Jon Mac's Blog, page 3

A Mythik New Year

Happy New Year, everybody! The ol' Mythik Blog has been neglected for a while, but the Underwater Cave-dwelling Sea Monkeys who write this stuff are back to work and have their typewriters warmed up and ready to go.

November was very busy with NaNoWriMo, and although I didn't "win," I did get 45k or so words, which I considered a success and a very good start to the Land Of Lor novel. It is shaping up to be a very fun twist on classic, personal Sword & Sorcery combined with an overall Epic Fantasy feel. Although the main characters and plot lines have been in my head for many years, it has already taken a few unexpected turns resulting in several painted-in plot corners, ha ha. I was so busy writing, I didn't keep up with the planned blog updates. Oh well, it's a trade-off I'll accept :)

December was busy with lots of work at the day job and, of course, family and holiday time. I was able to do a test shoot of video for an upcoming Weird West Thriller.
Screen grab from video test shoot. T3i camera with 30 year old Kiron 28mm lens @ f2.
Another frame from the test movie. The six shooter is a rare Merwin & Hulbert, the "Cadillac of Revolvers," a now mostly forgotten competitor to the Colts, Smith & Wessons and Remingtons of the old west. January will be busy too, since I'll be finishing up the long awaited Mythik Imagination #2 as well as working on Land of Lor and pre-production (and more tests) for the movie.

New Year's resolution is to not neglect the blog and to write more!

Thanks for reading and stay Mythik :)
Jon

Weird Wednesday - Flying Humanoids Over Mexico

Today's Weird Wednesday is a special guest post from M. Pax, a talented SF&F writer who also enjoys the occasional bit of weirdness. Be sure to check out her always interesting blog posts at Wistful Nebulae and her website, which has tons of cool stuff. Let the weirdness begin, M. Pax:
Reports have been cropping up of terrifying encounters withflying "humanoids" in Mexico. One of the most fascinating reports comes from apolice officer in Monterrey. He says he was attacked in January 2004 by aflying entity draped in black.
Here's an excerpt from the newspaper article entailing theincident:

Appeared in ElNorte on Saturday, January 17, 2004

"A municipal police officer testifies that hesaw what looked like a 'woman in a black gown' descend from the trees as he waspatrolling his beat in a squad car in 'la zona.' The descent was slow he said.As if it was floating."

"She was wearing a black gown (or robes) andhad large, completely black eyes with no pupils."

"When this 'witch' started to make a move atme, I immediately contacted my fellow patrolmen by radio and I summonedassistance."

"The situation was intolerable and caused theofficer to lose consciousness."

"I saw it walking toward me and I put thepatrol car into reverse gear. I saw it start to tumble and fly. It impacted onthe windshield of the car. As I continued to look at it, I raised my hands andfainted."

 Later, it was said the mysterious flying humanoids were men on some type of jet pak contraption. Personally, I like the idea of flying aliens better. Real or not, it's fodder for the imagination.

What about you? Skeptic? Believer? Hey-it's-great-funner?





M. Pax has recently released a Space Opera novellette called Semper Audacia, which I enjoyed a lot.

Semper AudaciaYou can find it at: Smashwords, Amazon, B&N, and iTunes

Description: Alone. Leda is the last living member of the brigade, the soledefender of her world. War took everyone she knew, leaving her in the companyof memories and ghosts. Or is it madness?The siren blares. The enemy is coming. Or is it? The approaching vesselisn't a friendly design, but it answers with the correct code. Leda must figureout whether the arrival is reinforcements or the final assault. In an agingflyer, she ventures out to meet her world's fate, the last stand.

Details: 99 cents. Space Opera. Novelette. 13,200 words.
About M. Pax: Inspiring the words I write, I spend mysummers as a star guide at Pine Mountain Observatory in stunning Central Oregonwhere I live with the husband unit and two loving cats. I write speculativefiction mostly and have a slight obsession with giant, man-eating reptiles andJane Austen. I know, they don't really go together, but it'd be interesting toinsert Godzilla in the middle of Pride & Prejudice.
For more info, you can go to her blog and website:Blog: http://mpaxauthor.blogspot.comWebsite: www.mpaxauthor.com
Thanks for stopping by, M. Pax!

NANO Day 1

Well it was a busy weekend and even busier last couple of days. Here's the first day of #NaNoWriMo, and I'm already exhausted ;)

But did get over 2k words written :)

Don't worry, I won't post every day, just milestones haha.

NaNoWriMo Oh No!

