It's not often I get a reader's question that leaves me blank for five minutes, but this one did. It's a beauty, because it's so fundamental, and fundamental questions tend to be so broad in scope, they touch ... well, everything.
So, here was the question: "How do I write science fiction?"
The kneejerk reaction is to say, "Same bloody way as you write anything else, what's your problem?!" But in fact, this is too swift (and too brusque!) an answer, which doesn't do justice to a question that is, in fact, brilliant in its sheer simplicity.
And since I couldn't get the question out of my mind for the next two hours, I thought it might be an interesting topic for a post -- quite a few writers are reading this blog; some are looking for publishers, others are fully intending to use POD services, but they all have one thing in common: they write.
So, how do you write science fiction?
The truth is, anyone can write anything. It's writing something well that's the challenge, and how well we do something is what sorts the wheat from the chaff. Seriously, anyone can take a crack at writing absolutely anything, but one can't guarantee the results.
Let's say you're a massive fan of G-Force and Mecha Godzilla, it's what you like, what you read, what you watch, and where your brain is ... and somebody bets you $25 you can't write a women's historical romance. Take the bet with impunity, because -- of course you can write one ... and the person didn't bet you $25 that you couldn't write a good one.
Creative writing starts with three things: 1) the burning desire to write; 2) the energy and discipline to sit down and bash out the words, all of them, right to The End; 3) a real, genuine story that's worth reading, as well as writing.
After these three jewels, the words are on paper (or on the hard drive), the story is told ... everything else is about quality: integrity, readability, characterisation, editing, coherence, denouement, style.
Let's reverse the bet, and have someone who lives and breathes women's historical romance, and somebody bets them $25 that s/he can't write a Japanese Monsterama story.
Of course s/he can. Take the money!!
Now, if the bet had been, "I'll bet you $250 that you can't write a GOOD Japanese Monsterama story" ... well, be a bit more cagey. See if you can dragoon somebody's 12-year-old kid to explain to you what the bloody hell this genre is all about. Maybe the kid will propel you in the general direction of the video store, and you can rent some. Grit your teeth and actually watch them, right through to the end credits. Something by Toho Studios would be absolutely perfect for this purpose.
In other words ... you're doing some research, because you want that $250, and it's enough money to warrant spending a few hours on getting it juuuuust right. If you're a natural born writer, the basic skills are mostly transferable: the ability to write one thing converts into the ability to write the body copy for something else --
With one proviso. Style. The hardboiled language in which a lot of SF and detective fiction is written does not lend itself well to historical romances (!), and the often florid and, shall we say, botanical (I don't want to say 'flowery,' because someone will probably thump me) language in which a lot of historicals and/or romances are constructed doesn't lend itself well to nuts and bolts SF and hardboiled detective fiction!
So you, the writer, will be using your judgment, and you'll be re-tune your "ear" to hear the difference. You've learned your skills writing 'whatever,' and a helluva lot of it; and you're coming to the challenge of writing SF with both eyes -- and ears -- open.
It all starts with the desire to write SF, having a fantastic story that you have to tell or die, plus the discipline to get all the words down on paper.
Now, if you have this burning desire to write SF, you might have actually read some -- but then again, maybe not.
If you've read Greg Bear and Charles Sheffield, Robert Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, you're on the home stretch. Follow their lead. Do what they do: write very well, with very good grammar; keep the story on course, don't let it wander; reveal the story's pivot points at exactly the right moment -- ie., don't 'telegraph' your punches, but don't don't wait so long to throw them that the reader is bored or confused. (Bore or confuse a reader, and s/he will stop reading. End of statement.)
However, if your total exposure to SF has been Star Wars trilogy (c. 1980), Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, classic Battlestar Galactica (1980), classic Star Trek (1969), classic Doctor Who (1970s), Planet of the Apes (TV series) Logan's Run (series), Knight Rider, and so forth ... you could have a problem.
These projects are certainly SF, but their genre is very different: TV science fiction of the 1960s to 1980s vintage is a Hollywood product, designed and crafted to amuse an American audience which was naive even for its day. The plotlines are very frequently soap opera dressed in SF costumes, or World War II, Korea and Vietnam stories rearmed with rayguns and energy weapons. The characterizations are "US TV standard" for their era ... meaning, you can watch SWAT, Starsky & Hutch, and any SF show made for US TV in the era, and the characters are pretty much of a sameness. They tend to have an artificial look about them to today's eyes, because they're the product not of their era on the street, but the product of their era on TV. (Hollyweird executives designed what television would look and sound like, to make the end product squeaky clean, wholesome and acceptable in Middle American living rooms at 7:00pm. It didn't make for "real" characters.)
If this is your concept of SF -- you'll certainly write an SF story ... but will it be a good one? The person betting you $250 might have a bone to pick with the kind of story, the way it's developed, and the "artificiality" of the characterization. In other words, if you want to win the bet -- look further afield.
In fact, if classic TV SF has been your exposure to SF, yet now you're sure you have a red-hot story and you're desperate to write it -- STOP. Do some research. Read some books, find out what the real thing is like. Can I give you some recommendations? Sure. Greg Bear: Eon, Eternity and Moving Mars. Charles Sheffield, Godspeed and Cold as Ice. Arthur C. Clarke -- almost anything. Robert Heinlein: Friday, and To Sail Beyond the Sunset. This'll get you off to a flying start. There's about a thousand more, you'll find them as you start to look around and do a little research.
Now, I assume the technicalities of the language are in good order before you get this far. Right? In other words, your English is nothing less that superb -- grammar, spelling, punctuation, vocabulary, all those fiddling little details that make or break a writer? If they're under control, take the story by the scruff of its neck and get it written. If they're out of control --
Still write the story, but use it as a learning experience. Learn to punctuate and format text as you go. Buy some books on grammar. Seriously! Indulge yourself in The Elements of Style (Strunk & White). You don't even have to buy that slim volume, though it's still in print if you want to. You can also access it online: http://www.crockford.com/wrrrld/style.html ... and for background info on the work itself, hit Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Style.
In other words -- write your story while you learn to write ... then rewrite your story, using everything you've learned about characterization, denouement -- even grammar and punctuation!
The technicalities are especially important if you want to take a crack at finding a publisher, or POD publishing. You won't impress a publisher with iffy English writing skills ... and if you go POD, you won't have an editor working with you (some might say, breathing down your neck) to make sure all the eyes are dotted and the tees are crossed. When you're flying solo, you have to be very good, and very confident of your skills.
I hope this has covered the whole question! And now --
It's actually my day off, and I'm headed for the coast to do some rock hopping. Will take pictures and if anything looks especially fine, I'll put up a few images tomorrow.
Ciao for now,
MK
Showing posts with label TV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TV. Show all posts
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Friday, November 14, 2008
And on the subject of gay vampires --!
On the subject of gay vampires, NOCTURNE has just gone online at Amazon.com...
... and TWILIGHT won't be too far behind. The good news is that Amazon.com will combine shipping, so if you're getting two or three books, you get into substantial savings. THE SWORDSMAN went online a couple of weeks ago, and the next one coming along, after TWILIGHT, will be FORTUNES OF WAR. (That's in the pipeline right now; meanwhile, we're working on AQUAMARINE and TIGER, TIGER.
Gay vampires do seem to be an astonishingly popular genre -- though I also notice that quite a lot of this fiction does tend to be more focused on erotica than plot. You know Keegan: in my fiction you tend to get both (plotica?), and the beauty of a book as big as NOCTURNE is, there's space for both. It's over 200,000 words -- which is about four times as long as some of the gay vampire fiction you can pick up, which is so focused-in on the erotic aspect of the denouement, the stories can tend to, uh, shoot their bolt quickly.
We're slap-bang on schedule to have THE LORDS OF HARBENDANE on release by Thanksgiving. Those readers who will be wanting the ebook can order via the blog here, or through the ebook kiosk on the website:
(http://www.dream-craft.com/melkeegan/ebooks.htm
... and the paperback will be a few days behind. Remember, Aussies and Kiwis, if you want the books fast, order via Lulu.com; if you don't care about an extra couple of weeks on the delivery time, the quality via CreateSpace is actually a tad bit better. If you absolutely, positively must order from Amazon.com itself, fo good reasons best known to yourself, the book will online there a few weeks behind the Payloadz.com ebook release.
(With Amazon.com and CreateSpace, it's a question of patience, as I blogged here: http://mel-keegan.blogspot.com/2008/10/pod-publishing-and-amazon-patience-is.html.)
Still on the subject of vampires ... or at least on the subject of BLOOD ... has anyone else noticed that as soon as you get to 50, they start wanting to stick needles in you? My birthday was back on the 4th (http://mel-keegan.blogspot.com/2008/11/ndy-day-2008.html), and at their very first opportunity, there I was with a needle stuck in a vein in my arm. Now, I'll grant you, this particular vampire is a dab-band with a piece of sharp steel. I don't think I'm even going to get a bruise. And I have no vaguest notion if this specific vampire has any gay leanings -- but still. You get to fifty, and the buggers spontaneously get needle-happy. All I wanted was a refill on a prescription, and what do I get? Screened for a half dozen things that any normal person doesn't want to know about. Sheesh.
