The Way of Kings – 2011 Book of the Year

Yes, yes, I know that I’m a little behind the times and that Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings came out in August 2010, but I was only able to get the novel this year. Before we go any further let me admit this – I’m a fan of Sanderson since I opened the first novel in his Mistborn trilogy. Admittedly, I didn’t enjoy the second and third novels in the series as much as that first one, but he had me hooked.

 

To be more honest, if it hadn’t been for the fact that he had been tipped to finish Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series, it might have been several more years before I discovered him. Any of you who have been following my blog for a while will know my dislike of the series, but everyone has their own tastes and one can’t fault the man for accepting the mantle to finish a project as big as The Wheel of Time. In fact, I admire him for the courage to take the torch from a man he admits as being his inspiration.

 

But, this isn’t about his work on The Wheel of Time but instead the first chapter in his own epic series, The Stormlight Archives. The man has taken what he learned while he wrote The Gathering Storm and applied it to his own writing style to refine his work even further.

 

It’s important to remember that this novel was the first act in what is reportedly a ten book series and any resolutions found in the novel are relatively small ones and there are definitely more questions posed in the novel than resolved. There are some characters which are only introduced and shown in the interludes between the different books and you just know that these characters will come to the fore in the rest of the series.

 

The best thing I can say about the novel is that it is the first one in a long time that I want to re-read.

Honorable Mention in Writers of the Future

Those of you who have been following this blog know that my writing group and I tried to put an anthology of our short stories together earlier in the year.  Unfortunately, due to some things which were really out of our control.

I suppose you could say that the project had a positive spin-off.  Writing the short story for the project changed a gear or something in my head and after finishing the first draft for the group project I wrote another short story which I called Necromancer as a way of taking a break from the other.  

In the end, it was the second short story which I enjoyed more than the first and after polishing the story I decided to take my chances and submitted to the Writers of the Future.  I thought nothing more of it and actually thought it had done nothing with the judges.

But this morning I got an email from the contest administrators saying that I had received an Honorable Mention for the story.  It feels strange but it's a little bit of validation telling me I'm on the right path.

Congratulations to the All Blacks (and Conspiracy Theories)

Well, Rugby World Cup 2011 came to an end on Sunday when the All Blacks defeated the brave French 8 – 7.  The only difference being a penalty that Stephen Donald got over.  Or did he?

Before we go any further – let me say congratulations to the All Blacks for winning the World Cup.  The New Zealand public had been building the pressure on their team for 24 years since the last time they won it.  But then I’m going to add a caviate to my congratulations and say they deserved to win, but maybe they had a hand from the referees in being able to win.

People can say that the South African public like to believe there is a conspiracy theory against the Boks all they want but this game didn’t involve the Springboks. The referee was South African though but reports to a New Zealand boss.

There have been so many games in this Rugby World Cup where the referee had a direct influence on the result of the match that there are many people questioning whether the whole result was rigged right from the beginning.

The Springboks came into the World Cup on the back of a victory against the All Blacks.  Their first game was against the Welsh which we narrowly won by 1 point.  I can’t remember the score but the game was close.  Many people wrote the Springboks off as a team that wouldn’t trouble the All Blacks when the time came.  But then the games against Fiji and Namibia came and going into the last week of round robin play in the pools arrived and the Springboks had a better points difference than the might All Blacks and the All Blacks messiah, Dan Carter, was ruled out of the rest of the tournament with a groin injury.  The last game against Samoa was a scrappy, niggly affair where the referee turned a blind eye to the intimidation and off-the-ball tactics of the Samoans who were more interested in picking a fight than playing rugby.

The Springboks lost their biggest asset in the backline, Francois Steyn, to injury from the game for the rest of the tournament.  Due to Australia losing to Ireland in their pool, they were destined to meet South Africa in the quarter finals.  Many said that Australia had lost due to the incompetent handling of the scrum by Bryce Lawrence (remember the name).  Bryce even came out after the game and admitted that he had been poor in his handling of the game.

Bryce’s father, Keith Lawrence, had a bit of a brain fart in the nineties when as a referee he sent an e-mail to the Australian referee association (and copied in the South African referee association) saying they needed to “teach the Japies (South Africans)” a lesson. Bryce comes from such brilliant stock, doesn’t he?

Funnily enough, Bryce Lawrence was appointed to the South Africa/Australia game.  Why would a referee who admitted to being poor be elevated to referreeing one of the biggest games in the tournament?

