Science Fiction Fanatics for Sarah

Like science fiction? Like Sarah Palin? Then join the new group Science Fiction Fanatics for Sarah at Team Sarah.

My mother and I were so inspired by Sarah Palin since she was announced as the VP pick. (If only she was equally inspired by science fiction--- though she does think David Tennant of Doctor Who is cute.)

Anyway, if you feel likewise consider joining Science Fiction Fanatics for Sarah because it needs members bad.

A History of the New England Vampire

This is my latest article written for Associated Content. I seem to be on a vampire kick lately....

We think of vampire folklore as something that emerges from Eastern Europe, yet there was an outbreak of suspected vampirism in the United States during the nineteenth century. The New England vampires are as much a part of the folklore of the region as Lizzie Borden and her ax, though the name 'vampire' was not used for the phenomenon at the time. Read more....

Note: I'm not allowed to post the whole article here because Associated Content owns it. Or me. I'm not sure which.

Technorati's having 'issues'

Tried to ping Technorati and they inform me they are having 'backend issues'. What the heck are backend issues? Should I send them some Pepto-Bismol?

Warning: NaNoWriMo is coming!

NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, is almost upon us. Run! Hide! Or you may get caught up in the madness.

NaNoWriMo, for the happily clueless, is an international event where nerds get together in an attempt to write a 50000 word novel in one month. Massive caffeine intake is required, actual writing is optional. (Links to NaNo and other WriMos are somewhere in the sidebar.)

I've been doing a lot of Wrimos this year, from JanNoWriMo in January, to JulNoWriMo and AugNoWriMo, and at last, GothNoWriMo in October. It seems like I've written fewer words each WriMo, and I'm pretty WriMoed out.

So this November I've decided to do something else goofy. I'm working on not one, but two novels. One is a fantasy called Among the Lost which is about street urchins in a Dickensian environment and vampires. The other is a science fiction novel called Gems of Kolbe featuring soil-building pioneers on the terraformed world of Kolbe.

I've put up two word count meters for the novels above. They are located below the Technorati widget and before the social newt-working.

The idea is this: I work each day a little on each novel. About once a week or so I'll take the word count and put it up on the meters. It's going to be kind of like a race, only there's no prize since I don't know how to give a prize to an unpublished novel.

Since I set my word count goal at twice the sacred 50000 of NaNo, and I'm doing two, I'd say I deserve at least four months to work on it.

So--- those are my plans. If any writers out there have plans for doing or not doing NaNoWriMo, drop me a comment.

Blog Review: The Sci-Fi Catholic

The Sci-Fi Catholic is a blog dedicated to sci-fi, fantasy and manga. It's written by D. G. D. Davidson, who has more initials than your average blogger, and his co-bloggers Snuffles the Dragon and Lucky the Goldfish. Read more....

GothNoWriMo starts Tomorrow

GothNoWriMo, aka Gothic Novel Writing Month, starts tomorrow. If you have a yen to write something creepy/weird, now's your chance.

I myself, having signed up, am ready to go. All I need to do is decide what the heck I'm going to write about.

There may be vampires. Or robots. Or forbidden experiments with feral children. I'm not quite sure.....
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here lies Dobby, a free elf

Confession, Sci Fi Catholic style

"Me: Twice this last week, I sneaked into my dragon's room and read some of his shoujo manga.

Priest: You did what?

Me: I know, it's awful--

Priest: No, I mean, what did you do?

Me: What? I sneaked into my dragon's--

Priest: Your what?

Me: Dragon. I live with a dragon. That's okay, isn't it?

Priest: I guess...just, ah, tell me what you did, please."

Well, I must make a confession--- the 'me' in the confession above isn't the me me, it's D. G. D. Davidson of Sci Fi Catholic. I actually never sneak into my dragon's room to read his shoujo manga, I have my own shoujo manga.

And, to confess again, I'm not really sure what 'shoujo manga' is, I've just heard tell that some of my comic books are called 'shoujo manga'. Who knew? D. G. D. Davidson, evidently.