Before anyone asks, no, I haven't seen so much as a trailer for THE LAIR, though I've heard a little about it. Is it from the same studio that produced DANTE'S COVE? If it is ... one can only hope THE LAIR is a little better than DANTE'S, which was thin at the best of times, and went downhill from there. THE LAIR has potential, but then again, so did DANTE'S --
And speaking of Dante, and vampires, check this out:
... click for a larger version of this. I kid you not, it was painted in 1850! Don't believe me?
Go here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_picture_candidates/Dante_and_Virgil_in_Hell
The painting dates back 158 years, and yet today, when we're supposed to be so much more sophisticated, film censorship is slapping a PG rating on movies because a guy takes his shirt off and a woman wears something with a plunging neckline. Like a ballgown -- which the Queen of England, who is also the head of the Church of England, is famous for wearing! Interesting, no?
And yes, I'm blogging in a complete vacuum today! Gay vampires are simply on my mind, because we were chasing up NOCTURNE -- wondering if it had put in an appearance on the Amazon engine, and it turns out ... it has!
Otherwise, the Mel-o-Sphere is an Event Free Zone. So --
Ciao for now,
MK
Friday, September 19, 2008
Gay wedding bells can be expensive
It would be accurate, and fair, to say, America worries me ... and I have cause to be worried, because I have family there, in Texas, Alaska, California, Florida, and North Carolina. One tends to worry to a certain extent, about the future into which one's darling little nieces and nephews are growing (pause for violin music, while video-montage of stock market crashing, troops invading yet another corner of some foreign land, forest fires burning, tornadoes whirling, cities flooding, plays in background).
There's a TV comedy in this country. Folks from other parts might never have heard of it, but it's been famous for thirty years downunder. KINGSWOOD COUNTRY. I'm not making this up, and to prove it:
Now, Kingswood Country has nothing whatever to do with price of gay marriage, but the central character, Ted Bullpitt (top left; and you can guess what everyone calls him) used to have a catch-phrase.
No wonder the country's in a mess.
It's a catch-phrase you might hear quite a lot in the US, after November --and especially in California, where little snippets of news like the following (pasted over, verbatim, from Witchita Falls OnLine), can take the foundations on which your life is built, and knock them out from under you:
There's a TV comedy in this country. Folks from other parts might never have heard of it, but it's been famous for thirty years downunder. KINGSWOOD COUNTRY. I'm not making this up, and to prove it:
Now, Kingswood Country has nothing whatever to do with price of gay marriage, but the central character, Ted Bullpitt (top left; and you can guess what everyone calls him) used to have a catch-phrase.
No wonder the country's in a mess.
It's a catch-phrase you might hear quite a lot in the US, after November --and especially in California, where little snippets of news like the following (pasted over, verbatim, from Witchita Falls OnLine), can take the foundations on which your life is built, and knock them out from under you:
...California's November ballot initiative that would overturn the state Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage.
It's the first time voters will be asked to ban same-sex marriage in a state where gay couples already have won the right to wed. Same-sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts and California.
You've just got your life put into order, everything is grand, you're married and settled, licensed and registered, insured and mortgaged, and ... suddenly the pattern of your life is put to a vote. A vote??? Not only that, but tons of money comes pouring into your home state from other states, to fund the campaign to rewrite your life. God-botherers in other parts of the US are apparently paying millions to swing the public vote; it'll all come out in the wash in November.
A couple of posts ago, I was looking at the question of 'human rights' (and gay rights are a sub-set of human rights: we're all human. Except in DC. There seem to be a lot of aliens and mutoids and weird trans-dimensional species there; so many, in fact, that they have a name. "Pohleetish'nz." Also known as "Raypuhbleek'nz" in some, though not all, circles -- and not all of the time).
November looks like being the deadline, when the poop hits the fan, in so many ways. It's about politics both home and away, the domestic economy, the standard of the public health, national security, America's "face" abroad, stopping the spread of diseases like HIV at home (where CDC just announced that the stats for the spread of the disease are 40% underestimated every year), getting kids a better education ... and figuring out if America can still bear the name, "The land of the free."
Freedom is about ... being free. Free to ... well, to be what you are; to do what you do, and do it the way you want to. Freedom is built on that one, single foundation.
There's a saying: Charity begins at home ... justice begins next door.
Here's the news, and you gotta love it:
LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Brad Pitt has donated $100,000 to fight California's November ballot initiative that would overturn the state Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage.
And he nails down the case in clear, absolutely transparent terms:
"Because no one has the right to deny another their life, even though they disagree with it, because everyone has the right to live the life they so desire if it doesn't harm another and because discrimination has no place in America, my vote will be for equality and against Proposition 8," Pitt said Wednesday.
I'd go into court with that. I'd go to the polls with it ... in fact, California will, in about six weeks' time.
It's not about being gay, or having gay friend or relatives, or even finding gay culture chic. It's about recognizing what freedom actually means.
George Bernard Shaw wrote (I think, in Man and Superman, but I could be dead wrong there, it could have been any one of a dozen other plays; so don't quote me on the source), "I might not agree with what you say, but I would defend to the death your right to say it."
Same difference. The problem is (as I was saying in "Here comes Damocles with his chainsaw") that right of free speech cuts both ways and draws blood no matter where it lands. It might be your right to be gay and have a big, white gay wedding ... it's also the constitutional right of those God-botherers to speak up, and out, against you.
The next six weeks in California are going to be interesting -- for me, more interesting than the presidential campaign. Why is that?
Who lands in the White House is critical for the long-term survivability of the rest of the planet. Example: the US owes seven and a half TRILLION dollars to China (!), and Palin and McCain look forward to Armageddon; why not go pick a fight with the Chinese, so you don't have to pay back the $7,500,000,000,000.00 (goddamn, that's a lot of zeroes), and the missile exchange would be sure to bring Jesus back to take the righteous to heaven, so it's a win/win situation. Right? Omigod). However --
What the people of California decide regarding gay marriage rights in November is, in fact, more important, because an official referendum if a very accurate barometer of the public mind, public sentiment, the "collective consciousness," if I might be forgiven for misquoting Jung.
Presidents come and presidents go. Some get shot. Some start wars. Some pay off the national debt (come back, Bill, all is forgiven!) while peace spontaneously breaks out all over he world. No matter how foolish, hidebound, corrupt, or even wicked a government might turn out to be, four years later, the whole thing goes back to the country. The sandcastle gets turned back into slush, and you can start over.
[Incidentally, in Australia -- where we have what's known as a "Washminster Democracy" -- we have an additional safeguard. If or when a government has, frankly, gone bonkers, the Prime Minister can be sacked. Yes, you read that right. Dismissed. Fired. Chucked off the job. Given the bum's rush. Thank gods we have this safeguard, which is a leftover of our British Commonwealth days ... it helps to keep some of the bastards honest. And yes, it's happened: a PM was sacked, about thirty years ago.]
However, though presidents and governments come and go, the PEOPLE are the backbone, heart and soul of a nation, and it's what they think, feel and believe which counts ... because this is the quality we all have to live with. You can't vote it out in four years. You can't assassinate it. You can't debate it, impeach it or imprison it. The PEOPLE are the force which drives a nation.
And it comes down to this: Can America still wear the laurels of the "land of the free?" Or do strict, rigid conditions apply to freedom? And who sets those conditions, on what terms?
The rest of us are watching with baited breath, waiting to know how it turns out ... not what air-head in eye-glasses is going to giggle her way into the oval office when a geriatric nitwit has had a heartattack under the pressure and died ... but, what do the PEOPLE think and feel and want?
Thanks to Brad Pitt, and celebrities like him -- though it seems they haven't been as generous with their contributions (maybe they're feeling the sting of the current economic collapse?) -- there's some funding in the kitty to pay for a pro-freedom campaign. TV time, pamphlets, posters, whatever it takes.
The issue might be dressed up as "gay marriage rights," but that's just the costume it's wearing. The issue is human rights ... freedom, in the land of the free.
Fingers, toes and eyes crossed. We can only hope. If the vote goes south and it turns out there's no right of marriage for millions and millions of Americans, while there's an air-head in eye-glasses giggling and simpering and posturing in the oval office, then it will certainly be time to dig out and dust off Ted Bullpitt's catch-phrase.
Say it with me, now. Let's all say it together and get it just right ... can't hurt to practise a bit on the inflection and tone. You don't even have to say it in an Aussie accent (unless you want to). Here we go. On three: One, two ... no wonder the country's in a mess.
Hey, sounded great from here!
Cheers,
MK
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Next: "Terminator - the Musical"
Apropos of yesterday's post ... about mind control, augmented soldiers, rat-brain-robots and just who in the heck are the good guys supposed to be these days, Them or Us? Well, have a look at this:
Doctor Horrible's Singalong Blog.
