February 2008

World in the Satin Bag

Podcasts For Writers: A Treasure Trove (Part One)

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One of the most fascinating things about the Internet is that it has become a vast compendium of knowledge for just about everything imaginable. For writers it is both a magical device and a curse. On the one hand a writer can find anything he or she needs (of course, when I say writer I mean anyone who thinks of themselves as a writer), but on the other hand it can become a distraction. While Google is certainly the most accurate and valuable search engine ever created, it isn’t perfect and sometimes it can take a while to find things.And then, sometimes the Internet is a distraction that makes you happy. In come podcasts, one of the most interesting Internet creations I’ve come across aside from the slue of random flash games that seem to have absolutely no point other than to draw your attention for hours upon hours. There are a lot of podcasts out there, and like the Internet there are probably podcasts for just about everything. I listen to a lot of writing podcasts, or podcasts dealing with science fiction and fantasy as literary genres. Why? Because sometimes the best way to learn anything of value is to listen to someone who actually knows what the heck he or she is talking about. So, the following are podcasts I listen to, whether regularly or irregularly, that have been of use to me for just about anything to do with writing (some of the podcasts mentioned might not be in my links section on the right-hand sidebar yet): Adventures in Scifi Publishing (Shaun Farrel and Sam Wynns)This is the podcast that introduced me to the entire field (often called podiosphere). This is one of the most fascinating and useful podcasts not only because it is directed towards my fields of interest (it does address fantasy too, by the way), but also because every episode has an author interview or some other feature. The interviews are top-notch and thoroughly engaging. They have a little commentary and discussion, author interviews, and, as an added bonus, Tobias S. Buckell does a regular feature called “Ask a Writer”, which should be self-explanatory.They are currently in their second season after a brief break. The Secrets Podcast (Michael A. Stackpole)I think this podcast is officially on hiatus, however you should certainly look through the huge archives and start listening. Stackpole is an author of many books, including several novels for the Star Wars universe and works of his own creation (referring to world creation of course). He knows what he’s talking about and his writing advice is in-depth and truly helpful. While Stackpole is primarily a science fiction and fantasy author, his advice could easily apply to any other form of fiction. Balticon Podcasts (Paul Fischer)The official podcast of Balticon, a science fiction/fantasy convention in Baltimore, MD. I just started listening to this one and I am already enjoying it greatly. So far I’ve listened to two interviews with authors and both have been fascinating. I love hearing authors talk about their work and how they write. You can learn a great deal that way. I don’t have too much to say about this other than what has already been said, but it is good so far! The Survival Guide to Writing Fantasy (Tee Morris)I think this one is on hiatus as well. Last I checked Mr. Morris was in the process of writing three books, all of which had deadlines very close to one another. The Survival Guide is sort of a guide for fantasy, for podcasting, for writing, and everything between. I’ve learned a great deal from this podcast not only because Mr. Morris is a writer, but because he has a lot of insight into the field from a different perspective: he’s a small press writer. His books have been published with Dragon Moon Press, who I have done reviews for, and so his perspective on things is not the same as those who are with the larger presses. Download the archive of podcasts and give them a good listen! Jay Lake’s PodcastsJay Lake is a relatively new author in the field, but his name has exploded. His interviews are really rather interesting and if you follow the link you’ll find several panel discussions and interviews that he has done. I just finished listening to most of them and they are all quite good. He’s a joy to listen to and he is obviously very passionate about his writing, and has a lot to say about the subject. The Agony Column (Rick Kleffel)Interviews, interviews, and more interviews. Kleffel has such a huge archive of great interviews. I’ve been listening since I discovered Adventures in Scifi Publishing and Kleffel certainly knows what he is doing. Huge authors are in his list of mp3s! Tor and Forge Books PodcastTor is a major publisher of science fiction and fantasy. Their podcast is generally interviews or panel discussions with authors and the majority of them are rather good and valuable. John Scalzi has been on there a few times and it is worth a listen. I plan to do more posts on podcasts later as I listen to more of them and become better acquainted with the field. Still, the ones above are a good start and really useful. Check them out!

