My Writing Week: Issue 37 Year 4

Hi all,

I finished the first draft of a short story that I have been slowly plugging away on for a few weeks. My main character’s voice had evolved by the end of the story, so I immediately started rewriting it. The story is only 5100 words at the moment, which is small for me, hopefully it doesn’t get too much bigger.

I wrote every day of the last week – spending more time writing than the previous week.

Torchwood

Torchwood: Miracle Day, finished on the weekend. I very much enjoyed it, although the episodes varied in quality. The first few episodes were all action as the characters fought for their lives. There was not a lot of character development or back story until midway through the series when we got an episode concentrating on Captain Jack Harkness’ past.

I found the episodes that concentrated on Oswald Danes (Bill Pullman) the least enjoyable because they did not seem to be moving the plot forward. I also had a hard time liking Rex, the CIA agent.

A lot of familiar faces from science fiction popped up during the mini-series, Nana Visitor from Deep Space Nine, John de Lancie (Q) from the Star Trek franchise and Francis Fisher from Eureka.

The final episode satisfactorily brought the mini-series to a conclusion. There was a final twist, which I think most people would have seen coming.

Torchwood vs Doctor Who

Doctor Who really pales in comparison to Torchwood. At the moment, Doctor Who generally lacks suspense as it lurches from problem to solution in quick succession. The most recent episode, Night Terrors, was a tad more suspenseful and had a bit more tension. I was glad it had moved from the “death of the doctor” story line. As we know the Doctor will not die, so I find no suspense in their continual harking back to him being zapped in the first episode of this series.

Those Evil…

Read this quote in an article in the Age Good Weekend about censoring video games:

“the increased prevalence of gross forms of wickedness is due to a general  poisoning, mental and physical, which fills the minds and the veins of its victims with a more deadly venom than we have hitherto known.” This was written in 1869 by US Methodist Reverend J.T Crane and he was referring to novels in general.

Authors Losing Contracts Due to Collapsing Retail Market

According to the Bookmarks column in the Age, mid-list Australian writer Peter Klein had a publishing contract for his next book cancelled by Pan Macmillan because of insufficient orders to justify a print run. Two other authors have suffered the same fate. The publishing director at Pan Macmillan said that 20 per cent of the market had gone with the closure of Borders and Angus and Robertson, shops that consolidate mid-list authors. Supermarkets are not interested in writers who sell less than 5000 copies of a book.   

This is something to consider before buying books online from the UK or US.

My Writing Week: issue 36 of year 4

Hi all,

Last week I wrote every day for the second week in a row. But unlike the week before when it was all non-fiction, last week it was all fiction. I am still not spending anywhere near enough time writing, but some writing is better than none. Hopefully I can build on last week’s efforts this week. 

I spent a bit of time on other writing relating activities, like setting up a group’s page on Facebook for this blog.

New Article on Divine Magazine

I submitted a new article to Divine online magazine last Monday and, much to my surprise, it was up on the site by Wednesday. That’s two articles for August.

The new article is about why I love gardening. The article is an attempt at a more whimsical tone. Over the past year’s 13 articles for Divine, I have attempted different styles and tones, from serious informational, to personal accounts of tragedy, to uplifting interview based articles.

Book Sales Up in Australia

An article in the Age states that book sales rose 0.4 per cent by volume in 2010, with 66.2 million books sold. The bad news is that the value of those sold books dropped by 4.2 per cent. But with those sales not including purchases from Amazon and other overseas vendors like the Book Depository, the number of books purchased by Australians would be much higher.  

Book Depository Vs Amazon

As the two large online booksellers merged recently, the above heading could be considered inappropriate, but there are still differences in price, postage and delivery time. I recently used the Book Depository for the first time after deciding Amazon’s postage costs added too much to the cost of a purchasing a single book.

The book I wanted to buy cost $15.20 on Amazon, but postage pushed that up to $24.95. At the Book Depository, the book cost $20.19, with no charge for postage. The book also arrived in less than a week, much quicker than the three weeks or more I have waited for Amazon to deliver.

Review of Under the Dome by Stephen King

Warning, spoilers. I posted a review of Stephen King’s science fiction thriller Under the Dome last week. I did not want to have spoilers in the review so I did not say that I reckon King might have been having a go at his readers. In the book a dome was placed over the inhabitants of a small town by an alien race so they could be amused at the antics of those trapped inside. But King was inviting his readers to have similar voyeuristic intentions by enjoying the carnage wreaked on the inhabitants of the dome. I enjoyed the book, so does that mean I would make a good callous alien?

