fly a helicopter round and round looking for banal, boring places where I could stand and watch the sun rise, and just let the world go by.

Red Faction: Guerrilla provided some unparalleled destruction but just not enough variety. Everything was built on repetitive red rock that couldn't be damaged with the otherwise phenomenal destruction physics. The city of Eos merely provided a different set of vehicles driving by than the town of Dust. Although it had a few little gems hidden away, they were too few and far between.

Driv3r was the king of alleys. Like in Driver I'd drive for hours obeying the rules of the road. I'd stop at red lights, watch my speed and I'd look for car-parks that I could explore and parks and observatories well off the road. I'd go into back-gardens and see swimming pools and swing-sets.

Assassin's Creed, though severely flawed, was beautiful in places. Seeing a tower in the distance, running over to it, climbing it and pressing the synchronise button to get a soaring view over the city was one of those breathtaking moments in games that will stick with me forever. Again, it was tempered by a lack of variety but I could overlook that.

For my money Far Cry 2 suffered from many of the same problems as Assassin's Creed. Ignoring the missions which became a bore, there was some real jungle to look through. Problem was, I'd often wreck my car miles from civilisation meaning I'd be lumbering along on foot for miles. Quite often there'd be not a lot around for miles. Shacks in the middle of the wilderness, though awesome, were sullied by the fact that diamonds were littered around them, giving you a reason to go there. Also, there's nothing worse than going on a relaxing sunset drive only to stumble across a guard tower and get ripped to shreds my bullets.

63 - Chris Rea(lly good)

2010-03-14T16:38:00.005Z

Last Monday I went to see Peter Green with my dad. Last night I went to see Chris Rea with my dad and boy was he fucking phenomenal - Chris Rea, not my dad, though my dad is pretty great. It was all a bit civilised sitting at a gig, but Chris had amazing energy and really rocked the place out.

Similar to Peter Green, I was the youngest there by about 30 years. However, unlike Peter Green's audience which topped out around the age of 60, there were people at Chris Rea in their 70s and 80s.

His energy, his awesome solos and his extended versions of songs really meant he was one of the best live performers I've seen. Okay, he didn't play Driving Home For Christmas, but it's March so fair enough.

However, when he played Stainsby Girls just before the world's most half-arsed encore (they walked off the stage, didn't even reach the exit, then turned right back), a whole load of mums and dads got up in front of the stage and danced. There was a whole procession of mums dancing their way forward then jiving out in front of Chris. It has to be one of the funniest moments in a gig I've seen. It was excruciatingly awesome.

He finished his encore with Let's Dance then left. However, someone forgot to turn the lights back on. Everyone was cheering for a second encore that seemed certain seeing as the lights were still out. After about two minutes, the stage door opened and there was a huge roar only for everyone to realise it was just a techie. A few moments later the lights went on and there was a collective groan. Aces.

62 - For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

2010-03-13T09:58:00.002Z

So the title of this entry is thought by some to be the shortest story in the world. It was allegedly penned by Ernest Hemingway. So, can you really tell a story with just six words?

To consider "For sale: baby shoes, never worn" to be a story, I guess we look outside of the words and to the picture they conjure, right?

We think of a couple who were having a baby and bought some baby shoes in anticipation and then the wife had a miscarriage.

Or perhaps, in a slightly less harrowing interpretation, the baby was adopted just after birth because the husband left the wife and she couldn't cope on her own.

Or maybe it's a whole lot more banal than that and the couple decided they didn't like the baby shoes they'd just bought and couldn't return them because they'd lost the receipt.

Then again, perhaps on a drink-fuelled night, a student went to an all-night supermarket and bought some baby shoes for a laugh. When sober, he decided he wanted to salvage some money from his misadventure so put out an ad in the local paper.

Alternatively, maybe it's only a six word advert that simply doesn't qualify as a story.

61 - Stubborn bastard

2010-03-12T09:43:00.002Z

So there's this arts competition that runs every month that I've been entering since the beginning of the year. Each month there's a brief or theme and you simply have to create a piece that somehow fits the theme. The number of participants varies, but some months it's a couple of hundred, other times it's around fifty, so it's not exactly an overwhelming amount of competition.

Each month I tell myself I'm going to write a very simple piece that somehow relates to the theme and yet, for the third month in a row, I'm experimenting. One month I wrote in a bizarre, stilted phonetic style. The next I created a fake magazine article. This month I'm writing a spam email for my entry. Oh, and they're all sci-fi pieces of course.

Now I'm not sure if my stubborn refusal just to write a simple straightforward story is some belief that I'll only have a chance of winning if my work does something bizarre. Or maybe it's no more than it makes a nice change to writing my novel. I should either congratulate myself for allowing my need to write to takeover, or I should castigate myself for getting too carried away and not being able to write something simple and straightforward.

60 - Clone this

2010-03-11T22:02:00.015Z

Thought the one-liner in Timecop was bad? You ain't heard nothing 'til you've heard the beauty Arnie quips in The 6^th Day.

Now I love one-liners. They're a fine art and I reckon some of the best deserve Academy Awards. In fact there should be a new Oscar introduced for best one-liner of the year.

The best one-liners are generally:

short
comprised of monosyllabic words
puns
relate in someway to the events that just occurred.

A case in point is this little beauty from Predator:

It's just so perfect.

Not so in The 6^th Day. Now the original trailer had Arnie quip, 'clone this' as he killed someone (the film's about cloning btw) but this line was scrapped from the final cut, probably because it was shite. Not as shite as the one they replaced it with however.

So around halfway through the movie Arnie is captured by evil baddie Drucker. Arnie in no-nonsense-style says, 'go screw yourself.' Nothing wrong with that. However, in the big confrontation Arnie has a fight with Drucker and a clone of Drucker. First he knocks out one clone, then he knocks out the other. The first falls flat on his back. The second falls face down on top of the first and what does Arnie say?

"When I said you should screw yourself, I didn't mean for you to take it literally."

Quite.

59 - TV's greatest dickheads

2010-03-10T13:07:00.000Z

Heroes are great and everything but sometimes all you want is a good dickhead. A selfish twat who causes more problems than they solve. Characters who probably fall more on the bad side of the line than the good, but those you want to come out on top. Here are some of my favourites from TV.

Vic Mackey - The Shield
Corrupt, selfish, murdering, torturing, blackmailing, extortionist, adulterer, bully, thief. But he almost always gets his man and, you know, make the streets safer - just.

Jimmy McNulty - The Wire
Gaping asshole, alcoholic, adulterer, with a serious problem with authority who bends the law and will go out of his way to piss off his superiors. But he's an excellent detective.

Gaius Baltar - Battlestar Galactica
Self-obsessed, arrogant, selfish, cowardly, scientific genius with an extraordinary sense of self-preservation. Will never do anything that doesn't in someway benefit himself.

Eric Cartman - South Park
Selfish, greedy, spoiled, foul-mouthed, racist, manipulative, deluded, evil genius who once killed a boy's parents and fed them to him in a chili just to get revenge on him for taking his $16.12.

58 - Where am I?

2010-03-09T21:46:00.006Z

The pace has slowed a bit on my current redraft. I'm drawing closer to the big climax which is, as it almost always is, the most fun to write. It's difficult, but fun. Everything comes to a head and it's addictive, shaping the way your characters' journey come to an end.

But in many ways it's the part just before the climax that is most important; the quiet before the storm. These lulls in the action before that final act have to be pitched just right. They have to slow the action down enough to let you get a breather and let you take in everything that the characters have achieved so far and what they're soon sure to achieve. They also provide a well-needed break and stop the action rolling forward in an unmanageable, indistinguishable rush. But too slow and you lose all sense of rhythm you've built up and end up boring your audience. Either way, you don't want the scene to feel like it's been awkwardly crowbarred in there to provide variety.

I'm struggling tremendously with this at the moment and though I'm still erring too much on the side of deadly slow and boring, I'm sure (as I keep reassuring myself) that I'll fix it in a later draft. Rather than turning to books or movies for inspiration, I've found the best examples of these 'quiets before storms' in videogames.

One such is in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater when just before the climax, you climb slowly up a ladder (it takes about 3 minutes) as a beautifully haunting vocal rendition of the theme song plays. It's a staggeringly simple and mind-blowing way of slowing the pace.

Even better is in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. You've just charged through a warzone, fought your way on to a train, fought your way along the speeding train, crashed the train, climbed up the train's wreckage hanging precariously off a cliff and battled a hit squad before finally collapsing. When you awake, you find yourself in a Tibetan village. You can't run, jump or climb. All you can do is slowly walk towards the end of the village taking in the amazing scenery and the almost tangible sense of sun on your skin. It's not only a perfect way of slowing the pace before the huge final act of the game, but it's easily the best moment in the entire game. And that's how you set up a ending.

57 - Oh well

2010-03-08T23:23:00.005Z

I just went to see Peter Green with my dad. Cool, huh?

I was the youngest person there by about 30 years. 90% of the crowd was male and about a 1/3 were wearing leather jackets and bobbing their heads along to the music as though their neck muscles had been replaced with springs.

Peter Green himself sat perched on a chair constantly looking like he was trying to work out where he was, which I guess at the age of 63 and a 'well-lived' life is fair enough. He had what looked like his lyrics book out in front of him and he lost his page a few times. When he spoke it was more growl than words.

Still, when they played Oh Well and Black Magic Woman it was pretty special. The saxophonist stole the show, being phenomenal in places coupled with the fact that he looked like an overweight Eric Morecambe. It was an experience. Oh, and for the record, I still bloody hate Albatross.

56 - Enjoyable nonsense

2010-03-07T11:33:00.001Z

There are three films that I have to watch if they're on TV; films I can't bring myself to turning off even if I watched them the night before. They are The Rock, The Thomas Crown Affair and Evolution.

I think it's fair to say that each of these films falls into the 'enjoyable nonsense' category. None of them is particularly heavy on plot but they're all loads of fun, effortlessly cool and, in my eyes, severely addictive.

I watched Evolution again last night and it never fails to get my sci-fi sense tingling. I don't know much about science but I do know that all the science in Evolution is nonsense. It's not the funniest comedy and the special effects are dated but I bloody love it.

A whole word is created and evolves throughout the course of a 90 minute movie. We see the creatures start as single-cell organisms, become flatworms, insects, animals and finally primates. It's one of those experiences that unfortunately I can only describe as 'rich.'

It's another one of those films I want to live in. I'd love to go down into that cave with the meteor and hang out with all those aliens. So even if everyone else hates this movie, if it's on TV tonight, I'll definitely watch it.

55 - Get lost

2010-03-06T16:01:00.002Z

Hong Kong - Gorillaz
Stop The Dams - Gorillaz
We Just Won't Be Defeated - The Go! Team
Neighborhood#1 (Tunnels) - The Arcade Fire
Beercan - Beck
Keys To The City - The Go! Team
Venice Queen - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Once Around The Block - Badly Drawn Boy
I'm A Cuckoo - Belle & Sebastian

Lacking inspiration, I just knocked up a quick playlist and went for a walk. Having lived in Farnham for about 22 years, there are plenty of walking routes I know and so decided just to go for a random wander. I only had one rule: if I saw a public footpath, I had to go down it and follow it until I either found another footpath or got to the end and then went searching for another.

As a result I trod down some brilliant little overgrown passages. I saw the backs of many of the hidden-away mansions of South Farnham. I got lost. I found some amazing quiet roads. The weather was perfect: cold enough to make the cheeks tingle and yet with a blazing bright sun and an almost completely blue sky. With the music, it was amazing. Like really fucking awesome. I'm in such a good mood now.

