Sidney Blaylock Jr.'s Blog, page 67

Nightmares

Nightmares.  Man, I hate them!  Short, ugly, angry outbursts of mental energy that send me scurrying from the dreamworld and back into the waking world and robbing me of much needed sleep.

Like most people, I tend to forget my nightmares fairly quickly–they seem to fade within minutes after waking.   And after quickly getting up and walking around (if nothing else but to remind myself of what is real and solid vs what is nightmare and fictional), I can usually go right back to sleep with no further problems.

But, I’m NOT like most people.  I’m a writer which means that in some cases, I actually remember my nightmares, and take the extra step of writing them down.  Some nightmares, like the one I had tonight, had to be written down immediately so as not to lose all the details.  Others, like the ones that formed the story I’m currently working on (Project Roland), are ones that I’ve had before and are now embedded into my long term memory/sub-conscience so deeply that I can tell you the entire nightmare from start to finish.

Tonight’s nightmare was a sequel to a previous nightmare.  The first time I dreamed this world, it faded.  I knew I’d missed something when I woke up, but after a vague sense of disquiet, I went about the day.  Tonight’s nightmare continued the story of made up characters in my mind in the same world as before.  Don’t ask me how I know that, I just do.

My main reason to write this blog post is this: the nightmare, though frightening, created its own internally consistent world and rules that the world follows.  In other words, I have a completely built world in my head (& jotted down on paper) of a fantastical dystopian post apocalyptic world that I can now hang characters and plot around to create an interesting story.  So now my “world building” is done–just need to find some strong characters to populate the world (jotting down the notes suggested a possible storyline & taking a quick shower helped to formalize an inciting incident inside my mind).  I’m calling this story Project Whisper for now.

So, as a writer I know that I should love nightmares.  They give me worlds and story ideas that I would have never been smart enough or bold enough to explore on my own.

But, truth be told, I still hate them!

Errata

Sorry this blog post is late . . . IIterally just got Wi-Fi back about 50 minutes ago.  It has been out since Friday night.  Eventually I will get this problem sorted, but it is very annoying to say the least.  

BOOKS

Currently, working my way through 2 books: Trading in Danger by Elizabeth Moon (rereading) and Teen Titans: It’s Our Right to Fight (Graphic Novel).  I love the idea of a young girl as a space captain which is why I love this series by Elizabeeth Moon so much!  Later books go off the rails for me (they take the character too far from the roots by making her too much like Honor Harrington rather than fufilling the promise of interstellar trade/commerce with combat intermixed with shipping schedules.).  The Teen Titans have always been a “guilty pleasure” for me.  One of my first comic books was a Teen Titans title (the one where Starfire fights her sister–it also has the origin of X’Hale (?)).  The storyline is from the mid-eighties, but it was intense.  Another Teen Titans comic that I bought at the time was when Dick Grayson abandoned his Robin identity for Nightwing.  I remember not being impressed by the suit, but the late 90s/early 2000s revision made him relevant.

WRITING

I am approximately 1.5 sections (of 5 total sections) through Project Roland.  I missed writing on Tuesday, so I’m approximately a section behind.  I have a May 31 deadline, so I may need to step up the speed (as much as I can).  I have decided to work around my network issues by writing/working Project Roland when I have Wi-Fi and working on (paper & pencil) rough drafts/notes for other stories.  I worked on 2 ideas today while my network was out: Project Templar and Project Djinn.  Hopefully, these 2 projects will turn into short stories over the summer.  

MOVIES

Just rented White House Down last night and watched it via Amazon streaming.  I have to say that I wasn’t impressed.  I would give it 3 stars.  It is very derivative and the narrative seems to try for over-the-top spectacle at the expense of the narrative/characters.  It takes its cue from Die Hard, but I referenced scenes from The Matrix and an odd tone shift as we got a scene from National Treasure.  The other movie that dealt with The White House that summer was a better movie (Olympus Has Fallen).  It wasn’t great, but I didn’t have to work as hard to stay invested in it as I did with White House Down.  

