Kelly Swails's Blog, page 7
August 27, 2011
So, um. Hi.
Wow. Has is really been three weeks since I've posted on here? Clearly I have been remiss.
Anyhoo. I'm in charge of planning a trip to celebrate the husband's 40 birthday/our 13th wedding anniversary. We thought about a spa vacation in Vegas, but have nixed the idea in favor of someplace a little closer to the midwest. Suggestions? We'd like to go in October or November and it needs to be someplace relatively warm. Secluded and scenic a plus.
Anyhoo. I'm in charge of planning a trip to celebrate the husband's 40 birthday/our 13th wedding anniversary. We thought about a spa vacation in Vegas, but have nixed the idea in favor of someplace a little closer to the midwest. Suggestions? We'd like to go in October or November and it needs to be someplace relatively warm. Secluded and scenic a plus.
August 8, 2011
Recovery period
Back from Gen Con. I met great new people, hung out with cool friends, and walked five hundred miles (that figure is approximate.) I even managed to get some writing done. I think I've finally caught up on sleep. Now I just have to get back into a healthy eating routine and life will be back to normal. Now that Gen Con is past, summer is "over" in my mind. Now if the humidity and high temperatures would follow suit ...
On the writing front, novel rewrites are plugging along, and I need to get crackin' a few new short stories. I just bought "Save the Cat!" It's a book about screenwriting, but several smart folks have told me its lessons translate wonderfully for novel writing. I'm not even through the first chapter and I've already highlighted a few passages on my nook, so I'd say it's money well-spent.
On the writing front, novel rewrites are plugging along, and I need to get crackin' a few new short stories. I just bought "Save the Cat!" It's a book about screenwriting, but several smart folks have told me its lessons translate wonderfully for novel writing. I'm not even through the first chapter and I've already highlighted a few passages on my nook, so I'd say it's money well-spent.
August 2, 2011
Gen Con schedule
Tomorrow I'm heading to Indianapolis for Gen Con. It's four days of gaming and writing goodness, and I'm stoked. Here's my schedule for those folks that may want to find me:
Thursday, August 4th
1:00 p.m.: Tackling Writer's Block
3:00 p.m.: Author's Alley
6:00 p.m. read and critique
Friday, August 5th
10:00 a.m.: Author's alley
3:00 p.m.: sword and sorcery
Saturday, August 6th:
10:00 a.m.: Brainstorm
12:00 p.m.: What's in a Word1:00 p.m.: Tension and Conflict5:00 p.m. reading
Sunday, August 7th: 12:00 p.m.: Author's alley
Thursday, August 4th
1:00 p.m.: Tackling Writer's Block
3:00 p.m.: Author's Alley
6:00 p.m. read and critique
Friday, August 5th
10:00 a.m.: Author's alley
3:00 p.m.: sword and sorcery
Saturday, August 6th:
10:00 a.m.: Brainstorm
12:00 p.m.: What's in a Word1:00 p.m.: Tension and Conflict5:00 p.m. reading
Sunday, August 7th: 12:00 p.m.: Author's alley
July 18, 2011
RIP Borders
Sad day today--Borders announced they were closing the rest of their stores. I had hopes for the Borders in my neck of the woods, but alas.
The rational and logical part of me realizes that this is due in large part to poor management. The emotional part of me mourns the lost of an outlet for art and literature. Yes, there are still libraries and other bookstores. But there are now less.
Perhaps with one less big-box store independents will start to open up again.
The rational and logical part of me realizes that this is due in large part to poor management. The emotional part of me mourns the lost of an outlet for art and literature. Yes, there are still libraries and other bookstores. But there are now less.
Perhaps with one less big-box store independents will start to open up again.
July 9, 2011
Welcome to the 21st century, Kel
So I've just ordered my first item of clothing online. Okay, it's not really my first--I have some t-shirts from Think Geek that I got as Christmas gifts. But this! I ordered a dress. A red dress. A red halter dress. And I can't wait to get it and try it on and dance around my living room.
Seriously, between Think Geek and ModCloth, I'm pretty sure I never have to go clothes shopping at the mall again.
Seriously, between Think Geek and ModCloth, I'm pretty sure I never have to go clothes shopping at the mall again.
The rewriting begins now!
