Doc Coleman's Blog, page 29
May 19, 2011
Introducing a new series
What I've been struggling with is how to introduce the series. Do I drop hints along the way to raise interest? Do I release sections of the draft? Should I talk about the series and the characters?
I want the series to stand on its own so that someone picking it up cold will be able to read and enjoy the stories. But I'd also like the stories and these characters to catch on and for there to be enough interest to encourage me to come up with new story lines in the series. Possibly even graduate from short stories to a novel.
How do you go about introducing something new? Thoughts?
Doc
May 13, 2011
#RetrenchmentChallenge: A Crackle and Bang Sneak Peak
Zack Ricks put out a challenge to write 1000 words in two days. Deadline is midnight, Friday, May 13th. I took up the challenge. So far I've spent a day working on required writing, which doesn't count. But now with that out of the way, here is my new, original, creative effort.
I was roused from a sound sleep by a peculiar, strident honking sound that permeated my cabin. I sat up in bed, and the sound repeated itself. I shook my head to clear the sleep cobwebs and realized that the honking sound was actually a klaxon that was sounding throughout the ship. The odd, honking klaxon continued to repeat from the steam pipes that threaded through a corner of my cabin. It sounded remarkably as if a clarinet had been lodged into the pipe to produce the sound.
Rising from bed, I grabbed my trousers from the valet by the wardrobe and nearly topped the polished walnut stand in my haste. I stepped into my trousers, fastened them, and grabbed a shirt, hastily donning it as I headed to the door. Throwing open the door to my stateroom, I stepped out into the corridor, where the same honking klaxon was sounding from points every twenty feet along the passageway. I looked both ways, trying to discern the cause of the emergency.
Somehow I managed to still be looking the wrong way when Tinka, the Argos' chief rigger, pushed past me and ran down the corridor, simultaneously fastening the odd harness she uses for support and shrugging into a long tailed shirt. "One side, luv! Gotta run!" I could not help but stare after her as she ran, her bare feet slapping on the deck as she went. In her haste Tinka had chosen to forgo the leather trousers she usually wore when on duty, and I was treated to an unexpected view of her long, athletic legs until she turned the corner.
I could now hear other, booted feet running as well as other members of the crew responded to the emergency. I ducked back into my room to clear the way as a handful of airmen ran by on the way to their stations. Poking my head back out in their wake, I spied another figure making a more sedate but equally purposeful way: Miss Titania Bang. Miss Bang had covered herself with a belted dressing gown and donned slippers before venturing forth from her room, her long, chestnut brown hair flowed down her back instead of being piled up in a variety of tasteful styles she favored. This framed her delicate features in an fashion that emphasized the air of innocence that she habitually wore.
"Miss Bang, what is going on?"
She crossed to me and taking my arm, pulled me out into the passage, indicating I should follow her. "We are under attack, my lord! That is the alarm for battle stations!"
"Battle stations? Where are we to go?" My mind reeled with the very idea of someone attacking the Argos. Who would be such a fool?
"We must go to the bridge. That is where Harmonious will go, and it is the most defended part of the ship. And it will be the best place to find out where we can help." She continued on, and I found myself being towed along by the small yet stately woman. I regretted not thinking of donning slippers as well, as the bare deck plates in the working areas of the ship proved to be rather cold to my bare feet. I missed the warm wood and plush rugs that served as flooring in the living compartments.
Twice, as we made our way to the bridge, we had to flatten ourselves on one side of the passage to allow members of the ships crew to pass by to man their stations or attend some other issue. My father had told me tales of his naval service when I was a boy, describing the excitement and chaos of battles at sea, punctuated by long hours of attentive boredom as ships maneuvered to fire once again. So far, there had been none of the chaos he had talked of. No gunfire, no shuddering lurches as the ship took a hit, or the cries of wounded, or of men fighting fires on deck. I hoped this was a good sign. A chase could buy us further time to prepare, but if an attacker had already latched on, the Argos could be boarded any moment.