It's a short-feature serial by Joss Whedon, uploaded in chunks (they have the first three online right now, with a total running length of 30 - 40 minutes, I think), starring Neil Patrick Harris as the Doc, and Nathan Fillion as his arch nemesis, Captain Hammer. It's a whacked-out SF musical which is hilarious, poignant, and deeply philosophical, at the same time as being deliciously klutzy, gloriously dorky, spectacularly clumsy ... all-around delightful, in a weird kind of way.
It's interesting that Whedon got Nathan Fillion into this production. They worked together on FIREFLY (is it me, or is that show carpeted with gay undercurrents and stitched-through with gay references?) Mr. Fillion has put on a lot of muscles (now, who's complaining?), and shows a keen comic timing. In Part 3, he has (!) a musical number which has to be heard to be believed. Grab a coffee and enjoy.
Neil Patrick Harris is good as the wannabe evil Doctor Horrible himself, flinging himself into the spirit of the production with almost as much verve as Fillion, who seems to be relishing the part of the not-so-super hero. (Incidentally, did you catch NPH on After Elton? Here's the link: Neil Patrick Harris Lets It All Hang Out. Cool story about an extremely cool coming out. (Hollywood's answer to John Barrowman? Good one.)
What's going on in the Mel-o-Sphere? Not enough to post about, that's for sure! Hence this brief diversion into the eddies and drift-currents of Hollywood's more offbeat moments.
Yes, I'm working on the fantasy novel. No, you won't be seeing it before the end of September at the very earliest. Yes, it will be available as an ebook in both formats, and yes again, we'll be doing a booklaunch for it. It's the first major work from Keegan since APHELION, and only the third full-on fantasy to see print, so we'll be giving this one some serious promotion. We're actually thinking of making it available in hardcover too. Speaking entirely personally, I like hardcovers, especially for fantasy and historical fiction.
We're starting to kick around cover ideas already, and we might even put it to a poll here, let readers choose which cover art they prefer, and also which format, the paperback or harcover. (I've also been seriously considering a poll, either here or on the website, letting readers give some feedback on how crackling-hot they prefer their fiction. It might be interesting to collate results.)
For the moment: I am NOT making it up ... go see for yourself!
Doctor Horrible himself.
Doctor Horrible's Singalong Blog.
It's a short-feature serial by Joss Whedon, uploaded in chunks (they have the first three online right now, with a total running length of 30 - 40 minutes, I think), starring Neil Patrick Harris as the Doc, and Nathan Fillion as his arch nemesis, Captain Hammer. It's a whacked-out SF musical which is hilarious, poignant, and deeply philosophical, at the same time as being deliciously klutzy, gloriously dorky, spectacularly clumsy ... all-around delightful, in a weird kind of way.
It's interesting that Whedon got Nathan Fillion into this production. They worked together on FIREFLY (is it me, or is that show carpeted with gay undercurrents and stitched-through with gay references?) Mr. Fillion has put on a lot of muscles (now, who's complaining?), and shows a keen comic timing. In Part 3, he has (!) a musical number which has to be heard to be believed. Grab a coffee and enjoy.
Neil Patrick Harris is good as the wannabe evil Doctor Horrible himself, flinging himself into the spirit of the production with almost as much verve as Fillion, who seems to be relishing the part of the not-so-super hero. (Incidentally, did you catch NPH on After Elton? Here's the link: Neil Patrick Harris Lets It All Hang Out. Cool story about an extremely cool coming out. (Hollywood's answer to John Barrowman? Good one.)
What's going on in the Mel-o-Sphere? Not enough to post about, that's for sure! Hence this brief diversion into the eddies and drift-currents of Hollywood's more offbeat moments.
Yes, I'm working on the fantasy novel. No, you won't be seeing it before the end of September at the very earliest. Yes, it will be available as an ebook in both formats, and yes again, we'll be doing a booklaunch for it. It's the first major work from Keegan since APHELION, and only the third full-on fantasy to see print, so we'll be giving this one some serious promotion. We're actually thinking of making it available in hardcover too. Speaking entirely personally, I like hardcovers, especially for fantasy and historical fiction.
We're starting to kick around cover ideas already, and we might even put it to a poll here, let readers choose which cover art they prefer, and also which format, the paperback or harcover. (I've also been seriously considering a poll, either here or on the website, letting readers give some feedback on how crackling-hot they prefer their fiction. It might be interesting to collate results.)
For the moment: I am NOT making it up ... go see for yourself!
Doctor Horrible himself.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Just a link in the chain, today
Today is Keegan's Official Day Off (hereafter referred to as KODO), and since I'm trying to not even look at the computer (fat chance; I've been here for the last hour ... but not working. There's a difference), my post today is going to consist mostly of a link, to a page where someone else is going to say it all for me ...
Because I couldn't have said it better. In fact, I've said all these same things so often, I'm hoarse, and I know for a fact there are legions of GLBT actors, writers, directors, producers and (!) VIEWERS out there who are saying the exact same thing.
I received an email forward of the body of this essay from a friend who is still plugged into a 'list' which began as a movie-review 'circular' eons ago and morphed into a 'GLBT political rant' list in later years. And there's lot to rant about. Still. (You ever feel like you're invisible, or that you've falln off the radar? We're not out of the woods yet, kids.)
Ayway, KODO and all, here's the link:
Ilene Rants a Little ...
...on the network page for The L Word (which, I confess, is a show I haven't even seen. To the best of my knowledge it does't air down here; I don't get cable (don't have time for it); and to begin with, I hardly ever watch TV. (The closest I've come to following a TV show in the last several years? Torchwood. And its parent show, esp. when the Cap'n is aboard. And I've had a look at Dante's Cove on disk, but by the end of the second season (where it turns into gay softcore with soap opera plots), I gotta admit, I don't know if I can even be bothered even watching the third season. It's already so stutteringly weak in all departments save the ripped muscles and bronzed limbs and bonking, can the next season, dramatically, get any worse???)
One longs for GLBT characters in real, serious, 'proper' TV shows. God knows, I'd watch the damned things myself. But even Torchwood Season 3 is slithering into the family entertainment end of the market, and John Barrowman won't be there for most, or all, of the five-episode short season.
Someone needs to get in quick and cast John as a sleuth, a detective, a coroner, a pilot, a troubleshooter, something that would make for REAL stories. I want a gay take on shows like JAG, and TOUR OF DUTY, and FIREFLY. The central character can have boyfriend woes and delicious gay romances on the side, but (sorry!) the story has to pivot around the hub of REAL drama, good writing and so forth, or the next time you look, you're sliding the way of Dante's. Now, don't get me wrong: Dante's Cove is fine and dandy when you're in the mood for ripped muscles, bronzed limbs and a whole lot of gratuitous gay bonking ... but think about this: straights, who can stand any amount of the above so long as it's dedicatedly co-ed, get blushingly embarrassed and tune out if/when it's gay ... which is not what we want. The whole object here is to craft shows that are so bloody good, the mainstream audience tunes in religiously, despite the fact (not because of it!) that the hero is gay. And I don't mean 'subtext' shows like Xena; nor do I mean 'gay reference' scripting like Firefly. I mean the real, genuine McCoy. Shows that will give the GLBT community visibility and credibility in the big world picture ... or at least in the slightly gaga landscape of TV Land, where most people seem to live these days.)
And I really am going to throw to that other page right now, and get started on KODO. We have tickets booked for an afternoon show, THE DARK KNIGHT, following a healthy(ish) lunch, and Keegan's out of here. Here's your link again: Ilene Rants a Little.
Batdude, start polishing the car; we're on our way!
Because I couldn't have said it better. In fact, I've said all these same things so often, I'm hoarse, and I know for a fact there are legions of GLBT actors, writers, directors, producers and (!) VIEWERS out there who are saying the exact same thing.
I received an email forward of the body of this essay from a friend who is still plugged into a 'list' which began as a movie-review 'circular' eons ago and morphed into a 'GLBT political rant' list in later years. And there's lot to rant about. Still. (You ever feel like you're invisible, or that you've falln off the radar? We're not out of the woods yet, kids.)
Ayway, KODO and all, here's the link:
Ilene Rants a Little ...
...on the network page for The L Word (which, I confess, is a show I haven't even seen. To the best of my knowledge it does't air down here; I don't get cable (don't have time for it); and to begin with, I hardly ever watch TV. (The closest I've come to following a TV show in the last several years? Torchwood. And its parent show, esp. when the Cap'n is aboard. And I've had a look at Dante's Cove on disk, but by the end of the second season (where it turns into gay softcore with soap opera plots), I gotta admit, I don't know if I can even be bothered even watching the third season. It's already so stutteringly weak in all departments save the ripped muscles and bronzed limbs and bonking, can the next season, dramatically, get any worse???)
One longs for GLBT characters in real, serious, 'proper' TV shows. God knows, I'd watch the damned things myself. But even Torchwood Season 3 is slithering into the family entertainment end of the market, and John Barrowman won't be there for most, or all, of the five-episode short season.
