I've long been a fan of speculative fiction. I love immersing myself in an adventure, fantastical or otherwise, and braving long odds via characters much more courageous than myself. My favorite tales make it easy to lose myself, as a steady stream of images fill my head. When I envision everything in the plot in cinematic detail, it's no wonder it takes me so long to read a novel. I don't really care how long it takes, as long as I'm engaged. The more in touch I am with the characters and their conflicts, the harder it is to put down the book.
It's the same with video games for me. There are some games built around a superbly crafted story, complete with characters that seem so genuinely human that you can't help sympathizing with them. These are the gems. My expectations only seem to rise as the technology improves. Mashing buttons while defeating threats doesn't really cut it anymore.
Now here I'm definitely dating myself, but I cut my teeth on the Atari 2600. Space Invaders, Frogger, Pacman and Joust were a few of my favorites. Beyond the difficulty involved in keeping the pixelated hero alive, there wasn't a lot to these types of games. There was a game called Adventure that sent me on a quest through mazes and other obstacles, finding keys and battling dragons. It was the height of gaming technology at the time, and it was about as immersive as an algebra assignment. I could pretend that I, Sir Square, set out to slay the dragons (squiggles) with the help of my trusty sword (an arrow) amid a maze of blue rectangles, but it was very easy to turn off and forget.
I had my first experience with an engaging video game story when I played "System Shock 2" somewhere around 2001. There were undoubtedly others I had missed, but this is the first I remember. It was also the first game to give me an idea of what the medium could become over time. I cared about the characters. The tension was very real, often startling me nearly out of my chair. Even though there was little interaction with other characters outside the artificial intelligence, SHODAN, the crew of the spaceships seemed very real. I had only their audio journals to learn about them, but I could sympathize with their fears and learn from their instructions, even if I couldn't interact with them. I wanted more stories in my games after that. There were a few that came close, but it was a long time until I got what I really wanted.
Nearly 14 years after System Shock 2 was released, The Last of Us debuted. It was, and remains so far, the only game I ever ordered before it hit shelves. I did this because I had seen some news about the game's unprecedented storytelling and character development. The preview really sold me. I watched the main characters make their ways through part of an American city after a horrible plague wiped out most of civilization. The characters had been shaped by loss and grief, had hardened themselves to surviving at all costs, and somehow they both needed each other on an emotional level that neither was equipped to express. Sounds like something I'd enjoy reading, and that's what made it such a compelling game. It was difficult to stop playing. I wanted to know what would happen next on their journey, and every time I somehow navigated them through one scrape they would find themselves in another. It was a video game after all, so there was plenty of running and fighting and overcoming obstacles. Always the story took precedence over all of these traditional video game elements, and that's what I loved. I enjoyed the character interactions so much, that I immediately played it again once I had finished it. That had never happened before with other games.
I don't have time to play video games very often these days, but I have a feeling that I will make time if there's ever another that can engage me the same way a great novel can. There probably are, and I just haven't heard of them, but so far I haven't found any that string me along like The Last of Us did. Perhaps there's even a future for me as a writer in this medium. It would be something I'd like to try, though I'm sure it's very different from writing a story or novel. I'll have to look into it. Getting a chance to combine two of my favorite things would be a dream come true.
Sunday, March 29, 2015
Thursday, March 26, 2015
The Twister Down the Street
Extreme weather makes for exciting news. There's certainly a lot of time spent covering the hurricanes that sweep the NC coast each year. Some poor newscaster is usually decked out like the Gorton's Fisherman, while rain lashes and wind buffets. Normally only the aftermath of tornadoes is seen on the news. Felled trees and power lines feature heavily.
These violent displays of nature are awesome and fascinating to me, from a distance. Up close, they can be genuinely terrifying and utterly humbling when facing the forces involved. To see mature trees ripped from the earth and scattered like matchsticks, or vehicles tumbled by surging floodwater, leaves me speechless and feeling fortunate to have survived.
Several years ago, we had a close call with a tornado. There are no basements in most homes around me. The water table is too high to make them practical. The best we could do was find an interior hallway as far from windows as we could manage. I held the dogs, one panting and trembling during the thunder and the other more concerned with the wandering cat. The cat, oblivious to the danger, sauntered through the kitchen after escaping us. He wanted a drink of water.
My son was more excited than scared. My wife held him, and we did our best to maintain calm faces and voices. I watched through the kitchen windows as the trees bent nearly double by the wind and the sky darkened. The rain drummed against the glass of the storm door. Weather alerts squawked from our cell phones, telling us that a tornado had touched down near our neighborhood. My mind raced to thoughts of trees crashing into the roof. I tried not to grind my teeth to powder.
It was over quickly. The wind calmed, and the rain slackened to a drizzle. No trees came down on the house or in our back yard, proof of the flexibility of the pines. We freed the dogs and kid. Slowly we ventured out to assess the damage. Our house was one of the lucky few left unscathed. My son pointed across the street and said, "Where's their tree?" My wife pointed to the house nextdoor and replied, "There." The tree had been blown into the neighbor's garage and through her front window.
Out back, there was a smell we couldn't identify. We should've recognized it immediately, but for some reason we didn't. There was a hissing sound, and we realized there was a gas leak nearby. We rushed out front to talk to people and make sure we weren't crazy. Word was being passed that we needed to evacuate our neighborhood until the leak could be capped off.
We hurried the dogs into the car, no sign of the cat, and left. It was crowded in that Chevy Prizm, and my son was soon tired of sharing the back seat with the mutts. We decided on the park, since we would be able to take the dogs out and walk around a bit. Small, uprooted trees were scattered about, but none blocked the road.
