On The Table Today

From a creative stand point, it hasn’t been that great a day so far (Though admittedly, the day is young, and I hope to rectify this in a few hours) since the bulk of it has so far been taking up with tweaking and confirming the contents of the script I’m toiling away on. No one can accuse me of slacking on work obligations. Yay!

But novel wise things are going a wee bit slow, which I kind of expected since it’s one of those transitions. I’m about to enter one of the “set piece” chapters where some major stuff is introduced and for me these chapters either go by blindingly fast or excruciatingly slow depending on the whimsey of the muses. It’s a sadistic day in muse land, so I’m still just ramping up to it. I need to close off the previous chapter before I can start on it, and I’m still having a debate as to whether to set in London, as I’d originally planned, or Bangkok Thailand as one of the characters went and said in my head contrary to my expectations.

This happens to me a lot.

The way my writing seems to work is very much in the intuitive sense. While I usually have some kind of rough structure or idea in my head about how the story is going to go, I usually don’t actually get down to the specifics until it’s time to sit down and Write The Damn Thing. When that happens, mostly I just mentally hit the “Play” button on my internal DVD player and watch the movie that unspools in my head, then write it down, frequently hitting the rewind and pause buttons to take advantage of the multi-angle feature and focus on the images my imaginary DVD is throwing at me. Of course, one of the “draw backs” of sitting back and watching a movie I had nothing to do with is the fact that things will be said–or things will occur–that run counter my expectations and then I sit there thinking “Where the hell did that come from?”

Past experience has taught me that trying to force the movie the way I want it is not a good idea, since the movie will play out as it wants to (Or as my subconscious wants it to. Agh. Too many layers…) meaning that if I ignore a particular factor, some consequence relating to it will likely pop up again later in the movie and I am well and truly screwed. I’m sure I’ll get into the swing of things again later, and not have to worry about nagging myself about not having written anything today. Or so I hope…

I’m also taking the time to rewatch Band of Brothers and man, if ever a movie made you not want to join the military and fight for honor and glory, this is it.

The first time I watched it was an overwhelming experience that pretty much demanded I marathon the whole thing. It left me emotionally exhausted and at the same time really, really glad I wasn’t a soldier. This time, I’m being much more leisurely and taking the time to appreciate the little things about it with a ration of 1-2 episodes per day, and it’s making me even more profoundly grateful that I’m not a soldier the second time ’round.

While there is definite merit in the idea that the bonds you form in the heat of combat are unlike any you will experience in the rest of your life, personally I think I can live without it. Especially if it means I don’t have to kill anyone, or watch said amazing friends get blown up in heavy artillery barrages or get taken out by a well placed sniper round.

On second viewing it’s still an amazing experience and a quaint reminder of a time when America was a proud nation universally loved and respected by all. It’s amazing what a few decades can do…

Okay, So I’m A Lazy Writer

It only just occurred to me that while I read quite a lot, I haven’t actually read a novel (Unless you count me rereading Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game a little while ago) in years.

It’s probably incredibly philistine of me to admit it, but for the most part, the majority of things that have influenced my writing sensibilities lately have been movies, video games and yes, comic books. For example, when Neil-O’s 1602 finally came out as a compilation, I devoured that. I’m currently grokking Y: The Last Man On Earth by Brian K. Vaughan in a big way, and when I feel like I want to immerse myself in something inspirational, the only novel I immediately pick up and cruise through is Neuromancer by William Gibson. The other stories are, invariably, Moonshadow a graphic novel lushly illustrated by water color god Jon J Muth and written by J. M. DeMatteis, or else one of the Sandman compilations written by Neil-O, usually either The Doll’s House or The Kindly Ones.

In my defense, I am not a total product of pop culture decay. I have read actual novels and run the gamut of Kafka to Dickens to Miller to Nin to Vonnegut to Pynchon, and of course, Science Fiction wise, the old fathers, Clark, Asimov and Heinlein.

But lately I find myself really attracted to just the weirdness of what guys like Neil-O and what comics in general can do when they get really going, occupying that weird axis between film and literature, since they have words, but are also largely visual. There’s some amazing stuff floating around in there and comics have their own classics that have stayed with me (Like The Watchmen. Puuuuuure geniuuuuuuus…) and it seems like there’s so much cross over going on now it’s crazy. I never thought I’d see the day when the likes of J. M. Stracynzski or Joss Whedon would actually write for comics, let alone Kevin Smith.