Someone needs to get in quick and cast John as a sleuth, a detective, a coroner, a pilot, a troubleshooter, something that would make for REAL stories. I want a gay take on shows like JAG, and TOUR OF DUTY, and FIREFLY. The central character can have boyfriend woes and delicious gay romances on the side, but (sorry!) the story has to pivot around the hub of REAL drama, good writing and so forth, or the next time you look, you're sliding the way of Dante's. Now, don't get me wrong: Dante's Cove is fine and dandy when you're in the mood for ripped muscles, bronzed limbs and a whole lot of gratuitous gay bonking ... but think about this: straights, who can stand any amount of the above so long as it's dedicatedly co-ed, get blushingly embarrassed and tune out if/when it's gay ... which is not what we want. The whole object here is to craft shows that are so bloody good, the mainstream audience tunes in religiously, despite the fact (not because of it!) that the hero is gay. And I don't mean 'subtext' shows like Xena; nor do I mean 'gay reference' scripting like Firefly. I mean the real, genuine McCoy. Shows that will give the GLBT community visibility and credibility in the big world picture ... or at least in the slightly gaga landscape of TV Land, where most people seem to live these days.)
And I really am going to throw to that other page right now, and get started on KODO. We have tickets booked for an afternoon show, THE DARK KNIGHT, following a healthy(ish) lunch, and Keegan's out of here. Here's your link again: Ilene Rants a Little.
Batdude, start polishing the car; we're on our way!
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Where were you, when --?!
They do say that everyone who was alive at the time (and old enough) can still remember where they were and what they were doing when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Adrin got their boots firmly onto the surface of the Moon. (These days, 39 long years later, it would probably be prudent to explain to most people that Armstrong didn't ride a bike there. It's been ... a wee while since it all happened.)
On this side of the dateline at least, it's July 20th, and I can't help remembering the night when it happened. I was a little kid, but old enough to still remember sitting by the hearth with my parents, watching, entranced, as the drama unfolded in glorious black-and-white ... that being the capacity of our TV. Fortunately, the Moon, and spacesuits, and space, tend to actually BE black and white, so it turned out the upmarket folks with the color tellies didn't benefit much -- and some of them actully phoned up the broadcasters, asking why they were receiving black and white pictures. Because, sir or madame, Outer Space is black and white. It's Star Trek that's in color. Easyto see how you could confuse the two. Neil Armstrong, Bill Shatner? Amazing likeness, there. Twins, I agree. It's the pointed ears, they're a dead giveaway.
Next year will be the 40th anniversary, and one would hope something major will be done to mark it. The technology has become antequated, and the fact Project Apollo was little more than a political maneuver in the Cold War has become public knowledge, which tends to somewhat tarnish the early space program. But, damn, it was a thrill when it was happening for real.
And yes, the little kids who watched it happen (I was one) really did think humans would be on Mars by the turn of the century. Our teachers used to tell us to study hard, 'cuz we'd have the chance to live and work in space.
Right. Uh huh. Okay. In retrospect, you have to wonder how naive we all were, but -- shoot, it was fun while it lasted. The dream ebbed away during the 1970s, when the public became bored with moon missions. (South Australian TV didn't even cover them. We had bigger things to spend broadcast time on, like "Hey, Hey, It's Saturday!", and the "The Don Lane Show.") But I do believe the whole thing is going to turn full circle.
In fact (if anyone's interested -- and actually, it's pretty interesting) I updated the whole article, "The Future According to Mel Keegan," for the NARC page, just recently. Let me save you a trip to the website:
A history of the future, starting ... well, right now!
The original article is four years old now (and archived right under this one on the same page), and I gotta tell you, it's a little bit creepy, how 'right' ol' Mel picked it. Have a squiz, see what you think -- let me know.
The next 10 - 15 years could easily be as exciting as '65-'75. Here's hoping.
Otherwise, the dead calm of the Mel-o-sphere continues, and is so featureless a horizon that I'm going to upload pictures instead.
Today, I'm pasting in Alaskan shots, largely for Aussie and European visitors (of whom there are many -- and thank you, all, for dropping by!) ... tomorrow I'll paste in Australian pics, for US'n and European visitors (again, thanks for visiting, and don't be strangers, now!) ...
NOTE: pictures are parked on Jade's Flickr account for sheer convenience at this time. Keegan took 'em, but if you want to use 'em elsewhere, contact either one of us either via Flickr, or the blog or the website...
Potter Marsh, the bird sancuary just below the suburb of Rabbit Creek, on the shores of Turnagain Arm, maybe 12 minutes outside Anchorge itself. Glorious place ... so quiet, you can actually hear yourself think. Imagine that. It's even more quiet in the wintertime, but on this day in the summer of 1999, the salmon were running and the creeks were teeming...
You would not believe the miles I covered in this little car. It's a mid-1990s Pontiac Sunfire, and on this particular day it was parked on the far side (reckoning distance from Anchorage) of Belugah Point, somewhere between Bird and Girdwood. That's Turnagain Arm in the background. The Chugach is a mountain range which surrounds the city and seems to guard it like a fortress.
Here's food for thought. Sure, it's a gas station. Tesoro Alaska, not too far from the Portage exit, as I recall (or is it the one closer to Girdwood??) ... but, take a look at the price of gas!
This might even have been the same day ... I'm honestly clueless. Moose, grazing in the puddles off the side of the road along Turnagain, maybe 20 minutes out of Anchorage. Daddy Moose is the guy with the 'rack' of antlers, obviously.
And here's the city of Anchorage itself, seen from the Coastal Trail, Earthquake Park. The fluttering blobs in the foreground are swallows, which nest in the cliffs.
More tomorrow, either pics or blather, if anything has actually happened in this neck of the woods worth the blathering space!
Ciao for now,
MK
On this side of the dateline at least, it's July 20th, and I can't help remembering the night when it happened. I was a little kid, but old enough to still remember sitting by the hearth with my parents, watching, entranced, as the drama unfolded in glorious black-and-white ... that being the capacity of our TV. Fortunately, the Moon, and spacesuits, and space, tend to actually BE black and white, so it turned out the upmarket folks with the color tellies didn't benefit much -- and some of them actully phoned up the broadcasters, asking why they were receiving black and white pictures. Because, sir or madame, Outer Space is black and white. It's Star Trek that's in color. Easyto see how you could confuse the two. Neil Armstrong, Bill Shatner? Amazing likeness, there. Twins, I agree. It's the pointed ears, they're a dead giveaway.
Next year will be the 40th anniversary, and one would hope something major will be done to mark it. The technology has become antequated, and the fact Project Apollo was little more than a political maneuver in the Cold War has become public knowledge, which tends to somewhat tarnish the early space program. But, damn, it was a thrill when it was happening for real.
And yes, the little kids who watched it happen (I was one) really did think humans would be on Mars by the turn of the century. Our teachers used to tell us to study hard, 'cuz we'd have the chance to live and work in space.
Right. Uh huh. Okay. In retrospect, you have to wonder how naive we all were, but -- shoot, it was fun while it lasted. The dream ebbed away during the 1970s, when the public became bored with moon missions. (South Australian TV didn't even cover them. We had bigger things to spend broadcast time on, like "Hey, Hey, It's Saturday!", and the "The Don Lane Show.") But I do believe the whole thing is going to turn full circle.
In fact (if anyone's interested -- and actually, it's pretty interesting) I updated the whole article, "The Future According to Mel Keegan," for the NARC page, just recently. Let me save you a trip to the website:
A history of the future, starting ... well, right now!
The original article is four years old now (and archived right under this one on the same page), and I gotta tell you, it's a little bit creepy, how 'right' ol' Mel picked it. Have a squiz, see what you think -- let me know.
The next 10 - 15 years could easily be as exciting as '65-'75. Here's hoping.
Otherwise, the dead calm of the Mel-o-sphere continues, and is so featureless a horizon that I'm going to upload pictures instead.
Today, I'm pasting in Alaskan shots, largely for Aussie and European visitors (of whom there are many -- and thank you, all, for dropping by!) ... tomorrow I'll paste in Australian pics, for US'n and European visitors (again, thanks for visiting, and don't be strangers, now!) ...
NOTE: pictures are parked on Jade's Flickr account for sheer convenience at this time. Keegan took 'em, but if you want to use 'em elsewhere, contact either one of us either via Flickr, or the blog or the website...
Potter Marsh, the bird sancuary just below the suburb of Rabbit Creek, on the shores of Turnagain Arm, maybe 12 minutes outside Anchorge itself. Glorious place ... so quiet, you can actually hear yourself think. Imagine that. It's even more quiet in the wintertime, but on this day in the summer of 1999, the salmon were running and the creeks were teeming...