I'm getting ready to dive in on the rewrite of Stormy Weather (a.k.a. the book to be renamed later). I've gotten some good thinking time in over the past few weeks, and I've brainstormed with some writerly folks and the hubs about back story and such, so I'm ready to dive in. I'm over my temporary mental hump: "I can't do this/it's broken/if it's not broken I'll break it/etc." Time to roll up my sleeves and get to work.
Rewriting is a strange beast. In my head I feel like I have soooooo much work to do. Rewriting the first chapters from scratch. Taking out a whole plot line. Rebuilding the ending. Fleshing out the backstory without getting all info dumpy. Pump up some tension. Give a few characters deeper angst. And yeah, it is a lot. But that's that magic of words. So much can be accomplished with their judicious use.
Rewriting is a strange beast. In my head I feel like I have soooooo much work to do. Rewriting the first chapters from scratch. Taking out a whole plot line. Rebuilding the ending. Fleshing out the backstory without getting all info dumpy. Pump up some tension. Give a few characters deeper angst. And yeah, it is a lot. But that's that magic of words. So much can be accomplished with their judicious use.
June 26, 2011
Movie Review--Green Lantern
Please welcome Richard Byers, my first-ever guest blogger! Richard Byers has written several Fogotten Realms novels as well as short stories. Plus he's an all-around great guy. Here's his review of The Green Lantern:
GREEN LANTERN REVIEW
by
Richard Lee Byers
In brightest day,
In blackest night,
No plot hole shall escape my sight.
Let those who worship illogic’s might,
Beware my power,
The critic’s insight!
Or something like that. My oath is still a work in progress. I’m waiting on editorial notes from the planet Oa.
I figured that while I’m waiting, I’d write a review of Green Lantern to be my guest post for Kelly’s blog. Fair warning: I’m going to serve up some major spoilers.
Still with me? All right, then.
Way back when I was a kid, dinosaurs walked the Earth, and Stan and Jack hadn’t yet invented Marvel, Green Lantern was my favorite superhero, and I still like him. So I very much wanted to enjoy seeing him at my local multiplex. And I did, but even so, the film has problems that prevent me from telling you, hey, it’s a masterpiece, sell a kidney if that’s what it takes to raise the price of a ticket.
The problem is the story. It doesn’t make sense and it’s sloppy and poorly put together.
Let’s deal with the doesn’t-make-sense aspect first, since this is what came closest to wrecking the movie for me. And let me warn you one more time that I’m going to spoil the heck out of the story.
The major threat in the movie is Parallax, a Guardian of the Universe possessed by evil, a monster so powerful that only a supremely capable member of the Green Lantern Corps named Abin Sur could cage him.
Already, we’ve got problems. All GL’s are exceptional, heroic individuals. That’s why the rings choose them. And they all fight with the same weapon and receive the same training. Yet only Abin Sur could beat Parallax? Even if all of the other 3,599 GL’s had flown out as one to fight the monster, they couldn’t have kicked ass? That’s very hard to buy.
It only gets worse from there. When Parallax escapes from his prison, he goes after his old enemy and quickly deals him a mortal wound. What happened to all of Abin Sur’s amazing power and competence? Well, we could hypothesize that the battle does the way it does because Parallax attacks by surprise...except that a power ring warns the wearer of imminent danger, like Spider-Man’s spider sense.
Anyway, Abin Sur’s ring selects an Earthman named Hal Jordan, our hero, to be his replacement. Hal travels to Oa for his GL basic training, but, because of the character flaw the movie has established for him to overcome, gets discouraged and quits.
Yet the real Green Lanterns and their bosses, the Guardians, let him keep his ring. The mightiest weapon in the universe, the tool that makes a GL what he is, the instrument that’s supposed to go to someone who will embrace the responsibility of protecting Sector 2814, and nobody bothers to reclaim it. Seriously?
Back on Earth, Hal learns and grows and heals and all that kind of thing and decides to give the whole superhero thing another go. And if you guessed that Parallax shows up to destroy our world not long after, you may have a bright future as a screenwriter
Despite only taking about five minutes of his Green Lantern training, Hal puts up a good fight. But this doesn’t strain our suspension of disbelief too severely, because at least it’s clear he’s overmatched.
Ultimately, he does what all heroes do in similar situations. He resorts to trickery. He leads Parallax into outer space, gets him to fly too close to the sun, the gravity pulls the monster in, and he burns up.
