So one of the things I used to spend a lot of time on was trying to get a literary agent. (I’ve had a grand total of three over the years, and none of them ever sold a single thing. But that’s a different post …)
Here’s an exchange that’s pretty typical of how my interaction with a literary agent would go. First I would send a query (possibly including sample chapters), and then I would get back something like this:
Continue reading “Random Rejection: Sandra Dijkstra Agency, 1994”
I periodically Google myself, just to see if there are any new reviews or listings for my stuff. (No new reviews since I found that one for Night Watchman back in February. Oh well.) However, I did find this particular search result interesting:
Who are the best living horror writers? – Yahoo! Answers
James Viscosi * Tim Waggoner * Karl Edward Wagner, (1945-1994) * H. Russell Wakefield, (1888-1964) * Robert Weinberg, (born 1947) …
answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080307233734AALw1Vt&show=7 – 61k – Cached – Similar pages
Granted, the person answering the question appears to have just pasted in the list of horror writers from Wikipedia, and he didn’t even bother to weed out the dead ones, but still … look … Google says I’m one of the best living horror writers! Are you going to argue with Google?!
Google … all is forgiven for that whole “forbidden” incident.
A few days ago, Goodbear asked about free video editing software. This isn’t an area in which I have a lot of experience, as I don’t do much video editing (all my video is perfect as shot … :-P), so I did a little research. Linux users have a number of choices in this area, including Cinelerra and Kino; these are the only ones I have tried (although see Blender, below). OS X users, of course, have iMovie built in as part of the iLife suite (I’m not going to get into the whole iMovie ’08 vs. earlier versions of iMovie controversy). But what are Windows users to do?
Continue reading “Free Software For Everybody: Video Editing”
It’s been a while since I did a “free software for writers” entry, mainly because I’m kind of running out of free software that I can label as specifically for writers; I may just switch over to doing “free software for anybody” posts. However, I do have at least one more program to write about, and that’s Audacity. Audacity is an audio recording, editing, and mixing program. I’ve mainly used it to fix glitches in audio files (such as MP3s with a skip in them) or to change sound levels; the local Arthur Murray uses it to change the tempo of songs without introducing distortion so that, for instance, a ridiculously fast samba like “Jazz Machine” can be slowed down so that mere mortals can dance to it. (My wife insists on the full-speed version.)
So now you’re probably thinking, “Well that’s just fascinating, Jim, but what makes Audacity free software for writers?” To which I reply with one word: Podcasting.
So today, when trying to visit any site at Blogspot, I am getting this message from Google:
I’ve at last gotten around to Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend , which has been on my “to read” list for years. I’m liking it so far, but what’s most interesting to me is that (minor spoiler alert), in Long Before Dawn, I took the same approach to crosses and other holy symbols that Matheson did–i.e., a holy symbol only works on a vampire who practiced the represented religion when alive. As the main character in I Am Legend, Robert Neville, says: “… neither a Jew nor a Hindu nor a Mohammedan nor an atheist, for that matter, would fear the cross.” He later goes on to explain that because the classic vampire legend arose in heavily Christian Europe, the cross became identified–wrongly–as the universal anti-vampire ward, which is exactly what I was thinking when I wrote Long Before Dawn.
Other than this little tidbit, of course, the two books are completely different. Matheson takes a rigorous, scientific, naturalistic approach to his vampires, whereas mine are supernatural beasties who can fly around and turn into mist. Still, I find myself pleased to find that my vampire book has something in common with one of the undisputed classics of the genre.
Now if I can just interest Will Smith in starring in an adaptation of Long Before Dawn, that would be another similarity, and one I could definitely live with …
So I finally saw Cloverfield, which I had been wanting to see ever since I caught the trailer when we watched Transformers last summer. (NOTE: Transformers did not put my wife to sleep.)
Now that I’ve seen Cloverfield all I can say is, God am I glad I didn’t see that on a big screen. Even on our relatively small television (36″ — it seemed big when we bought it eight years ago …), the shaky-cam style made me a little uncomfortable. In a real theater with a screen the size of a barn wall, I would’ve been yakking all over the person in front of me. (I’m extremely susceptible to motion sickness.)
Anyway, aside from the shaky-cam issues that made me watch a good part of the film sidelong, I liked Cloverfield a lot. I’m a sucker for giant-monster movies and this one was about 100 times better than the sad-sack remake of Godzilla from several years back. Watching Godzilla I just felt sorry for the monster; this one scared the crap out of me, and the weird little critters that fell off of it were pretty nasty pieces of work, too. (Have I mentioned that I periodically dream about one or more giant monsters rampaging through the city where I live? Is that weird? Doesn’t everybody have that dream … ?)