You would not believe the miles I covered in this little car. It's a mid-1990s Pontiac Sunfire, and on this particular day it was parked on the far side (reckoning distance from Anchorage) of Belugah Point, somewhere between Bird and Girdwood. That's Turnagain Arm in the background. The Chugach is a mountain range which surrounds the city and seems to guard it like a fortress.
Here's food for thought. Sure, it's a gas station. Tesoro Alaska, not too far from the Portage exit, as I recall (or is it the one closer to Girdwood??) ... but, take a look at the price of gas!
This might even have been the same day ... I'm honestly clueless. Moose, grazing in the puddles off the side of the road along Turnagain, maybe 20 minutes out of Anchorage. Daddy Moose is the guy with the 'rack' of antlers, obviously.
And here's the city of Anchorage itself, seen from the Coastal Trail, Earthquake Park. The fluttering blobs in the foreground are swallows, which nest in the cliffs.
More tomorrow, either pics or blather, if anything has actually happened in this neck of the woods worth the blathering space!
Ciao for now,
MK
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Sledding down memory lane
Memory is a strange thing. I can quote you the lyric to the Maverick TV show, which was made in 1960, and was in reruns when I was a kid ... but I'll be damned if I can remember the fantastic plot I thought of at 2:00am this morning. It was a humdinger. The kind of plot that gives you goosebumps, despite the fact you're lying on an electric blanket ramped up to MAX because the bedroom is like a meat locker. I knew I should have got up, got the lights on, jotted the whole thing down, but it's the middle of winter, and cold, and ... yeah. I told myself I'd jot it down in the morning.
Who is the tall, dark stranger there?
Maverick is the name.
Riding the trail to who knows where?
Luck is his companion, gamblin' is his game.
(There's a lot more of it, AND I know it all, AND I recall the tune, even though some of you are probably about to get up and flatly deny any such show ever existed. Well, before you do, I can prove it. This here is a link to James Garner's page on IMDB, and in case someone says I made THAT up too, argue with the DVD cover. The DVDs are not available in Australia, which is probably a good thing, because I would probably feel like Methuselah.)
So, where the hell is the neural super-highway to get back to this plot idea that was going to make for a novel that would knock our your eyeballs? It's utterly
gone.
I've heard you can have yourself hypnotized to remember things. Let me think about it. I've no desire to be barking like a chicken. Or any kind of barnyard fowl.
I was about to comment that it occurs to me that blogging is a strange and even lonely passtime, but before I could type the remark I was deafened by the uproar from other computers around 'Mission Control' (there are four live computers and two dead ones, three live printers and two dead ones, plus assorted imaging devices, in the DreamCaft nerve center). Le Tour on a Footy Field was being read ... and if I do say so myself, it's worth a chuckle ... and it's nice to get feedback.
Headcold report: almost gone. The cold, I mean, not Keegan. Keegan is definitely still here.
AQUAMARINE report: I'll start the edit tomorrow. I swear it. Actually, I'm looking forward to it. I was going through old files and drafts on the computer I shut down a few days ago, and discovered a wedge of 'deleted scenes' which didn't make the final cut of the book for reasons of time and file format incompatibility.
When I did the book in 1999, I was working on a borrowed Mac, converting files over from a Windows format, reading from a 3.5" floppy that seemed to have been zapped by x-rays on its way through way too many airports (Adelaide; Sydney; Vancouver; Seattle; Anchorage; Fairbanks). The disk was being a little bastard, and even when I could get the files into the Mac, the only program that would convert them was an email client. Go figure. Time was of the essence (isn't it always?) and I remember just surrendering, in the end, and patching various sections together before they were emailed over to London. They were aimed at Prowler, which at the time had bought out GMP but not yet been bought by Millivres).
Now, if I can remember, clearly, wrestling a Mac to get AQUAMARINE off the disks and into some usable form, in a word processor called Claris Works, why can't I remember the plot which came to me at 2:00am? The human brain is a weird contraption. I recall the sharp sting of the cold outside, and the icicles hanging off the eaves over the back door, while I was working on the book. I'd take a break and go for a walk in the snow ... I'd walk over to the public library to do a little research if the internet was so slow it made a mollusk on valium look like Speedy Gonzales.
Fairbanks is a quite-small town on the edge of the raw, frozen wilderness, but they had (and probably still have) a great library. You walked inside, and the heat and humidity hit you in the face -- that, and the sound of (get this) budgies. As in, real, live budgerigars. (To US folks, think parakeets ... but take it from me, they're native to this neck of the woods, and they're actually called budgies.) The library had a small aviary and an array of tropical plants. And daylight fluoros which gave the illusion of sunshine, while outside the real sun was barely above the rooftops at noon, and the roads were being plowed out. Budgies and tropical plants, now. Just my speed. As you'd imagine, I spent some fair amount of time there.
So, Thursday finds Keegan on a sled/sledge/sleigh (depending on where you're from) ride down a long, cold, white memory lane, and wondering if I need some brain food. I've heard that sardines are good for the brain cells. I'm sure there's a few cans in the pantry ... but I'd rather have a gin and tonic.
Who is the tall, dark stranger there?
Maverick is the name.
Riding the trail to who knows where?
Luck is his companion, gamblin' is his game.
(There's a lot more of it, AND I know it all, AND I recall the tune, even though some of you are probably about to get up and flatly deny any such show ever existed. Well, before you do, I can prove it. This here is a link to James Garner's page on IMDB, and in case someone says I made THAT up too, argue with the DVD cover. The DVDs are not available in Australia, which is probably a good thing, because I would probably feel like Methuselah.)So, where the hell is the neural super-highway to get back to this plot idea that was going to make for a novel that would knock our your eyeballs? It's utterly
gone.
I've heard you can have yourself hypnotized to remember things. Let me think about it. I've no desire to be barking like a chicken. Or any kind of barnyard fowl.
I was about to comment that it occurs to me that blogging is a strange and even lonely passtime, but before I could type the remark I was deafened by the uproar from other computers around 'Mission Control' (there are four live computers and two dead ones, three live printers and two dead ones, plus assorted imaging devices, in the DreamCaft nerve center). Le Tour on a Footy Field was being read ... and if I do say so myself, it's worth a chuckle ... and it's nice to get feedback.
Headcold report: almost gone. The cold, I mean, not Keegan. Keegan is definitely still here.
AQUAMARINE report: I'll start the edit tomorrow. I swear it. Actually, I'm looking forward to it. I was going through old files and drafts on the computer I shut down a few days ago, and discovered a wedge of 'deleted scenes' which didn't make the final cut of the book for reasons of time and file format incompatibility.
When I did the book in 1999, I was working on a borrowed Mac, converting files over from a Windows format, reading from a 3.5" floppy that seemed to have been zapped by x-rays on its way through way too many airports (Adelaide; Sydney; Vancouver; Seattle; Anchorage; Fairbanks). The disk was being a little bastard, and even when I could get the files into the Mac, the only program that would convert them was an email client. Go figure. Time was of the essence (isn't it always?) and I remember just surrendering, in the end, and patching various sections together before they were emailed over to London. They were aimed at Prowler, which at the time had bought out GMP but not yet been bought by Millivres).
Now, if I can remember, clearly, wrestling a Mac to get AQUAMARINE off the disks and into some usable form, in a word processor called Claris Works, why can't I remember the plot which came to me at 2:00am? The human brain is a weird contraption. I recall the sharp sting of the cold outside, and the icicles hanging off the eaves over the back door, while I was working on the book. I'd take a break and go for a walk in the snow ... I'd walk over to the public library to do a little research if the internet was so slow it made a mollusk on valium look like Speedy Gonzales.
Fairbanks is a quite-small town on the edge of the raw, frozen wilderness, but they had (and probably still have) a great library. You walked inside, and the heat and humidity hit you in the face -- that, and the sound of (get this) budgies. As in, real, live budgerigars. (To US folks, think parakeets ... but take it from me, they're native to this neck of the woods, and they're actually called budgies.) The library had a small aviary and an array of tropical plants. And daylight fluoros which gave the illusion of sunshine, while outside the real sun was barely above the rooftops at noon, and the roads were being plowed out. Budgies and tropical plants, now. Just my speed. As you'd imagine, I spent some fair amount of time there.
So, Thursday finds Keegan on a sled/sledge/sleigh (depending on where you're from) ride down a long, cold, white memory lane, and wondering if I need some brain food. I've heard that sardines are good for the brain cells. I'm sure there's a few cans in the pantry ... but I'd rather have a gin and tonic.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Le Tour on a footy field, and what next for gay publishing?
The Red Eyes of July are back ... blame the French for holding their bike race in the middle of the night. Do they have any idea what it's like, trying to stay awake in the bleak, cold, small hours of a winter's morning, to keep up with Le Tour? Last night was the individual time trial, so I was inspired to keep the eyes open. Tonight, we'll probably let the DVD recorder take it, since it's 'just' a flat stage (and I know, you wouldn't say 'just' if you had to ride the goddamned thing), before they get into the mountains the next day. It's sheer, unmittigated sadism. For the viewers, I mean.
