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nzvalley · 3 years

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The Broken Bow Novelization, Part 4

Completing the Mission and a Prolonged Partnership

T’Pol’s Concern and Archer’s Trust

Although the novel doesn’t explicitly describe it as such, it seems that T’Pol’s emotionalism was planned from fairly early on. It’s intimated that there’s something unusual about T’Pol which has made her face disciplinary measures, and that the Vulcans are willing to risk her life and/or mental health for the goal of learning about Human/Vulcan real-time interactions. Other characters up to now have commented on her unusual demeanor, and thought they had seen glimmers of emotions- curiosity, bemusement, joy, guilt, and now Archer (jokingly?) wonders if she is concerned about their safety.

He stepped out to her, and she met him in the middle of the bridge. “We’ll be back before you know it. Have Mayweather plot a course for Qo’noS.” “There’s a Vulcan ship less than two days away,” T’Pol offered. “It’s illogical to attempt this alone.” “I was beginning to think you understood why we have to do this alone.” She paused. “You could both be killed.” He looked up, rather sharply. “Am I sensing concern? Last time I checked, that was considered an emotion.” For an instant-no more- he thought he sensed a flicker of emotion in her eyes, too swift for him to identify it as either anger or regret.

The big difference in the pilot for this scene is that it isolates T’Pol and Archer alone in the ready-room for the their discussion. In the novelization they are on the bridge. There’s also a couple of additional lines in the pilot, about humans having other opportunities to assert their independence.

I’m most curious about the randomest changes. When Archer gives the ship to T’Pol in the aired pilot, he just says “The ship is yours.” In the novel, he says that and then exclaims, “Trip, let’s go!”

After Trip and Archer leave Enterprise on the Suliban ship, in the novelization they see the ship in atmosphere and have a brief conversation about T’Pol. This scene is deleted in the pilot, except for a couple of lines of dialogue, which were transposed into a brief moment where T’Pol and Reed explain why the ship can’t move its position. The book shows a pretty major admission and turning point for Archer.

Archer gazed at the vision of the ship just as it disappeared again in a curtain of blue muck. He saw T’Pol’s face, determined to hold position and give them their best shot, and he silently apologized to her for his snotty remarks. ...

“You’ve changed your tune about her...” “I think it’s changing some,” Archer agreed. “After a whole lifetime of watching Vulcans generalize about humans, seems I was doing the same thing about them. I just took it out on her.” He found a sheepish little grin and bounced it off Tucker. “I think I’ll stop now.”

When the bridge team successfully identifies and apprehends the shuttle, T’Pol indulges in a moment of camaraderie with Hoshi. This is for the brief few moments when they think the whole team returned, before they realize Archer is missing. The pilot shows the first in a long tradition of T’Pol reacting to Archer being imperiled.

Later on, when Archer thinks he’s about to die, after he rescued Klaang and sent him to Enterprise with Trip, he has another long stream of consciousness about T’Pol.

A few minutes here, a few there... if Trip Tucker or Reed were in command, this would never work. He had left T’Pol in charge. A Vulcan- the bane of his life- was going to make sure his plan was fulfilled. T’Pol would stick to her line of demarcation and do the logical thing. She would know there was no way for him to be found in this maze, no way for them to infiltrate, to risk a half dozen lives on a rescue mission into the guts of this aggregate, which was breaking up. She would make all the right arguments, shout Trip down, over-British Reed, deal with Hoshi’s shrieks of protest, and she would finally seize the command Archer himself had confirmed. She would take the ship out of this mess, and Klaang, and she would succeed. Not a bad legacy, Dad, for you or for me.

We see Trip and T’Pol argue about rescuing Archer. Trip wants to return, T’Pol wants to stick to his plan. In this instance, and going by Archer’s internal monologue, T’Pol is reading Archer correctly. Trip is lost in his emotions.

There’s another random change with this scene; in the pilot it starts with Trip telling T’Pol to turn the ship around now, while in the book it starts with T’Pol’s the line of dialogue right after that. The scene in the pilot is also half the length, ending after “that’s a specious analogy” and Trip’s response. It’s chopped up and is made to seem like some times has passed. In the novelization, there’s just a few seconds.

Once T’Pol starts to be spontaneous, though, she surprises everyone.

“Mr. Tucker, we’re going to plan B.” Tucker swung around. What had changed her mind? Why would a person who claimed to be ruled by logic suddenly whip around to a completely crazy plan of action? Who cared!

There’s a bit more to the scene after they get Archer back, Trip goes full tattletale.

“T’Pol wanted to leave you behind! Archer steadied himself with a hand on Tucker’s shoulder. “She wanted to. Notice she didn’t act on what she wanted. She acted on what she could do.” He drew a breath of life and actually laughed. “Trip, old man, I believe I can work with that!”

Final Scenes

A random change the the final scene between Archer and T’Pol. Before T’Pol says “Perhaps you should add pride to your list” the novelization describes her as raising her chin “in that way she had.” So not just reporting the action, but connecting it with her habits. But in the pilot she just stares ahead before the line. But either way they are fully united for the first time since meeting, ready to begin one of the most important partnerships in galactic history

Finally they understood each other. It felt good to be on the same page. (p.239)

There’s also a moment not in the aired pilot, at the tail end of the scene, where T’Pol’s satisfaction with the situation shines through.

They stood together in companionable unity for a few moments as the ship streaked along at its new high-warp cruising speed. “Will you join me on the bridge, Sub-Commander? he asked, and gestured toward the door. “We have some good news for the crew, don’t we?” “Captain,” she said with a lilt, “I will be honored to assist.”

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 |

#Star Trek #Star Trek: Enterprise #Broken Bow #T'Pol #Jonathan Archer #Diane Carey #Broken Bow Novelization #Trip Tucker

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e-louise-bates · 4 years

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Talk about the Netflix adaptations of Narnia has resurfaced again, and it’s made me think about some of the things I would desperately love to see in it.

1. NOT MIDDLE EARTH LITE!! There is this weird but pervasive notion out there that Narnia is some sort of weaker, less thoughtful, shallower version of Middle Earth. This is so, so far from the truth. Narnia follows it own rules, forges its own path. (I suspect this is tied into the “it’s so popular it can’t really have depth” notion that plagued Lewis even throughout his lifetime, even with his apologetics, as though the ability to take deep truths and translate them into something accessible for everyone isn’t a rare and precious gift.) I want to see the untamed-but-safe aspect of Narnia, as well as the places where maybe it isn’t so safe. I want to see a world that is a blend of medieval and ancient myth. I want to see richness of color, of texture, of JOY. Peter Jackson’s Middle Earth is a beautiful thing, but it is not Narnia, and it is doing both a disservice to try to imitate it. Let Narnia be its own world.

2. Tie it into medieval cosmology, but subtly. Okay, this one is a little abstract. I read Michael Ward’s Planet Narnia years ago, and I went into it a firm skeptic, and came out seeing that even if each book wasn’t deliberately tied into one of medieval cosmology’s planets the way Ward depicted, they could be read in that way without doing violence to the text, and oh, what a rich layer of meaning and beauty that adds. Please, Netflix, get a medieval scholar on your team and let them loose on symbolism, it would be AMAZING.

3. More myths! Here’s another area that many people tend to misunderstand what Lewis was doing in Narnia. They take the “JRR Tolkien thought Narnia was a sloppy conglomeration of myths” idea (which isn’t even exactly true) and run with it, acting as though Lewis simply couldn’t be bothered to come up with his own mythology. No, no, no. Lewis had come to see (through Tolkien’s arguments, no less!) all myths as pointing toward the “true” myth of Christianity. So why would he not include them all in Narnia, to show how many different facets come together to show a beautiful image of truth? And when we look at it in that light, well, we have no need to stick to only the myths Lewis himself knew and loved. We can add in myths and mythological beings from all around the world.

4. Well done cultural representation. Regarding point 3, we do not want cultural appropriation, please no! So, if we want to do myths from around the world, we need representation as well. Just as Rick Riordan has done with his Rick Riordan Presents, giving POC opportunity to share their own myths with their own voices, I would love to see POC behind the scenes as well as in front of the camera, having input into how the myths should be used as well as being seen. Narnia belongs to everyone, and we should show that! I have ideas of some ways that I think could be done well (a Polynesian-influenced Lone Islands is one of them), but I would much rather see how the cultures to whom those myths and traditions belong want to see them used. Because I have blind spots, and something that I think could be great could actually end up being hurtful to the people of that culture.