In the end I was only gone for about 45 minutes and try as hard as I could to get lost I somehow found myself back near my house pretty quickly. No matter, I'll get lost again in the future.

54 - Like magic?

2010-03-05T15:53:00.000Z

So I just saw a car vanish into thin air.

I was walking along and saw a car parked on my side of the road, facing towards me with no-one in it. I looked away for a moment and when I looked back, it was gone. There were no driveways or roads between me and the car. I was confused enough to swear quite loudly.

I walked beyond the place where the car had been parked, and about 50m further on there was a driveway with a car parked in it - a car that looked like the one I saw. So what probably happened is there was someone in the car, only I couldn't see them due to the sun's glare on the windscreen. I then looked away for longer than I realised and in that time they reversed into their driveway.

But I don't believe that. I believe the car disappeared. Why? Because I like to think there are things in life that can't be explained. Demystification can make the world a boring place.

53 - Bloody stupid

2010-03-04T22:31:00.008Z

I've tried to reserve this blog for posts about writing and/or sci-fi, however, sometimes you just have to write and in this case I have to write about milk bags.

My mum (yes, I live with my mum) returned from the supermarket with a milk bag. It took me a while to work out what it was. Why the hell would you buy milk in a bag? After much deliberating, I was able to answer this question and decided that it's one of the stupidest purchases my mum's ever made.

The point of milk bags is that they produce far less waste. You simply pop them into a special milk bag jug and then pour yourself some cow juice. I quizzed my mum quite why she had suddenly become so eco-conscious and a fairly lengthy discussion ensued in which we summed up the good and the bad points of milk bags. Here's what I concluded:

Plus points:
They produce 75% less waste than milk bottles
By buying one, you got a £2.50 milk jug for only 80p

Minus points:
They leak
They can't be stacked
They're more likely to split than bottled milk if frozen
They cost about the same as bottled milk
The jug doesn't fit in our fridge's milk compartment
There was no full fat in stock, so my mum had to get semi-skimmed - something we both hate

Okay, so all the minus points in no way outweigh the environmental benefits but it soon transpired that that isn't why my mum bought the milk bag. Indeed she bought badly-packaged milk in a variety we don't drink simply because you got a, 'good little jug for only 80p.'

So whatever else you think, my mum's decision to buy a milk bag and her reasons for doing so are bloody stupid.

52 - Last action weirdo

2010-03-03T11:28:00.000Z

When we create characters, how much responsibility do we take for their actions? Sometimes we create characters who have a set path and a set purpose; characters who are defined by their actions. But really we should be hoping to create characters that are so fleshed-out that we should know how they'll react to any scenario; characters whose personalities defines their actions, not the other way around.

Some of my characters have started behaving like dicks, and I think that's a good thing. We all behave like dicks from time to time, and to have characters behave thus makes them that little bit more human. I'm beginning to get a feel for how my characters will behave in certain situations, but how much is their reaction my responsibility?

I've been thinking of Last Action Hero in which the hero, Jack Slater, learns that he is fictional and, not only that, has been forced to live a hard life in which his son was cruelly murdered. He hates the films' writers for this.

When I purposefully dangle something good in front of a character, then snatch it away and torture them, that's my fault. I'm being sadistic to these people, even if they are fictional. But when I've created a character and know that they'll now start behaving like a dick to another, is that my responsibility? Or once my characters have become fully fleshed-out, do they have to start taking responsibility for their own actions?

51 - Will this ever end?

2010-03-02T21:48:00.003Z

Over the Summer months last year I pushed to write the entire first draft of my novel. Frequently throughout I would doubt my ability to get to the end. I wondered if I really would get the satisfaction of writing those two little three-letter words, and yet I did. Rather than taking a step back and feeling pride in myself, however, I threw myself straight back into reading it over and making notes.

I spent the following few months trying very half-heartedly to redraft it. Over that time I was firmly under the impression that I might never get the second draft finished.

So I've been pushing hard this last fortnight and although the end of this draft is clearly in sight, I'm beginning to doubt whether I'll ever complete a final draft. Sure that'll be a long way off but I just can't picture myself ever being so satisfied with it that I'll consider it 'ready.' I don't see myself giving up - I see myself getting caught up in the process of redrafting it again and again for eternity.

But here's hoping, eh?

50 - Ring. Ring.

2010-03-01T21:54:00.005Z

I went through a bit of a crime fiction phase a few years back and one of the best I read over that time was James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice. More than being a simply fantastic novel, it has one of my favourite titles of any novel ever.

Along with Flowers for Algernon and The Catcher in the Rye, it was one of those novels I'd known about for years merely because of its unusual title. Wordy titles, to me, are far more appealing than short, snappy ones.

What's most intriguing about The Postman Always Rings Twice is that the title has no relation to the story whatsoever. There's no postman in it. Cain has said that it refers to his friend Vincent Lawrence who would always wait nervously for the postman to arrive bringing news of submitted manuscripts. He'd always know when the postman arrived as he always rang twice. This can be seen as a metaphor for fate and as suiting the lead character's situation in the novel.

Personally, I don't really care as I think an enigmatic title that has no bearing on a novel's plot is far more intriguing. The working title of my novel at the moment isn't particularly great but is pretty wordy and refers to an event no longer in the novel. Now it only sticks around because: a) I can't think of a better title and b) it's my poor man's allusion to The Postman Always Rings Twice.

49 - Is this a spatula or not?

2010-02-28T22:56:00.006Z

So I was just in the pub with some of my friends and for some reason or the other, we started talking about spatulas. It soon arose that what me and my friends were referring to as spatulas were different things. What they referred to as a spatula is what I'd refer to as a fish slice. See below:What I'd refer to as a spatula they'd never heard of, or at least had no idea what I was describing. I researched this online and apparently this is a cake spatula or a frosting spatula or even a scraper. See below:Only a few hours before this my friend was discussing her gilet with my sister. Now I was ademant that a gilet was a nightdress. But it was quickly pointed out that what I meant was a negligee.

Basically language is a tricky thing. You can use the wrong word and still be understood and you can use the correct word and have people look at you like you're making words up as you go along. So what's right? Should we use words in contexts we understand even if the meaning we ascribe them is wrong?

Probably not. Never mind.

48 - Hallam Foe

2010-02-27T23:38:00.002Z

What a cracking little film Hallam Foe is. It tells the story of a young voyeur who runs away to Edinburgh and lives on the rooftops, spying on a woman who looks like his dead mother. It's as disturbing as it sounds and yet it's an incredibly sweet, light-hearted film. It dances the lines between creepy and sweet very well and Hallam as a character is a very tragic and sympathetic boy. He's a sensitive cool-loser that are so popular in indie films. A social reject but someone we all want to be. And who wouldn't want to live on the rooftops, watching the world go by? Fantastic.

47 - Routine

2010-02-26T21:54:00.005Z

Sometimes writing is spontaneous. Doesn't matter where you are, you have to write.

However, as much as I love writing, it doesn't mean that whenever I get a free moment I write. Even if I do want to write, it doesn't mean I will. Often I just can't be arsed. I used to think that writing when I wanted to write, when I needed to write, produced far better pieces than if I forced it, so I'd only write when I really wanted to. Maybe I was right, but writing in that way took a long time to produce anything.

So I've gotten into a habit and One A Day has been a huge help with this. By writing something every day I'm now firmly back in the routine of writing. I don't need to force it. I was worrying at the start of this month that One A Day had replaced my fiction writing. It hasn't. It took about 6 weeks of writing a blog a day but now this blogging has become habitual. I don't feel like I'm forcing these blogs out anymore. I now feel that I can sit down and write, in moderation, at any time. Having rekindled this 'ability' to write without needing the flaming desire to, I transferred this routine to my fiction writing.

As boring as this is, this has been my schedule each day this last week or so:

8:00 - Alarm goes off. Press snooze 5 times.
8:42 - Get out of bed. Have tea. Check emails, Twitter etc.
9:00 - Have shower. Put on comfy clothes. Eat bit of breakfast.
9:30 - With coffee, sit down and write.
10:30 - Have cup of tea and variety of cake.
11:00 - Write.
12ish - Finish.

This method's working really well for me. It's not as much as I could write but 2+ hours a day's not bad and I think it strikes a good medium for the time being between forcing it out and wanting to write. So yeah, thanks One A Day.

46 - Feeling sexy

2010-02-25T13:35:00.005Z

So I was redrafting Chapter 12 of my novel today and had to write a sex scene. Man, I felt awkward. That's a pretty pathetic attitude to have, right?

I wouldn't include the scene if it didn't need to be there. Unfortunately it does. I don't want it coming across as a desperate attempt to be sexy. As long as it's functional, I'll be happy. Still, I was writing it feeling like a teenager whose dad was trying to have 'that talk' with him.

I tried thinking of other novels with sex scenes and only one sprung to mind as I wrote - American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. If you haven't read it, then know the sex scenes, like everything else in the novel, are graphic but serve a point. They're not too sexy or ludicrous, just graphic. Oh, and they nearly all end with Patrick Bateman mutilating the women involved. Good stuff, but it wasn't much help.

Hopefully by the time I come back to this chapter on the next draft I'll have manned up a bit or done some actual research into better written sex scenes. For now, I'm sure the scene has been imbued with a great sense of awkwardness, and what's sex without awkwardness, right?

45 - Literary exchange #1

2010-02-24T21:23:00.005Z

Me and my friend decided to do a literary exchange this year. The plan is to lend each other five of our favourite books that the other hasn't read. To start I lent her Flowers for Algernon and she lent me Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Now I've seen the films and pretty much everyone in the English-speaking world knows the story, but I thought I'd try and read it with an open mind. I can't lie; it was better than I expected.

So I thought in continuing the way I read it, I'd write a few words on the book as if it weren't some huge cultural phenomenon - as if it were an unknown story.

The first thing that strikes is how solid an imagination J.K. Rowling has, and how good a sense she has of what will appeal to children. There's a bit of something for everyone. There's classic escapism. There's a sense of there being more to life. There's some entertaining characters and best of all there's magic.

For a children's book it's a great little read. There are flaws, most of which I overlooked seeing as it's intended for children. Everything that happens is fantastically convenient. The writing isn't exactly brilliant and the dialogue is often clunky and full of clumsy exposition. Most of all I found the sense of right and wrong in the book to be too clear-cut. Characters are either very, very good or incredibly evil and malicious. But as I said, it is meant for children.

Overall I preferred Artemis Fowl. It has a better plot and the character of Artemis is far superior to Harry. Still, I really enjoyed Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and I'm sure if J.K. Rowling ever pens a sequel I'll give it a read.

44 - 1988.7.16 Tokyo

2010-02-23T22:46:00.004Z

The only sound we hear is the wind.

The camera pans up and looks out over a huge, sprawling city.

1988.7.16 TOKYO

A pinpoint of light quickly grows and a nuclear explosion engulfs the screen.

All is white.

WRITTEN AND DIRECTED
BY
KATSUHIRO OTOMO

A picture fades in of the city from above.

A drum beat.

31 YEARS AFTER WORLD WAR III
AD 2019 NEO TOKYO

The picture fades to black and the camera pulls out of a huge crater; that of the nuclear explosion.

The drum beats continue and AKIRA in large, red lettering fades onto the screen.

---

That is why Akira has one of the best openings in cinema. That is why novels just can't compete with films when it comes to openings. Everything about Akira's opening is pure and simplistic beauty. It's shocking, powerful and provides the set-up for the rest of the story. My words don't do it justice. Watch the film.

43 - I'm my own grandfather. What?

2010-02-22T21:50:00.006Z

Writing time travel fiction is a nightmare.