But of course, would I even be mentioning I hadn’t read a novel in a while if it weren’t bugging me?

Okay, so maybe it’s time to get out there and actually read a book. Fine.

Any suggestions?

Please Don’t Screw This Up…

I still remember back in 1996 (My first year in Singapore) with my still relatively shiny and relatively new Playstation when I finally got around to picking up what was touted as the revolutionary new next generation adventure game, a little title by the name Tomb Raider. Back then it was getting rave reviews in the press as a pretty deep game and a strong indicator of what kind of evolutionary game play we could expect from these more substantially powerful new systems. The super-realistic graphics looked like this:

Mind you this was when the about to become legendary marketing blitz known as Lara Croft was anything but, and the game was still considered a “serious” game for aficionados who knew what they were doing rather than the “casual friendly” atmosphere that older–and some would say more elitest–curmudgeonly gamers bemoan in today’s video game climate.

But the original Tomb Raider was one hell of a fun game. Graphics which are laughable by today’s (And tomorrow’s impending) standards were still pretty amazing back then, and Tomb Raider did one thing right that few games had managed to accomplish; a sense of wonder.

By that, I don’t mean the novelty of having a girl running and gunning, but the more innocent kind, such as the first time Lara drops through a hole and sees the vast sunken ancient Greek ruins in their entirety, and you realize “I get to wander around in that.” It was exploration at its best, because for the first time, huge environments were yours for the wandering, and the work put into those 1996 graphics was clearly a labor of love. Tomb Raider, purely as a game, was a wonderous thing to play and behold.

Part of that has a lot to do with the original designer, Toby Gard, who at the time was still with Core, the developer of Tomb Raider. His initial idea for Lara Croft was an intelligent, eccentric, athletic archaeologist type who bonded to players because of how capable she was. He wanted the player to like and respect Lara and off-handedly note that she was not half bad lookin’ either.

Eidos, the publisher, had other ideas, and though the game became the darling of critics for its strong gameplay elements, there was quite a bit of buzz over this early female heroine of gaming, and Eidos saw a marketing opportunity that they chomped down on like a rabid dog thrown into a room with a man who has a T-bone steak tied to his leg. Lara became their mascot and she was pimped out to many a magazine, news article and televised appearance because she was a girl, she was digital, and that was incredibly new and shiny.

Strangely enough, at this point, Toby, seeing what had become of his creation, left Core.

Even more strangely enough, each successive sequel became less fun and innovative than the original and soon, Eidos found themselves coasting more off their initial marketing momentum than any great leaps of gaming or evolution, unlike, say, Solid Snake of Metal Gear Solid fame, or the various incarnations of Grand Theft Auto that always got bigger and better. Hm… Creator leaves franchise, franchise starts to bomb. Coincidence?

It got to the point where serious gamers had all but abandoned Tomb Raider completely. It was almost an embarrassment to gamers that Lara still had fame in the eyes of the public when she had been deserted by players years ago. The marketing machine continued with Angelina Jolie in the Tomb Raider movie, which was just so-so, but the real blow, the one that knocked Lara off her feet in recent years has been the one-two combo of a bad movie AND bad game.

Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness is the first and currently only version of Lara on the current generation of consoles, and it’s not a great game. Eidos had hoped it would salvage the dying franchise in the minds of the gamers, but instead merely confirmed to gamers that they Eidos had, indeed, completely lost it. Add to that the new movie Cradle Of Life doing far worse than either Eidos or Paramount had expected and you can practically hear the saws working on the pinewood to hack together a Lara sized coffin.

But wait, there’s hope yet. In recent months, people who still pay attention to these things have noticed this floating around:

Yep. The old girl’s back, looking younger, more realistic, and more reasonably proportioned than past outings. And, in what must surely be killing some people over at both Core and Eidos, alarm about each successive failure to keep Lara’s respect in gamer circles has reached fever pitch, and development of this new Tomb Raider game, dubbed Tomb Raider Legend, has been passed over a developer named Crystal Dynamics. And they’re hoping to have it out by 2006.

