It is gratifying that even something as half-cocked as this blog (which in my own 'talk' I have named WoWoWhi) can gather people who quite like following it, unless of course they do it only out of a sense of duty. But the thing is they could have avoided it and pretended it didn't exist.
Much as I do most of the time.
Anyhow, I have added more to my Nano total as the clock to the end of November's writing marathon begins to tick down. I feel happy to have made 60,000 or so words but as I tell people there is probably room for another chapter in there, at least. That I will do in my own time.
Stats may or may not be open to interpretation, but my writing tool of choice, Scrivener, tells me that my efforts would result in paperback book of 157 pages. A little slim, so more padding needed. I also –– at this late stage –– discovered Scrivener 2 has a random name generator. As there is at least one name in Iron Virgin I don't like much I may call on it to help me out.
Unless I do the old pulp writer's trick of walking round graveyards with a notebook looking for suitable names.
Monday, 29 November 2010
Thursday, 25 November 2010
How it might look...
Anyway, this is the cover I originally created. I admit the image is not quite how I saw my heroine, but it was the swiftest solution at the time. In case you wondered, I have to do a cover fairly early on because it acts as a sort of inspiration. It helps me visualise that one day,between the front art and the back shameless self-promotion, there is a slab of text.
In the meantime have asked a colleague to see if she can come up with a cover, as I have much editing to do and in any event someone else might bring a fresh view to it all.
Monday, 22 November 2010
A sort of slap on the wrist
Well, just as I was feeling pleased I had achieved 'glory' by writing 50,000 words of my Iron Virgin novel (and therefore in NaNoWriMo terms, duly becoming a 'winner' even though strictly speaking it isn't quite finished and does, really does, need some serious rewrites in places) I read the blog of SF writer Charles Stross.
A blog by an imaginative writer always makes good reading, but Mr Stross blasts the writers of Steampunk books. Too much out there he says. He calls it the Second Artist, where the less talented can only paint pictures of what the First Artist has already painted from real life. I do understand some of his point of view, but not all of it.
Is mine Steampunk in the way he sees it? Um, probably. Mr Stross however has a social conscience and feels aggrieved, as many people with an overactive social consciousness can do, that the past is a dark and unhappy place that should be left well behind. Steampunk he maintains in what is largely a clear and well written piece, merely glorifies an age when there was poverty, short life expectancy and Dickensian attitudes along with what he calls a "pyramid of skulls."
I have no doubt it was a bad time (though how interesting so many "progressives" today see a return to pre-industialisation as a glorious hope for humanity, though perhaps they are saying that illness and disease and poverty didn't exist before the Industrial revolution. Hmmm, I wonder...) but surely not without some merits. And we ought to remember that fantasy is, er, fantasy.
But in answer to Mr Stross then surely Sci-Fi that proposes a distopian future as some do, or a world devoured by the ravages of disease or (spare us) zombies can be seen as offering a dark view too. It's a different kind of despair, but despair nonetheless.
I have no argument with some of what Mr Stross writes, but the ultimate statement that there is too much of anything doesn't really work. Yes, maybe too much television, too many cars, far too many people clogging up the planet; we can go on and on with that sort of comment but in fact, it is simply where we are right now. Not ideal, perhaps, but anyone trying to pursue their interest in writing doesn't need to be put off by the idea they are joining in a rush that doesn't need to be jogged along.
I have no doubt there are some poor Steampunk novels (and if mine gets finished maybe that too is destined to be one of them) lurking out there, and poor SF stuff too. But there are many poor things in the world. Telling people not to try to do something, if that is what he's doing, isn't the smartest advice ever.
A blog by an imaginative writer always makes good reading, but Mr Stross blasts the writers of Steampunk books. Too much out there he says. He calls it the Second Artist, where the less talented can only paint pictures of what the First Artist has already painted from real life. I do understand some of his point of view, but not all of it.
Is mine Steampunk in the way he sees it? Um, probably. Mr Stross however has a social conscience and feels aggrieved, as many people with an overactive social consciousness can do, that the past is a dark and unhappy place that should be left well behind. Steampunk he maintains in what is largely a clear and well written piece, merely glorifies an age when there was poverty, short life expectancy and Dickensian attitudes along with what he calls a "pyramid of skulls."
I have no doubt it was a bad time (though how interesting so many "progressives" today see a return to pre-industialisation as a glorious hope for humanity, though perhaps they are saying that illness and disease and poverty didn't exist before the Industrial revolution. Hmmm, I wonder...) but surely not without some merits. And we ought to remember that fantasy is, er, fantasy.
But in answer to Mr Stross then surely Sci-Fi that proposes a distopian future as some do, or a world devoured by the ravages of disease or (spare us) zombies can be seen as offering a dark view too. It's a different kind of despair, but despair nonetheless.
I have no argument with some of what Mr Stross writes, but the ultimate statement that there is too much of anything doesn't really work. Yes, maybe too much television, too many cars, far too many people clogging up the planet; we can go on and on with that sort of comment but in fact, it is simply where we are right now. Not ideal, perhaps, but anyone trying to pursue their interest in writing doesn't need to be put off by the idea they are joining in a rush that doesn't need to be jogged along.
I have no doubt there are some poor Steampunk novels (and if mine gets finished maybe that too is destined to be one of them) lurking out there, and poor SF stuff too. But there are many poor things in the world. Telling people not to try to do something, if that is what he's doing, isn't the smartest advice ever.
Saturday, 13 November 2010
Nano seconds
For the second year running I am battling through the National Novel Writing Month, and am theoretically in sight of the finish line with some 17 days to go.
In other words have done 37000 out of 50000 and at the rate of writing 800 a day I should make it. Oh well, there will be ups, downs and doubts which will confuse the process.
My novel is called Iron Virgin and is a steampunk novel set in the British American Colonies. That's right, it is fantasy. More news on this will follow...
In other words have done 37000 out of 50000 and at the rate of writing 800 a day I should make it. Oh well, there will be ups, downs and doubts which will confuse the process.
My novel is called Iron Virgin and is a steampunk novel set in the British American Colonies. That's right, it is fantasy. More news on this will follow...
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