The Dead Robots Society

Good Morning, Friday the 18th of September 2020

Peter Germany Cat, Horror, Horror Writer, Life, Lifestyle, Podcasts, Short Fiction, Uncategorized, Writing , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hey folks, how are we all doing today?

I am up and getting ready for a productive day. I’m off to see a dear friend this morning and then this afternoon I’m going to do a little writing and tidying.

I’m working on getting he various elements of my life balanced properly. I’m making adjustments to suit on because I was beginning to falter in it, hopefully I’ve figured out how to do that and I just need to put it into practice.

Yesterday I wrote 1200 words in about ninety minutes. Needless to say I’m super happy about that, and I’d love to get that sort of word count this morning before visiting my friend, but I’m not going to stress if I don’t. I’m still aiming for about 500/half an hours work per day. Writer and Podcaster Paul E. Cooley said on an episode of The Dead Robots Society that he set a target of, I think it was 250 a day, because that was easily doable. And more often than not he’d surpass that quickly. If I remember right he said it was because that by the time he hit 250 he’d got into his rhythm. Since then that’s something I’ve found can work for me as well.

Today’s random image is of Raven, being Raven!

That’s it for this morning, folks. I’m going to have some breakfast and a shower and then get a few words done before shooting out.

Have a good one folks.

And remember, it costs nothing to be kind.

My Podcast Library

Peter Germany Podcasts, Writing , , , , , , , , , , ,

I was recently talking with a few of the members of the writing group that I’m in and someone asked what podcasts we all listen too and I listed a couple before I realised that I don’t think I can list all of the ones I listed to in a Facebook comment. So I thought I’d put together a list as a blog post, so here it is in no particular order:

I Should Be Writing and Ditch Diggers:   I Should Be Writing is Mur Lafferty’s podcast that she has been doing for many years and deals with some of the everyday writer problems and some of the emotional elements to the writing process. Ditch Diggers is Mur Lafferty’s Podcast with Matt Wallace. Here they discuss more the business side of writing. Both of these podcasts also have frequent interviews with other writers.

The Dead Robots Society: This podcast is a roundtable discussion show that deals with pretty much every aspect of the writing process. From outlining and world building to sales numbers. Justin R. Macumber created this podcast and Terry Mixon, Paul E. Cooley and Scott Roche make up the regular team. I came into the show when it was approaching its hundredth episode mark and I went back and listened to all of the previous episodes.

The Roundtable Podcast: This podcast by Dave Robison (who has an amazing voice) is generally a roundtable discussion where Robison and guest hosts brainstorm a story idea by a (brave) writer. There are also episodes where they spend (a loose) twenty minutes with a writer to get to know them. This is a fantastic podcast that I’ve found can really get the creative juices going.

The Newbie Writers Podcast: This podcast by Damien Boath and Catherine Bramkamp. This is an interview show where Boath and Bramkamp interview writers. This show is a lot of fun, and very engaging.

Authorcast: This is primarily a discussion between David Wood and Alan Baxter. They discuss pretty much everything to do with writing. Wood also runs a small press, which gives another insight to the writing and publishing process.

Shipping & Handling Podcast: This podcast is a little different as its two literary agents, Bridget Smith and Jennifer Udden, discussing the publishing world. This is quickly becoming one of my must listen to podcasts. It’s informative and very entertaining. I’m finding it very easy to listen to.

The Creative Penn Podcast: This is quite a new podcast for me and I’m enjoying it and learning from it. It’s general publishing talk and interviews with writers.

Armcast: This podcast by Armand Rosamilia is a writing podcast but one that focusses on the people Rosamilia has met through writing horror. So some episodes with have interviews with writers while others will have interviews with film producers. Rosamilia has just started a new podcast with Mark Tufo but I haven’t listened to that one yet. If it’s anything like Armcast it’ll be a lot of fun.

SF Squeecast: This one is kind of a ringer to a certain degree as it’s not primarily a writing podcast in my opinion. It’s more of a group of friends sitting round talking about what they like who also happen to be writers. This is a pretty good podcast, the content is fantastic and fun and all of the hosts; Elizabeth Bear, Paul Cornell, Seanan McGuire, Lynne M. Thomas, Michael Damian Thomas and Catherynne M. Valente all seem to have a lot of fun doing this podcast.