4b. Staying true to the spirit of Narnia without being slavish to descriptions. Look, Lewis never once complained that Pauline Baynes drew Lucy with brown hair when he described her as golden-haired, so even he wasn’t as fussy at one might expect. Lewis thought in images, and those images were generally a representation of a particular idea or feeling. (Which, I believe, is why you get Mrs. Beaver with a sewing machine--it’s meant to evoke a feeling of homeliness, comfort, and peace, even though technically a medieval society wouldn’t have had sewing machines yet. Again--not sloppiness on Lewis’s part, rather his way of painting pictures for his readers.) So then, why not an Indian Jill Pole? Or a black King Frank and Queen Helen? Or a black Ramandu and Star’s Daughter? Or half a dozen other characters that I haven’t even thought of? Not “diversity for diversity’s sake,” but genuinely looking at the stories and saying, “how can we show that Narnia is for everyone?” Again, Netflix would need to consult with people from various cultures to make sure they are being represented in a way that is helpful, not harmful, but I honestly believe that this would honor Lewis’s vision of Narnia MORE than sticking so closely to book descriptions that there’s no room for imagination.

5. Additional storylines and subplots that deepen and enhance the existing stories, rather than altering them. For example, I have been on-and-off writing (most off this last year, I confess) a Silver Chair screenplay which leaves the main storyline intact, but adds a subplot of rebellion in the Lone Islands and an attempt to make Caspian’s cousin’s child the new ruler of Narnia. It gives added tension for the viewer, because they are now wondering if there will even be a Narnia for Rillian to return to or if it will be torn apart by civil war, and it stretches things out, without changing ONE SINGLE THING about the story as Lewis told it. This is all stuff that could have been happening off the page while Jill, Eustace, and Puddleglum were trudging northward. That’s the sort of thing I’d love to see in this adaptation, as well as brand-new, original stories told in-between books. There’s a whole lot of room between Rillian and Tirian, between Frank & Helen and the White Witch, between the Pevensies leaving and the Telmarines arriving. There’s even plenty of room for stories between Caspian’s coronation and his journey east, as well as between his return from that journey and the start of Silver Chair. You could include stories from the Telmarine occupation, but I personally think that would be boring since the Telmarines tries to suppress everything that makes Narnia special, so let’s skip that period.

6. Let’s try not to make the children from 1940s England think and act like modern day teenagers, please. I realize we want them to be accessible to today’s mentalities, but I really, really don’t need another floppy-haired angsty Peter. Or Lucy discovering that she just needs to love and accept herself. Those are not necessarily bad character developments, they just don’t really work with the attitudes and mindsets of the era these characters are from.

7. Joy, joy, joy. Narnia is a land that has a deep thread of joy running through it. It is wild and free, it was born out of song, and it is above all joyful. As I mentioned in the first point, if you try to make it look too much like all the other medieval fantasy worlds out there, you lose its unique flavor. And if you lose the joyfulness that underlies everything, you don’t have Narnia. Oh please, let me see a joyful Narnia.

#narnia #netflix #adaptation #cs lewis #apparently I have a lot of thoughts about this

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aimeesuzara · 5 years

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Questions from Maiana Minahal’s Students in English 272, “Filipino Women Writers”...My Responses

Dear students and readers,

I’m honored that you’ve read my work and are interested in these facets of my life and craft as an artist. I love the challenge of being given questions to write about. So, here goes!

1. What is the best thing that writing, performing, creating, etc. provides you? It seems you have many talents, how do each contribute to the person that you are? What do you love about each?

I’ve combined a couple of similar questions here. First, thanks to whomever has said that I have many talents; I’m flattered. I do believe I was blessed with a variety of areas of interest and natural “talent” that I got to explore and develop in different phases of my life. I even felt split about whether to respond to the questions in writing and using my voice and image (because I love storytelling and the voice).

First, what do I love about writing? And perhaps writing, as opposed to performing or creating other kinds of multidisciplinary art (plays, collaborations with dance, music, etc)?

Writing is most private; it’s also a place for confession because in many ways, it’s hidden, is behind a mask. Writing can be on one hand too analytical, but when it’s the most powerful it can also be magic-making, enabling a metaphor to be developed and breathe, an image to vibrate and have scent and color; a scene and characters to come alive with dialogue, backstory, and motivation. It’s a place of invention, slower invention that has no immediate impact except itself on the page - as opposed to live performance which is more of an improvisation and collaboration together with an audience.

Performance, then, is that other thing; I believe performance happens on the page, in that invention, as well, but if we’re talking about performing on the stage or at a microphone, it’s a collaboration among many elements: space (architecture, weather), time, other people / audience, circumstance. It’s also very natural, an ancient throwback to the griots and oral historians and singers and spiritual leaders making incantations...it predates writing. The body is a vessel with so many faculties, and this is the most exciting set of possibilities. Should this line or this word be whispered? Yelled? Projected on the body? Who is my audience when I perform? Are you my audience? Is my audience in the past, present or the future? Am I in the past, present or future? What am I able to bring to life right now, and even co-create with you a new circumstance within the present moment? In theater and in poetry, even if it’s the same exact play or the same poem, each rendering is unique. Did someone laugh at a different part? Did someone cry? Am I feeling the spirit of my grandmother that day? Or my future child? Also, the voice is vibrational. There’s a way in which, when we perform, we are contacting others through the voice, through the heat of our bodies; we share a space and time that never occurs again.

Creating multidisciplinary work - I’ll differentiate as projects that are collaborative, that may involve production elements such as video-poems, dance theater, or collaboration with musicians and filmmakers: this takes the Performance and the Writing to another level. Now, let’s add other people who are experts in their own fields: choreographers, dancers, composers, emcees, filmmakers. I have had the opportunity to work with a variety of these, in making projects such as a “Tiny Fires” poem collaboration (click for excerpt) with San Francisco State University’s Dance Theater, in which my poem was translated into choreography and the dancers learned all of the lines; a recent collaboration with Alayo Dance Theater called “Manos de Mujeres” in which I researched, interviewed and wrote about the lives of Cuban Women and the dance company danced and choreographed to my words; a recent project called “Water and Walls” (click to watch) in which we all wrote verses to music about a shared theme and a filmmaker worked with us to produce a video. These are all exciting ways for the writing to live and breathe and thrive in different ways, through different mediums. When it comes to plays, I do not even perform in the work, but get to see talented actors bring the stories to life, with directors at the helm and production crew helping execute a vision. It’s like giving birth...and seeing someone grow up beyond you, doing things you could not do...

2. What are some influences on your poetry/work? (I reworded this one somewhat; I hope it is still fine!)

I think I’ve answered some of this in the above, in a way. I am influenced by many art forms, and can’t see it any other way. I’ve never sat well with only poetry or only words, which can be limiting, and often, as referenced earlier, can become too cerebral. Words are meant to be released, like songs are meant to be sung. I am influenced by my early exposure to playing piano and dancing ballet, and later playing percussion and dancing West African and Afro-Cuban and Salsa and a slight bit of Filipino movement. I am influenced by the work I love to watch - other theater-makers, poets, dancers. Music influences me deeply, and often I hear poems come to me like strains of music, with melodies and rhythms. The natural world influences me. And history. As you have seen in my book, I can get nearly obsessed with history. The way it was written, the way it omits, the glimpses it gives us into the minds of people. Who is heard and who is not; who is rendered silent in the writing; who needs to be heard, if even in imagination. History excites me and leads me to get possessed. Lastly, change-makers and activists, because I came out of that. I first wrote most fiercely and performed my first spoken word poems because I wanted to tell the story of a little girl, Crizel Valencia, who died at age 6 of leukemia after growing up on a toxic wasteland left by the United States military. I lived in her community and in her home and we drew together. When she died, after making dozens of drawings of herself envisioning her community and her own survival, I felt possessed to write, and speak. So, spirits influence me too.

