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Ten Things for the Weekend #3
I've been lazy. Having got everything in, and waiting on some exciting stuff, and with nothing to do to further the house move, I found myself unwilling to do the heavy lifting required to get back into a couple of short stories I have on the go, the last things left in my writing queue, for which, in both cases, I had no idea where the plot is going. One of these is the third Hamilton story, 'The Copenhagen Interpretation'. I always say there's no such thing as 'writer's block'. This was about me not forcing myself to read what I had and then start writing, in the certain knowledge that plot would come to me out of the detail I was putting down. Sure, you're going to have to rewrite stuff when you realise you know where this goes and some of it doesn't lead there. But you're going to rewrite anyway. See what I mean? Heavy lifting, and I failed to step up to it. Which is why I've told myself I'll write two thousand new words every day from Monday to Wednesday this week. (Thursday is a Pulse meeting, and of course that evening I'll be signing at Forbidden Planet, which I'll be blogging a reminder about early in the week.)
Saturday was the last night of our favourite landlords, Kate and Lee, down our local, The Crown, and last night, we went out for dinner with my old friends from Third Row Fandom, my gang in the world of British SF. So I got to talk book geek at great length. What I love about this lot is that they can have a loud, finger pointing debate about the merits of a novel, or whether or not quantum physics and relativity can be reconciled, without ever falling out. Rather wonderfully, one of their number, Graham Sleight, has become a thoroughgoing Doctor Who fan! I gave him the litmus test: 'What's the serial code of 'The Monster of Peladon'? And quick as a flash, he replied 'why, why why?' 'Broton?' I said. 'Warlord of the Zygons,' he replied. 'Yartek?' 'Leader of the alien Voord.' One of us! I feel that now Who fandom has seized an SF fan in this way, it's only fair we arrange some sort of hostage exchange, in which they get one of ours.
Anyhow, to business. Here's this week's Ten Things!
1: A couple of LiveJournal bods popped up in the Comments last weekend to tell me that they've also got a Haiti relief effort going. That can be found here. Well done, dears!
2: I'm delighted to be a Guest of Honour (along with Joe Abercrombie) at Bristolcon which takes place on November 6th. It's a pleasure to be part of a West Country SF event, and it'd be really good to get a crowd in. There are lots of other guests, and the event has loads of support from within the SF community. If you're from another fandom, and have wondered what the dudes who concentrate on books get up to, this is a friendly and exciting place to start. I'll be going on and on about it as we get closer to November. Let me know if you've signed up.
2: I'm delighted to be a Guest of Honour (along with Joe Abercrombie) at Bristolcon which takes place on November 6th. It's a pleasure to be part of a West Country SF event, and it'd be really good to get a crowd in. There are lots of other guests, and the event has loads of support from within the SF community. If you're from another fandom, and have wondered what the dudes who concentrate on books get up to, this is a friendly and exciting place to start. I'll be going on and on about it as we get closer to November. Let me know if you've signed up.
3: Similarly, here's my panel list for the SFX Weekender on Febuary 5th and 6th is: 'Has Doctor Who been good or bad for SF?; 'Is there still such a thing as British SF?'; 'The glowing influence of comic books on movies'; 'Your experiences of writing for TV'; 'Is spinoff and tie-in literature under appreciated?' and I'll also be doing a reading/chatting to an audience. The other panellists on some of these are pretty exciting, but I don't want to mention them since they may have declined particular panels without me knowing. I'm really looking forward to it.
4: Hugo Awards administrator Vincent Docherty writes to ask me to remind people that if you want to nominate your choices for the Hugo Awards this year, you either need to have been a member of last year's World Science Fiction Convention in Montreal, or you must become a member of next year's, Aussiecon 4 before 31st January. A supporting membership, where you get voting rights (and often a package of ebook versions of nominated titles) is £25 from the UK. Once the nomination process has concluded, and there's a shortlist to vote for, there'll be a different deadline on that, of course. You know I love the Hugos. I'd change my middle name to 'Hugo', except that, at the moment, that would be just a cruel irony.
5: My mate Rob Williams is quickly establishing quite the comics career, and January 27th (28th in the UK) sees the release into comic shops of the first issue of his new ongoing Robocop series. You can find details of that, and his current Punisher story ('Get Castle', which is set in Wales) and see Robocop covers here.
6: Tara Wheeler provides a valuable service for Doctor Who fans: a website devoted entirely to the knitting of the perfect Tom Baker scarf, with patterns (that vary season by season, alongside a potted history of how the scarf changed!), how to make the pattern into ties and stockings, advice on washing your scarf, a video of Paul McGann wearing one of her scarves, etc. I love fandom like this. You can share this awesomeness here.
6: Tara Wheeler provides a valuable service for Doctor Who fans: a website devoted entirely to the knitting of the perfect Tom Baker scarf, with patterns (that vary season by season, alongside a potted history of how the scarf changed!), how to make the pattern into ties and stockings, advice on washing your scarf, a video of Paul McGann wearing one of her scarves, etc. I love fandom like this. You can share this awesomeness here.
