Archives for April 2008

A Little Writing Advice…

April 30, 2008 By Michael G. Munz Leave a Comment

Since publishing A Shadow in the Flames, I’ve been asked in a few interviews and such what tips I have for aspiring authors. Teaching is not a skill that comes easily to me, and as such, thinking of an answer to that question is often difficult, but as I was writing today, one thing did pop into my head:

Make detailed notes.

This is actually something I’m still trying to teach myself. I’ll be writing with certain things in mind and then I’ll be forced to stop writing and expect I’ll remember certain details later when I come back to it. When I do, I find that I’ve not retained it mentally as well as I thought (or worse, forgot there was a detail I was even trying to remember). It’s like an artist painting in front of a landscape, then going home and doing the rest from memory. This invariably leads to time lost as I either try to recall the details I’d conceived (and failed to remember), or go back and reread earlier chapters just reacquaint myself with something that I could have better kept track of with a written note or two.

That’s not to say I never make notes. I make a LOT of notes (character sketches, what’s going through someone’s mind at a certain time, neat little ideas, chapter outlines, etc.). Heck, I’ve got an entire page outlining how much and when to reveal about a certain character’s background. Even so, there are still occasional things that I think I can remember and consciously decide not to write down, or things it doesn’t occur to me to keep track of until later when I realize I need to know something.

Case in point: I’m working on finishing up the sequel to A Shadow in the Flames, and multiple plot threads have come together as one, resulting in a lot of characters running around. Certain characters know certain things (some know quite a lot, some only a little, and some only THINK they know a lot) and have certain competing agendas that dictate how much they want others to know. I’d been keeping track of who knows what and when in my head, and I suddenly realized today that I was starting to lose my grip as one character started treating another like he knew something he shouldn’t, and worse, downright contradicting something he’d told him a little bit before. Now I’m faced with rereading the previous fifty pages or so and taking notes on my own writing, just to be certain things are still fitting together properly. Not the end of the world, but it’ll eat up time.

I suppose one could argue that by not stopping to take notes as I wrote, I was allowing my creative momentum to continue unabated, but even so, I should have at least paused between chapters to take stock of where everyone was. I was already pausing to look at other things (so there was certainly time), but this one aspect snuck by me. Certainly fixable, but a wee bit of a pain. On the other hand, it’s a learning experience that’ll help to make me a better (and faster) writer, which should be good news for those of you who’ve asked that I hurry up so you can read more.

…And now I have something new to say when asked for advice! (It IS tempting to just tell them, “That gum you like is going to come back in style,” though.)

-Michael
www.michaelgmunz.com

Earth Day Bloggin’

April 23, 2008 By Michael G. Munz 1 Comment

Well, it’s April 22nd, and April 22nd is Earth Day. (Actually it’s a few other things as well, of course, like Jack Nicholson’s birthday, Discovery Day in Brazil, and something else I won’t talk about here, but for the purposes of this blog, it’s JUST Earth Day. Sorry, Jack.) Now it’s not my intent here to debate the merits of taking responsibility for our environment, nor to discuss whether or not global warming is something we should worry about. (I personally think it is, but I’m not going to make a case for it here other than to say that when an *overwhelming* majority of those who’ve spent their lives and educational careers learning about and studying such things agree there’s a problem, it’s just a wee bit arrogant for us laypersons to dismiss it out of hand.) What I would like to mention here briefly are two meaningful (and really rather simple) ways to reduce the negative impact we have. These are both places I’ve only recently discovered myself, so I present them not as an expert on either. I simply want to say hey, this looks rather cool and useful, and maybe you should check it out. Anyone out there who’s had experience with these places or others like them is more than welcome to comment and let us all know more.