3. About the book, SOUVENIR: What was the inspiration behind the layout and style of your poems? For example, the use of different fonts and inclusion of outside texts like in your poem "Manifest Destiny 1980." I really liked how you wrote and organized your book by using exhibits (like in the museum, there's a story for each object or subject) I find it very creative. What gave you this idea or how did you think of it?

Each poem definitely has its own inspiration, but I can focus on the one you mentioned, first. In “Manifest Destiny 1980″ I was basically writing parallel realities - one in 1980 (my own personal story of migration across the country) and the one in 1803 of the Lewis and Clark Expedition - both which moved from East to West. In mapping out my own family’s road trip from New Jersey to the small Tri-Cities (Pasco, Kennewick, Richland) towns of the Pacific Northwest, where I remembered growing up with stories about Lewis and Clark and Sacajawea, I found that we followed similar route as Lewis and Clark. But, while our trip and our experience was about immigrants and their daughter adjusting and assimilating to White America, Lewis and Clark went to study and exploit the knowledge and resources, and the environment, of Native people. We were subjected to being analyzed and studied and ostracized; they were, as well, but in the end were in the position of power linked to the destruction and removal of local people. The parallel in the layout was meant to enable the two readings (top to bottom) and also one interrupting the other.

As for the exhibits: as you probably know, the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair (Louisiana Purchase Exposition) celebrated the 100-year anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase, which followed the Lewis and Clark Expedition. In the 1904 Fair, Filipinos were displayed in living exhibits, forced to re-enact rituals (at far too many intervals, unnaturally, for show and even competition), eat, sit, and interact in the public eye, as the living conquests of the US Imperialists. I realized that so much of our lives was and is performance as well - my parents needing to demonstrate their ability to work and function within the American context; my striving to fit in, disappear, or perform as the rare Filipino girl in often non-diverse environments. Without being too literal, I was interested in how we can see our lives on display, and what is lost or gained in that performance. And objects - what are the objects that are collected as treasures of war - including our own bodies?

4. In the poem, "My Mother's Watch,” did that situation really happen to you? If you do go back to the motherland regularly, does the profiling still happen to you today?

Yes; that poem is actually pretty true to life. I wouldn’t have called it “profiling” in that I think that term carries meanings of power within a racist context such as the United States. In the Philippines, it was more of curiosity, more of realizing that you could never really “go back” in a way that is simply nostalgic or “authentic” -- that once the departure from the homeland, and the living within the United States context occurs, we may appear similar in skin and features, we may be 100% the same as our relatives in some ways, but we are not because we have lost our native tongues, or cultural norms, or gestures. And also - that I felt so much bigger and taller than other Filipinos speaks to the fact that many of our own relatives or people just like us back “home” had access to fewer resources and nutrition, whereas we were able to grow up on milk and in my case, packaged and microwaved foods. Even in our bodies, we are altered forever. There was an article/ interview about this poem here that may be of interest: http://www.lanternreview.com/blog/2011/05/31/process-profile-aimee-suzara-discusses-my-mothers-watch/

5. What was the hardest part of the book to write?

The whole thing was hard to write, but it was actually harder to write the “colonizer”/white man/government/military and scientific voices because they were so emotionless at times, so declaratory, and in many cases, so condescending, if not overtly racist. To dwell in the language in which Filipinos were called “niggers” and “rabbits” and that torture of Filipinos seemed to be so much fun; or that Native and Filipino and Black people’s skulls and genetics were inferior (according to the scientific racism of the time); and also that so much of it seemed to ring true to today. It’s much easier to write personal narrative, lyrical narrative.

6. What do you hope for readers to remember the most?

I hope that readers can see themselves reflected in the glass of the museum exhibits. That regardless of their background, they see how Filipino-American History is American History and not some niche piece of history, but actually demonstrated some of the most egregious cases of scientific racism and exploitation, the epitome at the end of the 19th century, of colonialism and imperialism. I hope readers check out more of the history, and also reflect on themselves and where they come from.

7. What is the most nerve wrecking thing about becoming a mother for the first time? (Congratulations by the way!)

I put this at the end because it feels, in a way, like a bonus question, but also something very relevant to our lives as artists. Becoming a first-time mother involves putting everything aside - my writing, my teaching, my projects - in service of my health and the health and protection of the child I am going to birth. I have birthed many other things: projects, plays and poems, but a human being -- this requires the most sacrifice and faith I’ve ever had to summon. At the same time, I think it’s very important for you, readers, to know that as artists, our lives are our art, just as art is our life. We never stop being one or another (people, mothers, playwrights, performers). If I believed I would stop being an artist, I could despair, but if I were to stop being an artist, what kind of mother would my son have? He deserves my full self. So, while our time becomes more limited and we have to focus on the child, we do not lose ourselves; we simply change.

Thank you for your interest and I hope you’ve enjoyed my answers!

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bunnyadvocate · 6 years

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An Unauthorised History of /r/visualnovels

As communities age, a mythology tends to build up around their origins, with past eras vaguely alluded to as “golden ages.” I’ve seen this happen with reddit’s /r/visualnovels, a place I moderated during its most transformative stage, so I thought I’d offer my insider’s take on its history: what we’d hoped to achieve as moderators, the unintended side-effects of our policies, and why I think /r/visualnovels is stagnating these days. Given my acrimonious departure from the subreddit, you should take this with a grain of salt, but hopefully it’ll be interesting~

The Birth of /r/visualnovels

The very first posts on /r/visualnovels.

/r/visualnovels was founded in late 2009 by /u/Hpdarkman525 (the former account of /u/gambs), who made one post about the upcoming Umineko ep5 fan translation and then promptly forgot about the sub. At this time, the VN fandom consisted primarily of those who had learned Japanese to read VNs, and those who wished they had. Official localisations were almost non-existent, and the fandom hung off the words of the few fan translators. Knowing about VNs felt like knowing a secret, like a secret handshake to be acknowledged as a fellow western otaku.

This didn’t really change until early 2012 with the release of Katawa Shoujo. We now had a Western VN that was free, easy to install (no fiddling with system locale), pretty well written (no cliche cries of “baka” or “onii-chan”), and handled a delicate subject (disability and self-identity) with a sensitivity that really spoke to a lot of gamers. The optional nature of the adult content helped attract horny teenagers while still retaining an air of respectability. KS managed something no other VN had: attention from the mainstream gaming crowd. It drew a huge wave of new fans to the medium, among which were /u/coldacid and /u/Kuiper who became mods on /r/visualnovels and began to promote it.

While the influx of new members gave birth to the community, with newbies becoming veterans, the continued dominance of KS in the VN scene began to wear thin (it wasn’t until 2016 that the number of /r/visualnovels subscribers outnumbered /r/katawashoujo). Especially grating for veterans was the cry of KS as “the best VN ever written” from those who had only ever read that one VN. The constant stream of “what do I read after KS” and rudimentary technical questions on getting Japanese VNs working drowned out the rare news posts or broader discussion threads. The mod team had a hands-off attitude to it, they’d only remove spam or blatant trolling. This only changed in early 2014 when a relatively unknown user, /u/insanityissexy, requested a mod position...

The Rise of Insanity

Insanityy was a member of the old-guard, being drawn to the medium for Japanese VNs and caring little for what she saw as a pale-imitation in Western VNs. With no regard for the old mods, she singlehandedly brought order to a community that had been lawless. She began with a ban on posts for technical support questions and VN recommendation requests. Instead, they should be asked in the new weekly questions thread so as to clear up the front page for news posts and more substantial discussion threads.

While this move was broadly welcomed by most of the subreddit regulars, it caused some disruption as activity on the sub plummeted. With the western VN scene so small, news was rare and the number of daily posts dropped from 2-4 to just 1. While some grumbled, others were enthused in having an active moderator who cared about the sub. /u/kowzz started a discussion thread on what we could do to improve activity on the sub, and from that discussion he started the weekly Sunday discussion posts and I started the weekly “what are you reading” posts. Unlike the questions sticky, the intention wasn’t to curtail activity outside of these weekly posts, but to provide a supplement to the usual discussions and encourage users to comment more.

