Bad Blogging Habits

Hello Lovelies,

First and foremost, let me say thank you regarding your commentary on the 'Book Reviews?' post. It actually proved a great deal more insightful than I was expecting and helped me solidify how I felt a little bit more. In short, this is not and will not be a 'review' site, however I will probably throw snippets in here and there regarding stuff I read that really grabs me in one direction or another. It's kind of why I did the initial two and, I think, I the reason I'll turn to in the future.

Now, to get serious, this bit is not going to be me providing you a list of what to do and what not to do. Unless of course you think REALLY hard about what I'm saying and discern your own list. In that case, it's not my fault. It's yours.

Weirdo.

Instead, I wanted to address a few things that I've personally noticed I've done wrong as time has gone on that I've tried to react to. I've found that putting my own faults on display not only helps other writers who might run into the same pitfalls, but it's also wonderfully humbling to put up a mirror to my own failures.

To start: I had a very bad concept as to what I wanted this site to be when I started. When I started, and let's be honest here, I began with the concept of generating foot traffic. Nothing more. I wouldn't go so far as saying 'I wanted to create ClickBait', but I had this idealized image in my head of somehow creating a site where I just had ad revenue rolling in. While embarrassing to admit, it didn't take me long to recognize the fault in that belief. Instead, I found new meaning in the ability to share my writing (for better or worse) with others.

The next problem I've run into isn't necessarily regarding writing itself as much as it is personal life. In short, as many have said, life sucks. There are many, many things that consistently make demands on your time. Some are normal, like work. Some are not, like health. Some are bad, like exhaustion or writer's block, and some are good, like a surprise party or vacation. There's lot of demands on your time and accepting that is the best way to get around it.

This brings me nicely to the next point, proper scheduling and forethought. I can't count how many times I've tried to 'make a writing schedule' only to find myself canceling it or just staring at a blank page for an hour because nothing comes to mind. Instead, what I've only recently discovered, is the usage of Scheduling your writing. This can be something as simple as using the 'schedule' button in blogger, but is can also be as simple as saving your work to post later. I can only imagine how much more I might have made if I had let myself write when I had the inspiration to. If I had let myself create when I had the time versus when I stuck myself to a 'specific schedule'.

Learn from my mistake, kids: write when you want and build up a buffer. It'll help you proceed.

Last, but certainly not least, is my terrible incapability of interacting with the blogging community. While it's a nice belief that writing will make others come to you just through the usage of tags and such, the truth is that you have to network. You have to give and take, eb and flow; interact with other writers present within your community and on blogger.

I. Am. Terrible. About. This.

Building into the original problem of not having enough time to ever do anything I want to do, this is one that can't be scheduled as much and more needs to become a regular thing. Reach out to your fellow bloggers. See what they're saying. Respond to their comments. Talk with them. Originally, I would always build this into my blog posts (checking what everyone was doing), but I'm realizing it's a lot cleaner and easier to just check things here and there. This is doubly intensified when I have scheduled content because, whenever that item hits, I'm not thinking about checking other blogs...I'm likely at work or the gym or making dinner.

So, if we were making the list, here are the points: Recognize why you're blogging (because you're likely not going to get rich doing it). Recognize your own limitations in life and capability. Schedule posts based on what and when you want to write versus holding yourself to a standard. And interact with people.

Sound good? Good.

With that said, I hope you all are doing well and will join us again on Monday.

- RB

Book Reviews?

Hello Lovelies,

As many of you are plenty aware, I recently decided to do reviews of the "Alien" movie novelizations. Now that I've completed all four, I wanted to address this as well as what is to come.

Getting started:

Why did I do these? In short, I myself had been on a reading binge of exactly those books and felt inspired to share. It was definitely outside of my normal writing habits and, to be candid, I'm not sure I'm a huge fan of it or not. However, it got my writing bug itching so I had to scratch.

Were they any good? I suppose this question is more to be directed at others. I'll be candid in saying I haven't ever really tried to do book reviews before. I did video game reviews once upon a time and those I truly understood how to break down. With regards to books, I feel like I was less reviewing them as much as I was just prattling on about things that caught my attention (both good and bad). That said, I'd love to get your input simply because the reviews never seemed to have much commentary (which, in my mind, means they likely weren't worth much).

Am I going to keep doing reviews? I guess that is kind of coupled with the last question. While I started the first two simply because I had the itch, the second two were done simply to complete the group. I feel like I have a lot more inspiration to do stories other than the Alien series, but I'm not sure if it was worth it. Again, I received very little feedback and commentary on these reviews and I'm not sure if they were even considered worthwhile. While this might be an inspiration for some to improve, my focus has always been more fictional works than reviews. I'm simply not sure if it's worth while to continue.