In fact, viewers ought to be elligible to win awards, for their particpation in this annual trial by ordeal. The most outstanding of us ought to get colored jerseys and stuffed animals, like the podium-place finishers. It's an endurance event: 23 days in July, when you don't get enough sleep and can't seem to wake up before mid-morning. Not to mention the definite effect all this has on your bum. You KNOW you're going flat, from sitting in front of the tube. You can FEEL the flatness accumulating as the days turn into weeks. You grow accustomed to a certain numbness in the posterior ... you start to worry about deep venous whatever it is ... and as alluring as a veritable swarm of athletic young men in bright spandex might be (and it is), you start to think longingly of a rugby game. You know, the kind of thing which is over, done, FINISHED, in 80 minutes, plus halftime.
(Not that you could hold much of a bike race in 80 minutes, even if you didn't let the boys have halftime. It would be a headlong sprint between morning tea and lunch, with a maximum of maybe five or six TV commercial spots; so it wouldn't raise much money ... and, because it wouldn't be so lucrative, few of the celebrity riders would show up for it. In the end, the TV people and organizers would probably decide to use the time more productively; for instance, hold a rugby game, which can be done inside the time constraint. Not that you'd get much of a rugby game, because bike racers are way too skinny to be much use in a scrum. Good gods, can you imagine Lance Armstrong and Robbie McEwan going up against Tana Umaga and Willy Mason? It would be like a remake of King Kong, with either of those bikers in the Faye Wray part. (By halftime, they'd find Willy Mason on top of one of the lighting towers with Robbie McKewan in his hand. Unless you let Lance and Robbie keep their bikes, in which can Tana and Willy would never actually catch them.)
If none of this is making much sense, blame Le Tour for being on in the middle of the night: I'm suffering from sleep deprivation. It does disgusting things to what few brain cells survived the Kreeping Krudd. Speaking of which:
Head cold report: it's easing off and I'm back at work.
Have been writing for the 'write your novel' site today, as well as looking at a lot of gay publishing websites, trying to figure out if the industry is as slow as it seems to be, or if it's just Keegan who's out of touch. Turns out, it's a bit of both. I am out of touch, but not way out; and the industry has gone fairly flat in the last ten years. Some gay stuff is being published, but the scene is not what it was, and if you're a new, aspiring gay writer these days, things might look a bit lean. It's no wonder young writers are turning to ebooks ... the problem being that, if you give them away (as is happening frequently), you might have droves of loyal fans, but you'll never get to give up the day job.
I have a couple of links which make interesting reading:
Books Guardian Unlimited">Why don't straight people read gay books? (Well, in fact, some do: a number of MK's readers are straight ... a small number, I grant you, but they're out there. Flocking by twos and threes.)
Calling All Gay Writers... (Well, not *all* gay writers. You have to be unpublished ... and there's a geographical prerequisite in there, the intro, the lunches with agents, and what have you. Won't do you a shred of good if you're from Aukland, New Zealand.)
Gay Authors Community (Gay fiction online; register and login to read. Very cool indeed, in fact ... but those day jobs are staying put.)
Gay Ebooks, downunder. (And they're freebies, which speaks volumes. Authors -- no matter their gender or sexual preference! -- don't give their material away and then go clean people's carpets or work supermarket checkouts ... unless they have to. Hmmm.)
Anyway, take a look and you'll see what's on my mind as I begin to contribute to the new 'how to write' site. There's a disturbing, even sad element, here. And the most optimistic bottom line that I can see is that this community has to stand together, stick together, and patronize our own. Kind of 'support your local,' albeit on a global scale, via the WWW. If gay publishing is going to flourish online (as is taking place), and gay- and gay-friendly readers around the world support the trend, we'll do so well, other independent publshing enterprises will wonder how the hell it was done. We'll be able to rell them that we ARE a genre, in and of ourselves: we write, publish and read in our genre, and (here's the business end of it) we support our own group.
You have to wonder if it could be made to work.
Got to get some more work done!
In fact, viewers ought to be elligible to win awards, for their particpation in this annual trial by ordeal. The most outstanding of us ought to get colored jerseys and stuffed animals, like the podium-place finishers. It's an endurance event: 23 days in July, when you don't get enough sleep and can't seem to wake up before mid-morning. Not to mention the definite effect all this has on your bum. You KNOW you're going flat, from sitting in front of the tube. You can FEEL the flatness accumulating as the days turn into weeks. You grow accustomed to a certain numbness in the posterior ... you start to worry about deep venous whatever it is ... and as alluring as a veritable swarm of athletic young men in bright spandex might be (and it is), you start to think longingly of a rugby game. You know, the kind of thing which is over, done, FINISHED, in 80 minutes, plus halftime.
(Not that you could hold much of a bike race in 80 minutes, even if you didn't let the boys have halftime. It would be a headlong sprint between morning tea and lunch, with a maximum of maybe five or six TV commercial spots; so it wouldn't raise much money ... and, because it wouldn't be so lucrative, few of the celebrity riders would show up for it. In the end, the TV people and organizers would probably decide to use the time more productively; for instance, hold a rugby game, which can be done inside the time constraint. Not that you'd get much of a rugby game, because bike racers are way too skinny to be much use in a scrum. Good gods, can you imagine Lance Armstrong and Robbie McEwan going up against Tana Umaga and Willy Mason? It would be like a remake of King Kong, with either of those bikers in the Faye Wray part. (By halftime, they'd find Willy Mason on top of one of the lighting towers with Robbie McKewan in his hand. Unless you let Lance and Robbie keep their bikes, in which can Tana and Willy would never actually catch them.)
If none of this is making much sense, blame Le Tour for being on in the middle of the night: I'm suffering from sleep deprivation. It does disgusting things to what few brain cells survived the Kreeping Krudd. Speaking of which:
Head cold report: it's easing off and I'm back at work.
Have been writing for the 'write your novel' site today, as well as looking at a lot of gay publishing websites, trying to figure out if the industry is as slow as it seems to be, or if it's just Keegan who's out of touch. Turns out, it's a bit of both. I am out of touch, but not way out; and the industry has gone fairly flat in the last ten years. Some gay stuff is being published, but the scene is not what it was, and if you're a new, aspiring gay writer these days, things might look a bit lean. It's no wonder young writers are turning to ebooks ... the problem being that, if you give them away (as is happening frequently), you might have droves of loyal fans, but you'll never get to give up the day job.
I have a couple of links which make interesting reading:
Books Guardian Unlimited">Why don't straight people read gay books? (Well, in fact, some do: a number of MK's readers are straight ... a small number, I grant you, but they're out there. Flocking by twos and threes.)
Calling All Gay Writers... (Well, not *all* gay writers. You have to be unpublished ... and there's a geographical prerequisite in there, the intro, the lunches with agents, and what have you. Won't do you a shred of good if you're from Aukland, New Zealand.)
Gay Authors Community (Gay fiction online; register and login to read. Very cool indeed, in fact ... but those day jobs are staying put.)
Gay Ebooks, downunder. (And they're freebies, which speaks volumes. Authors -- no matter their gender or sexual preference! -- don't give their material away and then go clean people's carpets or work supermarket checkouts ... unless they have to. Hmmm.)
Anyway, take a look and you'll see what's on my mind as I begin to contribute to the new 'how to write' site. There's a disturbing, even sad element, here. And the most optimistic bottom line that I can see is that this community has to stand together, stick together, and patronize our own. Kind of 'support your local,' albeit on a global scale, via the WWW. If gay publishing is going to flourish online (as is taking place), and gay- and gay-friendly readers around the world support the trend, we'll do so well, other independent publshing enterprises will wonder how the hell it was done. We'll be able to rell them that we ARE a genre, in and of ourselves: we write, publish and read in our genre, and (here's the business end of it) we support our own group.
You have to wonder if it could be made to work.
Got to get some more work done!
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Rummaging, the Cap'n, and the price of DVDs
I spent a while this morning rummaging around on websites, trying to find out if Torchwood season 2 would be airing in Australia (it's my day off; I'm allowed to rummage). To date there isn't a word about it, one way or the other, but it seems Season 1 was shown almost under protest. Well into 2007, neither the ABC (which screens the parent show, Doctor Who), and SBS -- the station specializing in international favorites like Inspector Rex (Austria, German language, subtitled), Iron Chef (Japan, Japanese overdubbed into English), and Red Dwarf (England; English; subtitles for hard of hearing; like kids whose music has been making their ears bleed), among rafts of others -- seemed to have any interest in Torchwood ... the reasons for which remain obscure.
Someone suggested they'd shy away from it because it was foul mouthed and sexy. Well, that's possible, I suppose; but there are already shows on both networks (esp. SBS) which are equally explicit, and more so. I doubt they'd turn down ANY show which would sell advertising space (yes: SBS is showing commercials now. And it drives you bloody nuts) ... so the bottom line is much more likely that thehy can't/don't/won't believe Torchwood will rate in Australia.