With such regular discussion posts, users started to bump into each other more often and a sense of community began to build. On a personal level, I also grew to know insanityy better as we exchanged dozens of increasingly lengthy PMs (so much so that each reply wouldn’t fit within the 10k character limit, we had to send our replies in 3 parts), with us quickly becoming close friends.

Later that year, I proposed an overhaul of the user flairs. The subreddit only offered a basic vndb icon. I wanted to expand that to hundreds of options with a larger profile picture offset to the side of a user’s post as a way to personalise each user. With enough options, I hoped it’d be easier to identify users at a glance and it’d add some character to the subreddit. I was admitted to the mod team to oversee the flair changes, but was soon upgraded to full mod status after a few months on insanityy’s urging.

The two of us fed off each other’s passion as we sought to build a more active, mature, and compassionate community. We never paid any heed to the old mods, mod policy was discussed between us on google hangouts and implemented immediately.

To foster a sense of community, we aimed to have a community event once a month: best X contests, census surveys, recommendation charts, fanart contests, halloween/april fool themes being among just some of the activities we organised. We even got Mangagamer to sponsor some contests with free VNs.

We downplayed the seedier parts of the medium, nukige news was banned and discussions on “fapping” were frowned upon. Neither of us were against porn, we’re both fans, but we feared it’d attract a more neckbeard-type audience.

We aggressively went after trolls, but not by banning them. We had automod automatically remove comments from users prone to cause drama, then we’d manually approve non-trollish comments. That way everyone was able to participate in our community, but bad behaviour wasn’t rewarded with lots of attention.

In the following year, insanityy asked the inactive older mods to resign. Kuiper recognised that he was no longer needed and respectfully stepped down. Coldacid said his inactivity was only temporary and he’d be back, but later left reddit for voat as part of an anti-censorship protest. Gambs asked us to drop the subject as he didn’t want to step down, so we carried on ignoring him.

We also added new members to the mod team: /u/FunwithGravity for his knowledge of Japanese, /u/Cornetto_Man because he got along with everyone, and /u/Avebone because he was active at times when the rest of us were asleep. They were added primarily to approve posts mistakenly removed by automod when me and insanityy were afk and had little input on mod policy.

Everything seemed to be going great, we had a growing community that we got along with, trolls were few and far between, and our moderation seemed popular. Then we got a modmail suggesting we try out a new chat program called Discord...

Discord on Discord

When /u/Kowzz and /u/Arcanus44 suggested creating a Discord server, we were initially skeptical. It sounded just like irc, and the /r/visualnovels irc channel had been comatose for years. However Kowz and Arc promised to take care of it for us, Kowz would create the server and Arc would drum up interest. So in Sept 2015, Arc hosted a “meet n’ greet” in voice chat on Discord. While it was by most accounts a success and quite popular, we got some complaints about inappropriate conduct by a couple of users and decided that if this Discord server was going to be linked with /r/visualnovels, we’d need to take an active hand in making sure it maintained our standards.

Kowz was happy to have us onboard, making us admins on Discord. It all seemed smooth, but underneath the surface, the seed of turmoil had been planted in our differing beliefs on who owned the server. Kowz and Arc considered themselves the owners and we were partners, while we considered them to have created the server on our behalf and that it’d run on our principles. Up until then, we’d not had any disagreements on mod policy. Me and insanityy would talk an issue out, if we agreed, we’d propose it to the rest of the mod team and vote on it. We’d picked mods who generally thought the same as us, so votes were normally unanimous. That wasn’t the case with Discord. Kowz and Arc had different ideals on how to run a community, and our usual resolution process of voting felt unfair to them as we outnumbered them 5 to 2.

The problem only got worse with time as insanityy hated arguments so she avoided the staff discussions on Discord and popped in only to vote. Arc and Kowz felt increasingly marginalised by this and that their opinion wasn’t being heard. This led to a standoff where Kowz and Arc demanded their 2 votes should count for as much as the rest of us combined, while we /r/visualnovels mods threatened to create a new server unless we kept one vote each. Discussions got heated until Kowz and Arc eventually backed down. In protest, they chose to stop participating as mods.

While Discord helped bring friends together, it also brought those that disliked each other together. It’s easy to ignore someone on reddit as its tree structure allows for parallel conversations, but the format of Discord makes that harder. This started to become a problem on the server, especially as Discord attracted a different type of user to the subreddit, those who had little patience for the more verbose and patient discussions of the subreddit. We got complaints from the subreddit veterans about some of the newbies but we weren’t sure what to do. Being disliked isn’t a bannable offense, but it was driving away some valued community members.

We didn’t want to create a separate server that split the community, so our misguided solution was the creation of a hidden channel: #sub_regs (a.k.a. the fanclub) that was invite only and accessed via the tableflipper role. The hope was that it’d serve as a backup channel for when #general was annoying and that it’d keep the community veterans on the server. However it ended up encouraging an elitist attitude that divided the community further.

The Fall of /r/visualnovels

With many of the friendly conversations and community atmosphere moving to Discord, the subreddit began to suffer. Inside jokes that were incomprehensible to those not on Discord were frequent, and the community split between those using Discord and those not.

There was also a degree of burnout among the mods. It’s inevitable for all mods, you spend long enough dealing with the worst of the community, the trolls and the spammers, and you begin to develop an us-vs-them mentality. You retreat from the community and draw closer to your fellow mods, looking down upon the normal users. We mods gradually stopped being members of the community and instead became overseers.

Then there was my messy departure from the sub in April 2016. Due to a range of factors: financial difficulties, gender dysphoria, and some toxic “friends,” I became deeply depressed and tried to commit suicide. My fellow subreddit mods (and best friend insanityy) decided the best response was to out me as transgender, block me on social media, and ban me from the subreddit I’d loved so deeply. Insanityy never spoke to me again.

The rest of this is speculation, I was no longer an insider, but from my perspective it looked like this event accelerated the emotional distance insanityy felt from the subreddit as she stopped caring about the community. She tried to carry on as normal at first, running a few contests, maintaining the animated banners I’d once made, but her heart wasn’t in it. She resigned later that year.

With her went the desire to innovate, to improve the community. The remaining mods were followers, not leaders. They could maintain some cosmetic updates and copy the old contests, but they were unable to do anything new. They enlarged the mod team with an additional four members, but it only increased the sense of inertia and made it even harder to get anything done. The subreddit began to feel stale.

The mod team had also become unbalanced, where once me and insanityy spoke up for minority tastes in EVNs and otomes, now the mod team was dominated by Japanese VN fans just as the VN scene was increasingly embracing EVNs. The subreddit felt more elitist than ever just as the medium had never been more diverse.

Unintended Side Effects

While our policies may have made sense at the time, some of the decisions me and insanityy had made began to have a detrimental impact on the subreddit:

We’d brought on Automod to help remove posts when only me and insanityy had to manage everything. We found having a bot leave the removal comment sparked fewer arguments with OP than if one of us did it, and it was more effective at catching spam. But while we strived to reapprove mistakenly removed posts promptly, sometimes OP deleted their post before we could. Psychologically, it also made it dangerously easy to leave some content removed. As we mods burnt out over the years, our standards for what counted as a worthy post kept getting higher with fewer and fewer posts being approved. The end result has been a severe drop in discussion posts on the sub.

When recruiting new moderators, we sought people who thought as we did so mod decisions would be consistent and there wouldn’t be arguments in the mod chat. Modding is stressful enough without the stress coming from within the mod team. However, as you add more mods who agree with you, you can start to have an inflated view of how widespread your opinion is. A circlejerk mentality builds and outside opinion is increasingly easy to dismiss. This can leave users feeling like their opinions don’t matter to the mods and builds resentment.

Insanityy was a kind soul and hated conflict, she avoided disagreements as much as possible. As a friend, this was fine, but as a mod it meant she avoided openly discussing mod policy on the subreddit as inevitably there would be some disagreement. This lack of discussion with the sub made it hard for users to object to the direction the sub took, allowing the mod team to grow out of touch with what the userbase wants.

