…as much as that sounds like fun. Rather, I’ve just been ULTRA MEGA UBER BUSY (EXTREME!!!), and thus have not had much time to think on the arts OR academia. For those curious, the latter is keeping me the busiest, but the former has, in fact, been getting some attention despite the academic madness in my life.

So this is just a quick note. As it’s never too early to start thinking about NaNoWriMo, which I will of course be blogging about, I have been thinking on a naming scheme for secondary and tertiary characters. I’m trying to decide on alphabetical (Amos nodded at Beatrice, who blushed and looked away. But Carter could see her rosy cheeks clearly, and new he’d have to tell Dana all about it in the evening…) or most-recent-name from the Spam filter (I’d write a sample, but I thought of this right after I cleared out my Spam). Any thoughts or comments?

In other news, does anyone know how to do footnotes in WordPress?

Tags: NaNoWriMo,writing
Categories: creative writing, uncategorized
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Following off of yesterday, I didn’t just go to talks and signings at the Book Festival. I also went to three workshops: on fantasy, on writing for teens, and on graphic novels.

I’m afraid to say that the one on fantasy was mildly disappointing. It was more of a “basics of writing” with fantasy overlaid on top, and I didn’t learn too much. What I did learn, however, was excellent, and I really wish that it had been more of that. The most helpful bit (as I’m planning on writing a steampunk novel for next NaNoWriMo) was on ‘tech level’. That is, it should be established early within the context of the novel. If you’ve got swords within the first ten pages, don’t save the zeppelins for a hundred pages in, or else your reader will be quite thrown.

I honestly don’t remember too much about “Writing Graphic Novels”, other than the fact that it was fun. The presenter also really drove home the point of choosing the moments of your story to illustrate, to choose the ones that really move it forward. He had as look at this by handing out pages with nine panels on them, and then having us scribble-illustrate the most important plot moments from one of three movies: Jaws, The Wizard of Oz, or Star Wars. It was HARD! He also discussed panel transitions, and all of these together really hit home. Of course, now I feel like I have to rewrite the series that I’ve been slowly illustrating…

Finally, the workshop for teenage stories was helpful mostly because of the writing exercises we did. The presenter was really intent on getting us into the shoes of a teenage protagonist, so we practiced creating one and wrote a few things in their voice—the hardest of which was describing yourself (the author) through the character’s eyes. And then we went on an adjective-free adventure, and I nearly died. Those latter four words, by the way? Typical of “teenage” writing. Hyperbole is important—“teenage” voices often resonant when they look at the world through a dichotomy of “it was the most awesome/awful thing ever!” Luckily, my Californian roots lead me to write like that anyway. I mean, totally.

Overall, three books reached the forefront of recommendations. Stephen King’s On Writing was highly recommended by both the fantasy and the teenage-writing presenters, and as I’ve been intending to read it anyway, I need to pick it up. Conversely, Scott McCloud’s writings was recommended by the graphic novel presenter and came up in the Ian Rankin/Neil Gaiman talk. Finally, Writing for Comics by Alan Moore was recommended by Mark Millar, and referenced by Neil Gaiman (who never read the book, having received the advice straight from Mr. Moore’s lips).

Overall, this year at the Book Festival really felt like the Year of the Graphic Novel Comic Book.

Geez, I hate the term “graphic novel”. It sounds so pretentious. It’s a comic, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Hmph.

Tags: books,comics,festival,writing
Categories: creative writing
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The greatest killer to my pocketbook over August was the Book Festival. I love the Book Festival: two big tents of books (children’s and everyone else’s), writing workshops, and OMG IS THAT NEIL GAIMAN?!

Yes, yes it was.

Last year I met Terry Pratchett. This year there’s a list, and in order of appearance it was Ian Rankin and Neil Gaiman (TOGETHER!), Alexander McCall Smith, and Mark Millar. They were all incredibly sweet people. But let’s handle that individually!

Ian Rankin and Neil Gaiman spoke together, and were ridiculous amounts of fun. They enjoyed the BSL signer a little too much, and because of that I now know how to sign “balls” in BSL. But there’s a far better recap of their speech here that you should read if you want to know exactly what went on. I’ll fast-forward to the signing, shall I?

I was really quite nervous to meet Ian Rankin, especially as I’m miserable with small talk. I shouldn’t have worried—we had a very nice chat about the uni (and how, when he was there, one of my supervisors was a “hot up-and-coming lecturer”!), and when I told him I also want to write fiction, he was very encouraging. If I ever find him in one of the local pubs, I think I must buy him a pint.

I at least had some small-talk chatter to fall back on with Neil Gaiman, as I follow his Twitter. However, I had a minor freak-out when he took a look at my name (written on a sticky note to make signing books faster) and pronounced it CORRECTLY. This is a rather huge deal for me, as on a mission trip once I was called “Elsie” and “Elsa”, and once spent a semester of Spanish being called “Ellis”—and that was after my friend tried to correct the professor! Neil Gaiman was, of course, already known to be on the ‘awesome’ list, but when I told him this story his scoffing at such moronitude only raised him further.

I initially planned to see Alexander McCall Smith because my mum loves him, and I was interested in hearing him speak, as he’s local too. However, Mr. Smith wins the “most awesome author” award for this year. If you peak at the picture above, you’ll see that the name in the books is not mine. When I went to his signing, I informed him how it kills my mother that I get to go to the Book Festival (and see him) and she can’t. He paused, then told me to ring her on my mobile, and he’d say hello. Made my mother’s day—and mine, too!

Mark Millar is cool. I mean this with all the gravitas a slang word can hold. I know many people I would call “a cool guy” or “pretty cool”, but Mark Millar is cool. If Terry Pratchett’s Monks of Cool weren’t rather dated, I would suspect that Mark Millar inspired them. How cool is Mark Millar? He invited everyone at the talk and signing to the pub afterwards (alas, I couldn’t go).  He had a proper chat with every single person at the signing. He didn’t swear because there were kids in the audience, but he made sure to see how the signer signed “eviscerate”. While we’re at it, here’s a pic of the wonderful signer, whose presence was most excellent:

Anyway, where was I? Ah yes – Mark Millar is so cool that he knows Damon Lindelof. He wore a suit, and drank wine through the whole thing. That’s how cool Mark Millar is. And like Ian Rankin, he encouraged me to give up my day job and just get into the entertainment biz.

Of course, if I gave up my day job, I wouldn’t be able to have a nifty title for my blog, and then where would we be?

Tags: authors,books,comics,fandom,festival
Categories: Arts, comics, creative writing
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