Month: February 2010

The Theban Mapping Project

I promise I won’t turn this into Jason’s Boring Ass Egyptology Blog, but I encourage any of you who have even a passing interest in ancient Egypt to check out the website of the Theban Mapping Project: http://www.thebanmappingproject.com/.

While you’re there, I suggest you try out the Atlas of the Valley of the Kings.  It’s an interactive map that shows you every tomb in the valley and, in many cases, there’s a little video narrated by Kent Weeks (Director of the TMP) giving a bit of info about the tomb.  The 3D reconstruction of KV 14 (Taworset and Setnakt) is also worth a look.

Saying goodbye to my Mac

The other day, I decided that the time had come to purchase a new computer.  I’d been using a MacBook for writing and most day-to-day stuff and a Dell Inspiron for gaming and I was hoping to find a system that could replace them both.  In other words, I was looking for something both portable and powerful.

Being a huge fan of my Mac, I naturally checked out the MacBook Pros first.  I was hoping that they’d finally have decent graphics cards that would allow me to play games but, alas, that’s still not the case.  The more affordable MacBook Pros only come with an integrated graphics card; you have to spend over $2000 before you get a dedicated graphics card and, even then, it didn’t look to be that great.  I’m not going to be playing Crysis or anything like that, but I do enjoy graphically-demanding games such as the Total War series, so I wanted a system that will hold me in good stead for the next few years.

So I began looking at PCs, namely those made by Asus.  I was pleased to discover that they make affordable machines that get very good reviews.  I didn’t like most of their dedicated gaming machines because of the fugly decals and lights they tart them up with.  But I eventually settled on the Asus N61JQ-X1 since it seemed to give me the power I was looking for in a (relatively) portable body.  (At least it’s smaller and lighter than my old Dell!)  I also loved the price.

I am sad to be bidding farewell to my MacBook though.  I still really like OS X and Scrivener is a great program for writers.  But I couldn’t justify spending almost twice as much money for a machine that would be technically inferior to the Asus I ended up buying.  Someday, when I have more money and more space, I might buy a Mac just for writing.  But until then, I’ll just have to muddle through with MS Word.

Putting faces to names

By now many of you have probably heard about the recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association about Tutankhamen.  What was fascinating to me was not so much his cause of death, but the revelations concerning his family tree.

At long last, we can now ascribe mummies to Tutankhamen’s relatives.  The mysterious body found in KV55 was found to be Tutankamen’s father and, given its genetic relationship to Amenhotep III, it’s almost certainly Akhenaten.  The Elder Lady found in KV35 is Queen Tiye, wife of Amenhotep III and mother of Akhenaten.  The Younger Lady who was found next to her is Tutankamen’s as-yet-unnamed mother.  Even more intriguingly, one of the mummies found in KV21 can be identified as the mother of the two embalmed fetuses placed in Tutankhamen’s tomb, which suggests that it’s the mummy of his wife, Ankhesenamen (though that can’t be proven yet).

Perhaps someday we’ll be able to learn more about the posthumous journeys made by Tiye, the Younger Lady, and Ankhesenamen.  Clearly, they were moved out of their original tombs at some point and taken to places of relative safety.  But none of them seem to have been treated well.  Ankhesenamen was left in a small uninscribed tomb with some other woman, while Tiye and the Younger Lady were found unwrapped on the floor of the tomb of Amenhotep II.  I can see why the Younger Lady and Ankhesenamen might get shitty treatment given their relationship to the Heretic King, but surely Tiye should have been treated better.

What I’ve watched: Wolf’s Rain

My Grade: C-

Every Sunday, my friend and I get together to watch anime and have dinner.  Over the years, we’ve watched a number of great series, including Fullmetal Alchemist, Cowboy Bebop, and Avatar: The Last Airbender.  We’ve also watched some not-so-great series, such as Bleach and Gilgamesh.  Recently, we finished Wolf’s Rain and, I have to say, it falls into the not-so-great category.

Let me start out by saying that I had high hopes for WR.  I first became aware of it several years ago when I found its closing theme (“Gravity”) used in some YouTube video.  But I promptly forgot about it until last December when the Physicist and I were looking to start a new anime series.  Much to my subsequent embarrassment, I suggested WR.

