Plans: Author Talks S4

 I know, I know, it isn't this huge thing. But this podcast I create, edit publish on YouTube and Spotify is something that has become an interesting exercise as much as a way for me to potentially help publicise myself or vent things. The podcast has changed over time from a complete unscripted flood of words to scripted episodes with more obvious production values.

The thing is, I don't have this series planned out that far by any stretch. Last year's set of eight episodes were pretty ambitious, and I was doing them alongside other real-life stuff including production of 'The Angry House', university work, and real life concerns. This year, university work still takes priority, my own writing work may or may not change course or shift, and I'm definitely heading to BristolCon after a year's needed break.

So until then, I hope you enjoy this playlist that I put together for the podcast. If nothing else, you can see how I went from stumbling first steps to smooth presentation. Find within short story readings, work samples, and general ramblings on a number of topics.

YouTube Link

Spotify Link

Author Talks S3 E3: The Glorified Dystopia

So. This was a topic that came to mind due to the...everything that's happening. This episode of my one-person podcast looks at a phenomenon that's been going on for the last several decades; turning what are actually truly terrible times for everyone involved into visual appealing masterworks that I'm sure everyone would be totally happy living in to get that fashion. So sit back, grab a cool drink depending on where you are, and hopefully find something to enjoy or even laugh at in this one person's scripted rant.

YouTube and Spotify links are below (as hyperlinks because this blog can't handle links properly).

Spotify Version

YouTube version

BristolCon 2024 - My Experience, and future plans

This article is complemented by a vlog covering BristolCon 2024, which was meant to be a lot fancier than it ultimately was but I realise I'm gonna be one of those slightly scrappy vlog makers. And I don't mind. Below is an expanded prose version of the originally-planned script.

BristolCon is now fifteen years old. And in celebration of that, it held a two-day event from October 26 to 27th, with the usual Friday "BarCon" where people were social and maybe a little silly. Herein follows my written impressions of that event.

The days prior to my Friday departure were consumed by home affairs, and of course choosing what to take and what to leave behind. A simple train ride, simple meaning one change, brought me to that city of scooters, churches and beautiful views. Bristol. The Friday, of course including meeting old friends and acquaintances including Juliet E McKenna, Stephen Cox, and others I sadly can’t remember offhand (please). I also got my convention paraphernalia, and tried…karaoke. Never again.

Saturday, the first day of BristolCon, was a fun time and in parts an instructive one too. I actually did a reading from my novel Lost Station Circe, and got a good response. I heard later that the first live reading of your work is always the worst, and I think I did alright. After that, the panel on writing non-human characters with Grace Picknett-Powell, one of the guests of honour Peter F Hamilton, S Slottje, and moderator Koel Cornah. I also stayed for the wonderful Anna Smith-Spark’s entertaining reading from her novel A Sword of Bronzes and Ash, which was hilarious. She does grimdark, and I tend not to expect comedy from grimdark. So, good on her, that book’s further up my reading list.

The small group session led by E J Doble, “Good, Bad, Undefined” was a whole load of fun. I even introduced Doble to the original meaning of nihilism when he used it in a context that…I have opinions on. Basically, a whole lot of interesting talk. Stephan Cox’s small bit on “Being Interesting” was also great fun, and it made me feel more confident in myself of being able to bring together a short pitch for different parts of my work. Something I…am not always good at. I caught SOME of the panel “Sex in the Citadel”, before my stomach called time and I had to get some lunch NOT from the hotel. And let me say, Spark, Tej Turner, Danie Ware, and David Cartwright can be truly hilarious about writing… Well, a certain song says it all.

Next was a whole hour of wandering around, and that’s where I got my haul (more on that later) and met up with a couple of other people including Emily Inkpen, who recently successfully kickstarted the third season of her sci-fi radio drama Dex Legacy. I tried capturing a little footage here, but… Well, I'm not good at vloging. After, the glorious Pete Ellis gave us a fascinating talk on Chemistry in Sci-fi and Fantasy. Since my late father was a research chemist, it was interesting getting even a brief overview of how the subject has been used. Which isn’t much, basically a couple of Isaac Azimov short stories, Clarkes’ The Fountains of Paradise, and a few others.

I almost went home after that as I was pretty tired, but decided to stay for Piotr Swietlik’s talk on Dialogue in Genre Fiction, and I’m glad I did. One, because it highlighted some points where my writing can…flag. Two, because it wasn't one-to-one with the previous year's version. And three, because I ended up triggering rounds of recurring giggles due to someone bringing up erotic fiction, there being some dialogue examples, and my brain ran with it…straight into the gutter. After that, I decided to end the day and head back to my hotel.

The Sunday was quiet to start, and I was able to have a long and interesting talk with Joanne Harris, the other guest of honour. Then the Small Group Session I led, “Must Main Characters Be Strong”, was a surprising amount of fun. Partly because I had about six more people than I was expecting, I think eleven or thirteen of us talking through what I felt might be a fairly shallow topic. But, what depths we found.

The attendees of my SGS "Must Main Characters Be Strong". Over double what I expected.

After that, I decided to check in on the panel “Rogues & Ruffians, Pirates & Thieves”. Featuring, when I got there, by Doble, David Green, Bav the co-chair, and Judith Mortimer acting as moderator. I have long wanted to write a specifically roguish character, and it was interesting hearing about some of the panel’s favourites. Sad no-one mentioned my personal favourite rogue character, Varric Tethris. But maybe he’s a bit niche… Then, something initially unplanned when I set out for Bristol on the Friday, Emily Inkpen’s session on audio dramas. Extremely informative, and great to meet her again in person.

After that, I attended Gareth L Powell’s Kaffeeklatsch. If you want to know what that is, a kaffeeklatsch is “an informal gathering over coffee”. There wasn’t any coffee, but it was delightfully informal. I like Gareth, nice guy. And I had a feeling that some of the insecurities I’d been feeling about how I got into wanting to be a writer and author were very common, and… Well, things could well work out in different ways. There is no absolute way to do it.

With Gareth L. Powell at his Kaffeeklatsch

Then I decided to attend the final panel on “Lost Cities And Abandoned Places”. This panel, hosted by Bav and featuring Piotr, Emily, Penny Hill, and Jonathan L. Howard, was a great time. The whole thing was livestreamed, as was everything from Panel Room 1, but I managed to record a section related to a question on the appeal of abandoned places. The audio quality's horrible, but hey ho, I was using a phone. And then the closing ceremony, the first I've ever attended, and…well, I’ll just show you my completed haul.

My complete hoard: Ian M. Banks' Excession, Lindsey Ellis's Axiom's End, Jim Al-Khalili's Sun Fail, Emily H. Wilson's Inanna, IndieBites 10: Tricksters & Treasures, Interzone Magazine issues 239, 263, 290-291, and 295

Now, onto what might be difficult. This two-day BristolCon was a huge amount of fun, but it also threw into perspective some elements of my life and attitude that I needed to rethink. And it's time for me to take a break from BristolCon. Will I never go back? Absolutely not, it's a lovely event and I've met people there I consider colleagues at least and friends I would hope. Will I give it a year's break? Yes. I've been going there or attending in some form for six years running, and it's beginning to lose its lustre. I don't want anything I do to do that. If there is no lustre, there should be comforting familiarity. Also, I have other things to commit to, like my current quest with the Open University to get a degree, and my writing endeavours.