Oh, and the guy at Crystal Dynamics working on the new game? Toby Gard, the same one that started this all in the first place and left when he saw nothing but failure in what Core/Eidos intended for his creation. From all accounts, he’s trying to make it a good game again, rather than just a kick start excuse for another Angelina Jolie movie.

I still have fond memories of the first Tomb Raider game. By the time I played the latest version, I couldn’t even bring myself to finish it of my own free will, and it was the demands of the job that forced me to slog through the rest of it. I hope that Toby can bring a little more of that magic back again, as he seems to think it’s time to put more “Tomb” back in Tomb Raider rather than turning it into a big stealth-fest, imitating whatever new genre happens to be hot that year.

Go on, Toby.

Make us like Lara again.

Alberta: Farm Province Or Hottie Factory?

Okay, what the hell is going on?

On the one hand, you have:

Natasha Henstridge

Raised in the little town of Fort McMurray, entirely too blond and statuesque to possibly qualify as a mortal woman. First seen in Species and never forgotten. Someone I was acquainted with in university confessed to having grown up with this girl and receiving the entirely unconvincing pep talk from her that beauty wasn’t everything…

And on the other hand, you’ve got:

Tricia Helfer






















Currently wowing the geeks in the new Battlestar Galactica, this similarly tall, too unreal to be an actual human being is a resident of Donalda, Alberta.

The only possible conclusion:

Cowtipping and drunken potshots at squirrels is the recipe for Goddesshood.

Yay, Breather…

There is a mild ebb in the activity for the script I’m working on, so today at least, it looks like I can resume my normal schedule of goofing and/or writing my novel, which is more or less the same thing as goofing off, but with a tangible word count increase at the end of it.

Today I’m addressing one of those “quiet” chapters. It’s more of an indulgence really (And probably a risky one at that considering the word count cap I have hovering over my head) but one of the things I really think is important in writing any piece of fiction is to allow that breathing space for characters to simply be themselves to let the readers get to know them and like them a little more. It’s one of those things novels have the luxury of being more forgiving with that films often do not.

It’s also a lesson that I was reminded of when I watched Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. While I think that George’s basic rationale of not having one rollercoaster moment after another in rapid succession is sound, I think he failed in the execution. The moments between Anakin and Padme were weak, let down by bad acting that was not helped by bad dialogue. Fortunately in the case of novels, acting is not an issue, so really, if a scene fails, there’s no one to blame except yourself.

I know some writers will argue that everything in a novel must be efficient, streamlined and advance the plot. I only agree with that to some degree. Obviously the plot must be advanced if the damn story is ever to end, but there’s more than one way to go about doing this.

I’ve found that the “quiet” chapters, the ones acquaint the reader more with the characters, don’t necessarily have to be big things (As with Anakin’s premonitions about Padme dying) that serve as a motivation point that has no place in an action sequence, because these are character moments. If done properly (Which is not to imply that I necessarily DO, but I sure try) a the plot can be “advanced” by simply letting the reader understand the personal STAKES for the character.

Like this chapter I’m working on today gives the readers more answers to “Why?” It shows us why the heroine is sticking around rather than leaving, it shows us her supporting character’s increasing doubt about his own abilities and it explains what this situation means to the both of them, showing that there is a personal interest and cost in the consequences to follow.

Or, maybe I’m just blowing smoke outta’ my ass again.

Hm… Speaking of smoke…

Boo Yah

I finally wrote more of my novel, and tracked down the new issue of Edge magazine, The Best Damn Videogame Magazine In The World.

I am at peace and once again feel like myself again.

Time to go load up Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and cruise around to Adam Ant again…

Being Comfortable With Your Voice

I’m talking about your “writing voice,” by the way.

As frightening–and somewhat depressing–as it may be for me to think this now, I’ve been writing professionally in one capacity or another for the last 10 damn years. In that time I’ve broached just about every form of written communication possible, from advertising (Running the gamut from prints ads to radio commercials) to freelancing for magazines (And doing reviews, opinion pieces and not too serious exposes) to writing for television (And corporate videos and even a film script or two here and there) and of course, writing fiction in the form of short stories and novels.

And more recently, there’s this here Blog thing.