We spent a couple of hours in the park before deciding we should head home. The neighborhood wasn't blocked off, so we assumed it was safe to return. We drove past our house, wanting to assess the damage on our street. That's when we saw where the gas leak must have originated, just a few blocks away. The house had been torn from its foundation and blown into the home nextdoor, where it had pulverized half of the second story. We learned later that the dislodged home had been thankfully vacant at the time of the storm.
I still get a little nervous every time the clouds roll in and the wind picks up this time of year. I think about how close we came to losing our home, possibly our lives. It was the first time I had experienced a tornado since moving to NC from NY in 1996. It probably won't be the last. When I talk to NC natives about it, they laugh it off like it's just a right of passage, even my wife. I look at them like they're crazy. Then it dawns on me that it's the same look they give me when I tell them they've never seen a real snow storm.
These violent displays of nature are awesome and fascinating to me, from a distance. Up close, they can be genuinely terrifying and utterly humbling when facing the forces involved. To see mature trees ripped from the earth and scattered like matchsticks, or vehicles tumbled by surging floodwater, leaves me speechless and feeling fortunate to have survived.
Several years ago, we had a close call with a tornado. There are no basements in most homes around me. The water table is too high to make them practical. The best we could do was find an interior hallway as far from windows as we could manage. I held the dogs, one panting and trembling during the thunder and the other more concerned with the wandering cat. The cat, oblivious to the danger, sauntered through the kitchen after escaping us. He wanted a drink of water.
My son was more excited than scared. My wife held him, and we did our best to maintain calm faces and voices. I watched through the kitchen windows as the trees bent nearly double by the wind and the sky darkened. The rain drummed against the glass of the storm door. Weather alerts squawked from our cell phones, telling us that a tornado had touched down near our neighborhood. My mind raced to thoughts of trees crashing into the roof. I tried not to grind my teeth to powder.
It was over quickly. The wind calmed, and the rain slackened to a drizzle. No trees came down on the house or in our back yard, proof of the flexibility of the pines. We freed the dogs and kid. Slowly we ventured out to assess the damage. Our house was one of the lucky few left unscathed. My son pointed across the street and said, "Where's their tree?" My wife pointed to the house nextdoor and replied, "There." The tree had been blown into the neighbor's garage and through her front window.
Out back, there was a smell we couldn't identify. We should've recognized it immediately, but for some reason we didn't. There was a hissing sound, and we realized there was a gas leak nearby. We rushed out front to talk to people and make sure we weren't crazy. Word was being passed that we needed to evacuate our neighborhood until the leak could be capped off.
We hurried the dogs into the car, no sign of the cat, and left. It was crowded in that Chevy Prizm, and my son was soon tired of sharing the back seat with the mutts. We decided on the park, since we would be able to take the dogs out and walk around a bit. Small, uprooted trees were scattered about, but none blocked the road.
We spent a couple of hours in the park before deciding we should head home. The neighborhood wasn't blocked off, so we assumed it was safe to return. We drove past our house, wanting to assess the damage on our street. That's when we saw where the gas leak must have originated, just a few blocks away. The house had been torn from its foundation and blown into the home nextdoor, where it had pulverized half of the second story. We learned later that the dislodged home had been thankfully vacant at the time of the storm.
I still get a little nervous every time the clouds roll in and the wind picks up this time of year. I think about how close we came to losing our home, possibly our lives. It was the first time I had experienced a tornado since moving to NC from NY in 1996. It probably won't be the last. When I talk to NC natives about it, they laugh it off like it's just a right of passage, even my wife. I look at them like they're crazy. Then it dawns on me that it's the same look they give me when I tell them they've never seen a real snow storm.
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Beneath the Surface
There's been some indisputably excellent storytelling happening on television. There are programs with the kind of depth and compelling characters that I would be hard pressed to find in novels, and I'm the kind of guy who nearly always says: "Meh, I liked the book better." Sometimes these programs run for many seasons. Other times, despite being phenomenal shows, they get canceled. Sometimes it comes down to production costs. Other times, they don't really find an audience until after they've been cut, but it's too difficult to bring them back for one reason or another. I think sometimes people see a promotional advertisement that only scratches the surface of the program, and they make a snap judgment, deciding it isn't worth their time. Let's see if maybe there's something these two examples have in common.
A confident and capable man is thrown into an immediately confusing and violent situation. After his initial shock, he tries to get an explanation about the attack that's raging outside. The people he next meets are strangers, and they don't trust him. They suspect that he's a spy, despite his best attempt to persuade them that he's scared and out of his element. They subdue him and lock him in a cell, where they arrive to confront him after the threat of the attack is over. Unfortunately for him, they have incarcerated him alongside another prisoner, one who is also a stranger to him and believes him to be a deserter from her military unit, or possibly someone undercover sent to see whether or not she will submit to interrogation. Sound interesting? If someone described this to me, I'd probably guess it was something new from the makers of the Bourne movies or J. J. Abrams, akin to his popular show, Alias. Here's another...
An aging warhorse is sent to oversee a military museum, where his tactical talents and leadership ability are set aside for bean counting and spit-and-polish inspections. His second-in-command, is content to drink away his remaining service years until he can slip into retirement, where he hopes to smooth things over with his wife. She's never liked taking a back seat to his career, but he's a stubborn old goat, like his friend and commanding officer, and he's just as married to his duty as he is to her. Things go to hell. They find themselves, and their crew, the last hope against a sinister threat to eradicate civilization. The enemy is calculating, ruthless and adept at infiltrating and subverting the heroes' society. What's almost worse, behind the military struggle are politicians with their own agendas for grabbing more power and influence, often undermining the work the military is struggling to accomplish. Civilians are often caught in the middle, used for dueling factions' ambitions. I might add, that this gem was a critically acclaimed series before it wrapped up after its fourth season. Sounds like something from Tom Clancy, right? Read on to find out...
