Michael G. Munz

The official website of Seattle sci-fi/fantasy author and geek Michael G. Munz

Archives for 2008

I made my deadline!

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Okay, so I didn’t make my previously stated goal of updating this thing EVERY Thursday, but I did make my self-imposed June 30th deadline for finishing the first draft of Legacy of Memory. I still need to run it all through my assembled reading group to see what they think, not to mention do a lot of polishing that I see the need for already. There’s a few continuity issues that need ironing out as well, and one or two things I just want to develop a little more.

One example: There are two female characters in LoM, Caitlin (whom readers will recognize from A Shadow in the Flames) and a new character. There are definite parallels between them in terms of a situation they’re both dealing with, and I want to do a better job of contrasting the different paths they take.

One of my readers is currently 2/3rds of the way through it; I did something that surprised the heck out of him and, in his view, upped the stakes for the characters in a way the reader really feels. I love trying to do stuff like that, and it’s a fantastic feeling to know I’ve managed to pull it off.
So there’s an ending now, and I’m even fairly certain (no bets, though) that the last paragraph will remain completely untouched in the editing process. (I’m tempted to quote the whole paragraph verbatim here, since it’s a line of dialogue from a character the reader hasn’t seen talk much that I think really gives an exciting punch to the very end–there will, of course, be a third and final book–but I don’t want to spoil anyone. …Actually, that’s not true, I DO want to spoil people, but I know I’d regret it. But hey, I’m excited about it!)

As for the whole “every Thursday” blog thing, I’m actually having some alternate ideas for just how this blog will be developing, but I’m still working on that. Be sure to check back soon to see what happens…

Michael G. Munz
www.michaelgmunz.com

Writing Update (and Mass Effect)

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Blogging note: I’ve decided to try to update this blog once per week on Thursdays, so be sure to check in every week for writing updates and general geekery!

I’m looking at (let’s see, what day is this?) eleven more days before my self-imposed deadline to finish writing Legacy of Memory (pre-polishing). At the moment, I think I’m doing pretty well. The denouement of anything is always a difficult thing for me to write; having to tie together so many things and give a little resonance to the entire thing without it coming across as cheesy or forced is a challenge.

With the help of a mocha, I just finished the “final” chapter, and have only to write the epilogue. Once that’s done, I go into full editing mode, polishing language, fixing continuity issues, and generally making sure the characters are both ringing true and have made the transition from my brain to the page. This isn’t to say I don’t edit as I go, of course. The way I generally write is to get a chapter down, then go back and massage it into better shape before moving onto the next chapter. There are certain things you can only see once you’ve got the entire thing written, however. It’s both due to the fact that no matter how well you (or I, at least) outline something, it always evolves a little in the process of getting it onto the page, and the fact that it’s easier to see where some small things need fixing once you’ve got it all done and can stand back and view it as a whole.

We’ll see how quickly THAT stage goes, I guess. One of my chief readers is currently in the middle of selling his house, so he’s selfishly slacking off in his critiquing duties. I suppose I can forgive him.

In other news, I mentioned Mass Effect in my last blog. After a quick RAM upgrade (RAM is CHEAP these days!), I’ve been playing through it and finding myself surprisingly addicted. It’s got a great many of the good qualities of two other favorites of mine: Deus Ex and Knights of the Old Republic. I’ve been playing through it this first time Diomedes, reacting as he would (sticking to a plan, motivated by money, and being a general surly hard-ass). It leaves a lot of game branches and dialogue options unexplored, so it gives me a fun way to experience the game while at the same time leaving a lot for a second playthrough with a different (and more benevolent) attitude. No major review from me yet, though.

It’s June, but here in Seattle it still feels like March. At some point I suppose the sun might come out, but I’ll believe that when I see it.

-Michael G. Munz
www.michaelgmunz.com

Terminator 4, and a little Mass Effect

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Geek alert.

A word of warning: This entry will touch on a recent rumor about Terminator 4 that, according to Internet scuttlebutt, may actually be a lot more of an actual spoiler than the insane foolishness that it originally appeared. If you don’t want to be spoiled (though I honestly don’t figure there are a lot of folks out there anymore with enough faith in the series who are both looking forward to this movie AND want to remain spoiler-free), feel free to skip ahead to the last paragraph, which is a short little bit about Mass Effect.