Interestingly enough, in the special features for Cloverfield, we learn that the monster is just a frightened baby and when it roars it’s calling for its mother. So we were supposed to feel sorry for the monster this time. Ummmm, okay, if you say so. I thought it was just some badass trashing New York City for reasons unknown …
As per usual with a “rescue” movie, we have our little band of heroes who are risking their own lives to save a friend. (The lesson of Cloverfield might be “After you sleep with the girl, call her and tell her you love her; it’ll make things a lot easier on you when a giant monster starts chewing up Manhattan.”) I’d heard bad things about the performances, but I thought they were quite good. In particular, T.J. Miller as Hud, the “guy behind the camera”, managed to make his character sympathetic with next to no screen time, just voice work. Lizzy Caplan was terrific as Marlena, making me completely forget about her character from Mean Girls. The other actors were fine and believable as well, but they were saddled with less interesting characters than these two. In particular, I found the Robert Hawkins character, the putative hero, to be kinda one-note and boring. Useless and uninteresting trivia: In the late 80s I played a play-by-mail (PBM) game of space exploration called “Beyond the Quadra Zone”. (This was before we had online gaming. Hard to believe, eh?) Anyway, the name of my character was Robert Hawkins. Mr. Abrams, I’ll be expecting my royalty check in the mail.
The shaky-cam invites comparisons to The Blair Witch Project, but it’s really the only similarity between the two. (I hated The Blair Witch Project. Blech!)
My wife more or less completely ignored Cloverfield the whole time it was on (all 84 minutes of it!), so I can’t really give it my usual rating of how long it took to put her to sleep. But she must’ve spent at least a little time paying attention to it, because she said she also thought the performances were good. Draw your own conclusions …
WARNING: Comments on this review may contain spoilers.
Dragon Stones is now available direct from Lulu.com! I’m still putting the finishing touches on the formatting before submitting it for distribution via the usual channels, but at this point I think that further changes are unlikely. (And if I do change something after you buy it, then you will have a rare limited edition copy!)
As I’ve mentioned, Dragon Stones is a fantasy novel, so anyone who’s been a little squeamish about reading A Flock of Crows is Called a Murder or Long Before Dawn or (especially) Night Watchman needn’t fear — the goriest thing in Dragon Stones is a swordfight between a couple of the characters (but I won’t spoil anything by saying which). If you enjoy fantasy novels, check it out — I don’t think you’ll be disappointed!
In other news, I’m still editing and formatting my ghost story Father’s Books as my next release. Although it’s a horror novel (again), it’s not nearly as, um, intense (*COUGH* gory *COUGH*) as Night Watchman or Long Before Dawn, so even the squeamish might be able to read that one. I’ll have my wife look at it and report back; nobody’s as squeamish as she is!
So this week’s Netflix selection was Peter Pan, the live-action version from 2003, not the animated Disney film. I had originally planned to do this as a double feature with Finding Neverland but we ended up watching them several weeks apart. (Finding Neverland put my wife to sleep almost immediately despite the fact that it starred Johnny Depp, but that’s because she was very tired.)
Anyway, Peter Pan is of course the story of how a small company introduced a new brand of peanut butter that eventually became part of the ConAgra Foods inventory of products … oh, wait, that’s not it. Ehhh, you know what Peter Pan is about so I won’t bother to rehash it. I will say that the film has an excellent cast, particularly Jason Isaacs as George Darling/Captain Hook (even if I did keep expecting Hook to say “My name is Inigo Montoya … you killed my father … prepare to die.”) and Rachel Hurd-Wood as Wendy, not to mention the guy who played Smee, who was just about perfect. (IMDB says his name is Richard Briers. Well done Richard.) We also get Olivia Williams sitting in a chair pining for her children in a fashion that gave me Sixth Sense Olivia-Williams-Pining flashbacks, but if you’re going to flash back, that’s a good movie to go to. Finally, Ludivine Sagnier makes a saucy little Tinkerbell, even if I have no idea how to pronounce her name, because she’s French.
Although it’s probably technically a children’s movie, there are enough humorous asides going on in Peter Pan to keep the grownups amused. (Most of these involve Smee and/or Michael’s teddy bear.) It gets quite dark toward the end, culminating in the climactic fight between Hook and Pan. Let’s just say that if you’re having a midlife crisis or anything, you may want to avoid this film; it’s not going to make you feel any better about your lost youth.
Peter Pan is basically one long CG effect with actors in it, but for once, the special effects do not get in the way of the story. In fact they’re gorgeous, and greatly enhance the overall fantastical feel. It’s like the entire film is set inside a Maxfield Parrish painting. I would recommend checking out some of the “making-of” special features, as the techniques used to create the effects (crew in head to toe blue suits — freaky!!!!) are quite interesting.
This movie put my wife to sleep in about an hour — not bad for a fantasy film starring a bunch of kids and not featuring a single appearance by Johnny Depp.
Hook & Inigo — Separated At Birth?
So I’ve alluded to the fact that I have a file with a LOT of rejection letters in it. I thought it might be interesting to pull one at random from time to time and post it, so everyone can experience the fun of reading what I like to call “you suck” letters (even though they don’t generally actually say “you suck”). So here’s one from 2000, for a short story called “Leech Field”.
Viscosity 