All of these podcasts can be found on iTunes, that’s where I get them from, and I hope people check them out.

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 🙂

Having Faith In Ourselves

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It is very easy for my confidence to be knocked when I am writing and seeing as I am my own worse critic I end up doubting my own ability a lot. As I’ve been working Avoiding The Game (working title) I’ve slowly lost faith in myself which says that this project is not my best work. This leads to me loosing that faith in myself and not having that much-needed passion about writing. Then I start reading Project Apollo, which I know needs a lot of work to get it back on track, and I see that I CAN write and its pretty good (I’m not being big-headed (much lol) just trying to get it into my head that I can write). As I said Project Apollo needs work. It veers off in a direction that is weak and as I was working on this draft (during NaNoWriMo) I lost my way with it. I had a rough outline for the first few chapters but once I ran out of those notes I lost all direction. So now me and Owen are both reading it (separately) and both making our notes so hopefully we can find the point where I lost my way and plot out the rest of the story from there as well as making the notes for what we need to add into the story.

We also need to do some work on the layout of this so that’s another aspect it I need to think about. Me and Owen have talked about how we would like to lay it out so it’s just a case of setting that up.

What I’d like to have done is to have each stage of the story loosely plotted out and the lay out set up too. Along with the story which feels quite complicated there is still a lot to do but I need to appreciate that this is a bigger story then I was thinking it would be. This will also set the standard for the rest the fiction from this universe so we need to be spot on with it.

 

I would just like to throw in a quick link here, I found this episode of The Dead Robots Society very interesting and helpful and I hope you do also.

http://deadrobotssociety.com/2013/03/26/episode-265-the-first-draft-is-only-the-beginning/

 

I’m off to watch a little more of A Game Of Thrones now. If you would like to Follow me on Twitter, Like me on Facebook then the links are on the right hand side of the screen 🙂

Some Good Stuff

Peter Germany Books, Horror, Sci-Fi, Short Fiction, Writing, Zombies , , , , , , , ,

Hey guys, I’ve got a couple of links here to some good fiction that I have heard in the last few days. Its been a while since I’ve heard some sort fiction that I have enjoyed enough to share so here it is 🙂

 

Escape Pod

http://escapepod.org/2013/03/07/ep386-finished/

 

Pseudopod

http://pseudopod.org/2013/03/08/pseudopod-324-wings/

 

StarShipSofa

http://www.starshipsofa.com/2013/03/06/starshipsofa-no-279-rachel-swirsky/

 

I hope you take a moment to check these stories out as I enjoyed them hugely 😀

 

Id also like to share this link for a recent episode of the Dead Robots Society where the Robots interview writer Jake Bible. Mr. Bible wrote a book called Dead Mech which is set in a world after the Zombie apocalypse and in this world there are huge military mech suits and when an operator dies inside one and gets infected, becoming a zombie the zombie then controls this piece of military hardware.

It’s a really good story which is the first of three books, I still need to read the second two.

I first found Mr. Bible via Scott Sigler. Sigler mentioned Dead Mech and collaborated with Mr.Bible on a story so I checked the story out and loved it. It had been released as a podcast.  Now though Mr.Bible has decided to walk away from podcasting and here he gives his reasons.

Again I would love for you to go and check these out as there is some amazing content here.

Igniting Old Ideas

Peter Germany Books, Horror, Insperation, Movies, Sci-Fi, Short Fiction, Writing , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I’ve watched a couple of alien invasion movies recently, Skyline and Battle:Los Angeles. I was planning to watch this movie again soon but a post on I Am Ipodman’s blog pushed the viewing forward (http://iamipodman.wordpress.com/2013/01/29/have-you-watched-battle-los-angeles/)

Alien Invasion is something that I love but I’ve not found many examples recently that have really impressed me, Aside from Scott Sigler’s Infected and Contagion, and the movie District 9, but those are not what I think of as alien invasion, not in the Independence Day, War Of The Worlds sense. I would love an epic alien invasion story to come out (if anyone knows of one please feel free to share 😀 )

Me and Owen (writing partner) have an alien invasion story that we’ve played with but we never took it anywhere. I think it is far too complicated for our current level of writing ability but one day this could be a story that we go back to one day because like our Project Delphi and Project Apollo universe it is a world that we have batted about for many years and just because we have not been able to get a story up and running in the past doesn’t mean we wont be able to get it going in the future. If a story needs to be told, it’ll be told.

