Month: October 2009

NaNoWri-No

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 4 Comments

With November upon us and so many writers’ blogs heralding perticipation, I feel compelled to doscuss the reasons this blog will not be boasting a NaNoWriMo banner.   I have nothing against National Novel Writing Month.  If I did, I wouldn’t have linked to it above.  I might participate some time in the future, but not this year.

First and foremost, I can’t write that much in a month.  Not at this point in my life, no.  It doesn’t fit the pace of my creation.  It took me a year to write my first novel, which needs to be rewritten from the basement up before it’s remotely serviceable.  Yes, a year for 113,000 or so words.  I thought it was great then.  For years I thought it was great.  I’m still too attached to it to really redo it.  It was the very first thing I ever wrote and it started my path to where I am today.  The memory of my dedication to that novel reminds me that I cannot do NNWM.  I gave up too many things while I wrote that novel…and there wasn’t all that much going on for me at the time.  I’m already behind with mundane classroom work (grading, making out tests, calling parents, etc.), I want to spend more time with my daughter, and I’m far enough behind in household chores that I’d rather just move.  How can I rationalize that big a jump in my word production when it would leave all these things behind?

Second, novels aren’t where I’m at.  I still plan to invade either San Diego or Seattle this summer for six weeks.  Thus, I need to keep woring on short stories for my Clarion and Clarion West applications.  I sure don’t want to be “that guy” who was wait-listed one year and didn’t make it the next.  I have stories to sub, but not a whole lot written since my last application.  Worse, my Naked Man story will likely be too long to submit for either application.  I guess I need to get through it and on to another one.

Third, I don’t really feel like NNWM offers enough incentive to participate.  Oooh, I get to claim I made my target word count (short of true novel length, even for YA).  What else?  I’ve never been much of a word counter anyway.  Some of my most productive days churn out only a few hundred words, but the quality of the words or where the words bring me are infinitely more valuable.  I could type like Jack in The Shining and get 50,000 words. So I may participate some day to be a joiner and create a production goal for myself, currently even the intrinsic rewards aren’t driving me.

So no, I will not be NaNoWriMo-ing in November.  Good luck to those that are.

-Oso

 

A few review-ish type things

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

It being Halloween time, horror movies seem to be en vogue.  That and my wife loves horror movies.  Not me.

I did love the first Saw movie.  Brilliant, people fighting for their lives in Jigsaw’s twisted games.  Then they made another.  And another.  Now the well is dry so they send the bucket down and pull up the mud, bottle it, and sell it like it’s going to satisfy thirst the way the well did in the beginning.

Yes, I saw Saw VI yesterday.  It wasn’t a terrible movie in and of itself until you look at the characters.  To be fair to the writers, some of it was the acting, particularly the brooding, mouth-breathing replacement for the series’ long deceased killer (Costas Mandylor).  To be fair to the actors, some of it was the writing.  There are still clever ideas in the script, but more of them are simply brutal and sadistic.  The last minute or so — involving the new killer — is fairly clever and sets them up to do something different with the next film.  Will they?  Who knows.

I am mainly disappointed withhow far the movie has diverted from its original warped morality.  For instance, there is a part of the movie where a man must choose which two out of six employees will live.  Another where he picks one of two to live.  In the first movie, everyone was supposed to have a chance and they were responsible for their own survival.  More and more, the Saw franchise has gotten away from this.  Twisted morality was what made the first film such a viral success.  With the morality lessened, it’s just twisted.  What’s unique about that?

The style and composition of the movie are also very different in ways that lessen my enjoyment.  If I ever sit through the film again (not likely), it will be to tally the number of flashbacks.  Most are flashes to previous movies.  It has become a soap opera, not a film.  The attempts do not make this movie a stand-alone film.  You have to have seen the others — all of the others, by my calculation — to appreciate what’s happening in the plot.  What’s more, some of the flashbacks actually weaken the morality of prior movies.  I understand a movie based on a dead character’s ideas is going to have flashbacks.  A house with cats will have a litterbox, too, but that doesn’t mean it has to reek  of urine.  It was exhausting to try to keep up with the twists and turns and doubletalk.  Just rip someone’s head apart and get it over with.

In summary, I didn’t like it.  (Did you get that?)  Not the worst film I’ve seen this year, but in the lowest quartile.  C-.  It was good enough that I didn’t feel like I flushed my money away, but bad enough that I wonder which doors in that hallway would have been better investments.