Anyway, Sci Fi Catholic has a great post on selecting a Sci Fi Priest to deal with your more Sci Fi related sins, guaranteed to make you run out and go to confession (unless you're Protestant....)

Are you on the Wrong Planet?

The message below is from 'Wrong Planet', a site for people with Asperger's Syndrome. The forums are really good. You might ask--- since these forums are so great why don't I stick to them and not bother the ~normal~ people either here or at AugNoWriMo/JulNoWriMo. Well, maybe it's because I'm on the wrong planet.....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Alex Plank at Wrong Planet says:

Hello Wrong Planet members. I usually don't send out emails to the entire membership at once so I apologize for adding yet another potentially unwanted email to your inboxes and hope you forgive me (unless of course you're an aspie like me and look forward to getting any message at all. In that case, 'you're welcome' :-P ). Also, I apologize if you got duplicate emails. The server crashed while trying to send out 20,000 emails the first time.

However, I wanted to check up with all you guys and girls by sending a friendly hello and letting you all know what's been going on with WP in the last couple of months. If you haven't stopped by lately, please do so, if only just to make sure all your profile details are up to date.

Click for Wrong Planet:
http://wrongplanet.net

Wrong Planet has changed quite a bit since you last visited (unless of course you visited recently... like within the last few months.. ok). We now have more than 20,000 registered members (try counting that number on your fingers (actually don't. I tried and it didn't work))!

As you're probably aware, Autism has gained a lot of attention recently in the media, not all of it positive. We've responded to these issues with editorials and articles on our front page, in addition to many, many forum discussions about tons of different things.

For instance, X-Files Star Amanda Peet recently spoke out against Jenny McCarthy's anti-vaccine shenanigans ( editorial here: http://www.wrongplanet.net/article372.html )

Also, we reported that Claire Danes is in talks to star in an HBO Biopic of Temple Grandin (article here: http://www.wrongplanet.net/article374.html ).

Anyway, there is so much more content on the site that I'm not going to mention in this email, mainly out of laziness, but also because it's pretty easy to find things on the site now due to a much simple menu at the top of the site and this email is already too long as it is.

So, fire up your web browser, point it to Wrong Planet, and click away fellow WrongPlaneteers! I look forward to hearing from some of you who haven't posted in a while.

I hope you had a great summer (I had an awesome summer which included a trip to Los Angeles for a couple of days! ^_^ )

Wow, just realized how cheesy this email sounded so guess I should apologize for using such an execcisvely enthusiastic writing style. I'm too lazy to rewrite the email and you already read it so I guess its too late.

Best Wishes,

Alex Plank
http://wrongplanet.net

Creating a Novel using the Snowflake Method

Some time ago I first learned about the Snowflake Method on author Randy Ingermanson's web site. This seems like a good method to organize your ideas for your novel and get it to the point where you are ready to write.

In my own case I particularly need organizational help since I have Asperger's Syndrome (a form of autism) and have a hard time with the 'big picture' aspect of the novel. (It's not impossible for someone with Asperger's to write, though--- just look at Herman Melville or Arthur Conan Doyle, who are now believed to have had Asperger's.)

The Snowflake method now has a forum at SnowFlakers.net. There is a section on the forum for each step of the ten step Snowflake method. I've joined the forum, I feel it may help me put together my current writing project 'Colors' which I've been having trouble with.

GothNoWriMo--- the spookier writing month

For fans of NaNoWriMo and the other WriMos: now there is GothNoWriMo, Gothic Novel Writing Month in October. Gotta love that!

Science Fiction as Fantasy

Science fiction, we often believe, is realistic fiction projected on to the future, while fantasy is the home of unrealism, mind-speaking horses, and men magically transformed to cats.

But science fiction is also considered to be a sub-set of the fantasy genre. The difference between science fiction and other types of fantasy is that the fantastic elements are seen as yet-unknown forms of science. One example of this is faster-than-light travel. In the current state of science, it is considered that FTL travel is impossible. We might someday discover some other science that gets around it, but until that happens, a spaceship that can travel faster than light is as fantastical as Harry Potter's magic wand.