I'll still be doing my best to keep in contact with these people, and keeping an eye on how things go, and finding other things I could attend virtually or otherwise should I choose. But to carry on loving BristolCon as much as I do, I need to take a break. If you want more BristolCon content, and some other comments, here's a vlog of my time down in Bristol and at the event on my YouTube channel.

What I find disturbing...

 Fair warning, this is going to be pretty introspective, and potentially unsettling.

I recently experienced something that made me want to write this post. It was a Japanese detective visual novel, Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club. The ending, and a final portion detailing some of the backstory related the titular Smiling Man, is--to say the least--extremely disturbing. To dance around explicit spoilers, it's a story with a backdrop that involves familial abuse, childhood trauma, social pressure, self-mutilation, and delusional insanity.

I have a deep fear, pretty much a phobia, of things going wrong with your mind. There's an actual phobia for that, demontophobia: demento, from the Latin meaning to make crazy or deluded, and phobia meaning an unreasoning or abnormal fear. There is some in-family reason for me to have some deep-seated fears, as my late grandmother suffered from dementia during her final years. But my fear, I think, is grounded in something a little more unsettling.

It means that out of the 'horror' stories I've experienced, the ones I find truly unsettling and disturbing aren't Alien or Predator or even in principle The Thing or Event Horizon. The things that disturb me can be found in Child's Play, Se7en, Copycat, Pandorum, that bit from the Doctor Who episode "Fear Her", the Taxi Killer from CSI:NY, the Avengers episode "The Fear Merchants". Disturbed minds, abuse from those who should trust and protect you: not through conscious malice, but through unreasoning rage or outright insanity. You may be wondering why I've put Child's Play and Event Horizon so arbitrarily, since they could both be on either side of the line. But here's the distinction. In Event Horizon, the darkness and disturbed actions are triggered by an external force. In Child's Play, it is one insane killer refusing to die. And in "The Fear Merchants", it's a clique that specialises in using people's fears to trigger mental breakdowns.

There are a couple of instances that actually walk the line between those two extremes. Things like Dead Space, which feature both externally-created madness and inherent disturbed behaviour. Or several Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and Ngaio Marsh stories which can feature mentally disturbed individuals, but can also feature people driven purely by malice and greed, but are otherwise legally sane. Put it this way: I don't find Lord Edgeware Dies or Unnatural Death disturbing, while I do find Sleeping Murder and Last Ditch disturbing to varying degrees.

It's why I legitimately can't watch things that involve characters in leading roles who show that kind of disturbed behaviour and madness. The worst aspects of people allowed to build into a frenzied extreme. Especially where madness meets malice, since I don't and doubt I never will believe the two are connected. Films like Speak No Evil, which I've only read a summary of out of curiosity and it's given me goose flesh. Or Joker, which I find both disturbing and highly insulting. That's why the story, and especially the background element, deeply unsettled me: it wasn't some supernatural entity doing everything, but one or more disturbed individuals.

There is another reason I feel more acute fear of this than I do of Cronenbergian body horror ala The Fly, or things like Alien or Predator. I have touched the parts of myself that might be capable of that kind of horror. The rage, the unbalanced self, the detaching from reality that makes me need to touch something to make sure it's really there, the emotional see-sawing that can make me a pain to be around. I have anxiety, and alongside that a biochemistry that seems so delicately tuned that anything can upset it drastically if I let it.

Fear is about personal experience. People who have had serious incidents happen to them at sea can develop thalassophobia, people who are trapped in tight spaces can end up with claustrophobia, there are people who suffer from thanatophobia (dread of death), arachnophobia and musophobia are so common as to be used as the butts of jokes as much as serious plot elements in stories. In my case, I think it's definitely a possibility that without my having a clear and present grasp of who I am, I might well fully experience dementophobia.

Media definitely doesn't help. It rarely shows us normal, everyday cases of mental illness that are able to be functional within everyday life and having full lives even with their conditions, but instead focuses on the either documented or theoretical worst case scenarios. Megalomaniacs, extreme and untreated PTSD or mental conditions, serial killers, unbalanced predators, and otherwise disturbed individuals who end up victimising the vulnerable. If it's taken to enough of an extreme, it stops being scary, such as the madness being augmented with theatrical effects or over-the-top demonstrations, but the current vogue is for dirt and dark filters and blood and swearing and the absolute worst opinions of humanity and society.

That leads me onto another part of mental illness in fiction that is only recently getting acknowledged. I don't need medication to manage my conditions, but I could get some (fingers crossed) if needed. The examples seen in media are people who either don't engage with the system, or are failed by it. While this is a truth, it also feeds into a myth that mental illness is some kind of on-off switch, that having some kind of delusion or compulsion means you ABSOLUTELY WILL DO SOMETHING CRIMINAL. That's just absolute bull****. From my own experience, there are good days, in my case mostly good days, but there are also bad days. Admittedly, I'm not severe, but if I were, my anxiety wouldn't be driving me to commit criminal acts. I'd just be a juddering mess barely able to do anything.

So, that was me getting my thoughts out for however long it took you to make your way through this. I know I can write someone disturbed, someone unbalanced or insane, but I know it also costs me an effort. It may seem strange, but it's easier for me to write about genuine malice or an external factor negatively influencing someone's mind than it is to write about something internal. A madness that is within, a capacity for unbalanced behaviour and cruelty that can't be pinned on anyone but yourself.

For me, just as the most moving story isn't about good-versus-evil but people who are so committed to their beliefs that they cannot find common ground, the most disturbing story is the disturbances that come purely from within and--whether through active malice or misunderstanding--turn the world against them and make them a monster.

Also, fair warning, if any of the pieces of media mentioned intrigue you, PLEASE BE CAREFUL! I wasn't joking about how disturbing they could be.

The Derivative Outlet

Dragon Age? Dragon Quest? Drag-on-Dragoon?
Dragon on forever? Difficult to tell the difference sometimes.
(Image credit; BioWare)

It's easy for a writer to become derivative. Which is derivative for a start. You just have to look at the numerous games inspired directly by the lore and structure of Dungeons & Dragons, which in turn borrows heavily from the established sword-and-sorcery and pulp fiction, and the work of Tolkien and similar writers.

I took fall to that temptation. Derivative works require less thought than anything else I might work on. I don't say any author's work today can't trace back to something written or conceived years or centuries earlier, but being wholly derivative of some tropes is something I want to avoid except when they serve the characters and narrative. But sometimes writing things like that as an exercise. And sometimes the things that emerged from that become more original ideas.

