Listen, Santa

Christmas is almost upon us, and thanks to my son’s ever-expanding list of things he’s hoping will magically appear under the tree, free from the constraints of money, availability, or time, I’ve decided to make my own list of dream LEGO themes. Once the holidays are here and gifts are unwrapped, I know I’m going to be assisting in the construction of quite a few sets (thanks grandparents and Santa!) and my fingers will be sore until after New Year’s.

1.      Star Trek, first Classic, then TNG. Why hasn’t this licensing agreement happened yet? I want a rocky planet set complete with a green Gorn and a cute mommy Horta. Not so thrilled with the idea of a bridge, but I’d go for sick bay and engineering in a heartbeat. The mini figures would be so fun. Kirk would have several heads to cover all his facial expressions and imagine all the different forehead designs for Klingons over the years.

2.      Jurassic Park. Please! LEGO did the dinosaur hunters sets, but I want Muldoon and Ian Malcom mini figures. The park control room would be fun to build and there could be breakaway walls and windows for the velociraptor attacks. Cool functions, as my son says. Sadly, LEGO would have to include packets of fake blood for realism and that might upset the kids.

3.      The Walking Dead. Herschel’s farm, Dale’s camper, the prison, all would be fantastic constructs. Imagine a whole herd of walker mini figures, some missing their tiny little hands. Gruesome but fun. The special, limited edition set would feature Daryl, his crossbow, motorcycle, and his brother Merle with a modified slicer arm. Again, gruesome, but fun.

4.      Ice age. No, not the movies, but caves, fires, smilodons, wooly mammoths, and all sorts of cool stone tool accessories for fur clad figures. They could even create a frosty clear blue brick by the thousands to have a glacier set.

5.      A cruise ship. My son and I have discussed this one extensively. Pool deck, buffet, cabins, casino, engine room, bridge, elevators, all could be standalone sets eventually assembled into a whole ship.

While we’re at it, I think it would be incredibly fun to have some themed mystery figure series. For those of you unfamiliar, Lego puts out different groupings of individual mini figures in tiny bags. When you buy it, you have no idea what’s inside, which is part of the fun. I think it would be great to have a Star Wars series, classic 80’s television characters (Mr. T! Buck Rogers! Magnum P.I.!), or literary heroes.

I have a feeling I won’t be seeing any of these on the shelves in the future, but I can dream.

An Early Christmas Gift

Before the holiday season gets in full swing, I just wanted to let everyone know that I have a free read available on the Musa Publishing site. It's the prequel to my novel Return. Despite the beautiful Christmas cover, the story actually takes place in the spring, but since it's a free gift in December, it's appropriate.
So download it, read it, and if you want to find out what happens to Evelyn next, consider buying the rest of her and James Winchester's story.

http://musapublishing.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=17&products_id=700&zenid=2c8ae8f6bd429506951c7f17f389ad2f

Impending Failure

This is me.
Or at least this is the look I have in my eye as I face my impending NaNoWriMo failure. I've participated several times and always managed to meet the goal by the end of the month, but November 2013 has been my undoing. Too many days off from school for my son, too many other pulls on my time, so I will not reach 50,000 words by the end of the weekend. I'm at close to 40,000 and planned on it being about 60,000 by its conclusion.
Never fear, I am like the steady tortoise and will finish this manuscript mostly because it's pretty good already and I don't like to leave things undone for my characters. I've really enjoyed the research I've done for this book and have learned a lot about costume jewelry, the parts of a bar set up, and how to use ricotta cheese in ice cream.
It's good to fail every now and again. It teaches you perspective. And my perspective at this point is I'd rather be 10,000 words behind on a manuscript than be an angry-looking tortoise covered in some sticky brown substance. No wonder she looks outraged.

Let the Writing Begin!

So it's November third and I'm deep into my NaNoWriMo story. November is National Novel Writing Month and there's an online community devoted to encouraging writers to complete a 50,000 word first draft in one month. Now this timeline is problematic for me because of the holidays that fall in November (Veteran's Day, Thanksgiving, Daylight Savings time, etc.) which means my writing time is somewhat reduced. However, I have always met my word count every time I've participated even though my books tend to run about 20,000 words beyond the requirement.
How do I do this? There are all sorts of guides and tips out there for an aspiring NaNo writer, so I won't go into those. I usually have plenty of ideas for stories floating around in my mind, so once I've set on 'the one', I start a notebook and write out my backstory, plan scenes, and write questions out that I'll need to answer as the book progresses. That starts a month before I begin writing. I also do research on the internet and with the help of the Worthington Public Library system (vote yes on Issue 53 Tuesday!).
This time around, my idea was sparked by a submission call from a publisher. Of course, this doesn't mean I'm going to end up with a book I want to submit to anyone, or if I'd even submit it to this company, but I've been enjoying writing 'on spec' for the first time.
Anticipation builds and sometimes I can't resist making note of some runs of dialogue. It's a relief when November first arrives and I can begin. So far I'm at over 5,000 words and I'm happy with where things are going and how my characters are taking shape.
I'll post more later about the story, but first I'm going to list a few of the research topics I've explored and see if anyone can guess what I'm writing about.
1. Top Chef Canada auditions on YouTube
2. Hattie Carnegie costume jewelry
3. knives
4. Daytimers

