Joe Velikovsky's Blog, page 18

The Ancient Cities of Tomorrow @ 365 Tomorrows

The Ancient Cities of Tomorrow @ 365 Tomorrows
News Flash (Fiction): (10 July 2019)
I just had a short sci-fi (flash fiction) story published on 365 Tomorrows. Yay!


See: https://365tomorrows.com/2019/07/10/the-ancient-cities-of-tomorrow/


---------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
& High-Movie-RoI Consultant (see: The StoryAlity PhD)
& Sci-Fi Writer-Guy
etc

-------------------

`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, as
JT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/

& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems TheoristSee: https://storyality.wordpress.com/

& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia ResearcherAcademia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:
Joe Velikovsky on IMDb: 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee

Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.

Koestler on habitus in `Insight and Outlook' (1949)

Koestler on habitus in `Insight and Outlook' (1949)
Look, I am just not sure if you're keeping up with the trends in what Arthur Koestler is doing and saying in the year 1949, but, if not, now's the time to keep reading this post, and these words.
Koestler says, the word habitus :


And - this factoid has rocked my world. 
See: Bourdieu on habitus . At:  Creative Practice Theory .

Hey, but look at this:

Also Koestler says lots of other things, apart from the word, habitus.

He (1949) says, these diagrams too:
But I guess, you need to read that page in the book, to get why these diagrams are important.
Also - check this out. I always thought (up to now) bisociation was only presented in The Act of Creation, (1964), but - he was working on this idea since even before 1949!
This has vast consequences for my Theory of Creativity, namely that evolution causes it. In, both biology and in culture. See, this book chapter of mine.
Anyway, so, wowsers.
What an amazing humanimal he really was. Koestler, I mean.
Also, me.
Anyways read the book, maybe.

---------------------------

Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
& High-Movie-RoI Consultant (see: The StoryAlity PhD)

-------------------

`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, asJT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/

& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems TheoristSee: https://storyality.wordpress.com/

& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia ResearcherAcademia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:
Joe Velikovsky on IMDb: 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee

Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.

JTV's Oeuvre

JTV's Oeuvre (aka `body of work', as @ 2019)
In reverse order...



About 150+ blog-posts, on my PhD weblog:  StoryAlity
About 50+ satirical Short Stories, and Essays, (in various Genres) on the blog:  Outrageous Bullshit
A PhD on movie creativity...

A bunch of videogames... (usually, as both Game Designer & Writer)

A satirical novel, about The Simulation Argument, and how the Universe is a videogame: A Meaningless Sequence of Arbitrary Symbols .

A satirical rhyming play about Charles Darwin's visit to Bathurst, in 1836: Darwin Down Under .
A satirical play about Ralf Entwhistle and the Ribbon Gang: The Abercrombie Zombie.

A book, summarizing about 100 Story/Screenwriting Craft books: The Feature Screenwriters' Workbook.

Contributed some songs, on some albums: Texas Radio, and Everything's Okay.

And, created a musical concept-album:  Zen Stupidity .

About 30 x feature-length (90 mins) movie screenplays, about 10 x TV series, and about 100 short films... (See: my YouTube channel.)

A bunch of haikus .

A bunch of comics.

Created some words: e.g.: filmovie (a film that's also a movie: i.e., artistic and commercial, at once), humanimal (i.e., human animals, eg, us!)

...Some A.I. (artificial intelligence) programs.


--------------------
And, that's about all I can think of, right now.

I guess I like: creating stuff.

Hey - Here's some cool posts:

On Creativity:StoryAlity #6 – What is Creativity and How Does It Work?StoryAlity #6B – Flow Theory, Creativity and HappinessStoryAlity #7 – On “the 10-Year Rule” and CreativityStoryAlity #8 – More on the 10-Year Rule” and CreativityStoryAlity #8B – On the 10-year-rule and creativity in Standup ComedyStoryAlity #9 – How To Be More CreativeStoryAlity #9B – Creativity in Science (and – The Arts, and Film)StoryAlity #10 – About The Creative PersonalityStoryAlity #11 – Wallas and the Creative ProcessStoryAlity #12 – Combining Practice Theory – and the Systems Model of CreativityStoryAlity #13- Creativity and Solved Domain ProblemsStoryAlity #13B – Creativity, Cinema, Stanley Kubrick & GeniusStoryAlity #14 – On some Romantic myths of CreativityStoryAlity #14B – Creativity – the missing link between “The Two Cultures”StoryAlity #14C – Two Crucial American Psychological Association speeches: J P Guilford (1950) and D T Campbell (1975).StoryAlity #141 – The StoryAlity-Theory `Robo-Raconteur’ artificial-writer
Thanks for reading!