While I’m at it, I’ve been reading WotF XXV (lots of Roman numerals today).  Only three stories so far: Jordan Lapp’s “After the final Sunset, Again”, Emery Huang’s “Gardens of Tian Zi”, and Gra Linnaea’s “Life in Steam”, those being the three that really leapt out at me based on outside experience.  Jordan’s a friend, Emery is a message board acquaintance, and Gra is…out there somewhere, so these will not be scathing reviews.  They wouldn’t be anyway since all three stories were quite good.

The question that most entertains me is “which of the three was the best?”  It should be an obvious answer since Emery won the Gold Award, Jordan’s story placed first, and Gra’s was a third place finisher. Apparently that means nothing.  I found “Garden of Tian Zi” a bit derivative with the secret society man with super-speed and super-strength…  Still, the setting and backstory and such were quite unique (frogs for computers?) and interesting.  But it didn’t scream cream-of-the crop to me.  “After the Final Sunset, Again” was more out of left field (where all great ideas come from) and had me revetted through the first two-thirds.  The Phoenix idea was inspired and the Phoenix charactyer was breathtaking.  The ending blindsided me and left me staggering, muttering “what?”  I think I needed just a touch more twist to it resonate in my palate.  Nonetheless, a great story.  As for “Life in Steam”, I was thrown by the ancient-theory-as-science in the beginning, but I suspect that’s a favorite steampunk ploy, reminiscent of Moorcock.  Once I got into things and met Wood, I was swept away bby the storytelling.  A bit more poetic than I’m used to.  On the downside, the protagonist made the rest of the story almost moot since it was obvious where this was going; I feel like there might have been more interesting ways to get there.

All three stories were fantastic, but none flawless.  (When’s the last time you read a flawless story?  Really?)  Their quality gives me great hope for the rest of the volume.  I intend to select my own “Gold Award” (Bear Claw Award?) winner (not that they’ll get anything but some comments here) and I’ll be surprised if it ends up being any of these three.  I think a strong, surprising ending is what I look for most in a story (probably because endings give me so much trouble), and I didn’t feel like any of these endings wowed me enough.  But who knows.  Congratulations to all three writers on their excellent stories; I expect great things from all three careers to come.

-Oso

Braaaaiins…

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 2 Comments

zombieland-posterI am not generally a fan of horror.  Not horror movies or books or stories or comics…I just don’t get a thrill from being scared.  (Plus, I’m a jumper.  That lame moment when everyone knows the killer is about to jump out and scare the babysitter…I’m the lame-o that jumps anyway.)

But I love me a good zombie movie.

Not the classic stuff, mind you.  Every zombie movie aficionado out there would likely consider me a low-brow heretic.  But I love the direction the zombie movie has taken of late.  The latest incarnation of Dawn of the Dead remains one of the most watched DVDs in my collection (after my daughter’s collection, my Firefly set, and Clerks — tied with Hot Fuzz and From Dusk Till Dawn…another of my rare horror favorites).  Shaun of the Dead is another, mostly for the incomparable wit of Simon Pegg and his pals.  I particularly enjoy the irreverence of these recent zombie flicks.  And running zombies are so much scarier than moseying zombies.

Today I went to see Zombieland.  Brilliant.  The young main character reminded me of Michael Cera (Arrested Development, Juno, Superbad) in all the best ways.  Woody Harrelson was inspired casting and did a great job (as usual).  The love interest (Emma Stone) was a smokin hottie in a goth-tough disguise.  Even the kid was pretty good.  And the cameo actor (don’t want to spoil it for you if you don’t know) was brilliant from both the writing and acting sides.

But the movie itself outshone the acting.  In a world of zombies, a survivor must have a list of rules that got them as far as they’ve made it.  The main character’s rules take center stage and keep popping up in ways that warm my writer’s heart.  It reminded me of Douglas Adams if anyone.  Wit and plot sewn nicely together in an almost credible package.

So I am inspired.  I want to write a comedic zombie story.  Alas, I have read very few zombie stories in my time and do not desire to reinvent the wheel.  I want my own perverse twist that hasn’t been done to death.  I have an idea or two.  If anyone can recommend a good, funny zombie novel or story, I’d appreciate it.

It will be tough to go my own way with so established a trope as zombies, especially considering what a fan I am of the current trend.  I’ll probably have to plan for a few weeks, even months, befor find my place on this particular wave.  But that’s part of the fun, isn’t it?

-Oso

WotF XXV

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

Finally.

I got out to a real bookstore (well, Books-A-Million) and picked up WotF XXV.  It has been on my to-do list.

Now I need to do some reading.  I have heard so much about the writers and stories, I don’t know where to start.  Jordan’s story, “After the Final Sunset, Again” will surely be first, friend that he is.  Emery’s and Gra’s stories have been intriguing me, too.  Can’t wait.

