Miri

Words written c26000

Stories completed 2

Rejections 35

Acceptances 1

Watched the Star Trek episode Miri last night.  It's the one in which the Enterprise stumbles across a doppelganger of Earth (with no explanation or investigation as to why apart from a throwaway "But there you are" - genius) on which children age slowly but die shortly after reaching puberty.  What would Freud say?

Amongst the jaw-dropping events that would have Matt intoning 'Different times!' were James Tiberius:

1. repeatedly punching a man who promptly died, and absolutely no suggestion of any kind of investigation or review or even causal link is suggested; and
2. going doe-eyed over a child and adopting behaviour best described as grooming.  That he had the decency to do it to her face, and it was a girl were small saving graces.  Oh, and the bloke who died wasn't black, which would have given him some crassly weird full house. 

But, most alien of all, the plot relied on all members of the landing party leaving their communicators behind to be taken by the gang of artful dodgers.  Putting aside that they're quasi-military and would probably have protocols covering such an eventuality, the very idea in 2015 that an entire project team could just walk away from their phones is baffling.

But, to the makers of Star Trek the communicator was just another tool.  When I'm doing DIY I'm constantly wondering where I left that hammer, spanner, screwdriver...  That's all they saw the communicator being.

I was taken by the idea on the radio documentary about 2001 referred to in my last post that Kubrick was well aware of the coming miniaturisation of technology but felt that a room full of HAL9000 would be more dramatic.  So, maybe the Star Trek writers knew it would never happen, but needed it to to move the plot on.

More likely, they never even contemplated our addiction to information.  Because that's exactly what it is.  When I grew up post fell through our front door six mornings a week.  The phone rang occasionally.  And you spoke to people you met.

But now, I check my phone many times a day, it plans my day, sends me work, educates, informs and entertains.  And, yes, I do sometimes forget where I've put it, but take it away for any length of time and I'll show all the symptoms of a crack addict without his fix.  It's an addiction.  And one that's crept up on us where the addicted barely acknowledge that's the case.

But, maybe, if Spock and Bones had been playing Angry Birds they wouldn't have found the antidote and saved everybody.  Like I say, sometimes you just need something unbelievable to move the plot on.

2001: A Vintage Year?

Words written 24568

Stories completed 1

Rejections 27

Acceptances 1

Watched Kubrick's 2001 yesterday, mainly for the kids' benefit, to show them what a film that is as much art experience as popcorn movie looks like.  As a precursor, I played them a podcast of a BBC Radio 4 Film Programme special on 2001, telling them that, in the case of 2001, it didn't matter that much if there were any plot spoilers.

The nine-year old didn't last an hour; the eleven year old declared it the worst movie he'd ever seen, worse even than the original David Niven Casino Royale.  A bit harsh.

It was somehow both shorter and longer than I remembered.  Having been to a previous cinematic revival my recollection was that the intermission was very much required and I would have guessed that it was at least 3 hours rather than 140-odd minutes.  I seem to remember ageing visibly during the ape section in particular.

What struck me was how little story there was.  Okay, the Dawn of Man section is necessarily mood music, but the nine-year old turned to me after the space travelogue section that immediately follows it and said (direct quote) 'What did that tell us?'  The Moon section works for me far more than the voyage to Jupiter that is the core of the film - the slow build up to the screeching radio transmission - but even this is just the 'quiet, quiet, quiet, loud' school of horror in arthouse clothes.

Which brings me to my starter for ten: a radio signal aimed at Jupiter.  Is that possible?  Isn't radio, by definition, broadcast?

And (consider these all your bonuses in one) what, exactly, are Poole and Bowman doing to jeopardise the mission?  They're all going to Jupiter; it's not as if anybody is pulling in a different direction.  Nobody suggests aborting or changing the goal.  What happens approaching Jupiter would have happened anyway, even if HAL hadn't tried to change things.  Isn't that what he wants?  Is HAL part of the monolithic culture, or has he been corrupted by them?  When?  How?  Why is better for the mission for Bowman to be on his own, rather than part of a team? 

Putting aside the fact the story is nonsense, I have a bigger issue with how it's told.  I'm a great believer in the rule of three.  One error by HAL is curious, two is a coincidence, three means something and that is when your characters act.  But Poole and Bowman panic (yes, panic, although they're very languid about it) after the first incident, concluding its better to be without a sentient computer at all, reducing HAL's functionality to the automatic and vital, than carrying on.

It's not as though Kubrick was trying to squeeze events in to a ten-minute short; and, even then, you allude to the previous two occurrences and start your drama with the third.  Never has there been so little story or drama spread so thin.

Ah, no, you say.  Story comes from character; it doesn't follow some prescribed 'rule of three' framework.  But Poole and Bowman are meant to be unflappable; the actors & Kubrick developed backstories for the two double-doctorates, part of their psychology being that they would merely raise a bored eyebrow in situations which would have us mere mortals screaming.  So, even stranger that they decide to take such radical action after one glitch.  It's like abandoning your car on the side of the M5 because of a slight rattle.  