Hopes for the Future

While I may have been quite critical of the current state of the subreddit, I think the community is a good one and there’s hope for improvement. A smaller, more motivated mod team would help, as well as scaling back some of the restrictions like the question and image-post ban. Let activity on the subreddit explode. Should low-quality content grow to become a problem, perhaps /r/visualnovels should split just as /r/gaming and /r/games have, or perhaps a split between Japanese and English VNs would help?

Not every idea will work out, but what’s important is to be trying new ideas and be responsive to change rather than clinging to an outdated format.

As I said at the start, please remember this isn’t an impartial view on the history of the sub and that this isn’t meant to downplay the hard work of the current mod team. Modding is exhausting, it’s a constant burden with little praise. Even if I consider them poor mods, it doesn’t make them bad people.

I know she won’t ever read this, nor will she care what I think, but I still believe insanityy was an inspirational mod and a wonderful friend. It’s incredibly hard to go it alone like she did when she first took over /r/visualnovels. She stood up for what she thought /r/visualnovels could be and put in so much effort, every day, rain or shine, she never shirked from her responsibilities. I miss her every day.

If anyone wants to know more or say hi, you can contact me here on tumblr, twitter, or Discord (Sunleaf_Willow ／(^ n ^=)＼#1616)

#visualnovel #visualnovels #visual novels #visual novel

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legendary · 7 years

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Making a Comic Into (Virtual) Reality

A conversation with the creative team of Schell Games, who brought Grant Morrison’s Eisner-nominated series Annihilator to life as an immersive virtual reality experience.

Legendary VR was established to extend the worlds of our films in exciting new ways - as seen with Kong: Skull Island, Warcraft, and Pacific Rim. At the same time, the VR team has been at work on dozens of experimental projects pushing the boundaries of storytelling within virtual reality. When Legendary Comics published the psychedelic Annihilator series by Grant Morrison, we saw a fun opportunity to expand and experiment with a new medium: comic books. Annihilator had its initial run as a 6-issue series in 2014, following the character of washed-up screenwriter, Ray Spass, as he begins to lose his grip on reality, leading him on a mind-bending sci-fi adventure alongside of his own fictional characters. Hailed for its zany creativity and Frazier Irving's stunning artwork, Annihilator earned a Best Writer nomination at the prestigious Eisner Awards for Grant Morrison.

When deciding how best to tackle this ambitious experiment, Legendary VR partnered with Pittsburgh-based Schell Games to help them bring the comic to life. "I wanted to see how we could translate the uniqtue panel-by-panel experience of reading a comic into Virtual Reality without just creating an animated short. It was important to maintain the pacing of a comic book," said Ethan Stearns, Vice President of Legendary VR. "After we saw how Schell Games approached their title, I Expect You to Die, we became excited to work with them to merge these mediums. Grant Morrison's source material is so cerebral and has such wonderful character dualities. This allows you, as the viewer, to project your character into the scene and maintain the continuity of the narrative." Legendary Backstory had the chance to talk to Art Director Ben Greene and Project Director Tim Sweeney from Schell Games about the process of adapting Morrison’s surreal subject matter, what it was like to literally lift a comic straight from the pages, and the future of VR as a medium. See what they had to say and take a look at exclusive concept art and stills from the experience below.

Q: For starters, talk about what the concept of the Annihilator VR experience is for those who haven’t tried it and discuss how it relates to the source material.

TS: We took the first issue of the series and we isolated a few key moments inside that, putting you into the perspective of Ray Spass, the narrator inside the comic book. You get to experience his apartment, his meetings with his agents, his mental conceptions of the work he is working on from inside his point of view. Those are things he is working on inside the comic book but the environment and interactions are unique to the VR experience. It’s those things unwitnessed, implied, or obvious in hindsight that foreshadow things deeper into the series. BG: What was initially engaging and worked really well was the fact that it was comic material and especially since we were targeting the Gear VR, we knew what our limitations were. Because of that, we could say “Hey, it would be neat if we just kind of placed you in the center of all of this crazy activity.” What’s cool about the Annihilator universe is that it’s this kind of this constant head-trip and you’re never quite sure what’s going on. So, that was immediately inspiring to be in the middle of being able to play with transitions and elements within the environment that would morph and change and surprise you in a first-person way. You are there, you are present, these elements are there with you and this isn’t something you would get from an amusement park attraction or even a funhouse. We’re able to manipulate the space around you so organically, the material in Annihilator gave us a lot of room to play with for the experience.

Schell Games’ 360° concept art mock-up of the cafe scene, mapping out the full visual experience for the user.

Q: Can you take us through the process of how this came to be from inception to the final experience?

BG: It’s been almost a year and half now since we first had that meeting and there was a lot of great material being thrown around during that brainstorming session at Schell. Somebody pulled the Annihilator book out of the box and said “Hey, this is something new that Legendary has on its shelves that they’re really excited about.” So, right from the beginning it was sort of highlighted amongst the materials we had to look at. I think that Jonas Quantum was sitting there and maybe some Pacific Rim, all of which are neat, but Annihilator pushed the possibilities of the experience a bit farther and more immediately. There was just more to play with, more to daydream about and brainstorm over. There were many connections and we decided to attempt to pursue it in a roundabout way and let the guests organically experience it from the main character’s space and point of view. His sort of descent into madness and what that is like. TS: Ben put together an animatic of the experience that gave everyone a clear impression of how we were going to approach doing this. It was shot-by-shot thinking about how the visuals stack up and with the medium being so new and the headsets being limited in technical capabilities, You always are thinking about if this is going to be something that can actually be accomplished. There were several things that drew us to this property, one of which being that, at its core, it’s playing with perception and crossover between realities, like what VR does as a medium. The medium is all about virtual reality and playing with stories about virtual reality. The other thing is that most of the environments and scenes we are seeing are very familiar to people coming in off the streets. So even if the virtual reality is new and terrifying, you get a gentler introduction than if you were to just dropped right into a roller-coaster. BG: I think that for me, VR represents a doorway into providing experiences that you might read about in a comic or might watch somebody experience in a film. Yet, it’s in a way that puts you in a scenario that you would never have any other way of experiencing.

Q: If this is any indication, VR seems to be an interesting medium for comics to continue experimenting in that’s not at all like “adapting” the comic to film or TV. The Annihilator experience shows you can create a fully immersive comic book to step inside of. What do you think about the unique blending of these two mediums and are you working on anything else in this realm?

BG: We’ve kicked around several ideas and ways of approaching a combination of literature and the environment you experience that literature in. Different ways of breaking out of the sequential way of telling a story in this new space. Currently, we aren’t working on anything but it’s always in our back pocket. We like to show off Annihilator when we have guests that’ll come through and be curious about what is possible with VR. TS: I think there is something unique about VR being a newish medium and there are fewer expectations placed on it. There are certain things we can get away with because we can create things like an immersive 2-D environment and what it looks like. We don’t have to modify the original artistic vision of the comics to make it work with animation or live-action or to make it work with 3-D. There is a purer interpretation of the art at a basic level and that isn’t something that can be done immersively, sequentially, interactively outside of VR. I think people are more accepting of the novelty of it all because the medium itself is so new. BG: We try to be aware of what else is going on in entertainment production, especially in games. When we started to wrap our heads around this, we researched if others were doing something like this. We jumped on the internet, asked our friends and we found a couple things encroaching in the same direction, but nobody had really jumped into it and we felt that we had something special by how we approached it. The VR experience is another way of more deeply understanding the universe of Annihilator. Ultimately, I hope that other developers interested in VR and comics can look at Annihilator VR and be inspired by it to create the next step in that direction.

Q: One of my favorite parts of the experience is how interactive it is, utilizing the gaze function to not only advance the narrative but also to add some unexpected and strange details that really flesh out the world it takes place in. How difficult is it creating such an interactive story world as opposed to a more straightforward “on tracks” approach and how did you go about deciding what details to include in the environments?