Like Bleach, WR gets off to a good start.  The whole premise of wolves masquerading as humans in a postapocalyptic, vaguely steampunk world was intriguing.  But it all goes downhill from there.  Most of the characters are so poorly developed that you don’t really care when they meet their Inevitable Tragic End, nor do you care about their inane subplots.  And the ending manages to be both depressing and ludicrous at the same time.

And then there are the recap episodes.  Despite the fact that the series is only thirty episodes long, WR has no less than four consecutive recap episodes in which the story so far is retold from the perspective of four different characters.  Of course they don’t end up being all that different from one another, so it just gets old really fast.  The whole thing just reeks of a production delay.  The only good thing about these recap episodes is that, in the American release at least, they’re all on the same disc, so they’re easy to avoid.

PROS

Nice Artwork

Nice Soundtrack

Cool Premise

CONS

Hamfisted Plotting

Paper-thin Characters

Pointless Recap Episodes

Another journey begins

It’s time.  Time to start revising my novel, again.  I finished the first draft on January 1 and, eager to move forward, I started revising on January 7.  But I soon realized that I was actually doing myself a disservice by moving ahead so quickly.  As I reread the first few chapters, I realized that I couldn’t look at them objectively because I was still so euphoric from finishing the first draft.

It was then that I realized that there’s a reason why so many writers recommend taking some time off between finishing your draft and starting the revision process.  You need to put distance between yourself and your work so you can approach it as dispassionately as possible.  Also, since your writing won’t be fresh in your mind, you’ll be more likely to see plot holes and inconsistencies (when I read something right after I’ve written it, I often miss those little problems because my mind is still immersed in the story that’s in my head, rather than what’s on the page).

Once I realized that I was jumping the gun, I put my novel away and I’ve let it sit, untouched, for 47 days now.  Of course, it was difficult to ignore at first.  I wanted nothing more than to admire what I’d done and re-immerse myself in the world I’d created.  But I held out and, gradually, the novel drifted into the recesses of my mind.  Weeks went by without me giving it a single thought.  Then today I found the manuscript sitting on a chair and a little voice inside of me said “it’s time.”

So tonight I will crack open the manuscript, armed with my trusty red pen and spiral-bound notebook.  In order to avoid falling into an endless cycle of revisions, I’ve set myself a deadline of April 17 for completing the revisions.  Then it’ll be time for my Ideal Reader to have a look at it and give his verdict.

Wish me luck!

What I’ve read: Reliquary

Reliquary by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Tor, 1997

MY GRADE: A-

Reliquary is the sequel to Relic, a book I read last summer and thoroughly enjoyed.  I loved the fact that the novel was set in a museum and featured a grad student as one of the protagonists.  And of course the idea of a monster running around the museum appealed to the fantasy enthusiast inside of me  (though it must be pointed out that it proved to be a sci-fi monster rather than a fantasy monster).  Given how much I enjoyed Relic, I knew I’d buy the sequel at some point.

Reliquary reunites most of the characters from the original, including Margo Green (who’s now a curator at the museum), her former mentor Dr. Frock, Lt. D’Agosta, FBI Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast, and journalist Bill Smithback.

When two headless skeletons are discovered off the Manhattan shoreline, it looks as if the Mbwun (the monster from Relic might be on the loose again).  A series of strange murders ensues, but forensic evidence suggests that the Mbwun isn’t to blame.  Eventually the protagonists are forced to delve deep beneath the city into the hidden world of the ‘Mole People’ who inhabit the warren of subterranean tunnels to battle the hidden evil lurking below.

In many ways, Preston and Child did a great job of duplicating the recipe that made Relic so enjoyable.  Once again, there is a fast-paced plot advanced through the liberal use of cliffhangers.  And the sci-fi element is intriguing, if a bit far-fetched.

But at the same time, like many sequels, this one wasn’t quite as good as its predecessor.  The antagonist’s motivation struck me as a bit illogical and he ended up being defeated rather easily (though stopping the plan he’d put in motion proves to be much more difficult).  I also found Bill Smithback’s subplot to be unnecessary.  It felt like he’d been shoehorned in just to keep him in the story.

The only major complaint I have applies to Relic just as much as Reliquary and it involves Special Agent Pendergast.  From his immaculately tailored suits to his proficiency at nearly everything, he’s just too perfect to be believable.  Don’t get me wrong, I like him, it’s just that he’s basically a Marty Stu.  Preston and Child have written a number of further adventures for him, so I’ll be interested to see if he becomes more believable in later books.