I tried writing a short story about a time traveller once and had to give up due to the fact that I couldn't keep a grip on the facts.

She travelled back in time just after her seventh birthday, lived for twelve years in the past then returned to when she came four years after she left.
How old is she again?

He just met for the first time a man that he's already killed.

What?

For him this is the ninth time they've met. For her it's the third. However she's aware of all fifteen times they've met due to the fact that the second time she met him was the final time of them meeting and he filled her in.
Run that by me again.

Quite.

So I've been playing around with it in my latest story and I think, I think, I've just caused a temporal causality loop. At least, I may have. I really don't know.

I think the key hope as a writer is that your readers won't be able to keep up either and so will just give in and go with the flow. Hopefully.

42 - Ringworld

2010-02-21T22:30:00.004Z

Ringworld - Larry Niven (1970)
I picked this up in a charity shop just before Christmas having heard of it before but didn't really know what it was about. The basic premise is pretty wicked; a group of four explorers travel to Ringworld, an artificial world in the shape of a ring (akin to a Dyson sphere) orbiting a sun. Crash landing upon its surface, the four must find their way free of this world, exploring it as they do so.

The whole way through reading this novel, I was reminded of Bob Shaw's Orbitsville (1975) a similar story in which mankind discovers a Dyson sphere. As such I couldn't help comparing the two throughout and I've got to say that I found Orbitsville far more entertaining, was better written and imbued me with a greater sense of awe.

Niven's novel is hard science-fiction and as such frequently explains precisely how things work. Now I have nothing against elaborately conceived worlds that don't dumb down the science to appeal to a wider audience, but in Ringworld I found it pretty intrusive. Most of it was fairly hard to follow for my brain which has very little understanding of science. It also slowed the pace more often than not and I would have been far happier to simply accept that a house could float than have characters hypothesise how and why before finally agreeing upon a theory.

Of the four main characters, Louis and Speaker, were likeable but Nessus and Teela were both pretty annoying. There isn't a lot else to say other than I did actually enjoy it. I just found that the points of wonder were often too far apart and that I've read far better examples of the genre. If you like big adventure, discovery sci-fi and you come across this, give it a read, but I'd recommend Orbitsville and Gateway ahead of it.

41 - Evil

2010-02-20T17:40:00.009Z

This man is the embodiment of evil. That's how a drama teacher once described to me Rutger Hauer's character in The Hitcher. Unike other anatagonists, he doesn't show mercy, doesn't waffle on in a long handy monologue. He doesn't have a real motive either. He simply kills because he can and because he enjoys it.

The only thing that comes close to a motive is provided by the character of Jim played by C. Thomas Howell. Being the only person ever to stand up to The Hitcher, he is subsequently tormented and played with for the rest of the film.

It's proof that you don't always need a deep character to make a piece compelling. They don't need complex motives to propel the story along. Sometimes nothing more than evil itself provides the perfect antagonist.

40 - The book inside you

2010-02-19T18:33:00.001Z

You've got a book inside you, because apparently everyone does, and I want to read it.

I've decided that when I'm older I'm going to have a bookcase reserved solely for books written by people I know. It's one of my bizarre compulsions than whenever I find out that somebody writes fiction, I immediately want to read any and everything they've penned. I want to know what genre they write. What ideas they employ. How they write.

So for anyone reading this blog, if you've ever written a story, I want to read it. This isn't a big plea for you all to send me things to read, but just so you know, there is an audience out here.

Reading a story by some random author is great. Reading a story by someone you know, be that your oldest friend, someone you've gad a pint with, or someone you only know over the internet, is a far deeper thrill.

39 - Twice as long as half its length

2010-02-18T20:49:00.004Z

How long is a story? The same length as a piece of string, right? Twice as long as half its length.

I know the generally agreed upon word counts for what constitutes flash fiction, short story, novellas and novels, but when get an idea, how do we know whether it will be a short story or an epic tale told over three books?

Obviously certain ideas lend themselves better to shorter tales than longer ones and vice versa. Sometimes it's quite intuitive. You just know that an idea, even if it's only the bare bones of one, requires a novel to be told or only a few sentences.

And I think you need to stick to your gut feeling initially, at least when planning it. Trying to compress a novel into a short story can result in a piece that reads like it's screaming out for more words. And not enough words won't do it justice. But trying to turn a short story into a novel can stretch a great idea to breaking point. Even by beefing it up with subplots you risk diluting the narrative. Too many words can tear apart a piece.

But then as you write, I think you need to write the length that's right. You might start off with the plan for an 80,000 novel but you soon reach 20,000 words and feel you're already over halfway through. Conversely you might find yourself needing 15,000 words extra for a short story. Don't necessarily constrain yourself to what you originally set out to do. It can be heartbreaking finding your piece won't be as long as you intended, or is far longer, but a story needs be the correct length - it shouldn't be the length you want it to be. It should take as many words to tell as it needs, and not one more

38 - Writing music #4

2010-02-17T20:46:00.004Z

Spotify playlist - 'writing'
This has to be the number one thing I listen to when I write now. It's not a cleverly crafted playlist in which I've obsessed over the order of every song. It doesn't just feature certain genres or indeed only songs I specifically associate with writing. It started off that way, but it soon evolved. I added various songs I hadn't heard for years in that Spotify way. Songs I wanted to listen to as I wrote.

Nine times out of ten when I'm redrafting my novel I'll be listening to this playlist. As bizarre as some of the selections might appear, I've been writing to it for so long that each of these tracks gets my fingers typing, even the screaming melody of In Flames's 'Take This Life.' Wizard.

The Awakening - York
Offshore - Chicane
Now We Are Free - Hans Zimmer & Lisa Gerrard
Saltwater - Chicane
Adagio For Strings - Tiësto
Big Love (live) - Lindsey Buckingham
Edge Of Seveteen - Stevie Nicks
All Along The Watchtower - Eddie Vedder & The Million Dollar Bashers
All Along The Watchtower - Francis Lockwood
Never Had It - Flobots
Bullets - Tunng
Bandages - Hot Hot Heat
Sweetness - Jimmy Eat World
The Boys Of Summer - The Ataris
Huddle Formation - The Go! Team
Take This Life - In Flames
Trojan Horse - Bloc Party
Sway - Lostprophets
The Boxer - Simon & Garfunkel
747 (We Ran Out Of Time) - Kent

Listen to it here if you desperately want to.

37 - Once upon a beginning

2010-02-16T22:03:00.007Z

Six years ago I watched an episode of Father Ted. I was too lazy to roll over and turn off the TV so watched what came next; the first episode of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, and so the love affair began.

Due to low ratings a second series was never commissioned. In some ways I don't mind because what we do have are six episodes of some of the smartest and finest comedy in TV history.

For those who don't know, the show concerns Garth Marenghi, a pulp horror writer who created a TV show in the 1980s entitled Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. Apparently considered ahead of its time Darkplace was never shown, until now. In the present day Garth has knocked together interviews with some of the actors and spliced these into the episodes as we watch.

What we get is brilliant comedy from watching this abysmal TV show. Poor acting, out of sync dubbing, poor scripting, poor editing, poor SFX, poor sets, dreadful continuity, errors, sexism and ill-judged musical numbers.

But look past the fantastically observed comedy and the frequent silliness, and beneath there's a dark believable world. We have a pathetically vain and deluded man who, spurred on by a hero-worshiping publisher, created a badly-made and badly-written horror that was deservedly lost for decades.

There's so much to get from the scripts, from the sets, from the actors. I don't exaggerate by saying I'll find something new to laugh at and gawp over every time I rewatch it, which is every few months. The attention to detail is beautiful. I go on about rich worlds in novels, films and games but here's a comedy so rich you can practically taste it. Simply beautiful.

36 - Your move, creep

2010-02-15T22:05:00.009Z

Robocop is fucking cool.

Although he's created as machine devoid of personality akin to The Terminator he ends up evolving back towards humanity. Unlike The Terminator who retains a monotone attitude throughout the films, Robocop slowly regains his identity.

Though still a machine, glimpses of Murphy, the man he was before, slip through. From his stance as he shoots, the way he spins his gun or the quips he utters, everything's imbued with a real sense of the man who was before.

Peter Weller delivers his lines beautifully, saying them with something I can only describe as 'robotic charisma.' He speaks in a monotone fashion with a supreme air of authority but also includes stresses on certain words and puts pauses mid-sentence.

He's just so fucking cool.

"Looking for me?"

"Dead or alive, you're coming with me."

"Come quietly or there will be...trouble."

"Your move, creep."

35 - Writing music #3

2010-02-14T20:09:00.003Z

We Don't Need To Whisper - Angels & Airwaves
I can't honestly say that I think We Don't Need To Whisper is a good album. I don't think I can even say that I like it. But I do enjoy listening to, if that makes any sense.

Like Crystal Castles it was an album I was forced to listen to by a friend, and put it on while I did some writing. So I'd be writing into the early hours night upon night listening to this album. Whenever I hear a song from it all I can think of is those nights I stayed up when the words would pour out of me.

Even if I don't really take it in as I listen, it has great nostalgic value. I'll put it on after 1 a.m., let it wash over me and all I can do is write.

34 - The Chris-ening

2010-02-13T15:09:00.002Z

I'm rubbish at naming characters. I don't really know what I'm doing. I know that naming characters should be very important. Names can allude to various texts and can suggest subtle whatsits about your character and the plot. I however take names from wherever because they seem like a good idea.

Generally on a first draft of a story I might decide on the main characters' names but for everyone else I use stock names such as Jim and Jeff in the hope that I'll have decided upon better names on the redraft.

So I'm currently about halfway through redrafting my novel and have met most, but not all, of the cast. What I've got is:

1 character named after the lead from a favourite novel
1 character named after a pot plant at my friend's work
1 character named after someone in The Bible
1 character named after a friend
3 characters named after work colleagues who asked me to name characters after them
4 characters named after work colleagues who didn't ask me to name characters after them
1 character named after someone l met on the train who asked me to name a character after them
1 character named after a character in a video game
A variety of characters given the first name that popped into my head

I'll give them better names in the third draft.

33 - Be afraid

2010-02-12T22:49:00.006Z

Shedding hair. Peeling off nails. Losing teeth. Growing insect hair. Losing ears. Tearing skin. Ripping flesh. Blowing up heads.
Bleeding. Vomiting. Squirting pus. Giving birth to a gigantic maggot. Breaking arms. Dissolving hands. Dissolving ankles. Tearing off jaws. Turning baboons inside out.

Pro tip: never watch David Cronenberg's The Fly while eating lunch, dinner, breakfast or any foodstuff whatsoever.

32 - Holes

2010-02-11T21:54:00.005Z

I've mentioned before that I have a fondness of stories that are brave enough to leave certain things unresolved and unrevealed. Stories that don't tie up all their loose ends. Stories that keep an air of mysticism about them. Stories that favour pacing over exposition.

Of course all this has to be done on purpose, and done right, otherwise you're left with a frustrating gaping mess. All too often a glaring plot hole can ruin a story. But I think a story filled with plot holes is frequently preferable to one that tries to account for everything.

Gaping plot holes are better than:

Stories that stop to dump a shitload of information on you every few scenes.¹

Stories that continue for an age after they should have concluded, in order to tie everything up to perfection.²

Stories that take too long to find momentum due to the fact that they explain everything you encounter in excessive detail.³

Okay, I hate stories with paper-thin plots that have been dragged out to breaking point.⁴ I hate stories that leave a crucial point unresolved to either make a point or simply annoy you.⁵ But I'd still take either of these in favour of a story that treats me like I'm some kind of forensic reader demanding an explanation for every single detail.