-----------------------------

Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
& High-Movie-RoI Consultant (see: The StoryAlity PhD)

-------------------

`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, asJT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/

& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems TheoristSee: https://storyality.wordpress.com/

& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia ResearcherAcademia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:
Joe Velikovsky on IMDb: 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee

Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.

Book Review: `Machines Like Me' (McEwan 2019)

Book Review: Machines Like Me (McEwan 2019) 
So, I just read the novel Machines Like Me (McEwan 2019)...

Machines Like Me (McEwan 2019)

Warning: Spoiler Alerts. 





I didn't like it...?

And if, like me, you like robots and AI and utopias, then: don't read it!
It will probably annoy you.
I don't think it fairly represents: robots.

The Premise of the novel is that: A British loser-guy (who's also in love with a woman who lives in his apartment block) buys an android; she helps program it, and then it falls in love with her, so a weird love-triangle ensues. Also: murder, rape, stalking, homeless kids, and, other bad and very depressing stuff. Also anytime something good happens, it soon comes undone.
That's just: depressing.

Okay, so... to be fair.

Well; look - McEwan is hailed as a terrific writer, and, hey - he probably is...?

The prose is: mostly, fine?
Though, quite a few sentences, I had to re-read, till they made sense.
And it was a bit of a chore to read.
So overall, I didn't like the book at all.

I wanted it to be: exhilarating, and enjoyable.
...It's about robots, AI, and the future!
(Well, kind of. In an alternate past, anyways.)

Instead, I found it: horribly depressing...?
(In the same way that I find Martin Amis' Money depressing.)

...Nothing very good ever happens, and, tons of bad stuff does.

Also - it's so (too) serious in tone - there's no funny/lightness in there...
That I can remember, anyway.

So - if you like heavy dark `serious' (downer) literature, then - you may well love it?

I like, optimistic stories - about: A.I., robots, computers, the future, and utopias.

And, I like: happy and funny stuff.

See:
StoryAlity #151 – My article on Stanley Kubrick, Charles Darwin and Joe Campbell’s monomyth, in The Journal of Genius and Eminence (March 2018)StoryAlity #152 – The Holon/Parton Structure of the Meme, or The Unit of Culture. In the book Advanced Methodologies and Technologies in Artificial Intelligence, Computer Simulation, and Human-Computer Interaction (2019)StoryAlity #139 – On the evolution of Darwin’s `Tree of Life’ DiagramStoryAlity#140 – The Evolution of the Systems Model of Creativity (Csikszentmihalyi 1988-onwards)StoryAlity #141 – The StoryAlity-Theory `Robo-Raconteur’ artificial-writerStoryAlity #142 – Our StoryAlity so far – random Technological MarvelsStoryAlity #143 – All of life is doing scienceStoryAlity #144 – The structure of the meme, the unit of culture (in: The Encyclopedia of Information Science & Technology, Velikovsky 2017)StoryAlity #145 – Five views of the monomyth (Velikovsky 2017)For me, the book was just: a very stressful `downer' of a story?

It left me feeling: really depressed...?

I mean sure, why not, show all the ways stuff can go wrong if you screw up, in integrating robots with humans?
But - these then became plot holes in this novel.

...The android manufacturer would have solved all that stuff before release.
OR ELSE - THEY SHOULDN'T HAVE RELEASED THEM YET, AS CONSUMER ITEMS!

Or, they should have monitored the robots (with security cameras everywhere, and make each home a reality-TV show, and have armed guards standing by. But aain this is the dark side of it all. Show how it works, well!)

Also, I had a huge problem with 2 other plot-holes that crop up, about halfway through the book:

Here they come:

1) If, you had a super-intelligent AI robot - and you were a stock-market day-trader (like the main guy, Charlie Friend, is), wouldn't you immediately put the robot to work, doing: that?
In the book, the main guy takes ages, to do that...
(So - I soon felt, the main guy was: just too dumb...? To: care about.)

and,

2) I also felt, once the robot turns all nasty and jealous, and, threatens the main guy, (and snaps his arm!), you'd do something about it, quick.
Like: get the damn cops to come take this (jerky-ass) prick of a robot away, or, call the manufacturer and get a refund, or - jeez, do something?!

So again, the main guy seems: too super-dumb...?

So - because of those 2 huge holes. it lost me, about halfway through.
These are 2 insurmountable plotting (and: character) errors, in my view...

Also - it deals with: rape, and stalking, and homeless kids, and loads of depressing shit like that.

In short - it just wasn't the `fun ride' that I wanted / hoped for :)

Yes - those're all important issues, and all that.
But - this was all too heavy.

...My fave novel is: Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman. 
(Yes - it's dark and heavy - but - it's funny. And isn't: a chore to read.)

