Ashley R. Pollard's Blog, page 16

Now Watching

Now that The Bureau is with my Alpha reader, so after a long break I'm in the process of reacquainting myself with my Bad Dog universe. I've started writing Two Moons, and I've got 14,856 words knocked into shape.

Two Moons is a side-story or spin-off from the main story and so it doesn't focus on combat armour suit action. The plot is basically a mystery, so this is very much a new challenge for me.

In the meantime, we've been rewatching an old favourite, Babylon 5. Hard to credit that the original pilot was shown in 1993 and that the series ended in 1998. However you count the years, it's a lot.

There's even been mention of Babylon 5 on Geek dot com. I'm not sure that I agree with the assessment of it being an intimidating show, or the need for a must watch episode list, but whatever floats people's boat – if it gets them into the show.

While the CGI is lacking by today's standards, the story remains compelling. We're pretty much mainlining three episodes each night and are currently halfway through season four. Got to love the Shadow ships, which remain one of the most interesting bad guy ships ever seen on screen.


I'd forgotten how good the story was/is. It's also recharging my creative juices, as in giving me a lot to think about in terms of where I want my story to go. My motto now being, think bigger! Think evil!

RAFAEL's Advanced Suite for AFVs

Found this on the web: RAFAEL's Advanced Suite for Armoured Fighting Vehicles - A Quantum leap in Armored Vehicles Transformation. There's an interview about the project here.

People who have read my novels will know that the combat armour suits have AI/expert system interface that allow the pilot to get on with the mission, which is the foundation for their nicknames.

The Marine suits are called DOGS, which stands for: Dispersed Operation and Guidance System.

The Army version are called APES, which stands for: Autonomous Pilot Expert System.

This YouTube video pretty much nails what I described in my stories. It's really hard to stay ahead of what can be done, let alone predict what might be doable in the future.

World Book Day

Having finished my current novel, well doing edits, I'm enjoying the chance to read a bit more. I was also reminded that it's World Book Day. Yay!

Books I've recently finished are:

Shambleau by C. L. Moore, which is a collection containing: Black God's Kiss; Shambleau; Black God's Shadow; Black Thirst; The Tree of Life; and Scarlet Dream. That's two Jirel of Joiry tales, and the rest feature her other famous character Northwest Smith.

A very different story telling style to what I normally read or the current fashion. Besides enjoying the stories, it left me thinking about how I write. Recommended.


I've also read the next two book in the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher: White Knight and Small Favor. Urban fantasy is not my go-to genre (I like rockets, robots, and rayguns too much),  but I've enjoyed the stories for what they are.

However, these last two reads have blown my socks off. Great stuff, but I can't imagine that anyone needs a recommendation from me, but recommended anyway.

   
Another book that knocked my socks off is Beholder's Eye by Julie Czernada the first of a trilogy called the Web Shifters. We had read her Species Imperative trilogy omnibus collection, and I had been most impressed by her alien biology and world building so I was on the look out for another novel from her.

Beholder's Eye starts slow, but by page 60 I couldn't put the book down.


And another, new to me author, I've read recently is the first book in the Diving Universe series, Diving Into the Wreck by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

Her writing is as smooth as silk, and her ability to provoke emotions in the reader was awe inspiring. So again recommended.

Currently I'm reading Cibola Burn by James S. Corey, book four in The Expanse series. What I've read so far has grabbed me, making me want to read more. So, wishing you all a very Happy World Book Day, and let me know what you're reading.

The Bureau: Draft Finished

Susan working on her longbow.
We were away this weekend on a longbow making course run by Pip Bickerstaffe and Ben Lamb of Bickerstafee Bows at the The Longbow Shop in Birkenhead. It was a long drive up on Friday due to the number of roadworks. It seems there's a drive to make our motorways "smart," which will be great when its done, but now is not so great.

Anyway, the two day course saw us shaping our bows from pre-prepared laminated staves, and you can see more pictures here.

In other news, I have for all intents and purposes finished the first draft of my next novel, The Bureau.

For definitions of finished that means it's heading off to my Alpha reader for feedback. It may come back with requests to expand the story, because I have a tendency to write terse descriptions that can leave out details that a reader needs. Deborah Chester would no doubt call it bland description.

Writing, it has a learning curve.

We shall see.

Finish What You Start

Made me laugh.
The words they torment me. Squiggling words that elude my search. But, words I must write if I am ever to finish the work before me. As you can guess, still not finished.

Excuses you ask? I have a few.

