Two nights ago something happened that has to do with the book I am writing and that I think I will inflict you.
You have been warned.
Basically, and this is no secret, I am writing a big sea-monster story. A bunch of researchers get on a boat and go looking for a monster. Many shenanigans ensue.
There are four “building blocks” to this story, four pieces I must get right for the story to work.
The first is the monster. Continue reading
This is the Judy Garland blogathon, and please direct your browsers here to visit In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood, that is hosting the blogathon and where you will find the entries for all the participants and their posts about Judy Garland’s movies and more.
Then get back here, because we are about to go somewhere really dark. Continue reading
Between 1989 and 1990 a number of movies were released that had to do with people underwater facing monsters.
The most popular was of course Jim Cameron’s The Abyss, a big-budget production with state of the art special effects. George P. Cosmatos’ lower budget flick, Leviathan featured a good cast but made a smaller splash (ah!)
The others disappeared – but can still be found, and for a while were on rotation on local TV networks.
So two nights ago I went and checked out (again) Deepstar Six, a movie I had completely forgotten.
I am writing this now because I feel the plot might vanish from my memory again soon. Continue reading
Today is the World Ocean’s Day, and I will celebrate it by sitting here, at the bottom of the ancient Tethys Ocean, writing a chapter of a book about a sea monster.
Tethys was ocean that occupied an east-west corridor between Gondwana and Laurasia during the Mesozoic. In the following two-hundred and fifty million years the Tethys basin and its sediments were involved in the breaking up of continents, in the opening of the Atlantic and the Indian oceans, and in the Alpine event that caused the formation of the highest mountain chains in the Old World.
Snippets are preserved, folded inside of the moutains, or as sedimentary rocks.
Here where I sit, this used to be a shallow water lagoon (probably), in which sharks swam. Continue reading
In the dire need for cash to pay for my vices – i.e., electric light and eating once a day – I set up an online workshop about outlining stories.
I did not believe very much it would work, but it did – I have two students, and they seem to like the way we are tackling this thing.
Like all of my online workshop these days it is handled through email – I send along an exercise per day, together with the opportune documentation.
And to set up this small course, I had to put some order in my writing technique, for what it’s worth: I had to explain in plain language what usually I do when I write.
And boy does it sound interesting.
And it also seems to work!
So I am thinking of integrating the notes with some extra material (including my trademark piece about outlining Cinderella), maybe some ideas about mind maps and other tricks, and do a small handbook.
Or something.
And the “something” seems to be the way to go, because really, handbooks about outlining out there are legion.
So I’m thinking about doing a series of podcasts.
Or, as I said, something.
My vices are hard to kick.
I often write about the joys of doing research.
The good part is you find out a lot of incredible stuff (most of which will be completely useless for what you are writing), and you have an excuse for reading books or watching movies.
Case in point, In the Heart of the Sea, a 2015 movie that did not make a big splash (aha!), and that I had missed at the time.
Let’s admit it: you are writing a story about a giant killer whale called Livyatan melvillei, and open with a quote from Herman Melville, you gotta watch the movie based on the true story that inspired Moby Dick.
So I watched it. Continue reading
According to the newly-appointed Minister of Education University & Research in my country, reading comics is a stupid way of spending your time, if you are a kid. He’d rather have the kids, during the summer, do their homework and
“…Better be stimulated by good readings and activities that will keep the brain active, vigilant, sharp and engaged.”
Basically, reading comics turns your brain to pudding, at least according to our Minister (that before he was a school administrator, was a Phys.Ed. teacher).
You can probably guess that I do not agree.
Mind you – reading a good book and doing something engaging1 is just great, and homework need to be done2, but this idea that comic books are inferior cultural products is so OLD. Continue reading
Karavansara 