1 - See Ringworld
2 - See Metal gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
3 - See Kushiel's Dart
4 - See Windtalkers
5 - See Broken Flowers

31 - Words etc.

2010-02-10T20:29:00.003Z

I write. I speak. I read. Words occur a lot in all three of these activities. These are some of my favourites. Gripping.

infallible - I love how this rolls off my tongue, and it rolls off it a lot. It pops up all the time when I'm arguing with myself, aloud. Right.

absolutely - I rarely use this as a synonym for 'totally' or 'completely,' mainly to agree. It's more interesting than saying 'yes' or 'yeah' or 'uhuh' or 'affirmative.' It adds a little bit personality to agreement, if you get what I mean.

cracking - Similar to 'absolutely,' I prefer using this than simply saying 'great,' 'good,' 'excellent' or 'okay.'

meat - I love this because it's vague and specific depending on its usage. Meat pie and meatloaf, fine. 'Is this a meat dish?' Cool. But see a can of Iceland's 'meat curry' and you start to wonder exactly what the hell 'meat' refers to.

facetious - I rarely use this word other than in lists of my favourite words. It's not particularly fun to say, but it has all five vowels in alphabetical order. Whoa.

30 - Writing music #2

2010-02-09T21:19:00.004Z

Destroy Rock & Roll - Mylo
Destroy Rock & Roll got me through University. I must have listened to it while writing every single essay given to me. It's that peculiar mixture of being relaxing and soothing as well as being energetic and inspirational. One of my favourite memories of my three years in Aberystwyth is writing an essay, listening to Mylo, next to an open window with a cool sea breeze and coastal sun flowing in.

Unfortunately there's not a huge reason to write essays once you've left uni, so I don't listen to it as much when I write now. I do put it on now and again, but prefer other albums that I associate more with fiction writing.

I'll listen to it on train journeys all the time and train journeys, as other bloggers will testify, are quite possibly the greatest place for brainstorming ideas. I'll sit with a notepad and Destroy Rock & Roll playing, scribbling endless nonsense with a broken biro. Beautiful.

For me, this album is essay writing music, it's brainstorming music, it's travelling music and it's summer music.

29 - Wandering

2010-02-08T12:05:00.007Z

I can't say that travelling the world appeals to me. There aren't many countries I want to visit. I'm a bit boring like that.

What appeals to me is obscure, boring places close to home. Wilderness, forgotten spots, dull places. I'd love to do a Forrest Gump. Drop everything and go wandering round the UK. A tent on my back, a pen and notepad in my pocket, a camera dangling round my wrist and an iPod full of good music or, better yet, a like-minded companion.

I'd wander around for a while from village to town. Go down all those alleys and lifeless suburban roads that most locals don't even go down. The ones you pass all the time and never have any reason to venture into. Those quiet, leafy streets. Those thin, stinking alleys.

Or get on a train and end up at the far edge of the country and thread my way through forests and fields. That appeals to me. That would be an amazing way to spend a few days/weeks/months. That would be great.

28 - Stand on Zanzibar

2010-02-07T22:20:00.003Z

Two months and 650 pages after I started reading it, I finally finished John Brunner's remarkable Stand on Zanzibar.

The novel is set in 2010 where crippling overcrowding has lead to widespread eugenic legislation as well as frequent instances in which people simply go mad and run amok in public, killing dozens. Written in 1968, many parts of the novel are eerily prescient.

But the most fascinating facet of Stand on Zanzibar, in my opinion, is its narrative style. There are four types of chapters. While 'Continuity' chapters follow the main plot, 'The Happening World' chapters do no more than provide snippets of conversations and information that give us the wider view of the world. 'Context' chapters provide just that, often via excerpts from newspapers and 'Tracking With Close-Ups' chapters generally focus on minor characters.

Though the plot therefore progresses fairly slowly, the pace is pretty consistent throughout and the world Brunner has constructed is beautifully rich. This isn't just down to length. I've read novels twice the length that still don't come close to Stand on Zanzibar's depth. It's possibly one of the most deeply constructed novels I've read.

The narrative style, John Brunner's prescience and the dark and philosophical plot are all equally strong reasons for reading it. It truly is remarkable and I strongly suggest giving it a read.

27 - Last episode

2010-02-06T18:20:00.002Z

Last episodes are tough to get right. They have to match the tone and the style of the show and yet go beyond it. They have to resolve enough issues to keep you satisfied and yet not try and tie up every loose end and become drawn out and convoluted.

Most of all, I find that a great last episode of a TV show should stick with you. It should really resonate and keep running through your mind for days after. It should leave you sad that you will never see those characters again in new situations and yet happy that it was so excellent.

Last night I finished Battlestar Galactica and though I see some people weren't too satisfied with the ending, for me it was perfect. It got the tone just right and I can't get it out of my head. It's up there with the last episodes of Spaced, The Shield, The Wire and Arrested Development. Every time I go back to these shows, their last episodes deeply affect me. Cracking TV.

26 - Writing music #1

2010-02-05T13:34:00.004Z

Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles
Christmas 2008, like every Christmas, saw my brother receiving a heap-load of obscure albums and not a lot else. I have a pretty poor music taste and knowledge. His is apparently overwhelming and vastly superior. He forces albums upon me all the time and generally I never get round to listening to them, because I like sticking with what I know and I just don't like what I hear coming from his room.

Anyway, that Christmas he forced Crystal Castles by Crystal Castles onto me. Determined to give it a go, I stuck it on while I did some writing and it just worked. It fitted perfectly. It's a simply extraordinary album that somehow manages to both play along unobtrusively as I write, and yet affect me and spur me on. Particular favourite tracks are Alice Practice, Crime Wave and Black Panther.

Unlike other albums I put on when writing, this doesn't have a specific association. I'll play it when I write fiction, when I write non-fiction. I'll play it at night, during the day and especially when I'm sitting on my bed with a notepad jotting down a hundred and one bad ideas.

25 - Sam & Wikus

2010-02-04T21:38:00.003Z

My two favourite films from last year were Moon and District 9. Both sci-fi, both made incredibly well and both had a fantastic, original story to tell. But more than anything, it was the central character that made each film remarkable.

Sam Bell in Moon (played incredibly by Sam Rockwell) and Wikus Van De Merwe in District 9 (played superbly by Sharlto Copley) are fantastic to watch. Each man faces a tragic, truly saddening, if far-fetched, story. Both of them are caught up in really dire events that neither of them is to blame for.

These aren't perfect men. Sam has moments of selfishness, combined with a clear deep-rooted anger problem as well as a tendency to be immature. Meanwhile Wikus is even more selfish, self-centred, a coward and as xenophobic and crooked as the rest of his co-workers. All aside, neither man deserves the tragic events that happen around and to them.

We might not be able to fully empathise with each man, but we can certainly sympathise with them. These are very human characters facing extraordinary events and we the viewers are helpless. We can only watch each man 'cope.' This more than anything, makes these films compulsive, repetitive viewing in my eyes.

Faultless, good-looking heroes are great for action films. Amoral/immoral men with sadistic streaks are great for TV* but sometimes the best stories are told with a helpless man at the centre, trying his best to cope with the tragedy of his own existence.

*See The Wire, The Shield, Dexter

24 - 4265

2010-02-03T21:14:00.014Z

As much as I'm enjoying One A Day, it had near-enough replaced my fiction writing. Since starting, I'd only written one short piece and that was it. I love the fact that I'm writing something new every day, but I was using One A Day as an excuse not to get back to the slog of rewriting my novel.

Last Summer I gave myself a target. From June until September I planned to write 500 words a day and end up with 60,000 words at the end of September. I finished September with 59,451 words and a very rough, largely forced first draft of a novel. Though I hit my target, I'd often gone days without writing anything then caught up at the end of the week. One week I wrote literally nothing. Another I wrote near-enough 7,000 words.

The plan was to then read over each of the twenty-one chapters throughout October, taking notes on what needed to be improved, changed, deleted etc. That I managed easily enough in a similar fashion.

The final part of the plan was to spend November, December and January redrafting two chapters or so a week. This was a foolish idea but the plan was to have it finished by February 3rd - today. Why today? Well, it's my friend's birthday today and seeing as she wants to be the first person to read my novel, it seemed as good as any date to aim for.

The end of the year came and I'd rewritten five chapters. The end of January came and I'd rewritten one more chapter. So today I forced myself to write - a strategy that rarely works for me. Today, it did.

I redrafted all of Chapter Seven and part of Eight. A grand total of 4,265 words, which is fantastic by my standards. Now I doubt this is the start of some huge push that will see the novel rewritten by the end of March, even, but I know I can do it. I'm going to keep forcing myself. It won't always work. But if I do it enough, I should get back into the swing of it. Hopefully.

23 - Klaatu barada nikto

2010-02-02T10:18:00.004Z

I started this blog with the hope in the back of my mind that it would help me achieve something. What? I don't know, but it fits in with my greatly delusional life view that everything's leading up to something big. That there's something out there. That this is by no means all there is. That I'm in some way special.

The novels I read, the films I watch and the games I play further compound this belief. They're about other worlds, or exceptional events happening, or quite often about a nobody with a destiny.

Occasionally it hits home that nothing exceptional will happen to me or anyone else. We'll never make contact with another world. I'll never mutate beyond my own colourblindness. I'm never actually going to get a novel published. And I'll probably end up becoming a teacher.

22 - Remember Sammy Jankis

2010-02-01T21:58:00.004Z

Memento is one of those films that sticks with you. A film that gets inside your head and fiddles around violently. It's one of those rich tapestries that reveals further detail and depth every time you watch it.

For those who haven't seen it (and therefore haven't lived) it tells the story of Leonard Shelby, a man with short-term memory loss trying to hunt down the man who killed his wife and gave him brain damage. The genius part is that the story is told backwards. We start at the end, then skip to a few minutes before that and so on and so on. These parts are divided by black and white sections told forward in which Leonard tells us all about his condition.

By playing the main story in reverse sequence we get brilliant moments of perspective shift. One such scene starts with Leonard staring at a bottle of liquor in his hand. He remarks that he doesn't feel drunk and so hops in the shower and a moment later a stranger enters the apartment and a fight ensues. The story then skips back and we see that Leonard has broken into this man's apartment, waiting to ambush him. He grabs a bottle as a weapon, then his memory fades...

In terms of playing with the chronology of the story, it's done perfectly. I'm always a little wary of stories that mess around with time, but Memento wouldn't work if it didn't. Pulp Fiction is another story told out of sequence that works better for it.

Then again there's a shit heap of films that try it and fail. The list of films that begin at the end then work back up to that point is countless. Sometimes it works, often it adds very little.

I've never played around with chronology myself. I believe there has to be a reason for it like in Memento. That and I'm not competent enough to cope with it.

21 - Dreamscapes

2010-01-31T12:26:00.004Z

Recurring dreams aren't unusual, not for me at least. Last night I had one of my classics. It's a pretty rubbish dream. All that happens is one of my teeth falls out. It's always the same one. It's wobbly, then I fiddle with it, then it falls out. Then when I wake up I'm massively relieved that it hasn't fallen out.

Last night was slightly different though. During the dream, just after the tooth fell out I said to myself, 'Well at least it's only a dream.' I then had a subsequent dream where I told all my friends how I'd had this dream in which I pointed out to myself it was only a dream.

So it got me thinking back to this piece of writing I mentioned in post 12. There's this series of dreams I have that I tried to explore in a piece of writing but never got very far with it. They're not recurring dreams as much as they are recurring places.

There are three places that I visit in my dreams every so often and have done for the past 5 years or so. They're not real places, but exaggerations of normal locations. Generally each time I go to each of them something different happens.