What else would you review? Should I review, the initial stories that come to mind are simply the ones that I enjoy. That said, that's a very mismatched pile of fiction, sci fi, and fantasy, some I'm again not sure if it's worth it. As previously mentioned, my focus has always been on fiction production more than reviews.

So, with everything said, I'd like to hear from all of you. I feel it's unlikely I'll do more reviews. Or, at the very least, it's unlikely I'll do them with any real consistency. However, as always, I'd love to hear your opinions. Did you particularly enjoy these glimpses? Would like to see more reviews? Is it worthwhile to pursue.

Thanks everyone! Let me know your opinion. It will help me for moving forward.

-RB

Alien Resurrection Novel Review

Last, but certainly not least, we reach the fourth and final of the official installments of the Alien franchise. One could make an argument about "Prometheus" and "Alien Covenant" (to be released), however I think I'll actually discuss the book reviews themselves in a secondary post so that the review isn't inundated with nonsense.

Before we start, I want to clarify something that I didn't initially realize when I grabbed the book but recognized as I dug in. That is: "Alien Resurrection" has a different author. While the initial three stories were told by Alan Dean Foster, a true veteran in the industry when it comes to novelizations, the fourth one was done by A.C. Crispin. And, having just plowed through the previous three, I have to say that you could tell (in a good way!)

So, let's dig in.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with the Alien series, Alien Resurrection was the last of the "Quadrilogy" as it was affectionately known. Picking up several hundred years after the last installment, Ripley was dead and gone. That is, until scientists, utilizing DNA recovered from "Fury 161" are able to clone and recreate her. There's only one problem: her DNA has become intermingled with that of the Alien creature she fought so diligently against. Now, she is less than human; more of a monster that is linked both physically and mentally with the true prize the scientists hoped to acquire: a genetically recreated alien queen. But, as it would with these monsters, all hell breaks loose soon after a pirate crew arrives on the top secret science vessel. The few survivors must ban together to get out all while the ship barrels towards Earth with its monstrous cargo in tow.

The first thing that I noticed, as I touched on before, was the difference in the author. As I've mentioned in all three previous iterations, Alan Dean Foster has a deep and affectionate love for detail. Lots of detail. Occasionally, way too much detail. As it stands, detail is not necessarily a bad thing. However, sometimes the fine-toothed comb approach proves more of a hindrance than anything else, particularly in the first novel, when it brings the story grinding to a halt. As it were, the first three all definitely have a 'touch-and-go' story pace that resembles someone pumping the gas in a car. Alien Resurrection faces no such issues.

The fourth and final installment flows smooth as butter. While I technically still like Foster's "Aliens" novel better overall (primarily due to content versus style), I would be disrespecting Crispin's work by not recognizing that everything simply flows better. The book is a page turner if ever there was one.

The next thing that stood out compared to the previous installments was the similarity to the original screenplay. While this sounds weird, all previous iterations of the stories have featured severe departures from the canon. Things like "aliens with eyes" and "poisonous stinger barbs" are just some of the immediate thoughts, however all of Foster's novels feature information that is directly contradictory to established information from the films. Instead, Crispin sticks pretty solidly to the original story with only a few addendums that explore character motivation and background. Side characters that aren't overly explored in the original movie, such as Distephano the soldier and Purvis the hapless miner, are examined more deeply; making them more relateable and understandable characters vs. their relatively cardboard cutout design in the film.

Overall, the book is a good read. It's smooth and delivers and exciting and thrilling story that keeps you flipping pages to see what happens next. If you've read the previous books, its a good departure from the previous style. If you've seen the movies, it'll be an enjoyable translation of the onscreen action with just a little sugar to sweeten it up. Even if you haven't read/seen the others, I would definitely recommend this even as a standalone title.

Getting back to it

Hello Lovelies,

I wanted to take a moment and just apologize for the silence over the course of the last week.

Long story short, I've been doing what I can to insure that I have early posts scheduled and everything is flowing smoothly. Overall, I feel it's been going pretty well, but unfortunately I was pretty down for the count for the last week or so. A combination of work and sickness made it so I effectively had no time followed by no capability/drive to produce anything of noteworthiness. In other words, I crashed hard and didn't come back up for a good week.

Oh well.

So, with that sad, I just wanted to let you know that everything should be a bit more smoothed out now and we should be back on track. I hope I didn't miss anything too big or crazy. How are you? I hope you're doing alright.

Either way, I've had a passing thought for a while now that I've been trying to figure out an ideal way to react to. In short, I have a few faithful readers who I enjoy speaking to regularly and there are many more people I'd like to invite to join us. So what's a good way to encourage it? I've been looking at book giveaways and, while Xenophobia is certainly stuck hard in the editing phase (because I'm a horrible, terrible person) I've been looking at other possibilities for acquiring digital books that I could occasionally raffle off simply as a "thank you" to readers.

