Redshirts

Get Sh*t Done Month

Peter Germany Books, Reading, Uncategorized, Writing , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

August is my get sh*t done month. I’m aiming to get the 1st draft of Project Apollo done and off to Owen and I want to have a short story, that’s all but done, ready to be sent off to the sci-fi magazines.

How easy is this going to be to achieve? That depends on a couple of things. The day job is a big one. This time of year my day job (valeter at a car sales) is quite demanding on the body. This glorious summer we are having here in the U.K. is awesome but it does sap ones energy when working a physically demanding job and at the moment we are busy. Which is absolutely great but it takes more of the body’s strength. Yesterday was a prime example, although not to warm I had a lot to do so come the evening when I got home I just could not get going with the words. So I got an early night and despite a few non-work related hiccups today I’ve got home and knocked out over 1100 words tonight *does a little dance* That’s the most words I have written in one day for a long time, and it feels good 😀

I’d also like to get back into a bit of reading this month as well. The last two books I have read have been amazing (Redshirts by John Scalzi & Blood In The Past by Jordanna East) so I was more then a little anxious at the prospect of starting a new novel. So I read more of Judge Dredd Vol. 1 but now its time to dive into a novel again and I’ve chosen The Drawing Of The Three (The Dark Tower Book 2) by Stephen King.

So that’s the plan, lets see how much of it I actually get done!

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Book Review: Redshirts By John Scalzi

Peter Germany Book Review, Books, Reading, Sci-Fi, Writing , , , , , ,

This first sentence of this post I am writing as I am on page 260 out of 317 of the novel Redshirts by John Scalzi and I’m fighting hard on not uploading this post now as I have not finished reading the book yet but I wanted to just write these few words down quickly as it is fresh in my head. John Scalzi, you Sir are a bloody genius!

Now lets see if the last part of the book keeps me this impressed with how Scalzi has wrote this book.
(Date wrote: 13/7/13)

Last night(19/7/13) I finished reading this book and its kept me as impressed as when I wrote the first few sentences of this post.

Redshirts is about a crew on a Starship called The Intrepid and on this starship there are a number of odd occurrences when one of the senior crew always gets hurts and junior crew members have a very short life expectancy. One crewman in particular starts to investigate this and his and his friends investigations go in odd and unbelievable directions.

This book needs to be read not only by every science fiction fan on the planet but by every book lover and writer breathing. The entire last third of the novel is like a guide to writing hidden in the words of the story. Which I’ve never seen done before. Scalzi takes the final third of the book in a direction that I really wasn’t expecting it to and it’s something that I found that as I read more I enjoyed it more. This book as gone straight into the top of my favourite books list, Scalzi has shot straight to the top of writers who have influenced me and had an effect on me as a person and no doubt on how I write as well. The book and him are both fighting it out in the top five of favourite books and authors.

Please consider checking out this book. John Scalzi is an amazing writer whose work has great humour, action, depth and quality. It’s worth a few minutes of your time to check it out I think.

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A Few Words Written

Peter Germany Books, Reading, Sci-Fi, Writing , , ,

I sat out in my garden this afternoon and did a little writing on Project Apollo. I’ll admit that I wish I could have got more written but I got words written which is the important thing. Aside from that I have little to update you all on. I’m still reading Redshirts by John Scalzi and loving it.

Fatigue has struck me harder then I had realised. I’ve never been good at relaxing, it’s something that I find very hard to do. I’m a restless person in the sense that I can rarely ever only do one thing at a time. I need to learn how to switch off my mind and also to organise my thoughts and focus. My mind wonders and never allows me to centre it on only one thing at a time. That is something that I am going to have to try and learn how to change.

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A little piece of heaven.

State Of Play

Peter Germany Editing, Reading, Sci-Fi, Short Fiction, Writing, Zombies , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I just wanted to share an update with how the writing is going at the moment. I’ll admit I’ve barely done much actual writing in the last few weeks but with Tracie(my partner) being in hospital for the best part of three weeks, having a couple of minor health irritations myself (I say irritations because they are very minor but incredibly irritating!) All that has knocked me off my pace a little.

Project Apollo will not have much done on it till early July as that is when me and Owen are sitting down to go through and plot out the ending of the story.

The Residents is still in the planning stages. When me and Chrystalyn (http://thefutureofhope.wordpress.com/) start writing this I think it’s going to be the most prepared that I personally have ever been when it comes to writing something. At the moment I am mainly focusing on two of the main characters backstory’s.

I was going to work on my zombie story for NaNoWriMo but I’ve had an idea about it today which may require a little more thinking time. I’ve always had in mind to write a second story in this series but I had a flash of an idea on what a third story might involve which makes it a trilogy. So I now need to think out how it is going to play out over three books. I know the basics of each story but I need to build them more thoroughly and I’m not sure I will have that done by November.

I think I have enough feedback from one of my short stories which I am going to read through once more myself, and maybe change the title of before I start sending it off for submission.

With Avoiding The Game I have decided to give it one last bash at making it work, but I will have to make a fair few changes to the story so I have all but decided to do a full re-write as it will be easier then trying to fit in what I have in mind.

At the moment I am reading Redshirts by John Scalzi. I am really enjoying it and I’m finding Scalzi’s  style to my liking and the humour in this novel is awesome 🙂 With everything that has happened recently I haven’t been reading much so hopefully this week I’ll get back into the swing of it.

And finally I’d just like to share a couple of links to interesting podcasts that I’ve heard lately. First we have two from The Dead Robots Society; http://deadrobotssociety.com/2013/06/11/episode-276-mid-year-check-in/; http://deadrobotssociety.com/2013/06/18/episode-277-robots-on-inspiration-point/

Next is an episode from the Escape Pod Science Fiction podcast. This is quite a snappy little story that I fell in love with and adored how it ended;  http://escapepod.org/2013/06/06/ep399-my-heart-is-a-quadratic-equation/

And Finally here’s one from the StarShipSofa podcast. The story in this episode is written by Tobias S. Buckell and Karl Schroeder. I am familiar with both writers and I found this story was a great collaboration between two people whose work I enjoy;  http://www.starshipsofa.com/2013/05/21/starshipsofa-no-290-tobias-buckell-and-karl-schroeder/

 

I apologise for loading this post up with links but I believe in spreading the word about all things good and these are all very good. So I hope you check them out and get as much pleasure out of them as I have 🙂

A Flash Update

Peter Germany Books, Reading, Sci-Fi, Writing, Zombies , , , , ,

Good morning, I say good hoping it will kick start my day nicely seeing as I had about two and a half hours sleep and feel like something out of The Walking Dead (love that show).

I am well behind with reading blogs, although I have just caught up with emails (sixty two of them I’ve read through this morning).

Things are still a little up in the air with Tracie in hospital and keeping a regular blogging schedule has been sacrificed because of that. I have done some writing at the weekend, only about a thousand words but I still wrote 🙂 and Project Apollo has had a little more planning done. Last night I started typing up pages of notes that I had hand written. I’m typing these pages up for two reasons. The first is that Owen needs to see the notes and the second is that this will become our bible for this universe. We’ll have brief character details in it as well as details about the different aliens and cultures that we have created.

Reading wise I’ve just finished Resident Evil: The Umbrella Conspiracy. It was an okay read but nothing that blew me away. I’ll probably follow the rest of the series but it won’t be a reading priority. I’ve now started reading Redshirts by John Scalzi.

I’ll leave it there as there’s not much else to say. Hopefully I’ll be getting back in a routine soon.

Have a good Tuesday all 🙂