On the upside, McEwan deals with some current issues, like:

- Universal Basic Income - once we tax the robots! (p. 170)
- Breaking the cycle of inherited privilege (p. 207) - ...but, then, on p 213 he takes it back and calls it a human universal! (...Annoying! STOP IT!)
- He talks about a guy who wrote 50 short stories in his 30s... (p 215, ie - First page of Ch 8)
- He mentions how, Shakespeare kinda ripped off Montaigne (p. 222) - but hey that's (kinda) how creativity works anyway. See:  Creative Practice Theory .
- He says: tyrannies decide policy by plebiscites (p 257) - but - we agreed on same-sex marriage in Oz with a plebiscite? But, yes - the Liberal (Conservative) Party are kinda tyrannical jerks anyway. And so is Trump.
- He talks about, a robot practising the art of feeling (p 266). ...WRONG! We need to keep emotions out of robots! But - emotions are just algorithms anyway, so if you DID include them, they'd be easy to mimic? McEwan shoulda done more AI research.
- He finally says, The `Moral' Is - the robots just couldn't handle human-decision-making (with: all of its cognitive bias and emotions, etc). SO, AGAIN - If that was true, then - why'd the manufacturers not test the robots, with humans first? ...Yuuuuge plot-hole... And - It makes robots: look bad.



Or else, is a badly-plotted novel...? Neither of those is: good.

- McEwan has Alan Turing castigate the main dumb-guy (Charlie Friend) because: human brains are way better than robot-brains... See the same point as above! ...It was the manufacturer's fault, for selling them before they were safe...! (pp 302-3).

If so many people read early drafts of this novel and missed that, they're dumb.
Sorry. I'm annoyed.

Also - some of the dialog just doesn't ring true, for some specific characters (e.g. Miranda recounting a memory, also, some stuff the rapist-guy verbally recounts... The dialog there, sounds too much like McEwan, and not those characters, as they're set up.).

Anyway, so, I pretty-much, hated it.

...My own stuff about AI and robots and utopias (etc) is: way better.

So - sorry, anyone, if you wanted me to like this novel.
I didn't.

I also didn't like, a lot of the "Alternate History" stuff.
Though I can see why, McEwan set it in the past...
(Cos if he set it in the future it'd become outdated real quick. So, that was kind of a clever move.)

But - even then - he should've given more reasons why Science and Tech advanced much quicker there, than in our shitty universe...
ie He should have given religion a good serve, for holding science and tech back, for one thing.
He was a friend of Hitch's!

Hey see also, this new religion, I made up: Scientism.

In short - I wanted this novel to be great, as, it's by McEwan after all...(!)
And he's supposed to be: a goddamn literary-genius or something.
So - Sheesh.

So now, I guess it's down to me, to write a great and funny novel about AI and robots and whatnot.

Sorry -- I'm just really disappointed in this novel.

Also - it should have had better `end twists',
Like: Charlie Friend turns out to be an android... P K Dick style.
And Miranda too.

Also you should never name 2 main characters, with the same first letter. I kept getting Miranda and Miriam mixed up. Bad character-name choices. (Sorry.)

Anyway so - this just isn't very good science fiction, sorry.


But hey, thanks for reading!
Also, the robots are coming...

And see


MeToo Gnome

Anyway - I'm not the only one who didn't like it (i.e., Machines Like Me)

See the unfavourable reviews (`Pans') at:

https://bookmarks.reviews/reviews/machines-like-me/

and

https://bookmarks.reviews/point-counterpoint-ian-mcewans-machines-like-me/



~JTV
-----------------------------

Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
& High-Movie-RoI Consultant (see: The StoryAlity PhD)

-------------------

`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, asJT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/

& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems TheoristSee: https://storyality.wordpress.com/

& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia ResearcherAcademia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:
Joe Velikovsky on IMDb: 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee

Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.

Anyway the above is probably a satire, that belongs over at Outrageous BS . Unless it isn't. Hard to say.
Either way - I don't think Roko's Basilisk will like Machines Like Me.

Great Books on Fiction (Prose) Writing

Great Books on Fiction Writing
A list, compiled by JTV



-----------------

Q: How does one become a fiction (prose) writer? (How could: you?)
A: We need to answer this Question with another Question...(!)

Q: How did everyone else do it...?

Namely - How did great prose fiction writers, become great prose fiction writers?
A: Easy... 

