Adrian Faulkner's Blog, page 150

Seeing The Olympic Torch Relay

I read something recently that argued that it is harder to write hope than it is to write cynicism. I think that’s probably true. Likewise, I think that it’s easier to be cynical than to be hopeful. Showing hope somehow exposes us, lays bare our dreams and aspirations, amkes us vulnerable.

This is why I think symbols are important. I doubt you’d find a writer who disagrees. After all, isn’t everything we create some form of symbolism?

There are many fine and justified arguments against the Olym...

Herp Derp

Not too brilliant a weekend. First I ended up house sitting whilst the electricians came to do some work. I had no electricity so was unable to do any writing (coz it’s all on computers these days, init?) but at least I read most of Whispers Underground by Ben Aaronovitch. I have to say I’m loving his Peter Grant books. Fun, easy reading, and the perfect thing when you are sitting there thinking “surely the Landlord should be doing the house sitting?”.

It wasn’t helped that I came down with a...

The GI Joe Re-read

If I had to list my heroes you’d probably not know one of them. Everyone has heard of George Lucas, Clive Barker and JRR Tolkien but not so many have heard of Larry Hama,. For me he’s up there with those icons.

Larry Hama was the writer of a toy tie-in comic called GI Joe, released by Marvel in 1983 to cash in on the toy run’s popularity. The thing is, it would have been easy for Hama to dial this in. But he didn’t. Sure it had to feature toy of the month and some of those were pretty whacky,...

Writing Advice From Neil Gaiman

I can’t remember who linked me to this last week, but here’s a wonderful video of Neil Gaiman talking to the Nerdist Podcast about the process of writing. Some wonderful advice here in these 5 minutes that, if you’re wanting to write a novel, will worth your time. If you’re struggling with your writing or feel what your producing isn’t good enough, know it’s like this for all of us. Some wonderful advice here!

Bringing Geocaching To GPS Tracklog

So now it can be revealed.

I’m happy on several levels to be able to announce that I am going to be writing for GPS Tracklog on geocaching. I’m sure many of my geocaching friends will have come across the website before, but for those who haven’t (or don’t cache) GPS Tracklog is the premium consumer GPS weblogs globally. It’s the place sites like Engadget and Gizmodo cite as reference. With up to half a million page views a month it has a huge readership and I’m excited to be bringing geocach...

Approaching My 10,000th Geocaching Find

This year has been rubbish for me for Geocaching. 2011 was pretty good despite a lot going on in my personal life with 3812 caches found. Prior to that I’d averaged around 2000 a year.

But this year, I’ve done just 500 in the first six months of this year, and for me, that’s abysmal.

It’s not that I’ve fallen out of love with the hobby. It’s just a combination of new job with out of hours support, moving and then twisting my spine due to the move, has meant that I’ve long since written off the...

My First Ever Rejection (From 1991)

Whilst unpacking boxes yesterday I came across my first ever rejection. It was for a story I submitted to Interzone when I was eighteen called “…Just a dream”.

Back then I considered myself a SF writer. I was a massive Star Wars fan (always have been, always will be) and thought that meant I had to be a SF writer. I was writing a SF book, that looking back now I realise was just fantasy set in space (like Star Wars) and finding it difficult to connect with a lot of SF literature. No wonder the...

LEGO Batman 2

I used to play a lot on the Xbox, but then I realised I was wasting tonnes of money on games I hardly played and so confined my gaming to predominantly World of Warcraft. There was the odd exception but in the majority the Xbox has been left to gather dust.

After moving and then working out how to pump the sound through my headphones, I picked up LEGO Batman for the console and have been having a lot of fun with it.

I really enjoy the LEGO games. They’re casual fun and a great way to unwind, pl...

How Writers Can Learn From Books Like 50 Shades Of Grey

A lot of my friends are reading Fifty Shades of Grey at the moment. Sales of the book and its sequels have grown to a stage where it’s now breaking records, yet some will claim it’s little more than Twilight Fan-fic. However, whether you love or hate the book, I think it and other breakout hits like it hold important lessons for writers.

I’ve not read the book so can’t form an opinion of it, but I suspect I’m not its target demographic. However, a lot of friends have read it, and I had to ask...

Muse – Survival

I’m a big Muse fan, even if I always forget when the tickets to their tours go on sale until after they sell out. Anyway, a new Muse track is always a big cause for excitement. And whilst many bands’ later albums seem to lose some of the magic of why you liked that band in the first place, Muse’s more experimental tunes are probably the ones I love best. This tune, the official Olympics track by the way, is completely bonkers. I could understand why some people might really, really hate it.

Bu...