• Geek Upbringing – First of all I must give a mention to my wife’s adventures into geekdom. I’m slowly converting her, though sometimes she fights it, she will be come a nerd.
• Gypsyscarlett’s Weblog – One of the first blogs I found on wordpress.com, Gypsyscarlett has a lot of fascinating insight on the Victorian Gothic era. I believe the blog came about as part of research for writing a 19th century style gothic novel.
• Filling Spaces – another blog that I discovered early on, this is a great blog about all things related to reading and writing. You can also follow the writing process of DD as she writes her Vampire novel.
• Books Worth Reading – as someone that is trying to become a better reader I always like to read about books worth reading. This blog by Shannon, really is enjoyable for me, simply because she is a blogging junkie like me, though she has heaps more blogs around the place.
• The Genteel Arsenal – another great blog about books, but this blog covers so much more than just the books and explores all different aspects of books and reading.

As for music blogging I need to mention two blogs;

• Music-Domination – yes, I know its my other blogs, but everyone should be reading it.
• Spiltmidi – I’ve worked a lot with helping DJ Spiltmidi develop his site into a great blog for production tips and minimal music.

Also another opportunity that has come up is a chance to write for a newly formed local street press. I was offered the chance and have written two music based articles (one on Powerdfinger and the other about The Butterfly Effect and Calling All Cars). Though the good thing about this is, the fact is this will give me an opportunity to write more articles, and get my name out there. I’m not planning on focusing on just music based articles, I have actually been writing one about Social Networking.

These opportunities are awesome but my main focus will remain with knowledgelost, though I feel like I’m coming to the end of the wordpress.com platform and may have to look at upgrading sometime soon. Readership has increased heaps, but there is only a small, but growing community leaving comments.

My biggest concern is losing readers or failing to keep the growth from the move. But I have been focusing a lot of getting my blog out there. I have been using twitter for awhile now, but only recently added a facebook page, as well as adding links into Stumble, Delicious, Reddit and Digg.

So while I’m at a crossroads with this blog, expect good things to come soon.

1. Frankenstein (1818), by Mary Shelley
2. The Time Machine (1895), by H.G. Wells
3. At the Mountains of Madness (1931), by H.P. Lovecraft
4. I, Robot (1955), by Isaac Asimov
5. The Dispossessed (1974), by Ursula LeGuin
6. Kindred (1979), by Octavia Butler
7. Wizard (1979), by John Varley
8. Consider Phlebas (1987), by Iain M. Banks
9. He, She, and It (1991), by Marge Piercy
10. Sarah Canary (1991), by Karen Joy Fowler
11. A Fire Upon the Deep (1992), by Vernor Vinge
12. The Bohr Maker (1995), by Linda Nagata
13. The Sparrow (1996), by Mary Doria Russell
14. Cryptonomicon (2000), by Neal Stephenson
15. The Mount (2002), by Carol Emschwiller
16. Perdido Street Station (2002), by China Mieville
17. Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003), by Cory Doctorow
18. Pattern Recognition (2003), by William Gibson
19. Newton’s Wake (2004), by Ken MacLeod
20. Glasshouse (2006), by Charles Stross

For those of you not familiar with io9, it’s a blog part of the gawker network that focuses on the subjects of science fiction, futurism and advancements in the fields of science and technology.

• Markheim – This short story by Robert Louis Stevenson is defiantly my favourite of his works I’ve read so far. The concept is amazing, but I won’t give you any spoilers.
• Slaughterhouse-Five – And so it goes…nothing could have prepared me for a book like this. It’s unique in its style and left me pondering it for months after reading it.
• Wuthering Heights – I know one reader that would be happy to see this on my list. The reason it does grace this list is the simple fact, that it defied all expectations. I went into this book thinking I knew what the story was about, but it shattered every expectation and left me with a dark and beautiful tale.
• Frankenstein – It is apparent that this book has changed my life. I’ve mentioned it before in reference to pop culture and even a Smashing Pumpkins song. This book is simply a brilliant book on very real social issues.
• Hey! Nietzsche! Leave them kids alone! – This book is the reason this blog exists. Craig Schuftan opened my eyes to a world I didn’t know by providing some interesting connections between the Romantic Period and today’s music scene.

One of my holiday goals was to read Perfume: A Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind. As most of you know I love an anti-hero and Jean-Baptiste Grenouille didn’t disappoint as the cold hearted, scent obsessed protagonist. The story follows Jean-Baptiste journey through life, haunted by the smalls of the world and the desire to preserve some of the sweetest scents of 18th Century France. Patrick Suskind beautifully wrote this book in a way that could be easily read by anyone. I’ve heard this book been described as a good starting point into the world of literature and I defiantly can see why. This book was so well written with the descriptions of the scenery, people and most importantly scents.

Jean-Baptiste is a sinister, odourless man who is often described as the villain in this book. Though in my mind, I don’t believe that he was written that way; not that I feel sorry for the emotionless Jean-Baptiste, who was only obsessed with one thing. I did feel that the end fall flat without any real reason, but then again I understand that by that stage Jean-Baptiste had nothing left, thus a fitting end.