I plan to see the new Avengers movie next week.  Internet willing, I’ll post (spoiler-free) impressions on the next blog entry.

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I think I’ll end this post here–talk to you all next week!

Ugh! Wi-Fi, Writing & the Limits of Technology

So, last week I shared with you that Apple released an iOS update that I thought would fix my Wi-Fi connectivity issues.

Well it worked for most of the week until last night. Last night as I was working on section number two of Project  Roland, my wi-fi decided to disappear and it has not reappeared as of my writing this blog post right now.

Luckily, I had mostly finished the part of the section that I was working on, but last night I was really in the groove.  I feel that I might have finished the entire section although it would’ve cost me several hours of sleep.

This blog post is being written on my iPhone you seeing my cell network and voice dictation.  It is not my preferred way to work, but at least technology allows you to have other options should your primary option on the street not work the way you need it to.

I do hope that Apple gets its iOS and network problems sorted soon.  Even though I am using a workaround, it is very different and difficult to create a blog post where as normally it is much easier and doesn’t require nearly as much effort.  I cannot imagine trying to work on project Roland portly using this method, let alone trying to write a long form work this way.  

For those who are wondering, I’ve been to several Apple support the red’s in the past. I am going to paste in a post from one of these threads that illustrates what I am currently facing: I had no trouble with wifi connections until I installed 8.3  Now I keep losing the wifi connection on my ipad2 . . .  I have tried the reset network connections, it really didn’t help, the wifi connection is intermittent.  Works for a while then drops out, nothing I can do to get it back but wait and wait and wait, then like magic, it comes back, but who knows for how long.  Please, Apple, fix this!!!  This is from a user named JaneSCA56 and Her post describes exactly what I am going through.  For those who want to follow this thread to find out when or if my issues will be fixed I have hopefully linked the thread to that message so all you need to do is click on the message to follow the thread  (as I will be doing).

To tie this back to technology, I think we need more stories about how technology doesn’t work or works only intermittently and heroes and protagonists must find ways to either work around the problem or or where they must find new and different ways to solve a problem even when technology doesn’t work as intended. I think that as I go forward I will try to add in more stories with these  themes.

Ugh! ��Wi-Fi, Writing & the Limits of Technology��

So, last week I shared with you that Apple released an iOS update that I thought would fix my Wi-Fi connectivity issues.

Well it worked for most of the week until last night. Last night as I was working on section number two of Project  Roland, my wi-fi decided to disappear and it has not reappeared as of my writing this blog post right now.

Luckily, I had mostly finished the part of the section that I was working on, but last night I was really in the groove.  I feel that I might have finished the entire section although it would’ve cost me several hours of sleep.

This blog post is being written on my iPhone you seeing my cell network and voice dictation.  It is not my preferred way to work, but at least technology allows you to have other options should your primary option on the street not work the way you need it to.

I do hope that Apple gets its iOS and network problems sorted soon.  Even though I am using a workaround, it is very different and difficult to create a blog post where as normally it is much easier and doesn’t require nearly as much effort.  I cannot imagine trying to work on project Roland portly using this method, let alone trying to write a long form work this way.  

For those who are wondering, I’ve been to several Apple support the red’s in the past. I am going to paste in a post from one of these threads that illustrates what I am currently facing: I had no trouble with wifi connections until I installed 8.3  Now I keep losing the wifi connection on my ipad2 . . .  I have tried the reset network connections, it really didn’t help, the wifi connection is intermittent.  Works for a while then drops out, nothing I can do to get it back but wait and wait and wait, then like magic, it comes back, but who knows for how long.  Please, Apple, fix this!!!  This is from a user named JaneSCA56 and Her post describes exactly what I am going through.  For those who want to follow this thread to find out when or if my issues will be fixed I have hopefully linked the thread to that message so all you need to do is click on the message to follow the thread  (as I will be doing).

To tie this back to technology, I think we need more stories about how technology doesn’t work or works only intermittently and heroes and protagonists must find ways to either work around the problem or or where they must find new and different ways to solve a problem even when technology doesn’t work as intended. I think that as I go forward I will try to add in more stories with these  themes.