Creative Practice Theory!
(Noting also: the ten-year rule, in creativity)
See:
On Creativity:StoryAlity #6 – What is Creativity and How Does It Work?StoryAlity #6B – Flow Theory, Creativity and Happiness StoryAlity #7 – On “the 10-Year Rule” and Creativity StoryAlity #8 – More on the 10-Year Rule” and Creativity StoryAlity #8B – On the 10-year-rule and creativity in Standup ComedyStoryAlity #9 – How To Be More CreativeStoryAlity #9B – Creativity in Science (and – The Arts, and Film)StoryAlity #10 – About The Creative PersonalityStoryAlity #11 – Wallas and the Creative ProcessStoryAlity #12 – Combining Practice Theory – and the Systems Model of CreativityStoryAlity #13- Creativity and Solved Domain ProblemsStoryAlity #13B – Creativity, Cinema, Stanley Kubrick & GeniusStoryAlity #14 – On some Romantic myths of CreativityStoryAlity #14B – Creativity – the missing link between “The Two Cultures”StoryAlity #14C – Two Crucial American Psychological Association speeches: J P Guilford (1950) and D T Campbell (1975).StoryAlity #141 – The StoryAlity-Theory `Robo-Raconteur’ artificial-writer
-------------------
Okay, wait, who even are, some of the greatest prose fiction writers?
Well, you can study literature yourself... 
(e.g. Do a course? Do, lots of courses? Some even do a Ph.D in it!)
Or - you can even just google the term... 
The Google answers include, things like: 
http://shortfastanddeadly.com/all-time-prose-writers
e.g. Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Austen, Hugo, Dickens, Tolkein, Orwell, Twain, Poe, Nabokov, Proust, Melville, etc.

But we need to remember there are various categories of canon...



i.e. `Classic' and `Popular (Best-selling)' rarely overlap, for example.

Stephen King, Dan Brown, J K Rowling and Stephanie Meyer don't win too many "literary" awards.

...That's not to say, they're not: great!

See The 5-C model of creativity:



Source: Five Views of the Monomyth

So -- maybe google, greatest novels of all time (which, would be: `Classics' of the canon, as judged by the Field of: Novels); and, you get information, like this:
https://medium.com/world-literature/creating-the-ultimate-list-100-books-to-read-before-you-die-45f1b722b2e5
https://thegreatestbooks.org/
http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/
https://www.listchallenges.com/the-greatest-novels-of-all-time
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/2681.Time_Magazine_s_All_Time_100_Novels
http://www.greatbooksguide.com/OneHundredGreatestNovels.html
https://www.britannica.com/list/12-novels-considered-the-greatest-book-ever-written
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/17/the-100-best-novels-written-in-english-the-full-list
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/01/the-greatest-books-of-all-time-as-voted-by-125-famous-authors/252209/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Library_100_Best_Novels
And so on...!


Hey... Don't forget those Categories of Canon !



-------------------
Okay - well; so much for: novels...
As an aside ...Here are a few of my fave novels...
------------------------

So what about, googling (or formally studying) the best short stories of all time ?
Googling that, gets you lists like, this:
https://www.everywritersresource.com/1000-greatest-short-stories-time/
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/102799.50_Best_Short_Stories_of_All_Time
https://www.mic.com/articles/94552/13-short-stories-from-classic-novelists-you-can-read-over-lunch
https://bookriot.com/2018/03/12/contemporary-short-story-collections/
https://writersedit.com/fiction-writing/top-10-classic-short-stories/
https://www.listchallenges.com/the-50-best-short-stories-of-all-time
https://reedsy.com/discovery/blog/best-short-stories
https://www.bookscrolling.com/best-short-story-collections-time/
https://lithub.com/11-very-short-stories-you-must-read-immediately/
https://lithub.com/17-great-writers-and-their-favorite-story-collections/

So, anyone wanting to be a writer, should read a lot of short stories...
---------------------------
Anyway - here's some books I'd recommend, for anyone wanting to become a prose fiction writer...!
And ideally, read them, in this order:

Thomas, Francis-Noël, and Mark Turner. 2011. Clear and Simple as the Truth: Writing Classic Prose. 2nd ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 

Pinker, Steven. 2014. The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century. New York: Penguin. (This is better than Strunk & White, it's: an update to it!)

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. 1996. Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. 1st ed. New York: HarperCollins. (Some of the 91 creatives studied are: writers!)

Koestler, Arthur. 1964. The Act of Creation. London: Hutchinson. 

Gottschall, Jonathan. 2012. The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 

Boyd, Brian. 2009. On The Origin Of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 

Cron, Lisa. 2012. Wired For Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence. 1st ed. New York: Ten Speed Press. 

Knight, Damon Francis. 1981. Creating Short Fiction. 1st ed. Cincinnati, Ohio: Writer's Digest Books.

Ingermanson, Randy, 2018. How to Write a Dynamite Scene Using the Snowflake Method (Advanced Fiction Writing Book 2), NY, Ingermanson Communications, Inc. 

And of course there's many `craft' manuals...!

You need to find the one(s) that fits you best!

And reading about 10 writing manuals is a good start.
...They each have: different approaches!