TS: When we do an experience like this, we need to make sure the critical path is obvious. People shouldn’t feel like they are going to get stuck at any point. Once that happens, we say “what else makes sense to add interest to this?” A lot of what happens then is figuring out other things to put in. Some of those decisions are very late in the game, but every piece of the environment is sort of a blank page for us to brainstorm what in the property could fit there. BS: There’s no mobility, just 360 degrees of world. We didn’t want to beat you over the head with all the details. We took basically the first issue and brought in elements to each of the scenes that expanded the story in a more organic and discovery-oriented way. If you just went through the main path, you’d get the gist of the experience, but if you go through a few more times there are new things you have the opportunity to find. Typically, people find three interactions per scene, but in reality, each scene has five plus things to discover. Each one tells a bit more about the story, or at least builds on the character. Even details like when you are sitting in the office, like on the table is his license and business card that tells you a bit about who he is and what he does. We have this piece of paper from the hospital that says “brain tumor”, which sort of highlights the information available throughout the experience. The more you go through it, the more you begin to explore. We were finding people would discover more about what was going on, but it still maintains the mystery a bit. TS: It doesn’t need to stand on its own. This really is an introduction companion piece to the comic. All the questions that people raise, we expect them to be answered by picking up the book.From the standpoint of what is going on in the experience, you want to immerse yourself in the graphic novel and we tried to get that out through the VR experience.

Q: It seems like every time someone tries the experience, there are new details and easter eggs to find. What are your favorite easter eggs that might go unnoticed the first time through it?

BG: I have a favorite that is hidden in the environment. It’s more for your subconscious to pick up on. Annihilator has an unsettling theme throughout the book, and we wanted to make sure that there was a not-everything-is-right feel. If you are in Ray’s study and you look around, there is a bookshelf off to the left of the desk. You’ll see it a few times throughout, but something throughout the experience that I added is that behind the books are all the dead haunted faces from the space station. There are all of these cursed victims on that station with him and I put their faces in the shelf peering out between the books. If you ever catch it, it is unsettling. TS: (Production Manager) Jeff Outlaw’s favorite is in the Annihilator scene, if you poke around the left desk drawers, one of the little cute andcreepy creatures will emerge and warn you about the danger. That’s something few people get. Only a handful of people will see it. My subtle touch to realism is that the chair will rotate to catch up with you and squeak even though you can’t see your body in VR. BG: When we were building the scenes, audio was super important. It builds presence in VR which is cool because it takes you into these spaces. It can totally help anchor you in the scene.

360° concept art from Schell Games, laying out the experience’s space sequence.

Q: Where do you think VR is headed as a medium and where would you like to see it go?

TS: We are very future-facing as a studio, and there is a lot of on-the-horizon talk. I hope that the technology catches up with the intentions of the creatives behind it. I would hope that even if something were small, that we wouldn’t have to agonize over it. There is a lot of constraint working in VR right now, especially in mobile content. Between that and the adoption of it, I think that I just want to see all of that stuff thrive and grow and expand. I want it to drive the numbers and I don’t want people to worry about the constraints. BG: Even just general budget constraints and all of those concerns should ease up as players/guests start to increase and more people are using VR. There are a couple cool things recently where 7 hour long immersive games are used in VR and consoles. I’m interested to see the numbers from that and how that inspires next year’s VR development in similar platforms. There are lots of cool things happening, but I’m holding my breath trying to see what people jump on. TS: One of the things we try to do here is figure out the best strengths of the medium and leverage those to help. That’s an area where there is still uncertainty. What are people going to get into? What will they take from it? It’s the best period for experimentation because it is an open field right now. I think that it should continue that way for as long as possible to avoid things getting trapped. If you take a look at some areas of technology, we enter a cul-de-sac where the evolution has metastasized. I just would like to see mediums reach their full potential before they become very solid.

After all the hard work, the experiment between Schell Games and Legendary VR has paid off as the Annihilator VR experience is now available for download for Oculus and on Google Play. Grant Morrison’s Annihilator is available as a complete collection on Amazon.

#Worlds

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limejuicer1862 · 6 years

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Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger. The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Sam Smith

Editor of The Journal (once ‘of Contemporary Anglo-Scandinavian Poetry’), publisher of Original Plus books, I was born Blackpool 1946 and am now living in Blaengarw, South Wales. While I am still a freelance writer my last day job was as an amusement arcade cashier. But I have also been a psychiatric nurse, residential social worker, milkman, plumber, laboratory analyst, groundsman, sailor, computer operator, scaffolder, gardener, painter & decorator…….. working at anything, in fact, which paid the rent, enabled me to raise my three daughters and which didn’t got too much in the way of my writing. I now have several poetry collections (the latest being Speculations & Changes: KFS) and novels to my name (the 2 latest novels being Marraton: IDP and The Friendship of Dagda & Tinker Howth: united p.c. (see website http://thesamsmith.webs.com/

and for The Journal http://sites.google.com/site/samsmiththejournal/ )

The Interview 1. What inspired you to write poetry?

It was so long ago, and it all seemed to happen at once. A girlfriend gave me Henry Miller’s Smile at the Foot of a Ladder, and it decided me to become a writer, to try to produce, in my then worthless life ,something as worthwhile as that novel. But when I imagined myself as writer it was as a novelist, not a poet. Albeit that my very first attempt as a ‘writer’ was a poem, about an abortion. I was 22. And over the following 23 years of trying to get my novels published in moments of crisis I often sought to express side issues in poems. But not poems that I ever tried to get published.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

Libraries, I think. But I was a voracious reader from an early age, absorbed a lot through cultural osmosis. A post-WW2 baby there was so much change happening about me as I grew, Blighty-type doggerel and tin pan alley pop music was slipping rapidly into the past. Simon and Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Ginsberg’s Howl, were all showing me how different just song lyrics could be; and I was knocked sideways by the poetry of Thom Gunn. That spoke to me. But as I say I was concentrating on writing novels and trying to get them published. I was given enough encouragement by leaping various publishers’ hurdles, and by agents briefly taking me on, to keep on writing and trying. Even though my biggest fault so far as publishers were concerned was that they didn’t think my novels ‘commercial.’ Until, after the latest disappointment, when all had seemed so promising, I decided I had to have something of mine in print and poems seemed the easier option. So I dashed off a 5 page poem featuring my work then as a psychiatric nursing assistant. My friend and neighbour at that time was the painter Derek Southall. I gave him a copy of the poem. He was old friends with the poet and translator Michael Hamburger, and Derek sent him a copy of the poem. Michael commended the poem but said that it contained at least 10 shorter poems. I broke the 5 page poem into shorter poems, submitted batches to various magazines and was soon getting an acceptance a month. I wrote more poems. Within a couple of years I had my first collection. That sold well, and then the novels started getting into print. And I haven’t stopped since. A side effect of having so much to do with publishers, and curious about how it was done, led me – under the guidance of the late Derrick Woolf of Odyssey Press – to also starting my own magazine and small press. Principally to help others into print, and to put forward my own taste in poetry and to put back some of what the small press had given me, principally confidence.

3. How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets?

They belonged back in school. Except for Thomas Hardy, he was still, and still is, relevant. But beyond school there was Rimbaud, Auden, Eliot waiting and to have me wondering what next? And then of course there was Ezra Pound. But it was all kinds of writing that I was, and still am, interested in, novel ways of looking at any subject by any author in any genre. Just take Stephen Dobyns, thriller writer and poet, or Martin Stannard, critic and poet, Sylvia Plath, playwright and poet.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

Up at 6:30, desk at 7:00. Answer emails, fill orders for The Journal and Original Plus; then see where I am in my writing schedule. Which can be my blog – http://www.thesamsmith.simplesite.com – or my latest novel, or ideas for a poem, or to catch up on Submissions to The Journal or edits for a new Original Plus chapbook. The schedule can of course go out the window if there’s something outstanding or urgently required. That will take me up to midday when I pause for lunch. If the weather is fine and dry I might go for a walk, do some gardening; or more likely get stuck into household chores, family obligations. If it’s raining, and there’s no chores, family things to do, I’ll probably return to my desk, or take up a book, newspaper. Evening’s usually telly: at my age I’m too knackered for ought else.

5. What motivates you to write?

In the beginning it was to explain myself, to tell of the world that I knew, in my way. The way other people used words didn’t match what I was experiencing. And I’m still struggling to find that metier. Now though writing has become my character. It’s who I am, what I do

6. What is your work ethic?

I’m task-oriented. The work needs to be done, I do it. So I set myself tasks, see them through to completion. Fortunately I’ve never been driven by the desire for either fame or fortune. Fame could have sold more books, and fortune would have been helpful, but really satisfaction lies mostly in getting the job done.