In fantasy fiction, magic cannot simply solve every problem. There is the price of magic--- it may require years of training, or exotic ingredients, or energy from the wizard's body.

One must use the 'magic' in science fiction--- the future science--- in the same way. It must not easily solve all our hero's problems or there is no story. For example, it may be nifty to have a matter transporter device. But you must consider what the costs of using it are. Does it use up loads of energy --- the amount needed to power a spaceship or a city? Or does it have limited range? Is it subject to interference from various sources? Is it liable to kill you on a bad day? A matter transporter device that works for the hero sometimes but not all the time is a great way to get him into dramatic trouble and leave him to fight his own way out.

A Writing Exercise: Re-imagine a favorite fantasy novel as science fiction. For example, Frodo has, not a magic ring, but a weapon of mass destruction that must be disposed of. The Ring-wraiths are men with computer chips in their heads, controlling their behavior and enabling them to track Frodo. Swords and arrows are replaced by blasters and stun-guns.

Or: re-imagine a science fiction story as traditional fantasy: in the movie Gattaca, the genetic engineering is done by wizards, and the main character uses black-market magical devices to be able to pose as a 'Valid'.

Storytoolz--- stuff for writers

I was working today on Holly Lisle's 'Create a Professional Plot Outline free e-course, and that's where I discovered a link to Storytoolz.

If you are stuck with your JulNoWriMo novel or any other writing project, look at Storytoolz and you may find something to help. They have progress meters (good motivating tool), readability analysis, story idea generator and conflict generator.

Character Name Generators

I usually spend a lot of time finding the perfect names for all my characters. But with JulNoWriMo only days away and only one of my characters named, I'm looking at some of the name generators on the internet. I figure even if the names are far from perfect, I can always rename during the rewrite.

Character Name Generator at Prairie Den

Fantasy Name Generator

Random Name Generator

Irish Name Generator

Name Generator for Different Ethnicities

If you need a Korean name, look here.

Free Ideas for your WriMo Novel

Last year I wrote a blog post giving away some free ideas for NaNoWriMo novels. Here are some more, for NaNo or any other WriMo

1. An ordinary guy is leading an ordinary life. A literal angel appears to him, saying that God wants him to write down the events of the next year of his life. Said written record is going to be added to the canon of the Bible. Then, worldwide disasters happen. The angel/Bible aspects must be Christian, but extra points if the MC is an atheist, Wiccan or Druid.

2. The first openly gay candidate for President is almost sure to win election. But a reporter finds shocking evidence of the candidate's heterosexuality.

3. In the future, a school history class takes a field trip back into the past. Main Character is one of the students, who changes history. Will the change in history destroy the future--- or destroy the MC's chance of getting a decent grade?

My Free Tor Ebook --- and How You Can Get One

In a previous post I mentioned that Tor books is offering free ebooks to those who sign up on their web site.

My free ebook for the week arrived today--- Battlestar Galactica by Jeffrey A. Carver. It's available in PDF, HTML, and Mobi format. They also gave a link to the previous week's book, In the Midnight Hour by Patti O'Shea. Next week's book will be Flash by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

I read my ebooks on a Palm Zire 72 PDA, but others read them on Smartphones, iPhones and other devices, or on their home computer. Most of us already have Adobe Acrobat Reader, to let you read a PDF format ebook. You can get free Mobipocket software from the Mobipocket web site.

Why would a book company give away free ebooks? It's good for business. Visit the Baen Free Library to read their reasoning for their free ebook program, and to download some of their many free sci-fi and fantasy ebooks.

"You've All Read His Books...."

I just heard the phrase above on television. Which famous writer did it refer to--- Stephen King, James Patterson, Terry Prachett?

No. The author in question was St. Paul, who wrote such bestsellers as Epistle to the Romans, Epistle to the Galatians, and so on.