World in the Satin Bag

The Signal: More Clips For You

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I just received another email about more clips from the new movie The Signal. Check them out:This first video has some interview material in it, which is really rather interesting I think. This next clip is directly from the film. I’m not sure where it takes place, since I haven’t seen it yet, but it gives you some idea what is going on. There you go! Enjoy! (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)

World in the Satin Bag

And She Flaps Her Wings Like Annoyance

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The evil School Faerie decided she wanted to be quite the little pest today. I just saw an email for my British Canon class saying that my TA wants everyone to have a full, six-page first draft of our final essays for the course by tomorrow for class (11:00 AM). I find that rather annoying. The email was sent on the 17th, but it still seems rather ridiculous for me to write a rough draft. I understand that for some people rough drafts (for essays) is really helpful. It’s not for me. It never has been. That’s not to say I’m smarter than other people, it just means I use a different process. I don’t write good essays when I think ahead. And to be honest, when I write this essay and do this draft, I’ll likely not touch it again until the day before the real essay is due. I don’t like doing drafts. It forces me to think too far ahead of time and I like the pressure of having to churn out an essay in 48 hours rather than 336 (or 2 weeks).So the overall result of having to do this rough draft is that I will learn nothing from the process of peer review in class. Here are my concerns over peer review in a college setting (at least in this case): First, it’s a COMPLETE draft. Not a partial. We’re expected to bring a fully realized idea to a peer review workshop for a DRAFT. If it’s a complete draft, why do we need a peer review for it? That’s like saying “I’d like you to write, but not put much thought into it, and then spend hours editing”. For me, this is like destroying the creative process. I’m going to bring six pages of this paper in, all completed, and then be expected to go back and do significant edits on it. When I write a paper, I write it to be finished with it. I don’t write drafts. I never have written a draft and miraculously I do remarkably well on essays. Go figure. The draft process is useless to me. Peer review in a classroom setting has NO value to anyone except in the following instances: Someone with considerably better writing skills gives opinions to some of lesser skills, which means that the person of lesser skill learns a great deal, but the person of greater skill gets shafted. People of relatively equal skill all help one another.This is the underlying problem with peer review in the classroom. People are not all of the same skill, nor do they all go through the same process. I might get stuck with a bunch of people that don’t know what they are doing, or don’t fully understand, or whatever. Generally this is pretty common, as I’ve been in other peer review groups before. What happened in those groups? They told me some things were wrong, and when I didn’t change them and turned the essay in anyway I got an A. What did I learn? I learned not to listen to people in classroom peer review groups because they haven’t offered me anything worthwhile. That’s not to say they can’t be useful to someone else, but the whole premise of peer review in classrooms for essays just doesn’t work for me. I’m going to talk to the TA or professor about my paper anyway, so why am I going to bother with students who likely won’t be able to help me? The TA even expects me to speak to him to make sure to solidify my idea. I don’t like this obsession with peer review for essays. I’m not writing to please the students, but to please the TA or professor. If I were trying to please a wide audience of people I would likely write differently, but there is a set formula to writing college level essays, even if there doesn’t seem to be, and I write within that formula and get my good grades. That’s it. Now, having said these things I feel like I need to clarify. I’m not saying I’m smarter or better than other people in the class or in any class. Far from it, actually. I’m saying that for me the process of writing rough drafts for peer review is pointless. I don’t work that way and never have. In fact, if I look back on my history of essays there is actually a legit reason for me to dislike rough draft/peer review for essays. When I do rough draft/peer review and follow the methods behind it I end up doing worse than if I just kept with my usual habits. My process just works better for me.So the end result of this is that I’m going to write a six page essay, because if I don’t my grade will be docked (as said in the email). I’m going to give my essay to a bunch of people to look at and have them tell me “well this is crap” or “I would change this”, etc. and then I’m not really going to listen to them and do minor editing the following week. My grade won’t slack because I’ll have followed the same process I would normally, and I’ll just pretend that tomorrow is the deadline for the final draft.Needless to say, this is a crappy day. I wanted to get a lot of writing done today.