Lots of Things

Today is a “Lots of Things” day.  I had 1 topic that I wanted to share, but it has suddenly ballooned to 4 things based on events from last night and this morning.  I’ll try to be brief with them, however.  Here goes: 

 1) PROJECT DARK TOWER – started a new story for an anthology that is accepting submissions.  It is a story about the Dark Tower (from Robert Browning’s Poem–Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came).  This story has been in my head for years.  It was supposed to be my “breakout” novel (as Robert Browning’s poem is already arranged in 34 stanzas/cantos already).  I’m still learning how to write a novel, however, and this story is demanding to be written now.  It is coming together in my mind and there is a tangible market asking for stories about the Dark Tower.  I have my main character, Roland, who is a fully realized protagonist in my mind, so I figure its time.  Maybe I will expand it into a novel later, but right now I think I’ll strike while the iron is hot. 

 2) WIFI ISSUES – Readers of the blog know that I’ve been struggling with my wifi since Christmas 2014 when I integrated a new router to my network.  Apple JUST released an update to iOS that fixes the multitude of issues that my phone and ipad have had since Christmas.  So far, so good.  Now, my computer is temporarily out of commision, and I think that my Keychain access that holds my wifi passwords was also at fault for the lack/loss of connectivity.  Not sure if my Mac OS has had an update yet, so some issues may still persist, but hopefully, my wifi network is on the mend.

 3) HACKED! – So about 2 weeks ago, thanks to Gmail’s security team, I was able to intercept and stop an attempt to hijack my email account.  However, this morning, I woke up to 2 emails from Microsoft that said that my gmail account had been linked to a outlook.com account and that outlook account had changed to sblaylock2012@outlook.com.  This is NOT my account–so if you get messages from this account be sure to delete them (I think they’re trying to gain access to my Amazon.com account as I intercepted and stopped an attempted breach there about 1 year ago).  I spent about an hour on the phone with the Microsoft Accounts Live department and they said that my gmail account did not appear toenou be linked to this account.  I remain skeptical of this (based on the attempt hijack 2 weeks ago), so I’m going to create a new email account (actually 2 email accounts–1 personal & 1 professional) and then abandon my current gmail address.  Unfortunately for the scammers/hackers out there: I’m not emotionally tied to email addresses.  I abandoned my AOL email address after 6 years and I will abandon an address when I feel it is no longer useful.  It’s not really all that difficult to change your credentials at various sites–just do the most important ones in a day or two, then do the others as you log into to them/use them. 

 4) LEARNING HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL – That’s my big focus for this year.  I’ve heard that novel writing is “simply the accumulation of pages day after day.”  I don’t think I have thought about my story, setting, characters well enough when I try to write a novel and I think that’s why it falls apart.  I just don’t know enough about the world, the people, the plot, etc.  When I write short stories, I don’t need to know EVERYTHING, but when writing novels, you do need to know how it all works and relates to each other.  I bought 2 notebooks and I’m going to use 2015 to fill them up with everything that I have (notes, characters, story, setting, etc.)  At the end of 2015, I’m going to pick a notebook and start drafting the novel.  This year is all about “preplanning” the stories that I want to tell (aka “training” for a marathon to use a sports metaphor.)

Well, that’s it for this week–hopefully I’ll be back next week with my computer and not my iPad (& hopefully with a stable wifi connection).  Later.

Trials and Tribulations

This will be a super short blog entry: just wanted to check into to say that the past 3 weeks have been extremely trying for me both personally and professionally. ��I won’t go into the specifics (or the “horrifics”–if you’ll allow me the horrible pun), but it hasn’t been a fun few weeks. ��I even managed to miss the deadline for the Far Orbit Anthology that I posted here a couple of months ago. ��(Boo!)

That being said, I wanted to quickly note that I’ve both finished and submitted HawkeMoon to a short-story market. ��I sent it off via email attachment literally minutes ago. ��(Yay!)