Take The Leviathan Chronicle. That emerged from me having a deep liking for the Drakengard series, which dealt openly with taboo character traits and religious themes in a way few stories are willing to do. It's the purest form of genre deconstruction, taking a dark fantasy world to its logical end when characters and events are presented in such a distorted way. After all, wouldn't someone who slaughters thousands on a battlefield be called mad today? The Leviathan Chronicle's first chapter emerged from me beginning something in the vein of Drakengard's opening, and then it shifted and changed into something more.

Recently I wrote something that I consider highly derivative. Tentatively titled "Warped City", it emerged in my head for a screwy combination of a certain physical stereotype, Devil Survivor, and Mozart's famous aria "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen". A modern metropolis where a group of close friends are meeting up in a new metropolis. The goal of the narrative was to have them becoming chosen people who would be pitted against divine fragments emerging in the city in the form of people, altering the city physically or culturally around their twisted worldviews. It's slightly embarrassing putting this down, but it shows how I can have very derivative flights of fancy. But now that it's out of my head, it's not getting in the way.

Whether it's annoying derivative ideas, fan fiction your brain is boiling up out of frustration at another piece of media, or just a standalone scene that doesn't seem to fit in, don't let it fester. Put it down somewhere. It if becomes something interesting, remember it. If not, leave and forget it. It's amazing how many ideas and proposals I've put down over the years have either led to new concepts for current work, or just been a good outlet to stop those terrible ideas cluttering up my work life.

Writing about Death

In the months since my personal bereavement, I've had a problem with my writing. It's not been a fatal problem, but it's been a problem nonetheless. I couldn't write about death.

Now there are plenty of authors who've had runaway successes with novels that don't so much as include a bruise or a small cut. I've written them, and plan to write them, myself. But I do feel the need to use death where possible. Like in a murder mystery scenario, for example. I tried writing something like that a while back, a highly fantastical scenario based on Golden Age detective fiction. I was doing well. But when I returned to it in the weeks and months after my bereavement, I couldn't move it forward beyond the fifth chapter.

I just couldn't' reconcile myself to writing about death in such a way. It wasn't as if the death was bloody. That actually made it worse. I find writing about bloodless death more difficult anyway, but since my own loss was bloodless, there was an unpleasant association combined with the story I was writing and the themes I was using for the central narrative. And when I began editing another work I'd completed before the event, I found the deaths there disturbing. And they did have blood. It was as if some deep switch had been flicked. Its message clear; avoid death.

But a few days ago, something happened. I was writing the opening scenario for the next chapter of my current story -- a Shinto-inspired story inspired by series like CSI:NY and the Japanese genre of "Kori no tatakai" -- and in that opening segment two people died. They died in a relatively violent way. I wrote about it, and it wasn't until I was talking to my mother about it that it hit me. I'd written about death, and I'd even written this death-infused premise some days before, and I hadn't felt squeamish.

I've since gone back and read it, and continued writing this particular part of the story. And I haven't actually run up against anything more than my usual problems of creating a compelling narrative within a 8-10,000 word limit. It feels strangely liberating. I've scaled that mountain, conquered at least some of that little thing holding me back. I feel like I can begin again. I can't go back to the way things were. Who can? But I can at least rebuild something, learn from my experience, and no longer be afraid.

At BristolCon - 2018 edition

Apologies for any blurriness in the images. All of these were taken either at short notice, with an unsteady and extended hand, or in poor lighting conditions. Also, due to quality concerns, there are viewer images than I might have wanted.

All the way back in 2016, I wrote a post on a science fiction/fantasy convention in Bristol. Called BristolCon, it brings together the great and humble, and provides means for budding authors such as myself to see into the murky world of publishing and the mechanical side of writing. It also offers opportunities for the bookworm, art lover and niche fan for those who know where and when certain events take place. I've been there, and want to tell you all about it.

Introductions
To preface, my experience began with an Open Mike reading in that same venue to a small but gratifyingly positive audience. While no manuscript merited a repeat performance and only once did any overrun their five minute spot, I managed to get both laughs and applause with my WIP short story "The Exchange Clerks". Author Joanne Hall read an extract from one of her latest books, Gail Williams brought a short piece based around the myth of Calypso, and another author (Janet Edwards, I think) read a short piece called "Schroedinger's Datastick". Those are the stories that really stood out.It was a marvellous session. Highlights of the event as a whole included the threat of stuffed toy dragon Ivor threatening to burn us if we overran too much, and hilarious fiddling with the mike stand as it continually proved too short or too long, and once or twice came apart due to the adjustments. I solved it by plonking it on the table, pushing it down and rolling with it.

Panels

On the day, I arrived, I came in to listen to one of the opening ceremonies, the smaller one in Program Room 2. I then scuttled through to Program Room 1, catching the end of an excellent reading by Gaie Sebold. The panel, "Where Do I Begin", dealt with how and where authors began new projects, with occasional excursions into the writing process in general and how that is impacted by things such as deadlines. The panellists - Sebold, Adrian Selby, Kim Lakin-Smith and Dave Hutchinson - all had interesting and entertaining experiences to relate. The usual round of audience questions was given to the panel at around the 40 minute mark, including one from me about the difficulties of a project which may end up stalling for some time until you find a way round it. If that panel taught me anything, it's that my way of writing is pretty much in line with a combination of traits from that panel. We also all agreed that a story sometimes need an early concept axing in order for work to restart.

The next panel I attended in Program Room 2 was "A Many Headed Beast". Hosted by Williams, Tony Cooper, Janet Edwards, Rosie Oliver, Jason Whittle and Alicia Wanstall-Burke, it delved into the trials and tribulations of self-publishing, its pros and cons compared to standard publishing, and each author's experience. These included the heartfelt struggle by Alicia to get her work published, as her native Australia had no small presses for her book and she had to publish it via Britain with export to Australia. The talk was enlightening, encouraging and frightening at the same time. With the questions, I ended up putting a question more than one of us wanted answered; how people with certain issues - a propensity for anxiety in my case - could cope with the stresses of self-publishing and all its publicity and admin-based headaches. The session ended, then I had a natter with Janet which ended up giving me some useful tips and links for future research, and helped give me confidence that my approach of trying for both traditional and self-publishing routes.

The next panel I attended was after lunch, due to circumstances that I'll describe more fully below. In between all these I explored around the place. I found a copy of Battle Royale going from the Oxfam stall for a very low price, and I decided to give it a good home.  At 3 PM, I decided to attend the Program Room 2 panel "Here Be Dragons. And Yokai. And Tokoloshe. And Kupua...". The panel featured Nick Hembery, Zero Burgess-Foreman, Steve McHugh (who was just finishing a reading as I entered), and a good colleague Sarah Ash. The panel's subject was the use of other cultures outside the traditional Western European and Classical mythologies and folklore which dominate mainstream fantasy. It was an interesting exposure of how we often take things and use them without proper research or respect for their origins, and how you could count the number of mainstream products in the genre that managed to do it right on the fingers of your hands.

Book Launch: Seven Deadly Swords and Kingdoms of Elfin.

