A great post of one author's writing process: Antony Johnston

I thought to link to the wonderful blog of Antony Johnston, writer of many comics and such, whom I've reviewed on this site before (Wolverine: Prodigal Son), and is also the writer on the comics: Wasteland [which I keep meaning to pick up], the Dead Space: Extraction adaptation, and current co-scribe on Daredevil.

He recently talked about his writing process, discussed what works for him, adding great snapshots to his post of everything from his hand written notebooks, to his transferal of notes to his Mac, then his outlining and drafting, which differ according project-to-project.

Although every writer must find the system that works best for them, whether it is the random scrawling of those who do not outline, or the painstaking detailed approach that works for others. As an editor, and sometime writer myself, I am always intrigued by stories of other writers' processes.

Here's the link. Enjoy.

this might be the my notebook/journal/notepad of the future.

The news of the upcoming Microsoft Courier digital journal, as reported by Engadget, looks to me to be the journal of my future. 

The compact clean display and fact that it is a text recognition, stylus-enabled device is right up the alley of this old school journal writer.

The ease of writing, looking things up on the web, and writing into web address bars -- with the stylus instead of a keyboard, is really, really neat.

The videos on the engadget site look amazing. The ability to use streamlined multi-tasking feeds which can coordinate with your personal or business contact list, it also allows you to share "virtual journals" online and coordinate both visual as well as text elements, integrated with ease. That looks perfect for this guy.


Check out the above link for amazing creative use videos and if you hear of this item's release sooner rather than later, please shoot me an email.


Did I mention it'll also act as a Microsoft e-reader? Sweet.

And so it goes...

Just had a thought to not think too hard about what to blog about and to just do it.

I am at my desk at home, little James is in his room next to mine sleeping quietly, and the lady of the house is in her subterranean lair at the forge.

I have some Band of Horses playing and I'm working on the 2011 King calendar. Editing mostly, and some writing as well. It's all good for a cold Saturday afternoon.

Watched RocknRolla last night. Eh. Not bad, but certainly not Ritchie's best work. I have to see the new Sherlock Holmes soon to see what all the hubbub was all about. He does love to create crazy tough hitmen, those two Russian guys were crazy bad ass (although not as tough as Bullet Tooth Tony).

Anyway, work is good, and I've been reading a bunch which is one of the pluses of my express bus commute. By the way, waiting in the rain or snow for bus to arrive -- not so much an advantage of bus travel.

Excited that the SyFy channel is playing a sort of marathon of King-related movies and mini-series tomorrow. We've planned to use it as creative inspiration as we sort out essays for next year's calendar. A good weekend indeed.

Also, I started my writing fiction project (read more about it here). I rec'd my Moleskine notebook and I've started filling it with bits of scribbling and doodles. Maybe I'll show a sample here soon. Is it any surprise that the first bit of writing is entitled, "Snow"? Life in New York this month has been about little else.

Back to the keyboard--

A Creative Endeavor in a new Journal.

In an attempt to start the new year off right, and because I feel I don't have enough on my plate these days (ha!), as I made my rounds through my favorite websites last night I returned to the blog dedicated to the legendary Moleskine notebook, Moleskinerie.

While on there reading through recent and older posts, I found an interesting post about an initiative by the Art House Co-op in Brooklyn. And I signed up. Here's a quick quote from the Molskinerie website:

Exciting update from Shane Zucker at the Art House Co-op:
"(Our) latest Sketchbook Project ended up with 3,600 artists participating in it! ...We just launched a new project called The Fiction Project which focuses on telling a story through writing and art, with the Moleskine being the vessel. Each person will receive a randomly assigned theme and a ruled Moleskine Cahier journal to create a work of fiction in. In the end, each book will be included in the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Art Library..." 

You can read more about it, here. Note that there is an $18 contribution fee, but they do send participants a small Moleskine notebook to use and it is for a good cause. Also there are samples from a previous project displayed on the site - and they are pretty cool looking.


Anyone who knows me, knows I've been a life-long journal writer. Even as technology has progressed, and despite the fact that I've even entered the blogosphere, I always found solace and release writing in the pages of my various notebooks. This is something that will always be a part of my life.

This Fiction Project sounded like a great way to be creative and be part of more than my pile of journals dating back to high school. I loved the permenance of the idea, the notebook I create becoming part of a permanent collection, helping to build the Brooklyn Art Library's collection.

If anyone else reading this decides to participate, please email me, I'd love to share in the experience, and I will try to give some updates on progress here.

[Edit. note: The photos in this post are not of my own personal notebooks, just images I found on the net to add to this piece. I hope to have journals nearly as pretty].


Carpe Diem!

A conversation about tie-in fiction

The Angry Robot blog just posted a link to a conversation between Mark Charan Newton and Dan Abnett, which took place on Jeff Vandermeer's blog. The topic of conversation is the tie-in novel. It is a fascinating read if you're at all interested in this part of sf/f related books.

 

I'm one of those people interested in such things.

Not only because for many years I was responsible for acquiring tie-in books while an editor for the SFBC, and had the pleasure of finding many great reads over the years, which serviced many a fan base of the respective tie-in properties. But also because I'll soon be involved with developing tie-in fiction, which I'm psyched about.

Unfortunately there is a stigma associated with this type of writing. Some of it rings true of course, as with any work-for-hire work can be "hacked out" by a writer looking for little more than a pay check. But I feel that can be true of any segment of publishing whether it be other categories of fiction, or writing in general. My experience has been that certain authors take this work very seriously and fans of the tie-in property can spot a writer not giving his all.

Dan Abnett, having made his bones writing both comics and fiction on both sides of the pond, makes an interesting point how writing as work-for-hire for big comics companies is something everyone aspires to, and how this is the complete opposite with most tie-in novel work. There is a long history of it being looked down on. And that is sad, because if you're a fan of, say, Star Wars, there are so many more adventures waiting for you in the pages of the tie-ins.

I really enjoyed the post, and comments section, and I'm glad to see people in the field discussing this important part of SF-related writing.

I'll end with one of my favorite tie-in novels, in this case a comics tie-in by the man who wrote the original story in the comics, the legendary, Marv Wolfman. I read and bought for SFBC the Crisis on Infinite Earths novel tie-in published by ibooks, and found it to be amazing.

As a fan, it was incredible to see the story through the Flash's perspective, and the detail really added to the legacy of that infamous DC storyline. I'm sure several fans may have missed this book simply because it was a novel tie-in, but I thought it was brilliant.

As a publishing professional who is about to step back into the ring with tie-in novels, and be involved in their development, there is no greater conversation for me to see taking place right now.

Interesting blog discussion on character, story, action!

Hi friends,

An interesting discussion has just begun by friend and fantasy author S.C. Butler over on SF & Fantasy Novelists site. His post: Give Me Narrative or Give Me Death, starts off an interesting discussion on what is most important to a reader in a book.

Head on over and chime in (I did). I'm aware the conversation and opinions can go various ways, but isn't that the fun of comments and blog posts anyway? To throw in your two cents and see what everybody else has to say?

Talk amongst yourselves.

P.S. New post soon on a fantastic bound galley I picked up last week.

Day One

And so it begins. It is a beautiful day and I was inspired to finally start blogging today. Maybe it was the film I saw last (Dreams with Sharp Teeth), maybe it is the fact that I'm a slacker and have been talking about getting down some thoughts online about my life in publishing. Maybe, just maybe, it's the dead poet in me reawakened and wanting to contribute a verse...
Let me just point out to any prospective reader, that I am not at all technical and this blog will not be perfect, in fact, it'll be far from it. But I learn as I go, and have many friends who will help, so I am optimistic.