Review of Stephen King's science fiction epic, Under the Dome

Under the Dome by Stephen King

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I finally finished Under the Dome's 880 pages. What an epic, so much death and destruction, so many arseholes - King certainly enjoys writing about corrupt fools and the fools that follow them.

The novel starts with an invisible force field suddenly enclosing a small town. It traps the local cafe cook, Barbie, an ex-Iraq veteran, as he tries to flee small-town persecution. Barbie then has to deal with the local council, headed by car dealer Jim Rennie. Rennie also happens to be a major drug manufacturer and religious psycho. In real life he would be an ideal Tea Party Candidate. Unknown to Rennie, his son, Junior, is suffering major delusions and has embarked on a murder spree. Much mayhem results.

When I first started reading Under the Dome, I was struck by the distant third person it was written in, partly because I had recently read a lot of books written in first person. The distance that King stands back is a lot like watching a movie, and it did not allow me to really get to know the characters.

But what a cast of characters, it was huge. The story is told from about twenty different character's point of view, usually corrupt arseholes or the people resisting them. The fools that followed only had brief appearances as they were usually lead over cliffs. I can't help but think that King was commenting on the real world ignorance of the American electorate.

I found the novel sagged a bit in the middle. It was foreshadowed that the main character would end up in jail. I waited and waited for this to happen. Once he was in jail, other more interesting characters took over the telling of the story.

It took an awful long time to find out who made the dome and why, but that just added to the suspense - would Barbie and his mates be stopped by Rennie and his lackeys before they have a chance to get rid of the dome.

The novel posses an underlying question, are the novel's readers guilty of the same motivations as the creators of the Dome?

There is a reasonable resolution, but most of the fun is getting there.

Under the Dome is a very enjoyable science-fiction thriller that could make a great big budget mini-series.

View all my reviews

My writing week: Issue 35, year 4

Hi all,

I wrote every day last week. That’s a huge change from recent weeks. But it was all for an article I am writing on gardening for Divine. As the article does not have any fabulous quotes from great interviewees, and does not impart any startling information, its style was all the more important. I ended up writing something a bit more whimsical then my usual writing.

Divine recruitment 

Divine online magazine have started a recruitment campaign for Victorian writers with disabilities. The articles you write should have a disability element. I have enjoyed writing for them, and hope to continue to do so.

Still not writing any fiction

Then will I have a good fiction writing week? I haven’t had one in months. Too busy trying to duck the shit life has been throwing at me over the past couple of years.

The pessimist in me is yelling, why the bother. You will probably just start getting into a fiction writing groove and then a gigantic wombat will crap all over you. My optimism is still on an extended holiday. Last I heard, it had been disappeared somewhere in Afghanistan.

But, hopefully this week I can make a start on a fiction writing routine.

99c seems to be the price for ebooks

I have not checked the top 100 Kindle bestsellers since the end of April. This is what I found then:

Fifty-two of the ebooks were $2.99 or less, with 28 at 99c and 12 at $2.99. Twelve were $9.99. There were none priced at $12.99.

When I just checked, only four Kindle ebooks were $2.99. Four were also $1.99, but a whopping 41 were 99c. Twenty were priced between $3 and $7.98. Six were $7.99 and only 22 were more than $8. So 99c is increasingly its lead on a race to the bottom.

And remember, free ebooks have a separate bestseller list. If trends from last year have continued, free ebooks would now probably make up 100 per cent of a combined kindle bestseller list.

My writing week: Issue 34, year 4

Hi all,

I have been debating whether to post anything about my latest health concern. People who still read my blog – which is supposed to be about writing - must be getting sick of me telling them about my latest illness. I know I am. But I have previously felt obliged to mention the illnesses because of the effect they had on my writing, especially my motivation.

Another reason for not mentioning this latest illness is the stigma of it being a lifestyle illness that can be avoided getting off your fat lazy bum. For the past twelve years I have swum three kilometres, three times a week. I lift weights three times a week. I have a set of exercises (push-ups, sit-ups and dumbbell exercises) that I do four times a week. I walk everywhere, including to the main shopping area of Wangaratta (a 5km round trip) four times a week. I also spend a lot of time gardening. But I still was diagnosed as a diabetic a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately exercise couldn’t change my genes; diabetes runs through my family.