Hopefully, I can get things turned around and get back to a more regular schedule–but I make no promises. ��Gotta’ run. ��More later (hopefully!)

Where You End is Not Where You Begin – Time Travel in Movies

I just finished watching The Edge of Tomorrow – Live.Die.Repeat last night and I found it to be very good (It would earn a B+) for its Sci-Fi Action elements. ��It’s not my favorite Tom Cruise Sci-Fi (that would currently have to go to Minority Report), but it is fun nonetheless.

Now, no spoilers, but this movie is part of the “repeating day” genre popularized by Groundhog Day (starring Bill Murray). ��There have been several of these repeating day/repeating time/”timeslide” movies in the Fantasy and Sci-Fi genre. ��While they’ve mostly been enjoyable, they always seem to mess up the resolution��of the story.

Again, without spoiling anything, at the end you’ll find that the main character goes through the classic character arc, but (ultimately) the female lead’s arc is cut short by the time travel that takes place. ��For me, this was a bit unsatisfying (and why I wouldn’t give the movie an “A”).

Deja Vu (starring Denzel Washington) had the same problem, but in its case, it was the female lead who went through the arc and it was the main character whose arc was cut short.

In both cases, neither of the two characters were the fully realized characters at the end of the movie as they were portrayed throughout their struggle in the movie. ��And each seems slightly unsatisfying at the end of the movie (even though Deja Vu has one of the most innovative car chase sequences that I’ve ever seen.)

And these are two of the best movies–there are others that are not nearly as effective, such as:

Prince of Persia, Next, and Source Code failed to find amazing theatrical success, I would argue, because of the problem of the nature of the “timeslide” and that audiences found the movies’ ending unsatisfying in the extreme. ��I know I did–they��almost had that “it was all a dream/dream sequence” element to them.

I’ve learned 2 things about writing my own Time Travel stories from watching these movies:

1) Main character and secondary characters MUST change from their experiences DURING the “Timeslide.”

2) Somehow, they need to RETAIN what they’ve learned and MUST��understand how the “Timeslide” affected them in order for the ending to be completely satisfying.

Currently (Re) Reading: The Malloreon by David Eddings

I’m currently re-reading the Malloreon by David Eddings. ��I prefer the Belgariad by him, but I read that last semester. ��I really enjoy this series–I think it is because of the banter between the characters.

My family had banter (although not to this degree) when I was growing up–and devices like puns, quoting from movies, ��etc., was highly prized and rewarded. ��Being able to be mentally adroit and using advanced wordplay to cause laughter and humor was something that our family did really well. ��This is the closest book in the fantasy genre that seems to truly encapsulate the “Star Wars” (original trilogy) for me as a reader. ��It seems as though I’m chuckling at a clever turn of a phrase or the many uses of sarcasm and irony (including dramatic irony) on every other page.

I reread all of my favorite novels (even more so since rise of the “Grim Dark” writers of fantasy like George RR Martin–don’t get me wrong–not hating on the author, just the whole nasty people doing nasty things to one another doesn’t appeal to me NO MATTER the genre). ��This series is one that I have pulled out and reread yearly for the past 5 years straight. �� I sometimes reread the TAMULI series (also by Eddings), but mostly its the BELGARIAD and MALLOREON. ��I wish more authors would write in this mode, but I guess it is passe’ now.

I can’t WAIT for the whole “Grim Dark” trend to go away so that more books like this can��be published.

Sigh. ��I really could use some more banter (read: laughter) in my life right now.

Author’s Note: HAWKEMOON

Well, it’s been a long, hard, road (much longer than it should have been–more on that a little later), but I finally FINISHED my short-story entitled, HAWKEMOON! ��It needs a little more revision before I’m ready to send it out to markets, but the hard work of creation is done–now it is all about refinement and evolution. ��In college, I took a Creative Non-Fiction course where we wrote an “Author’s Note” about the creative influences, hopes, and goals for our work after we finished a draft (sort of like a “Postmortem” from video games, TV, and Movies). ��In the same spirit, that’s what this blog entry is about. ��So without further ado:

AUTHOR’S NOTE–HAWKEMOON

HawkeMoon started out as a concept that I had in response to a Call for Submissions for two anthologies that Rhonda Parrish (the Editor of Fae who bought my story, “Faerie Knight”) was doing last year. ��The anthologies,��Corvidae��and��Scarecrow were to have stories��of Corvids (birds like crows, ravens, etc.) and Scarecrows in them.