I went to the Schrödinger Lecture 2019: The Cassini Spacecraft Mission at Saturn at Imperial College, which ate into my writing time (I'm so not a morning person, and do most of my writing in the afternoon and evening).

Then I managed to spend a day noodling what to do with my World of Drei series. Thinking about when I will compile a print version? Vellum had an update, and I spent time checking out the new features.

After that I spent some time over on Patricia Wrede's blog. Lots to read and think about. This post in particular struck a cord.

So last week I only managed to write 1,036 words. I now have one chapter to revise, and one to finish.

PicoCon 36

 
The first SF convention I've been to in a year, and the first of two I shall be going to this year.

There were four talks. The first was on game design theory by Alexis Kennedy (the guy on the far right of the picture) and Lottie Bevan (sitting on his right). I found his talk interesting, but he had a tendency to mumble his words, which made following what he said difficult. I would have liked to have seen them both presenting the first talk as it was clear from the last panel that Lottie had a lot to say.

The second talk by Gavin Smith (second from left) was about V for Vendetta, which unfortunately was a talk that was undermined by the power point slides; as in he repeated what was on the slides, which lessened his presentation. A good example of what is meant when one says, death by power point.

The third talk of the morning was by Andrew Bannister (on the left) on the history of life etc and SF. I enjoyed this because it contained personal anecdotes about the subject and how Andrew became an author.

After lunch, we listened to Simon Morden (centre–insert Babylon 5 joke here) who gave a presentation on space law and the commons. A well illustrated talk on the problems of exploiting space and the pros and cons of laws and the idea behind "the commons."

Finally, there was the panel discussion that was a question-and-answer session, which was a lot of fun. So that was it for another PicoCon. After reviewing the history of the convention, I feel very old when I realized that PicoCon 16 was twenty years ago, and that wasn't my first, either. Which means I've been going to them for more years than I care to remember.

Not Yet Done

Picture of the sky taken by Susan. Look at all those stars. This week I managed 2,249 new words; running total for The Bureau, 66,012 words. The novel now runs in at 41 chapters, and I don't think I will need to add anymore, I just need some more words to round out the plot.

So yay, way to go!

Yes but, I've failed to finish, again. Clearly the stars are not right! As you can see, there are a lot of them.

What I have learnt this week, is never overestimate how close to the end of a story you may think you are, because the chances are you have further to go than you think. 

For The Bureau, this problem is largely down to writing new words that required me to go back and put foreshadowing details earlier in the story. From this one can infer that I'm a just in time world builder, which came as a surprise to me.

I tend to think of myself as a person who thinks about setting. I read and research stuff, but in this case, The Bureau's gestation has been so long that I've moved on as a writer. So, one big problem is making sure that the bits I wrote earlier match those bits I've written later.

It's a tough life. Ha!

Opportunity Gone

In memory of Opportunity Rover, posted as it falls under robots and my dream of living in a SF future.Not much to say really, apart from it saddens me to see the end of this project, but what a ride it has been. Ninety days turns into a 14 year mission. I can truly say, they don't make them like that anymore.
Of course we still have Curiosity, the last one of the four Rovers sent to Mars, still carrying on with the exploration of the planet.

Twitter and Writing

This picture of Ultima Thule excites me. My SF dream of living in a future of robots, rockets, and rayguns. This comes under rockets.Over on Twitter there's a thread going around about how writers write. Since my goal is to write more, such conversations are of interest, because you never know if you'll learn something new.

1. Write at the same time each day, not when you feel like it.
2. Finish the project before starting a new one.
3. Reward yourself, otherwise you’ll slowly grind down and be unable to write.

I've broken these rules time-and-again, but you just have to pick yourself up and get back in the saddle. So last week, still not finished The Bureau, but I'm confident that I've started the actual last chapter that needs writing. Though with the added caveat, I'll probably end up cycling back to add bits to foreshadow the ending.

Words, all new, 1,772 for the week (I reset my daily goal to 250, but still reached it).

In other news, for definitions of news that's a bit vague, treated myself to a couple of Star Wars X-Wing models when buying my godson a Y-wing. Been reading the Heavy Gear Blitz rules as there's an interesting thread on the Dream Pod 9 forum about rules updates. Both of those were treats, as was a lovely meal out with friends at Wagamama in High Street, Kensington on Friday night.

And watched Hugo in 3D. Susan bought it as a bargain price 3D film. It's slow to start, rambles on a bit, but is absolutely charming, and a must watch for all fans of the history of movies.

So that's it for another week.

Breaking News:

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