Thursday, 13 June 2013

The Next Big Thing: Wolf Island

I've been tagged in The Next Big Thing meme, where writers talk about their work-in-progress. So here I'm getting my meme on.

(I'm not tagging anyone, as I think most people I know were tagged last year.)




1. What is the working title of your next book?

Wolf Island



2. Where did the idea come from for the book?

In the wild, wolves live as families. The nature of these families is flexible, and wolves in different areas may have different family setups, but they're still families. Unrelated wolves may join packs sometimes, but we're talking about the unrelated wolf being adopted into the family, not an alpha taking over by force or anything of that nature.

The whole alpha and beta thing was based on observations of wolves in zoos, where adult wolves were forced together in small enclosures. This wouldn't happen in the wild. Scientists have realised it was a mistake to apply the zoo behaviour to the wild for a long time, but fantasy authors have yet to get the memo (for the most part).

I didn't set out to write a werewolf book, but the lack of real wolf behaviour bothered me. So I ended up writing about a pack forming in wild wolf style. Unrelated young wolves placed together, with enough space to go their own ways if they wanted. The island is a prison, but it's not a tiny zoo cage. The pack is a family, not a strict hierarchy system.



3. What genre does your book fall under?

Young Adult Contemporary Fantasy



4. What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

No idea. I don't cast my books, but even if I did, the people I write about are often under-represented in the acting world. The two older teens are a British Indian girl and a Black British boy. The ideal actors are likely to be unknowns who've been struggling to get roles.



5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

When Anjali's werewolfism is discovered, she's sent to a nature reserve in the Hebrides, allegedly for her own good.



6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I plan to query agents and try publisher submission calls. After that, who knows.



7. How long did/will it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

I work on several projects at once and I don't time them, so I don't know.



8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

It has more in common with other wilderness survival books, than it does with other werewolf books. But there are some appropriative aspects of the young adult survival genre that I don't like. There's a tendency to appropriate indigenous spiritualties, so the characters can have a spiritual encounter. As such, I don't want to make direct comparisons to those books.

But imagine a book where teens survive on an island and add wolves.



9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Outside of the general grumbling about wolf behaviour, I'm also interested in the history and ecology of the Hebrides. Some of the islands are pretty big and have deer and ponies. There are also a number that were once inhabited, and all that's left now are old buildings. (Wolf Island isn't a specific island. It's a mashup of interesting bits of the other islands.)



10.What else about the book might pique the reader's interest?

There's also sheep! But no weresheep. And the two main characters are friends rather than dating, for fans of low-romance books.

Saturday, 1 June 2013

The Tools of Gesture Writing

A stickperson dances Gangnam StyleThe New York Times blog had a piece comparing writing to gesture drawing, written by Rachel Howard. A gesture drawing is one done quickly, which aims to capture the essence of the gesture, rather than the detail. For a human model, the aim is to catch the life and feeling, more than the proportions, facial features or anything of that nature.

It caught my attention for two reasons. One is I've been working on my gesture drawing skills, as evidence by the stopwatch tied onto the top of my easel*.

The other is it's exactly how I write. I have snippets of dialogue, odd descriptions and a whole lot of holes between. I write bits from all over the story, in any order. It's only later that I go in and flesh out the scene.

I don't agree that it's always the way to go. Everyone writes (and draws) differently. But it was interesting to see the parallels.

It also lead to a ponder that in order to start with the gesture, you need the right tools, and that will vary from person to person. For drawing, I find gesture easier with a pencil or pen. I'm awkward with paint and I'm still finding my way with charcoal, though I should get there with practise. But some tools I'll never get the hang of, because they're not designed for it. Drawing with a mouse is challenging at the best of times, but mice don't generally have the sensitivity to take quick strokes. If all I had was my computer and a mouse, I wouldn't be gesture drawing at all**.

Writing is the reverse. Writing by hand has always been awkward. Ever since I was young, I would edit what I planned to write, to take out as many words and sentences as possible. Not in a way that made it stronger. Often it made the thing confusing. It was simply because I struggled to keep writing, so I tried to cut down the amount I had to do. This wasn't good for creativity and led to very stale and overly concise work.