I'd initially not meant to attend this, but after my lunch break, it was raining and I was too far from many descent shops to just browse for an hour. So I went back and entered the Program Room 1 event, which was a dual book launch; Pete Sutton's Seven Deadly Swords, and Handheld Press's reprint of Sylvia Townsend Warner's fantasy anthology Kingdoms of Elfin.

During the launch, which I only saw about three quarters of, I managed to hear Sutton reading a long passage from his book, which I think is a fantasy novel which is split between the Medieval Crusades and modern times, tied together with some terrible event which took place during the former time period. The extract was drawn from this, with protagonist Raymond describing the terrible events of a skirmish between the Crusaders and the Saracens, in lots of gory detail. He has researched the period, of course, which allowed him to convey a sense of historical weight within the fantastical context. An alright book, although it didn't pull me enough to buy it.

The second book was quite different, from an author I'd never heard of. Sylvia Townsend Warner had a successful career as a writer outside the fantasy genre, but she contributed two works that have remained in genre consciousness. The first is the novel Lolly Willowes, and the second is a series of sixteen stories published in the 1970s towards the end of her life, collected into an anthology in 1977 after their serialisation in The New Yorker. This was Kingdoms of Elfin. Until now, it's been out of print and the rights resting in limbo. I didn't expect much, and I was blown away by the simultaneously light and scholarly approach to Fae culture. This won me over, and I bought a book in double-quick time.

The Art Room, and the Saga of the Misplaced Event
As with previous years, there is a dedicated room for the exhibition of art from several different artists, and a corner for smaller panel discussions which included an arts and crafts session. There were also workshops being conducted in other parts of the building, but I didn't find out about these due to problems with the program outlined below. In the art room were several exhibitors who merit a mention. Incidentally, all the photos were taken with permission from the exhibitors and are angled so that a general impression is given without giving enough detail for any potential copying.

The first artist I encountered during my initial recce was Rebecca Burke. A blogger and writer as well as an artist, her drawings are in black and white, and show an interesting combination of Dahl-style simplicity and a stark reality that struck me. I took a photo soon after my photographic efforts for the next stand.

The next artist I think needs a mention is Emma Ridley, though hers was the first stand I photographed. A tattoo and commercial artist, her work is both striking and entertaining. My photo captures several of her works, but there was one - the largest and one not currently available for sale or imprint - that I agreed not to photograph due to Emma's bad experience of a German tattooist plagiarising her work from a photograph.

The most colourful original stand I did was that of Gemma Beynon. I had encountered her in 2016, but it was only when she remembered herself that my previous session and my photos of her came back to my mind. Her artwork is extremely colourful, covering both the conventional and the surreal. I've photographed so as the capture the impression of the entire stall, which hopefully does justice to a fascinating exhibition.

The star of the art room for 2018 was an exhibition of work for Andrew Skilleter, an artist whose covers and other materials have defined people's vision of the classic Doctor Who. His tenure, between 1979 and 1994, covers the initial blossoming of the Doctor Who novelisation as something notable and respectable rather than a cash grab. In an age when repeats were rare and some serials were presumed lost or are truly lost to this day, these books become one of our only means of experiencing them. The work on display, which I got permission to photograph at a suitable distance, was stunning. It also included some artwork that unmistakably influenced some of the modern era stories and promotional art. Skilleter's influence on this quintessentially British science fiction series should not be underestimated by anyone.
I was going to attend a talk with Sarah and Zoe before their panel appearance, but I was the only one there. After some consultation - and the revelation that last year's 4-5 PM panel on the theremin had been put in the program by mistake. Allowances must be made, as the programs were put together and printed during the very very early morning. We decided as a body to reschedule in this panel for the vacant slot due to a lack of word of mouth compounded by the program being split into three separate parts as opposed to being a single booklet. In the meantime, we spent that free hour talking and talking and talking. My, so much talking. But better, I think, than sitting through a Program Room 1 panel on the use of religion in science fiction.

Happy Halloween Anime
This small group, headed by Zoe and Ash, looked at horror anime and manga, and how they created different types of horror from the land of the Rising Sun. From anime, Zoe brought to the group Shiki and Hellgirl. While I'd previously been quite dismissive of Shiki (written, which I didn't know until then, by the same author as Ghost Hunt), I saw that it was actually a highly nuanced and unsettling look at both Japanese traditions surrounding the undead, and humanity's varying reactions. The second anime, Hellgirl, emerged during the 1980s to shine a light on a culture of bullying and expectation which was causing rebellion in Japanese youth of the time. The premise of a young girl who grants a wish to drag someone's soul to hell while condemning the requester to the same fate has survived to this day, adjusting to new issues and social terrors.

From the manga side, Ash brought The Girl from the Other Side, creation of young mangaka Nagabe. The premise sees an affectionate tale of two beings from different worlds interacting, and the terrors and tragedies that ensue from their innocent relationship. The drawing style reflects both famous comic artists and - to my mind at least - the German impressionist movement exemplified by movies such as The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari. The second manga on the table was Yokai Rental Shop. Reminding me a little of Pet Shop of Horrors, it was about a man who ran a shop where yokai (Japanese monsters/spirits/ect.) were loaned out and could grant people's wishes, even if the fulfilment was not what they expected or wished for. Other manga mentioned included some works by Jouji Ito, and I Am Hero, a hybrid zombie-psychological horror which will test the reader's belief in the events taking place.

A recurring element from this talk was how Japanese horror invariably reflected the social anxieties of the time, and how these elements were nearly always lost upon their transition into Western media through remakes. Following this, we were able to compare notes, talk generally, we dissected what made a good horror anime, I chimed in with my scant knowledge to bring up works such as Monster and (in our earlier talk) Blood-C, and it eventually went into general talk about the medium. I'm glad I got Sarah's pleased look when I mentioned my familiarity with San Jushi (The Three Musketeers).

Day's end.
I had intended to attend a final panel that day, "Writing the Nonhuman", with Lakin-Smith, Gareth Powell, Dev Agarwal and Cheryl Morgan. But I was too tired for any more panels, so I joined Sarah and Zoe for some chill time in the hotel bar, which became more of a natter about every subject from anime criticism to advice and shared stories of authorian difficulties. I finally headed home after a long and energetic talk. So I left, and left with memories of a great event.

Swearing - Getting the Flipping Thing Right...

My current project has come to a point where I need to make a decision. It's a decision I faced while writing Crystal and Sin. The use of swearwords. Or profanities. Or cursing. Or whatever you choose to call it.

This article from Writer's Digest caught my attention when I was searching for advice on the subject. And I came to consider how swearing ends up being used, and where I hear it the most.

Some movies like to use it a lot. Like those created by Quinten Tarantino. Tarantino seems to use violence and swearing as a crude longhand for a character's struggles and warped worldview. The kind of thing another director might do with a single artistic contrast shot, or abstruse monologue. He also sometimes uses it as a joke, part of a network of black humour running through his work.

Ian Fleming's Bond novels make use of strategic swearing. Not the movies so much. The books, definitely. The first book alone has Bond quite candidly referring to deuteragonist and love interest Vesper Lynd as a "bitch". There are also other of his Bond series, such as Diamonds Are Forever, where our favourite spy can get quite colourful. And given the situations he's put through, I don't blame him. Here, the swearing is used to show that this normally cool and snarky character really is feeling it.