[image error] I have officially decided to do the NaNoWriMo thing. If you haven't heard of NaNoWriMo (I hadn't until recently,) it is sort of a competition where the goal is to write a novel in one month. So, it is NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth. Get it? In this case, the goal is 50,000 words. The competition is with yourself, and if you achieve the goal, you win! It's not exactly going to be easy adding to an already busy schedule, but what the heck, right? It should be fun. If anybody wants to add me as a buddy, here is my NaNoWriMo page.

So what shall I write about? Hmm. How about a down and out princess who goes on the road to find adventure in a mystical magic land? It's a strange place where pirates are good guys and dragons talk with funny accents and magic spells are obsolete almost as soon as they are created. There will be plenty of daring do, with swords and sorcery and punks who don't follow any of the Wizard Guild's rules. We'll see all this and more, in The Land of Lor.

Of course, all that might change once the real writing begins ;) But I do have a bunch of characters and the setting and a lot of story ideas. The genre is going to be Epic Fantasy Sword & Sorcery Magipunk. So, take that, Genre Police!

The Land of Lor is actually something I've had in my head for a long time. So this is the perfect time for it to fully come out. I even have a map of Lor I drew, umm, too long ago. All I have to do is weed out all the dumb parts and come up with an exciting story. That's all, ha ha.

I'm going to construct it like a movie. It will have three acts and twelve chapters. Three chapters for Act 1, six chapters for Act 2, and three chapters for Act 3. At about 5,000 words per chapter, the total will be around 60k words. So, lets say by the end of November I'll have 50k words and "win" NaNoWriMo. Then another month for rewrites and the last 10k words. Then another month for more rewrites. Then a month of editing and polishing. That puts the release date at March 1st. Mark your calendars!

Lor is a pretty big world with lots of history and people and places, so there's a ton of story material there. The first book will be self contained, but will also be the beginning of a three part series. All told, there will eventually be a trio of trilogies.

So, there ya have it. So it is written so shall it be done, ha ha. Now I better get back to revising Mythik Imagination #2, since the NaNo thing starts in a couple of days. I figure the Mythik Imagination series will be good breaks from the novel and #3 will have a short story from the Lor universe.

Stay tuned for NaNo updates right here. It should be a fun ride :)

Pulp Science Fiction from USPS

Today the print version of Mythik Imagination #1 finally came in the mail :) It's a collection of three short science fiction stories in pulp magazine format of the 30s & 40s. If you wanna check it out, you can find it at Indy Planet for only three bucks. If you want the free eBook version, there is a handy graphic in the sidebar to your right with links to all eBook formats (including Issuu, which is basically an on-line version of the printed pages.)
Look what's peeking out of the envelope.
Hey why does my new magazine look all old and worn out?
Hmm, who writes this stuff??
Front and back covers in futuristically full color!
Yes, you are looking at an ad for this blog in a picture on this blog. I hope that doesn't cause a closed loop-vortex in the space-time continuum.
And here's an ad for #3. Gee, maybe I should finish #2! Well at least it does say "coming soon."
[image error] I think the underwater cave monkeys in the Mythik typesetting department did a pretty good job ;)
Now I can sign it and sell it on 3D eBay in 20 years for $1.27 million ;)Well, I better get back to work on #2. Thanks for reading!

Keeping Up With The Mythik

Well, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that I have been neglecting the blog - although some might consider that the good news ;) The good news is that the reason I have been neglecting the blog is because I have been busy writing and working on cool projects.

Any day now I shall have the print version of Mythik Imagination #1 in my hot little hands. That's right, good old-fashioned, read-under-the-blankets-with-a-flashlight, paper pages all bound up in magazine format. Even better news is that it will only cost three bucks!

I have also been revising Mythik Imagination #2 a bit more than I had expected. But it is just around the corner. Really.

I've also recorded a podiobook twice, but didn't like the reads and continue to work on it. Hopefully, third time's the charm :)

And finally, I've been toying with the idea of doing the #NaNoWriMo thing. Is that the right acronym? I think it is. Anyway, I am kind of intrigued by the structure of it, but also have a bit of an inner rebel in me that is not so thrilled with the idea. I also have a (perhaps incorrect) thought of potential readers thinking "What, you threw this book together in 30 days and expect me to read it??" I realize the 30 day part is just for the rough draft and the whole idea is to just get the words down on paper then revise, etc. But still... Anyway, I just might do my own, personal non-official version of NaNoWriMo and show you the behind the scenes story of writing a book. It'll be almost as exciting as Keeping Up With The Kardashians !

Stay tuned...

Zombies Are People Too!