The first description is actually for the pilot episode of a groundbreaking science fiction show, Farscape. I just watched the pilot episode with my family, new to my son but not me and my wife. If you haven't seen it because spaceships and aliens turn you off, I advise you to give it a shot anyway. You can find it on Netflix, where we will be continuing to watch it. The main character is an American astronaut who is swept to another unknown part of space during a test flight. He looks like the enemies of the prisoners on the ship where he's captured. All of the prisoners are very alien and very skeptical of his claims to be from the planet "Erp", as one of them mispronounces it. He is a long, long way from home.
The second is a description of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica. Edward James Olmos plays Commander Adama, leading the last surviving humans in a desperate attempt to escape continued genocide by a robotic race, the Cylons. You might remember the original series, and enemies, from the original show during the late 1970's. With the new series came a new and more threatening version of the Cylons, since some are disguised in human form, some even replacing human counterparts, keeping tensions high throughout the program. Time Magazine called it the best program on television in 2005, not just the best science fiction program on television.
Farscape was made, my son enjoyed pointing out, before my wife and I got old and married. The Jim Henson Company provided makeup, creature and prosthetic effects, and it's very easy to get caught up in the plight of the characters and the isolation of the lone human, John Crichton. The way he's humored as a primitive among his fellow fugitives, especially with the knowledge that he's among the best and brightest from Earth, earns him even more sympathy. Battlestar Galactica appealed to me as a fan of military fiction as much as it did as a fan of science fiction. The everyday soldiers' and crewmen's points of view were explored as much as the Commander's and politicians'. I eagerly slipped into the desperation of the human society's flight and celebrated every small victory over the robotic nemesis. I loved some of the characters and loved hating others, though there were plenty in between that earned sympathy in some episodes and ire in others. They reminded me of the very human characters I usually like better in books.
Do yourself a favor and check out either, or both, of these shows. In the end, they're just brilliant television, science fiction or not. If you like them, it might open you up to a variety of other great programs you missed when they first aired.
A confident and capable man is thrown into an immediately confusing and violent situation. After his initial shock, he tries to get an explanation about the attack that's raging outside. The people he next meets are strangers, and they don't trust him. They suspect that he's a spy, despite his best attempt to persuade them that he's scared and out of his element. They subdue him and lock him in a cell, where they arrive to confront him after the threat of the attack is over. Unfortunately for him, they have incarcerated him alongside another prisoner, one who is also a stranger to him and believes him to be a deserter from her military unit, or possibly someone undercover sent to see whether or not she will submit to interrogation. Sound interesting? If someone described this to me, I'd probably guess it was something new from the makers of the Bourne movies or J. J. Abrams, akin to his popular show, Alias. Here's another...
An aging warhorse is sent to oversee a military museum, where his tactical talents and leadership ability are set aside for bean counting and spit-and-polish inspections. His second-in-command, is content to drink away his remaining service years until he can slip into retirement, where he hopes to smooth things over with his wife. She's never liked taking a back seat to his career, but he's a stubborn old goat, like his friend and commanding officer, and he's just as married to his duty as he is to her. Things go to hell. They find themselves, and their crew, the last hope against a sinister threat to eradicate civilization. The enemy is calculating, ruthless and adept at infiltrating and subverting the heroes' society. What's almost worse, behind the military struggle are politicians with their own agendas for grabbing more power and influence, often undermining the work the military is struggling to accomplish. Civilians are often caught in the middle, used for dueling factions' ambitions. I might add, that this gem was a critically acclaimed series before it wrapped up after its fourth season. Sounds like something from Tom Clancy, right? Read on to find out...
The first description is actually for the pilot episode of a groundbreaking science fiction show, Farscape. I just watched the pilot episode with my family, new to my son but not me and my wife. If you haven't seen it because spaceships and aliens turn you off, I advise you to give it a shot anyway. You can find it on Netflix, where we will be continuing to watch it. The main character is an American astronaut who is swept to another unknown part of space during a test flight. He looks like the enemies of the prisoners on the ship where he's captured. All of the prisoners are very alien and very skeptical of his claims to be from the planet "Erp", as one of them mispronounces it. He is a long, long way from home.
The second is a description of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica. Edward James Olmos plays Commander Adama, leading the last surviving humans in a desperate attempt to escape continued genocide by a robotic race, the Cylons. You might remember the original series, and enemies, from the original show during the late 1970's. With the new series came a new and more threatening version of the Cylons, since some are disguised in human form, some even replacing human counterparts, keeping tensions high throughout the program. Time Magazine called it the best program on television in 2005, not just the best science fiction program on television.
Farscape was made, my son enjoyed pointing out, before my wife and I got old and married. The Jim Henson Company provided makeup, creature and prosthetic effects, and it's very easy to get caught up in the plight of the characters and the isolation of the lone human, John Crichton. The way he's humored as a primitive among his fellow fugitives, especially with the knowledge that he's among the best and brightest from Earth, earns him even more sympathy. Battlestar Galactica appealed to me as a fan of military fiction as much as it did as a fan of science fiction. The everyday soldiers' and crewmen's points of view were explored as much as the Commander's and politicians'. I eagerly slipped into the desperation of the human society's flight and celebrated every small victory over the robotic nemesis. I loved some of the characters and loved hating others, though there were plenty in between that earned sympathy in some episodes and ire in others. They reminded me of the very human characters I usually like better in books.