In The Burglar Diaries, a book that's basically the blackest of black comedies without meaning to be, swearing is used so much that it entirely put me off reading it after a few chapters. The whole style was so cynical that the swearing hit me very hard. I don't know the intent, but it had a similar effect to Tarantino's work; it acts as a medium that cuts down on descriptives, and is a weird kind of humour. The kind that is derived from the less blue and more polished work of Monty Python.

Swearing in all its forms can be either shocking or gratuitous. Mrs Weasley's famous words to Bellatrix during the final battle of The Deathly Hallows are so effective because swearing is barely used at all in the entire Harry Potter series. Cinema history was made by Rhett's infamous put-down from the finale of Gone with the Wind. John McCain brings the screen to a halt with his famous salutation to every villain in the series, even if later iterations lessen its impact.

I have a mixed opinion on the use of swearing. I have tried using it in my work, specifically Crystal and Sin. In there, I use it for the character Aiden to show his cynicism and bitterness, in addition to his slight instability. But my original draft had about twice as much swearing from him. My other characters also swear from time to time, and main lead Crystal swears strongly once when pushed beyond her emotional limits. I'm not that eager to use swearing, as I want my stories to be accessible and not rely on profanities to make something mature, which is something that happens. But I'm not above swearing myself, so I guess I don't practise what I preach...

I really enjoyed writing this, because it got me thinking. I hope it got you thinking too.

Minor Updates and Random Thoughts

This week's been somewhat of a drag due to a terrible bug. And during the weekend I went to a wonderful volunteer event, and and the end of next month I'll be going to BristolCon 2018. So here's a bit of a quick rundown of what's happened since the beginning of July.

Recently finished proofreading the second volume of The Leviathan Chronicle, and updated the text of the current volume with new corrections. Despite recent changes caused by the merger of Kindle and CreateSpace , I'll hope to still publish during the final months of this year.

Finished my latest project, a sci-fi take on Dumas's immortal tale The Count of Monte Cristo, but with less nobility and more honesty about what people really do when they're driven by pure vengeance. Hope to get down to a proper proofread soon.

Started two new and promising projects. One a fantastic thing with a non-human cast and a light tone, and the other my own contribution to Lovecraftian lore with my own particular twists. Figurative and otherwise.

Completed a promising short story based on my recent interesting reading of "We Purchased People". Hope it goes down well if/when people see it.

Cleaned up myself by editing out milk, which has been causing unnecessary mood swings impacting my writing and productivity.

Hope I'll have something a little larger for you all next week. Have a good week!

What is a productive day?

A question that can get raised about authors is "how much writing makes a productive day"? This question can be a prickly issue as many authors may not like discussing their working habits, or whatever stimulants are used to fuel the creative maelstrom.

My personal work regime is this. Up and assess my condition, then to the computer to start up and check email. Then do writing throughout the day broken by other activities such as computer-based leisure, walks out, housework, and of course eating and drinking to keep myself from falling over. Through all this, on good days, I can manage between three and five pages. On bad days, such as when I'm distracted or not feeling myself, that comes to two pages. On very good days I can be upwards of seven pages. My stimulants are limited to tea, and then only three or four cups in a day so I don't send myself into a tizzy.

My writing day can vary. It can be over and done in a morning, drag on until the wee small hours, or be finished between the classic 9-5 working day. This is my routine for six days in the week, with Saturdays being days off. And of course I take days off when I'm really under the weather, such as down with a bad bug or in too much pain from some injury or other to focus properly. I also sometimes need to rest my hands. Typing is hard on the hands.

Personally, I consider three pages of writing, or one chapter of proofreading, a productive day. The writing averages out to between 1000 and 2000 words. Without large interruptions, I can complete a full-scale novel in about half a year or less. I did once set myself an interesting challenge; write one chapter every three days until the book was completed. And I succeeded. It was a very long book, with each chapter between ten and twelve pages on average, and it had quite an engaging story for my 2014 period. Though it was rambling, and I now consider it in need of a complete rewrite before being published anywhere.

Things do ebb and flow, depending on whether I accidentally eat or drink something for which I have an intolerance. Sometimes that can last a day or two, sometimes it can last weeks or even months. It's been hard, but I think I'm walking the right path.

What are your working habits?

The "Non-" Human Problem

A while back, I wrote a post about future projects. Out of them all, I decided upon the one I referred to as "strange blend of sci-fi and fantasy" revolving around pirates. I got into writing the third draft of the first chapter when I made a decision. I didn't want to write another story revolving around human protagonists in a science fantasy world. I wanted something different. And since I've always had a soft spot for canine/lupine characters in fiction, I decided upon that; a world where the dominant species are humanoid lupine creatures called the Okaru.

This gave me much liberation, but also presented multiple problems. I'll do the problems first.



Problem A: They're not human. Obvious, but still a problem. So using human pronouns in a world without humans as a reference is asking for trouble. This extends to terms like "mankind" or "humankind", but also less obvious ones like gender nouns. Using "he" and "she" can't really be avoided if you want to avoid rampant confusion. But unlike a previous experiment with this, using "male" and "female" seems too clinical for what I want to do with this story.

Problem B: Making it both relatable and alien. This compounds and is compounded by the above problem. You need to use some terms because otherwise you risk leaving the reader completely at sea. Conversely, using several terms from the human world can help with translation, but use them too much and the illusion of otherness is broken. Striking the balance between the fantastic and the mundane is something any fantasy or sci-fi writer worth their salt has needed to come to terms with at some point.

Problem C: They're not human, physically. Having these non-humans running around means you need to create something that's not the strictly ape-based bipedal form humans have had for so many millions of years. But the general fiction-reading public is still having a hard time grasping the wilder aspects of the non-human. As proved in Star Trek, Star Wars, Avatar, and virtually every other popular sci-fi story, humanoid characters not only provide easy roles for human actors, but allow viewers to empathise. Some stories such as Solaris and The Uplift War break this mould, but have human or humanoid characters to balance that out. My aim with this story was to create characters who couldn't be played by people in suits and masks.


And now for this story's liberations!


Liberation A: Gender noun freedom. Yes, I earlier cited this as a problem. But it also liberates me from the restrictive letter box style of the English language when it comes to gender. It very much limits based on sight and sound of voice. Someone can changed from he to she or she to he, but what about those who don't identify as either? There are terms for such people in languages other than English, but they haven't actually carried over. Dropping human gender nouns allowed me to substitute them with versions that sound alien, but are based on an existing language other than English. This also provided me with a word that covered people who didn't identify as either. For these people, as suggested by my sister, I used the terms "them" and "they". There is also a better understanding an tribal-style acceptance of these people within Okaru society.