An initial blood test a year and a half ago showed my blood sugar was up. At the time I was more concerned with my father’s failing health and my cataract surgery. I made a few changes to my diet and hoped the blood sugar would fall, but the pessimist (realist) in me knew I probably had diabetes. I finally got around to a second blood test a couple of weeks ago.

The unfairness of the illness and its implications only hit home last Monday when I endured a diabetes education session at the local hospital. Since then I have had to test my blood sugar four times a day. My mood has changed according to the rises, plateaus and falls of my blood sugar. I have been experiencing a lot of anger: I really reckon ulcerative colitis and asthma were enough to cope with.

The diagnosis does explain why I have been so tired over the past months. My writing motivation has been shot for months. In other aspects of life I have just seemed to be going through the motions. And the pessimist in me continues to whisper: what next?

So I did absolutely no writing last week.

My challenge now is to try rise above my blood sugar count, outrun my dashes to the toilet and inhale some motivation to write.

Graham Clements.

My writing week: Issue 33, year 4

Hi all,

I am trying to direct my thoughts towards my next article for Divine magazine. So far I just have a general theme on how gardening can affect the way a person thinks. It may end up being mainly from my perspective, because I am yet to find any local potential interviewees. Hopefully my thoughts and a bit of research on horticultural therapy will be result in an entertaining and worthwhile read.

I reckon that if everyone did a bit of gardening the world would be a better place.

Need an Apostrophe?

I saw a cartoon in the Age last week referring to a debate about the lack of an apostrophe in much of the paraphernalia for the Melbourne Writers’ Festival. I am “occasionally” a sloppy punctuator so I went back to see if I had put an apostrophe in the festival’s name in a previous post. I had, but I made the festival exclusive to one writer by labelling it the Melbourne Writer’s Festival.

The festival and I am not alone in misplacing apostrophes. A local pet shop opened with the symmetrical Craig’s Critter’s. After a few months the second apostrophe was painted over. Last week I noticed they had repainted the store and its sign now says Craigs Critters.

My Writing

I am still not doing much writing. I only made time to add a few words to a short story last week.

My writing week: Issue 32, Year 4

Hi all,

Disabilities in Science Fiction.

I have a new article up on Divine about characters with disabilities in science fiction. The ending of the article has changed since its original posting as some emails about last minute revisions went astray.

Rise of the Apes

I saw the prequel to Planet of the Apes on the weekend. I wasn’t expecting it to be very good, especially after Tim Burton’s unneeded remake of the classic original, but it surprised me. It is probably the best science fiction movie since Inception (I know that is not saying much as their have been very few reasonable science fiction movies in the past year or so).

I was expecting the plot to revolve around trained apes revolting, happily the plot was much more original. A scientist’s experiments on apes, with a drug that he hopes will cure brain disorders, has unforeseen consequences (and no, the apes are not let out by a bunch of radical greenies).

The main scientist’s father, played by John Lithgow, has Alzheimer’s. Lithgow’s performance reminded me of some of the sad behaviour of my father who had dementia. If I had seen the movie before I submitted my article about characters with disabilities in science fiction, I would have included him as someone who had an intellectual disability.

The special effects are the best I have seen since District 9. The apes were computer generated and for most of the movie look real. But don’t go to see Rise of the Apes for its special effects, see it for its better than B-grade script.

David Hicks being Ripped Off?

If you haven’t heard, the Commonwealth Director of Public Persecutions has decided to try and take David Hicks’ royalties from his autobiographical Guantanamo: My Journey. I would assume the DPP would also be after any advance Hicks received. I read in the Age that the book has sold 30,000 copies and Hicks has received around $10,000. That works out to be about 33cents a copy. Something is very wrong here. He should have received at least $70,000 at 6-10 percent of the $30 - $50 selling price.

For the record: I have read Guantanamo. It reinforced what I had read in the AGE and seen and heard on the ABC. David Hicks was and never planned to be a terrorist. He never assisted terrorists. He was more a naïve adventurer who became a victim of John Howard’s attempts to appease George W. Bush.

My Writing

I did a bit of writing of a short story.