The phrase "You've all read his books" made it sound like the television promo was going to talk about some current popular writer. But when you think about it, it is a lot more true when that phrase is referring to St. Paul. A lot more people have read his stuff than Michael Crichton's.

Isolated and In Peril: Kathryn Mackel's Vanished

An author's first duty is to make life miserable for her characters, and in this month's CSFF blog tour book, Vanished by Kathryn Mackel, the author has certainly done her duty. Her poor characters have been subjected to a terrorist attack, and are now cut off from the outside world by a strange mist. Beyond the mist is---- something scary, I don't know what.....

This book has been compared to the television series 'Lost'. I've never seen 'Lost', though my stalker is evidently quite fond of the show. (Maybe the reason I never watched is that it's emotionally unhealthy to take recommendations from people who threaten your life and call you rude names....)

Another comparison is to Eric Flint's Ring of Fire series. In that story, a small town in West Virginia is uprooted and sent back in time to Germany in 1632. Those characters don't have a terrorist bomber on their hands, but they do wind up in the middle of a war zone. (If you would like to read the first 2 books in the Ring of Fire series for free, they are in Baen's Free Library in ebook form. They are: 1632 and 1633.

A third comparison which I found at Sci Fi Catholic is to Roy Rockwood's 'On a Torn-Away World'. Roy Rockwood was a pen name used by authors of boys' adventure books. 'On a Torn-Away World', published in 1913, is described thus:

Jack and Mark build an airship and head North, hoping to find a rare plant that grows only in Alaska. But a freak earthquake causes a chunk of the Earth, along with our protagonists, to fly into outer space.

ManyBooks.net, a source of free ebooks, has 'On a Torn-Away World' and other Roy Rockwood books.
Isolating the characters from their normal world and sources of help heightens the drama of the story. The characters will have to face challenges they've never faced in their ordinary, mundane lives. Will they rise to the challenge, or utterly freak out?

Questions:
What other novels and short stories isolate their characters in similar ways?
If you were writing a similar story, how would you isolate your characters?
Answer in a comment at the bottom of the post, please.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CSFF blog tour must-post stuff:

Kathryn Mackel's Vanished at Amazon.com
Blog tour participants:
Brandon Barr Justin Boyer Jackie Castle CSFF Blog Tour Gene Curtis D. G. D. Davidson Jeff Draper April Erwin Karina Fabian Beth Goddard Andrea Graham Todd Michael Greene Katie Hart Christopher Hopper Joleen Howell Jason Joyner Carol Keen Mike Lynch Terri Main Margaret Shannon McNear Melissa Meeks Rebecca LuElla Miller John W. Otte Deena Peterson Rachelle Steve Rice Ashley Rutherford Mirtika or Mir's Here Chawna Schroeder Stuart Stockton Steve Trower Speculative Faith Linda Wichman Laura Williams Timothy Wise

Vanished by Kathryn Mackel

Vanished is book 1 of a new series by author Kathryn Mackel. The author, as well as many of the reviewers on Amazon.com, liken the book to the television series 'Lost'. The book's genre is described as 'adult supernatural suspense' on the CSFF blog tour web site

I haven't been able to afford the book yet, but from the reviews on Amazon.com, it's something I'm hoping to get soon. The story starts out with a terrorist bombing in a working-class neighbourhood in Massachusetts--- and then it gets weird. The community is cut off from the outside world by a strange mist. Beyond the mist is a terrifying alternate world. The people must put aside their differences and work to survive.
The book, being part of a series, does not wrap up the loose ends at the end of the story, and evidently some readers wanted more closure from it.

If this book sounds intriguing to you, buy the book--- and check out some of the blog tour participants on the list below, and see what others have to say about the book.

Vanished at Amazon.com

Vanished is not available in ebook form at any of the usual ebook stores, nor are other books by Kathryn Mackel.