Liberation B: Characters with more potential. As its a non-human society, the world of the Okaru is in some ways less restrictive than our human world. While it has a real-world base (the late 16th to early 17th century period known as the Golden Age of Piracy, where following the Seven Years War, Britain had become the dominant naval world in the world) it needn't follow real-world history too closely. This means it can use an established structure for characters to grow in or rebel against without too many of the usual restrictions. Just so long as it doesn't resort to the get-out of pulling stuff out of thin air. For instance, my lead is a pirate on a mission independent from the usual pirate fraternity, while her antagonist is a military leader determined to wipe out piracy.

Liberation C: Commentary opportunities. Something about the Okaru is that they are distinguished by their fur rather than the human equivalent of skin and hair colour. This offers opportunities to use the Okaru equivalent of ethnicities while also creating striking images for the main characters that the reader can hold in their minds. This gives opportunities for commentary in aspects such as stereotyping and even racism in a context safer than using actual humans. Still hot topics, but with a slight buffer zone allowing them to be an introduction for younger readers.


That's really all I'm prepared to say about my new project for the moment. I hope it can be read someday. And I hope you enjoyed reading about it.

Review - Short Story - We Purchased People

In recent days, I've been acquainting myself with some of the classic science fiction present in our family bookshelves. Among them is a large volume of short stories written by masters of the craft. The one that caught my eye was "We Purchased People" by Frederik Pohl. I read it, and it's not one I can keep to myself.

The premise is a world where humanity is in trade with several different alien races. As FTL travel doesn't yet exist, this trade is done via advanced communication technology which allows the various species to exchange information for various trinkets and resources from Earth. Their agents are the dregs of humanity, implanted with technology that allows their "owners" to control them for any length of time. The protagonist is one such "purchased person", a man whose past is extremely shady and whose life is quickly thrown into utter chaos due to the innocent inquisitiveness of his owners.

This story isn't the typical sci-fi fare. It doesn't shy away from extremely mature subject matter, yet doesn't have a single severe expletive in it. The main character is the most extreme type of anti-hero, if any term including the world "hero" can be used for him. He's sullen, twisted, and his suffering doesn't elicit any sympathy at all. This is an analysis of how the cast-offs of humanity are used for some purpose.

On the whole, I would recommend this to true sci-fi connoisseurs. It's well-written, and has an interesting and twisted take on human-alien relations. It also shows up many elements of human prejudice and reminds one of some of the more disturbing elements of mental programming experiments from the 20th century. And yes, this story was written after people became fully aware of the CIA's Project MKUltra.

10/10

Advice from Authors - Or Not?

Over the years, I've seen plenty of articles written by other authors. Two articles I saw were from Erica Verrillo's blog; one set of tips from Stephen King, a key one from Frank Herbert and one from Ray Bradbury. Advice is all very well, but if you let it begin corrupting your own style, it's stops being helpful.

My advice came in the form of emails from Frances Hardinge, an author who had just entered the scene when I was introduced via a family friend. Her criticism and appraisal of my work helped me get a good idea of where I wanted to go and what I needed to improve. Hardinge's advice was far more helpful than a lot of things my family and friends were saying at the time. But while her advice was helpful through and through, others have not been.

The quote from Herbert above is hugely significant for me, as my stories are driven by characters and a set progression inspired by many things from television series to Herbert's own work. I find his advice valuable and insightful. I'm still aware of the industry's pitfalls in this regard, but Herbert's advice helps me see past it towards making my hopeful career.

Verrillo's article on King's advice. It focuses a lot on story-telling style, and advocates a streamlined style which is short and snappy, but leaves little-to-no room for going mad with things like poetic expression and deep description. As I've seen plenty of authors make successfully careers out of that style, I don't find his advice entirely convincing. But I also see the merit of keeping it in mind. Being able to do both gives an author an edge; they can switch markets when needed, increasing their readership by at least double. There is a different piece of advice she extracted from the writing of his debut Carrie, which basically boiled down to revision and never throwing away old drafts in case they might be useful. That I agree with.

Bradbery's advice boils down to "write, write, write". To quote:

If you can write one short story a week, it doesn’t matter what the quality is to start – at least you’re practicing. At the end of the year you have 52 short stories. And I defy you to write 52 bad ones. It can’t be done. After 30 or 40 weeks, all of a sudden a story will come that is wonderful – just wonderful. That’s what happened to me...

He also emphasises the importance of absorbing the works of the masters. Personally, I feel a little conflicted. While I'm certain many of the story ideas I create wouldn't make good novels, and I could write a story per week, he's writing from a very different position. In fact, all of these authors seem to be speaking for a perspective that isn't mine; a self-employed writer trying to break into a competitive market, where the industry is in the midst of the e-book revolution, which in turn impacts the conflict between short fiction and longform works.

All of these little bits and pieces have helped inform my approach to pushing at the industry's iron-clad walls. And I hope these may help others in the same position as me. Just make sure you take these pieces of advice as they are offered, and remember their context. You'll take more away from it if you do.

Let's Play the Ten-Word Game

Anyone here know the ten-word game? If you don't, here's a basic explanation. Take a story - any story - and condense the plot into ten words or less. It's really quite fun, and throws some interesting revelations on how derivative or formulaic some stories can be. Including mine.

So for this post, I'm going to do some ten-word summaries of several stories, and the answers will be blacked out. Just highlight them after you've thought about it for a while, and see if you were right.

("E" stands for example, and "A" for answer)

1E; Person makes journey to destroy lethal object. Succeeds. World saved.
1A; The Lord of the Rings. And a few other stories.

E2; Two people from different groups meet. Form a bond. Conflict.
A2; This could be a wide range of stories as the theme is present in much of fiction. To my mind, this is Romeo and Juliet, How to Tame Your Dragon, Disney's Pocahontas and Avatar.

E3; Bad person gets redeemed. Fights crime. Battles adversary. Finds love.
A3; Once again, this has many parallels, particularly in the superhero genre. My personal pick would be The Shadow. The movie version, that is.

E4; Person cruelly wronged. Survives and returns to seek retribution. Succeeds.
A4; Any descent revenge story follows this pattern, with The Count of Monte Cristo being the most famous example in modern literature.

That's just a very few. There are endless possibilities for describing any story in ten words or less. What stories can you describe? You don't even need to show their titles. Just describe it to someone, and wait to see if they get it.

Go on. Try.

Choices, Choices

NOTE: Many apologies for my lack of activity between Saturday and Thursday. I was on a camping holiday in Herefordshire with three other generations of family. Not entirely nice due to my inexperience with camping, but enjoyable enough that I'll remember it.

The life of someone trying to get published as an author is hard. You finish one work, and immediately think about moving on to another one once you've recovered. But is there any point? You're not published yet. Yes, there is a point! There is absolutely a point! Stopping at one work won't cut it. Some authors can tenderly refine and improve their work over so many years and strike lucky with an agent or publisher. But that's not my way. You can still refine and polish one work while writing another. And that's not counting short stories, and posts like this.

Right now, I've got between three and four possible large projects to pursue. By large, I'm talking about novels. Short stories can be completed in around a week, though that's without taking editing and proofing into account.