Even though I didn’t enjoy this book as much as its predecessor, I still thought it was a fun read and I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a fast-paced techno thriller.

What I’ve read: Raven’s Gate

Raven’s Gate by Anthony Horowitz

Scholastic, 2006

MY GRADE: B-

A while back, I stumbled upon the website for the Gatekeepers series by Anthony Horowitz (of which Raven’s Gate is the first book) and, even though the series is written for kids, I thought the basic premise seemed really cool.  So when I got an Amazon.com gift certificate, I decided to throw RG in my shopping cart.

I started reading RG the day it arrived and I managed to finish it in about two days.  It’s only 254 pages and, being a kid’s book, it moves along at a brisk pace.  For the most part, I enjoyed the overall plot and found the characters to be interesting.  Horowitz also manages to add a unique twist to the whole bad-guys-are-trying-to-unleash-some-ancient-evil trope by throwing a nuclear reactor into the mix.

That being said, on closer examination, the plot is riddled with a number of WTF? moments.  For example, Matt (the main character), is a juvenile delinquent sent to live with a strange old woman (Mrs. Deverill) in the country as a part of a government scheme to rehabilitate young offenders.  It’s established early on that Mrs. Deverill is an unpleasant person and something of a taskmaster and Matt comes to regret ending up in her house.  He decides to escape, but is thwarted by a spell that ensures that, no matter which direction he heads, he always ends up back at the same intersection.

This is where we come to the first major WTF? moment.  Matt is forced to return to Mrs. Deverill and the next scene makes it clear that she knows about his escape (she also knows that, just before he left, he rooted around in her stuff).  Yet she does nothing to punish him (or confine him) and, in fact, he’s able to attempt an escape the very next day.  She does send her demon cat to watch Matt and his escape attempt fails, but the fact that she let him attempt another get away struck me as a bit odd, considering it had already been established that Matt was very important to her for some occult reason.

Another WTF? moment comes towards the end of the novel when Matt is forced to take part in a Black Mass in an abandoned nuclear power station.  During the ceremony, Matt hears strange chanting and he’s instantly able to recognize it as a backwards rendition of the Lord’s Prayer.  I’m a practicing Episcopalian who says the Lord’s Prayer every week during the Eucharist and I’m not sure that I’d be able to recognize it if it were said backwards, so I find it a bit hard to believe that a teenager who doesn’t seem to have any particular religious background would be able to recognize it so quickly.

Perhaps these little plot infelicities can be explained by the fact that Horowitz is writing for children and had to make some logical leaps in order to keep the plot moving along at a brisk pace.  At the same time, I’ve read children’s fiction where the author manages to keep the plot moving along without creating the same sort of WTF? moments (the Harry Potter series and the Bartimaeus Trilogy spring to mind).

Horowitz also forgets from time to time that he should be showing, not telling.  Early on in the book, Matt notices a sinister-looking painting at Mrs. Deverill’s house and the narrator  simply tells us that “it must have been painted five hundred years ago,” without any elaboration. It would have been far more effective to say something about the cracked paint or the old-fashioned costume worn by the subject of the painting.

We also get a lot of  superfluous wardrobe information about the characters and, in many cases, it really doesn’t add to the characterization.  I don’t see the point of telling the reader that the main character is wearing jeans and a hooded sweatshirt.  That doesn’t tell me much about him since most teenagers dress like that.

In the end, I don’t regret buying RG, but I doubt I’ll read any of the other books in the series.  The WTF? moments and the issues with description place it firmly in the higher end of the ‘okay’ category.

A brief history of my work-in-progress

The initial seeds for what would become my current work-in-progress were planted in 2002.  A friend of mine was trying to join a fraternity and, out of curiosity I checked out their website.  I was amused to see that they seemed to think that they were singlehandedly saving the world through their charitable work and it struck me: what if there was a fraternity that actually did save the world?

Given that I’ve always loved contemporary fantasy, it only seemed natural that they’d end up fighting demons and other supernatural nasties.  I decided that, while this group masqueraded as a traditional Greek fraternity, they would really be an ancient order dedicated to fighting the forces of evil.  Early on, I’d ruled out any connection with either the Knights Templar or the Freemasons, since those tropes have become rather tired by now.