I believe I've found a good possibility for just that, but I wanted to raise the question:

Have you ever given away free books?

Are they your own or simply celebratory gifts?

What process have you utilized to do so?

I know I've seen a raffle system wandering across the literary blogs, but I can't remember what it is off the top of my head. I think it's Rafflecopter, but I'll need to look into that as well.

With pleasantries aside, let's get ourselves back on track. :)

- RB

Alien 3 Novel Review

Continuing on our trend of reviewing the last few 'Alien' novels, it's time now for Alien 3! (I promise, we're almost done and will move on to different novels shortly).

To begin, let me say that this actually turned out notably better than I really expected. To many who know the original movies, 'Alien 3' is generally considered the weakest of the group. Out of place, a little slow, a little boring, and just generally an all around 'meh' experience, I don't think I can name anyone who claims 'Alien 3' to be their favorite in the series. However, I'm happy to say the book did a bit more for me than the movie adaptation.

For those that are unfamiliar with the film, 'Alien 3' picks up almost immediately after the events of the 'Aliens' story. The survivors of the incident on Acheron are in cryogenic sleep and on their way back to Earth when disaster strikes. The sleepers are jettisoned in an escape pod and land on a nearby planet: Fiorina 161. The unfortunate part? 'Fury 161' as it's called is a largely uninhabitable planet utilized as a Penitentiary. Upon waking on this desolate world, Ripley finds that the disaster that destroyed her ship might not have been an accident and that she might have brought something else with her down to 'Fury 161'. Now, with 'the company' en route, racing to collect the Alien specimen and silence any witnesses, Ripley is in a race against time to kill the creature that is picking off the prisoners one by one while realizing that she herself might have brought more than one Alien with her to the planet...

As I mentioned before, I was largely surprised to find I enjoyed the book a great deal more than a movie. Many felt that the original film was unnecessary, drab, and failed to really do anything interesting with the formula. While I can't argue against the fact that the film simply feels like a rehash of the first movie's 'picking-a-group-off-one-by-one' concept, there are a few things the book did very well.

First, we had a large exploration of Fury 161 and the prisoners who live on the planet. While we got a few bits of information in the film regarding the planet being a 'shit hole' for lack of a better term and that there is a lice infestation, we really didn't see more than that. In the book, there's a greater focus on what the planet is like, what drew Weyland Yutani to mine there, what creatures live on the planet, how the facility itself works, and what day to day troubles all of the above afford the prisoners. Likewise, all of the prisoners get a more in-depth examination. While I doubt you could name more than a couple of the prisoners in the film, you are allowed to get a feel for a many of them this time around. The one that really grabbed my attention was Gollick, who plays a pretty big role during the Alien Hunt later in the book but who is largely ignored during the film with the exception of a couple key scenes.

Likewise, the actual interaction with the alien and the sheer panic of the Alien Hunt during the mount and climax of the book are fantastically well done. While the film by no means failed to deliver in these scenes, the book did well to portray the panic and chaos in these moments when everything that could go wrong did. Likewise, Ripley's odd 'experience' with the Aliens is delved into a little more deeply in a way the movie can't simply by adding a greater understanding for the senses and thoughts that would be involved here.

In short, I was happy to have read this one. I was blown away that I my least favorite movie actually proved to be a better read than the first book's adaptation. Worth a shot if you enjoy the series.

Reading between the Lines

Hello Lovelies,

Today I wanted to take a moment and talk about the importance of subtext and giving a story a purpose. In short, what is it that you really want your story to say.

To clarify, this was actually something I had a huge issue with in writing early on and is still something that challenges me to this day. However, giving your story subtext, a moral, or a meaning to the overall is what makes the difference between a story and simply imagining/fantasizing on paper. A story provides a goal or a narrative whereas fantasy is just that: the ideal wanderings of the mind. Allow me to give you an example that strikes close to home.

Consider Xenophobia. The original concept behind Xenophobia was just meant to be a little 'twist'. It was meant to describe this horrible place that just sounds monstrous and frightening but then the 'twist' was to reveal that we were actually talking about humans/Earth. While the concept is fun and the 'twist' is little more than shock-value silliness, there really isn't much else THERE. It's just meant as a quick, idle fantasy.

On the other-hand, where the story WENT is another matter all together (and the reason the beginning of the book is taking so much to re-write.) The story started to become an examination of human political behavior and is meant to reflect very real actions that are being taken today. You have people just sitting back and watching. You have people moving to war on grounds of fear and misunderstanding. You have people standing up in battles who were never invited and you have people who are just there to watch and amuse themselves.