Dreams and nightmares

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

Last night, I dreamt about Clarion.  To my knowledge, I’ve never actually dreamt about the workshop before, only daydreams.  But last night was an honest dreamy-type dream.

It was an anxiety dream, I think.  I was walking around campus in my underwear, holding my daughter’s hand.  I think that’s a symbol of feeling anxious about leaving her for that amount of time.  I also dreamt about driving a car over a very unstable bridge, an image I suspect designed to remind me that it may still be difficult for me to get there.  

There was other stuff: meeting WotF winners there (which seems unlikely since Jordan suggested he was the first winner to go to CW after his win), trying to write a story with pencil and paper, a play being performed about writers at Clarion (in which the character modeled after me was inexplicably shirtless), and other stuff I can’t remember.  

Why is this dream hitting me now?  I wasn’t even writing anywhere near bedtime last night.  Maybe it was my guilty conscience telling me  should have been writing if I want to attend this summer.  Or maybe I just needed a new setting for the age-old in-public-in-my-underwear dream.  Whatever the reason, it has the workshop foremost in my mind again.  It can make focusing on mundane tasks — like school — very difficult.

Workshop Page Update

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

I added more links to my workshop page.  It’s mostly blog-type stuff.  A few classic essays are there.  

I intend to add more blog stuff – especially recent blogs from the likes of Rochita and Jordan – when I get time.  These additions are mostly single postings.

If you have a collection of blog entries that you’d like me to link to, let me know.  It’s easiest if they’re joined by a category or keyword…heck you probably know better than I do.  

Anyway, I’m trying to replace some of the links from the now-defunct “Clarion Ex Machina” page that was so helpful to me when I was applying last year.  I am currently short on stuff from the past few years, so whatever people can throw my way would be helpful.

WotF XXIV trends

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

As I’ve mentioned here before, I’ve been filling my commute with the sounds of the Writers of the Future vol. XXIV audiobook.  It’s my way of multitasking, catching up on reading as I drive.  Being the perpetual writer I am, I have been looking for patterns.  I was surprised by what I found.  (Keep in mind, I still have four stories left to go.)

A significant number of the stories have low-activity or even non-active protagonists.  A book (an intelligent talking compendium) is the protagonist of “Circuit”, lending its thoughts as it passes through the possession of apparently significant figures in future history.  Gina in “Hangar Queen” is a bomb that is not allowed to fly.  She has ideas, opinions, even seeks information, but she can only do so much.  The protagonist in “Snakes and Ladders” starts the story crippled by an explosion and proceeds to fade in and out of consciousness, a spectator of what occurs inside his body.  He does manage to move around a little, put out a fire, stuff like that.  “Cruciger” is a ship that ferries the last of humanity into space to build a Dyson Sphere or Ringworld.  She is more active than the others, interacting with jellyfish-like natives as she prepares to destroy their world for raw materials, but the story as a whole is very much a treatise on the pros and cons of religion and whether the ship is a better deity than God.  The teacher in “Crown of Thorns” makes reference to prior acts of futility, but mostly goes along with what she’s supposed to do (though I might have missed a bit of that one due to attention to traffic).

These stories are all, in different ways, passive.  They are all fine stories of their own right, so do not mistake me, but there’s a lot of watching and thinking that goes on.  Does KD Wentworth (WotF coordinating judge) particularly prefer stories with voyeuristic protagonists?  If she does, she’s not alone.  “Cruciger”, “Hangar Queen”, and “Circuit” were all first-place winners.  It is interesting to peek into a well-developed world, but is it not more interesting to live in that world? to interact with it?

There are plenty of active stories.  I was very fond of “A Man in the Moon”, the one finalist to round out the bake’s dozen tales.  It was by no means an action story, but the protagonist stood up for himself well.  “Epiphany” is a story chock-full of action — murder, magic, escape, sword-swallowing, and a hermaphrodite.  “Taking a Mile” was a good balance of discovery and action, the protag stepping up when necessity called.  And “Bitter Dreams” was one ugly zombie-slaying after another, perhaps a little too violent for my usual taste, but still filled with subtle character interaction and introspection.  So there is a balance.  Still, I generally consider the passive protagonist an exception, not a 50% possibility.

I agree that a good story is about characters.  That does not prohibit action from entering the equation.  Often characters are more interesting when they are acting than when they are observing.  Not always, but often.  A less-active story draws more attention to the ideas it represents.  Is that what WotF is looking for, the ideas?  Or is it just that beginning writers tend to create their finest early works when they focus on ideas without letting all that action get in the way.All these stories are quite good, and I do not intend these comments to detract from any of them.  I am just trying to analyze patterns.  These patterns may only run as deep as issue XXIV.  Further investigation is necessary before any statistical correlation is defined. I’m eager to hear other people’s opinions as well.