So this rumor/spoiler in a nutshell is this: John Connor dies at the end of the movie (killed by an Arnold-model terminator), and in order to keep the morale of the Resistance up, they take a good cyborg and alter its face to look like John. From what I understand, the good cyborg isn’t actually a terminator but the product of an experiment by Skynet on a previously executed criminal.

Ooookay, then.

Stupid, you say? Gimmicky? A twist for its own sake? Well, if you did say that, I fully agree with you, and if you didn’t say that, then…you’re entitled to your opinion, I suppose. (I know, I know, I’m breaking one of the unwritten laws of the Internet by not hurling derogatory profanity at you or finding colorful ways to suggest where your head might be, but I’m trying to start a trend.)

This isn’t to say that I’m wildly up in arms about this or planning to start some sort of letter-writing campaign to McG. (Side note: “McG?” Really? His choice, I guess.) I wouldn’t call myself a Terminator fanatic, but I do think the first two films hold a well-deserved place in sci-fi culture. I even thought Terminator 3 was passable entertainment that gets a little extra-credit for nuking the world at the end–an opinion which I realize puts me at odds with the large number of the fan base who prefers to think that T3 never happened.

On the other hand, the storyteller in me hates to see this sort of thing happen to any creation. When I first heard they were making a T4 (which turns out to be the first in a planned trilogy) dealing with the fight against Skynet, I was curious but worried. Finally we’d get to see more of the struggle of a human race pushed to the very brink of extinction (as Reese said in T1, “We were close to going out forever.”) against an artificial mind bent on finding new and better ways to kill them. The possibilities just for human drama alone in that premise are fantastic, not to mention the fantastic blockbuster setting of futuristic things blowing up that, frankly, draws a lot more of our interest than some of us would like to admit. No longer would we get glimpses in flashback-forwards (flashforward-backs?), but an entire tale that explains just how the pieces fit together.

The problem is perhaps best illustrated by many fans’ issues with another certain trilogy detailing the fall of Anakin Skywalker: there’s a risk that (at best) things will unfold differently than we’d always thought would be better, or (at worst) the whole thing will fall apart, blow continuity out the window, and just wind up being a product to sell rather than a story to tell.

Ignoring for now the fact that T4 has the additional task of making sure the time travel mechanics of the first three movies, well, work (I’m one of those people who believes that, in fact, they do–perhaps even in spite of themselves, but I won’t go into that here), they also have to make sure to treat the characters and established continuity of the series with some respect. This rumor makes it sound like they thought they needed some big twist (executives LOVE “twists” these days), and, perhaps taking a cue from the Battlestar Galactica folks, thought “OO! Connor’s a ROBOT!” and completely ignored the previous three films’ build-up of Connor as a leader. Essentially it takes the idea of the indomitable human spirit and guts it.

Maybe the movie’s smarter than I’m giving it credit for, but right now this seems rather pointless. Perhaps it’s a bid to throw some drama into things by having robot-Connor malfunction, or have the Resistance’s PR plan backfire when the word gets out that they’re being led by a robot. In another story, maybe that would work, but do they REALLY need to add extra sources of drama when they’re already talking about a story where humans overthrow the concentration camps they’re in, fight a war they’re massively unequipped for, and manage to finally destroy Skynet while having to deal with not one, not two, but THREE attempts to send things back in time to screw them?

James Cameron, who started it all, is no longer attached to the story, and it seems like those currently involved just don’t seem to get it. In an early teaser trailer for T2, we saw an assembly line stamping out terminator after terminator. Maybe T4 and its successors will wind up being well-crafted tales that hold together with the rest to become a true saga, but right now it’s just looking an awful lot like the series has shifted to an assembly line milking brand-recognition that simply and thoughtlessly pushes out product after product.

Maybe it’s just a rumor. Head on over to Ain’t It Cool News* where I first read about this and see what you think.

And now for the promised bit about Mass Effect: The much-praised console space-RPG is now out for PC. I’ve not paid too much attention to it so far (aside from getting a fantastic laugh about THIS), but when someone described it as being “like Knights of the Old Republic without the Star Wars trappings,” I got curious. I’ve only just got it–and really should be focusing more on writing to make my deadline–but look for more musings on my experience with it on this blog soon. For the moment, I can only report that having three immediately recognizable voice actors in the opening, while not good for immersion, is still rather cool. (Carth’s talking to Oz! Okay, more Geek Points™ for me.)

