Current location:	Inside outa d' rain
Current mood:	busy
Current music:	"Tell Me Why" The Beatles
Entry tags:	what i'm reading

Playing Catch Up!

A cool rainy day makes it worthwhile to be inside at the computer.  I suppose that is one of the nice things about the Pacific Northwest... the weather never stays the same for too long.  Saturday it was into the 90's and today we will be lucky to top 70.  According to the paper, we'll be back into the 90's for this coming weekend.

Over the past weekend I got the July issue of the REAR  ENGINE REVIEW finished and sent out the e-version of it.  Because I had included some photos I took, the "memory" count was quite high, and so to drop it to a level I thought most folks wouldn't mind download on e-mail, I converted it to PDF.  I'm new at that step and I wasn't really happy with how it turned out.  Oh, the actual appearance is fine, but it didn't upload and convert exactly what I had as a word document.  It moved two or three lines from the top left hand column of the second page up onto the very first (cover) page and put them in the lower right.  Then everything else seemed to have moved up a corresponding amount.  The very last page, which is a "flyer" for a club event in August now starts on the next to last page.  Also the "header/footer" that I always include that has the page number, date, etc didn't upload and convert.  I guess I have a bit to learn about it, but as it drops the memory space used, I'll stick with it for a while.  Stopped on the way home from work and got some more address labels.  I'll print them out after a while and then I can get the hard copies ready to mail out.

Last week I got my critiques back from a certain literary contest that I had entered.  A lot of what was detailed in the two write-ups goes hand in hand with what I mentioned in TENNIS BALLS AND BROADSIDES.  (www.annemini.com/?p=5092)  This year I entered my second book, SAILING DANGEROUS WATERS in the Science Fiction/Fantasy Category.  (The first chapter can be viewed under the "Writing" button at www.stoneislandseastories.com.)  Because the story starts with Edward Pierce and his companions journeying through the Vespican Wilderness to visit Dream Chief Shostalomie and the Kalish People, I thought that the Fantasy aspect would be noticeable right from the start, and I suppose that it was.  However, perhaps the Fantasy level was not as clear.  It was suggested that I should indicate whether or not the Kalish have any sort of magical powers.  They do not, and in fact there is no magic or special powers in the STONE ISLAND SEA STORIES at all.  If there is anything, it is that people in that other world are a bit more succeptable to superstition.

At least one of the critiquers saw the story as an "alternate world" piece, which it is, in a way.  It probably doesn't fit the standard definition of "alternate world," so I was reminded of the patented definition, or at least the one in use for this particular contest.  By that way of defining "alternate world," something was supposed to have happened in the past that causes the world in the story to be different from the way it really is.  As an example I point to Philip K. Dick's THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE.  As I remember the story, FDR had been assassinated in his first or second term as President.  That results in the Allies losing WWII, and as the story takes place, Imperial Japan controls the Pacific Coast and Nazi Germany the Eastern Seaboard.  The STONE ISLAND SEA STORIES would be more of an "Other/Additional World" set up.  This world, the world we know exists, but a few individuals have discovered how to travel to another one.  There things are quite similar but not actually in parallel with the world we know.  Geography is different, although political, racial, ethnic, and religious divisions are quite similar.  Many historical events are of a like nature.  One thing that is unique is that those few individuals are cognizant of their travel between the two worlds.  When they are here, I try to keep as close as I can to the actual events and history of 200 or so years ago.  When they are there, I feel freer to create a different history.

One other thing perplexes me a little, and that is how much back story to include, or to what degree to include it when the book under judgement/review is the second in a series.  It was suggested that I should have been a little more detailed in relating the actions of an antagonist.  My point is that had the reader read BEYOND THE OCEAN'S EDGE, he/she would have already been made aware of this individual's actions, and in the second book I should have only had to mention them.

While it might sound as if I'm grousing about the critiques, I'm not.  In many ways I think some valid things are pointed out.  As time goes on I will make an effort to consolidate the feed back and apply it as needed.

I'm still plugging a way a Melville's MOBY DICK.  While I find it interesting and a good story overall, it seems that he does so many of those things that today we are told never to do, lest we bore the agent/editor/reader to death.  If I didn't mention it before, I read Robert Dugoni's DAMAGE CONTROL while flying between Spokane and Philadephia a couple weeks ago.  Now I need to find and read J. A. Jance's book of the same name.

Posting this and getting the hard copies of the REAR ENGINE REVIEW ready to send out will just about do it for today's stint at the keyboard.  Tomorrow I'll work at updating the SASP website (www.spokaneauthors.org) and then maybe I'll get a chance to get back to working on DARNAHSIAN PIRATES.  I'd like to have enough finished to take a working/in progress copy with me to the conference.  I've found that I can do some serious self-editng between sessions or while having coffee early in the day.  I'd like to at least finish Chapter 5, and get a good start on Chapter 6.

That should about do it for this time.  Hopefully I'll get back on track and get something posted once a week (preferably on the weekends) or so.  Of course come the end of this month, the conference put on by the same organization who sponsored the above mention contest takes place.  As I will be involved with that over the later part of the week and most of that weekend, the chances that I will get anything posted then are slim.

Dave