Kathryn Mackel's web site
Kathryn Mackel's blog
Kathryn Mackel at Wikipedia

July's CSFF blog tour book is DragonLight by Donita Paul. It's available at Amazon.com in both print and Kindle ebook format. It's also available in ebook form at MobipocketPalm ebook store, Fictionwise eBooks, Books on Board (you can rate book and download a free Mobipocket format sample) and Memoware PDA bookstore

CSFF blog tour participants, click on names to visit their blogs:
An '*' means I have already visited the blog and they have something interesting/relevant up.

* Brandon Barr on multiple point-of-view fiction

Justin Boyer

* Jackie Castle relates things about author Kathryn Mackel I didn't know before

CSFF Blog Tour

Gene Curtis

* D. G. D. Davidson - contains a unique definition of what a 'Christian Chiller' is.

* Jeff Draper is Christian horror fiction possible?

April Erwin

Karina Fabian

Beth Goddard

Andrea Graham

* Todd Michael Greene I can't remember what I was going to say about this blog

Katie Hart

Christopher Hopper

* Joleen Howell good book review that gets to the heart of the story

Jason Joyner

Carol Keen

Mike Lynch

Terri Main

Margaret

Shannon McNear

Melissa Meeks

Rebecca LuElla Miller

* John W. Otte a nice book review

Deena Peterson

Rachelle

Steve Rice

Ashley Rutherford

Mirtika Mir's Here

Chawna Schroeder

Stuart Stockton

Steve Trower

Speculative Faith

Linda Wichman

Laura Williams

Timothy Wise


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Kathryn Mackel
CSFF
Vanished

Ticked-Off at Blogger

For months now, I haven't been able to use the 'Add and Arrange Page Elements' thing at Blogger. Very frustrating, because not only do I like to rearrange things on my blog, I also have a new blog--- or an old blog transferred from elsewhere--- to which I could not add a link list and other features I wanted.

Today a horrid thought occurred to me. I logged off my Firefox web browser, found my Internet Explorer, logged on to Blogger through it, and found that using IE, the 'Add and Arrange Page Elements' works just fine.

Insert swear-word here.

Watch the Skies for Free Ebooks from Tor

I (heart) ebooks!

I first found out about ebooks when I bought a Palm Zire 72 PDA. I hadn't intended to use it for reading books, instead I wanted it because I would be able to work on writing in places other than my living room. But I found there were lots of free ebooks available--- many even worth the price.

I just found out that Tor books is having a free ebook promotion at their web site, under the title of 'Watch the Skies'. They want you to sign up, giving your name, email address, and zip code, and they will send you a link to a free ebook. Each week they will send you another free ebook link. I don't yet know what format the ebook is in; when I find out I will update this post.

Update: On TeleRead there is a post mentioning the Tor free ebooks, which says that the Mobipocket format is one of those available. (The Mobipocket format can be read on Palm devices, and also can be read on your PC.)

There are a number of reasons that I like ebooks. One is, I like gadgets, especially ones that remind me of the ones on Star Trek. Another is that I like the experience of reading a book on my Zire 72. It's as comfortable as reading a real book--- and when reading an ebook I'm less likely to skim-read past important details of the story. And perhaps the most important thing is that there are a number of worthwhile and/or interesting ebooks out there for free. As a person of low income, I like to be able to get a new book even in months when I can just barely pay the bills, and can't even leave the house much due to gasoline prices.

I will (probably) be writing a lot more about ebooks on this blog, telling about some of my favorite sites for ebooks and such, perhaps reviewing some of the free ebooks available.

CSFF February Blog Tour

I really should be doing something else right now.
Like working on my novel.
Or writing a blog entry for my other blog.
Or doing the laundry.
Or sleeping.

But instead I am writing about the CSFF blog tour for this month. February tour for Chris Walley’s book Shadow and Night (book 1 of The Lamb Among the Stars series) is scheduled for February 18-20.

I already have the book and have even read the first few pages. Let's hope I can finish it before the blog tour.

To find out more about the blog tour, go to: http://csffblogtour.com/

Last month, I was going to blog about the blog-tour's book 3 times on my main blog and at least once here, but I only managed to do it one time on the main blog. Better than nothing I guess. And I did visit a number of blogs on the blog tour. I made little asterisks after the ones I'd done so I could visualize my progress.