The Tower
I think it's 200 floors tall. It's made of blue glass and two lifts run from the ground floor to about 10 floors from the top. The remaining floors are accessed by one central bigger lift. The top floor has a glass floor. The lifts always feature prominently in the dreams but what I'm doing in there varies. I've robbed a jewellery store in there with my dad. I've been chased around there by a man with a gun. I've escaped falling lifts in there. I've played hide and seek with a friend.

The Theme Park
This place is huge but sparse. I don't think I've ever really got much past the entrance as just inside is a rollercoaster. There's a clown hanging over the entrance. The rollercoaster itself is sunk slightly into the ground and full of huge elongated loops. What always happens is we'll go on it, do the loop, fall out and then generally, but not always, land in the carriage again as it zooms underneath.

The Cinema
This is a huge multiplex cinema in a dome shape. It must be miles in diameter. In the middle is the massive circular reception desk. The carpet is faded red and littered with popcorn. The only screen I've been into is pretty small. It has white concrete steps running down to the screen and the seats are more like benches. It's quite cold and empty in there. I've seen various films from Avatar to Kill Bill there.

So yeah, I keep thinking I might explore these dreams in writing some more but I doubt I'll get any further than this. I can't help but shake the hope that they mean something. Like I'm Richard Dreyfus in Close Encounters, continually molding Devil's Tower. More likely the dream part of my brain is pretty unimaginative and keeps recycling the same ideas.

20 - Ideal job

2010-01-30T17:43:00.003Z

I love writing almost as much as I hate writing.

The process of writing is brilliant. Getting the motivation to write is a pain.

Spending hours obsessing over every single word to make the best piece of writing possible is fantastic. Coming back to it later and realising it's crap is infuriating.

That's why I like blogging. I let my thoughts flow, read it back and tidy it up and I'm done. It's not great writing, and generally messy and convoluted but it's liberating.

Anyway, as much as I'd love to be a professional writer of some description, I can think of better jobs. Plotting stories and crafting ideas never gets old so I think my ideal job would be just that. Selling ideas. Maybe being hired by TV and movie studios to sort out the problems with their plots. Rip out the clichés and the poor ideas. Not necessarily replace them with anything. Just point out what's wrong.

So yeah, that's not really a job is it? But nevermind.

19 - Children of Men & The Bourne Woods

2010-01-29T13:17:00.009Z

So my post yesterday got me thinking about how much I love Children of Men. It's gritty, believable sci-fi shot in the most fluid of ways; definitely one of my favourite films of the last decade.

The film is crammed full of long single-shot sequences that are a feat of co-ordination and film-making expertise. The best, in my opinion, is the scene where Theo and the others are ambushed in their car.

They're driving down the road, talking and laughing, and then suddenly a flaming cars rolls in the way and everything changes. The upbeat tempo becomes one of sheer panic and frenetic energy. The continuous shot, which required a specially built car, makes the transition oh so more jerking and powerful.

It's choreographed beautifully. A mass of people pouring down from both sides of the road attack the car as Luke (played by the amazing Chiwetel Ejiofor) reverses away as quickly as possible. It's pure cinematic beauty.

What makes the scene that little bit more special is that is was filmed two minutes down the road from my house, in The Bourne Woods. The section of road used is closed off on both sides, making it perfect for the logistical nightmare that was shooting that scene.

The Bourne Woods has now become a huge film location and was used for the opening twenty minutes of Gladiator. It's since been used for Band of Brothers, Ultimate Force, Coldplay's The Scientist, Robin Hood (2010), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, The Wolf Man (2009). If you're ever near Farnham (and I'm not entirely sure why anyone ever would be) it's definitely worth checking out.

Beneath is a snap I took of the road as it usually looks. Below it is another of Ridley Scott's upcoming Robin Hood.

18 - The future

2010-01-28T22:09:00.005Z

Watching a film/reading a novel from the '50s set in the '90s or early '00s can be humorous if the description of the world is slightly off. Living on the moon, alien neighbours, laser guns etc. That's not to say that people back then absolutely believed that's how the world would be.

Modern sci-fi has wised up with plots being set so many hundred years in the future that by the time humanity reaches that point, the film/novel will probably have been lost so no humorous comparisons can be made.

Thing is, I don't think we'll ever get to the state where we have hover cars, robot servants, laser guns or complex societies living off-world. I doubt our robot servants will ever rebel and wage war upon us. I doubt we'll ever invent time travel or teleportation devices. Certainly not in my lifetime, and doubtfully in any lifetime. I don't know how this gels with the fact that I would happily write about such a futuristic society.

I'm sure there are currently many scientific advances that massively undermine what I just said. I know nothing about science. I'm just a cynical bore. I'd love all those things to occur, I just doubt they will.

Children of Men is a film I think has a very realistic view of the future. Ignore all the fascism/infertility plot and focus on the technology. Set in 2027, basically all that's different is cars are slightly changed and there are TV adverts everywhere.

Then look at Minority Report. I doubt in 2054 we'll have huge automated highways and cars that take us up to our flats. As cool as jetpacks and sick sticks are, I can't see them ever existing in a widespread way.

I'd loved to be proved wrong of course. Also, for the record, in a war against the machines, I think I'd side with the machines early on.

17 - Where ideas come from

2010-01-27T22:17:00.005Z

In my first blog of One A Day, I was talking about how ideas often evolved to a point where I had no idea how I'd gotten to where I was. Now I want to talk about where original ideas come from.

Every story and novel I've ever written/planned can be pinned back to a single 'starting inspiration' and from there various influences shape it and beef it up. I often wonder when and where the next base idea will come from.

The last novel idea I came up with was when I went to Edinburgh Festival last year. It was me and two mates, a boy and a girl. Like me the boy just wanted to drink, watch comedy and play PS3. The girl, being an actress, wanted to see musicals and plays. Bowing to a mixture of guilt and solidarity I decided to accompany her to a modern dance production. My other friend was wise and put his foot down.

There's no denying that the guys dancing were talented, I was just overcome with tiredness and boredom. Then an idea came to me. A pretty good one I thought. I spent the remainder of the show planning it out. Maybe the show was inspirational or simply I was so bored that my mind provided me with something to think about; either way I'm glad I went to that dance performance or that idea never would have come to me.

But that begs the question - how many other ideas have I not had as a result of not doing stuff? Infinite I suppose. There's nothing really to say. Inspiration strikes. I've tried contriving ideas. Sitting in a chair trying desperately to fathom starting points for stories but all I do is drink copious amounts of tea, get a numb arse and formulate nothing worthwhile.

16 - Top ten spaceships pt.2

2010-01-26T08:42:00.011Z

Hold on to your space britches, here's the shocking conclusion to this top ten spaceships list.

5 Colonial One - Battlestar GalacticaColonial One is a luxury liner converted into the presidential office when the Cylons(bad) declare war on the humans(good). If I were President of the Twelve Colonies, I'd be more than happy doing business from this bad boy.

4 Serenity - Firefly/Serenity
More than any other ship, this one looks like it's alive. Somewhere between an insect and a bird, it's a part-graceful, part-cumbersome craft and it has cool engines.

3 Discovery One - 2001: A Space Odyssey
It looks like a head on a stick. It also doesn't look like it should be capable of propulsion and yet it very gracefully, and therefore ominously, travels through space. There's a foreboding quality about it that perfectly twins Hal 9000.

2 Lambda-class T-4a shuttle - Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi
I can't put it to words what it is about this ship that has me so mesmerised. Something about how simple it looks, about its dorsal fins, about the way its wing unfolds, about how it perfectly sums up my childhood.

1 Dropship - Aliens
It looks like war. It's battered and used and strong. It makes a superb sound as it flies and it has unfolding wings (win). Again I can't really sum up what it is that makes it special, only that I see it and feel awesome.

Notable mentions: Mondoshawan ship (The Fifth Element), Klingon Bird of Prey (Star Trek), Starbug (Red Dwarf), Rodger Young (Starship Troopers), Icarus II (Sunshine), Alien fighter (Independence Day), Mother ship (District 9).

15 - Top ten spaceships pt.1

2010-01-25T22:22:00.010Z

So this is part one of my ten favourite spaceships from film and TV. It's not the most well thought out list, and I'll probably think of another five I should have added immediately after posting. Also I've only included one from each show/film as I could easily do my top ten from just Battlestar Galactica, Futurama or Star Wars.

10 USG Ishimura - Dead Space
This is such a beast of a ship. It literally rips planets apart for raw materials. It's foreboding as you approach it before spending an entire game running through its elaborate labyrinth of corridors and rooms. Truly spectacular in scope.

9 - Valley Forge - Silent Running
Valley Forge is one of several ships that have been loaded with what remains of the forests of Earth, with the aim of orbiting aimlessly until the time comes that Earth is ready for reforestation. It's basically the Eden Project bolted onto a freight ship. Genius.

8 - Mother ship - Close Encounters of the Third Kind
It's the light more than anything that make this ship a sight. It completely dominates the sky as it hovers above Devil's Tower. It's simply astonishing.

7 - Planet Express Ship - Futurama
A thing of sleek beauty, it's a classic rocket design, caricatured enough to perfectly straddle the line between sci-fi and comedy as only Futurama does best.

6 - Aerial HK - The Terminator
It looks like a predator. Like a shark or a piranha. Technically it's not a spaceship, but it's badass and one of the scariest ships from my childhood/film history.

Tune in tomorrow for 5-1...

14 - My favourite book

2010-01-24T21:30:00.007Z

This is my copy of Vurt. It's not my favourite novel. It comes close. Definitely in my top ten, but like most things I find it hard to pick a specific favourite. Every time I reread Vurt, The Beach, I Am Legend, Ubik or any of a handful of others, I change my mind.

What I can say is that this particular copy of Vurt is my favourite book. It is my most-loved collection of printed pages glued together along one side and bound between rigid or flexible covers.

It's cover is still shiny and stiff but flexible enough that I can bend it to my heart's extent. The spine is broken and creased and the edges all round have gone soft and dirty. The pages are curled and worn and the bottoms of the last hundred pages are stained yellow from a time I lent it to a friend.

But best of all, more than any other book in my collection, it has its own smell. A lot of my books have a rich, musty odour from having spent four decades travelling the world before ending up in a second-hand bookshop for a quick stop prior to entering my possession. But my Vurt smells specific. It's a smell I can't describe other than it reminds me of Vurt. It reminds me of the characters and the plot and of Manchester, despite never having been there. Most of all the smell reminds me of the kitchen in my first flat where I read Vurt for the first time in near-enough one sitting.

I can remember each time I've read it since and breathing in that smell, flicking through those pages, wondering what that stain is, having crumbs fall out of the pages, running my thumb up that creased spine.

I lent it to someone a few months ago whom I shortly after briefly lost contact with and I panicked. I could easily buy another copy of Vurt but that wasn't the point. I almost lost my copy, and I'm glad to have it back.

13 - The Fifth Element

2010-01-23T09:44:00.004Z

I watched The Fifth Element again last night and decided that should I have to live in any film, as tempting and cool as The Fifth's Element's looks, I probably wouldn't.

What I love about the film is that it's undeniably camp and it's funny and it's dark and it keeps crossing the line between cool and tacky in that unmistakable Luc Besson fashion. What results is that everything in the film looks cool and appealing and yet, if you really think about it, the world of The Fifth Element is a pretty dire place.

Korben's apartment, though cool and compact, is tiny and miles above the ground implying severe overcrowding. The buildings rise up into the sky with cars roaring past all around and down below, the world's covered in a thick fog and looks as seedy as hell.

Random shots of Zorg's business empire show a depressing, industrial scene-scape and pretty much everyone in the film seems to be suffering from a severe overdose of energy and personality.