World in the Satin Bag

Studying Science Fiction Politics: Perhaps

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I’m considering doing an independent study course next quarter. My reasoning is this: I already have to take one course that is required that I really don’t care about and since the number of modern literature courses offered (seeing how I’m a modern lit major) are rather crappy, I don’t want to have to take three courses that I hate. So I’ve resolved to considering independent study as an option to do something interesting.    I don’t want to discuss race because, quite frankly, I’m not that interested in any subject of race within science fiction beyond tropes of racism and the data I’m collecting for the project I’m working on for this blog (which serves no academic purpose other than to educate myself and anyone else interested on what minority categories look like in the spectrum of science fiction and fantasy). My interest, I think, is in politics.    Now, when I say politics I don’t mean in the same sense of the types of politics we encounter in the United States. I’m more interested in the representation of government within science fiction societies, and in particular, dystopian societies. What I’m considering is doing a study of the nature of government within several works of science fiction and perhaps arguing that government acts as a negative force and in some ways is like a corporate entity that uses desperate measures of control to maintain dominance. To put it more simply, I want to argue in a short set of works that government acts like an agent of slavery, using policy and the rule of law to enslave, imprison, and otherwise take complete control over a populace, often under the guise of fear.    The most obvious way of taking such a subject on is to include 1984 by George Orwell into the equation, which is a consideration. I’m also considering We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, and perhaps several other novels from the newer period of the last 30 years of science fiction. I’m not sure what works I’ll choose. I could certainly use Neuromancer by William Gibson or Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke, or a myriad of other novels. Needless to say this is still in the works. I’ve just begun to think about it.    I think the argument itself is rather interesting, though perhaps somewhat simplistic, which begs the question, what do I do to make it more complex and interesting? We can all think of governmental forces as enslavers, because we have learned or seen the use of government in that manner. So what is it about this interesting subject that makes things complex? Is it that people allow it to exist and don’t take measures to change things? 1984 would say so, since the main character witnesses several times the nature of ‘doublethink’ and even stops himself to ponder it. But he never does anything, he only considers it, except when it’s far too late. It could possibly be assumed that people before him did the same, and the people before those people, for how else could something so wicked that is used as a method of otherwise illegal control gain so much momentum? The same might be said of the people in We where the rules have changed so drastically in the domed, closed-off city that even sex is done by appointment and without preference. Certainly the benefit of having easy selection of the partners you want has benefits, unless you’re the type that wants nothing to do with someone. Such a world leaves no room for choice and nobody truly complains until the end when it is discovered that there’s nothing really wrong with the rest of the world (sort of like The Island with Ewan McGregor). You can imagine, though, being forced into sex by appointment and being required to perform sufficiently, or be docked points or whatever it might be that a government could use to control your enjoyment. And what would you do if you found you liked a particular person and someone else screwed up your plan of only enjoying their company? These are things that are perhaps created by a negligent public, since such policies either came out of nowhere and nobody did anything, or not enough was done and whatever revolution might have occurred simply failed.    These are the thoughts in my head on this subject. I don’t know if it will become anything or if I can even find a sponsoring professor to take me on, but I do intend to try and see if I can make it work. It sounds like fun.     On to the subject of what books to read: Do you have any recommendations? Anything really, so long as it’s SF. I’m curious to see what you folks think!

World in the Satin Bag

Quota Reached: Writing Going Well

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Okay, so you might not give a flying fig about this, but so be it. I reached my quota today, and yesterday too (mostly, I generally don’t count when I’m a few words under) and both times have been in this new story I’m writing currently entitled “The Life of Jordan”. I imagine the name will change. I’m writing it for Writers of the Future since I have until the 31st of March to get this bad boy written. It’s going to be on the longer side I think, as in right around the 12,000-word mark. This time it’s SF, while the last time I submitted it was fantasy. Not sure why I’m doing SF this time, but I like the general idea of this story.The interesting thing is that while writing this I’ve had a lot of doubts. Usually I start writing something and I love the story 100% (even the writing) and then as I get closer to the end I start to have doubts. This is turning out to be the opposite. I like the idea of the story, but I’m not sure i like how I’m writing it. It is growing on me, though, and I think maybe it’ll work. I’m going to take it to the end nonetheless to see how it turns out.How about anyone else out there that writes? When you write do you hate the story at first and have it grow on you or the other way around? (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)

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