I hate doing that. I hate it when horrible things happen to people at all. When they are characters I have created, characters that I also love, that I have built, I just have a really hard time doing nasty things to them. In short fiction, I can usually throw enough curves to make it through without doing really shitty things to them. In long-form fiction, I tend to create reversals, but nothing too major. Nothing really horrific.

I need to work on that. I need to become a real bastard.

Just like life.

I was writing on my computer. That is how I have written since university. At my job, I write a lot of reports, and doing that, I have found it is easier to compose my ideas with pen and paper, than type that in. It’s almost like an initial proofread, as during the data entry I catch grammar and logic errors, as well as realizing something isn’t flowing right.

I’m sure you can figure out what I did.

Switching to pen and paper allowed me to get the words out on the page. It was dialogue, a final exchange, and I was able to get that dialogue out and on the page. During data entry, I added actions and descriptions, rounding out the scene. Something that had foiled me for three nights in a row was sorted in a single night.

All this to say that if you’re hitting some kind of wall, be it writer’s block or finding the words on the page aren’t the words you had in your head, switch your tool. For me, it was moving from the computer to pen and paper. For you, it might be moving from pen and paper to speaking into a voice recorder (or trying to compose on the computer).

And, honestly, if you are someone who hasn’t faced this situation that really won’t make much

Queen Anne was by no means as attractive as Queen Elizabeth upon her ascension, but Britain truly became great during her reign. I need to read more about her. Most of what I have seen so far seems quite superficial, considering what happened in her time.

The wealthy elite made up 2% of the population during the Stuarts. That’s actually a better percentage than exists in the US these days. That’s scary. Further scary thing to consider is that the English Civil Wars was really about the entrenched elite using the common people to remove a monarch who didn’t play the game the way they wanted. Parliament in those days was controlled by the wealthy elite through patronage and the lack of actual elections (referred to as ‘parliamentary selection’ rather than election). That’s not entirely unlike the modern situation in many ‘democratic’ countries in which vast numbers of common people vote against their own best interests.

Well, it’s not that bad, it just isn’t that good. The premise, the ideas, even the plot all work in its favour. It is a fantastic conceit—that immortals walk among us and they can only be killed, like some zombies, by a head-ectomy, and that the dead immortal’s power then flows into the killer, assuming it’s another immortal.

There was some artistry evident. I had a particular fondness for some of the scene transitions. Certainly there were reasons I loved the movie as much as I did, even with all its failings. And I could watch it over and over again.

No longer.

The love is still there. It is still a must-have movie for me. I’m just not going to be watching it on a regular basis. The sword fights just simply aren’t that epic any longer (kind of like Obi-Wan and Darth Vader in Star Wars!). The villain is too simplistic. The hero too clear and clean—for a man who has watched so many die, who has seen so much, Nash/Macleod really doesn’t seem touched by any of it.

It doesn’t help that studios continued to try to make money out of it long after it had proven to be a fluke—though I do hear that the TV series had its moments, I watched the pilot and watched nothing more. Christopher Lambert was also an unfortunate choice to play the iconic Highlander. He does not have the dramatic weight to pull it off. He simply can’t deliver in those scenes in which Maclead is supposed to show how much the past has touched him.

I think I should have just let it sit in the back of my brain, as a memory. I knew, of course, that re-watching it would be folly. Still, sometimes one just simply must touch the burner to see if it really is hot.

Clancy Brown, however, remains awesome. I even forgive him for Pathfinder.

The Wikipedia page for Highlander can be found here.

Some of my thoughts on Highlander and gaming can be found here.

This is the place where George Lucas should have remained. After Star Wars (the original, the one we now know as A New Hope), Mr. Lucas passed on both screenwriting and directing reins to others. He remained the idea man and the producer—the guy who got things done. He did the same for Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Oh, if he had only stayed right there.

I think Lucas’ greatest strengths are as a producer and as an idea man. If someone out there wants to argue the dude has chops with directing, I’ll listen, but I’m sorry I won’t be able to totally hide my amusement or stifle my sniggering.

Jackson might want to do the same thing. King Kong gave me ample justification for this opinion. In all honesty, there was a lot about LotR that hinted at the same.

If Peter Jackson does direct the Hobbit, I have a feeling he’ll do a far superior job to what George Lucas achieved as a director with “the Prequels,” but I believe there are other directors out there who might bring more to the table.

It’s not a done deal, so maybe something will change, but I have the feeling that Jackson will have an easier time finding funding and support if he takes on the mantle himself. It is, after all, a numbers game in Hollywood, and the only numbers that matter have dollar signs attached.