The South African quarter-final was another poor referreeing performance by the same Bryce Lawrence who allowed the Australian’s David Pocock to spoil and break every rule in the book. Now I don’t blame Pocock – as the fetcher his task is to bend the rules as far as the referee will allow.  Bryce just let him bend them until they were completely broken.  Something he didn’t allow the South Africans to do.

South Africa lost 9 – 11 and were on their way home.  Admittedly, we could have avoided this fate, if we’d only taken one of two penalties in the first half instead of kicking to the corner.

If South Africa was viewed at such a fate, the only other team which had beat the Boks (other than the Australians) would be just as dangerous and that was Wales.  Wales had beaten Ireland to advance to the semi-finals against France.  France, their opposition, had been viewed as a weaker team as they had already lost to New Zealand as well as Tonga.

The referee for the Wales/France semi-final was Nigel Owens. Nigel Owens – the same tosspot who had made such a hash of the South Africa/Samoa game.  He went into the game trying to make amends for a showing which had been too lenient by being far too pedantic.  Eighteen minutes into the game the Welsh Captain, Sam Warburton, carried out a “tip tackle” on French winger, Vincent Clerc.  Did it deserve a card?  Yes.  Did it deserve a red card?  I’m not so sure.

France went on to win the semi-final by a single point and there is no doubt that if Warburton hadn’t been sent off they would have been in the final and viewed as a much harder opponent than France.

The IRB, in my opinion, are a bunch of stuck-up snobs who have different rules for different teams.

England was guilty (and admitted to it) of swopping balls when former wunderkind Johnny Wilkinson was kicking for posts against Romania.  It’s an actual rule in the law book that teams aren’t allowed to do this.  The punishment?  Absolutely nothing.  Why would you punish the country which is really your home base? In the same week, a Samoan player wore a branded mouth guard – his punishment?  A $10,000.  It seems as though the IRB favour money over following their own rules.

The same IRB have also turned the All Blacks into a protected species better than any other team playing the game.  It’s a rule (although God only knows why) that the opposition team has to line up at least 20 metres away from the All Blacks as they perform their dance, the haka.  The French broke this rule when they advanced to the halfway line (10m) during the haka and they were fined  £ 10,000 (that’s £ 1,000 a metre).

So congratulations to the All Blacks for winning the RWC 2011 FINALLY.

And congratulations to Paddy O’Brein and the rest of the referees in ensuring they did.

 

 

Frustration

I’m just feeling so frustrated at the moment that if somebody said the wrong thing I’m afraid I might just snap and beat seven different kind of snot out of them.  The funny thing is that today has been a good day.  Yesterday was the literal day from hell where nothing could go right and everything which could go wrong – did.

The Spingboks are out of the World Cup because of a cheating referee who has made me question where I want to carry on following rugby or sport at all.  But that was two weeks ago and since then the Boks have come back and bolstered the Sharks who destroyed the table-topping Lions 53-9 to secure a home semi.

My writing has been going “okay”.  I haven’t been burning the word processor but you could say that I am busy making progress.  I’ve finished a rejigged schedule of scenes for Pecan Hill and am busy shifting existing scenes around according to the new schedule and writing the new scenes which are missing.  The next step is to make sure my characters shine through and line edits.  So I’m definitely getting there.

So why do I feel like Dave Grohl in Foo Fighters Walk music video?

The World in Union

The rugby world boils over today as the 2011 Rugby World Cup kicks off at Eden Park in Auckland, New Zealand today. The opening game is the game between the hosts, New Zealand and the Pacific Island nation of Tonga. The gulf between the All Blacks and Tonga will be too big for the Tongans to upset the All Blacks but the Pacific Islanders, like their neighbours Fiji and Samoa, can be rather physical and the All Blacks should hopefully (for them) make it through the game without any injuries.

New Zealand, so many times, the undisputed best team in the world between World Cups have a tendency to choke on the huge occasion of the World Cups and have only won it once, in the inaugural tournament in 1987. The similarity between that tournament and this one is that the tournament is being held in New Zealand. The crowd will have a huge influence on the tournament and any team, if they do knock the All Blacks over would be well-deserved champions. The problem the All Blacks have demonstrated (and even their fans are worried about this) is that they are heavily reliant on their flyhalf (or first five-eighth as they like to call it) Dan Carter. If he’s injured the All Blacks lose a distinct advantage and may struggle afterward.