The story came together from a note that I’d made to myself about a “Hawk King and Raven Queen.” ��I was going to use this idea to submit to her anthologies. ��Originally, the story was to be two linked stories–one dealing with the two main characters, the Hawk King and the Raven Queen. ��In the second story, those two characters��were going to have to deal with an on-coming evil, a darkness consisting of a King of the Scarecrows.

Then, school started. ��To say this year has been more challenging than last would be an understatement. ��I was not able to get any traction on the story at all. ��I tried one aborted attempt at it fairly close to the submission deadline, but the tone and the characters were all wrong. ��In the draft that didn’t work, I’d made them brother and sister, but those two had a banter and playfulness that didn’t match the grimmer story that I had in my head (FULL DISCLOSURE: I actually liked those two and may reuse them in another story at a later date, but they just didn’t work for this one). ��In my head, these two didn’t know each other and had to discover more about the other.

So the project went on ice and seemed destined not to get written in the way I wanted. ��That was until the 1st expansion for Destiny came out–The Dark Below. ��In it, their main character was an agent who had infiltrated the Hive named Eris Morn. ��She had three items in her inventory that players could work for called: Predawne, Middaye, and Sunsetting.

BOOM! ��Somehow, my mind clicked and the story came together. ��It would take place in one day. ��Predawne would be the beginning and focus on the Hawke, Middaye would focus on Moon, and in Sunsetting, they would have to find a way to stop an evil or die a horrible death. ��I even added an epilogue of sorts called Morn to finish out the “day.”

So, I’ve been writing it since about the last of December/first of January. ��I was on track for my normal 3-4 months writing cycle when I heard an episode of about making a living as a writer on the Wisconsin Public Radio show “To the Best of Our Knowledge.” I’ll have a LOT more to say about that episode in another blog post, but in it, it talked about ways of making it a full time writer. ��I realized that I’m taking too long for short-stories based on their rate of return. ��So I challenged myself a goal of a short-story a month (writing on weekends). ��I normally write about 4-5 scenes in the story and if I can write a scene or two a weekend, I can do it. ��So I challenged myself to finish HawkeMoon by the end of Feb. ��and I finished it Feb. 28.

The title is an amalgamation of the two characters names Hawke and Moon joined together. ��It is also a play on a powerful hand cannon��found in the game Destiny (Hawkmoon) that I’ve yet to acquire (gun drops in that game are mostly random and while I’ve been lucky with other rare items, I’ve not manage to acquire this one, so the title is also a bit ironic as well.) ��:)

I’ve already picked out a market that I want to send HawkeMoon to first. ��As the deadline for Far Orbit is at the end of this month (3/31), chances are good that I’m going to let HawkeMoon lie fallow for the month and pick it up for revision with (hopefully) fresh eyes in April. ��With any luck, I’ll send it out to its 1st market by Tax Day (April 15), but you never know.

So that is a little peek behind the creation of my story HawkeMoon.

ROUTER UPDATE–Router stable, wifi unstable (up Friday & most of Sat., down today–Sunday)

STORY UPDATE–HawkeMoon FINISHED! (yay!). ��Upcoming–Rocket-Man revision for submission to Far Orbit Anthology Call for Submissions.

Oscar Night

Super short post today. Didn’t write a post because I wanted to spend most of the day WRITING. ��I managed to get most of HawkeMoon done. ��Just missing the climatic scene & epilogue. ��Want to finish HM in Feb. & start a new story for March.

Oscars inspired me to start a screenplay. ��Prob. won’t be great but at least I’m TRYING to “Dream Big!” ����