Still, I'd definitely go for a ride in Korben's taxicab, seeing as it's one of the coolest cars in film history. Also I'd love to have takeaway turn up to my apartment in a flying boat. In fact, yeah I'd definitely live in The Fifth Element.

12 - Hands up, authors

2010-01-22T09:33:00.004Z

So among the One A Day clan, and anyone else who might happen upon this blog:

Who's ever started a novel?
Who's ever finished a novel?
Who's ever planned to start writing a novel and never gotten round to it?
Who's finished a final draft of a novel?
Who's tried to get a novel published?
Who's had a novel published?
Who's self-published a novel?

I've just thought about the amount of novels I've started. It's six, over the past six years.

A hackneyed criminal thriller I wrote at the age of 18, full of deus ex machina and dialogue influenced by watching too much Quentin Tarantino. I lost it when my computer died. A good thing.
A self-indulgent part-biographical tale of a loser, interspersed with a series of bizarre recurring dreams. All of them unfortunately true.
A children's fantasy that I'm not entirely sure why I started.
An incredibly depressing, bleak and heavy-handed story about suicide and death.
A philopshical/fantasy/sci-fi/apocalyptic mish-mash that I still think is a fairly solid idea.
The one that I'm currently writing. A social sci-fi that owes a lot to Philip K. Dick.

Apart from #6, I've never gotten past the 15,000 word mark on any of these. On top of that, there's a good four or five others that I planned out, wrote no more than a page of and gave up on it.

Maybe there's a good premise or two among the first five, but generally they were all dreadful. I hope #6 is better than dreadful - maybe even just less than good.

I finished the first draft of #6 back in September. Admittedly it's not a very good first draft, full of plot holes, mistakes and 2D characters as I kept in mind, 'I'll fix it in the redraft.'

I've been a bit slow redrafting, only having managed the first five of twenty chapters, and these are the chapters that have been rewritten the most. The ones that needed least polish. For a long time I never made it past chapter five, I just rewrote those first five over and over. Why? Err...

Anyway, I'm one step closer to being a failed novelist. I almost have the novel, I just need to fail with it.

11 - Space Oddity

2010-01-21T13:27:00.011Z

Due to the overwhelmingly positive response of one person to my 'Sharing work' post, I've decided to put some work up.

This is the first 500 words of a short story titled Dust. It's not the best thing I've ever written, but it's one of my favourites. I wrote the first draft of it about 3 years ago, and every half year or so since, I pick it up and rewrite it.

The idea came when I was in a bar and David Bowie's Space Oddity started playing. My friend remarked that it was a very sad song about a man getting lost in space. Never being one of those people who actually listen to lyrics, I hadn't realised this. I didn't even know it was a metaphor about a drugs trip until I looked up.

Either way, it got me thinking and eventually the plot for Dust came about. Being based on Space Oddity I crowbarred in several indulgent references to it. After this 500 words, the story goes off in its own direction.

Feel free to comment on it if you want. No pressure. Positive, negative, whatever grabs you. I might post the final 2000 words or so, if there's a similarly overwhelmingly positive response.

* * * * * * *

Dust

She shuffled open the door into the comms suite. I watched her eyes and lips shuddering in equal measure as she breathed in this stale room; the flaking beige paint, the loudly humming computers that had been outdated for over a decade, the two scruffy guys perched awkwardly on plastic chairs.

She met my eyes with a look I’d seen before. This wasn’t what the words ‘space centre’ conjured up. It wasn’t a place that appeared capable of contacting her husband, let alone bringing him home.

I stood. ‘Hello Mrs. Thompson. I’m Paul, this is Damien.’ A pause. ‘There’s not much we can do for Tom.’ I broke eye contact as I said that.

‘You said on the phone. He’s never coming back, is he?’

‘No. He’s not coming back. We don’t know what went wrong.’

‘So he’ll just be floating up there until...?’

I nodded. ‘Sorry.’

‘What about food? Air?’ She removed a tissue from her sleeve and wiped her nose.

‘He has enough of both for well over a year. Early reports showed life support systems weren’t damaged, just navigation.’

Her eyes thinned and she marched towards a microphone lying on the desk. ‘Can I talk to him?’

‘You can...’

‘But?’

‘But,’ cut in Damien, finally getting to his feet, ‘he’s floating so far off course that it’ll be faint at best. He’ll be out of comms range in five minutes, tops. Then we’ll probably never speak to him again.’

‘Probably?’

‘Almost certainly.’

She stared at him.

‘Definitely.’

She sniffed aggressively and snatched up the microphone. ‘Hello, Tom?’

‘Margery?’ whispered the reply, ‘it’s good to hear you.’ I twisted a dial on a console behind me and managed to marginally increase the volume.

‘How are you?’

‘You know...’ Tom laughed off her redundant question.

‘How is it?’

‘It’s...’ A pause. ‘The stars look very different.’ A pause. ‘I love you very much.’

‘I know.’

A long pause.

‘I’m sorry, Margery,’ said Tom, eventually breaking the silence, but only barely, he was now so quiet, ‘I’m really, really, really sorry. Forever and alw...’ His words dipped beneath the static. I panic-fiddled with all the dials available, but nothing helped.

‘Tom? Tom? Are you there? Tom? Can you hear me, Tom?’

‘His circuit’s dead,’ said Damien, ‘we’ve lost comms.’

‘You said five minutes.’

I picked up another mic and joined in, ‘Can you hear me, major?’

‘An approximation,’ replied Damien.

Mrs. Thompson laughed a dirty, hysterical laugh which became a babble which became tears. Through the sniffing I caught single words. ‘Five. Enough. Chance. Tom.’ She collapsed into a chair and dropped her head onto the desk with a thud, gripping at her hair with both hands. I looked at Damien who returned my gormless expression.

‘Actually,’ I whispered, ‘I have an idea.’

10 - Post-apocalyptic fiction

2010-01-20T18:22:00.008Z

Post-apocalyptic fiction is one of my favourite sub genres of sci-fi. With all these novels starting from the same basic concept - civilisation has ended and it's a battle for survival - it's fascinating to see how each of them creates its own personality.

The Day of the Triffids is one of the most famous and one of my favourites. It's just one of those novels that sticks with you forever. I love how it cleverly shifts between survival from each other and survival from the triffids. 28 Days Later... was in part based on it, making that one of my favourite films.

I Am Legend is another cracker. Shorter and more intense than TDOTT, the focus on the protagonist going mad is brilliant and the ending is one of my favourite endings of any novel. If you've only seen the Will Smith film, which butchered the ending, read the novel, if just for that ending.

Additionally in my bookcase alone I've got:
The gritty, ultra-realistic yet beautiful The Road.
The painfully boring The Pesthouse.
The entrancing The Chrysalids.
The stunningly-written, if heavy-going, Riddley Walker.
The paranoia-drenched The Penultimate Truth.
The uniquely satisfying A Canticle for Leibowitz.

But if there was one post-apocalyptic novel that really grabbed me by the collar and kicked me in the groin, it was The Death of Grass by Samuel Youd, writing under the pen name of John Christopher.

A simple concept; a virus that attacks rice crops and all forms of grass, spreads across the world bringing famine and eventually causing the world to descend into chaos. The story follows the narrator and family trying to make their way from London to his brother's farm in Westmorland.

It's an incredibly bleak and disturbing novel. The characters descend into moments of barbarism comparable with The Lord of the Flies and it's all too convincing. I only wish I could have been around to read it on publication in 1956, before I'd become desensitised to the violence of films and novels.

I can't help myself but talk about one of these barbaric moments in the novel, so stop reading if you like post-apocalyptic fiction, because I'd really recommend The Death of Grass.

***SPOILERS***

One such example of the brutality of this novel, is when the narrator and his family approach a house about a third of the way through. They knock on the door and the owner and his wife warn them away with shotguns. The narrator and friends then murder this innocent family simply to grab some supplies under the belief that, "it was them or us." This violence is emphasised by the fact that the main characters are all likeable, 'nice' people. This shock value continues right up until a truly unforgettable and disturbing conclusion, which I won't spoil here. Just read it.

9 - Futurama

2010-01-19T21:50:00.005Z

Futurama is the dog's bollocks and this dog knows his bollocks are good. All his doggy chums look at his bollocks and go, 'Wow, they truly are a fantastic set of canine testicles.'

It appeals to my humour detector like nothing else. Everything's so sharp and on the spot. Plus my sci-fi gland gets a good old pumping too. I can't get enough of it.

Anyway, I just wanted to share some of my favourite lines; those that never fail to get me giggling like a little girl before breaking into hysterics like a mad cat lady. These are merely the lines that are always going through my head. In a show of this caliber, every joke's a winner.

Ranger Park: Hi, I'm Ranger Park, the park ranger.
Fry: I get it!

Glurmo: Okay, no more questions!
Fry: Why?

Professor Farnsworth: Now I've often said, "good news," when sending you on a mission of extreme danger. So when I say this anomaly is dangerous, you can imagine how dangerous I really think it is.
Hermes: Not dangerous at all?
Professor Farnsworth: Actually quite dangerous indeed.
Hermes: That is quite dangerous.
Professor Farnsworth: Indeed.

Monster Zoidberg: What am I, chopped liver?
Leegola: Shut up! (she slashes at him with her sword)
Monster Zoidberg: Ow! Stop chopping my liver!

Zap Brannigan: She's built like a steak-house, but she handles like a bistro. (alert sounds) She's out of control! You win again, gravity.

Dwight: I heard alcohol makes you stupid.
Fry: No I'm...doesn't.

8 - Sharing work

2010-01-18T20:33:00.007Z

I should probably show my work to more people - my fiction writing that is. I don't have an awful lot to show. At least I don't have an awful lot of writing I consider to be of a high enough quality to be scrutinised over - a few short stories, a couple of chapters, some flash fiction.

Sharing work can always be a struggle. The hardest part is finding people you trust to give you helpful feedback. 'It's shit,' isn't particularly useful and, 'it's amazing,' is just as bad. It's the greatest feeling to know someone admires your work but them simply saying they love it is no use when you're desperate to find out whether this line here works or is too obtuse.

Then there's the whole 'letting people into your soul' element. That doesn't bother me. Telling people I write sci-fi is harder. The amount of people that laugh or suddenly lose interest is unreal. Getting over that obstacle makes anything after a piece of piss. Knowing I write sci-fi can be embarrassing. Them thinking my story implies that I'm a paranoid, psychotic misogynist with an irrational fear of authority, I can handle.

Finally there's that fear constantly circling your mind. I think Marty McFly summed it up best.

What if they say I'm no good? What if they say, "Get out of here kid. You've got no future"? I mean, I just don't think I can take that kind of rejection.

That's started worrying me less and less. Maybe knowing I'm no good is a good sign because I can let my idle dreams and ambitions float away. Sure I'll still write, but I'll write just for me.

Basically what I mean is that maybe it's time to put a story out there. Post it here on this blog and get some feedback - positive, negative, whatever.

If I did, would anyone read it? Would anyone give feedback? That's the only thing stopping me.

As a final thought, does anyone else out there write fiction? If so, fancy sharing some too, exchanging, biting the bullet together?

7 - ULLAdubULLA

2010-01-17T19:05:00.006Z

One of my dad's favourite albums is Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds. When I was about 7, he'd play his LP of it just before I went to bed. I'd sit in the dining room in my pyjamas listening to the mesmerising music, while he recounted the story to me. It scared the shit out of me. I'd have proper nightmares and yet I couldn't get enough of it.

