November 2011
9 posts
October 2011
8 posts
Alas poor Pratcherd! Of all the old enemies in book one, he is the most neglected. Chauncellor gets a chance to chew scenery in Book 2, and Ash, … well hints of his personality and ethics come up in Book 3. Poor Pratcherd is still waiting to become more than a name that sounds somewhat priggish. Maybe Book 4 will let give him a chance to step out, though honestly, I didn’t have plans for him. He has to have done something memorable to be thought of as an old enemy. I shall have to give poor neglected villainous Pratcherd more thought. Right now he’s fallen victim to being out-villained by the more fabulous and attention stealing Dr. Ash.
This week’s installment is up a few hours early, and involves Kara beating people up, and a lesson on Shandor’s unique governmental structure.
Also I am plugging my Kickstarter again. 16 days left!
I work best early in the day, before anything else has been able to grab my attention and energy yet. My favorite place to write lately is a tiny cafe here in Shawnee. My best recent work has been done there, out of the house and away from the internet. Back in Philadelphia, I spent a lot of writing time in Cafe Clave, in West Philly. Amazing chai and a lack of distractions do wonders for focus.
Both Corin and Hellin enjoy travelling, which is quite handy for them. Corin’s unique abilities mean that even difficult off-road destinations are possible. These days they tend to travel with a large entourage, which calls for a lot of logistics and planning, which Hellin actually quite enjoys. But sometimes, when there isn’t a lot of work to be done, or the world to be saved, they find time to take off of their own private adventures.
In more mundane hobbies, Hellin likes designing things, from altering fashionable clothes into practical but good looking ones, to envisioning better tent and camp configurations and complimentary drainage channels.
Corin plays several instruments rather well, but only among close friends. He has an interest in puzzles and riddles as well, which he shares with his children.
Left to my own devices, I can’t watch more than 5 minutes of The Walking Dead without taking a break to do something mundane and safe like emptying the litter box or doing some dishes. I saw a quote this morning about zombies being not so much about horror, but dread. I think it might have been S. Blackmore who described zombies as being the embodiment of anxiety. Too much anxiety certainly reduces me to shuffling round aimlessly revenant and craving brains.
But I meant to be making a point about great tension building and pacing. I don’t know how the show will change without Frank Darabont, but for all of his run, the pacing and constant dread have kept me on edge no matter what was happening on screen. People can be sitting around in frame eating eggs, but you know THERE ARE ZOMBIES! Maybe they won’t show up for half an hour, or maybe THEY’RE RIGHT BEHIND THEM! You don’t know. And that’s what makes the great tension. Bear McCreary’s soundtrack helps. I fell in love with that composer after the very first season of BSG he scored. Topic bounce. I’m having rather a lot of those, as I am quite full of sugar in cannoli form. They don’t have cannoli in Oklahoma. I stocked up in Little Italy while in NY for New York ComicCon, and now I am bouncing off the walls and zombies. Cannoli and tea. I am meant to be relaxing and recovering from the weekend today. I do this poorly.
I am creating tension today by not posting my weekly update until Jess has a chance to edit it properly this afternoon. It will be posted! I’m really very pleased with this week’s half chapter, in a guilty way. We finally get some more pieces about mild mannered Professor Eabrey Sheridan. He is not having a good night.
Also creating tension for me, my Kickstarter! I has one. J.R. Blackwell informs me I must tweet or otherwise socially mediatize this twice daily. Having not yet thrown the largesse of my new book trailer at tumblr, here it is, cleverly embedded in a kickstarter video on this dazzling kickstarter page that features the before unseen cover for The Germhact Episode.
So there we are. Time to eat something today that is not cannolli.