All in all I would recommend this book to everyone, as it is a great piece of literature.

As for the film adaptations, it did convert to this medium well, though it did miss some of the beautiful and clever writing that the book provided.

The question is; should you write what you know if what you know is to painful to write about?

Frankenstein is referenced  in countless  movies but ia most commonly associated with the monster, not the doctor. It’s just a tale of a monster terrorising the villages and  until you read the book you don’t understand it at all. I remember reading Frankenstein for the first time and discovering this isn’t a book about a monster.  This is a book about society and how we judge and treat people.

When it comes to Dracula, we all know the story of the Vampire, Count Dracula from Transylvania, but we don’t have a clue on just how interestingly the book was written. I went into the book thinking I was going to be reading a novel, but I discovered a series of letters, diary entries and ship logs that told this story in such an unsuspecting way.

Now unfortunately pop culture has ruined the plot of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde but it has left out a lot of the interesting concepts. The book explores the idea of separating the Good from the Evil in the doctor, who was trying to explore the evil inside of himself and still live with his conscience clear. Or maybe it’s a story about living life with split personalities.   There are so many interpretations, but all in all its a book about the duality of human nature.  Pop Culture just tells a story of a doctor discovering this potion by accident.

The interesting thing is that no one really knows where Mr Hyde goes all those nights and what he does. This has lead to many of conversations through the ages trying to work out what Mr Hyde was up to; Some say it’s a metaphor for Homosexuality but I believe it’s open for personal interpretation. So the reader can make his own discovery on their evil side.

Recently I read Tomorrow When the War Began because I missed out on reading it when I was a teenager. Which left the story unfinished and I felt I wanted to know what was going to happen. So I’ve now completed book 2; The Dead of the Night. I actually preferred this book over the first, the innocence of the kids is now gone, while still having to struggle against the enemy that now have to struggle with sexual desire too (actually I don’t think the struggled they just ‘hopped on’…so to speak). The main protagonist Ellie has ended up killing a man and there is the remorse going on in her head while everyone else seems to think she would be ok killing again. All in all I think it was a darker novel and that is what I enjoyed most about it.

Warming Up Before Writing

This is something I’ve never really done but I can see that doing some exercises to get you into the flow of writing would help. Also if you do exercises that will relate to your story then it will defiantly benefit you later. Although the craft of writing is in the rewrite all these exercises are really to help you write your first draft.

Warm Up Exercises

• Write a descriptive paragraph of a characters favourite food from their childhood
• Write a descriptive paragraph of a characters favourite song from their childhood

There are more things you can write about as well, for any experience, like owning a pet or driving a car. This is to help you understand the character a bit better and get the creative juices flowing. If you struggle try writing from your own perspective first.

Characters

Well written stories have well written characters. These Characters need to be complex creatures with fears, desires and struggles. Though you may not write about all these things, it’s important to know everything about the character so you know how they will talk, think and feel in certain situations.

Character Building Exercise

Find a picture of person that maybe a character in your book then work out the following

• Characters Full Name
• Age
• Job
• What they want most in the world
• What do they fear most in the world

Editing

Self editing is often extremely hard and you often miss a lot of mistakes. So here is a list of ideas to help with editing and things to look for when you edit.

• Try putting the story away for a few weeks or a month and not look at it, then come back to it
• When something doesn’t sound right
  • Delete It
  • Make it on the page and come back to it later
  • Re-write it
  • Try reading out aloud
• Print out your work
• This way you can see if it too descriptive (too blocky)
• Not descriptive enough (too much unused space)
• Look for consistencies
• If it feels like you are explaining not telling a story (you most likely are)
• Be willing to delete lovely writing if it has no relevance to the story
• Be wary of too many agentives or adverbs.
• If a section isn’t working
• Try writing from a different perspective
• Step out of your work, but stay in character (eg. Write the characters journal or a series of letters to people or even put the character in another situation)
• Don’t be nervous about trashing the whole story and starting again

Research

All books will require some research; it is the foundation of every story.
With any story not just Historical Fiction tries to be accurate with the story; there are plenty of resources out there for this.

• Textbooks (Not just current ones but textbooks written in those days)
• Oral History or Even of Diaries (will give you an idea of slang and informal language)
• Official Records / Newspapers (will give you an idea of the formal language)
• Academics (There is normally a Thesis on any subject)
• Historical Societies (normally have good records and good antidotes about life in a particular time)
• The Internet (Good reference point with a lot of information but not always a reliable source)
• Field Work (Get a sense of the scenery, how things feel, smell, etc)

Remember it’s the little details that often matter the most in a story. Try to cover a range of sources and don’t be afraid to include little snippets of real text into your story (as long as you check copyrights and reference it). There is a fine line to overloading your story with facts, so don’t be intrusive with the facts.