We stepped onto the bridge of the Argos and were hit by a cacophony of sound, ranging from the blatant to the subtle. Crewman at various positions relayed messages from other parts of the ship delivered through acoustic tubes. The helmsman wrestled with a large wheel set into the floor that clicked and tinged as he turned it to adjust and correct the course of the ship. Another crewman pulled at a bank of levers decorated with different bells that communicated some information to other parts of the ship. Captain Oscar Peerless stood in the middle of this noise slightly to one side of the helm, pulling sense out of the reports being shouted around him and occasionally thundering out an order in his deep, rolling voice. He stood stock still upon his mechanical legs, their clockwork ticking adding a low background to the noise of the bridge. A faint rustling of papers came from the navigator's station at the back of the bridge, where Professor Harmonious Crackle, fully dressed, although missing a coat, examined the maps along side the navigator, a tall freckled Irishman who barely looked to have fifteen years under his belt. Below all this, the thrum of the ships propellors could be heard more clearly on the bridge than in the corridor.
"Damn!" The Professor's voice carried across the bridge although he was clearly speaking to himself. "Captain, I believe that we've drifted too far to the east. If I am correct, we've run into a band of Burmese air pirates operating out of the Nicobar Islands. They'll try to take the ship, but if we cannot outrun them, they'll try to shoot us down."
"They've already tried," the Captain growled, his anger directed at the pirates. "The riggers are heading aloft now to check for damage, but I think those armor plates of yours did the trick. But unless you've got something else to give us more speed, sir, we'll have to fight them off."
I followed in Miss Bang's wake as she crossed to the Professor. I tried to mentally picture the Argos as I had last seen her. The Argos was a proper airship, a dirigible. A massive cigar shaped balloon defined the majority of the ship, with the cabins, living and working quarters slung underneath as a long, wide hull. Propellor assemblies jutted out from the hull at intervals and provided additional lift and the propulsive force behind the craft. The balloon has always been the most vulnerable part of an airship, being most of the ships surface area. Pirates had been known to attack from above in dirty aereoplanes trailing grappling hooks. They would strafe along the body of an airship, hook the balloon with their grapples, and then try to drag the ship off course, usually to an airship of their own which would then board the victim. If the airship put up too much resistance, two aereoplanes would hook the ship and attempt to fly off in different directions. This would usually result in the balloon being torn open, dropping the ship from the sky, or one of the planes over-stressing its diesel engine. This alternative typically ended in the plane and the airship catching fire and crashing.
While the Argos was a peaceful ship, she carried some armaments for just these encounters. By now, gunners would be in their emplacements, manning large caliber machine guns on gimbals to give the widest possible range of fire. I was not sure where those firm points were located on the ship, but looking out through the forward port into the inky night, I imagined that they would have some difficulty hitting their targets in this light. In contrast, the Argos' running lights would have lit us up as a target for the pirates that could be seen for miles.
The Professor looked thoughtful for a moment. "I have something that may do one or the other, but not both. I've been experimenting with other uses for the furnace's fuel. It should form a decent flame thrower. Or possibly a thruster."
"You want to throw coal at them?" I could not contain my incredulity. What the Professor was suggesting didn't make sense.
"No, my friend, coal is too heavy and dirty for regular use. We use it to start the boilers, but once they're hot we burn Oxygen and Hydrogen torn from the very water itself. It provides for a much cleaner engine. The only problem is fuel storage, and I believe I've come up with an effective answer to that."
He turned back to the Captain. "I think our best bet is to fight, Captain. Buy us as much time as you can. If we can get some morning light it will give us a much better chance."
The Captain's gaze was hard, "I'll do my best, sir. Make sure you don't do the pirates work for them." He did not seem fully confident in the Professor's ability to fashion a weapon.
Miss Bang spoke up. "How can we help, Harmonious?"
He turned to the pair of us. "Yes. Come with me, you can both help me set things up. Captain, we'll be taking over the rear firmpoint. I know it will leave us vulnerable while we set up, but it will also give us the best vantage to strike at them."
"Well, don't dawdle. Prentis!" the Captain thundered, "inform rear guns that the Owner will be modifying weapons. Prepare to aid and assist."
"Aye, aye, sir!" and the Airman I presume to be Prentis grabbed an acoustic tube from an octopus's nest of tubes and blew into it to signal the rear position.
The Professor gathered us up and ushered us from the bridge. "We'll have to head up into the rigging areas and make our way along the catwalks to the back of the ship. But first we must stop at my laboratory and pick up some pumps. And some extra tubing. Quickly now!"
