End of Part 2

Finished my edits and rewrites of the existing part 2, of the Vault. Just have to do a quick read through for continuity and errors. That was the easy bit out the way, part 1 has had three edits, part 2 has had two edits. Part 3 will now see a sustantial rejig. I have actually written down a timeline for once. I just hope I can pull it all together, as I'm still not sure how to reveal the revelations. I also think that some of the newer stuff may end up at the end of part 2. Not sure where to make the cut, to be honest.

Well I'm at 63,000 words. The last entire draft was 69,000 ish. So well on track for 90-100K.

Also finally got my last errant submission returned with a no thanks note. Ah well. Thanks to a mysterious benefactor looks like I will get to spend a day at Worldcon. This is principally an SF convention, but its all about the books not the people in Star Trek costume. Who knows what doors may open up beneath me?

Recycled

I'm currently just above 50,000 words in the new draft and roughly, dare I say it, halfway through this version. Only a few months ago I reached that spot for the first time, now it may double. It is good to have people who wont let you get away with second best. Sure second best can be published but it can be better.

I still have one lost soul of a submission out in the wilderness, not sure how I can politely ask about it, or whether it is better to let sleeping dogs lie until the draft is finished.

Nova Scotia

Not my holiday destination but a collection of Scottish Speculative Fiction will be available soon and contains contributions from some of my GSFWC colleagues. You can get it from Amazon. Sadly I'm not in it. But you should buy it anyway.

I did try, three times. But my only SF story ever was thrown together just after I got off a plane from LA, and frankly must have shown it really. I also submitted my near future Cthulhu-does-Godzilla-in-Glasgow story The 23rd Nail but it's not the same on paper as it is spoken. My third attempt was Nine Minutes, but clearly the idea of two people getting together over the course of three speeddating sessions wasn't speculative enough whatever its quality ;-)

Better luck next time. Which hopefully won't be in ten years time. Actually come to think of it, a latter day relaunched New Worlds annual thing might not be such a bad idea, but it will depend on sales not doubt. So once again go buy it. Well order it at least. You're still here. The post's ended, go to the link.

Putting the band back together

I was reading Momus' blog, where the juxtaposition of the words cats and guns, gave me a band name bursting forth Athena-like, fully formed.

I haven't quite decided how I'll use it though. Maybe never at all, maybe a running 'See You Next Wednesday' gag in everything. I'm also not sure of the order either. Currently I favour Uzi Kitten, much more of a sense of aggressive moggy toting ballistic weaponry. Kitten Uzi, you see, sounds like a delightfully foxy Oriental Bond girl.

War of the Worlds

I didn't make the march on Saturday. I was involved in an event in Edinburgh, however. While I was doing demos and being prodded and trained by Kyudo sensei I could hear the helicopters overhead and was, by late afternoon, beginning to feel like I had slipped into a Vietnam war movie. Amazingly both entering and exiting E'Burgh by car went without any traffic problems at all. While there one of my fellow kyudojin came in after doing some photography of the march relating a tale of 200 hundred anarchists who had spray-painted the buses of those attending the march. Such a sad protest really.

Recent news has been on NASA firing a large heavy object at an innocent comet. We've been told this won't effect it's path in any way (obviously having decided to drop Newtonian mechanics from their memory). Quite why 'we' have decided to premptively strike this object we don't yet know. Perhaps it is one of those missiles fired by Heinlein's bugs? Or maybe its a Rama-like craft covered in frozen water? Whatever it is, even just a comet now sent on a new course, I don't see any good coming of it. When ET knocks on the door moaning about our kids smashing his car with their cricket ball I'm sending the bill to NASA.

Production and Industry

The times may be dark but I am feeling slightly smug at not only finishing my corrections for section one, but also adapting my story Nine Minutes into a film script, all in one day.

The script, however, is 20 pages long, which for a nine minute short may be a bit long...I dunno. It doesn't take that long to read through the dialogue, there's almost no action and maybe 30% of the dialogue is voice-over thoughts. I'll see what the experts have to say - it has been a while since I wrote a script. Back then I was the self-styled writer-in-residence of a blues/jazz bar in Glasgow who really was justing waiting for his partner to finish work. Whether that updated celtic invasion myth will see the light of day, never mind get typed up, is a mystery left to time.