I now have my own copy of the album and play it to death. Recently, however, I came across ULLAdubULLA, an album of remixes, many coming from the 1998 video game.

I'm not generally a fan of remixes. I don't really get them. ULLAdubULLA I do get. It's great music to write to, very chilled out in places and some of the remixes are simply phenomenal. N-Trance's 'Forever Autumn' is stunningly good, arguably better than Justin Hayward's version. Max Mondo's 'The Spirit of Man' is a real cracker and Apollo 440's 'Dead London' is so haunting it's unnerving.

ULLAdubULLA is easier to dip into than the original too. Every time I begin listening to Richard Burton's hypnotic narration, I feel I have to listen to the entire album, following it through to the end. ULLAdubULLA dips in and out the story, concentrating mainly on the music.

I know nothing about H.G. Wells but I have no doubt that he would have loved a bit of Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of War of the Worlds. Like me he'd be stunned by ULLAdubULLA. We'd converse at length that although it doesn't completely top the original, it comes pretty close. And most certainly he would have chilled out to ULLAdubULLA after a hard day's writing. Legend.

6 - The community

2010-01-16T23:30:00.006Z

No, not the name of some low-budget '70s horror in which an evil community kill any and everyone who strays upon their sleepy village with the use of pitchforks and bus tickets. I just wanted to talk about the One A Day Clan*.

We're still at the beginning of a long haul and logic and pessimism lead me to fear that the vast majority of us will have given up within a couple of months, and yet I have an inane amount of excitement for this, whatever it is.

I'm making it a habit of checking as many of the One A Day blogs as I can, trying to leave comments, involve myself somehow. I have this hope that something awesome could come of this. I'm not sure what. Some kind of collaboration. Some kind of new internet craze. Some new online amigos. I don't really know.

I just hope the community evolves, if not expands, and doesn't fizzle out. That's all really.

*No, not the name of a violent '80s horror in which a mad cult of outcasts each kill one person a day in horrific and sadistic ways.

5 - The most overpriced DVD I ever bought*

2010-01-15T20:49:00.008Z

I have a lot of free time and very few decent shops in my town. As a result I spend many days going into WH Smith, smirking at the ridiculous prices of their poor selection of DVDs then heading home.

Over the period of about a fortnight last year I must have gone into Smith's pretty much every day and every day I was tempted by Timecop on DVD for only £1! I remembered it being pretty bad and as I saw it, films from your teenage years are rarely as good as you remember them.

Eventually I relented due to the pressure from my friend who was working in Smith's at the time mixed with the view that I was probably being too hard on the film. My film taste has after all changed drastically as I have matured. I now have a near-perverted adoration for the big dumb action films that I didn't appreciate when I was a gormless teen. In this case I was wrong to give it a second chance.

Timecop is still bad.

Like really, really bad.

You know those films that are so bad they're good? Then there are films that are so bad, that they're just bad. Timecop is somewhere below them.

It's even worse than I remember. So much so I actually started regretting my purchase. I was feeling guilt as if I'd just splurged out £500 on a new TV to find out that it was a piece of shit. For a quid I could have bought a really good pastie.

It's just so bad.

You haven't seen it? Don't, it's bad.

You have seen it? Then you know it's bad.

You don't think it's bad? You're wrong. It's really, really, really bad.

I suppose I should qualify my staunch view of Timecop's badness. It's ludicrous for a start. Not the good kind, but the crappy, ridiculous, riddled with plot-holes, poorly made kind of ludicrous. The action is mediocre at best, which is unforgivable coming from the star of Blood Sports, Hard Target, Desert Heat, The Quest and Universal Soldier.

The whole film rushes from start to the finish without achieving anything more than a bewildered feeling of 'This film shouldn't be this bad, but somehow it is.' Even the one-liner at the end is bad. As a general rule one-liners are brilliant. Timecop's barely makes sense.

'Same matter can't occupy same space.' Sure I know nothing about physics etc. but what?

JCVD immediately follows that up with 'I'm still kicking - I must be on Broadway.' What the hell? Sure he roundhouse kicks the bad guy from the past/present into the version of himself from the future/present and creates some kind of being that vomits in on itself - but still, what?

Timecop's two taglines are both bad too.

'They killed his wife ten years ago. There's still time to save her.' - That's bad.

'Murder is forever...until now.' - That's really bad.

It's so bad.

I've tried convincing myself that Timecop was worth a quid to repeatedly watch the scene in which JCVD does the splits onto a kitchen worktop to avoid getting electrocuted by a Taser pinging into his wet kitchen floor (quite,) but it just isn't.

When a film is only £1 and is still criminally overpriced, you know it's bad.
*not really

4 - Philip K. Dick: Page to Screen

2010-01-14T20:08:00.027Z

I'm a massive Philip K. Dick fan and there have been plenty of adaptations of his work. Here's my thoughts on those I've seen, in case you wondered.

A Scanner Darkly based on A Scanner Darkly
Controversially, this is my favourite Philip K. Dick adaptation. Arguably pointless in that it brings little new to the story, it pays the most respect out of all the films based on his work. The bleakness, the paranoia and the characters of the novel have been transferred near-perfectly and large sections of dialogue have been lifted word for word. The rotascoping is a stroke of genius bringing the scramble suit to life and creating a surreal, hypnotic experience that gets the 'feeling' of the novel spot on.

Blade Runner based on Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?
Although Ridley Scott made an absolute classic with Blade Runner, bringing enough to the story to make it is own while keeping its core, I'm too staunch a PKD loyalist to admit this is the best of the adaptations. Too much of the novel was changed for my liking and Harrison Ford isn't the right casting for a true PKD hero, but it's undeniably cinema gold.

Total Recall based on We Can Remember It For You Wholesale
Arnold Schwarzenegger is the antithesis of the PKD character - a paranoid, insecure everyman. Strictly speaking, it's a fairly dire adaptation, but it's a fantastic film in its own right. Verhoeven's trademark violence plays out beautifully and Arnold delivers those one-liners with his usual charisma. 'See you at the party, Richter!'

Minority Report based on The Minority Report
One of the better Spielberg films of the past 10 years, this film is a little too sexy for its own good. Tom Cruise is a bit cool and everything is slick, neatly tied-up and ultimately happy. Good fun with some neat ideas and it's solid in its own right, but it's just too 'Hollywood' for a PKD story.

Screamers based on Second Variety
Critically panned and regarded as being nothing more than a wannabe Blade Runner mixed with The Thing, I have a deep love for Screamers. It's a paranoid, bleak '90s sci-fi with the legendary Peter Weller playing the lead. The ending of the story was changed and it suffers as a result. Not a great film, but for nostalgic purposes, I adore this film.

Paycheck based on Paycheck
The biggest crime with this film is not that it doesn't do PKD's story justice, but that John Woo's career had completely hit rock bottom. Vaguely entertaining but generally stupid.

Next based on The Golden Man
Horrible. Simply horrible.

3 - Thoughts from Phil

2010-01-13T10:31:00.004Z

I have a love for sci-fi and a general aversion to fantasy. It's quite irrational. It's something I can't pin down, only that I have read many examples of great sci-fi novels and few examples of great fantasy novels. Of course I have read far less fantasy novels and always approach them with a less open mind than I do with a sci-fi novel, so that's probably not a fair answer.

I think it has something do with the realistic element. Sci-fi is within the realms of possibility, if not probability. Fantasy hasn't enough rules for my liking.

I recently came across the distinction between sci-fi and fantasy worded perfectly by my hero and sci-fi legend Philip K. Dick. His definition comes from a letter he wrote in 1981, now serving as the preface to Beyond Lies The Wub:

Fantasy involves that which general opinion regards as impossible; science fiction involves that which general opinion regards as possible under the right circumstances. This is in essence a judgment-call, since what is possible and what is not possible is not objectively known but is, rather, a subjective belief on the part of the author and of the reader.

Philip K. Dick (May 14, 1981)

Reading this made me reevaluate what it is I'm writing and I guess I'm writing part-sci-fi part-fantasy. There are elements I regard as possible and those I regard as impossible in my story. Arse.

2 - Frak you

2010-01-12T21:09:00.018Z

I'm currently watching season 3 of the exceptionally good Battlestar Galactica. Like many US shows, the characters don't say 'fuck' -generally they'll make do with 'damn' or 'shit' or simply nothing. In Battlestar Galactica, however, the writers have come up with an alternative. Instead of saying 'fuck' the characters use the word 'frak' and all variations thereof.

frak off - motherfrker - let's frack - fraked up

Characters use it from the start and we pick up on it quickly. We take it to be an example of semantic shift and although it seems odd at first, it works.

Thing is though, as much as it works, it just doesn't compare with the impact of the real 'fuck.' It's a step closer than shows like 24 or The Shield that have no strong swearing. Shows don't depend on swearing, but a great deal of credibility and believability is lost when all a guy who's just been double-crossed and left for dead can say is 'damn.'

Take The Wire. The characters swear in The Wire, a lot. One particular scene, one of the great scenes of TV history, has our two heroes Bunk and McNulty investigating an old crime scene. This scene is the best part of ten minutes long and literally all Bulk and McNulty say throughout is 'fuck' or variations thereof. It shouldn't really work, but it does. It's a powerful, indulgent scene that says so much more than a lot of crime procedural waffle.

I'd like to analyse this scene but I'm sure there are already many essays out there on it written by people with greater insight and verbal dexterity than me. So I just want to remind everyone who's watched The Wire of that scene. I just want you to remember watching it for the first time. I want you to smile as you reminisce. I want a shiver to run through you as I'm sure it ran through you nearly every time you watched an episode of The Wire. For anyone who hasn't watched it - you must, if just for that scene.

1 - Evolution, of a sort

2010-01-11T22:23:00.006Z

I’m failing to get any further with redrafting my novel at the moment and yet I’m somehow alive with a huge compulsion to write. I think it’s simply that I want to be writing new things. That’s why I’ve joined One A Day. I won’t go into the details, suffice it to say the aim is to write one blog a day for a year. It seems fitting to kick start the process by writing about writing itself.

What I love about writing most is that it’s an organic process, constantly evolving and transforming until it becomes something so very different from what you started out with that you forget how you got there. I can generally remember where a single idea for a story originated from, but most of the finer points are lost in the annals of my mind.

I know that when I was writing a piece I made conscious decisions. I know when I was writing a piece I was influenced by what I was reading, watching and listening to at the time. I know that when I was writing a piece I did some things by accident and they just stuck.

Sometimes I wish I could tear apart every little detail of a story and see why this is this, even if it’s for the most banal reasons – such as the time I made a character obsequious simply because I came across the word and liked it.

I started writing a piece yesterday. It’s a truncated form of a novella idea I’ve been toying with for some months and for some reason that I have already forgotten, I have started writing it in a garbled, semi-phonetic version of English.

I’ve clearly taken direction from A Clockwork Orange, Riddley Walker and 1984’s Newspeak but I’m sure I wasn’t consciously paying homage to/ripping off these pieces when I started. Now I’ve got to such an involved level with this language that I can’t stop.

I know I’m alienating any audience by making the piece tougher to read. I know it adds little if anything to the story. Worst of all, I’m finding it hard letting go. The language is evolving every time I return to the piece. I’m deciding on specific spellings and new rules, but I guess that’s the basis for an entire other blog. I just wish I could remember why I thought it was a good idea.

The Day of the Triffids & back-story

2010-01-05T09:26:00.005Z

This is a sort of sequel to my last post, 'The Lost Room & depth.' When watching the BBC's 2009 adaptation of The Day of the Triffids last week, it occurred to me that seeing as this was a mostly-loyal adaptation, you could view it as a rewrite of the original text.