You never know which is the best fit for you, until you've read a lot of them...



e.g.: Google:  books on fiction writing
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/the-read-down/the-best-books-on-writing
The 12 Best Books on Writing I’ve Ever Read - By Jerry Jenkins
https://medium.com/the-mission/the-10-best-books-for-fiction-writers-b407d50656dd
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/10-books-to-read-before-writing-your-novel/
http://nymag.com/strategist/article/best-books-for-writers.html
https://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/books-on-writing/
https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books-Fiction-Writing-Reference/zgbs/books/12022

...Also, prose writers need to know (and, use!) these:
`The 31 Literary Devices You Must Know'https://blog.prepscholar.com/list-of-literary-devices-techniques 
And, more comprehensive lists, too:eghttps://literary-devices.com/andhttps://literarydevices.net/andhttps://www.artofsmart.com.au/literary-techniques/

And most of all, read a lot.
Lemme say that again:
...read, a lot.
You absorb the techniques of good writing, by: reading it!


Also, getting into Writers Groups is important, to get feedback, and constructive critique on your work, while you are learning and mastering and practising the 1,000 (or so) writing-craft rules... 
(Which is also, why: Doing a course can be very useful!)

Because there are about 1,000 rules / guidelines / heuristics for good writing, (compare with the 1,000 `rules' of screenwriting!) it takes about 10 years of practise (on average), before you master it all, and can pull it all off, in the one, great story...

...Then, you can write another one!

And, another...

And another...!

As for getting published, google: fiction writers markets
And see, what markets fit your own style / content / genres.
And - submit away! 
(And be resilient, when the inevitable rejections follow! i.e. Keep going!)
See also:  Rotten Rejections:  The Letters that Publishers Wish They’d Never Sent .
Once you have a solid portfolio of published work (short stories), you can try and write: a novel.
Once you have a novel published, you can try and get: an agent!

If you're in the flow state (i.e., having fun) most of the time, you're doing Creative Practice Theory , right!

----------------------
Also, some quotes from famous successful writers, on it all:
Stephen King says:

`If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot, and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.’
(King 2000, p. 164)

And Ray Bradbury:

“Young writers shouldn’t kid themselves about learning to write.
The best way to do that is to train yourself in the short story.
Read every damn one that’s ever been written, and there aren’t that many really good ones.
You must live feverishly inside a library.
Colleges are not going to do you any good unless you are born, raised and live in a library every day of your life.” - Ray Bradbury 

And, also - I like this - (as: it's true!)

“Just write every day of your life.
Read intensely.
Then see what happens.
Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers.” - Ray Bradbury 

And:

`I know you've heard it a thousand times before. But it's true - hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you don't love something, then don't do it.' - Ray Bradbury
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/ray_bradbury_154628

And - Here are some of my fave sci-fi short stories...

And, some short stories & essays I've written...


And, thanks for reading!

~JTV
-----------------------------

Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
& High-Movie-RoI Consultant (see: The StoryAlity PhD)

-------------------

`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, asJT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/

& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems TheoristSee: https://storyality.wordpress.com/

& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia ResearcherAcademia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:
Joe Velikovsky on IMDb: 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee

Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.

The Freelance (Screenwriting) Game - A Serious Game

The Freelance Game (Screenwriting)
As some will know, I've been a professional (million-selling) Game Designer, for over 20 years...
So, I've recently been playing The Freelance Game (Screenwriting Career Simulator), made by Good Learning Inc. (Sweden)... 
...And: It's great ! 
I highly recommend it, to all aspiring professional screenwriters , and, to all my screenwriting students... (see my PhD-blog, on High-RoI Movie Screenwriting...)
In the game, you have to successfully balance and manage: your screenwriting career, your health, your ongoing training, and much more...!

The gameplay is very realistic, so, it is a great life-sim, if you are a screenwriter! 
Practice the game on the computer, and master all of the core career skills you'll need to master and maintain in real life! Manage your clients, contacts and reputation...

The user-interface is also really well designed, the main gameplay screen (see below) is: an avatar of You, at your writing desk / home office...

And, as time ticks by, in-game, and the calendar-pages fly off the wall, You can: take incoming, and make outgoing calls on the landline phone and on your mobile phone, can email (virtual) producers, can also hunt for casual work (to survive and pay the bills) in between your writing gigs, and do training courses and attend industry conferences, writing seminars and workshops... 
A funny thing... You can even get sick if you work too hard, and don't look after your health! (Just like, in real life!) 

In the game, You can create and work on your own projects; take commissioned writing jobs (across various media: film, tv, games, theatre, etc!); even haggle over rates and schedules with producers, and - much more! 

One of the main skills you need to master very quickly is: to manage your Schedule / Calendar, so that you don't blow your deadlines...! 
The overall goal (game objective) is: To build a great screenwriting career, and `stay afloat' financially for 3 years...
I found myself in the flow state very quickly playing this game. - It's a truly great game!
As per the game website, some of the game's Unique Selling Points are:

So, once again, I highly recommend it...!
Visit: The Freelance Game website, for much more info. 