My first possibility is a strange blend of sci-fi and fantasy, inspired by two things; that amazing trailer for Beyond Good and Evil 2, and pirate stories ranging from On Stranger Tides and Treasure Island to contemporary offerings such as Laputa and Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. Basically the romping tale of one woman's selfless search for a wish-granting island, it's something light and friendly I can do after completing an extremely weighty sci-fi revenge story.

The second is slightly darker, and comparatively easier. A take on Lovecraft where the Eldritch monstrosities he described are simply how we appear in a simultaneous parallel "Other" realm crossing the prose of Lovecraft with the fleshy weirdness of Cronenberg. I'm setting it around North Wales, particularly Anglesey - my home, and consequently the perfect setting for me to describe a place with native detail and twist it using the filter of the Other.

The third is something that occurred to me on holiday, while I was playing the card game Once Upon A Time with my mother, sister and niece. I'd long had the idea of creating a grand adventure in a "classic" fantasy swords-and-sorcery realm which would help question many of the genre's accepted tropes. The role of the hero and "princess", what evil is, the sometimes-contrived events that happen along the way. Combined with the card game's premise of telling and influencing a story based on the cards in your hand to reach your "Happily Ever After" inspired this concept. A grand fantasy world where the hero's actions and events encountered were influenced by a group playing a game in the real world. The only one conscious of this at first is a single player expelled from the game that has entered the world controlled by the cards to tilt the game in favour of winning its freedom from control.

Those are the best contenders. And so, as the title of the post says.... Choices, choices.

Shared Post: "Writers Are from Venus, Agents Are from Mars" by Erica Verrillo

During my long and hard road to try and get published - and more importantly get sales for my work and begin making a living - one blog has been my constant ally and bulwark. "Publishing...And Other Forms of Insanity", a blog run by children's book author Erica Verrillo. I've shared her work on my own blog before, and it's that time again. This time, it's a post of hers from December 2012,

As the title suggest, it highlights the differences between authors and agents, which are very different from authors. While authors are creatives, agents are salespeople and want both a saleable product and a face to act as a promotional tool. To quote...

Writers, especially fiction writers, focus on crafting our work. After a long and difficult labor, we give birth to novels. The last thing we need while in the throes of contractions (no pun intended) is for the midwife to ask, “What kind of diapers would you like? Cloth or disposable?” As far as we are concerned, our job is finished when we push out the last line.

This is simply not how the publishing world works. Before contacting an agent, you must not only have a finished work (edited, proof-read, and ready for the printer), you must understand the industry. That means knowing what is going on in the publishing world, knowing what is going on in the book selling world, and knowing what is going on inside your agent's head. In order to do that you must go to your local library and pore through issues of Publisher's Weekly, Writer's Digest, and The Writer. You must read blogs kept by agents and editors in order to familiarize yourself with the lingo of the trade: proposal-to-publish forms, subsidiary rights, and promotion potential. You must become vertically integrated.

I had my own introductions to the publishing world, but soft and hard. Now I'm ready for what may come. Any aspiring author needs to face this at some point. But don't let that stop you. It's these kinds of challenges that make getting yourself established as a writer earning a living worth the effort.

Flash! 2018 Progress Report.

Hi! I haven't had the time or the energy to write anything like my usual posts, so I thought I'd do something different. As I continue to push forward with my dream, and fight of submission-based or just plain anxiety (more on that here and here) attacks that come in monthly cycles, I'd like to give those who actually read this blog a little update on what I've managed to do this year.

One book self-published, with its sequel to follow later this year!

Getting on for or perhaps over 30 submissions sent out between February and June of this year, for multiple projects that I felt had the potential to be accepted.

Between 4 and 6 short stories written.

One sample of flash fiction written.

And alongside all this...

Helping my family cope with a sudden and very personal upheaval which I won't describe here for obvious reasons.

Continuing to do occasional battle with my self-esteem issues.

And that's it! Today I feel great, and if you too feel great, then please browse through my (approaching) two years' worth of posts. Who knows, you may find something you like. Have a great Sunday!

The Trouble with Continuation: ...may sicken and so die.

If music be the food of love, play on. Give me excess of it that in sickening, the appetite my sicken and so die. - Twelfth Night, Act 1, Scene 1.

Much - if not all - of media entertainment today is focused at least partially around business. Books need to sell, people need to go see movies, television series need viewers, video games need buyers and often help sell dedicated hardware on which to run. Most times a successful series grows out of a standalone beginning; a movie or TV series that works on its own, a book about a single event or series of events, a game that was designed to stand on its own within a particular genre. But not every cinematic universe takes off, not every game becomes a series or franchise, not every book creates a profitable fictional universe.

In this post, I'm looking at a few examples from various media of fictional worlds that ended before we wanted them to. They could have been created with the supposition that they would be successful and thus continue; but they didn't, leaving us poor people who enjoyed their stories unsatisfied at best and annoyed at worst. They could also have been cut short by something else, from the death of a key creative figure to disputes behind the scenes. These examples ended before the entire intended story was told, with the worst examples ending on unresolved cliffhangers.

Books are strange things. They can be utterly engrossing, completely capture everyone's attention, then plummet into the void of the forgotten and the purgatory of bargain bins and charity shop shelves. The vast majority of books you hear about are either standalone ones that developed into a series (with or without the author's intent) or were always planned as series and succeeded (Harry Potter is such a case, and perhaps its biggest success story). An interesting example is an authorised continuation of Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber. The project was a pentalogy centering on the father of the first pentalogy's main character Conrad. Four out of the five planned books were written and published to dismal reviews and low sales, and the company managing the project went bankrupt before the fifth book was completed. There is also supposedly the aborted "The Fire Chronicles" from Jonathan Stroud of Bartimaeus fame, but I can find no quotes or source for this information, so take it with a pillar of salt.

Movies and television are more prone to this than books are. They have a lot riding on both popular and critical success, and many movies today seem to be focused more on making money than making anything original. This trend can be seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a now-gigantic cross-media canon spanning ten-plus movies and related media projects where just dipping into the middle is not an option; you'll be hopelessly confused. But others have tried at this approach, and failed spectacularly. The Amazing Spider Man and its sequel were intended as the opening chapters of a Spider Man-focused universe involving recurring villains like Green Goblin and anti-heroes such as Venom. But the sequel saw disappointing box office takings and wasn't well liked. The backlash resulted in the entire planned cinematic universe being cancelled, leaving many intended story threads unfinished. Universal's intended Monster-themed cinematic universe fared even worse. Its intended debut, The Mummy, sowed the seeds for several future titles, but met with critical and commercial failure, forcing Universal to cancel its cinematic universe plans in favour of self-contained remakes. This means those story threads from The Mummy, however poorly told, will never be resolved.