It's painfully true that this country doesn't have much time for SF ... and South Aus is the nation's dim spot. SF won't rate worth a deleted expletive down here (much less gay SF, or SF with a gay twist: perish the thought), and SciFi shows usually bumped back into the wee small hours of the morning.
It would also be reasonable true to say that some (even most?) Aussies view SF as being something of a juvenine genre -- it's for kids, isn't it? Now, Doctor Who might slide into the niche with a couple of inches to spare on each side. For decades it's had a cheesy-horror aspect which contributed to its cult status ... but who could take the horror seriously, much less get a chill out of it, when the monster is all-too-obviously a guy lurching around in a suit?
Okay, there's maybe one exception to this rule. The Brain of Morbius was fairly well done. It was 'let down' here and there by some pretty silly costumes and a few bit-players over-acting, but the idea was excellent and much of the execution was good enough that, when it aired in Australia for the first time, the ABC shoved it on at 9:30pm. Reason: (shock, horror) it was SF that had exceeded what The Powers That Be (hereafter referred to as TPTB) deemed to be suitable for kids. As per the new incarnation of the show -- it's what we used to call 'kidult.' Certainly not kids' TV pure and simple, but something a wide range of people can enjoy. The horror aspect is done well, without being gross; even in 2008 you have to know where to draw a line with the blood, gore, dismemberment and so on. And as it happens, the way the 'movie violence' aspect is handled, within it's own parameters it's quite effective.
You can hear the South Aussie TV executives spluttering. Good golly, SF that's not for kids? SciFi that can't be shown in the 5:00 - 8:00 bracket? Now, there has to be something wrong with this picture ... if kids can't watch it, who in the world will be watching it? Nobody else watches SF! Do they?
Therefore, in the minds of TPTB, nobody would be watching, so no one would be buying advertising, so the show constitutes a dead loss.
Naturally, they're dead wrong. I was reading somewhere, a while ago, that Torchwood out-perfomed Doctor Who in the US. But TV executives down here don't seem to be able to learn from the experience of others, and Torchwood landed firmly in a category which was too-hard to label. And if you can't label it, you can't market it.
Perhaps against the odds, Torchwood season 1 did go to air here, but its premier was in a late-nite slot and it was soon bumped back to midnight-ish. I have to confess, we used to set up the DVD recorder, go to bed, and figure it out in the morning. And before the show was halfway through, a friend handed us a DivX DVD with the whole shebang on the one disk, so we abandoned the actual broadcast.
Now, season 2 probably won't screen down here at all (following in the time-honored tradition of Highlander and Trek, and the new Galactica, and what have you) ... but the good news is, the whole season just came out on DVD in the UK. Of course, it'll be months before you can get it down here, and it'll be very expensive when it does put in an appearance. However, the DivX people won't let that stop them. I have absolutely no doubt that someone, somewhere has already uploaded it --
And no, I am NOT an advocate of, nor a participant in, video piracy. Let this be firmly understood, or nothing significant will come out of the argument I'm about to make (and my apologies to Dickens for the mutilation of that line).
I DO NOT advocate video piracy. I firmly agree that video pirates should be quashed.
However, I also CAN NOT condone the abuse of the video public, where two DVDs in a slipcase can cost $125. This is executive level thieving, just as surely as video piracy is boot-end stealing. There is no case anyone could make to justify charging over a maximum of maybe forty bucks for a two- or three-DVD set of ANYTHING. People would line up to pay forty bucks for a season of their favorite show. You'd beat 'em off with a stick. But at double, and triple, that price ... people can't pay it. Not won't. Can't. And, if TPTB fondly imagine fans will go without, well, I have some glorious shoreline property at Lake Eyre I'd like to sell to them. So video piracy happens, and it'll continue to happen, as a direct result of the executive level thieving.
You want to stop video piracy? Make DVDs affordable. It's as simple as that. Who in his or her right mind would be watching a dub-down, or a shonky copy, when you could have perfect copy in a beautiful slipcase, at a price you can afford??
Okay, Keegan, get down off the soapbox!
Feet on the ground. Right.
Interestingly, though, Torchwood is morphing as it heads into a third season ... and you gotta wonder why. They're only doing a short season (5 shows), which smacks of something experimental. Jack's gone (!), along with other vanishing characters, and the whole show is being dumbed down and polished up to appeal to a younger audience.
Well...shoot. I have no idea if John Barrowman left the show because it was being dumbed down, or if it's being dumbed down because he's gone. It's almost as if the mature nature of the show was riding on the shoulders of Jack, who, being gay/bi/omni, was a character designed, and predicted, to appeal to, uh, big kids. Take Jack out of there, and what's left is the SF element --
In which case, there's no good reason not to ramp it up and be a whole lot more like Doctor Who, which, admittedly, has been a lot of fun. Your audience is wider, your viewers can afford to be younger. You might leave a 'sub-text' omnisexual element in there for the sake of continuity, but until or unless Jack's back again, the gay element can be put on hold ... and when he *is* back, the gay element could be handled more along the lines of what we saw in Doctor Who.
So I would be guessing the 5-episode 3rd season is an experiment ... try the waters, see what they're like. (DW itself is having a shakeup, with a number of movies being scheduled instead of a whole 13-show season; looks like Tennant is probably back -- I don't know that anyone's too sure of anything much more than that, right now.
Surprising what you can get out of an hour's rummage among websites and blogs!
Right now, I'm on my break, the winter sun is shining and I'm going to take a book, a cup of tea, and go find a suntrap.
Cheers for now,
MK
Someone suggested they'd shy away from it because it was foul mouthed and sexy. Well, that's possible, I suppose; but there are already shows on both networks (esp. SBS) which are equally explicit, and more so. I doubt they'd turn down ANY show which would sell advertising space (yes: SBS is showing commercials now. And it drives you bloody nuts) ... so the bottom line is much more likely that thehy can't/don't/won't believe Torchwood will rate in Australia.
It's painfully true that this country doesn't have much time for SF ... and South Aus is the nation's dim spot. SF won't rate worth a deleted expletive down here (much less gay SF, or SF with a gay twist: perish the thought), and SciFi shows usually bumped back into the wee small hours of the morning.
It would also be reasonable true to say that some (even most?) Aussies view SF as being something of a juvenine genre -- it's for kids, isn't it? Now, Doctor Who might slide into the niche with a couple of inches to spare on each side. For decades it's had a cheesy-horror aspect which contributed to its cult status ... but who could take the horror seriously, much less get a chill out of it, when the monster is all-too-obviously a guy lurching around in a suit?
Okay, there's maybe one exception to this rule. The Brain of Morbius was fairly well done. It was 'let down' here and there by some pretty silly costumes and a few bit-players over-acting, but the idea was excellent and much of the execution was good enough that, when it aired in Australia for the first time, the ABC shoved it on at 9:30pm. Reason: (shock, horror) it was SF that had exceeded what The Powers That Be (hereafter referred to as TPTB) deemed to be suitable for kids. As per the new incarnation of the show -- it's what we used to call 'kidult.' Certainly not kids' TV pure and simple, but something a wide range of people can enjoy. The horror aspect is done well, without being gross; even in 2008 you have to know where to draw a line with the blood, gore, dismemberment and so on. And as it happens, the way the 'movie violence' aspect is handled, within it's own parameters it's quite effective.
You can hear the South Aussie TV executives spluttering. Good golly, SF that's not for kids? SciFi that can't be shown in the 5:00 - 8:00 bracket? Now, there has to be something wrong with this picture ... if kids can't watch it, who in the world will be watching it? Nobody else watches SF! Do they?
Therefore, in the minds of TPTB, nobody would be watching, so no one would be buying advertising, so the show constitutes a dead loss.
Naturally, they're dead wrong. I was reading somewhere, a while ago, that Torchwood out-perfomed Doctor Who in the US. But TV executives down here don't seem to be able to learn from the experience of others, and Torchwood landed firmly in a category which was too-hard to label. And if you can't label it, you can't market it.
Perhaps against the odds, Torchwood season 1 did go to air here, but its premier was in a late-nite slot and it was soon bumped back to midnight-ish. I have to confess, we used to set up the DVD recorder, go to bed, and figure it out in the morning. And before the show was halfway through, a friend handed us a DivX DVD with the whole shebang on the one disk, so we abandoned the actual broadcast.
Now, season 2 probably won't screen down here at all (following in the time-honored tradition of Highlander and Trek, and the new Galactica, and what have you) ... but the good news is, the whole season just came out on DVD in the UK. Of course, it'll be months before you can get it down here, and it'll be very expensive when it does put in an appearance. However, the DivX people won't let that stop them. I have absolutely no doubt that someone, somewhere has already uploaded it --
And no, I am NOT an advocate of, nor a participant in, video piracy. Let this be firmly understood, or nothing significant will come out of the argument I'm about to make (and my apologies to Dickens for the mutilation of that line).
I DO NOT advocate video piracy. I firmly agree that video pirates should be quashed.