I then set about coming up with a suitable protagonist.  The result was Derek, an all-American guy who was descended from the Nephilim, which explained his physical prowess.  He had a best friend named Andrew who functioned as a sort of dorky sidekick.  While Derek was your typical college jock, Andrew was your typical nerd who lived for his books.  Ultimately, both of them were to end up joining the fraternity.

The main antagonist was going to be a demon that had been trapped in a mirror that was in the college’s museum.  Some students would be messing around with the occult and accidentally free him from his prison and then of course carnage would ensue.

Following advice I’d gleaned from some writing book whose name eludes me now, I made ridiculously detailed character bios for each of my main characters, including everything from their physical characteristics to their most embarrassing moments and their favorite songs.  In retrospect, I spent way too much time on all this.  Not only did it keep me from focusing on the Big Picture, but very little of it would likely be relevant to the story itself.

Once I’d finished everyone’s biography, I started writing.  I got through about a chapter before I realized that I hated my main character.  Writing him was like pulling teeth and I suspect it was because he was a Marty Stu.  He was like those strong-chinned guys that you see in the razor commercials who have an admiring female pop out of nowhere to rub their freshly shaven jaw.

I knew it was a bad sign when I as the author was bored to tears by my main character.  I was also less-than-impressed with the demon who functioned as the antagonist.  Despite his copious backstory, he didn’t really have much of a motivation beyond being evil.  And it really bugged me that he was little more than an ethereal Snidley Whiplash.

So I stopped writing for a long time and went back to the drawing board.  All was not lost.  I still liked the idea of the fraternity and I really came to like Andrew.  He was a lot more interesting to write than Captain Cardboard.  He wasn’t gorgeous and he had flaws, but he was witty and sure of himself.  Upon reflection, I decided that, since I enjoyed writing him so much, he should be the main character.

Because I got distracted by many shiny objects, it was years before I seriously revisited my novel.  It remained in the back of my mind and, off and on, I’d come up with new ideas for the plot.  Then in Fall of 2008, I started to get serious about it again and I took the disparate ideas I’d collected over the years and molded them into a new plot.  It was apparent that the story I wanted to tell was too big for just one book, so I started outlining subsequent books in the series.  By the Summer of 2009, I had a series of four books roughly plotted and I was ready to start work on the first book in earnest.

I should add here that I actually began the first book in January of 2009, but I stopped after the first two chapters.  In April of that year, I submitted the first chapter to a critique group at a local fantasy conference and was pleased that it received generally positive reviews.

Once again, I got sidetracked, this time by writing a short story involving the main antagonist from my novel.  The story had some good points, but it was ultimately rendered un-usable by changes I made to the antagonist’s character.

During the Fall of 2009, I plodded away on the novel some more and managed to get ab0ut 20,000 words done by the time winter break rolled around.  I basically devoted all of my winter break to writing and, as a result, I cranked out another 60,000 words by January 1, leaving me with a complete first draft.

So now I’m focused on editing my manuscript.  I started by rereading it its entirety about a week after I’d finished it, but I decided to put it away for a while since a lot of the advice I saw on the ‘Net indicated that you should try to push your first draft out of your mind for a while before you start editing it.  That advice chafed at the time, but I’ve come to acknowledge that it’s probably for the best.  When revising, I need to be ruthless and I can’t do that if I’m still in love with my writing.

Even though the journey so far has been convoluted and at times frustrating, I can’t say I’d want to do anything differently if I had the chance to do it over again.  My first attempts at a novel look painfully amateurish now, but they were mistakes that I needed to make.  (And thankfully I saw the error of my ways before I’d written an 80,000 word manuscript featuring a boring protagonist and a stock villain!).  This long, drawn-out process has also taught me that I really do love writing fiction.  Even if I never get published, the satisfaction I’ve gotten from inventing this wonderful world will make it all worthwhile.

Welcome!

I’ve finally gone and got myself a blog.  I always swore that I would never become a blogger, but I’ve come to the realization that railing against the blogosphere is kind of like railing against the printing press c. 1445.

As you probably guessed from the URL, my name is Jason Loch.  By day I’m a graduate student, but by night I write fiction.  I’m currently in the process of revising a contemporary fantasy novel, so I’ll be using this blog as a place to rant and rave about life as an aspiring author.

In case you’re wondering, Terra peregrina is Latin for ‘foreign land.’  It seemed like an appropriate name for a blog written by someone who loves writing about the fantastic.