What to Expect

Now that The Other Side is published, I thought I'd tell you a little more about it. (Don't worry, I won't tell everything! There are some spoilers here, though, so read on at your own discretion.)

First of all, I have a new cover artist. Her name is Nicole Smith, of Jasper Design Studio. I wanted to try something new for this cover and she was eager to oblige. I think the resulting image captures some of what goes on in this novel.

So what does go on in this novel? Well, first of all, I want to caution you that this one is a little "out there." What I mean by that is that I stretched a bit, I pushed myself a little further than I thought I would.

When I wrote Outsider, I resolved that I would try to avoid certain "cliches" of science fiction. I even had Sean come up with some ideas about space ("purple aliens, flashy spaceships soaring past brilliant planets, glittering asteroid showers") and then I wrote "but he had yet to actually see any of it" because I didn't think any of my characters would. Some writers are able to make the more common aspects of sci-fi work admirably, but I was afraid I didn't have the skill to do so. Because of that, I vowed I'd never have humanoid aliens, gigantic spaceships or a huge evil empire ruling the universe. I mostly managed to avoid those, but I didn't manage to avoid one topic that I didn't think I'd ever approach: alien life.

I guess I should have known better when I had to come up with an explanation for the wormhole construction. Obviously, humans in the near future wouldn't have the capability for such a project, so I just wrote it off as aliens building them. That sealed my fate. I thought I could just ignore the builders, because they were too far away or too ancient, but it didn't work out that way. (Besides, there was the enigmatic Chapter 8 of Another Shot.) After a great deal of struggle, I decided to confront them ... which meant I had to figure out who/what they were.

How many books and movies have been created about aliens? How could I possibly do anything new with the idea? What did I want to do with them? I don't even know if I consciously thought all of these questions, but they were certainly present when I tackled this subject. I can't say I've done anything remarkably different, but I tried to avoid some of the worst cliches. Some of the problems I have with aliens in movies is that they're all humanoid, often cute (or murderous) and easily able to converse with humans. The two species interact with no trouble whatsoever. I realize that this is all creative license and I don't blame the moviemakers because a lot of those movies are entertaining to watch, but I didn't think I could write something like that. I didn't want E.T. or the face-grabbers of "Aliens." I didn't want Superman or little gray beings.

I'll leave it to you, the reader, to decide if I came up with something that works.

I will tell you this: I gave a nod to two of my favorite sci-fi movies in The Other Side, so see if you can find both of the references!

There are a few other things in this novel that I didn't expect when I wrote Outsider, but I'll leave it to you to discover the rest.

I hope you'll enjoy the novel! (If you buy it on Amazon, please be kind enough to leave a review.)

Thanks for reading!

Third Video

Happy Labor Day Weekend! For many of us, it's a chance to rest and recharge our batteries before we launch ourselves back into the labor that helps us pay the bills.

For me, it's been a chance to finally finish my third video! I think I must be the world's pickiest person because I spent a lot of time this morning adjusting transitions and effects. It's a good thing I'm not a movie director because considering how much time I put into a one-and-a-half-minute video, can you imagine how long a two-hour movie would take??

This video is for the third novel in my Penumbra series, In the Shadows. Please share it with friends and family.

Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozZbYu15Q_I

I appreciate your support!

How I Made a Video

I hope you've seen my video for Outsider by now. Please share it with your friends: you can either send them a link, or you can go to Youtube, find the video and click on "Share." Then you can choose Facebook, Google+ or wherever you wish to share it.

Here's the link again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VihpR0pKQXE

I'd been wanting to make a video for quite some time, but I wasn't sure how to do it until I learned about Windows Movie Maker. I threw together a little test video to see how the software works, but I knew I couldn't get away with making a video using others' photos or drawings, so that was my first hurdle.

To solve it, I bought some Crayola markers and cut some sheets of paper into fourths. Each quarter was one of the images. I drew up a little storyboard so I would know what images I needed. Then I drew images on the paper and scanned them into my computer. Since they looked a little raw, I fixed them up using Paint. (This was the most time-consuming process of the whole video.)

Once I had my bundle of images, I imported them into Windows Movie Maker. I arranged them on the timeline at the bottom, and then I began adding effects and transitions. This took a while because there are an amazing number of these available! At first I only used fades, but then I began experimenting with dissolves, peels and other effects. It was kind of fun. (The most important thing I learned was to Save Project, so I could save my changes but I didn't have to finalize the video.)

Then I hit another snag: what music to use? I knew I couldn't use someone else's music any more than I could use someone else's images, so I was stuck. (I had some music lined up but couldn't use it because of copyright.) Fortunately, Youtube has free music available in their Audio Library, so I spent quite a bit of time going through that until I found something I liked. Actually, I found two songs and it took me several play-throughs before I could pick one that fit better with the video images. (I chose "Warrior Strife" by Jingle Punks. Great band name!)

Of course, the song I wanted was too short, so I had to paste it in there twice, cut off the excess and add a fade at the end so it didn't just end abruptly.

Then, after some hesitation, I pressed the "Publish" key and there was my video! I still had to upload it to Youtube, of course, but that wasn't so bad after the whole process of creating it.

In a way, this process was a lot like publishing Outsider itself. I created the story, spent a lot of time to format it the way I wanted, and then had to have the courage to press "Publish." I'm glad I did, in both cases.

I might make a video for Another Shot, but I think it will be a while before I have that much spare time, so don't hold your breath.

Thanks again for your support!

Science Fiction Movies

I just read a rather bitter opinion piece about how "Star Wars" ruined the sci-fi genre. This is of course precipitated by the release of the first teaser trailer for the upcoming movie, Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Here's the trailer:

Here's the piece: http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/02/opinion/beale-star-wars/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

I have to disagree with Mr. Beale. One movie franchise is not going to ruin an entire genre. True, it might make some people believe that space opera is the full extent of science fiction and that's a shame, but does it RUIN the entire genre? Of course not. I'm actually encouraged that Hollywood continues to try science fiction of various types. Like every other genre, many of those movies will be forgettable mush, but there will always be that occasional gem that makes people notice and maybe even convinces them to try reading a few books in that genre.

The editorial is about movies, however, so we'll stay with that. Mr. Beale says that the Star Wars franchise has created a "template" for science fiction movies: "lots of whiz bang, plenty of quirky alien characters, CGI to the max, plenty of explosions and little thought of any kind." While I agree that these aspects are present in some science fiction movies, let's take a step back. Aren't these aspects (minus the quirky alien characters) present in the majority of movies out of Hollywood? Are all the genres ruined every time a movie with action and special effects appears? No, because they're MOVIES. Hollywood producers aren't stupid: they know there has to be action to keep people's interest. There have been exceptions, but those certainly aren't normal. I agree that there should be more than a "little thought of any kind," but again, we're talking about Hollywood. They're trying to make money, not necessarily quality.

I'd like to suggest to Mr. Beale that if he doesn't want to see the next Star Wars movie, he shouldn't see it. But he needs to be more patient: don't write off the whole genre yet. Science fiction is just like every other genre in one respect: there are going to be good movies and bad movies. It's usually pretty easy to tell if an upcoming movie has any interesting thoughts to go along with the action, so wait for the right one. (While you're waiting, try picking up a book.)