Do yourself a favor and check out either, or both, of these shows. In the end, they're just brilliant television, science fiction or not. If you like them, it might open you up to a variety of other great programs you missed when they first aired.
Thursday, March 19, 2015
Edit, the Four-Letter Word
If I asked most people what they love about writing, I bet they wouldn't say "editing". I can't imagine anybody saying: "Oh, the fifth time I read my manuscript for typos and inconsistencies was just magical." Likewise, if I asked somebody why they wanted to become a writer, I really doubt they would say it was because they would get to do so much really exciting editing; however, I bet if I asked writers what was one of their most valued skills, they would agree that editing ranked highly.
So, I did what I often do if I want to learn about something. I bought a book about editing and read...most of it. Seriously, I read the parts that seemed to have the most to do with the type of stories I like to write. If you're interested in reading it yourself, it's called "The Complete Guide to Editing Your Fiction", by Michael Seidman. It was a good read: informative but also less dry than one would think. This book had some wonderful insights into dialogue and how it helps develop characters. That's probably the greatest among the many things I tried to absorb when reading it. I find dialogue to be something that really sets apart good books from great reads. Sometimes I'll pick up a book, after reading the jacket, and flip through it. Without having much more than a basic idea of the plot, I'll locate conversations among the characters to see if they sound consistent and believable. If they don't, chances are there will be a lot of other elements in the book that will irritate me. I want characters to speak like people naturally do. Granted, people speak differently, but the dialogue should tell me something about the people who are talking, both in what emotions they're feeling and subtler things, like how well they know each other.
I can't speak for other authors, but I can tell you that I don't hate editing. I like to think that every time I polish a story, it gets better. That's true most of the time, and I think whomever receives my story ends up agreeing that it was worth the time I invested that final review. It can be extremely rewarding work, but it can also be painful. For instance, the story "Catalyst", included in Nonlocal Science Fiction #1, originally included a much longer beginning involving the escape made by the main characters. I axed the whole thing. It hurt. It was probably a few hours of work and some material that I really liked, but I felt it was better as a shorter story. I thought it read better when the reader was plunked into the middle of the action. My editor and publisher decided that the story needed more information about the relationship between the two characters, so I spliced in some back-story from the original beginning to explain their history. It goes to show, that as important as it is for an author to edit their works, it's just as important to have someone else read them and offer some editing advice.
Editing isn't as much fun as writing. It's hard work, requires discipline and is easily the thing that makes me most want to procrastinate. It's also what makes me consider writing far more than a hobby for me. It's something to take pride in, like any other time-consuming project that requires attention to detail and perseverance. It's a job I love. If I want to seriously pursue writing as a career, there's no better way than making sure I edit everything with just as much passion as originally stirred me to write it.
So, I did what I often do if I want to learn about something. I bought a book about editing and read...most of it. Seriously, I read the parts that seemed to have the most to do with the type of stories I like to write. If you're interested in reading it yourself, it's called "The Complete Guide to Editing Your Fiction", by Michael Seidman. It was a good read: informative but also less dry than one would think. This book had some wonderful insights into dialogue and how it helps develop characters. That's probably the greatest among the many things I tried to absorb when reading it. I find dialogue to be something that really sets apart good books from great reads. Sometimes I'll pick up a book, after reading the jacket, and flip through it. Without having much more than a basic idea of the plot, I'll locate conversations among the characters to see if they sound consistent and believable. If they don't, chances are there will be a lot of other elements in the book that will irritate me. I want characters to speak like people naturally do. Granted, people speak differently, but the dialogue should tell me something about the people who are talking, both in what emotions they're feeling and subtler things, like how well they know each other.
I can't speak for other authors, but I can tell you that I don't hate editing. I like to think that every time I polish a story, it gets better. That's true most of the time, and I think whomever receives my story ends up agreeing that it was worth the time I invested that final review. It can be extremely rewarding work, but it can also be painful. For instance, the story "Catalyst", included in Nonlocal Science Fiction #1, originally included a much longer beginning involving the escape made by the main characters. I axed the whole thing. It hurt. It was probably a few hours of work and some material that I really liked, but I felt it was better as a shorter story. I thought it read better when the reader was plunked into the middle of the action. My editor and publisher decided that the story needed more information about the relationship between the two characters, so I spliced in some back-story from the original beginning to explain their history. It goes to show, that as important as it is for an author to edit their works, it's just as important to have someone else read them and offer some editing advice.
Editing isn't as much fun as writing. It's hard work, requires discipline and is easily the thing that makes me most want to procrastinate. It's also what makes me consider writing far more than a hobby for me. It's something to take pride in, like any other time-consuming project that requires attention to detail and perseverance. It's a job I love. If I want to seriously pursue writing as a career, there's no better way than making sure I edit everything with just as much passion as originally stirred me to write it.
Sunday, March 15, 2015
The Excitement Continues at the Release of Nonlocal Science Fiction #1
If you were good enough to give money to the Kickstarter for this new magazine, then I wholeheartedly heap thanks on your generosity. It also means that you received an advanced copy of the magazine and perhaps a few other goodies. The official launch of the first issue happened yesterday, reminding me once again that I'm not dreaming any of this. I sold a story to a fiction publication, and it's available for people to buy world-wide! Lest I forget, here are some links to sites where you can download it or even have it printed and shipped to you.
http://nonlocalscifi.com/store/ Here you can buy the digital copy.
http://www.amazon.com/Nonlocal-Science-Fiction-Daniel-Dombrowski/dp/0996172327/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426337155 Here you can get it in print with Amazon's usual shipping discounts.