---------------------------------
A Side Note:
A somewhat-similar game that I've also blogged on previously, is  FLIGBY®  ( FLOW is Good Business™ ) - The Leadership Game . (Although that game is also great, it's not directed at Screenwriters... FLIGBY is about: managing a small company, and in that case: a winery!)


Also, another somewhat-similar-sim, (free demo) I created, is  Creative Practice Theory: The Game (Demo) ; a general life-sim game, for Creatives in general... (a mod of the game Kudos). 

(Creative Practice Theory itself, is a synthesis of the systems model of creativity, and Bourdieu's practice theory... which also applies to the Creative Industries!)
Side Note: Speaking of the Creative Industries - a terrific report has recently been published on The Hunter Creative Industries in NSW, Australia. (Check out the Report! It's free!)

...At any rate, in my view,  The Freelance Game is terrific - Try it~! 



(And thanks also once again, to Louise Lindbom, and all the talented crew at Good Learning Inc. for the opportunity to play their great: The Freelance Game (Screenwriting Career Simulator)!)

And, thanks for reading!

~JTV
-----------------------------

Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
& High-Movie-RoI Consultant (see: The StoryAlity PhD)

-------------------

`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, asJT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/

& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems TheoristSee: https://storyality.wordpress.com/

& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia ResearcherAcademia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:
Joe Velikovsky on IMDb: 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee

Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.

My fave Sci-Fi Short Stories

Some of my Fave Sci-Fi (or Spec-Fic) Short Storiesby JTV, 2019
In his great book, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, Harari (2018) notes:

`Of course, it is extremely important to go on doing academic research and to publish the results in scientific journals that only a few experts read. But it is equally important to communicate the latest scientific theories to the general public through popular-science books, and even through the skilful use of art and fiction.

Does that mean scientists should start writing science fiction? That is actually not such a bad idea.  

Art plays a key role in shaping people’s view of the world, and in the twenty-first century science fiction is arguably the most important genre of all, for it shapes how most people understand things like AI, bio-engineering and climate change. 

We certainly need good science, but from a political perspective, a good science-fiction movie is worth far more than an article in Scienceor Nature.’ 

(Harari 2018, pp. 243-4)

So, with all that in mind, here's some of my fave sci fi short stories...   
Probably my fave, is `WAR HERO’ by Doug Kenney (1985). I came across it as a teen, in National Lampoon’s Doug Kenney Special Issue (June 1985)... It's a darkly-funny, edgy sci-fi satire.

Years later, when the sci-fi satire movie Starship Troopers came out (1997, based on Heinlein's 1959 novel), the tone of it seemed very familiar...
I also really quite like:
The Last Question (Asimov 1956)
Fondly Fahrenheit (Bester 1954)
Evil Robot Monkey (Kowal 2008)
The Father-Thing (P K Dick 1954)
There Will Come Soft Rains (Bradbury 1950)
The Paper Menagerie (Liu 2011)(not sure, why it's sci-fi... more: fantasy?)

The Girl Who Was Plugged In (Alice Sheldon/Tiptree Jr 1973) 

 

Texas Radio - album samplers

Texas Radio & the big beat - album samplers
Texas Radio & the Big Beat have 2 albums to date - the black album and the white album: 



The band is comprised of Phillip McIntyre (guitar), Joe Velikovsky (bass) & Dave Carruthers (drums) ...and often a whole bunch of wonderful guest musicians!


Below are 2 video samplers:

The white album: video sampler

A sample of songs from `Everything's Okay', the new Texas Radio & the Big Beat album.
On iTunes - see: https://distrokid.com/live/?albumuuid...On Amazon - see: https://distrokid.com/live/?albumuuid... Band website: http://texasradio.com.au/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The black album: video sampler



Band website:


http://texasradio.com.au

Thanks for reading/listening/viewing!


-----------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
& High-Movie-RoI Consultant (see: The StoryAlity PhD)

-------------------

`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, as


JT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/

& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems TheoristSee: https://storyality.wordpress.com/

& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia ResearcherAcademia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:
Joe Velikovsky on IMDb: 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee

Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.

The ArtScience Manifesto (Leonardo 2011)

The ArtScience Manifesto (Leonardo 2011)
So I've been reading some older copies of Leonardo journal...
Wait, what is Leonardo journal?

"Leonardo is the leading international peer-reviewed journal on the use of contemporary science and technology in the arts and music and, increasingly, the application and influence of the arts and humanities on science and technology." Source: Leonardo journal home page, (2019, online)

The cover of the latest issue looks like this:

Leonardo Vol 52, Issue 1, Feb 2019
Anyway back in Vol 44, No. 2 in 2011, there is, a great 1-page Editorial by Bob Root-Bernstein, and his 3 co-authors/co-editors.