What I'm watching

Fall television season is here and I've been DVRing a lot of shows I haven't bothered to watch yet. Part of the reason is lack of time, and part is because our television is slowly dying and everyone on the screen is turning green so it's hard to concentrate. In any case, a couple of shows have managed to interest me enough to endure watching while every one in the cast look like moldy cheese while I stay up past my bedtime.
One is Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on ABC

I'm not particularly a fan of the original source material, or Joss Whedon (gasp, horror, how is that possible? Main reason; annoying quips). But I did enjoy the Avengers movie last summer and thought I'd give this a try. Plus, I find Clark Gregg to be adorable so that's incentive enough. So far, the two episodes I've seen have entertained me. Like most of the commentary I've read, some of the characters are clunky and too predictably pretty, but they've intrigued me enough with cool gadgetry and Melinda May that I'll keep watching.  Plus, I want to find out why Tahiti is a magical place.

The other new show I've taken a shine to is Sleepy Hollow on Fox. Normally I'm not much for horror/paranormal shows. They usually require too much suspension of disbelief for me to enjoy (please, once and for all, vampires are no more sexy than leeches. Think about it!). I have to admit, the writing and acting on Sleepy Hollow has won me over. The characters are smart, skeptical, and behave as reasonably as one could hope when you find yourself confronting the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Love the chemistry between these two and hey, Orlando Jones, John Cho, and Clancy Brown? For those three I'd watch! But I have to be honest, Tom Mison is the big surprise for me. Sure, he's very good looking, but the guy can deliver a funny line like no-one's business.

Plus he gets to play scruffy, courteous, and intelligent which are all big yes votes for me when it comes to male leads.
So there, a couple of shows I recommend only two episodes in, so take it with a grain of salt. They might fizzle out next week, but I have a feeling they'll get better.

And the usual disclaimer, I have no rights on these images, I borrowed them from the 'official' sources so if anyone cares to protest, I will of course remove.

My First...

Cyberlaunch!
Yes, today, the very auspicious Friday the thirteenth is my first ever cyberlaunch. Author Island is promoting my first book, Bent Boot Road in a couple of venues;
http://cyberlaunchparty.blogspot.com/

and on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/events/161280757403540/

Come visit, make a comment for a chance at a copy of the book or a stressball and help introduce me to the world of publishing promotion.

 

Elysium for Everyone

 

Who needs a laser when you've got a big sword and psychosis?

I managed to get away from the house and see a movie with bad words, violence, no humor, and big ideas this weekend. If you couldn’t guess from the title of my post, that movie was Elysium and I was blown away. I needed at least twenty-four hours to settle after watching before I could put together a semi-coherent blog post.

First off, the visual effects were great. I was so drawn into those worlds, so taken with the contrast between the dusty, crowded, falling-apart Earth and the spectacularly clean and wholesome Elysium I had to remind myself to breathe. Amazing work with production design and set decoration. I was so impressed I looked up the ‘visual futurist’, Syd Mead, who designed some of the sets and once I did, I realized why his work appealed to me so much. It’s because he was also a designer on two of my favorite films; Blade Runner and Aliens. Those happen to be two of Neill Blomkamp’s favorite films as well so it’s no wonder I felt so comfortable stepping into his Elysium. It reminded me of how I try to make my Sci-fi stories equally gritty and every day. Doors that don’t work right, dirt, worn-away finishes, piles of trash, all help make a world of the future more appealing to me.

The story was the typical hero quest with some ‘crushed by corporate inhumanity’ thrown in, but that’s a trope I can get behind. As far as acting goes, one person hit it out of the park; Sharlto Copley. Wow. I thought he was impressive in District 9 but in this film, he’s amazing. He plays a simply awful character so well I couldn’t look away. Normally, I’m ready for the villain to bite it about halfway through a film because their uberevil machinations bore me, but I wanted Kruger to last until the final scene because he was so terribly magnificent. It was a strange sensation to sit in a dark theatre and be simultaneously attracted and repelled by him. So Mr. Copley, I’m sorry to say, you will probably end up as a placeholder in an upcoming book of mine. Maybe a hero, maybe a bad guy or more likely both. Oh, and Faran Tahir was also in it and I always like to see him.

If you’re a fan of hand to hand fighting, this is your movie; swords, knives, blood spatter everywhere along with some really fabulous weapons that stick on and blow up. People were incinerated, radiated, decapitated, drawn and quartered, turned to flesh-mist, you name it. (Oh, flesh-mist, I like the sound of that. I called it!) I might be betraying my high tolerance for medical gore here, but the reconstruction of fifty percent of Kruger’s head was one of my favorite parts of the entire film. In fact, I could have watched that process for at least fifteen minutes.

Now I have a new facet to one of my fantasies. If one of my sci-fi stories is ever optioned, I want Neill Blomkamp to direct it. That is all.

Heeere's.....Kruger!

 

 

As always, I don't own the rights to these images, if you object to their presence, I will of course remove them.