-Oso

The Rookie

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TheRookieI recently finished reading The Rookie by best-selling horror writer Scott Sigler.  I discovered the book through Mur Lafferty’s podcast I Should Be Writing.  This was a significant departure for Sigler, not at all a horror story, and he self-published a limited edition.  Mine is number 1122 out of 3000.

Like every writer that thinks he/she read a book before you did, I’m going to write a review.

In a future only a few hundred years away. football has become the intergalactic pass-time of all races.  Teams are composed of players from all races, some fitting certain roles better than others (big races are linemen, fast races are receivers, humans get a lot of the multi-faceted roles).  The book follows rookie quarterback phenom Quentin Barnes (QB the QB) through his journey from lowly Tier 3 ball to a Tier 2 team poised for a shot at Tier 1 (the system works similarly to Europe’s soccer leagues).  Quentin battles his ignorance of and prejudices against the other races as he tries to  earn a starting position and lead his team to the promised land.

To say that The Rookie has a formulaic story is to put things mildly.  Young, arrogant talent comes to the big leagues and discovers he’s not half as good as he thinks he is, then tries to lead the team to victory.  That’s only eighty percent of the sports movies ever made.  But then, I was reading a sci-fi football book.  What should I expect, War and Peace?  The book delivers on its formula right up until the last game where I felt a bit let down.  (I am resisting spoilers since there are two versions of the sports formula: victory and just-missed-but-we’re-better-for-the-run.  This is one of those.)  It wasn’t the result that disappointed me, rather the lack of suspense and mundane events that lead to that ending, specifically events that fail to hinge on the protagonist.  You don’t expect Notre Dame’s success or failure to revolve around Rudy at the last second, but I did expect the Krakens’ to revolve around Quentin.

The alien races were nicely developed.  I particularly liked the speedy Sklorno race that has made football into a religion and canonize exceptional athletes, especially quarterbacks.  The Ki were intriguing but left too mysterious; I wanted Quentin to really connect with them.  Maybe that was asking a bit much of a reluctant bigot like Quentin.  The Quyth were probably the most developed and the least interesting, with an obvious caste system that dictated everything about their culture that wasn’t a criminal enterprise.  And the ruling class of Creterakians was odd at best and distractingly trivial at worst.  All that said, I was amused by the races and the story would fall apart without them.

I had a hard time sympathizing with Quentin in the middle third of the book.  His thoughts were flawed in obvious ways, insisting people were trying to sabotage him when they were obviously trying to help him and getting way too tied up in his own ego.  I like flawed characters, but it was very juvenile.  But then, so was Quentin.  The characterization goal was achieved without the subtlety I hoped for.

Other characters were considerably better sculpted, specifically Donald Pine, the veteran quarterback entering his decline.  His flaws were integral to the plot, too, and their handling was similarly un-subtle — more abrupt than obvious.  While on the subject of likable characters, Denver and Kill-O-Yowet were just starting to be interesting when the story veered away from them.

Now let’s discuss the book as a physical object.  Very nice.  The cover is very nice and the game program inside (with color art of the races, interviews, even advertisements) is awesome.  It definitely helped to immerse me in the story and just made the ride more fun.  The box scores and league updates after every game were neat, but they might have served better in the appendices with all the other excerts.  Sigler’s autograph is nice.  The one thing the book seemed to be missing was professional editing.  Typos abounded, in some sections. one every other page.  Breath instead of breathe, me instead of he, and on…  Distracting but nothing I couldn’t work through.  (It could be worse…someone could have omitted twenty-eight consecutive words.)

All in all, it was a pleasant book that I felt fit a Harry Potter-aged target audience (though Harry’s dilemmas were depicted more subtly).  Simple, straight-forward plot with no major logical holes I noticed (other than the Krakens playing their first playoff game on the road).  Most of the obstacles are predictable, as are the solutions (though not the juniper berries).  Could it have been stronger?  Sure.  The Barnes-Pine conflict could have been less transparent early and Pine’s confession could certainly have used more pressure, and…  It was a light read, but an enjoyable one.

The Rookie

  • Plot: C
  • Individual Characters: C-
  • Character Races: A-
  • Setting: A
  • Packaging: A+
  • Spelling: D
  • Tilt: A

Overall: B

I understand that Sigler offered The Rookie as a free podcast.  I feel like I overpaid for the book, but it’s a collector’s item.  Who knows, it may be worth money when someone makes a movie out of it.  (It would translate to the screen well, animated or live actors mixed with CGI.)

-Oso