The computer was my escape from that. I can type much more easily than I can handwrite. I make fewer of my dyslexia mistakes***. I can rearrange things later. It gave me the tools to gesture write, once I'd gotten over the initial awkwardness of learning to type.

All this means there may be hope for my gesture painting skills, once I figure out the whole brush business. And if you're struggling to write or draw, it may be trying some new tools will help more than you realise.




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* There's an extra challenge to this due to being ambidextrous. I dither about which hand to use, which wastes time. If you ever wondered why the world isn't populated by ambidextrous people, this is the one.

A lion is coming towards me! I must throw this stone at it! Should I use my right hand or my left hand? Which one is which anyway? I think I'm holding the stone in my right, but maybe I should pass it to my lef-

~eaten by lion~

** Though I did have a shot at it for this blog post. Behold my gesture drawing with a mouse. It's Psy doing the Gangnam Style dance, just to add a bit of celebrity stickpersoness.

*** I know the b and d keys apart due to their placement on the keyboard, so it doesn't matter if I confuse the letters when I'm reading or handwriting... when I'm typing, I almost always hit the correct letter. I do still muddle b and p sometimes, as I use the same hand to hit those keys.

Saturday, 25 May 2013

Rainbow Lights Released (Plus Cupcakes)

'Tis the season for lots of sugar, as my collection Rainbow Lights is now live on Amazon. In celebration, I made cupcakes in rainbow cases and decorated them with a rainbow of sweets. Some might notice indigo and ink are missing from my collection colours, which was due to the availability of dyes and sweets. But the family aren't complaining, as it's all still sugar.

Cupcakes in rainbow-striped cases. Each row of cupcakes is iced in a colour. From front to back: purple, blue, green, yellow, orange and red. An assortment of matching coloured sweets is on each one.

In less sugary information, the book is a collection of fantasy and science fiction stories and poems (mostly stories). I have an official page on my site, which has the table of contents, links to any stories available free online (you can also read the first couple with Amazon's look inside feature) and a comprehensive list of where to buy. Currently these are Amazon's sites in various countries, but there will be other places later.

There's also a page on Goodreads if you'd like to mark it for later, leave a review, or anything of that nature.




Dates and Deadlines

The date I originally set was 13th May, 2013. This was great, except I'd forgotten it was my parents' ruby wedding anniversary, and I was down to cook a meal. (I remembered the meal, but not the date.) This meant the collection was pushed on a little way, but I didn't miss it by much. The book went live on 23rd May, and I got down to making cupcakes on the 25th.




Future Plans

Currently the book is only available on Kindle. I'd like to get it up on Smashwords too. I also plan to make a paperback version, with charcoal illustrations inside. The paperback will take time due to the extra pictures, so I'm not setting a date. It'll be done when it's done.

There will also be a steampunk novelette in the future, and the family appears to have nominated me to make themed cupcakes for that too. I may have set a precedent here...

But now it's time for me to drink tea, eat cupcakes, and start work on the next thing.

Rainbow Lights cover: a rainbow squid in chalk pastels, in a charcoal black ocean.

Yay!

Tuesday, 21 May 2013

Rainbow Lights Cover Reveal

Rainbow Lights is almost here, but not quite. In the meantime, after the ritual smearing of chalk pastels on my face, it's time to reveal the cover:

Rainbow Lights Cover: A rainbow squid in chalk on a black background


The original picture was drawn on A2 white card with chalk pastels and charcoal. I took a few progress shots as I went along, for those interested in the process:

That's all for now. The actual release, with obligatory cupcake pictures, will be soon. Most likely by the end of this week, where I'll have a few tales to tell of things that got in the way (none of them bad). Until then, if you have any questions about covers, squid or chalk pastels, I'm your mushroom.

Wednesday, 15 May 2013

Vicious - Episodes 1-3 (Review)

The cast of ViciousVicious (originally titled Vicious Old Queens) is a new sitcom on ITV, centred around an old gay couple who have been together for almost 50 years. The show focuses on the interactions between them and their friends, and their new neighbour Ash, a young man who rents the flat above them*.