Curious, also, that proto-humans clubbing each other to death rates a U-certificate, whereas Paddington shutting himself in a fridge garners a PG.

The DVD will be going back to the charity shop from whence it came.

A Word on the Numbers (Two)

Words written 24568

Stories completed 1

Rejections 23

Acceptances 1

I'll take it as read that you've all gone out and bought my book 127a - what's that? it's not really sci-fi? hell, it's a broad church.  Well, to make use of the bookshelf you bought specially, why not double your reading list by buying Christina Escamilla's Welcome to the Future?  It's got a story by little ol' me in it, and another nineteen crackers, I'm sure.  My two copies arrived this week - thanks, Christina.

I digress.  What I wanted to blog about was a couple of postscripts to my last missive.  I'm not sure that my wordcount is going to make much sense going forward.  Reason being (and this made Wednesday a bit of a red letter day), I finished the first draft of my YA sci-fi yarn, About Time, Billy Hudson (81,100 words).  So what do I do now for the word count as I rewrite and edit?  There's real scope for the number to go down.

Plus I've set myself the task of welding together two old stories where I realise one provides a great twist to the ending of the other.  Do I automatically award myself another, oh, six thousand words to my year's output?

Of course, this fascination with word count is entirely artificial but, as the cliche goes, I'm (firstly) trying to get it written, not get it right.  Getting it right helps, of course, and may help to increase that last metric.  Maybe I should re-prioritise.  But short stories are often paid by the word, and I don't think I quite got across last time the slight mystification that, whilst I'm trying to concentrate on the long form it's my shortest work that (eventually) sells.  My one acceptance?  708 words.  What's that as a fraction of the big number up top?

Talking of stories, you'll see the rejections continue to rise.  As a pre-holiday task last night I managed to dispatch all of my unpublished stories, all twenty-one, to various pro- and semi-pro markets.  Sounds easy, but by the time I've matched a market to a story another's normally been slung back at me.  So this is like keeping twenty-one plates spinning, or the planets all lining up.

Last time that happened didn't Turkey have an earthquake?

A Word on the Numbers

Words written 20977

Stories completed 1

Rejections 21

Acceptances 1

'Why do you write?' is one of those dumb questions asked by mercifully normal people who just don't, and never will, get, as in understand, the creative urge.

'Why do you write when you're obviously so crap at it?', is a far better, well-thought out question.

Let's have a look at the clues, to quote Lloyd Grossman.

Twenty-one thousand words written so far this year, many even spelled right.  Only one story completed, but mainly because I'm a chapter and a half away from completing the first draft of my third novel.  One acceptance, a story called 'The Root Canals of Mars', a humorous little piece, the brilliance of which has been spotted by Lakeside Circus.  God bless 'em and all who sail under their big top.

I hasten to add that that one acceptance is not the same story as sole one completed this year.  Like many writers I'm still trying to place many stories, in my case around twenty tales of various lengths from a few hundred to circa ten thousand words.  Some were written maybe ten years ago, most in the last two or three.  To me, they're my team, going out into the wilds to do battle with slush-pile readers, pushing their way towards the nirvana of publication*.  In reality, they're probably more like hard-to-house problem teens, but, hey, I'm welcome to my own delusions.

It's absolutely amazing how the world has changed in the last twenty years, from printing out hard copy and covering letters and filling envelopes and hauling the down the post office.  I can now at zero cost, either carbon or monetary, submit my stories 24/7 to presses small and large across the globe.  To be honest, I don't know where, geographically, I've been published - I should check - but certainly the UK, Australia, and various apparently united states.  It's slightly awe-inspiring.

But, and its a big but, the flip side of this is that marketing has become a full-time occupation.  My target list of magazines and small presses is seventy-odd in length, and when I look I find more and more.  There is a tendency for them to say - and I'm well aware that editors who are looking at my work may be looking at this blog - 'if you want to know what we publish, read our magazine!', but, at the same time, surprise us!

I'd like to read what you've already published.  It's not the money.  It's the time.  This is what happens in reality: I look at aforementioned website.  I check there's a fundamental overlap of our Venn diagrams - that you're more William Gibson and JG Ballard than JRR Tolkein - if not through explicit submission guidelines then more through your artwork than example stories.  I do pay strict attention to your online guidelines, amending a story of the correct wordcount I think may fit (no courier; must be courier; rtf only!; no underlining for italics: word count in top left hand, not right hand corner; argghhh!!) and I submit.  (NB: maybe this marks me out as utterly naive, but if it says no simultaneous submissions I only send off team-members not otherwise engaged).

What I rarely do is go out of my way to read the publication because, if you want me to surprise you, the last thing you want me to do is reproduce what was in your last issue.  And if I'm reading it to make sure that I'm not submitting something too similar (am I meant to read every issue?) then I very much doubt there's another tale about the Jewish ragtrade in a parallel 1970s downtime New York in which Frankenstein's monsters are a real, albeit unreliable, innovation.  I can't claim to be the world's best writer, but I think it would take the XXXL box of infinite monkeys with typewriters to cook up stuff that's like my stuff.

