Matthew S. Williams's Blog, page 230
June 9, 2011
Source – chapter 5, now on podcast!
Admittedly, I already posted chapter 5. But I was unhappy with the bugs and skips, so… using my new headset (I finally sprang for a wireless USB) I've re-recorded it. Hope it sounds better, and avoids any skips on the track. A recap for those who might have forgotten where the story is at this point:
"In this installment, the people back home are beginning to suspect something is up. Strange packages with government seals begin showing up on certain people's doorsteps, aerospace contractors are hired to design a secret new project, and some people even begin to disappear…"
June 7, 2011
Reviews are in… well two anyway!
The reviews are in from fans who have taken time out of their busy day to post reviews for a story of mine. The story in question is Liability, which has been downloaded 2470 times and added to 33 personal libraries! Here's what two of said people have had to say:
"Good story. Gets you wrapped up in the action right away and doesn't stop till the end."
"Dont look behind you when you read this novel, they may be watching you. thoroughly enjoyable reading."
Just what I was going for too! Good to know other people spot this stuff, even better when they spot things you yourself didn't intend when you wrote it. But that's how it goes, oftentimes the reader will reveal things of the text that the author did not realize they were including, but which is no less valid (at least that's what T.S. Eliot tells us!) More to come soon.
June 6, 2011
Just shy of 7000!
Good news for people who have a story in them and aren't sure what to do with it. Less than three months ago, I began posting some sample short stories I've written over the years in the hopes of getting feedback and drawing attention to my other, larger works. So far, I have grossed 6972 downloads, and its only been about twelve weeks! Reviews have been good too, which is a huge source of encouragement let me tell you! Just seeing that download ticker go up day after day makes me feel good about the process, so if you're a writer and (like me) have no idea how to promote yourself, I urge you to share your work! There's no shortage of venues, and there will be plenty of opportunity to cash in on all that hard work and time invested shortly thereafter!
New Stories, new cover art!
Source, Liability, Vega Rising and Turncoats, all available at Amazon.com and Kindle with new cover art and updated interiors. Come on by and check them out!
June 4, 2011
Of Biking and Shopping
You know when you bike to the grocery store, and therefore have to carry whatever you buy back with you? Well, I do, though admittedly its a rare experience. But my wife and I just did a big bike ride, about 10 km, from our home down by the water. Needless to say a good deal of it was uphill! But the best part of it was how it forced us to be thrifty seeing as how whatever we bought had to fit in a backpack and be portable. So in addition to exercise, biking while you do your shopping can inspire monetary responsibility. Good for us! By the time summer's over, we'll be fantastically healthy and rich!
June 3, 2011
My author profile, now on Goodreads
Come check out my author page on Goodreads. Me and several of my friends over at the Herscher Project are now members, I've even reconnected with some old friends who have an obvious passion for books. Above all, its a good place to check out your favorite authors, give reviews, and look up famous quotes.
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June 1, 2011
May 31, 2011
Of Apparitions and the Dark
A weird thing struck me last night. There I was, at about 1am, sitting in the dark because I couldn't quite fall asleep. And it was pitch black, let me tell you! Something that living in the countryside and having no streetlights near our bedroom window affords us. Anyway, as I sat in the dark, I swore I saw light on the wall. Was I seeing reflections because it was a light-colored surface, or were these simple apparitions, the result of light pollution? Hey, I warned you it was weird! Point is, I know a thing or two about such things. As you may know, when the eye is exposed to a source of light, it causes a distortion in your eye of the opposite color for some time. The rods and cones doing there thing, as it were.
And in an average day, we get quite a lot of exposure to light that isn't exactly natural don't we? Colored light, incandescent light, florescent light, plasma and LCD displays, LED's, maybe even the occasional laser. In short, I figured that we get far too much artificial light in our daily lives. I have no stats to back it up, but I believe its been well documented and scientifically proven. And darkness is therapeutic, according to my wife. Sitting in a dark room for a little while every day allows the eye muscles to relax, probably ensures better long-term health and vision as well. And since I spend far too much time staring at this laptop of mine in an average day, I think I should make a point of it from now on! Darkness ho!
Favorite
May 26, 2011
Of Curry, Chocolate, and Moonshine… homemade is best!
For starters, yes I know making alcohol in your own household is illegal. Which is why I didn't MAKE it, per se. Per se, people, I said per se. Doesn't anyone appreciate Latin anymore? But I digress… you know the saying that there's nothing like moonshine from your own still? Well, its sometimes true! But of course, I'm stretching the metaphor to apply to anything made in the home from scratch. And in the last year, I've noticed this trend developing in my home. Seems I'm getting more and more interested in making food products instead of buying them.
First it was curry paste, a food I experimented with a few years back and felt the need to repeat. That all started with a reading of a label, and the realization that there was nothing contained within a commercially bought jar that I couldn't find in my food pantry. It's really quite simple, you combine some chilies (though you might want to remove the seeds and keep the skins to control the spice level), some lemongrass, onions, garlic, and cilantro, blend evenly, then heat to remove the water and get a good pasty consistency. Then, spoon into your stir fry or soups and add coconut milk… or don't, I don't care! In any case, this was my first homemade product and it inspired others.