At first glance, it's a very different thing to my usual reviews, as it's not a speculative show. However, it has a crossover of actors between speculative things. Freddy is played by Ian McKellen (Magneto, Gandalf) and Stuart by Derek Jacobi (Professor Yana in Doctor Who). Some of the jokes are aimed at the genre crowd. Add in the representation themes (not just on-screen, as McKellen and Jacobi are both gay), and I was interested to see where it went.

This review covers the first three episodes and some thoughts on the general series themes. I watched episode two first, went back to watch one, and then watched three (just to be confusing). The series has three more episodes to go and a Christmas special (I likely won't review those, as this is more of an early review so people can see if it's something that might interest them).




The Episodes



Episode One

The first episode mainly serves to introduce the characters. Freddy and Stuart find out an old friend has died, and decide to have a little gathering at their flat after the funeral. Ash (Iwan Rheon) visits to see the vacant flat, but gets the wrong door and rings the bell of Freddie and Stuart's flat instead.

When the gathering happens, also attending are Violet (Frances de la Tour), absent-minded Penelope (Marcia Warren) and grumpy Mason (Phillip Voss).

I likely appreciated this episode more as I'd seen the second, because it wasn't as quotable. It also had a rape joke, which really wasn't funny. But there were some moments in the rest, such as Freddie and Stuart's reaction when Ash opens their curtains (this is me - I never open my curtains). And cutting the sandwiches up very small (this is a very British thing at parties, though on a more serious note, also hints at money not being too plentiful for the couple).

The strength of this episode is in its potential. The parts are all well cast. It also wins on the basic setup. Apart from the running joke of Stuart not having told his mother, everyone knows about their relationship. It's refreshing to have a story about gay characters that isn't focused on coming out. And due to the not-so-subtle attempts to find out Ash's sexuality, Ash ends up coming out as straight, which is a fun reversal.

But it didn't hit that potential. One of things that makes it harder to laugh is Freddie repeatedly pushes too far in the bickering and upsets Stuart (though Stuart also snipes back, he's generally a little milder and less egotistical than Freddie). If this had been a later episode, where the viewer knew how their relationship went, it'd come across differently. I viewed it differently having seen episode two first. But here, without that context, it created an uncertainty about whether there's a genuine problem in the relationship, and it's hard to laugh at that.



Episode Two

Freddie's acting career wasn't much of a career, but he did play a villain in an episode of Doctor Who and he's been invited to a Doctor Who fan event. As the event approaches, Stuart is spending increasing amounts of time out of the flat and Freddie worries he's having an affair.

Meanwhile, Ash wants to get back together with his ex-girlfriend, and comes to Freddie and Stuart for advice. Violet also has a few suggestions.

The plot is one that's very guessable, as it's the old nutshell of assuming absence is an affair, when something else is going on. However, this series isn't really about plot, but character interaction, and this episode got that part down. The layers of Freddie and Stuart's interactions are much clearer here. The way they show caring about each other may be a little different, but it's there.

After this episode, I'm in love with Penelope. Her delivery of the lines where she's trying to prove she does know Stuart's name, by constantly using it, is classic. In general, the actors seem more comfortable with their roles.



Episode 3

While Freddie is preparing for an audition, Ash visits to ask for career advice. Freddie suggests he try acting, and should help him prepare.

When Ash gets a part at his first audition, Freddie's confidence is ruined, and he starts being nice to people. Stuart can't take it anymore, so comes up with a plan to get Freddie's confidence back.

This is generally a quieter episode, as Freddie spends a fair bit of it feeling sad, but I found it a nice change of pace. The acting humour reminded me of my amateur dramatics days**. I've met the person who tried to make being Cook Staff Number Four the most important part in the whole script. Freddie's reaction to Ash's success was spot on (success is fine... as long as you're not more successful than him).

Stuart and Violet also have some scenes, where the chemistry between them as long term (probably) best friends really comes across.




