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What I’ve Been… Writing

/ Tim

Coming up on the end of the year seems like a good time to reflect on how my writing has been going, as well as planning out a few resolutions to spend more time working at it for 2017.

It’s been a pretty rough year for me as an author, to be honest.  I’ve stalled repeatedly on my “main” novel for a couple of years now, and the frustration of that was enough to really hurt my overall interest in writing as a result.  Add in a job that is pretty stressful, and it was very easy to justify doing anything else except for writing.

Thankfully, the tail end of the year saw me getting back into it.  Part of the reason I started this blog was to give me a chance to write a variety of things, and I’ve combined that with working on a variety of projects new and old.  It may make everything a bit slower going than I would like, but it keeps me sane.

Here’s a brief summary of current projects and how I’m going with them:

Freeburn (working title)

Type: Novel

Genre: Sort-of-post-apocalyptic action spy thriller

Description: A former soldier turned failed British spy named Marcus Freeburn is sent to Sydney, Australia to meet a contact, only to be shot and left for dead. When he recovers, he finds that the country has been the target of a chemical agent that has brought society to its knees, and that he is the number one suspect for instigating the attack. Now Freeburn has to work out who is really responsible, but first he will need to learn to survive in the terrifying world he has found himself in.

Status:  I’ve been kicking this one around for years now.  I’m on what I still consider to be the first proper draft of the manuscript with about 80,000 words written.  I’ve recently changed a great deal of the plotting and created a proper outline, resulting in me rewriting large chunks.  Slow and steady at this stage, and I am hopefully to have an actual complete draft done during 2017.

Rise (A Story of the Death Throes Unending)

Type: Novella

Genre: Fantasy

Description: A decrepit inn is attacked by the undead forces of a Necromancer cabal in the middle of the night, defended only by  a band of rowdy mercenaries and a healer of uncertain origins. As bodies fall and the inn burns, the only certainty is that nothing is quite as it seems as the dead rise in the town of Riversedge.

Status: Another story I had worked on for a long time and stalled on, version 10 is completed and sitting awaiting some final edits before going back to my beta readers (my wife Sam and my friend Tristan) and hopefully being ready to submit to publications.  I really quite like how twisty and fun this story is, and I’m looking forward to finally getting it out there.

This story is a part of my burgeoning Death Throes Unending fantasy setting and serves as a prequel of sorts to the novel series currently residing on my hdd as about a dozen dot points and some character descriptions.

Corsair Squadron (working title)

Type: Novel

Genre: Military Sci-Fi / Space Opera

Description: In a far-flung future where humanity has spread across the stars, a group of misfit pilots and soldiers are brought together in a mission to clandestinely undermine the imperialistic control of previously independent worlds, but in doing so may spark a war that crushes the people they are trying to save.

Status: I’ve wanted to write a sci-fi series from the moment I first watched Star Wars, and that was an idea that was only reinforced by reading, watching, and playing various awesome things over the years.  I’ve sketched out the first book, an overall plot that could setup a trilogy of books, and have written a couple of chapters to get a feel for one of the main characters and how I want to present the world.  I’ve also doodled a great number of truly awful spaceship designs.

What I’ve been…

/ Tim

…watching at the movies (again!)

Rogue One (spoiler free)

Oh…oh my. That movie was amazing!

I freely admit that I’m a Star Wars tragic. I’ve been one ever since my mum showed me A New Hope as a child. I loved everything about those movies and even the godawful prequels couldn’t hurt me too much.

However, the thing that really captured me the most was the setting itself. Jedi were cool, and the space battles were cooler, but what I loved were the little glimpses of the day to day in this amazing universe. I loved how lived in it all was, how weird the aliens were, the glimpses at what society was like under the oppressive Empire.  The Extended Universe got into a lot of this stuff, but it had only ever been captured on film as incidental detail around the hero’s journey of Luke and his friends.

Rogue One is everything I ever wanted from a Star Wars movie.

This isn’t a story about a single hero rising up and saving the day. No, Rogue One is not about that, despite what trailers might have hinted at.  This is a war movie and a heist rolled into one – a gritty look at a rebellion against an oppressive government across multiple and wonderfully varied locations and what rebelling actually means; what it costs the people who are fighting and doing what might be considered bad things for what history will hopefully show were good reasons.

This is not a hero’s journey. Rogue One is dark without being dour. Adventurous without being trite.  Serious, but with that sense of humour and hint of hope that typifies Star Wars. It wasn’t a perfect movie – characterisation was a bit slim at points, I kind of hated Forrest Whitaker (not something I’m used to saying), and there were a few uncanny valley incidents that took away from certain scenes.

But overall?  This is Star Wars like I dreamed it could be. As much as I liked Force Awakens, it was a retread – A New Hope with a new coat of paint.

Rogue One is not a retread.  It is new and different and gorgeous and glorious and the standing ovation it got in the cinema I watched it in was well deserved.  I’m not sure yet where it will sit in my personal canon of Star Wars movies, but I’m pretty damn sure it’ll be high on the list.

An easy 5/5 for me.

 

What I’ve been…

/ Tim

A not-at-all creatively titled new series of posts I’ll be doing about the various things I’ve been reading, watching, listening to, writing, etc.  Let me know what you think!

…watching at the movies

I caught Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them over the weekend. I’m not a huge Harry Potter fan- I read the books quite late and thought they were decent but unspectacular (I enjoyed the later ones the most), and feel much the same way about the films. I’m not immersed in the Potter-verse, and knew basically nothing about Fantastic Beasts heading in.

I’m not normally a fan of spending a paragraph qualifying, but it feels necessary in this situation due to the simple fact that I really enjoyed Fantastic Beasts.

It was a fun story in a really interesting setting (1920s New York), well-acted and gorgeousto look at – I particularly liked Scamander as a lead and enjoyed the little nuances Eddie Redmayne brought to the role, but all the supporting actors were great as well, even where the characters were a little bit shallow.

There were some fun little call outs for fans of the series, but this is an excellent standalone piece of fiction in its own right, completely watchable for anyone who isn’t hugely familiar with the preceding movies/books.  It felt like a darker (but not grim) tale than Rowling’s previous work, but still retained the sense of whimsy and wonder that is missing in a lot of modern fantasy.

In short, it managed to tickle me just right despite my non-existent expectations, which is always my favourite experience when I go to the movies. At a time of year where the only hotly anticipated movie I’ve got left for 2016 is Rogue One, this was an awesome surprise and one I definitely recommend.

Have you seen Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them? What did you think?  Let me know in the comments.