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

We had very few ‘good’ books at home. ‘Coral Island’ by Ballantyne I must have read about a dozen times. It was when I was at sea I read most – Hemingway and Steinbeck in the ship’s library among the storytellers. What drew me to them was their willingness to try new ways of telling a story. Then when I left and lived in Chelsea, books that were pressed on me came from many directions. Eliot and Auden I suppose continue to influence, along with William Carlos Williams, and through those three to Japanese poetry. Which among other translated poetry has been a greater influence on my own writing than any in English. Something about the different rhythms, a certain clarity…

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

Over the last few years I’ve been amassing the works of Haruki Murakami, fascinated by his storytelling abilities, different again. Of poets another who, like Murakami, can seamlessly introduce the fantastic into the ordinary and make it make sense, is K V Skene. Both are beyond magic realism, make the ordinary extraordinary. But really there are just so many good writers about at the moment and it’s been my privilege to work , as editor and/or publisher, with many of them.

9. Why do you write?

Not to get rich. One of the hardest things to accept in my first few years of being a writer, of trying to find time to write, was having to have a day job. Now, with it being nigh on impossible to make a living out of writing, I see it as part of any writer’s/artist’s calling – the day job. As I said before I write to try and get across my version of the world, which is still at odds with the mainstream version. I’m still trying to create the perfect work of art. I’ll know it when I see it. But I know now my limitations. I am no showman, am rubbish at publicity and performing. The private bit of writing is what I relish.

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

Get pen, paper, keyboard; and write. And when you’re pleased with what you have written, submit it to an appropriate publisher; and accept the likely rejection. Look again at the work, identify failings, and try again. And take care over which day job, or way of making a living, you go for: it will inevitably inform your writing. 11.Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

I’ve got several poetry projects. One long term one is occasionally adding poems to a collection, Scenes from a Country Life, which has poems covering all the country places I have lived for any length of time. Another looks to be building up to a chapbook length collection of Mock Sonnets. Another in the making is one provisionally titled Futureless. The novel I’m working on has the working title http://www.spousecheck.com. I’m still uncertain what that’s about. I started a year of blogging called Beginnings and I’ve yet to bring that to a close. At least let myself off the hook of regular postings. And then of course there’s the next issue of The Journal to put together. Reviews to do for that; and the latest Original Plus production. I also have 2 novels, Trees: the Tree Prospectus and Once Were Windows Once Were Doors, sitting in publisher’s slush piles. Should either get accepted then I’ll be immersed in the edit of that. I love working with a good editor. Best learning curve I know

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Sam Smith Wombwell Rainbow Interviews I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me.

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calicotomcat · 7 years

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Writer Interview Tag

Tagged by @universalfanfic (thank you)

I apologize in advance for the length, I talk way too much. This took me like an hour.

I’m gonna put it under a cut because it’s so long, but first-

I’m not gonna tag anyone specifically but @ all my followers and mutuals- if you write, and I know some of you do, please do this, please let me know if you do this, I’d really like to see what you have to say.

1) What made you start writing for the first time?

It’s hard to say when that first time really was. I think I’ve always written.

Part of it is that it’s just who I am, and part of it is that I grew up with two expert story-tellers; my parents can’t make up a story for shit, but their lives in emergency medicine and the crazy shit they’ve seen and lived through, means they don’t really need to. They’re masters of the art of oral retellings, and they use everything at their disposal to do it- the pitch of their voice, the accent they use, their entire body, the way they pause or change volume, sometimes even props if they have something at hand. Honestly, if you ever have the chance to listen to paramedics and firefighters who’ve been at it for at least a decade regale you with their wildest experiences, let them. You’ll laugh so hard you cry. To this day one of the funniest and most fucked up stories I’ve ever heard involved a flashlight, a corpse, and a very apt if accidental comparison to a jack o lantern.

But I can remember being like eight, I think, and drawing a page full of six or seven original characters who were all these different aliens. They were fan Green Lanterns, and each one had a different name and backstory and design, and I was quite proud of it. I drew a lot of fan art and a lot of original art as a kid and I didn’t really know there was a difference between the two. I wrote a lot of stories for the art that I made, so there’s no real beginning to it all. You could mark it down as the first time I had a computer, when I was like twelve and typed everything up for the first time, but that seems a bit late compared to when the ideas and desire first came.

There was never any one thing that I can say made write for the first time, I think it’s just how I’ve always been.

2) If you could only write about the ocean, the forest, or the desert for the rest of your life, which one would you pick?

If I could only ever chose one, the ocean. No contest.

It’s just got so much potential. There’s so much room for magic and mystery, horror and thrills, adventure and existentalism.

Plus, I grew up (metaphorically) a stone’s throw from the sea, I actually get uncomfortable if I’m so far inland I can’t smell the salt of it for more than a few days. It’s home to me. One of my favorite experiences is going out to the beach at like one in the morning on impulse and going swimming in my underwear and losing myself to the rhythmic pulse of the ocean waves, just feeling frighteningly vulnerable but so complete with just the moon and the saltwater for company. I learned to swim as I learned to walk and I went sailing before I could even crawl. The ocean is home to me.

I’d hate living inland. Anywhere more than an hour from the sea is hell to me.

(And yes, for ‘Falling Stars’ I will absolutely be projecting that onto Lance.)

So, yeah, ocean. I love it, love to write about it, and could do a dozen different genres tied around it.

3) Would you ever write a memoir?

I don’t know. I mean, if I had a life interesting enough to put into a memoir, maybe one day, but then there’s a lot I’d have to leave out or openly present as altered so certain people don’t know I’m talking about them. Would not want to get sued for slander even if I am using a fake name to talk about them.

And honestly my middle school and high school years are still pretty fresh in my brain and those would be incredibly depressing to put into book format. Mostly just a sad kid in a room writing and hiding hurts and keeping on even though they don’t know why they bother, they’re convinced they’re not going to see adulthood anyway because people like them don’t get happily ever afters- shit, people like them don’t exist at all as far as they can see.

(Although, name change... maybe if I just cut ties with everyone before I transition, write it afterwards... never ever reveal who I used to be... that could work...)

4) Do you like writing by hand, or writing with a computer?

I loathe writing by hand, I really do. It’s a lot harder to edit and my hand can’t write as fast as my brain goes, where typing on a computer works so well for me- especially since I tend to write out of order.

Plus I’m kinda self-conscious about my chicken scratch handwriting. It’s too scratchy and loose to be feminine, but too curvy and legible to be masculine. At least, that was what I noticed about it as a teenager when I compared it to all the handwriting of my friends and peers.

Weird thing to be self-conscious about, I know, but when people make comments and you’re fifteen and awkward, things stick.

5) Would you rather be popular among many readers, or unpopular, but loved by critics?

Popular among many readers, without question.

My mom and I joke that if a movie we want to see is loathed by critics, that means we’re almost certainly going to love it. Because critics sometimes can’t be objective, and they have their own preferences and tastes, as do we all.

I’d rather have a larger audience of readers who enjoy what I do even if the critics think my work is beneath them. They can lick my silicone dick when I’m rolling in love and money.

6) Do you listen to music while you write? What is the best writing music?

Absolutely.

For me the best writing music depends on the day and the scene, but I’ve used very angry music to write very gentle scenes because I happen to really enjoy the song so it puts me in a soft and content mood. I usually just listen to whatever I enjoy, although occasionally it’s more about using a song that fits the tone I’m trying to set. I use a lot of musical soundtracks too. Whatever makes me feel good is what I’d consider the best.

7) Do people you’ve met find their way into your writing?

Without question.

A lot of it is unconscious, stuff I recognize after the fact, but occasionally it is deliberate. A lot of people I’ve known make appearances in my original and my fan work.

For ‘Falling Stars’, Pancake, Medusa, and Hailey were all based on animals I’ve had, and everything regarding Pidge’s mom and her friends was inspired by my parents and their coworker-friends; how they interact with each other, how they interact with Pidge, that was taken from experiences I had with people I’d never previously met but who either recognized me by my strong visual similarity to my mother or were introduced to me as their kid at a party, a lot of it when I was Pidge’s age, a lot of it from just a few years ago.