Time.  It's what drives all of this.  I barely have time to work, do stuff around the house, interact with children and wife, and write - let alone read as well.  Today was mainly spent sending off five stories and chasing on two (Tor.com have had a story for 18 months which augers well), amending files according to publishers' detailed requirements.  I don't think I got a single creative word written, although my mss was open on my desktop all day, just waiting for me to get past other priorities.

Time.  There'll be more of it tomorrow.  Even if I have a video-conference to attend and a near total eclipse of the sun to observe.  Watch the numbers, see how they run...

*On re-reading this, this makes them sound like Islamist suicide bombers - it's an unintended analogy I'm mulling over...

Live Long & Prosper

Words written 15271

Stories completed 1

Rejections 18

Acceptances 0

Given I'm writing a sci-fi blog you'd think I'd have something to say about the passing of Leonard Nimoy.  Well, not much I can add to what's already been said, other than I think his zenith was in the remake of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers.

But, on the subject of Star Trek more widely, Nurse Chapel and Grayson Perry: you never see them together.  I wonder if there's more to that than coincidence...

        

I Blame Edison

Words written 15271

Stories completed 1

Rejections 17

Acceptances 0

I’ve been watching the excellent Neil Brand’s excellent series Sound of Song on my PVR, which is ironic given what I’m going to write about.  One of the talking heads, whose name I neither recall nor noted - but as I'm suggesting you watch the series all concerned can get their credit there - made the thought-grabbing comment whilst the wax cylinder gave people recordings of music, the invention of the shellac disc in the early 20th Century actually gave people music.

Not recordings of music, but music itself.  The wax cylinder was so scratchy and faint that it operated as little more than a souvenir, but with a 78 disc... you could let the band go home early for the night, if not for life, and produce actual realio trulio music.  If wax cylinders were like a sports report, shellac discs were like being at the match.

Great, yeah?  But every great thing brings something bad.  A pinch of ying for a tad of yang.  Because even Edison and his wax disc let a bad genie out of the bag.  Just think how life was like before those scratchy recordings came along.  We had to make our own music, we needed skills and ability.  We'd need hours to practice, to hone, to achieve mastery of our chosen instrument.  We'd need to learn songs, if not actually write them.  We were skilled, creative, because circumstances didn't let us being anything but.

Edison removed all that, set the ball rolling on a long journey to each of us having headphones on, each with a soundtrack to our lives playing, 24/7.

Yes, there's a lot more music than there ever was but, even as gig-goers, now we're mostly passive consumers.  I'm listening to music as I write this, music artists have probably spent weeks honing but, in my case, just as background, aural wallpaper.  Is that progress?  Of sorts, I guess.  Sampling has even produced the reductio ad absurdum of listening to recordings of somebody else mixing up recordings of a third party's original music.  Weird.

Thinking about recorded visuals rather than sounds has left me wondering whether we're experiencing the same journey... but possibly backwards.

Granted, a century and a half ago to be entertained we were at the theatre or music hall, a century ago at the cinema, audiences enjoying collective experiences but, nationwide, multiple, fractured collective experiences.  A bit like enjoying the fiddle band down the pub.

And then television came along.  One, two, then three channels.  Even in my lifetime I recall there only being three channels.  It would be odd to bring up Jimmy Savile in a sci-fi blog, but Britain has been bringing Savile up some pus-ridden, blood-riven furball that we’re still staring at it, bobbing in the pan, too scared to reach for the flush.

We keep being told that Savile got away with his crimes because he was a star.  But, nobody has pushed the root cause analysis and said that Savile was a star because we only had three channels.  With three channels, plus the need to watch what was on when it was on (remember me and my PVR?), a nation was collectively at the same music hall.  A golden age of watercooler-inspiring moments was born, with the risk that when we idolise individuals and believe they can do anything they will do anything.

It couldn't happen nowadays, not because we're less naive than we were were forty years ago but because our three channels fractured to three-figures ten-plus years ago, so around the watercooler we were left describing rather than discussing what we saw last night.  And now with the PVR, Netflix and the rest, even if I watch what you watch, it probably won't be on the same night.  Saviles should never grow so monstrously tall.  Watching will be like reading; it's a bit of a coincidence if we're consuming the same thing.  Visually, we're back in the pub with the fiddle band, but in a personal booth, without the bonhomie and sense of community in miniature.

Talent has been spread thinner; we could never give a television presenter complete management control of a mental hospital(!).  Or could we?  Whilst the watercooler moments have gone tepid, something seems to have happened to the cult of personality.  We can't let go of them, even if they do less and less to deserve our idolatry.  Is it a hangover, a desire to hang on to the past, or do we genuinely, psychologically need these Biebers and Madonnas?  What does that say about the human race and where we're going?

Let me dwell on that awhile.

Overheard whilst the next generation play Minecraft

Words written 12551

Stories completed 1

Rejections 15

Acceptances 0

THE BOY: This is the worst game I’ve ever played in.  They don’t even have, like, coal.

THE GIRL: Is coal, like, in the real world?

Reminds me of those stories you read of Victorian children who believe that apples grow in barrels or, in modern parlance, plastic bags...