Fantasist's Scroll

Mostly, these apply to fantasy, too.
David Alexander Smith, a member of SFWA, has written a fine article about things to think about and watch out for while writing speculative fiction. Honestly, though, these are all things that any good writer in any genre should be doing. Certainly, writers of speculative fiction (ie. fantasy and science-fiction) have certain special considerations, but, for the most part, good writing is simply good writing. And, that’s what Mr. Smith has outlined in his article, a short list of 23 things to keep in mind while trying to write good fiction.
I know, I’ll be going back to this article on a regular basis!

Today is the birthday of two very important science-fiction writers.
The first is science fiction novelist Philip K. Dick, who was born in Chicago in 1928. He wrote many novels that pushed the edge of science-fiction a little further out, making room for the cyberpunk movement to follow him. Some of his work includes Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, The Minority Report (which is a collection of short stories), We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (another short story collection), and A Scanner Darkly. Since his death in 1982, many of his novels and short stories have been made into movies, including Blade Runner (1982), Total Recall (1990) and Minority Report (2002).

It’s also the birthday of the science fiction novelist Arthur C. Clarke, who was born in Somerset, England in 1917. He’s the author of many science fiction novels, including Childhood’s End, 2001: A Space Odyssey(which was written in the year of my birth!), and Rendevous with Rama. He is also famous for inventing the concept of the communications satellite.

I always love collections of fantasy names.
Of course, I have my own set of fantasy name generators right here, but, sometimes, you need inspiration from other sources. And, frankly, getting fantasy names down so that they sound “right”, but still different and alien, is a big challenge. At least, it is for me. So, that’s why I fell in love with this site: Fantasy Names.
The names are all at other sites, and I don’t think they list mine, but this is about the best collection of links to every kind of name generator, fantasy, science-fiction and otherwise, that I’ve ever seen. If you’re looking for fantasy names, for whatever the reason, it’s worth a look.
Besides, it’s a Friday and if you’re reading my blog, you don’t have anythng better to do anyway, so click the link!

Robert Sheckley died on Friday.
I just saw the news today via BoingBoing, but I felt it was important enough to mention. Sheckley was the master of science-fiction comedy and commentary in a single form. The 10th Victim was one of the best books I’ve ever read, and not just because of the infamous brassiere-gun, and even is credited for spawning the Assasination Game, among other things.
He was a wondeful author and will be missed.

Today is C.S. Lewis’ birthday.
For those of you who don’t know him, C.S. Lewis wrote The Chronicles of Narnia, which has been made into movies and mini-series several times. In fact, just recently The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe has been made into yet another movie. Lewis was a contemporary of J.R.R. Tolkien and, in fact, was part of the same writing group, the Inklings. It was there that the two became fast friends, until their falling out. Lewis, or “Jack”, as he preferred his friends call him, was a convert to Catholicism and became a prolific Christian apologist, penning such gems as The Screwtape Letters, The Problem of Pain, and Mere Christianity. He was a remarkable author and an interesting man.
You can read more about Clive Staples Lewis at the website endorsed by his step-son, Douglas Gresham, called Into the Wardrobe.

This is common sense to anyone in the business.
Honest. When was the last time you tried to find a computer that used a floppy disk? Have you even touched a floppy in the past year? If so, I think you’re in the minority. But, soon it may be true for something that IT Professionals (ie. professional geeks) have most likely dealt with: backup tapes. I’ve lost count of how many different kinds of backup systems I’ve used over the years and you know, most of them only would read tapes from one or two generations back. I wonder how many businesses have their archival data stored on tapes that they can’t read anymore…
But, this article on smh.com.au regarding a coming digital Dark Age might be news to some of my readers here. Or, at least, it might not be something that they’ve really considered. Imagine getting some really interesting, but obscure, documents on a system that you can’t acess. Say, a CD-ROM in the far future. It’s labelled and all, so the finders know what is supposed to be on the disk, but they don’t have a system to read it. What do they do? Thaw out that crusty, old twenty-first century computer geek so he can tell them what to do? Build a new system to read the old storage media? Find an alien to do one of the above? The possibilites for story are almost endless.

This is National Novel Writing Month.
Or, if you’re one of the cool kids, NaNoWriMo. The idea, in a nutshell, is to write a book in thirty days or less. Or finish that monster that you’ve always meant to get around to again. Either way, the goal is a completed novel by the end of the month. Frankly, it seems impossible to me, but the guy who puts this on every year is also the author of No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days, so, maybe, just maybe it’s possible to accomlish.
Well, I won’t find out this year because I’m just in the wrong place to do that, but I may just get the book and read it so I’m ready for next year.
In any case, if you’re feeling up to it, it’s still not too late for you to start. You are a little behind, but you can still make it up. Hit the website and start writing! (And, yes, I wrote about this yesterday at my other blog, Diary of a Network Geek.)

Hmm, I seem to be talking about this a lot lately…
Still, it’s something that is so often done poorly, that I think it warrants a little extra attention. So, while I was looking around for links on this subject, I found the “One of Us Creative Writing Workshop” online where they had an article on Creating Fantasy Worlds. This article, though, was little more than a collection of links to other articles that went into more depth on specific topics. Still, enough of these links seemed fresh and new to me that I thought it was worth posting. One think I did like about this site was the Discussion Forum. It didn’t seem too active at the time, but I think anyone who’s in that very lonely job of writing needs all the socializing they can get!