Some parts were changed to contemporise it, such as the Cold War subtext and the 'cosy catastrophe' feel. Some parts were altered to breathe a little new life into the well-know story - the character of Torrence was expanded without really fleshing out his character and the ending included some nonsensical and unbelievable escape plan that involved funnelling Triffid poison into the eyes using a tribal mask. Quite.

There was one change that made sense, however; most of the back-story was thinned out. In the novel we get an entire chapter of exposition that gives us far more than we need to get through the text. This scene was kept in the 1981 TV adaptation, but removed entirely in the 2009 series. The back-story we do get in the latter is revealed in small amount gradually through the show.

Though I do have some fondness for the novel's approach, there's no denying that that exposition chapter slows the pace terribly. The 2009 TV show, much more at the mercy of pacing, skips over it. Okay, a lot of the depth has been removed, and I'm a sucker for depth, but the show zips on at a far better pace.

It has made me yet again consider when and how to leak out exposition. I love John Wyndham's writing but I admit that info-dumping can be a pretty clumsy and pace-slowing, if informative and elucidating, way of giving the back-story. Of course novels can get away with slower sections easier than TV and film, and we even expect them. Then again, and I refer once more to Cube, if done right, you can get by with absolutely minimal to no back-story and create something altogether more powerful.

The Lost Room & depth

2010-01-03T12:44:00.006Z

I’ve just finished re-watching the Sci-Fi Channel miniseries The Lost Room. I discovered it by chance a year ago and it’s a phenomenal TV show, compelling to the brink of addiction. In themes and levels of mysteriousness, it draws comparisons with Lost but unlike Lost it hasn’t been drawn out to a ridiculous length and subsequently become diluted and confused.

At only six episodes in length The Lost Room is an intense, incredibly deep story. It’s this depth that I admire most. It’s breathtaking just how much back-story and potential for future events there is. Rather than coming across as a show too crammed-full of ideas for its own good, it’s a rich experience that reveals its depth with subtlety and intelligence. I’ve drawn a huge amount of inspiration from this show.

When I think of my writing I don’t want to simply create an intricate, deep world that’s either clumsily exposed or kept from sight. I want to create one that expands beyond the plot and reaches both off into the past and into the future just like The Lost Room. I believe a story should sit perfectly in a moment of time. We should feel like we have come partway through it and that the plot, and the lives of the characters, continues off into the future. I believe that under the surface should be a whole other level that we only get minor glimpses of.

No other TV show that I have come across does this so succinctly and so successfully as The Lost Room and I would benefit greatly from emulating this in my own writing. If I can write something as fantastically hanging in time as The Lost Room I’d be a happy writer.

Moon

2009-12-22T09:07:00.007Z

I finally watched Moon (hooray) and I unsurprisingly loved it. What I particularly enjoyed wasn't the acting, the effects, the direction or the plot (which were all fantastic) but the way the story was told.

Douglas Jones gave a great deal of credit to the intellect of the audience. There was only one key scene of exposition that I can recall. Generally the story was leaked carefully out in subtle ways, through videos watched, or the ways characters acted. Huge clues were given that you in no way had to pick up on but surely will on a repeat viewing. By the end you had come to a lot of your own conclusions as to what happened, why it happened and the motives of the characters involved.

It's one of those few films that will actually get better on a second viewing akin to Memento or Primer. Both were also told in complex ways, Primer particularly thanks to its creator's refusal to 'dumb down' the plot and its subsequent near-impossible-to-follow story. Moon may not be quite as complex as either of these two but was in many ways far more subtle and I'm desperately looking forward to rewatching it to see just how much better it will be on a repeat viewing.

First lines

2009-12-10T21:00:00.012Z

'It was the day my grandmother exploded.' - Iain Banks, The Crow Road

'When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous insect.' - Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis

'This much I know for sure: My name is Peter Sinclair, I am English and I am, or I was, twenty-nine years old.' - Christopher Priest, The Affirmation

'In spite of all his efforts, Tavenor was unable to remain indoors when it was time for the sky to catch fire.' - Bob Shaw, The Palace of Eternity

It's line like these, particularly the first two, which for so long in my writing inspired and controlled me. Coupled with my longtime inability to proceed with a piece of writing until I had the previous section/chapter perfected, I was desperate to write the perfect opening line. Not just a good opening line. Nearly all novels have those. Not a great opening line; one that suits the tone and themes of the novel perfectly. A lot of novels have those. But a brilliant, punch-in-the-gut, rips you from reality and places you in the world of the novel, line.

I became somewhat obsessed with it and despite all this never succeeded. I believe the best I ever came up with was:
'A dead fish floated in the bay.'
Gripping.
Still working on this same story some time later, I gradually came to the opinion that although a line like Banks's, and Kafka's would be fantastic, they aren't necessary. As long as the first page hooks you, the first line merely has to be not-bad and that's not asking the impossible. So this first line of mine, in some sort of cathartic act finally became:
'A dead fish no longer floated in the bay.'
It was now obtuse and bizarre and acted mainly as a reminder to myself that this first line obsession was mostly pointless and not as important as I had myself believe.
Then, some time later I lost that whole section altogether.
As long as my first line isn't bad, I think I'm happy now. At least that's my excuse.

Paradox

2009-11-30T10:22:00.011Z

I caught up with Paradox last night, intrigued to watch yet another sci-fi show starting on the BBC. Unlike Defying Gravity of which I knew nothing about, I was somewhat wary of Paradox.

Firstly everyone was comparing it to Minority Report which could have just been an unfair simplification of Paradox, or worrying signs of unoriginality.

Secondly it has Tamsin Outhwaite in it and she's not exactly the most animated, likeable or indeed talented actress out there.

Thirdly it's a UK drama. I don't mean to have a go at British TV but we try, and generally fail, to produce TV as gripping, as well-written and as slick as the USA. We always go for grit over style and ex-soap stars over unknown but exciting talent.

Anyway, I watched the show and it was alright. All three of my fears were sadly confirmed in varying degrees of accuracy. Outhwaite was passable, the script was pretty dire and the whole concept wasn't exactly startling new. It's unfair to say that Paradox is merely a rip-off of Minority Report when in fact it's derivative of pretty much any sci-fi that has incorporated time-travel or seeing the future.

Donnie Darko, Twelve Monkeys, Minority Report, Next, Paycheck have all covered ground that Paradox retraced. These are just the first five films that popped into my head. Add to these the TV shows and hundreds of books that have done similar things and it's not looking good. The last three are even all based on short stories by PKD. It doesn't have a gimmick or neat idea to make it stand out so it seems unlikely that we'll remember Paradox in some decades time.

But forgiving it these foibles, oh and the annoyingly clichéd broody, unsociable genius that was the scientist, it was pretty entertaining. The ending, though not perfect was far better than I was expecting and came as something as surprise to my cynical eyes. Perhaps this show will have to rely on shocks and keeping the viewer guessing in order to keep us watching.

I think I'll watch the next episode just because. For now I'm unimpressed with Paradox but I was entertained.

Motivation

2009-11-13T22:53:00.003Z

I'm finding it hard to get motivated at the moment. Not a surprising thing for a writer, I guess. I used to be appalling at getting motivated and keeping faith in my projects. I must have started around 5 novels before, gotten to about 15,000 words and eventually lost interest and given up. Most of that came down to my inability to move on to the next chapter until I was absolutely happy with the previous one. As such, it was near impossible trying to get a flow going but it was a habit I couldn't break.

In June this year I set myself a target of writing 500 new words a day, forgetting about them being decent and just trying to get a rough, rough draft done. By the end of September I had 60,000 words, most of them crap but I had a novel, just about. Throughout October I read over the chapters and took notes on what was wrong with the plot and characters.

In the first week of November I started redrafting these chapters and found I'm slipping back into my old ways. I've set myself a target of getting it all redrafted by February, which means redrafting two chapters per week. Currently I've done one and a half. I'm not worried that I'll fall behind, I'm worried that I'll lose interest altogether.

Cover art

2009-11-12T22:08:00.006Z

Much to the pleasure of publishers, I can't help but be drawn to a book by its cover art. Though I try to avoid buying brand new, unread books due solely to a doodle on the front, I find myself buying second-hand books this way. I often want to replace books I already own once I discover a different edition with superior cover art.

I'm particularly a fan of the trend of having a simple cover depicting one key element of the novel's plot - an element that's importance and relevance only becomes important once you've read the novel.

Below are four of my favourite covers from my sci-fi collection. Each depicts a key event or item in each novel; the comet shower; the Curious Yellow Vurt feather; a can of Ubik; a doorway to another world. All are incredibly slick, effortlessly cool and deeply powerful.
I often think about what I'd want on the cover of a book should I ever get published. A pipe dream sure, but the mind wanders. Yet the more I've discussed this topic with other sci-fi writers, the more I've decided that I think I'd rather have a classic trashy cover than a minimalistic one. A messy drawing of an astronaut in a jumpsuit standing in shock as an omnipresent alien towers over him. Partly it's a loyalty to the roots of sci-fi, as well as being more fun and reminding me of my childhood.

I have such vivid memories of trying to get into such books when I was about eight. I'd pick up a book because the cover depicted a jumpsuit-wearing man fighting off a pterodactyl on an alien planet as a gleaming spaceship roared to his rescue. But upon reading these books, I could never appreciate the story inside and would end up flicking through the text vehemently searching for the word 'pterodactyl' or 'spaceship.'

Below are some classic examples of such covers - covers I'd love should I ever get published. I welcome the trashy, sci-fi stigma that comes with these illustrations. It's a stigma that usually comes with sci-fi anyway.

Defying Gravity

2009-11-06T22:17:00.012Z

I caught the double-bill of Defying Gravity by chance a couple of weeks ago and couldn't believe my luck that a brand new sci-fi show was starting on the BBC. What's more, I saw it was a 13 episode-long series (the maximum length to get the most out of any TV show) and looked like it could be a fantastic serious addition to the sci-fi genre.

Three episodes in (I'll catch last night's episode later on iPlayer) and I still can't make my mind up. It's not bad, but I can't say I'm enjoying it. I'm sticking with it partly because I'm hoping it will take a few episodes to pick up speed - like The Wire. But I think I'm mainly sticking with it out of mad, stoic, sci-fi solidarity.

Though sci-fi literature is still fairly cult, sci-fi cinema and TV are phenomenally popular. What with the recent influx of American TV shows, a fair few have been sci-fi. The two biggest, Lost and Heroes, have been enjoyable yet undoubtedly nonsensical. Heroes I found particularly disappointing and gave up after series 1. Lost I'm still battling along with. Then there was Eureka! which was pretty entertaining but for all the wrong reasons. The mini-series The Lost Room has been the only sci-fi series of recent that has really blown me away. I'm beginning to doubt that Defying Gravity shall be the next.

Defying Gravity's first problem is that it's far too slow-moving for its own good. There's just not enough focus on the majesty of space. Instead there's too much concentration on characters' libidos and a few piss-poor attempts at tension. Were we ever likely to believe they'd kill off the female lead in episode 2?

Defying Gravity's second problem is it's Lost-like mystery. Something in Pod 4 aboard the craft is somehow controlling the events of the crew's voyage. It's surely some kind of extraterrestrial being or god. Now I think religion and sci-fi are a perfect marriage - both are about discovering the secrets to life and the universe. But in Defying Gravity the pairing seems jarring. I've checked the episode outlines on Wikipedia and apparently the crew find out in episode 9 what the thing is. I hope we find out too. I can't be bothered getting into another series, waiting for series upon series for a revelation that could never live up to the hype. Of course the flip side of the coin is that 9 episodes in, Defying Gravity could well lose the only thing keeping me interested...