I’ve found as the time passed that while I can do all these things reasonably enough to get paid for them (With the exception of getting a novel in print, which still escapes me for the moment) these things are accomplished with varying levels of length and difficulty. Though for the most part, they fall into two categories which are, unsurprisingly enough, work and play. It’s the actual qualities and definitions comprising these two categories that surprised me.

Work

Is, by the far, the shorter of the two categories and at the same the harder. While it’s true that writing ad copy, or a script for a half hour television series is nowhere near the marathon of nursing a novel for a year or two, I find it much harder for a few reasons. Of course one is the educational aspect, but that’s also a positive. Usually (As is the case with the script I’m writing now) I come in with only the vaguest familiarity with the topic, and have to do a lot of homework to get up to speed, learning a lot in the process. The tricky part comes in weaving all that information and doing it in something that is NOT my “voice.” I’m usually (In real life as well as in writing) snide, cynical and ready to make fun of anything at a moment’s notice. While that sounds good coming from a cynic, or a character in a story, it doesn’t play out so well coming from the mouth of an attractive presenter who’s supposed to be endorsing whatever the subject is, and so, an enormous amount of restraint is involved.

It’s good practice in one way, because you don’t want all your characters to sound the same, but it isn’t easy.

And I often find myself surprised by the fact that even though the demand for volume isn’t there, sometimes I will sit there scratching my head wondering how to say something and fill up just a few sentences here and there, or what amounts to just several seconds of dialogue. It’s a good challenge, but a train twisting one on occasion.

Play

Which sometimes crosses over from “Work”.

Some of my work actually makes into “Play.” Like pretty much anything I do for GameAxis constitutes play since they encourage me to be snarky and the topic is something near and dear to my heart anyway, namely games, DVDs, comics and movies. Writing this sort of thing is a snap, since it’s not unlike writing for the blog in that I just say what I think. Out of all my play writing, this one is the second easiet.

The Blog is of course the easiest, period. No restrictions, and the ability to rant to my heart’s content makes this thing a breeze to fill out since I have so many rants to at my beck and call. Whether anyone reads it or enjoys it is another matter entirely, but some things you gotta’ do for yourself, and this blog is for me as much as anyone reading it since I want a record of the last few years to look at in the vain hope that I’ll be able to wax nostalgic about my “struggling days” at some point in the future when I can call myself a novelist.

Stories like novels and shorts are weird, because while they definitely constitute play and let me stretch my imagination in ways I had not previously imagined were possible, they are also the hardest of my play writing and there are moments where they are No Fun At All, and I wonder why I even bother, but just lower my head and keep pushing on anyway. Sometimes there are those “Magic Hours” where the muse is riding piggy back and everything comes out so fast I’m convinced this material isn’t mine and I’m merely taking dictation. Other times, I just sit there staring and even a few pieces of dialogue here and there are exhausting. But in the end, the most satisfaction I get from any of my play writing comes from this.

There was a point to this somewhere, but it’s time for sushi. Real sushi, not Mega Sushi.

Mental Note To Self:

Writing scripts for a television program in support of the cosmetics industry when you yourself are A) Male and B) wept with testosterone guilt over Naomi Wolfe’s The Beauty Myth is

Super

Fucking

HARD.

Bah. And here I thought I was going to breeze through this with barely ruffled hair. It’s hard to maintain a cheeky compsure when there’s a little (Or not so little, in fact, it’s Grand Canyon-esque in its baritone thunder) niggling voice in the back my head screaming, “THIS PATENTLY GOES AGAINST WHAT YOU ACTUALLY BELIEVE!!”

Time to put in another order for Ethics, Bob.

We’ve sold out.

Just In Case You’ve Forgotten:

Robert Smith will save the world.

That is all.

Hi There! I’m An Articulate White Man…

More cultural observation…

One of the funky things about Singapore (Which you folks back home will never relate to) is just how special it is to be white here. Keep in mind, the population is pre-dominantly Chinese with Malay and Indian components, and up until WWII, it was a proud jewel of the English Colonial Crown. As a result of that, and the massive foreign investment that goes on here, the white person (Of whom, with the exception of and tourists back packers, are usually highly paid expatriate workers) enjoys an unheard amount of Automatic Respect And Deference. I personally refer to this as The Great White God Complex, in that it is amazing what you can do and get away with if you happen to be white.