As of Feb 2019, it's free to download (it's only 1 page!) and it has an ArtScience Manifesto within it, which I'm now citing here (below) --- as, it's so great:

`Interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, cross-disciplinary, intermedia, transmedia and multimedia are becoming ever more prominent within the sciences, technology and the arts...  

ArtScience Manifesto: 

1. Everything can be understood through art but that understanding is incomplete.
2. Everything can be understood through science but that understanding is incomplete.
3. ArtScience enables us to achieve a more complete and universal understanding of things.
4. ArtScience involves understanding the human experience of nature through the synthesis of artistic and scientific modes of exploration and expression.
5. ArtScience melds subjective, sensory, emotional and personal understanding with objective, analytical, rational, public understanding.
6. ArtScience is not embodied in its products so much as it is expressed through the convergence of artistic and scientific processes and skills.
7. ArtScience is not Art + Science or Art-and-Science or Art/Science, in which the components retain their disciplinary distinctions and compartmentalization.
8. ArtScience transcends and integrates all disciplines or forms of knowledge.
9. One who practices ArtScience is both an artist and a scientist simultaneously and one who produces things that are both artistic and scientific simultaneously.
10. Every major artistic advance, technological breakthrough, scientific discovery and medical innovation since the beginning of civilization has resulted from the process of ArtScience.
11. Every major inventor and innovator in history was an ArtScience practitioner.
12. We must teach art, science, technology, engineering and mathematics as integrated disciplines, not separately.
13. We must create curricula based in the history, philosophy and practice of ArtScience, using best practices in experiential learning.
14. The vision of ArtScience is the re-humanization of all knowledge.
15. The mission of ArtScience is the re-integration of all knowledge.
16. The goal of ArtScience is to cultivate a New Renaissance.
17. The objective of ArtScience is to inspire open-mindedness, curiosity, creativity, imagination, critical thinking and problem solving through innovation and collaboration! 

ArtScience, in sum, connects. The future of humanity and civil society depends on these connections...' 

(Source: Bob Root-Bernstein, Adam Brown, Todd Siler and Kenneth Snelson, `ArtScience: Integrative Collaboration to Create a Sustainable Future' (Leonardo 44(3), 2011, p. 192)https://www.jstor.org/stable/20869448)
Also, the ArtScience Manifesto article (2011) is one of the most widely read in Leonardo, so it is free to download (yay!) at:
Leonardo's Most-Read ArticlesAnd, I highly recommend it...! 
Also, a few points I'd like to make...
1) Everything in the article is true. So, integrate it into your worldview. LOL. Here's an article from my PhD blog, along similar lines:StoryAlity#128 – Evocriticism, STEM, and STEAM (Walker 2013)

2) The ArtScience editorial-article is talking about: Consilience (the unity of knowledge). Though, they use the term "ArtScience" instead of the term "Consilience" (...which, is fine, LOL) 
I made a diagram, for my (2016) PhD, which shows consilience; Namely, combining the Arts, Social Sciences and Sciences. Here it comes:
Source: Consilience (JTV's PhD blog, 2013)
i.e. The goal is to work in the overlap of all 3 of these great branches of learning.
Also here's another diagram of it:

 Source:  Consilience  (JTV's PhD blog, 2018)
Anyway; if you like this sort of thing (i.e. ArtScience, aka, Consilience), you might even like my PhD...?

Anyway, my 3rd point is:
3) I like what they did there with the word ArtScience; combining 2 old things, to get a new thing. They combined Art and Science, to get ArtScience. Note this part from the ArtScience Manifesto:

`7. ArtScience is not Art + Science or Art-and-Science or Art/Science, in which the components retain their disciplinary distinctions and compartmentalization.' 

For more on creativity, namely, combining two old things, to get a new thing (provided that, the resulting new combination works better than what went before!) see:
StoryAlity #6 – What is Creativity and How Does It Work?And it's also how The Robo-Raconteur works... 
StoryAlity #141 – The StoryAlity-Theory `Robo-Raconteur’ artificial-writer
Anyway -- I love the ArtScience Manifesto . 
...Yay, Leonardo journal!
Also, Bob Root-Bernstein is big in the scientific study of creativity, for example, see also this article in Leonardo:

`A Review of Studies Demonstrating the Effectiveness of Integrating Arts, Music, Performing, Crafts and Design into Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medical Education, Part 1: A Taxonomy of Integrated Bridges'  by Robert Root-Bernstein, Ania Pathak and Michele Root-Bernstein, Leonardo, Volume: 0, Issue: ja, pp. 1-3. 