Seventeen hundred words on a new Crackle and Bang story. I'll finish it later, but this is my start.
Doc
May 12, 2011
Hello, Goodreads!
Even though I've been an avid reader for most of my life, I've never paid much attention to book-finding tools. I have tried using Amazon's recommendation tool, but it always seemed like it would recommend one or two things I might actually like, and five or six things that they were currently pushing. My tastes ares pretty eclectic, so "what's popular" usually doesn't appeal to me. I'm either not interested, or I've already discovered it before it became popular. So, despite the fact that many (if not most) of the folks that I interact with online are using Goodreads.com, I was never really interested in it. I've done pretty good finding my own reading materiel.
I'm not sure what changed last week. Maybe it was seeing the occasional status update on Twitter that mentioned Goodreads, or someone mentioning putting reviews there. Something happened, and as a result I went over to Goodreads and created an account. As I mentioned before, a lot of the folks that I follow on Twitter and Facebook were already on the site, so I began accumulating numbers of friends in chunks. I also began the effort of listing and rating the many, many, many books that I have read over the years. So far I've barely scratched the surface.
In the process of setting up my presence on Goodreads, I stumbled on one of my friends who had rated an issue of Flagship magazine from Flying Island Press, and noticed that each of the writers who contributed to the issue was listed as an author.
I've been published in an issue of Flagship.
I went digging and pulled up Flagship issue 4, the issue with my article in it. Sure enough, in the list of authors was the name Doc Coleman.
I clicked it.
Naturally, it linked to an empty profile. All that was there was a name and a link to the Flagship issue. And another link that said, "Is this you?"
I clicked it.
I typed up a little note telling the Goodreads folks that I was new to the site and I had just discovered that an author profile already existed for an article that I wrote and asked them for access to that profile.
Last Monday I got a notification that I was now a Goodreads Author.
It is kind of interesting, considering that I have never really pursued the idea of being a writer, the way this made me feel. I guess it is the sense of achieving a milestone along the way. Having that byline on Goodreads makes me feel proud, as if I've arrived. Not that my reputation is made by any stretch of the imagination. There are a lot of steps necessary to become successful at writing, however you may personally describe success. Arriving at the party is an early step, but an important one. Arriving at the party is no guarantee that someone will dance with you, but if you don't show up you definitely won't have a dance partner.
In the big scale of things, it isn't much. Especially not compared to how much so many others have achieved. Or all the hard work that they've put in building their writing careers. Compared to them, this is a drop in the bucket. A nothing.
But it is my nothing. And it makes me happy.
And now I need to get back to writing. I need to rack up some more bylines on that listing. A body of work will not create itself.
Hope you enjoyed this small moment.
May 5, 2011
The Wayback Machine: Bird House Rules: Episode #16: Review of TweetTime (with Nifty Tech Blog)
Next up from the Wayback Machine, the fifth episode in the Bird House Rules/Nifty Tech Blog joint review of Twitter clients for iPad. In this one we're looking at TweetTime. We weren't happy with the original audio from this episode, so then we re-recorded this the night before the post was to go live over Skype. This was also the first time we had to pan an product after we'd decided to include it in the series.
This was the last episode of the crossover to be podcast, but not the last episode of the series. Tee's writing career heated up shortly after this episode went life and he was unable to find the time to finish editing the final episode, or indeed publishing any additional episodes of Bird House rules. While I'm quite glad for the personal and professional success that Tee has had, I do wish that folks could hear that last episode. That was the one where we were most on form.
More from the Wayback Machine soon.
April 30, 2011
The Wayback Machine: Galley Table Episode Three
My return to the Galley Table! This marks my beginnings as the Galley Table Stowaway. I knew when Galley Table was to be recorded, so I went onto Skype a few minutes early and hoped that they would include me on the call. And that is pretty much what happened. Scott Roche placed the call and included me in with everyone else.
Back in those days, I pretty much considered myself as an "extra" guest on the podcast. I stayed quiet at the beginning, letting the regularly scheduled guest have their say first before chiming in with my two cents.
This show wandered a bit from topic to topic. Among the topics covered were the perceived legitimacy of electronic publishing, and how to bridge from a short story to a longer novel. The last is interesting because I think that is something that I hope to do in the coming year.