-Michael
www.michaelgmunz.com

*But for the love of all that’s holy, do NOT look at the AICN Talkbacks! On ANY article! They’re just pure concentrated EVIL!! 🙂

I Have Thirty-One Days…

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I’ve set a goal of finishing Legacy of Memory by June 30th.

I almost always blow self-imposed deadlines. (The boss is such a pushover.) Nevertheless, I’m optimistic that this may be one of the times I actually meet one. It will still need a lot of tweaking and polish at that point, but there will at least be a “complete” manuscript with a final chapter.
It’s been slow going recently, and much of that is owed to the fact that there are so many threads to tie together. While A Shadow in the Flames is mostly focused on Michael Flynn’s story, Legacy of Memory is much more of an ensemble tale. Michael has his arc, of course, again caught up with Diomedes, but the former doesn’t even appear in the book until a fifth of the way through. Along with them (minor spoiler alert), there’s Felix and Caitlin, Marc and Marette (both with parts much larger than what they had in ASITF), and Gideon and Ondrea, the latter of whom is entirely new. (And yes, I said Gideon.) Their paths and arcs all intersect in various ways. The Northgate/Moon situations, mostly separate (though distantly connected) in the first book are now fusing together in what I think is a quite exciting way. Pulling that off, especially with so many people and agendas smashing up against each other, has been a challenge, so I’m taking my time.

It’s not that I haven’t outlined where things ought to be going, of course. It’s just that fleshing out the details once I’ve written to particular points on the outline isn’t always as easy as I imagine it. It’s a fun challenge, though sometimes maddening. (Once or twice I had a plan for how something would play out that looked just fine in outline form, but when I got down to writing it, I immediately realized it just wasn’t going to work, and it was back to the drawing board.) Equally fun and maddening are when I’ve planned for a character to be doing something or reacting to something in a certain way, only to have them turn to me in my head and tell me in no certain terms that there’s no way they’d ever do THAT. Instead they’re going to do/say this other thing whether I like it or not, and if I know what’s good for me I’d better follow THEM thank you very much. Sure, it plays a bit of havoc with the outline, but it’s already made for some more interesting drama.

Then again, sometimes they just have to die. (Insert evil author’s laugh here.)

So we’ll see if I can make the June 30th deadline. Then we’ll see how much needs polishing (and, he said with not small amounts of dread, how much needs a complete overhaul).

In other news, Indy 4’s good, but not great. My thanks to Mr. Spielberg and Mr. Ford for reigning in Mr. Lucas as much as you managed. I may blog more about that if enough people want me to. 🙂

-Michael
www.michaelgmunz.com

Regarding Indy 4…

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(I’ve said that this space is for me to blog about my either my writing or more general geek-related topics. Today deals with the latter…)

Did you hear? Indiana Jones is back! At long last, he has returned as promised after all these years to unite the fans, absolve our geekish sins, and deliver us from the Nazis…or something like that. At any rate, that seems to be how many are viewing the coming release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Some Other Words We Decided Not to Add to the Title. Some look forward to it as if it were the Second Coming, while others, stung by their Star Wars prequel hype disappointment, fearfully await it as if it were a tetanus shot from a one-eyed doctor. People have asked me, “Mike, you’re a geek, what do YOU think about Indy 4?” (Actually no one’s put it in quite those terms, but for the purposes of this blog we’ll just pretend they did.) I can sum up my answer in three simple words:

I don’t know.

But hey, no one likes a summation, especially if it doesn’t really say anything. (Well, okay, political ad-makers do, but that’s a separate topic.) So with apologies to Inigo Montoya, let me explain…

Being thirty-three, I first saw Raiders of the Lost Ark as a kid. It was one of the first movies I ever watched on that amazing new device called a VCR that my dad rented from the store. I can still remember sitting in my living room watching that guy with the bullwhip elude traps, fight Nazis, and have the good sense to stay tied to a pole when peoples’ faces started melting off. (Being an easily scared kid, that whole bit scared the bejezzus out of me, which may be likely why I wasn’t taken to the theater to see it!) Temple of Doom was experienced first as a photo book that I got because I was too excited to wait for the movie. (I also seem to recall finding out later that my family went to see it without me when I was away at a friends’ house. My parents were quite strict on the PG-13 thing, as I recall.) The Last Crusade was, I think, the first one of those films I actually saw in the theater, and I can recall feeling just a bit sad at the end, knowing there’d be no more Indy. (Heck, I even bought that he WAS dead when the tank went off the cliff, knowing it was to be the last film. On the other hand, I’m not always too bright.)