The point of doing the blog tour is to connect with authors and would-be writers and people who love books. Or else the point is to find another thing to do instead of working on my novel, doing laundry or sleeping.

Playing around with an old NaNo novel....

About two years ago I participated in NaNoWriMo (national novel writing month) and I came closer than I ever have to finishing a novel. It gave me hope.

Recently I've decided to try to finish this novel as the central idea is one I like. The original version I kind of wrote myself into a corner; and after leaving it for a time I wanted to change a lot about it.

So this year for JanNo I started writing the story again. I haven't looked at the old manuscript, just started writing a new version.

It's been going slow..... And yesterday I kind of realized that everything I have written so far on it will be thrown out. I'm just not throwing it out yet because it will lower the word count.

But I do have some ideas: I'm going to center it more about the main character, Makie Hanuman. I've decided to make her younger--- in previous incarnations she was older and had a husband or lesbian lover (depending on which version). Now I think she is going to be college-age and suicidal. Her suicide attempt is interrupted by events in the story.

To make the story more writable, the other important characters are all going to be linked to Makie. This actually started in the first version in which the main villain is Alan Hanuman, Makie's uncle. Now I've decided that all the other characters will somehow be linked to Makie in some way.

I still don't know exactly what I'm going to do, but the next scene I write will have Makie walking over a bridge, planning on jumping, and seeing strange lights in the sky which turn out to presage an alien invasion.




nanowrimo
writing
jannowrimo
febnowrimo

JanNo results--- is there a FebNo?

Well, I worked for about 8 days on JanNo, and wrote 1150 words. Since the goal was 50000 for the month that doesn't seem like much, but then on the other hand I've had all too many months where I didn't write anything at all, not even self-indulgent blog posts.

It's been very hard for me to get involved in writing during the last month. Some days it was only a lick-and-a-promise 34 words, and even that was a struggle. It's hard enough just getting up in the mornings lately. One day I slept past noon! My mom thinks I'm depressed but I really can't tell.

My life is just bleh! in other ways too. I haven't been able to sit still and read, I'm very disorganized, I blogged a little last month but didn't keep up with it.....

But I'm not giving up. Is there a FebNo? If there is, I'm in time for it. I wrote 317 words today and 253 yesterday, and my total for the project (this month and last) is 1720 words.

I'm pretty sure I've written more than 1720 words in one day the first time I did NaNo. But the way it's going now I'm just glad to be making progress at this slow pace. At least I haven't given in to the impulse to throw out what I've already written and start over.

What is this blog post about?

Oh, yeah. JanNo.

My word count for today: 336
Total word count: 662
Goal for Month: 50000 words

I had a hard time getting going on this. I have this spreadsheet page I got over at JanNoWriMo, you can get it here, it's for tracking your progress on the word count. And so I'd write a couple of sentences, check the word count, and enter it into the spreadsheet. I was updating it every few minutes. Silly, but it kept me going longer than I thought it would.

Yesterday the hard thing was that I had to name some characters and that can take me a while. I decided to name the main character Makie. Not sure why that popped into my head, I think it's a character from the manga 'Negima'.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~
this really should go in the sidebar, but Blogger's being bad again.

Today's JanNo Progress

JanNo word count for the day: 326
Total JanNo word count: 326
Daily word count should be: 1667


Well, at least I wrote something today. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Missed NaNo, and so: JanNo!

I confess: I didn't do NaNoWriMo last November. It just wasn't a good writing month for me. I did drop by the NaNo web site recently and found links to other NaNo-like events, which I have put into my link list.

In particular, JanNoWriMo--- January Novel Writing Month. The main difference between NaNo and JanNo is that in JanNo, you can bring an already-started novel into the game.

I'm thinking about using JanNo (which is more than half over) to work on an old novel idea of mine. I'm not going to tell what it is at this time because I don't want to jinx it. I will update this blog to report on my progress, if any.