To the movie’s credit, it sets this up pretty well. Earlier on, when Hal is doing his test-pilot job, we see him winning a simulated dogfight with a comparable maneuver. And later on, one of the veteran Green Lanterns explains that even for people as powerful as they are, it’s a really bad idea to fly too close to a star.
But the problem is, Parallax is himself an experienced space traveler and a possessed Guardian. And Guardians are vastly intelligent immortal beings who pretty much know everything. It’s just not credible that Hal baits him to his doom in much the same way that a person might provoke a wild animal into charging, dodge aside, and let the beast run off the edge of a cliff.
So that’s how the plot doesn’t make sense. What about the sloppiness?
Well, the movie launches with tedious exposition about the Guardians, the GLC, and Parallax. It would have been slicker storytelling to present this information to the audience as Hal learns it.
The movie also tells us things it doesn’t need to.
In recent years, the various Green Lantern comics have introduced the idea of an “emotional spectrum.” Feelings and related psychological phenomena are actually the most powerful forces in the universe. A GL doesn’t just require willpower to manifest and control the green energy of his power ring. The green energy is willpower.
Some readers dig this premise, some don’t. I’ve always been of two minds about it. It’s given us some interesting new characters and stories, but it’s also taken what was always science fiction (although admittedly, the science part was the nonsensical pseudoscience of a superhero universe) and turned it into something that feels a lot more like fantasy. I’m not sure I like that.
But whether you like it in the comics or not, incorporating the idea into the movie requires even more exposition when there’s already quite a bit. And it just isn’t necessary, even though one could argue that it ties the personal and cosmic threads of the story together thematically.
It does this because Hal’s character flaw is fear. Whereas Parallax is fear personified, empowered and possessed by the yellow energy of that portion of the emotional spectrum.
Sounds like a winner, right? But it doesn’t pay off because by the time Hal meets Parallax, he’s already overcome his fear. Parallax can’t use it against him, and so it doesn’t matter where his evil power comes from. He might as well be any big nasty monster that spews destructive energy and throws things around with his tentacles.
The film’s messy in other ways, too. It makes the mistake that’s hurt other superhero movies before it and tries to stuff in too many villains. It uses both Parallax and Hector Hammond. In the comics, Hector is an exceptionally powerful villain, and in the movie, a far more interesting character than Parallax, who’s just a one-note demon. Hector could have fulfilled all our villain needs, and the film would almost have certainly have been the better for it. But Hal has to knock him down relatively quickly to get on to the big showdown with Parallax.
So, with all these problems, why did I enjoy the movie anyway? Well, though the plot is flawed, the characterizations are solid.
Some fans might criticize the light touch that Ryan Reynolds and the jokes in the script lend to Hal, who can come across as grimly serious in the comics. But back in the Silver Age, when I first met him, Hal didn’t hit me like that. He was a fearless, resourceful hero who always got the job done, but he also had a sense of humor, and he frequently had fun. To a degree, Reynolds’s portrayal harks back to that version of the character, and I liked that.
Mark Strong, Michael Clarke Duncan, and Geoffrey Rush are spot on as Hal’s fellow Green Lanterns Sinestro, Kilowog, and Tomar Re, while Peter Sarsgaard gives the best performance in the movie as Hector.
Except for Hal’s mask, which somehow just wasn’t shaped right, the visuals were cool. (Let me mention that I saw the movie in 2D, so I’m not vouching for the quality of the 3D effects.) I liked the way the Green Lanterns fly. The green energy constructs, the alien GL's, and the Guardians all looked right. Oa looked fantastic.
So, pretty much throughout, I found quite a bit to like about the movie. But some of my enjoyment was rooted in my already being a Green Lantern fan. I appreciated Mark Strong as Sinestro partly because I already knew who Sinestro was. I liked the landscape of Oa partly because I know what the planet represents.
If you’re already into GL too, catch the movie on the big screen. If you’re not, you may want to wait for HBO or Netflix.
*
I’m Richard Lee Byers, the author of various fantasy and horror books including The Q Word and Other Stories, an ebook collection of some of my best short fiction. It’s available for all platforms here:
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/rleebyers
You also buy it for the Kindle and purchase all my Forgotten Realms novels and other works here:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Richard+Lee+Byers&x=0&y=0
Friend my on Facebook, Follow me on Twitter, and read my blog here:
http://rleebyers.livejournal.com/
Thanks, Richard, for sharing your thoughts!