Research Exercise

Split a page into two columns; the left side write down all the facts you will need to add (eg. What was the weather like, what did people where, etc) and on the other side write some imagery to go with these facts (eg. If the weather was cold and windy, write something like “the wind was like icy knives stabbing at my skin”)

Timelines & Maps

It’s important to make sure your work is consistent, so sometimes its a good idea to make a timeline of relevant world events and then match them up with your characters timeline to make sure they are consistent. You don’t want to make a reference to something that wasn’t around that era (eg. If you character took a train make sure there were trains in the area in that time)
Also make mud maps of the house, the area and surrounding. This way you will know distances, water crossings, old buildings, etc. You don’t want to fall into a trap of mentioning something and then forgetting about it later on. (eg. If someone took 2 days by horse to get somewhere you don’t want another person arriving in only a day.)
If you are writing about a real place, maybe look at Google maps or Google earth, find some maps from that era, just so you understand the surroundings and what’s happening.

Points to Remember

• Don’t make your novel sound like a series of facts
• Make the characters feel like real flawed people
• Hook into the terminology and language used back then (maybe don’t write in old English because people won’t understand it, but use phrases or worlds that remind people it’s set in old English times)
• Use era appropriate words (eg. Don’t call it a train if it was referred to as a Locomotive back then)
• Be aware of slang or cursing (check to see what was used back then)
• Don’t try to tell the reader life was harder or easier back then, just that it was different
• Leave your own perceptions out of your work
• Remember the day to day lives of your character
• Research names commonly used in that era
• Understand your character and the landscape
• Just Write – you can rewrite and edit later; just try to get all the thoughts on paper before you lose them. Polishing your work can come at anytime.

I enjoy graphic novels, simply because they are very easy to read and I love the art work and story telling mix. I just finished Wanted which was the combination of the six comics into one graphic novel. Yes, there was a movie based on it, which started with a white Angelina Jolie (I know she is always white but the character she played…not so much). The only common elements between the Graphic Novel and the book were their names and the fact that Wesley’s dad died and he finally learned about his father.

The story follows the story of Wesley Gibson (The Killer) who ends up been apart of Secret Society of Super-Villains. The story is gruesome and politically incorrect version of the standard ‘Lost Mans discovery of himself.’ Wesley looks too much like Eminem but the rest of the art work was really good with some very interesting looking Villains and no superheros. It was an interested twist on a basic story line, but full of action and disturbing elements to keep me interested.

For those who aren’t aware of Nanowrimo or Script Frenzy here is a brief explanation.

Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) is an annual creative writing project coordinated. Spanning the month of November, the project challenges participants to write 50,000 words of a new novel in one month. (Editing, Rewriting, etc can be done later)

Now Script Frenzy is a new annual creative project done by the same non profit organisation. This one is in April; the project challenges participants to write a 100 page screen play over the span of the month. Screenplays can be for a movie, TV Show, Play, Graphic Novel, Web series, anything.

- Albert Camus

Existentialism is an interesting philosophical concept; if God doesn’t exist then life has no point. So if life has no point, we can basically do what ever we want, make our own life worth living.

Existentialist thinkers focus on the question of concrete human existence and the conditions of this existence rather than hypothesizing a human essence, stressing that the human essence is determined through life choices. However, even though the concrete individual existence must have priority in existentialism, certain conditions are commonly held to be “endemic” to human existence.

It is in relation to the concept of the devastating awareness of meaninglessness that Albert Camus claimed that “there is only one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide” in his The Myth of Sisyphus. Although “prescriptions” against the possibly deleterious consequences of these kinds of encounters vary, from Kierkegaard’s religious “stage” to Camus’ insistence on persevering in spite of absurdity, the concern with helping people avoid living their lives in ways that put them in the perpetual danger of having everything meaningful break down is common to most existentialist philosophers. The possibility of having everything meaningful break down poses a threat of quietism, which is inherently against the existentialist philosophy.

Existentialist thinking makes me wonder about things like;

• Angst
• Authenticity or even inauthenticity
• Despair
• Facticity
• Freedom
• Reason

Where do these fit into the world of Existentialism?

I finished the first book in the Night Angel Trilogy, The Way of Shadows and I found it a little difficult to get into. I’ve never really read much fantasy, nor do I really read newer books, so this was completely difficult to get into. Not to say it wasn’t an enjoyable book, it just was a fun and pointless book. I know reading is supposed to be fine but normally I read to learn or expand my horizons. So when I read a book for fun, I feel like I’m missing out on something. The book follows the journey of a guild rat trying to become a wetboy. For those who aren’t too sure what a wetboy is; it’s an assassin; I think the word comes from the term Wet works which the Russians used to refer to a contract kill. The book follows the journey of this wetboy and his consistent struggle with the idea that ‘you have no friends, only targets’. I’m not sure if I will read the rest of the books, simply because it felt mindless to me.

One interesting concept in this book and the main reason I want to read it, is the fact that Meursault chooses not to lie. In the afterword Camus stats;

[Meursault] refuses to lie. Lying is not only saying what isn’t true. It is also, in fact especially, saying more than is true and in the case of the human heart, saying more than one feels. We all do it, every day, to make life simpler.

The best example of people lying would be the typical conversations

“Fine”

The response “Fine” is hardly ever true and is just avoiding the real issues you are going through. But in the same conversation; how many people ask “How have you been?” and not really cared one way or another, just using it as a conversation starter.