With this in mind, a solid story will always involve some deeper meaning. It will allow a person to 'read between the lines'. Part of what personally helped me was a friend's recommendation.

 "Anytime you watch a movie or read a book, try to figure out what the story

it ACTUALLY about? What is it telling you? What is the 'purpose' behind it?"

It was honestly a great exercise. It allows you to look at literature and entertainment with a whole different light and apply that seem concept to writing. If you're not able to apply a meaning and you don't know what you're actually telling your audience, why ever would someone bother reading it?

This isn't to say that every book out there needs to be the Odyssey and not every writer needs to be Shakespeare, but having a purpose behind your writing, a goal for the narrative, will give your story more substance. It will draw you away from the amateur habit of just writing endless description and either too much action or dialogue. Instead, it will focus you.

You could probably find thousands of ideas, however here are some ideas for morals and purposes:
 -  "Don't make a big deal about a minor problem."
 -  "The fallout of a lie may be worse than accepting responsibility for the truth."
 -  "A new friend may be worth more than an old one."
 -  "Don't bite the hand that feeds you."
 -  "It is not only fine feathers that make a fine bird."
 -  "Anger is a fire that burns all, friend and foe alike."
 -  "Necessity is the mother of invention."
 -  "Pride goes before the fall."
 -  "Misfortune provides insight as those those you should trust."
 -  "Deeds speak louder than words."
 -  "The power of one falls short of the power of many."
 -  "The wealthy are only as rich as how they use their wealth."

I hope this inspired some of you. Do you have any good ideas for morals or purposes? Share in the comments below for everyone to enjoy!

Looking at it from Both Sides

"Ha ha ha!" laughed the villain. "My recipe calls for only the finest baby unicorn penguins! Even though eating one will literally cause thirty atomic bombs to go off around the world, I must sate my hunger!"

Sound familiar? How about this?

"It's truly incredible." said the side character in awe. "Now that you've thrown off the shackles of eating any kind of meat, you are clearly the best of us all. Our one true God has granted you the ability to smite all of the redneck gun owners who would do nothing but overthrow society with the desire to eat all that they see because clearly they have no morals or wills of their own outside of an insatiable desire for blood!"

How about this?

Honestly, I hope not. Because if it does you very well might be reading some serious garbage.

Now, before I receive another angry e-mail claiming I am supporting some weird nuclear-penguin eating agenda, let me just say this: this was the first random example of a terrible villain and hero that came to mind. Overly psychotic, blood-thirsty monster and exemplary, pure, perfect, holy hero who could never harm another soul. With that said, do you see the problem with these examples?

In short: these characters aren't even black and white. They're at best white or black in their design. That said: let's talk characters!

What makes a good hero AND villain really interesting is their relatability. While you might be inclined to make a villain truly monstrous or a hero a shining beacon of light, I would discourage you from such writing tropes. They're rarely done right and doing so makes them confusingly evil or unattainably good. Instead, look at it from both sides. Why is the hero good? Why is the villain evil? Where did they really come from that makes them who they are?

While I'm pretty sure I've used this line before, it's still one of my favorites and is definitely worth repeating.

 "No one thinks that they're the bad guy."

With that said, consider that from the perspective of the villain. Most real people aren't going to actively make choices that are just outright evil. Example given, eating the one, lone unicorn penguin AND destroying the world via nukes linked to said unicorn penguin seems a liiiiiiiiiiittle out of realistic trains of thought for any given individual. Instead, consider the choices that got them there. Consider where they are coming from but also where are they going. There's a reason antagonists are called antagonists versus fucking-evil-bad-guys. It's because they are working opposite to protagonists. And that doesn't mean evil...just opposed.

But hey, let's apply that same logic to the heroes. Surely you've heard the 'misunderstood villain' shtick before, but what about the fact that the hero doesn't think they're the bad guy either! They're not the bad guy. Right? Riiiiight? There's no way that this guy whose a shit driver and cuts people off in traffic is bad. Or the guy who doesn't tip is bad. How about that hero who kind of hates black people. He's the good guy right? Well...he's the protagonist. And just as the villain isn't necessarily evil, the hero isn't necessarily good.

In fact, they're all just human.

Unless they're aliens.

Then fuck those guys, am I right?

PS: Sorry to all of my alien readers. I love you and couldn't help myself.

So going forward, I would encourage you to consider your heroes and villains both not as tropes, i.e. good and bad, but as people. People working towards opposite ends in opposing ways. People with goals that they want to fulfill for some reason or another. The thief who needs money. The fighter whose been misled. The princess with an addiction. The man with a mission. None of these are necessarily good or bad...it's just how you use them.