The word of the week is metamorphose.
July 23 – Manga?
Ever since I first laid eyes on Star Blazers( based on ‘Space
Battleship Yamato’ )in the late 70’s I’ve had an affinity for Japanese anime;
it’s influence on western animation and storytelling has grown substantially
since then. It’s a shame that I’ve only been able to watch a fraction of all
the great anime that are out there. Worse, I’ve read even less of the wonderful
manga that’s available too, series like One Piece or Full Metal Alchemist that
have very deep( and often rather over-complicated )stories.
Just this week I’ve discovered a program called eManga on
the Android Play site and installed it on my tablet. JOY! Unlike with many of
the comic e-reader programs I’ve looked at, there’s THOUSANDS of free mangas
out there, entire series scanned and made available to the world voluntarily by
their creators. I don’t have the financial wherewithal to indulge in reading e-comics
to the tune of thousands of dollars per year, but I CAN take the time to read
some of the best manga out there for free. It’s made me love my ASUS
Transformer tablet all over again. As many have said, tablets are the PERFECT
device for reading books and comics on given their size and high-res colour
screens. Lost sleep, here I come!
July 24 – Firefly was a decade ago? Wow.
This month of July 2012 saw the San Diego ComicCon happen
yet again in that fair city without my attendance, a state of affairs I will
have to change in the near future. Why, you ask? Because of things like the
Firefly 10th Anniversary Panel… so much sci-fi goodness in one room,
I want to fall over. The love for this single-season show has stayed strong for
over a decade now, similar to the feelings that fans have for Babylon5 but more
intense, as Firefly had only one season compared to B5’s, well, five. If you
enjoy sci-fi in any way, you owe it to yourself to see this FULL hour-long
video. I suggest taking it in 15-minute bites, as there’s a lot of love and
even tears flowing during it’s run – much like the show, actually. Enjoy, the
video is one of the best on YouTube from the panel, as it’s FRONT ROW:
July 25 – Alien Worlds in my novel
In my novel, I am creating an alien world that is of my own
imagination but also shares some similarities with locations on Earth. That’s
because there are a LOT of places on our planet here that seem out of this
world and I’m not just talking about places under the sea or in the heart of a
volcano. An incredible example is the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, which is a
salt flatland that turns into a perfect giant mirror every year when it becomes
covered by a thin layer of water. Seeing the land and the sky merge into one is
a transformative experience in many ways and the best part is that the
temperature of the place isn’t scorching hot( but I would still wear sunscreen!
).
That is what I am trying to capture in my book: to give people the sense of
an Other Place that they can see in their minds but still relate to… an utterly
alien experience is not what I’m after, but rather one that you can easily step
into from our world.
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| No, that's not Freddy Kruegar... |
July 26 – Small is big news now!
It seems that the world is really waking up to smaller
living spaces: Yahoo just published an article last week on the subject, though
it’s inclusion of a tree house without a bed or kitchen is questionable( as
I’ve come to expect from Yahoo! ). The article includes the house in Hong Kong
owned by architect Gary Chang that I’ve mentioned in my blog before and that I
still hold as the ‘gold standard’ for efficient use of small spaces. I’m still
looking around for mine, not to mention saving for it, so the more I see comeout about small spaces to live in, the better I like it. Murray Leinster,
sci-fi author, once postulated in his stories that it would have been more
efficient to send midgets into space to save on fuel, air and other necessities
for manned spaceflight. I think he would have liked to see how people these
days are considering living smaller, though I’m not so sure he’d approve of
these Japanese ‘coffin hotels’ that have become mainstream in that country.
Sure, they look cozy, but they only fit one person – unless you’re undertall.
July 27 – Barking Me Crazy
Writing today was difficult, more than it has been for a
while. While it wasn’t nearly as hot as it was a few days past, today was a
Dog’s Day. A dog woke me barking well before 8am( and I’d gone to bed late,
having been unable to fall asleep early, again )and the trend continued all day, with
canines of various sizes all sharing their hatred of silence with zest. It always
astounds me that people will tell children screaming in the commons outside to
be silent but will let a pair of dogs yammer away just as loudly while telling
other dog owners how cute they are. Given that DOZENS of apartments overlook
the area close up, I can only conclude that their ignorance blinds them to how
disruptive they are of other people’s days. To date, I’ve never had to ask a
cat owner to please stop their pet from barking – silly, but true.
In any case, I pieced together most of a chapter today despite being tired, miserable and constantly interrupted by animal audio, a chapter that I was actually astonished turned out so well. Goes to show if you persevere you can still produce something good despite the world trying to distract you.
In any case, I pieced together most of a chapter today despite being tired, miserable and constantly interrupted by animal audio, a chapter that I was actually astonished turned out so well. Goes to show if you persevere you can still produce something good despite the world trying to distract you.
July 28 - Aging
Wrecking my arms when I moved my sister’s things into
storage this year was the start of a new and interesting stage of my life: age
tolerance. By that, I’ve been discovering that, wonder of wonders, I’m not as
young as I used to be. Pulled muscles ache for a lot longer than they used to
and I’m definitely not able to sit awkwardly for very long if I don’t want
those same muscles to complain when I move again.
But by far the most noticeable sign of aging is my eyesight,
which hasn’t exactly been 20 / 20 since middle school( or even before, as I
suspect ). The inevitable shift of my vision’s focal point has become far more
noticeable this year and where I used to be able to eyeball something an inch
from my eye, now I have to hold it three inches or more away to focus properly.
I knew it was coming, but I’m oddly elated in that I’ve been researching the
effects of age on people with myopia( nearsightedness )like me and for some, the
condition is balanced out by the changes in the eye that favour focusing at a
further distance. Some, mind you – not all. I’m going to look into it further(
pun not intended )as I don’t want to develop presbyopia which is the worst of
both worlds. Regular eye exams, here I come…
July 29 - Cloud Atlas
There are not a whole lot of films I want to see in the
coming year( or the next one, for that matter )but one of them is for SURE is Cloud
Atlas. I am going to have to read the book( which came out in 2004 )but I’m not
sure I want to before I see the movie; having six intertwined threads and many
characters may be complicated but I don’t want to spoil the experience. And it’s
going to be QUITE an experience, as the ( former )Wachowski Brothers Lana and
Andy have teamed up with THIRD director Tom Twyker to make the film. They appeared
in this RARE prelude to the trailer( when do directors comment on a TRAILER, anyway? )which is worth seeing before you see the SIX-MINUTE film
trailer itself:
I haven’t slept well the last few weeks staying overnight at
my parent’s condo to work on the novel, at least according to the sleep
monitoring app I’ve been using for the last 6 months. I tend to fall asleep
late and wake too early with the light creeping in from various places; my old
room is not my new room anymore. I’ll be trying to remedy it this week as I tracked
down the spots this morning when I was up early to spend a half-day( today )at
my new place putting a few things onto eBay to clear up some space and put a
few bucks have into my wallet.
It will take another month but I'm more than halfway done my novel. Less then twenty chapters remain until the first draft is done. I'll be spending a LOT of time at my parent's place as the work methodology there seems to be a winner for producing VERY solid work, despite the distractions that we're managing to work around every single day. If I can get more regular sleep I think the last half of the book will really flow onto the page smoothly... like a dream held onto a little past waking, it will be amazing. Have at it!
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