I watched it in theaters yesterday and enjoyed it! Beautiful post-apocalyptic imagery, decent writing, great digital graphics, great story boarding. I’m always excited for sci fi epics and this scratched that itch....
The fifth chapter of Stardust: Labyrinth is out! Horrifying event after horrifying event happens as the five tries to find their way back after the fourth chapter's incident, threatening to derail the expedition completely. Will they manage to regain their bearings?
Well, well, well, this was quite a fast one. And I didn’t even push, I just ran on. At one point I noticed that I felt slightly out of breath, then I looked at my watch and was going 4:35/km, so it was alright. Today‘s audiobook was DARK MATTER by Blake Crouch, which I‘ve read some weeks ago. The book was brilliant, the audiobook is as well. I‘m looking forward to the AppleTV+ series of it. Have a great Thursday, y‘all! #Running#applewatchultra2#audiobooks#sciencefiction
#PennedPossibilities 323 — What's a piece of advice for writers that you listened to and are glad for?
An Australian author, Lucy Sussex, told us at Clarion West 1998 to be shameless in promoting ourselves. Being a shy person, networking and promotion has been a heavy lift, but I'm working on it and I know it's going to help. Mastodon: ☑️
#PennedPossibilities 322 — What piece of advice, as an author, did you once receive but hadn’t followed? Looking back on it now, you might wish that you had.
Advice: Don't only write novels. Write lots of shorter pieces.
When I started I saw that you could only make a living if you sold novels, so I wrote novels. That completely discounted the fabulous practice you get completing lots of smaller stories. Completing a novel takes lots of time and there's a mounting anxiety that in the end the plot will fail or no publisher will be interested. Yeah, true with short fiction, but the investment is far lower (or should be if you're doing it right). There used to be lots of magazines you could sell short fiction to... for pennies a word, but it was something, and it offered a chance to build a brand name and a following. Such notoriety could help you sell novels, too.
"Three young scientists travel around the country in the 25th century after the world has been ravaged by pollution. In their hi-tech RV (called Ark II), they study the land and help out those in need."
"The Great Retrofit is a near-future version of the city of Messina, in Sicily. Its science fictional element is the rise, and success beyond expectations, of a new type of economic agent, a form of for-benefit company that follows a quintuple bottom line approach, having the objective to improve its own performance across five dimensions: surplus (rather than profit), people, planet, beauty and truth, or knowledge sharing."
#WordWeavers 2405.19 — How did you settle on your MC’s appearance?
Historically, I wrote my characters such that I found them attractive. I don't do that anymore.
Sometimes I don't have control, except for hair styles and clothes, or the lack thereof. The story or character may have certain in-the-moment requirement, like when the MC needed to train in an almost all-male fight gym as a prizefighter (she'd later win a championship). Of course she had tailored pink and black gym wear made of technical fabric that outlined every curve—which proved interesting.
These days I do the best not to assign an appearance at all, instead keeping things vague and sticking to describing only what's absolutely necessary. My experiences with publishers is that'll they'll ignore your descriptions for cover art and promotion anyway. In any case, doing this allows the reader to imagine someone they would find attractive(†). The MC in the current WiP is described physically only as tall, shy, so beautiful that both sexes fall for her, and that she has "winter eyes," whatever that is. In the other story, the only thing I'm settled on is described by the devil-girl something like this:
"Take two finger length pieces of rusty rebar, sharpen one end, bend it ninety degree, and stick one above each temple, pointing backwards. Makes wearing hats problematic. Yeah. Gets messy when they try to grab you by the head in a fight, especially if it sticks in..."
She's also describes her very olive complexion; she's mentioned green eyes in a mirror and red hair everywhere. It could easily change in revision.
(†) A recent writer's prompt asked about my target audience. Can I say "imaginative?"
Watched it for the umpteenth time last night. 42 years old and as long as you're not watching the original theatrical release, it's a near perfect film. A pure masterclass.
My friend suggested I picked the name brain grid game for my puzzle game. Entering this text into AI art generators yields some haunting images. A crossover of scifi dystopia and demoscene. #demoscene#sciencefiction#horror#mentalhealth#movies#aiart
Thoughts on Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes?
I watched it in theaters yesterday and enjoyed it! Beautiful post-apocalyptic imagery, decent writing, great digital graphics, great story boarding. I’m always excited for sci fi epics and this scratched that itch....