Please note for the records, I am not. White, that is.

HOWEVER, on the phone, I sound TOTALLY white, and thus as long as no one can see me, I too enjoy the same benefits and deference as a Real Actual Honest To Gosh White Person (!)

Now being a hermit, I usually don’t get to enjoy the fringe benefits of Phone Caucasian, but on those occasions when I do have to use the phone to interact with someone other than my friends, I am always constantly startled by the results.

Here’s the contrast:

In reality, since my lineage is actually Filipino, my DNA bubbled through the pool in such a particular way that I ended up with can only be described as Generic Asian features. In Thailand, I have been mistaken for Thai. In Japan, I have been mistaken for Japanese, in Hong Kong, I have been mistaken for Chinese and Bali, I have been mistaken for Indonesian. I assume that if were ever to go Vietnam and say “Hey, G.I. Joe, we love USA!” I would also be mistaken for the endearing side kick to an American soldier hero, and in Cambodia, I would probably also pass for local, provided I can lose a limb to blend in with the other land mine victims.

Usually when I walk down the street, I am largely ignored, and–probably due to the length of my hair–it is assumed (Especially in hotel/shopping belt Orchard Road) that I am probably just another fun lovin’, rock n’ rollin’ member of a band, most likely the bass player. It’s the hair, I tell ya’.

If I should actually have to speak, a 100% home grown Canadian mid-western accent pops out that causes the unprepared to temporarily short circuit their neural processors. I can practically see a big sign light up on a local’s forhead when they hear me speak, and that sign reads “DOES NOT COMPUTE”. The normal question I get asked after that is “Where did you study?” Since the only logical explanation for the accent is that I am NOT a band member, but instead one of those crazy local kids who went off to college abroad and picked up the accent inside of the first two weeks of staying there, mysteriously losing an accent that was ingrained over decades of use.

The usual dialogue then goes something like this.

Me: Canada.

Them: Ah, Canada. Where in Canada?

Me: Edmonton, Alberta.

Them: Ah… Dunno that, lah.

Me: (Rolling eyes) It’s east of Vancouver.

Them: (Light of recognition passes across their face) Ah! Vancouver, yeah, many Chinese there!

Me: I’ll take your word for it.

Them: You study there how long?

Me: Thirty three years.

Them: Wah! How old are you?

Me: Thirty Three years.

Them: [Sign appears on forehead, "DOES NOT COMPUTE"]

Ah, but thanks to the magic of the telephone, it’s an ENTIRELY different story…

Today I had to call up a local teahouse in the ongoing research for a script I’m writing (Which I should submit tomorrow and should be furiously writing away on right NOW, but I’m doing this instead…) so I needed to call them up to probe about the possibility of shooting there.

Them: Ni Hao (Which I presume is Chinese for “Hello”)

Me: Hi, is there someone I could talk to there about a possible interview and shoot at your location?

Them: Uh… One moment… SIR… [Phone is badly muffled and voices go on saying "Something-something-Chinese-Something-Something-ANG MOH! (Chinese word for White Man)] Hold on, sir, I’ll pass you to my manager.

New Them: Yes sir! How can I help you?

[At this point I'm staring at the phone thinking to myself, "Being a white guy is The Greatest Thing Ever..."]

Me: Yes, I’m with [Insert television show here] and I’d like to discuss with someone the possibility of a location shoot at your shop and possible interview between our host and someone knoweldgeable about your products. Can that be arranged?

New Them: I’ll see what I can do sir… Yes, I think I have someone you can talk to. I’ll give you the number and you can speak to them yourself, will that be all right, sir?

Me: [Really diggin' this White Guy Thing] Yes, that’ll be fine, thank you.

New Them: I’m glad I could help sir. If you need anything else, please don’t hesitate to call back and ask!

Me: Thank you very much for you help.

New Them: Thank YOU very much for calli
ng! Glad I could help!

It’s moments like this that make me think that somewhere, out there in all the infinite parallel universes of the quantum stream, there is probably another Shoeless Wayne Santos, and he is a famous published novelist adored by millions, and he is white and damn happy about it.

I hate him…