The second was the aforementioned (ahem) moonshine. In truth, it was a fruit cordial made from vodka and blackberries and a separate batch of blackberry-infused vodka. So no real moonshinery was going on here, no distilling or serious fermenting. You hear that, prohibition-era lawmakers? And you can do it too, and I highly recommend it. All you need to make cordial is some fruit, some sugar, and a catalytic alcoholic agent (vodka is ideal since it has no color, taste, or odor). Just combine your ingredients, let sit for about a week, and then refrigerate. If you grind the fruit up, some straining might be necessary, but otherwise, just remove the fruit after its fully infused (i.e. the color and odor have changed). I tried it both ways, crushing the blackberries and adding sugar and water to create a cordial, and letting the blackberries infuse the alcohol, but with no sugar, to create a very smooth, semi-sweet berry vodka.
Then came chocolate… That one started with some organic cocoa beans my darling bride's mother gave us. In this case as well, I had some understanding of the process that went into turning them into the lovely sweet thing that ladies love and men have no strong opinions on either way (if television, movies and advertisements have not horribly misguided me)! Sorry, stereotype moment there! It's really easy to make actually, all you need is butter, milk, cocoa beans, and a sweetening agent. I used honey. Grind the beans, add melted butter, smooth it out, add milk until you have the color and consistency you want. And don't be shy, either. It actually takes quite a bit of milk to get it to a nice, even consistency and taste. Then, remove, put into a container, and refrigerate. You can even do this with cocoa, which I did. The finer the cocoa, the more smooth and mousse-like the concoction will be.
So far, that's all I got. But I just bought a bunch of mangoes and sour cherry season is around the corner. And there's no shortage of organic cocoa beans or cocoa powder around here either. And I'm determined to give homemade curry another go since the last batch didn't come out red enough, not to mention really, really hot! So… look out! No slowing down here. If any of this appealed to anyone else out there, get on it and let me know how it went.
May 22, 2011
Of Kowloon's Walled City and "Virtual Light" (by Gibson)
Just finished reading Gibson's first installment in the "Bridge Trilogy", and was reasonably impressed with it. In addition to being a good intro to his pre-Bigend series, it also gave me some insight into the writer himself and his inspirations. For starters, and I urge everyone to go look this up, I'd never heard of Kowloon's Walled City before, nor did I know that was what inspired The Bridge for which the trilogy is named. In short, this city began as a Chinese fort but became part of Britain's mandate after they acquired Hong Kong in the lease of 1898. Since that time, it evolved into a massive squatter community, a place for refugees, migrants, drug dealers, thugs, and the poor and downtrodden. Although it had a reputation for being a den of crime, gambling and prostitution, it was also home to over 33,000 people. At least, until the Hong Kong government decided to demolish it in 1993. It took over a year to complete the process, and only after a very intense eviction process.
After reading about all this, I could see where Gibson got the idea for "The Bridge", which is the center point of Virtual Light and other stories in the trilogy. Set in San Francisco in 2005, the Golden Gate bridge has become a squatter city of its own. This was due mainly to the fact that San Fran was devastated by the "Little Grande" (aka. the Big One), and this and other factors had a dramatic impact on the city. Like many of his other works, the US and North America has become a fragmented shadow of their former selves, and privatized companies enjoy ridiculous amounts of power. And, as usual, the main characters are freelance people who get caught up in a scheme that is far bigger than themselves. Add to that some cooky religious cult and an interesting side story about Shapely, a man who inadvertently cured AIDS and became a sainted figure, and you've got Gibson's usual take on America of the future, a gritty, dirty place, marked by polarized wealth, private contractors, high-tech assassins, and corporate scheming. It was fun, enjoyable, and the concept of the Bridge was both novel and entertaining.
Now for the weak points. For starters, I really didn't feel the whole "post-millennium shock" thing. While it was a very interesting idea, it was not as well developed or convincing as I was hoping. In addition, the techno-angle, not as intriguing as I would have hoped. The glasses, which are the MacGuffin of the story, were interesting enough, but really didn't blow my mind the way some of his other works have. And the story's setting just doesn't seem realistic given that it was set only a decade into the future. It seemed far-fetched that nanotechnology and the disintegration of America could have happened in such a short time. Perhaps that was why I felt unconvinced throughout, the fact that it was all taking place in 2005, too soon to seem real. I was also thrown by the rather striking resemblance this book bore to Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash", which had been published a year prior. The stuff about privatized America, cooky religious sects, hacker communities, and corporate plotting, not to mention how the lead female is a messenger, all the same! I'm a sucker for all that stuff, but perhaps that added to the whole "unconvinced" thing, I'd seen it done before… and frankly, better. Sorry William!
Incidentally, I'm kind of sad that the Kowloon Walled City no longer exists. Rather than demolishing the place, I think the Hong Kong authorities ought to have preserved it as a museum. It was a living piece of history, after all! And let's not forget that the place was the result of neglect by many generations of civil authorities, so razing it wasn't exactly a smart (or particularly sensitive) solution! Look it up, the photo galleries are immense and very cool to look at.