However, I also CAN NOT condone the abuse of the video public, where two DVDs in a slipcase can cost $125. This is executive level thieving, just as surely as video piracy is boot-end stealing. There is no case anyone could make to justify charging over a maximum of maybe forty bucks for a two- or three-DVD set of ANYTHING. People would line up to pay forty bucks for a season of their favorite show. You'd beat 'em off with a stick. But at double, and triple, that price ... people can't pay it. Not won't. Can't. And, if TPTB fondly imagine fans will go without, well, I have some glorious shoreline property at Lake Eyre I'd like to sell to them. So video piracy happens, and it'll continue to happen, as a direct result of the executive level thieving.
You want to stop video piracy? Make DVDs affordable. It's as simple as that. Who in his or her right mind would be watching a dub-down, or a shonky copy, when you could have perfect copy in a beautiful slipcase, at a price you can afford??
Okay, Keegan, get down off the soapbox!
Feet on the ground. Right.
Interestingly, though, Torchwood is morphing as it heads into a third season ... and you gotta wonder why. They're only doing a short season (5 shows), which smacks of something experimental. Jack's gone (!), along with other vanishing characters, and the whole show is being dumbed down and polished up to appeal to a younger audience.
Well...shoot. I have no idea if John Barrowman left the show because it was being dumbed down, or if it's being dumbed down because he's gone. It's almost as if the mature nature of the show was riding on the shoulders of Jack, who, being gay/bi/omni, was a character designed, and predicted, to appeal to, uh, big kids. Take Jack out of there, and what's left is the SF element --
In which case, there's no good reason not to ramp it up and be a whole lot more like Doctor Who, which, admittedly, has been a lot of fun. Your audience is wider, your viewers can afford to be younger. You might leave a 'sub-text' omnisexual element in there for the sake of continuity, but until or unless Jack's back again, the gay element can be put on hold ... and when he *is* back, the gay element could be handled more along the lines of what we saw in Doctor Who.
So I would be guessing the 5-episode 3rd season is an experiment ... try the waters, see what they're like. (DW itself is having a shakeup, with a number of movies being scheduled instead of a whole 13-show season; looks like Tennant is probably back -- I don't know that anyone's too sure of anything much more than that, right now.
Surprising what you can get out of an hour's rummage among websites and blogs!
Right now, I'm on my break, the winter sun is shining and I'm going to take a book, a cup of tea, and go find a suntrap.
Cheers for now,
MK
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Australian Graffiti
Thursday finds me wondering how much echinacea tea you have to drink to beat an ear infection. I hate echinacea tea; it tastes vile. It also works. One has to wonder if it would be effective used as a douche in the aural cannal, or if you HAVE to swallow the stuff. I suspect the latter.
To divert myself from the fact my left ear is killing me, I turn my threadbare attention to the few pages I have left to prepare for the upcoming website relaunch; and today I tackle the subject of gay science fiction. (It's either that, or proofread AQUAMARINE, and right now I think the virus in my ear is trying to get into my sinuses, and since I'm seeing double I wouldn't trust myself to proofread a laundry list.)
The gay SF I've ben talking about for the last hour or so is print-media ... books. I'd been wondering if I would take on the challenge of gay SF in movies and TV, but decided to leave it alone for the moment, because it can be such an aggravating topic. For example, don't get me started on Star Trek. It's very easy to blow breakers on that subject ... which is to say, how is it possible to do 28 full SEASONS of an *SF* show, and never have so much as a single gay guest character, never mind a series regular?! Then again, STARGATE is up to 14 seasons, counting SG1 and Atlantis, and if there's been a gay guest character, I must have blinked when s/he bolted through.
Speaking of Trek, cheers to George Takei, everyone's favorite starship driver, who is wedding his partner of many years, with the welcome shift in California's gay marriage laws. Wonderful stuff.
So, I stuck with novels for the Gay SF discussion; but the 'research' I did for the backgrounding did land me on some interesting websites ... which just pointed out how thin on the ground gay SF heroes are, because in order to get to Ten Favorite Gay SF Heroes, they had to count Frank N. Furter and Bunny Wigglesworth! Well, you could list them, I guess; but is ROCKY HORROR really SF? And I'm fairly sure ZORRO THE GAY BLADE is a comedy western. Will we stretch a point and call them fantasies? Hmmm.
All of which brings me around to wondering if any TV network in this state is going to be carrying the rest of TORCHWOOD, or if they've abandoned the show. It premiered in the 9:30 timeslot, migrated to past-midnight, and vanished without a trace. South Australia is notorious for this kind of reception of TV science fiction. Even STARGATE, which is smash-hit by local standards, is late-late-late-show fare. FIREFLY was marooned in the same slot, and most of STAR TREK VOYAGER didn't seem to air down here at all ...
I hear you asking what South Aussies actually watch. There's a lot of football (by which I mean Aussie Rules, VFL, NFL, that sort of thing). If you're lucky, they'll squeak in a rugby game between the endless tennis tournaments and the reality TV, but only if it's Rugby League. Heaven help you if you have an insatiable lust for Rugby Union. The All Blacks versus the Springbocks? Be still, my beating heart ... not that any such game is likely to be seen on local free-to-air TV. Because the Wallabies aren't on the field. Fishing shows. Cooking. Lots of cooking. And one show where they yank the fish out and cook them right there on the boat -- I kid you not. It's called OUT OF THE BLUE, 'starring' the senior brother in the big local private fisheries company. The longer, warmer, dryer days of October bring a welcome end to the Aussie Rules season, and the beginning of the cricket season; TV becomes the pixelic equivalent of the Sargasso Sea, with reality TV reruns, rained-off test matches which cause Channel 9 to rerun 10-year-old games, and reruns of old cooking shows.
Yes, Keegan owns a TV set. Also a DVD player. Thank gods for DVDs.
And now, I'm on my way to the kitchen, to brew some more echinacea tea.
To divert myself from the fact my left ear is killing me, I turn my threadbare attention to the few pages I have left to prepare for the upcoming website relaunch; and today I tackle the subject of gay science fiction. (It's either that, or proofread AQUAMARINE, and right now I think the virus in my ear is trying to get into my sinuses, and since I'm seeing double I wouldn't trust myself to proofread a laundry list.)
The gay SF I've ben talking about for the last hour or so is print-media ... books. I'd been wondering if I would take on the challenge of gay SF in movies and TV, but decided to leave it alone for the moment, because it can be such an aggravating topic. For example, don't get me started on Star Trek. It's very easy to blow breakers on that subject ... which is to say, how is it possible to do 28 full SEASONS of an *SF* show, and never have so much as a single gay guest character, never mind a series regular?! Then again, STARGATE is up to 14 seasons, counting SG1 and Atlantis, and if there's been a gay guest character, I must have blinked when s/he bolted through.
Speaking of Trek, cheers to George Takei, everyone's favorite starship driver, who is wedding his partner of many years, with the welcome shift in California's gay marriage laws. Wonderful stuff.
So, I stuck with novels for the Gay SF discussion; but the 'research' I did for the backgrounding did land me on some interesting websites ... which just pointed out how thin on the ground gay SF heroes are, because in order to get to Ten Favorite Gay SF Heroes, they had to count Frank N. Furter and Bunny Wigglesworth! Well, you could list them, I guess; but is ROCKY HORROR really SF? And I'm fairly sure ZORRO THE GAY BLADE is a comedy western. Will we stretch a point and call them fantasies? Hmmm.
All of which brings me around to wondering if any TV network in this state is going to be carrying the rest of TORCHWOOD, or if they've abandoned the show. It premiered in the 9:30 timeslot, migrated to past-midnight, and vanished without a trace. South Australia is notorious for this kind of reception of TV science fiction. Even STARGATE, which is smash-hit by local standards, is late-late-late-show fare. FIREFLY was marooned in the same slot, and most of STAR TREK VOYAGER didn't seem to air down here at all ...
I hear you asking what South Aussies actually watch. There's a lot of football (by which I mean Aussie Rules, VFL, NFL, that sort of thing). If you're lucky, they'll squeak in a rugby game between the endless tennis tournaments and the reality TV, but only if it's Rugby League. Heaven help you if you have an insatiable lust for Rugby Union. The All Blacks versus the Springbocks? Be still, my beating heart ... not that any such game is likely to be seen on local free-to-air TV. Because the Wallabies aren't on the field. Fishing shows. Cooking. Lots of cooking. And one show where they yank the fish out and cook them right there on the boat -- I kid you not. It's called OUT OF THE BLUE, 'starring' the senior brother in the big local private fisheries company. The longer, warmer, dryer days of October bring a welcome end to the Aussie Rules season, and the beginning of the cricket season; TV becomes the pixelic equivalent of the Sargasso Sea, with reality TV reruns, rained-off test matches which cause Channel 9 to rerun 10-year-old games, and reruns of old cooking shows.
Yes, Keegan owns a TV set. Also a DVD player. Thank gods for DVDs.
And now, I'm on my way to the kitchen, to brew some more echinacea tea.
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