The publisher also hosts a podcast. If you're not familiar with podcasts, they're like radio shows without the inconvenience of scheduled programming. You can download them to your favorite device or listen to them on your computer whenever you like. You can even subscribe to them, so every new edition is automatically downloaded if you want.
An interview with me was recorded on Saturday afternoon, and it will be available on the podcast in a couple of weeks. I had a blast talking with the publisher, Dan, and answering a bunch of questions about my story, my background and writing in general. I admit, I was nervous. I'm not much of a speaker, thus my preference for emails instead of phone calls. Writing is what I love to do. I'll make sure to post information when the interview is available. Dan mentioned that there might be additional interviews possible, with other podcasts or via email from online publications, as he starts the marketing push.
I hope giving interviews gets easier, and I certainly hope it continues. Practice makes perfect, right? There was a time that I had to take a public speaking class. It was terrifying to get up in front of the class and talk about even the most familiar of subjects. I struggled to stay calm and speak clearly. At least for the podcast I didn't have to make good eye contact and use visual aids.
It's good to step out of your comfort zone occasionally. Panic attacks aside, I think I could use more of it. I remember my mom telling me how uncomfortable my father was with public speaking, and that gives me some comfort. I can't ever remember a situation that my dad couldn't handle. At the same time, I knew speaking in front of people was something he had to do all the time for his job. I bet nobody ever saw him sweat. I'd like to think that I could pull that off one day.
I hope I continue to get a chance to talk to people about writing and how awesome it makes me feel to write fiction that people enjoy. If I'm lucky, I'll do it a lot. Maybe I'll even become fairly competent at it. I certainly want to be able to express my gratitude to everyone who has ever supported my dream of writing, and I don't want there to be any nervousness or poor diction getting in the way. It's too important to convey clearly how fortunate I am to get the chance to do this.
If you've purchased a copy of Nonlocal Science Fiction, and you like my story, "Catalyst", please leave me a comment here, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/authoraaronlhamilton or follow me on Twitter: @AaronLHamilton. I would like to personally thank you for your support.
http://nonlocalscifi.com/store/ Here you can buy the digital copy.
http://www.amazon.com/Nonlocal-Science-Fiction-Daniel-Dombrowski/dp/0996172327/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426337155 Here you can get it in print with Amazon's usual shipping discounts.
The publisher also hosts a podcast. If you're not familiar with podcasts, they're like radio shows without the inconvenience of scheduled programming. You can download them to your favorite device or listen to them on your computer whenever you like. You can even subscribe to them, so every new edition is automatically downloaded if you want.
An interview with me was recorded on Saturday afternoon, and it will be available on the podcast in a couple of weeks. I had a blast talking with the publisher, Dan, and answering a bunch of questions about my story, my background and writing in general. I admit, I was nervous. I'm not much of a speaker, thus my preference for emails instead of phone calls. Writing is what I love to do. I'll make sure to post information when the interview is available. Dan mentioned that there might be additional interviews possible, with other podcasts or via email from online publications, as he starts the marketing push.
I hope giving interviews gets easier, and I certainly hope it continues. Practice makes perfect, right? There was a time that I had to take a public speaking class. It was terrifying to get up in front of the class and talk about even the most familiar of subjects. I struggled to stay calm and speak clearly. At least for the podcast I didn't have to make good eye contact and use visual aids.
It's good to step out of your comfort zone occasionally. Panic attacks aside, I think I could use more of it. I remember my mom telling me how uncomfortable my father was with public speaking, and that gives me some comfort. I can't ever remember a situation that my dad couldn't handle. At the same time, I knew speaking in front of people was something he had to do all the time for his job. I bet nobody ever saw him sweat. I'd like to think that I could pull that off one day.
I hope I continue to get a chance to talk to people about writing and how awesome it makes me feel to write fiction that people enjoy. If I'm lucky, I'll do it a lot. Maybe I'll even become fairly competent at it. I certainly want to be able to express my gratitude to everyone who has ever supported my dream of writing, and I don't want there to be any nervousness or poor diction getting in the way. It's too important to convey clearly how fortunate I am to get the chance to do this.
If you've purchased a copy of Nonlocal Science Fiction, and you like my story, "Catalyst", please leave me a comment here, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/authoraaronlhamilton or follow me on Twitter: @AaronLHamilton. I would like to personally thank you for your support.
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Break Room Distraction Writing Exercise
A couple of posts ago, I mentioned all the distractions in my usual place for writing. I decided that instead of fighting them, I would see if they led to anything. At least I would delve further into the characters in the soap opera on the TV.
Today the TV was extra loud because the ACC Playoffs were on. For Sportsball fans, that's basketball, and the only reason I knew what was going on was because a game was being played a couple of hours away from me. The game came complete with chanting cheerleaders, shrill whistles and sneakers squeaking against polished wood. In the kitchen, there was a contemporary rock station playing a "great mix of yesterday's and today's hits". Under the basketball squeaking, tweeting, cheering and commentating, the music sounded like drums and humming. Here's where my mind traveled amid all of the stimuli.
I started out by thinking of the outline for my novel. The protagonist was about to escape a school formal with the love of her young life, to the chagrin of her date. They will rocket off into the night on a borrowed motorcycle and soon find themselves in unexpected danger. It is an echo of the trouble that originally brought them together.