And my parents withheld the good stories, let me tell you what. The really good shit, the really funny and really embarrassing stuff, that’s only ever told by their friends. There is no way in hell my dad would ever have told me the story of the time he deliberately-but-also-accidentally hit himself in the dick with a flashlight of his own volition- that had to be expertly retold by an eyewitness to the event. Martini nearly came out my nose on more than one occasion that night, but that was the story that almost made it happen.

#tomcat talks #tomcat talks back #i guess?

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cloud8andahalf · 7 years

Text

I wanna ramble.

If you kept reading expecting something you won’t get much. I seriously am just rambling about how one of my stories Embers started and has grown. So, I started this book when I was 15 and it started through multiple reasons. First reason being I had a cool dream/nightmare that sort of interested me enough that I thought “hm, maybe I can write something based off that”. I honesty think this was the first story I did that with. I do it with a lot of others now. Anyway, had a dream about this huge corporate building and I was with a couple of friends and we were hacking into computers for some reason that I don’t remember and it ended with me getting the shit beat out of me by two other friends who weren’t so friendly in this dream, but they were cool irl. That was the dream and then shortly after having that dream I went to band camp and well in high school my friends enjoyed these silly stick figure comics I drew which featured me and all my friends doing absolutely ridiculous things and one of my friends, Marty, always died. It was different every time, but it was guaranteed that he died and would later resurrect. So on the way to band camp my friends asked if I was working on another comic. I wasn’t and I wasn’t really wanting to draw at that point and I had this story idea in my head and it was sort of like this lightbulb moment. I never traveled anywhere without some sort of paper back then so I started writing down my friends names and what I was going to call them in the book and created a rough outline for what I wanted the plot to be about. Each of my friends got a character and the only thing that I really knew for sure that was going to happen was that at some point our characters were going to break into some corporate like building and Marty’s character was going to die. Those were the only for sure things. Overall I believe I started with ten characters for sure and it quickly grew to about 19 within a week or so of thinking about it. All except for 4 were based off people I knew. So the story focused around Shiloh, Sen, and Rose who were siblings by choice and not by blood. They were the storytellers in this post-apocalyptic world where there’s only one city left on earth. At this point this city was called Salvatio. The three main characters, and their friends, lived in the slums of the city. If you were born in the slums you weren’t allowed to leave until you were sixteen, which all of the characters except for 3 within this slum house were allowed to leave as they wished. All except 4 of them had jobs either in a coal mine or a factory. James and Shiloh were chosen by Sen to spy for his golden plan to take over the city’s government. Sen, and the rest of them, believed they were treated unfairly by guards and the Lord of the city. So while all I wrote for this version of the story was up until a few riots in the slums started by a character based off a kid I knew. It pissed off Shiloh and I hit a block on where to go. I knew the ending which was supposed to be set in motion by James getting killed and the main characters and their friends breaking into the Lord’s Tower, finding 3 long-lost thought dead friends, and then killing Lord Tobius after he tells everybody that Shiloh was actually originally born in a rich sector of town. Shiloh or Sen kills the Lord, and Shiloh thinks she sees a tree in the distance over the very large walls of the city. It was going to end something like that with a sort of cliffhanger ending of them leaving the town and nobody knowing if they’d really survive or not outside the city in the wasteland. That version was what I had for about twos years or so. Then I decided to go backwards and think about ‘okay how did these kids come to live/be born in the slums of this city. Why are they there and how’d they get a house?’ What happened was that the 3 long-lost thought dead characters named Hatch, Leola, and Keemi suddenly had more than just revolutionary reasons for leaving twelve little kids alone in a house. I had a bunch of other characters pop into my head that I just killed straight out in a huge riot that I had already had as part of Shiloh, Sen, and Rose’s backstory since that’s the riot where they found each other and became a weird little family. So now I’ve got these new characters and I’m sort of falling in love with one of the characters Spencer and I’m thinking, what if he wasn’t dead? Then I’m thinking, what if none of them were dead? What if not everybody lived in the same house? And then I’m thinking more into details of why should it end in a cliffhanger? I know for a fact that tree was dead. Nuclear war just happened. So a lot of things change. None of my original characters are now working and I add a bunch of older characters and some younger. Hatch, Leola, and Keemi become slightly bigger jerks through doing this, but I would later give them a little sympathy for ditching their family and friends to restart life under fake IDs. I also changed the entire atmosphere of the slums. It changed from barren trash heaps into something that looks a lot like the water area of the slums in Jak 2 (because that’s what it’s based on). But there is now the characters who live in the Safe House, a total of about 14 or 16. Of the original twelve there were eight still in the Safe House. The other four were moved. Aubrey and Lanie were given a parent and lived in a house on the other side of the slums. Xavier was given a shitty past and was homeless. James lived in a broken sewage pipe and was very happy about it. As I revamped main characters I also changed two later characters into super geniuses. Much like adding Spencer had been in hope of adding a little dry humor, these two also were changed in hopes for a bit of humor in a book that was growing very depressing. Cat and Renny were these two kids who had excelled in academics to the point of graduating high school at fifteen, getting through college in two years and landing jobs as researchers for the Lord by the time they were eighteen. All their coworkers found them obnoxious and they decided to live up to it. They quickly become friends with Shiloh and James who got jobs at the tower under fake names/pasts to be a handyman and a janitor. The slums also got a new set of rules. Those born in the slums didn’t technically exist in city records. Which meant that those born in the slums couldn’t get jobs outside the slums. The slums was also called Sector 0 and was originally meant to be a place for prisoners. People started having children there and pretty soon you have those who are numbered prisoners and those who were unlucky enough to be born there. The city didn’t differentiate between the two. They were all locked in there no matter what. Ed, who was an added character to the safe house, found a way out of the slums through a broken sewer grate and uses it to his advantage to get food and later on get his friend/love interest a safer job than the mines/ working for the underground market. Anyway I revamped the story completely, changed settings, characters, even made Lord Tobius less stereotypically evil and made his uncle more of a dick instead. I added an entire second part to the book and I took out some of the silly things from the original story including some smaller characters and some that were originally huge roles became very small. Such as the character Brona who had been added only to keep with friends who had been in that original dream I had. I also added a character who has become more and more important as I’ve worked on the book. She was only added because a friend asked to be added in my book and I figured why not I’ve got somewhere she can fit and thus Maruxa was born. The book stopped being just me focusing on friends changing the world for the better and more like a bunch of young people starting a revolution and having to live with the consequences of what they’ve done in the second half. And also took some ties of things I was going through in real life such as losing friends and growing distant with those you were once super close to. The story has become a focus on the world not being in black and white, but I also added them going out into the wasteland because I wanted them to see that the world was healing as well. At this point I change the name of the city from Salvatio to Avalon because I thought it was more fitting. I create a small town unknown to those in Avalon called Haven which is about 600-1000 miles away. I can’t remember the exact math. I keep the old title I had given the book though and make the title a little more obvious to how it ties into the book by literally having the characters call themselves “Embers” as their revolutionary group name. From the time I started tearing apart and rewriting and editing and rewriting and tearing it apart again at 18, it’s been about five years that I’ve been working on this newer version. I haven’t started the book again, not for lack of trying. I have yet to find a beginning that I like. I know the ending, which is still a sort of cliffhanger thing for the audience to decide what happens. I know these characters in and out now. Except the villains who still are kinda weird. Now since I started Embers eight years have passed and I obviously don’t see it the same way I used to. I’ve decided to kill a lot more characters than just James. Though the fact that James has to die is very concrete just because I have to keep that gag in my life even if I’m the only one who will ever see it as a gag. Of course, I’m also very aware that I may never finish this book. It was originally a nanowrimo thing that got me to write the first draft, but now I’ve got hundreds of pages telling me who these characters are and dozens of scenes of what will happen with them, but I can’t grasp the things that I really want in the book which is something to lighten a really dark mood. Maybe at some point I’ll find it, but yeah, this has just been a very long rambling about my story. I like it.

#ignore me #cloud rambles about stories

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