7: As well as Black Widow: Deadly Origin, in May, my Dark X-Men miniseries is getting a Premiere Hardcover. You wait a whole career for one such volume, then two come along at once!
8: The BBC Archive is a tremendous resource, like a portable BBC4 online, and their current collection is about Archaeology On Television (but there are many other subjects available at the same time), with clips, pictures and documents from a huge span of BBC programmes. Of interest to Doctor Who fans (apart from the site's dedicated Who content) might be this piece on a dig into Silbury Hill, which surely inspired the Jon Pertwee story 'The Daemons'. But do have a browse through the varied treasures the Archive curates.
9: The aforementioned Graham Sleight, one of SF's leading critics and commentators, has gained his new Doctor Who fandom in the process of writing a forthcoming book about the show: The Doctor's Monsters. It sounds like it's going to be excellent, and, apart from Kim Newman's BFI volume, is the first time a serious SF critic has taken a look at the nuts and bolts of the series.
10: And finally, but by no means least (I'll have to try and avoid using that form of words every week), my forthcoming BBC3 pilot Pulse now has a bit of BBC webspace devoted to it. The link takes you to the Being Human area, then click on the tag on the right for the Pulse press release. You know that when we have a transmission date I'll be on at you lot to call in and say you liked it, don't you?
Okay, see you midweek, and until then, Cheerio!
Labels:
BBC Archives,
Bristolcon,
Dark X-Men,
Doctor Who,
Graham Sleight,
Hugos,
Jonathan Hamilton,
Pulse,
Rob Williams,
Robocop,
SFX Weekender,
The Punisher
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It's got Stephen Campbell Moore in!!! Love it already.
And according to your litmus test, I'm not a Doctor Who fan.
Don't worry, Brackers. That's the litmus test for OLD people, who were geeking out about Doctor Who when it FIRST CAME ON. ;) We can't be blamed for being youthful and having catching up to do...Doesn't make our fan-ness any less. However, it DOES mean we have less wrinkles.
Heh.
Her color matching advice on the scarf page is great, and I wish I had it when I was knitting mine (season 18). I got reasonably close, I think, by comparing colors to pictures of a scarf held by a collector.
Speaking of Doctor Who, odd bit I happened to notice recently. If you look at this video of the Buckaroo Banzai closing credits, particularly at about the 40 second mark, Peter Weller as Buckaroo bears a significant resemblance to the Matt Smith Doctor. Head shape, hairstyle (Smith's has longer bangs), wardrobe, etc.
I've been reading the new Matt Hills book - "Triumph of a Time Lord - the regeneration of DW for the 21st century. It's more academic than anything else on New Who I've seen, but there's some intriguing insights there and it's particularly nice to see Murray Gold given his due. Wondered if you'd come across it yet?
I don't see why you can't be blamed for being youthful. Let's just put Doctor Who after 'wars' on the list of things Americans are always late to.
(Personally, I scored one out of three, despite owning a copy of The Terrestrial Index since it was first printed. I might well have scored more ten years ago).
@SK - And what about Brackers? She's young and from London.
:P
But it's true. As an American, I had my own long-running, highly-popular sci-fi franchise to worry about. Ask me anything about Original Series Star Trek, and I'll be on better footing!
Brackers: Pulse has indeed got Stephen Campbell Moore in, and very good he is too. And that's the litmus test for a certain Jedi-like level of Doctor Who fandom, who can tell what episode they're looking at from the quality of light on a single close-up frame of the Tardis door. I know many such people. Garpu: that is a wonderful service she's provided. Tom: you're right! The Buckaroo Banzai influence on new Who is proven. Wherever he goes, there he is! Mef: no, I haven't seen that one, must have a look. SK: you're a bit fighty fighty, aren't you? Just as well that's like water off a duck's back to Teresa.
Paul: great news about Pulse. I look forward to seeing it.
Listening to the interview you did a few years back with Geek Syndicate.
Anyway, in light of that. I have to ask. Has anyone ever written an episode of Casualty where the Holby City Players are putting on a stage play of Doctor Who and a Tardis falls on one of them. Or would that idea not work on Casualty.
Anyway, I'm trying to write a story treatment right now for a Graphic Novel I have cooking. Only problem is have never written a story treatment before. Any advice. One issue am having is I can't put a limit on it. I normally write so many articles a day. Yet writing in terms of fiction is something I've never done to much of.
Everything that can happen in Casualty does, apart from the stuff they'd never show. Advice: keep it short. Lots of white space. Just say what it's about.
Hey Paul, it's all a bit last minute but Dave and I are heading to the sfx weekender next week. I noticed you were down on the list of guests.
Hopefully our paths will cross at some point!
I got an invite to SFX Weekender too. Sadly I'll be up in Scotland spending time with some friends have not seen in awhile. Which isn't sad really. Because if I could do both simultaneously I would. But this things been planned since September of last year.
Hope everyone has a blast though. Have experienced similar style events in the past. They can be a lot of fun.
Paul: thanks for the tip. I think I'm just going to break all the rules and write the whole story out and map out a treatment once I have everything down.
Have fun at the signing tomorrow. I'm off to interview a chap called Chris Lynch now.
Yes, I shall be there. Much looking forward to it!