GREEN LANTERN REVIEW
by
Richard Lee Byers
In brightest day,
In blackest night,
No plot hole shall escape my sight.
Let those who worship illogic’s might,
Beware my power,
The critic’s insight!
Or something like that. My oath is still a work in progress. I’m waiting on editorial notes from the planet Oa.
I figured that while I’m waiting, I’d write a review of Green Lantern to be my guest post for Kelly’s blog. Fair warning: I’m going to serve up some major spoilers.
Still with me? All right, then.
Way back when I was a kid, dinosaurs walked the Earth, and Stan and Jack hadn’t yet invented Marvel, Green Lantern was my favorite superhero, and I still like him. So I very much wanted to enjoy seeing him at my local multiplex. And I did, but even so, the film has problems that prevent me from telling you, hey, it’s a masterpiece, sell a kidney if that’s what it takes to raise the price of a ticket.
The problem is the story. It doesn’t make sense and it’s sloppy and poorly put together.
Let’s deal with the doesn’t-make-sense aspect first, since this is what came closest to wrecking the movie for me. And let me warn you one more time that I’m going to spoil the heck out of the story.
The major threat in the movie is Parallax, a Guardian of the Universe possessed by evil, a monster so powerful that only a supremely capable member of the Green Lantern Corps named Abin Sur could cage him.
Already, we’ve got problems. All GL’s are exceptional, heroic individuals. That’s why the rings choose them. And they all fight with the same weapon and receive the same training. Yet only Abin Sur could beat Parallax? Even if all of the other 3,599 GL’s had flown out as one to fight the monster, they couldn’t have kicked ass? That’s very hard to buy.
It only gets worse from there. When Parallax escapes from his prison, he goes after his old enemy and quickly deals him a mortal wound. What happened to all of Abin Sur’s amazing power and competence? Well, we could hypothesize that the battle does the way it does because Parallax attacks by surprise...except that a power ring warns the wearer of imminent danger, like Spider-Man’s spider sense.
Anyway, Abin Sur’s ring selects an Earthman named Hal Jordan, our hero, to be his replacement. Hal travels to Oa for his GL basic training, but, because of the character flaw the movie has established for him to overcome, gets discouraged and quits.
Yet the real Green Lanterns and their bosses, the Guardians, let him keep his ring. The mightiest weapon in the universe, the tool that makes a GL what he is, the instrument that’s supposed to go to someone who will embrace the responsibility of protecting Sector 2814, and nobody bothers to reclaim it. Seriously?
Back on Earth, Hal learns and grows and heals and all that kind of thing and decides to give the whole superhero thing another go. And if you guessed that Parallax shows up to destroy our world not long after, you may have a bright future as a screenwriter
Despite only taking about five minutes of his Green Lantern training, Hal puts up a good fight. But this doesn’t strain our suspension of disbelief too severely, because at least it’s clear he’s overmatched.
Ultimately, he does what all heroes do in similar situations. He resorts to trickery. He leads Parallax into outer space, gets him to fly too close to the sun, the gravity pulls the monster in, and he burns up.
To the movie’s credit, it sets this up pretty well. Earlier on, when Hal is doing his test-pilot job, we see him winning a simulated dogfight with a comparable maneuver. And later on, one of the veteran Green Lanterns explains that even for people as powerful as they are, it’s a really bad idea to fly too close to a star.
But the problem is, Parallax is himself an experienced space traveler and a possessed Guardian. And Guardians are vastly intelligent immortal beings who pretty much know everything. It’s just not credible that Hal baits him to his doom in much the same way that a person might provoke a wild animal into charging, dodge aside, and let the beast run off the edge of a cliff.
So that’s how the plot doesn’t make sense. What about the sloppiness?
Well, the movie launches with tedious exposition about the Guardians, the GLC, and Parallax. It would have been slicker storytelling to present this information to the audience as Hal learns it.
The movie also tells us things it doesn’t need to.
In recent years, the various Green Lantern comics have introduced the idea of an “emotional spectrum.” Feelings and related psychological phenomena are actually the most powerful forces in the universe. A GL doesn’t just require willpower to manifest and control the green energy of his power ring. The green energy is willpower.