"Virginia shot 63% from the field." In another field, one made of pixels, I recently watched my son control a knight astride his warhorse. Enemies charged toward him, lances lowered. An arrow thunked into his shield. "Wow! That startled me!" He was all smiles and determination. Even virtual arrows can be scary when you're not expecting them.
"I can feel it coming in the air tonight. Oh, Lord." Man, Phil Collins used to rock. The first time I heard that song, my dad was younger than I am now. Thinking of my dad made me remember a special first day of fishing season with him. I plan to write about that in a later blog entry. It will appear here a little bit closer to its anniversary in early April.
"That's his first foul." Foul reminds me of baseball, and that makes me remember that I need to grab the wiffle ball bat from the closest and put it in my car. The balls are still rolling around in the trunk, never deposited inside after fall grew cold. It became a 15 or 20 minute daily routine after picking up my son from school. He developed a pretty good swing last year, despite my poor pitching. He mentioned it a few days ago when it was unseasonably warm. Unfortunately it's still pretty soggy on our usual playing field, but it's quickly warming up and drying out.
"Push it! Push it real good!" My son looked at me and my wife with disbelief and not a little pity. We were playing some popular music from our high school days. I had been singing this one while he and I pushed our trash and recycling containers out to the street for pick-up. Once inside, we played the song and danced around, while he stared open-mouthed at the horror before him. I wondered if I looked at my parents the same way when they did the twist in my childhood living room.
"...and 8 assists!" I was talking with a co-worker who was looking into assisted living for his parents. We discussed how difficult it must be to transition into old age, leaving unspoken that our days would come. I told him a story I heard from a friend a long time ago. One of his neighbors, faced with the fact that his kids intended to place him in a "home", rowed himself out to the middle of a secluded lake and blew his boat (and person) to bits with dynamite. My co-worker opined that he hoped he had the presence of mind to go out on his own terms when his time came. I personally like to think I will have my mind downloaded into a robot by then.
I think my novel's protagonists will seek out a romantic lakeside locale for their escape from the prom: moonlight on the water, crickets chirping and no TV. Absolutely no dynamite. Sometimes something productive does come out of the distractions after all.
Today the TV was extra loud because the ACC Playoffs were on. For Sportsball fans, that's basketball, and the only reason I knew what was going on was because a game was being played a couple of hours away from me. The game came complete with chanting cheerleaders, shrill whistles and sneakers squeaking against polished wood. In the kitchen, there was a contemporary rock station playing a "great mix of yesterday's and today's hits". Under the basketball squeaking, tweeting, cheering and commentating, the music sounded like drums and humming. Here's where my mind traveled amid all of the stimuli.
I started out by thinking of the outline for my novel. The protagonist was about to escape a school formal with the love of her young life, to the chagrin of her date. They will rocket off into the night on a borrowed motorcycle and soon find themselves in unexpected danger. It is an echo of the trouble that originally brought them together.
"Virginia shot 63% from the field." In another field, one made of pixels, I recently watched my son control a knight astride his warhorse. Enemies charged toward him, lances lowered. An arrow thunked into his shield. "Wow! That startled me!" He was all smiles and determination. Even virtual arrows can be scary when you're not expecting them.
"I can feel it coming in the air tonight. Oh, Lord." Man, Phil Collins used to rock. The first time I heard that song, my dad was younger than I am now. Thinking of my dad made me remember a special first day of fishing season with him. I plan to write about that in a later blog entry. It will appear here a little bit closer to its anniversary in early April.
"That's his first foul." Foul reminds me of baseball, and that makes me remember that I need to grab the wiffle ball bat from the closest and put it in my car. The balls are still rolling around in the trunk, never deposited inside after fall grew cold. It became a 15 or 20 minute daily routine after picking up my son from school. He developed a pretty good swing last year, despite my poor pitching. He mentioned it a few days ago when it was unseasonably warm. Unfortunately it's still pretty soggy on our usual playing field, but it's quickly warming up and drying out.
"Push it! Push it real good!" My son looked at me and my wife with disbelief and not a little pity. We were playing some popular music from our high school days. I had been singing this one while he and I pushed our trash and recycling containers out to the street for pick-up. Once inside, we played the song and danced around, while he stared open-mouthed at the horror before him. I wondered if I looked at my parents the same way when they did the twist in my childhood living room.
"...and 8 assists!" I was talking with a co-worker who was looking into assisted living for his parents. We discussed how difficult it must be to transition into old age, leaving unspoken that our days would come. I told him a story I heard from a friend a long time ago. One of his neighbors, faced with the fact that his kids intended to place him in a "home", rowed himself out to the middle of a secluded lake and blew his boat (and person) to bits with dynamite. My co-worker opined that he hoped he had the presence of mind to go out on his own terms when his time came. I personally like to think I will have my mind downloaded into a robot by then.
I think my novel's protagonists will seek out a romantic lakeside locale for their escape from the prom: moonlight on the water, crickets chirping and no TV. Absolutely no dynamite. Sometimes something productive does come out of the distractions after all.
Sunday, March 8, 2015
May My Inspirations Forgive Me
I like castles, sword fights, orcs, dragons and undead sorcerers as much as the next geek. I've read literally a ton of of fantasy novels, some heavier than others, since I was a wee lad. For every fantasy novel that I read to completion, there are probably three that I bookmark and shelve unfinished. It makes me wonder, despite having a few ideas for fantasy novels that I really like, if I will ever write anything in the fantasy genre.