It is also, on that same page of: most widely read articles in Leonardo, so it is also free to download (yay!) at:
Leonardo's Most-Read Articles
Also, if you like Transmedia , maybe see my other posts on it, on this blog you are now reading. 
e.g.: On-Writering: http://on-writering.blogspot.com/e.g.: http://on-writering.blogspot.com/2013/02/transmedia-storytelling-and-beyond.html
And see also some posts on it, on my StoryAlity PhD blog:
StoryAlity #64 – Why Transmedia Is DestinyStoryAlity #64B – `Story & Transmedia’ PPT @ UNSW COFAStoryAlity #96 – Transmedia Practice: A Collective Approach (2014)And for a creative technology for multidisciplinary applications, see this:
StoryAlity #132 – The holon/parton structure of the Meme, the unit of culture – and the narreme, or unit of story – book chapter (Velikovsky 2016)


i.e. Remembering that opening quote from the ArtScience article:

`Interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, cross-disciplinary, intermedia, transmedia and multimedia are becoming ever more prominent within the sciences, technology and the arts...' 

And - Thanks for reading this post! 
(...Thoughts? Comments? Feedback?)
-----------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
& High-Movie-RoI Consultant (see: The StoryAlity PhD)

-------------------

`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, as

JT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/

& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems Theorist
See: https://storyality.wordpress.com/

& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia Researcher
Academia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:

Joe Velikovsky on IMDb: 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee

Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.

My Fave Thinkers (currently... as @ February 2019)

My Fave Thinkers (well; currently... as at February 2019)
Naked Philosophy Guy... strikes again

---------------------------------
So, randomly, here is a list of my favourite thinkers... 
Currently, anyway... As at February 2019.
(This Listicle  may change, as time passes - at the exact rate of one second, per second.)

Yuval Noah Harari
Rutger Bregman
Johann Hari
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (hey, he won the Thinker of the Year Award in the year 2000)
Brian Boyd
Karl Popper
Joseph Carroll
Daniel Dennett
Richard Dawkins
Lynn Margulis
Stephen Pinker (I love his book, Enlightenment Now )
Ervin Laszlo
Alfonso Montuori
Michelle Scalise Sugiyama
Charles Darwin
Stanley Kubrick
E O Wilson
Alice Roberts
Brian Cox
Patricia Piccinini

...And for a whole lot more great thinkers, see this post ...
(it's basically, the Bibliography from my PhD)


...Wait, But Why? 


(Why do I like, these great creative, critical thinkers?)
Here comes, some details...

Yuval Noah Harari - mainly because, he applies Evolution to History, to get: Evolutionary History! Yay!

It's about time someone did that, and wrote a popular book. And: he did it! His 3 books are: just great!

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2015)
The agricultural, industrial, and tech revolutions haven't made us happier than cavepeople were.
But robots, AI and biotech will! Yay! Seriously.

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (2016)
The future is coming, fast. Catch up to it.

21 Lessons for the 21st Century (2018)
Get ready for the future. It's complex.

So are, most if not all of, his Youtube talks (i.e., great!).

Here are just 2 of those...


And...


Anyway, next great thinker, (though this list is in no particular order) is:

Rutger Bregman... 

Check out his great book:

Utopia For Realists (2017)

Universal Basic Income! Get robots doing the jobs, and give humans UBI.
(Bregman rightly notes: most jobs are bullshit jobs anyway. Seriously.)
So - Bring on the robots. And the UBI!

And check this out, (LOL!)



And this:


And, also:

Johann Hari 

Check out, his great books:

Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression (2018)

Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs (2015)

And his great Youtube talks... Here is just one of them...



Patricia Piccinini

Check this out... Evolutionary!


And this!


And this!



Anyway... so, there are some great thinkers...

...Read their books! Watch their videos!
...They're great.


Just sayin'.



And --- Thanks for reading!
-----------------------------
Dr. Joe T. Velikovsky, Ph.D. (Communication & Media Arts)
& High-Movie-RoI Consultant (see: The StoryAlity PhD)

-------------------

`The word communication will be used here in a very broad sense to include all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior... The language of this memorandum will often appear to refer to the special, but still very broad and important, field of the communication of speech; but practically everything said applies equally well to music of any sort, and to still or moving pictures, as in television." - The Mathematical Theory of Communication, (Shannon & Weaver 1949, pp. 3-4).
Also:
“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - (attributed, and ironically, possibly mistakenly, to: Robert McCloskey, namely the children's book author and illustrator, date of quote unknown)
& this autosig is not even near complete yet, as


JT Velikovsky is also a:
Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer: Movies, Games, TV, Theatre, Books, Comics
Transmedia Writing Blog: http://on-writering.blogspot.com.au/

& (High-RoI) Story/Screenplay/Movie Analyst - and Evolutionary Systems Theorist
See: https://storyality.wordpress.com/

& Bio-Culture (Science & the Arts) & Transmedia Researcher
Academia link: https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky
See, also:

Joe Velikovsky on IMDb: 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee

Okay - the autosig is over now. You can stop reading.