Two contrasting examples from television are Firefly and Primeval. Firefly was a blend of Western and sci-fi from the mind of Joss Whedon, but -- like a few of his other projects -- this didn't find success. Firefly is now considered a classic, but the responsible network didn't have as much confidence and due to a combination of mismanagement and consequent low viewing figures, the series was cancelled with just eleven of thirteen completed episodes aired. Whedon had planned to continue for at least two further seasons, but its cancellation killed those plans. It's a miracle that he got the funding and support to create Serenity, a movie which rounded off the series narrative using material planned for the cancelled series. Primeval is slightly different. A science fiction series involving time portals allowing prehistoric and futuristic animals into the present, its initial success saw three series air before it was abruptly cancelled by ITV amid falling ratings. The third series ended on a cliffhanger, leaving those invested in the story (including myself, I admit) a little sore. Two further series were funded for broadcast on Watch and later on ITV, but these too ended on a cliffhanger, and the Canada-set spin-off series -- yet another cliffhanger -- was cancelled after one season. Its somewhat nonsensical plot shall apparently never be resolved.

Video games are the worst in this regard, as the industry is not only highly capricious, but driven by corporate interests that make Hollywood studios seem mild. Several recent projects come to mind. Advent Rising and Too Human were both created to be strong franchises, but a combination of negative backlash and legal troubles caused both to stop at a single game. Mass Effect Andromeda was designed as the next trilogy in EA's Mass Effect franchise; its focus was Alex Ryder, the "Pathfinder" for the Andromeda Initiative, a multi-species push to colonise the Andromeda galaxy. But it was pushed out before it was ready and subsequently saw a mixed reaction, culminating in its team being disbanded and the entire franchise put on hold. Almost all of its remaining story was, and will likely remain, untold. Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness was meant to be the first step of a grand evolution of its lead character Lara Croft, but a chaotic development cycle and push to release caused around half the planned content to be cut, and the subsequent critical failure caused the rest of the project to be cancelled, leaving many of the narrative points unresolved.

All of those I've mentioned caught my attention because of what they were; attempts at something grand that were never finished, for whatever reason. Have you any of your own to offer up?

The Fictional in Pursuit of the Autobiographical

Now we've got the Oscar Wilde paraphrase out the way, I'll get down to the subject of this week's post. Something that many authors have said is that when creating their stories, they look to real life for inspiration as much as other stories. And having recently experienced (and still experiencing) several different autobiographies, I have to agree. The following post will contain minor spoilers.

The first one that struck me was Wings On My Sleeve, written by Eric Melrose "Winkle" Brown. He was a Royal Navy test pilot who flew in every type of Allied aircraft and a few Axis planes during WW2, and was one of the early jet fighter pioneers. Wings On My Sleeve begins in the 1930s, and goes into detail about his war career. I also remember watching a television documentary from 2014, two years before he died. In it, he went over his career and war memories, including a candid view of Air Marshal Goering from when he helped interview him as part of the Nuremberg trials. To read a description of the book, you might hardly believe it. But it is the real life of a remarkable and admirable man, whose exploits -- I think -- put many another war veteran's in the shade.

The second notable non-fiction work is Just Williams, a radio-exclusive autobiography written and read by famous British comedian Kenneth Williams. Like with "Winkle" Brown, my experience with Williams's life is drawn from both Just Williams and interview clips from the less sensational retrospective TV programs. It's enlightening and hilarious, and some of the stories seem lifted straight out of a sitcom or sketch show. From the antics he heard of or was part of during Army service post-WW2 in the Far East, tales from his work in radio and theatre and television. One of the highlights of his theatre stories is an incident during a performance of Chekhov's The Seagull when he was Richard Burton's understudy. It is eye-opening and hilarious by turns.

The third and final example is something unique. Spike Milligan's wartime memoir Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall. Rather than a straight memoir, it mixes actual facts with anecdotes and the brand of surreal humour and asides Milligan became famous for through his work on The Goons and other shows. Once you get used to his pace and style, the actual facts are just as funny as his little interludes. While there are genuine dark moments (what else in a WW2 memoir), there are also descriptions of the hilarious life of a British soldier. From calamitous army exercises and setting up camps, to the nighttime athletics of soldiers with local lasses and necessary bouts of lunacy to preserve general sanity, you'd never believe things like this happened. But they did!

When listening to all these, I was being constantly inspired by create elements of these antics in my own stories. Whether an insertion into fantasy or sci-fi, or something realistic that's more along the lines of these memoirs, these stories show that nothing is beyond reality. It also shows that an author's undernourished imagination is nothing compared to life's infinite variety. This may be taken as an extension of the necessity of every author to read (or listen to) new and/or classic stories. But let me ask you; how many people really include non-fiction in that category of "things every author must read"?

Music While You Work

It's an old phrase, as old as piped music, or the people who whistled and clog-danced and fiddled in the work place. It's a necessity, it's a joy, it's a democratic right; music can help you work. And for someone like me, it can really get you in the mood for some serious ####. Okay, that was a little crude, but you know what I mean.

For each of my completed works, I've done something somewhere that's been influenced by a choice in music. Mainly I listen to music from video games. That's partly because movie or television/anime music tends to be slightly more specific than game music, classical music has different associations for me and so isn't very helpful, and popular music is just distracting. As for video game music, its great variety, prolific history and looping nature make it perfect for prolonged mood setting and general help.

Crystal and Sin proved difficult in the "finding suitable work music" department, as it's easy for a sci-fi thing to end up getting either a totally out-there score that's all its own (Blade Runner) or an orchestral score that stifles original thought (Avatar). It was tricky, but I found a few things. One of the better helping hands was the soundtrack album for Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I've got it on my shelves still. It helped evoke the themes and style I wanted much of the book to emulate. Since it's in part a tribute to those same sci-fi universes of conspiracy and tragedy, some conspiratorial and tragic music seemed appropriate.

For The Leviathan Chronicle, the medieval setting is something that can be difficult to find, as true medieval music encourages listening more than working (believe me, I've tried). So I went for some other things that would help evoke the right setting. Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story provided invaluable mood music when writing about the book's mature subject matter. Its more sacred moments were helped along with a liberal dose of Gregorian chant music from one of my father's CDs and some pieces from El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron and Shadow of the Colossus. Mostly not very ancient, but all highly emotive and somber.

For Stella: Maiden of the Dusk, an in-progress project which may or may not see the light of day, I went in a different direction. My influence drew from anime, particularly the work of Joe Hisaishi for Princess Mononoke and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, and the pieces created by Naoki Sato for Production I.G's Blood-C. I was actually inspired by those two anime to create something of a post-apocalyptic zombie-style tale with romance and a strong grounding in Mesoamerican and South American folklore. I also used the available musical pieces from Final Fantasy XV (nee Versus XIII), as I'd imagined my heroine as a tribute to that long-lost figure of fan fiction and dreamy-eyed nostalga Stella Nox Fleuret. Yes, I called her Stella, but then lots of heroines are called Stella, and otherwise she's nothing like Nox Fleuret. She's certainly got better tastes in shoe heels.

Other unspecified projects have had less success or are too early to mention in detail, but also needed some music to spur them along. One of them required the dulcet tones of Okami and my discs of Oriental music. Another drew some interesting inspiration from the likes of Last Ranker and  But, surprising as this may seem from those who read the above, most of my writing is done in relative silence. I've sometimes even found music a complete distraction no matter how many times it's helped me along during a difficult bit.