I've always liked Halloween stories, so I decided to make one of my own. The Human Ate My Pumpkin! is a Halloween short story from the Zombie point of view:
The Human Ate My Pumpkin! is .99 cents on Amazon and FREE on Smashwords.

It wasn't just any other night in the unlife of Ned The Undead, it was Halloween! But the world had changed a lot lately, and nothing seemed to turn out the way he expected. Find out why Zombies are people too, in "The Human Ate My Pumpkin!"

Hopefully it will be free on Amazon in time for Halloween. Of course, you can always shell out the 99 cents right now ;) Or, just get it free on Smashwords.

Free eBook Update

[image error] Well it has been about a week since Amazon changed the price of Mythik Imagination #1 to free. Although it hasn't had the massive tsunami of downloads I've heard about for other free eBooks, it has been fun to see it high up on the charts. It went up all the way to #6 in Science Fiction, and I think it's still in the top 50.

So if you want to check it out, now is a good time, and you don't have anything to lose :)

Soon I'll be making another surprise announcement (heh, well not too much of a surprise) just in time for Halloween.

Stay tuned, stay Mythik and thanks for reading!

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About The Space Shuttle

After attending the #EndeavourLA Launch Event NASA Tweetup, I thought it would be cool to have a little tribute to the recently retired STS (Space Transportation System.) Although the original Space Transportation System was much more ambitious than just a reusable orbiter, the Space Shuttle was an amazing feat of engineering and accomplished a lot of pretty incredible things. Here's an infographic from Space.com:




Source Space.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration

That image of the flight deck is overwhelming. "Hmm, what does this button do?!"

What do you think the future will hold for space exploration, now that the Shuttle is retired?

#EndeavorLA Nasa Tweetup

I was lucky enough to attend the #EndeavorLA Launch event, thanks to NASA Tweetupand @casciencecenter. If you haven't heard about the Tweetups, they are part of a social media program by NASA, where you can sign up and may be randomly chosen to attend an event. All they ask is that you tweet about it :) This was the first one I signed up for. This event was to "sign over the pink slip" of Space Shuttle Endeavour from NASA to the California Science Center. I'm not sure exactly when the shuttle will actually arrive, but I can't wait to go back and see it.
So come on with me for a virtual tour, and let's see what happened!
[image error] The California Science Center is very cool, with lots of hands-on exhibits.

Walking from the parking lot, we see The Big Lever, which enables you lift a 5000 pound truck with your bare hands.
Here's an A-12 Blackbird trainer. This was the precursor to the SR-71 Blackbird. To bad the ol' iPhone doesn't have a wide angle lens!
I think the A-12/SR-71 is one of the coolest looking planes of all time.
There was a big crowd there. For some reason, I like taking pictures of people taking pictures.
That group of people in the background is watching the "signing over of the Endeavour pink slip." It comes with a power-train warranty, right? (Okay, I stole that joke from one of the speakers.)
The crew of STS-134 (last Endeavor mission and last Space Shuttle mission ever) and the curator of the CA Science Center. He said they have a 250 year plan for the exhibit. It will also be displayed vertically, ready for launch :) The astronauts gave an awesome video presentation and answered questions. The tires in the foreground were actually used on the Space Shuttle Discovery. They weigh about 250 pounds.
Air Force T-38 trainer. My dad used to work on these - he also worked on the SR-71 but can't talk about it ;) Once, he let me fly a T-38 motion simulator. It was pretty amazing!
F-20 Tigershark. There were only three prototypes built before the program was cancelled, and this is the only one on display anywhere.
Apollo space capsule.
The most complicated door in the world. The latches around the edge are called "dogs," and to open it, you pull the lever by the window and it turns all the gears and gizmos to undog the hatch. Before this design, it was necessary to unlatch all the dogs separately, which was dangerous if you needed to leave in a hurry.
Cool texture on the side of the capsule.
Gemini capsule. It's even more cramped than the Apollo capsule.
Gemini heat shield.
I love space suits. This area was roped off, but I snuck in and took a quick pic. Don't tell...
The world's smallest and blurriest moon rock.
Baxter the Wonder Dog for the Cutest Dog In The World Contest. I don't know how that got in here!
Everybody has a red carpet background these days.
The goodie bag: Astronaut Ice Cream, Social Media badge, USB drive with info about the event, CA Science Center compass keychain, NASA pin and free IMAX ticket!I had a fun time and it was nice to meet the other Tweetupperers. Thanks, NASATweetup and California Science Center!

For more info from the other Tweeple, check out #EndeavorLA on Twitter.