Bryan Singer was much heralded because of the work he had done inside and outside of the superhero genre. The man behind the Usual Suspects and the first two X-Men movies had proved his chops both artistically and critically. Christohper Nolan is the same, and that’s who’s been linked to Superman now.

To be clear, though, it is Jonah Nolan, Christopher’s brother, who is the topic of Superman rumours, while Christopher is rumoured to be eyeing helming a Justice League movie.

Here’s where I stand: Richard Donner‘s Superman was about as perfect as one can get as an adaptation. That movie did, in fact, make us believe a man could fly, but it also made believable characters out of Superman, Lois Lane and the lot. Superman II could have been the icing on that cake, and it was still an outstanding movie, but unfortunately, the controversy of who really directed the movie, and the inclusion of a lot of unnecessary slapstick kind of dents that one.

The less said about the other movies in that earlier incarnation of the franchise, the better.

Then along comes Bryan Singer, golden boy at that time, and the choirs sang. I was one of the people who was disappointed that he didn’t complete the X-Men trilogy, given that the ending of X-Men United hinted at the Phoenix Saga. I am not a huge fan of the Superman character, so seeing him move to that iconic property did not give me the tingles

Christopher Nolan has already re-engergized one franchise, that of Batman. He has done it with skill and artistry. Given that the Dark Knight was a self-contained storyline, I have no problem with Mr. Nolan moving on to a different DC property. As to his brother, word is (and IMDB agrees) that the Nolan brothers have collaborated on many of Christopher Nolan’s prestigious works, including Memento and the Prestige.

Now, being a good writer does not equal being a good director, but let’s see what he brings to the party. If this gives us a Justice League movie, I’m cool with it. Maybe DC is trying to steal a page from Marvel and build a team movie based on a group of solo movies. We’ve got Batman, Superman, and Green Lantern as movies, either completed or in the works. I’ve heard word of a Flash movie.

Maybe this will lead to something. I’m voting “cautiously optimistic.”

BOO-YAH!

Here’s something you need to consider when you are looking to submit to that anthology that only offers $10 and a contributor’s copy (or two, if very generous)—this is a direct statement about the editor/publisher’s expectation for return. If they are only willing to pay $10 for the stories they publish, they don’t expect to sell too many copies. If they don’t have faith in themselves, why should you?

Oh, and, if you are willing to sell your stuff for $10, what does that say of your faith in yourself?

I am certain that there are many, many editors out there, just doing it for the love, wanting to share fiction in a genre that they love with others. I got two things to say about that.

1) An e-zine is free (or can be, because if you want to take over Sword’s Edge and make it a real e-zine again, you’re welcome to it), so if you are doing it for the love, do it for the love and for free.

2) The reason you aren’t doing it as an e-zine is because you want the satisfaction of having a printed copy in your hand. Which is fine, I understand that, but don’t expect me to subsidize your desire. Why don’t you go all out and actually pay professional rates, get professional stories, and publish something of which you can really be proud? Because that would cost too much? Again, don’t expect me to subsidize your desire and also please see 1).

Sorry, I just get really sick of seeing this bullshit and knowing people are still happy to submit to these markets (and these are people whose work really deserves pro rates . . . well, some of them).

If you are doing it for the love, I can get behind that, but then explain again why a free e-zine doesn’t do it for you.

Yes, that was a rant.

Yes, I am a dick.

Yes, you may go about your business now.

When one talks about fantasy role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, what often comes to mind are castles. Strangely enough, for most of the games in which I’ve played, and a lot of the fantasy that I write, cities are very important. Even when the campaign takes the characters into the uncharted wilds, or to the fringes of civilization, these campaigns often begin in large cities. I like it that way.

Cities have always had a mystique to them. Great powers had big cities–think Rome, think Constantinople, think Beijing. Those cities thrived on the lifeblood of empire, wealth and power. Wealth and power, in turn, draw people, be they merchants, craftsmen or simply labourers. As the population swelled, cities encountered problems not common to villages. Crime became a common complaint, and the stratification of society. Perhaps the two went hand in hand, I don’t know. It’s the crime and class angle that often leads me to set stories in cities. These easily lead to conflict and are good gardens for rebellious characters and outsiders. Cities also offer one a concentration of another great subject of conflict–politics.

For role-playing games, cities have another draw. Those services one commonly finds in fantasy role-playing games that one might not actually find in the Medieval countryside could be found in many large cities. Merchants to change large sums of coins or other objects of value to portable promissory notes could actually be found in a city. Large inns, rather than small public houses, existed in cities, as did establishments simply for eating and drinking, sometimes termed ordinaries but known today as bars and taverns. And what adventurer hasn’t found a job or fellow adventurers in the local tavern?

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