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (okay, I’m NOT typing that out again, so I’ll just call it IJatKotCS for shor–screw it, it’s Indy 4) will be the first Indy movie I’ve seen in the theater as an adult. That alone is cause for, well, pause, at least. How much of my enjoyment of the first three comes from seeing them through young-Mike’s eyes? It’s a common question in situations like these after all, especially since the Star Wars prequels came out and failed to live up to fan expectations. Ever since then there’s been a debate in fan circles about how much of the prequel disappointment is due to that phenomenon versus the quality of the films themselves. Will Indy 4 fail to live up to the first three such that there will be a similar debate about it, or will it be so great as to please (most) everyone and be considered a true success?

For my part, I’m approaching it with a slowly-decaying guarded optimism. There’s a friend of mine who tends to view unreleased sequels with a pessimistic attitude in order to avoid getting herself too hyped up about it. If the movie DOES turn out to be great, she’s pleasantly surprised, and if it’s as bad as she’s expecting, then at least there’s no disappointment. (Plus she also gets the pleasure of being smug.) I usually view that as self-destructively denying an opportunity for happiness; after all, anticipation can be fun, right? But I’ve found my earlier positive attitudes about Indy 4 eroding lately, slipping more in line with her way of thinking. Part of that is due to having heard some negative opinions on what insiders have seen, but part may also be due to my having a greater-than-realized emotional investment in this series. Like my friend, I don’t want to set myself up for disappointment. I want to keep the positive attitude (Spielburg! Ford!), but I’ve also cause to be wary (Lucas!).

And then of course there’s the approach another friend of mine is taking: I believe his exact words were, “If it doesn’t kick ass, I’m going to have to kill someone.” I’d like to think I’m not QUITE that far gone, though. (I recently saw Iron Man with him, by the way, and at the end he happily declared that no one would die today.)

The Indiana Jones series is a curious thing; it’s got a broad following of fans wistfully recalling the three stories that brought adventure to life under the brim of a fedora, and yet there is so little out there BUT the movies. If one compares it to that other Lucas/Ford pairing American Graffiti Star Wars, Indy’s few movies are dwarfed by the “expanded universe” of Star Wars, which features novels, comics, animated shows, video games more novels, and twice the number of movies. I should be fair and point out that Indy HAS had video games and the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, but it’s my understanding (and correct me if I’m wrong) that Young Indy is sort of the equivalent of Mark Hamill’s guest spot on the Muppet Show in terms of how much people really care about it anymore. While Star Wars’s expanded universe has taken on a life of its own (a life that some would argue eclipses the films), Indy is just about the movies.

Indeed, Indiana Jones is the epitome of the popcorn movie–and I mean that in a good way. No deep back-story, no nuanced myth arc, no Nazi goons turning out to be Indy’s father, just pure adventure tales with a fun character. There were the good guys, the bad guys, and very little grey in between. Yes, life is seldom so clear-cut, but that’s part of Indy’s appeal. It’s not about the dark questions that torment men’s souls, it’s about fun. You don’t watch Raiders of the Lost Ark to contemplate the human experience that is life, you watch it to ENJOY life.

I suppose it’s for such reasons that we shouldn’t be too disappointed if Indy 4 isn’t absolutely fantastic. It’s not something that’s completing a saga or filling in a part of the universe that we’ve always speculated about like the Star Wars prequels were. It’s not an adaptation of a beloved book that we always wanted to see as a movie and hope to God they do right, as the Lord of the Rings films were for many. It’s just another couple of hours with a character with whom we’ve always had fun. When you see an old friend whom you haven’t seen in a while, do you compare your new time with them against the old days and, should they fail to be QUITE as much fun, chastise them for it? Or should you just be happy you got to see them again?

I suppose I’ll see how well I can adopt that attitude when I see the movie. …I’ll let you know if my second friend has to kill anyone.

Michael G. Munz
www.michaelgmunz.com

A Little Writing Advice…

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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’

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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