Some readers dig this premise, some don’t. I’ve always been of two minds about it. It’s given us some interesting new characters and stories, but it’s also taken what was always science fiction (although admittedly, the science part was the nonsensical pseudoscience of a superhero universe) and turned it into something that feels a lot more like fantasy. I’m not sure I like that.
But whether you like it in the comics or not, incorporating the idea into the movie requires even more exposition when there’s already quite a bit. And it just isn’t necessary, even though one could argue that it ties the personal and cosmic threads of the story together thematically.
It does this because Hal’s character flaw is fear. Whereas Parallax is fear personified, empowered and possessed by the yellow energy of that portion of the emotional spectrum.
Sounds like a winner, right? But it doesn’t pay off because by the time Hal meets Parallax, he’s already overcome his fear. Parallax can’t use it against him, and so it doesn’t matter where his evil power comes from. He might as well be any big nasty monster that spews destructive energy and throws things around with his tentacles.
The film’s messy in other ways, too. It makes the mistake that’s hurt other superhero movies before it and tries to stuff in too many villains. It uses both Parallax and Hector Hammond. In the comics, Hector is an exceptionally powerful villain, and in the movie, a far more interesting character than Parallax, who’s just a one-note demon. Hector could have fulfilled all our villain needs, and the film would almost have certainly have been the better for it. But Hal has to knock him down relatively quickly to get on to the big showdown with Parallax.
So, with all these problems, why did I enjoy the movie anyway? Well, though the plot is flawed, the characterizations are solid.
Some fans might criticize the light touch that Ryan Reynolds and the jokes in the script lend to Hal, who can come across as grimly serious in the comics. But back in the Silver Age, when I first met him, Hal didn’t hit me like that. He was a fearless, resourceful hero who always got the job done, but he also had a sense of humor, and he frequently had fun. To a degree, Reynolds’s portrayal harks back to that version of the character, and I liked that.
Mark Strong, Michael Clarke Duncan, and Geoffrey Rush are spot on as Hal’s fellow Green Lanterns Sinestro, Kilowog, and Tomar Re, while Peter Sarsgaard gives the best performance in the movie as Hector.
Except for Hal’s mask, which somehow just wasn’t shaped right, the visuals were cool. (Let me mention that I saw the movie in 2D, so I’m not vouching for the quality of the 3D effects.) I liked the way the Green Lanterns fly. The green energy constructs, the alien GL's, and the Guardians all looked right. Oa looked fantastic.
So, pretty much throughout, I found quite a bit to like about the movie. But some of my enjoyment was rooted in my already being a Green Lantern fan. I appreciated Mark Strong as Sinestro partly because I already knew who Sinestro was. I liked the landscape of Oa partly because I know what the planet represents.
If you’re already into GL too, catch the movie on the big screen. If you’re not, you may want to wait for HBO or Netflix.
*
I’m Richard Lee Byers, the author of various fantasy and horror books including The Q Word and Other Stories, an ebook collection of some of my best short fiction. It’s available for all platforms here:
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/rleebyers
You also buy it for the Kindle and purchase all my Forgotten Realms novels and other works here:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Richard+Lee+Byers&x=0&y=0
Friend my on Facebook, Follow me on Twitter, and read my blog here:
http://rleebyers.livejournal.com/
Thanks, Richard, for sharing your thoughts!
My reading at Tuesday Funk in Chicago
This is the first part of my story "A Portrait of Time" that appeared in the Timeshares anthology. It was a great experience--the folks who run the reading are great, as are the people at Hopleaf bar--and I hope to be invited back. Enjoy!
June 16, 2011
Contest!
Not mine, though. Sorry.
My friend and fabulous writer Jaleigh Johnson is hosting a contest on her blog. It's easy to enter, and you can win free books.
My friend and fabulous writer Jaleigh Johnson is hosting a contest on her blog. It's easy to enter, and you can win free books.
Going to be in Chicago next Tuesday?
If the answer's yes, and you're looking for something to do, stop by the Hopleaf bar in Chicago on Tuesday, June 21st, at 7:30 p.m. for Tuesday Funk's "Science Fiction Sextuplet Feature." I'm one of the featured writers, and I'll be reading a portion of my story "A Portrait of Time" that appears TIMESHARES. If you're in the area, I'd love it if you stopped by and said hello after you've enjoyed all the great readings and sipped a few adult beverages.