 

This week’s episode of The Dead Robots Society was really good. It was about description but slipped into Pacing too. I found this episode really helpful and it got me thinking about how I describe scenes and characters as well as how I’m pacing my work.

 

Here’s the link: http://deadrobotssociety.com/2013/01/29/episode-257-setting-the-scene/

Please go over and check it out. It’s an impression show and this episode in particular was very good.

Shouting Out

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

Hey everybody. I just want to give a couple of quick mentions to podcasts that have impressed me in the last week.

 

I found this Episode of The Dead Robots Society about dialogue really useful. It gave me a lot to think about when I write dialogue.

http://deadrobotssociety.com/2013/01/22/episode-256-talking-the-talk/

 

I also wanted to give a big shout out to Jeremy Robinson. I listened to Beneath on Podcast about a year ago and was impressed with it and I downloaded Kronos last week and listened to it as I was at work. Both are captivating books which I could quite happily listen to again and again.

You can find both at iTunes

http://www.jeremyrobinsononline.com/

 

A Quick Post, To End The Day

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

What have I done today? Well aside from the day job I added a fair few words to my WIP and did some research into Outhouses, yes I said Outhouses. I wont go into details.

One thing that I did get thinking about was Point of view changes. In the WIP most of the first 25,000 words is one person and that’s it.  They have no other contact with anyone till after that point and I was wondering if it would work to introduce another point of view at this stage. I posted this on The Dead Robots Society’s Facebook page and Matthew Wayne Selznick replied with a few good points. I think this story will get to about 30,000 to 40,000 words at the most so it wouldn’t work.  For something longer then I think it would be acceptable but not here.  To be honest this is not something that had sat right with me. Adding another point of view would have its benefits but I think it would also damage the story, mainly diluting the emotional experiences of my main character.

Matthew Wayne Selznick deserves a shout out here. He wrote a great book called Brave Men Run which is one of my favourite Podcasts I’ve heard (I really need to get hold of a print copy) I’ve been dumb and have only just checked out his site and it’s amazing. This man is a very creative individual. http://www.mattselznick.com/

I still have not got around to starting The Gunslinger yet. Been a busy couple of days I’m afraid but I may try to make a start tonight.

That was my day, I hope you all have had a good and productive day 🙂

The Dead Robots Society

Peter Germany Books, Writing , , , ,

Today I just want to give a very quick shout out to Justin Macumber, Terry Mixon and all the other Dead Robots at the Dead Robot Society. I was a little slow in finding out just how good this podcast was but since I have done I have found that it is my favourite writing podcast. It is easily the one that I have learnt the most from and have been influenced a lot about how I write and how I want to approach the business side of writing.

This podcast has a real strong heart to it and there is some amazing banter between the hosts and the guests that they often have on to primarily talk about writing but the hosts do not always stay on topic. I think that is one of the charms of the show though. It comes across as a very laid back, spontaneous podcast which seems to have a little planning but not too much.

The topics they have talk about have covered pretty much every part of writing a novel or short story that I could think off and more. Since listening to this podcast I have more focus in what I am doing and I have learnt a lot about the actual art of writing as well. Things like how to create character depth, and how its easy to go too far into that depth. When to start a story and how not to start a story and a lot more.

It’s great to hear the hosts talk about their love of certain authors and books, and their hatred (Listen to Ryan’s hate love of Twilight) Each of the hosts that are on the show or have been on the show have brought a different perspective to writing and each one I have taken something from.

If you are a writer then I strongly believe that you should give this podcast a go. Listen to four or five episodes and get a feel for it. Too me its essential listening and I am loving listening to the backlog. I’ve just listened to their 200th episode and I really can’t wait till I’m up to date with the show. Keep it going Robots.

;

Here’s the link to their website: http://deadrobotssociety.com/