This is the seventh Rugby World Cup and the trophies are concentrated in the hands of four countries: Australia (two), South Africa (two), England (one) and New Zealand (one). If either Australia or South Africa win the tournament they would be the first team to have won it three times with the added bonus to the Springboks (South Africa) that if we win the trophy again, it would mean that we would be the first team to successfully defend the trophy ever.

There are twenty teams in the tournament, but if we’re realistic there are only a handful of countries who will have a chance of winning the whole bangshoot. The teams are really the Tri-Nations teams (South Africa, Australia and New Zealand) and England and France. However, if you’re completely honest, you’d have to eliminate the two Northern Hemisphere teams from the equation as they have just never been able to tour well to New Zealand and aren’t used to the conditions. South Africa and Australia as touring nations will be used to New Zealand after sending a couple of months there every year while touring for the Super Rugby and Tri-Nations tournaments.

So let’s get this thing underway and GO BOKKE!!!

Cowboys and Aliens

I went into this movie expecting a lot and for once I received what I hoped for. It makes a nice change from the movies I have high hopes for to under-deliver on their potential. Of course, the movie couldn’t start with the confrontation of the Cowboys and Aliens right away and rather had to build up to it and I thought that in these beginning moments that the movie would have been a good one if there were no Aliens in it either.

*SPOILER ALERT*

The characters were also stereotypical and some of the action was predictable but it was enjoyable. The standard Western archetypes were in the movie being the bandit who has turned his back on his gang and is trying to live the good life (or was until the Aliens arrived), the powerful cattle baron, the American Indian servant who loves his boss. But the actors playing these roles did enough with the characters to make you like them.

The Aliens were kept “secret” and parts hidden until the appropriate time when one corners a young boy. It was here where I felt there was a bit of a break in that the alien didn’t attack the boy but rather “felt” his face with a pair of secret hands trying to understand the boy. This might have paid off if the alien was shown to be in opposition to the rest of its cohorts, but this is never explored and all the aliens encountered later were rather bloodthirsty in their dealings with the cowboys.

The humans were shown in great detail with all of our petty hates toward each other with American Indians and Bandits coming into the story later to assist the cowboys against the aliens. This was probably handled better as I believe it highlighted the animosity between the people in the time period. There was a barge which was never explained how it got to where it was (some critics of Lost would be critical because it was a question never answered) but it wasn’t needed for the story.

The moment Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) found the alien spaceship I couldn’t help but think of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series and was waiting for the Crimson King to appear on the ship’s balcony.

Overall, it was a good movie which I enjoyed thoroughly.

I Feel Sorry For The All Blacks

I am a rabid Springbok fan but I have to admit that I feel sorry for the All Black rugby players. These rugby players carry with them the hopes of a whole nation to overturn a 24 year drought in the World Cup. They have come so close so many times only to fall short each and every time. New Zealand dominates the periods between World Cups only to fall short at the big event.

The World Cup is being held in New Zealand this year (quite possibly for the last time EVER), so it would be the perfect time for them to win the World Cup. Every team is a different proposition in their home country and the All Blacks are no different. The only question is whether they can handle to pressure heaped onto their shoulders. The pressure would have only become more after the loss on Saturday. The loss means that they go into the World Cup on the back of two losses and surely people must be starting to question whether they have the ability to be able to win it this year.

I will reiterate that they will be a different team at home but they have never had the kind of pressure they will have on their shoulders while playing a game at home. I can’t help but wonder how the All Blacks will react if a must-win match when they’re eight to ten points down. Will they try to throw miracle passes to try and breach defences. If so, there is a good chance they’ll pass an intercept try and then it’ll be good night nurse.

Like I said, I feel sorry for the All Blacks.

Stuck between Drafts

Who would have thought that I would be stuck in the middle of spreadsheets while trying to finish my novel?

I certainly didn’t see this coming.

I have finally finished my reread of Pecan Hill and I can say that it is heinous. Maybe I should view it as a feather in my cap that I can recognise how bad the writing is, but it’s incredibly cringeworthy. You could say it was one of those situations where you’re trying to find what’s wrong with your project and the list of what is right is shorter.

The positive to take out of the situation is that I know what I have to do to fix the manuscript. I only have to work my way down the list, fixing everything as I go down and it should be presentable at the end of the day. Of course, when I’ve finished going down the list, it’ll be time to read through the manuscript again and find out what’s wrong with the new draft and then fix that. I wouldn’t say it’s a thankless task, because this is what I enjoy. Writing. Besides it’s supposed to be easier to fix a page than it is to fill a blank page.