I'm extremely picky about my fantasy reading. I stumbled upon "The Black Company", by Glen Cook, at an early age, and I immediately took to the darker side of the genre. The sub-genre "grimdark" sums up my reading preferences pretty well, though this is also used to describe other genres of fiction that are particularly violent and dystopian. I've read other types of fantasy, but I always come back to the grimdark works for pure reading satisfaction. Some grimdark goes out of its way to stomp on heroics and romanticism. This is almost as bad as some of the more syrupy, black-and-white, happy-ending stuff I've read. It's just as predictable. You only have to imagine the worst possible outcome for the characters, and you've figured out most of the story. I've read some novels that made me feel horribly depressed, yet some of them are still great reads. Even though they were heartbreaking, I felt compelled to finish them and see just how badly the protagonists wound up. Sometimes they died, and sometimes they just had more scars to carry into the sequel.
My favorite fantasies are character-driven and told from multiple points of view. Some are long-winded and others almost terse in their descriptions, but all of them somehow take what I've read many times before and make it into something novel and compelling.
I don't know if I can do that.
I would hate to spend the effort building a fantasy world and populating it with interesting characters, only to find at some point that I had unintentionally ripped off another author's ideas. To me, it seems like fantasy is the genre where this will be the most likely. I've read interviews with authors who have claimed that it's inevitable for this to happen. They encourage the telling of these tales anyway, with the caveat that one needs to write in an original voice to make it work. I can't help but think that anything I wrote would sound like an impersonation of my favorite writers. How many other things have I written that are derivative of authors I've never read? Probably at least a few.
I won't let this stop me from writing. I enjoy it too much. I may take another stab at the fantasy genre at some point, too. There are certainly a lot of other authors writing in the genre, so I can't imagine all of them are creating unique stories after all the fantasy novels that have come before. Maybe fans of fantasy will be ready to hear my voice one day. I hope they'll be nice enough to forgive me for any unintentional similarities with my predecessors.
Thursday, March 5, 2015
Shhhhhhh!
I'm very easily distracted nowadays. There was once a time when I had incredible focus, but that only lasted through junior high or so. Maybe puberty was the beginning of the end for my concentration. It became more and more difficult to study, until I finally realized that I needed a minimal amount of stimulation from my environment if I were ever going to get my homework done. I could even distract myself at times, hammering out a beat on my notebook with a pencil even though the music was only in my mind.
It's even worse as an adult. That's why it's so hard for me to get writing done, even when I have some down time to do it. It's like there's always something pulling at my attention, but it's especially bad if there's any noise around at all. I have to sequester myself somewhere completely quiet if I want to be truly productive. Home is sometimes the worst because my house is small, and there's nearly always noise of some kind: TV, stereo,child, pets, traffic, etc. A lot of the noises come from happiness, and I certainly don't want to hush them. Even so, I've got to write. It's what I want to do with the rest of my life. I decided that I could get more writing done on my lunch breaks at work and leave things like typing. blogging and research for the evenings at home.
My writing place of choice during lunch was always the break room. Normally this might seem odd, but it was usually empty whenever I would go. There were a succession of snack bar managers that just couldn't seem to make things work. The food was pretty bad, the staff were unfriendly and the tables were always sticky. Most people avoided the place except to buy soda from the vending machines. It was perfect. I would head there a little late to avoid the few customers, and then I would have the place to myself.
The new management is great. The food is excellent, the staff are customer service pros and the place is so clean that it's like someplace you would want to eat. There's upbeat pop music on the radio in the kitchen and always jovial conversation among the numerous customers. There's even a new TV blaring from its wall mount, with no remote control or visible volume buttons in sight. For me, I might as well be in an airport terminal.
Some days I just give up and try to catch up on emails on my phone instead of writing. It's disheartening to sit over a blank page for 30 or 40 minutes, knowing I will have to wait a full day to see if conditions are more conducive to writing. There's a break room in an adjacent building where I once spent my whole break alone. I wrote the whole time, grinning like a lunatic. I told myself it was a new beginning, a dawn of productivity and creative release. The next day at the same time, the place was full. I didn't even go inside, just turned around and went back to sit in front of the TV.
Every once in a while, when my inspiration is peaked, I can scratch out a couple of pages despite the distractions. The language is usually pretty plain and uninspired, as I just try to address the major plot points before I forget something. Occasional song lyrics get through from the radio, and I try to drive them out with more furious scribbling. The tired soap opera intrigue on the TV sometimes generates unwanted questions in my mind. Will Jessica and Peter ever get back together? Which of the children will receive Victor's inheritance? I don't care enough to pay attention on purpose. It's not like I'm watching it. It's just a struggle to tune the actors out and concentrate.
Lately I've been sitting in my car to write. It's often warmer than the cube farm where I work, where for some reason the A/C blasts during winter. Noises are muffled through the window and door seals. It smells lemony, like the cough drop that has melted and stuck to the bottom of my cup holder. Eventually it will get too hot to sit there in the afternoon, but maybe I can drive around the block to find a shady spot. I have a feeling it's going to be the place where I can be the most productive.
I think next week, I'll try something new. Instead of trying to concentrate in the break room, I'll let all of the noise, TV dialogue and song lyrics pour into my head. Then I'll just starting writing a stream of consciousness, going wherever the distractions take me. It might be fun to see what comes out of the experience. Jessica, Peter...I just know you kids are going to make it.
It's even worse as an adult. That's why it's so hard for me to get writing done, even when I have some down time to do it. It's like there's always something pulling at my attention, but it's especially bad if there's any noise around at all. I have to sequester myself somewhere completely quiet if I want to be truly productive. Home is sometimes the worst because my house is small, and there's nearly always noise of some kind: TV, stereo,child, pets, traffic, etc. A lot of the noises come from happiness, and I certainly don't want to hush them. Even so, I've got to write. It's what I want to do with the rest of my life. I decided that I could get more writing done on my lunch breaks at work and leave things like typing. blogging and research for the evenings at home.