First off, if you’re like me, 99.9% of the catalogs you get in the mail are really only good for one thing: Exercise. They provide just a little more extra weight in your walk from the mailbox to your home before getting tossed, and at least, hopefully, recycled. (I get to have EXTRA exercise because after having my parents’ mail sent to me for a year back when they were touring around the country with no permanent address, their names are still in some far-off database as being at my address. I’m not even going to bother explaining why I still sometimes get mail for my grandfather, who lived in PENNSYLVANIA and passed away OVER SIX YEARS AGO!) It’s not only annoying, but printing and delivering all that junk takes I don’t know how many tons of paper and gallons of gas, all to give you something you don’t want. Nice and wasteful, eh?

Well it seems there’s a place by the name of Greendimes.com that will help you get off all of those lists. In looking at their website, they offer a free service and two “premium” services, both of which last for 5 years. The free service gives you links to take yourself off of mailing lists, and at the very least makes for a nice hub of helpful links that will aid you in stopping a lot of this stuff from ending up in your mailbox. The premium services have Greendimes do the work for you, filter out catalogs you actually DO want to receive, and monitor mailing lists to keep you from being put back on without your really wanting it.

Frankly, I’m considering one of the premium services, as I’m a lazy, lazy man. Given the fact that their MOST expensive five year service breaks down to 60 cents a month ($36 for 5 years) and gives you two–everyone say it with me, you’ve heard these words before by now, I’m sure–energy-saving compact florescent light bulbs as part of the deal, I figure it’s easily worth it. 60 cents a month? Darn, I’ll have to get by without that pack of gum.

The other place is TerraPass, which I actually noticed from seeing a bumper sticker on the back of someone’s car. TerraPass is, to quote Wikipedia (told you I was lazy), “a social enterprise that provides carbon offsetting products to individuals and businesses. …Terrapass uses proceeds from member purchases to fund greenhouse gas reduction projects such as wind farms and methane digesters.” Basically, you can calculate your carbon footprint (for example, driving 8,000 miles per year in my Honda Civic EX has a footprint of 5,397 pounds of C02), then purchase a “carbon offset” based on that amount. As stated above, they take that money and put it toward alternative energy production, tree planting (trees take in C02 and give back oxygen), and pollution cleanup, all of which is calculated to offset the C02 that the car puts out. You can also buy offsets for things like air travel and home energy usage.

To insure they’re not just taking the money and running, they’re independently audited according to standards established by the Center for Resources Solutions (www.resource-solutions.org), and the audits are available on TerraPass’s website.

Now I understand that some consider this to be a bad thing, encouraging irresponsibility that can simply be purchased away and throwing money at a problem that should be solved by behavioral change. While I do see the point to this argument, isn’t the fact that people are doing SOMEthing rather than nothing helpful? Being willing to make a monetary sacrifice for environmental causes constitutes a shift in one’s mindset, which I would argue is likely to lead to other shifts along those same lines. The point is, it gets people thinking about it, and the money certainly does go to good causes. The more money spent on alternative energy sources, the more corporate interest it draws, and the greater the chance of those sources being developed further. Besides, you’re going to take that trip to Vegas anyway, right?

So there it is. I’m not saying you have to do these things. I’m still looking into them, myself, after all. But if you’re looking for ways to create a little environmental change, there you go. Two ways to be a little more environmentally conscious, along with bringing your own reusable bags to the grocery store, replacing your light bulbs with compact florescents, and turning your computers OFF when you’re not using them (I really don’t understand why people leave them on all night, anyway.) I also recommend limiting your useage of “Li’l Lisa’s Patented Animal Slurry.”

I shall now get down off my soapbox.

Michael G. Munz
www.michaelgmunz.com

Why Hyperion: The Movie Worries Me

April 8, 2008 By Michael G. Munz 2 Comments

Hyperion: The Movie.

Yes, that’s what I’ve recently heard (or, more accurately, heard a while back, forgot when the news bore no fruit, and then heard again recently with renewed momentum). As someone who counts Dan Simmons’s Hyperion Cantos among his favorite books, I meet this news with a mix of excitement and dread…but frankly a lot more of the latter.