Overview



Style of Comedy

Vicious is an old-fashioned sitcom, with limited sets (it's mostly in Stuart and Freddie's flat) and snarky one-liners. It has a laughter track (which is my least favourite thing about it) but I'd learnt to ignore it by the third episode.

I can't really say how funny or unfunny it is, as I rarely laugh out loud at sitcoms. I suppose because I'm expecting the jokes. But I was looking forward to the third episode, so it did succeed in that.



Gay Themes

One of the inevitable discussions is how the gay characters are portrayed and whether that's a good or bad thing. The main criticism here tends to be that they're rather camp. It's true they are, but the problem with campiness isn't the campiness, as some gay men are camp. It's that it's usually a trait for gay men who are there to be accessories, rather than characters in their own right. It's often used as a lazy shorthand for gayness, as though there's no other way to be gay.

In most cases, a camp gay man will be the gay best friend. He will be there to help the straight main character. He'll drop everything for that main character, because his life revolves around serving them. If the gay friend is in a relationship, it will be there to inspire the main character.

Alternatively, the camp gay man is there to appear as a minor comedy character.

None of that is true in Vicious. It's about Eddie and Stuart, with the straight characters being there to help tell Eddie and Stuart's story. People may come for advice or see the couple's relationship as an inspiration, but that's not why Eddie and Stuart exist in the story. Nor is campiness a shortcut for gayness, as it's evident they're gay in other ways (like living together and having direct discussions about being gay, whether other people are gay, etc.)

It's also notable that these are older men, who lived through the time when gay relationships were illegal, when code words were needed to talk about it, and when being camp was something used as a weapon and an identity in a hostile climate.

The style of the show won't appeal to everyone, but I don't think its existence is a bad thing.



Reversals

Stereotype reversals and gender fluidity come up repeatedly in this. From the start, there's Ash cast in a role that would usually go to a young woman, of the pretty young thing people are ogling. Yet he reacts as a young man might - uncomfortable and unsure how to handle it, because this isn't something that usually happens to men.

Ash is also the one with romantic dreams of finding true love. Compared to Violet, who is clearly less interested in the love part.

At one point Freddie uses the term "shop girl" to refer to a man, which gets a laugh from the studio audience, because that's not how it goes. People will argue that fireman and paper boy mean everyone really, not just men. But the same logic doesn't apply to house wife and shop girl. They might say anyone can be a bitch, slut or whore, but in reality, it's rare for people to use them as insults towards a man (or if they do, to add the extra of manwhore and manslut, as though it's a different thing when it's a man).

This is a mixed bag for me, because I do appreciate that it hits people as unexpected, which may make them laugh and to think about why it's unexpected at the same time. It makes people notice the things they otherwise don't notice because they're so common, by switching the targets***.

But I also have an instinctively bad reaction to those insults, even if used in contexts where they're not being aimed at women. I cringe at Ash's discomfort, at the same time as being aware that if he were a woman, it'd be taken as normal treatment and some viewers wouldn't notice. His facial expressions of horror and discomfort would be seen as over-reacting if he was a she.

So the jokes in this category are sometimes things that need to be said, but it doesn't stop them having an uncomfortable layer to them.



Conclusions

Comedies are one of the hardest things to recommend to other people, as there's a wide range in what people find funny, and how funny they need to find them to want to watch. So I'm not going to say if anyone should or shouldn't watch it, but I hope there's enough information in my review to give a fair idea of whether it might appeal.




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* ITV's press pack says "their lives now consist of reading books, walking their dog and bickering." The dog is an almost dead dog they wake up sporadically to see he isn't dead. He's played by a pile of blankets rather than an actual dog, because he doesn't move. Walking their dog? Who wrote this?

** I was also reminded of Tumblr, where creative aspects of scripts are often put down to the actor adding something in and it being kept, rather than being in the script. These things happen, but not as often as Tumblr posts claim. The part where Freddie is talking about dropping a potato not being in the script, but them keeping it in, reminded me of that so much. This needs to be a Tumblr meme.

*** This is a similar philosophy to gender-switching superhero characters or cover models, to highlight that the way women are dressed and posed is not equivalent to the men.