My writing place of choice during lunch was always the break room. Normally this might seem odd, but it was usually empty whenever I would go. There were a succession of snack bar managers that just couldn't seem to make things work. The food was pretty bad, the staff were unfriendly and the tables were always sticky. Most people avoided the place except to buy soda from the vending machines. It was perfect. I would head there a little late to avoid the few customers, and then I would have the place to myself.
The new management is great. The food is excellent, the staff are customer service pros and the place is so clean that it's like someplace you would want to eat. There's upbeat pop music on the radio in the kitchen and always jovial conversation among the numerous customers. There's even a new TV blaring from its wall mount, with no remote control or visible volume buttons in sight. For me, I might as well be in an airport terminal.
Some days I just give up and try to catch up on emails on my phone instead of writing. It's disheartening to sit over a blank page for 30 or 40 minutes, knowing I will have to wait a full day to see if conditions are more conducive to writing. There's a break room in an adjacent building where I once spent my whole break alone. I wrote the whole time, grinning like a lunatic. I told myself it was a new beginning, a dawn of productivity and creative release. The next day at the same time, the place was full. I didn't even go inside, just turned around and went back to sit in front of the TV.
Every once in a while, when my inspiration is peaked, I can scratch out a couple of pages despite the distractions. The language is usually pretty plain and uninspired, as I just try to address the major plot points before I forget something. Occasional song lyrics get through from the radio, and I try to drive them out with more furious scribbling. The tired soap opera intrigue on the TV sometimes generates unwanted questions in my mind. Will Jessica and Peter ever get back together? Which of the children will receive Victor's inheritance? I don't care enough to pay attention on purpose. It's not like I'm watching it. It's just a struggle to tune the actors out and concentrate.
Lately I've been sitting in my car to write. It's often warmer than the cube farm where I work, where for some reason the A/C blasts during winter. Noises are muffled through the window and door seals. It smells lemony, like the cough drop that has melted and stuck to the bottom of my cup holder. Eventually it will get too hot to sit there in the afternoon, but maybe I can drive around the block to find a shady spot. I have a feeling it's going to be the place where I can be the most productive.
I think next week, I'll try something new. Instead of trying to concentrate in the break room, I'll let all of the noise, TV dialogue and song lyrics pour into my head. Then I'll just starting writing a stream of consciousness, going wherever the distractions take me. It might be fun to see what comes out of the experience. Jessica, Peter...I just know you kids are going to make it.
Sunday, March 1, 2015
Scare Me Slowly
Zombies are everywhere. Don't worry. I mean they're very popular in entertainment right now: movies, TV, toys, games. There are plague zombies, alien zombies, magical zombies, cyborg zombies and others I no doubt haven't seen. Some of these are bone-chilling, some of them are lukewarm and some of them are a complete waste of time. Some of these zombies even sprint after their prey, and I've got to say that I much prefer the tried-and-true slow zombie in my horror entertainment.
I've liked scary stories ever since I was a kid. Unfortunately it seems like the more I experienced, the harder it was to scare me. After a while, I couldn't get scared by most of the stuff I watched or read. It was very disappointing to sit down in anticipation of something terrifying and wind up with with a snooze. Maybe it was just a sign that I was growing up. As movies stretched for more shock value, I cringed with every sequel, wondering why the second or fifth of a series was ever made when the first installment was so wretched. The end result was that I gave up on the horror genre for a long time.
Through it all, zombies have been my consistent nightmare of choice. I can find a movie on Netflix that involves zombies, and I catch myself getting excited about a possible gem. I'll watch a movie with running zombies, but it never seems to have the same effect on me as a shuffling horde of undead. A running zombie might as well be a charging lion to me. The tension is over too quickly. I never get a chance to feel the fear crawling up into my belly, knotting me up, causing me to squint and grind my teeth as someone gets chomped.
Any good story, in my opinion, relies upon characters that I can grow to like or like to hate. This is even more important to me in a book or movie, where I know some of the characters are not going to survive. As I grow to like a character, the tension is more intense when her life is danger, or when she has to make a painful choice. It's even better when death by zombie seems inevitable, but the heroes struggle on to defy the odds. The dead, of course, outnumber the living. That's why it's a zombie apocalypse and not a zombie nuisance.
Everywhere the heroes go is infested with zombies. Nobody is scared of a slowly stumbling zombie, but a few, a dozen, hundreds are terrifying. They don't sleep, and they certainly defy injury. At some point, their numbers can topple a fence, fill a trench to make a bridge, break down a door or smother a fire. Their moaning is a constant reminder that they are closer than you want them to be. Any mistake by the heroes can mean that they will become another one of the shuffling dead. Will his friends be willing to put down their reanimated buddy? There is horror to be found in empathizing with people faced with that kind of choice. I find this far more heartbreaking than watching somebody chased down and devoured by the fast zombies. It's the horror after the horror.
I plan to keep riding high on this wave of zombie popularity. Even if only a small fraction of the material to come out of it is good, statistically there should be a few greats. The Walking Dead continues to be my favorite at the moment. The zombies walk, limp or crawl, and the characters are well developed. I keep hoping to stumble upon some decent zombie apocalypse books, but I haven't read any other than Max Brooks' World War Z. If you know of any, please leave me the titles or authors' names in the comments.
I'm off to watch The Walking Dead.
I'm off to watch The Walking Dead.
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