More to come from The Wayback Machine. And a lot more Galley Table, at that.
April 24, 2011
The Wayback Machine: Bird House Rules: Episode #15: Review of Twittelator (with Nifty Tech Blog)
Next up from the Wayback Machine, the fourth episode in the Bird House Rules/Nifty Tech Blog joint review of Twitter clients for iPad. In this one we're looking at Twittelator's transition to the iPad. Along the way we also discuss some design mistakes that we've run into along the way.
Still a couple episodes left in this series. Go ahead and check them out over at Bird House Rules. More from the Wayback Machine soon.
April 23, 2011
The Wayback Machine: Galley Table Episode Two
My debut on the new Galley Table podcast. Scott Roche was looking for a guest to discuss how technology was affecting reading and the future of Storytelling. Pretty much right up my alley. So we jumped on Skype and recorded this episode.
This was the beginning. But not the end.
Look for more posts from the Wayback Machine in the coming days.
April 22, 2011
Parsec Dreaming!
Giddy! I am giddy! Want to know why? I'll tell you why. This time last year, I was just a tech blogger with aspirations to be a podcaster.
This year, I'm a Parsec Award Nominated writer.
Let's say that again. Now, I have my own podcast, I'm a regular on the Galley Table Podcast, I'm a contributing writer to Flying Island Press' Flagship Magazine and the Every Photo Tells… podcast, and I am a Parsec Award Nominated writer!
Hee!
If you've not heard of the Parsec Awards, the Parsec is an award for excellence in Podcasting that is given out every year at Dragon*Con in Atlanta. The Parsecs are given out to shows that are deemed to embody the best of Speculative Fiction for each year. Speculative Fiction embodies Fantasy, Horror, and Sci-Fi elements in storytelling.
Mur Lafferty, Michael R. Mennenga & Tracy Hickman founded The Parsec Awards in 2006 to celebrate Speculative Fiction Podcasting, under the banner of Farpoint Media.
Podcast shows are nominated by fans, and finalists are chosen by a yearly steering committee. Those finalists are then voted on by an independent panel of judges from outside of podcasting. Awards are given in several categories ranging from content to audio quality.
So, the easiest part of the process is getting nominated. But it is still an honor because someone out there liked my work enough to nominate it. Or three someones. Because I didn't just get nominated for one story. I got nominated for all three stories I did for the Every Photo Tells… podcast. If you'd like to check them out, those stories are Episode 24 – The Gift, Episode 32 – Welcome to Paradox, and Episode 51 – The Price of Surrender. Nominations end June 1st. At that point, we'll have to wait and see if any of my stories move on to the Finalist stage.
If you'd like to see who else was nominated, you can check it out here.
Fingers crossed!
Doc
April 9, 2011
Update to A Midsummer Night's Dreaming…
Have you subscribed to Flying Island Press' Pirates Cove latest audio production, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. No? Well why not? all you have to do is go to your favorite RSS catcher and enter the URL http://feeds.feedburner.com/MidSummerNightsDream. They've just released Act 2 Scene 1, and this is where it gets interesting, as mortal intrigues get mixed up with the power struggles of the fairy kingdom. Can Titania unravel the plottings of Oberon? Will Lysander and Hermia's love win out? Will Demetrius steal Hermia away, or will Helena turn his false love for her to true? And how is Puck mixed up in all this? And what of the players and their play?
You need to go to Pirates Cove and subscribe! This is an excellent audio production. Don't trust me. Go listen for yourself.
March 28, 2011
A Midsummer Night's Dreaming…
Do you like Shakespeare? Do you like Audio Drama? Are you looking for a little of both? Then this is your lucky day! The Pirates over at Flying Island Press' Pirates Cove have started a new audio production, and this time they're doing their own version of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. And part of what makes this version special is that I am a member of the cast!
So fire up your favorite podcatcher and go to Pirates Cove and subscribe! Act 1 Scene 1 has just been released, so this is the ideal time to get in at the beginning of the story. And when Act 2 is delivered, you'll be able to listen to my performance as Oberon, King of the Fae. Along the way, you'll be able to listen to plenty of excellent voice actors in this production.
I hope you'll subscribe and enjoy the show.
