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2YN: The Two-Year Novel Course, Year One

I feel compelled to recommend 2YN: The Two-Year Novel Course, Year One, by Lazette Gifford to anyone who has even considered writing a novel. I haven’t yet read the book, but I did take the class on which the book is based. In fact, I’m taking it again for my next novel.

The first year covers:

Writing Basics: Ideas, Genres, Themes, Conflict and more
Character development
Worldbuilding
Outlining
Writing, including what to do when you get stuck

Having gone through the process, and I can tell you that it works. Pick up a copy now. It is currently available as a downloadable PDF, so you can get started right away. What are you waiting for?

Doctor Who US Premiere Today

The new series of Doctor Who begins airing tonight on the Sci-Fi channel in the US. The first two episodes will air back to back. I’ve seen it and it’s good stuff. Watch it! Set your Tivo.

You can find the schedule here.

Podcasts-a-plenty

Work’s still a bit crazy, but I’m trying to keep it at bay. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel (if it would only stay still and wait for me to catch up).

I’ve been listening to some more Podcasts lately (if you don’t know what podcasting is, look it up, or ask a ninja). It started with Dragon Page Cover-to-Cover, a podcast about Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels featuring interviews with authors. Talk about a show for me.

In the past few weeks I’ve discovered some great podcasts about writing: Mur Lafferty’s I Should Be Writing and Tee Morris’ The Survival Guide to Writing Fantasy. I’ve been listening to these while eating breakfast. There’s a lot of good stuff in there, and it has the added benefit of making me feel guilty for not writing. The other day Denise asked if Holly Lisle had a podcast. She didn’t at the time, but she does today. I listened to Holly Lisle On Writing at lunch today. There’s another one to add to the list.

I’ve always had an attraction to the audio format. I used to devour the children’s audiobooks at the local library. I even have some that my grandfather copied to tape for me somewhere between the ages of 2 and 5. I discovered Old Time Radio at some point during elementary school, and ever since I’ve been fascinated with audio drama. I’ve written a number of radioplays over the years, and with podcasting, maybe it would be worth dusting them off (not right now though, I have enough on my plate).

2005 Series of Doctor Who to Air on Sci-Fi Channel (finally)

Haven’t posted much lately (still waiting for my new glasses), but this is big news. The 2005 Series of Doctor Who is finally going to air in the US (there’s a nice summary at Outpost Gallifrey). I’ve seen it, and it’s great. I can’t begin to explain how great it is. Even Denise enjoyed watching it. There’s no need to have seen the classic series to enjoy this, so don’t let the show’s history put you off.

Back(b)log: Wizard World Boston 2005 Thoughts

I spent all day Friday September 30 and most of Saturday October 1 at Wizard World Boston. I spent a good deal of time (almost all of Friday) at the The Secret Monkey/Turbo Comics table, helping my good friends Dursin, John, and Ray try to sell their books with mixed success (a lot of people took the freebies, but not so many parted with the $2.95 for a copy of the book). You can read Dursin’s take on the show here.

New Pages

Update: These pages have been replaced by the library page from Now Reading.

I never get the time to review everything I read. This is partly due to the fact that upon finishing a book I almost always start another right away, and by the time I go to write down my thoughts, they’re colored by what I’m reading now. I’ve added a couple of pages to the site listing what I’m reading right now, and what I’ve read recently (which I’ll be adding to when I have some time). I still hope to review stuff, but at least I’ll have a log of what I’ve read. I may go back and add simple “X out of 5” ratings in at some point.

Quiet around here…

You may have noticed that I got really quiet after posting almost every day. Well, I was participating in the “March Madness” writing marathon over at Forward Motion. If you’ve been keeping an eye on my progress bar at the top of the site, you may have noticed it moving quite a bit. My goal was to write 1000 words a day for 7 days, and I pulled it off! That means I pretty much doubled my daily output, and didn’t miss a single day for seven days. That’s including working about 50 hours this week, and spending 2+ hours a day cleaning the house. Phew! I hope to keep it up, but I’m giving myself a lower goal for this weekend as it’s a bit crazy.

I hope to have more detailed reviews, but in case I don’t get to it I finished a few books since my last post. First, I finished The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Wow. It was an amazing book filled with surprises of various kinds.

More recently I finished listening to Ender’s Game: Special 20th Anniversary Edition by Orson Scott Card. I’ve always wanted to read this, and my friend Matt had recommended it. When I realized that Audible had the majority of the series available unabridged I decided to give it a try. I really enjoyed it. I’ve read some of Card’s books on writing, but this is the first novel of his that I’ve read. It’s the story of a young boy being schooled in the art of warfare to fight a war against an alien race he has only seen on propaganda films. Ender’s story is filled with interesting and fully realized characters. I thought I saw the ending coming, and while the events I suspected did happen, it was not the ending at all. Great stuff!

Half way through Ender’s Game I knew I’d want more, so I already had Speaker for the Dead on my iPod and started it after taking some time to digest the ending of Game.

More soon, unless I’m busy, then more later.

Review: The Walking Dead Vol. 1: Days Gone Bye

The Walking Dead Volume 1: Days Gone Bye

Rating: 4 out of 5

Author: Robert Kirkman

Year: 2004

Category: Graphic Novel

Publisher: Image Comics

ISBN: 1582403589

You may not know this, but I love a good zombie movie. The kind where the whole world is turning into zombies and small bands of isolated humans try to survive. I love them for the stories. Tales of people cracking under the pressure of seeing everything and everyone they know destroyed before their eyes. Happy stories, where you start to see the line between human and zombie blur. The greatest of these films is probably George Romero’s original Dawn of the Dead. I can’t avoid mentioning the greatness of Shaun of the Dead either, but I’ll save that for later.

The Walking Dead is an attempt to do a long form zombie story. The goal, as stated by writer Robert Kirkman in the introduction, is to keep the story going and not roll credits “as soon as it starts getting good”. Although The Walking Dead is listed as a horror book, it’s not designed to scare you. It’s about the characters, and that’s what makes it work.

The book opens with Officer Rick Grimes being shot in the line of duty. On the next page he wakes up in an empty hospital, having been in a comma for some time. This seemed right out of 28 Days Later (which is great, but is not a zombie movie) but I’m not really sure which was released first. Rick witnesses some zombies, freaks out and heads on home. He finds the house empty. He meets up with a father and son squatting in his neighbors house and they fill him in on what’s been going on. People had been ordered to evacuate to larger cities so they would be centralized for protection. Rick assumes his family will be there and heads on into Atlanta.

Rick finds the city over run with zombies, and is rescued for certain death by a young man who offers to take him back to a camp where he and some other survivors are living. This is where the story really starts going. Rick’s wife and son are at the camp, along with Shane, Rick’s partner. They weren’t able to get into the city, and met up with some others.

There’s a great cast of characters here, all learning to survive together. There is a large amount of tension between Rick and Shane. Rick wants to move away from the city, but Shane insists that the government or the army will come to save. Shane is also in love with Rick’s wife, and neither of them expected Rick to come back.

The artwork by Tony Moore is nicely done in toned black and white. The tones remind me of early Mirage Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which I always found moody and evocative. Here it fits like a glove. It really helps focus the attention on the story, and not the gore. I don’t think I’d like this book nearly as much as I do if it was in color.

Overall I really enjoyed the first volume. It didn’t start out great, but it got there in the end. My only other complaint is that it moves a bit too fast. I wish there was more time taken to enjoy the character development. I’ve got the second one, and I’ll try to review that soon.