Let me step back a moment. I first read Hyperion in college when a friend passed it on to me, mentioning his awe of the story (and also, frankly, just how damned cool the concept of the Shrike was). I was soon reading this Hugo Award-winning sci-fi novel, eagerly sifting through the pages and searching for not only what would happen next, but also what had happened previously and what the hell was happening NOW. (It’s quite an impressive feat when a writer can give you just enough to fuel your hunger for more information without making you feel completely lost.) What the heck IS the Shrike? Who sent the Time Tombs back? What is the TechnoCore up to? Where in the bloody @#%&*@! did Het Masteen go?! Pausing only to beat my book-recommending friend over the head with same upon reaching the abrupt-yet-tantalizing ending of Hyperion (How DARE he not warn me?!), I was swiftly continuing to devour the sequel (more continuation, really), The Fall of Hyperion.

A great deal of what amazed me about the book (and the thing that still inspires me as a writer to this day) is the masterful way Simmons weaves the myriad of plot and character threads together so cohesively. The story is epic, and keeping it all straight as a reader–and I say this in the best way possible–requires a fair bit of focus. Keeping it all straight as the author must have been an intense task. I would later recommend the book to friends and then, as they related to me their own reading experience, I’d find myself frustrated for not being able to completely recall the part of the book they were experiencing at the time due to its complexity and the years that had past since I had read it myself.

It’s this complexity that fills me with dread. They’re supposed to be making a SINGLE movie out of both Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, and I just don’t see how that’s going to be possible without straining a good deal of the complexity out. Obviously this is the problem with translating any book to the screen. It’s not impossible, if done correctly, but the likelihood that it WILL be done correctly is not (to my admittedly cynical thinking), a large one.

The usual perils a film–especially a science fiction film–must go through in the process of production as executives attempt to dumb it down (“viewers are morons”) are bad enough. (Apparently the humans-in-vats idea of The Matrix was originally conceived of as a big neural network for the computers on which to exist rather than to just use the human body as a battery, but this was changed because execs didn’t think people would get the idea. Unfortunately the battery thing makes no sense. …Then again, a number of other things about those movies made no sense, but that’s a topic for another day.) Hyperion’s labyrinthine (pun intended) complexity necessitates pouring a gallon jug into a drinking glass. How much can be cut for time without making a mere skeleton of what remains? The idea of those with no exposure to the book seeing the movie and going either “I don’t get it” or “This is supposed to be a masterpiece?” frankly bothers me. Remind me to elaborate on that general concept in another blog.

Even splitting it into two films doesn’t seem workable. Granted, this would certainly give the story more room, but I just don’t see a studio signing off on two films when the first one, really, doesn’t end so much as it stops. Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter had the benefit of having such a gigantic audience already familiar with those books that it’s less of a risk. Hyperion, while spectacular, just doesn’t have quite the built-in audience (at least that’s my impression; I’ve done absolutely zero research in making that assertion). Two films would be great, but exceedingly unlikely, especially as they’ve already announced it as one.

Now like I said, it’s not that it CAN’T be done, but it would seem to be a daunting task. Just ask David Lynch why his name isn’t on the theatrical print of Dune. Now there’s another epic sci-fi novel that was done MUCH better in a mini-series format. (Yes, I know, there are those of you who think the mini-series has its problems, but the general consensus seems to be that it’s quite well done, and certainly an improvement over what was released in theaters in 1984…even if Sting is sorely missing.) 😉 I would love to see Hyperion/The Fall of Hyperion done as a mini-series and given enough time to develop. Even the mini-series format isn’t without it’s development dangers (just ask Ursula K. Le Guin), but it’s better than a feature film, at least from a storyteller’s point of view. On the other hand, I suppose I can’t pine for a mini-series when they’ve already announced it as a feature film, so I suppose all this is moot anyway.

So that’s what’s got me skeptical about the whole idea. Of course, it’s entirely possible it’ll be sunk into Development Hell anyway and will never see the light of day. I suppose in Hyperion’s case I’d rather see no film than a poorly done film, but there’s little I can do about it but sit and wait…and possibly reread the books again.

“And that’s all I have to say about that.”

Michael G. Munz
www.michaelgmunz.com