My problem is that Pecan Hill was my discovery written manuscript. Now, after the dust has settled and I’ve pulled myself through the finished draft I can see that I’m going to have to sit down and make sure everything is there. I call it ‘planning on the backend’. And it’s at this point where I’m now “stuck” (I’m not really stuck I’m making progress but I’m not writing). I am going through the manuscript and making a detailed scene-by-scene outline of what’s already there. When I’m done with this little task I’m going to have to see what I’m missing in the manuscript and where it should go and then insert new scenes to make sure I cover all my bases.

Once I’ve finished with these spreadsheets I can finally go back and do some writing. Although the writing won’t be too much (hopefully). Then it’ll be the editing phase.

I can’t help but think it might have been easier if I had sat down before I had written the project and done a scene-by-scene outline. It would shorten my current phase by half. Not to mention, it would have cut out those times when I was wondering what should come next.

My next project (maybe all of them in my future) will have a HEAVY planning element in the beginning.

Ban the Haka?

The 2011 Rugby World Cup is a mere 27 days away (at the time of writing) and excitement levels are building. People in the North might like you to believe that teams like England and France have a chance of actually winning it this time around but let’s be honest: there are only three teams capable of lifting the William Web Ellis trophy on 22 October 2011 in Auckland, New Zealand and that’s the Tri-Nations countries of New Zealand, Australia and South Africa.

The SANZAR deal has provided South Africa and Australia the opportunity of regularly playing in New Zealand for the last 15 years. Both teams know how to play in the Land of the Long White Cloud and win there.  Northern Hemisphere teams have a torrid time of it down in the Antipodes. South Africa has beaten New Zealand (the All Blacks) in New Zealand in 2008 and 2009. What are the chances of the Boks pulling off another infamous victory?

But this isn’t about the World Cup (yet), this is about the suggestion of ex-Wallaby Greg Martin to ban the All Blacks haka (pictured right). His reasoning is that it provides the All Blacks with physical superiority because of the war dance. I don’t believe for one instant it provides them with a physical advantage. My belief is that it provides the ABs with a psychological advantage over their opponents. Especially since rulings which started last year that teams are not allowed to do anything else other than simply stand and watch the haka. Opposition teams who have turned their backs on the haka have been fined for their disrespect.

This smacks of favouritism in my eyes. Altering rule books to allow one team to have to face a challenge in a certain way is an abuse of power [Psst, the person who passed such judgement is the head of referees, one New Zealander named Paddy O'Brien]. Conspiracy theory? Maybe.

Under the current “legislation”, the Springboks facing down of the Haka at the 1995 World Cup Final as a team while the ABs performed the war dance would have been fined.

Do I agree with Mr Martin?

No.

BUT, I believe that if the haka is allowed then every team facing it should be allowed to face it as they wish, even if it means the Scots wearing kilts and mooning the ABs at the end.

The ruling to allow the haka and favour one team over all others is pure discrimination.

Lost the Plot??

One of the many projects I’ve been busy with lately has been trying to do some retro-planning for my completed manuscript Pecan Hill. I’ve found it to be a frustrating and joy-sapping exercise to say the least. If I could compare it to anything, it would probably be like building a tent. You put the tent out and then have to put the tent poles in so it can stand. There was a certain degree of joy to be had as I was free-wheeling through the manuscript building the ‘walls of the tent’ by the seat of my pants with no proper or completed planning. I knew the ending I wanted and tried to work towards it. But now I’ve finished and have to go back and make sure there’s no gaping holes in the plot and to make sure it all flows together.

I believe it has been this process which has pulled the love out of the project and now it’s just some more work. I actually walked out to the car yesterday morning to go to my real job and found myself thinking that my free-spirited, seat-of-the-pants discovery writing days are behind me. I don’t want to have to go back at the end of the story again and try to figure out whether everything has been put in and if there are any holes in the story. I believe that in my future projects I am going to sit down and outline the crap out of the story before I even start. It might mean there is less ‘freedom’ in my approach but it’ll also mean less work at the back-end.

Tied in with the thoughts about never discovery writing again was the thought that the writers of the television series Lost really buggered it all up (My mind can be a very weird place at times – I recently got the final season on DVD and have been watching some episodes). Maybe I was thinking of how to plan a story and that’s always to start at the end. I can’t imagine that the ending they gave us was the ending Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse and maybe J.J. Abrams thought of when creating the series. Sure, there was the reverse scene where the final thing you see was Jack closing his eyes where the opening scene was him opening his eyes on the island. But essentially the end was all of the characters going into the bright light and leaving their version of purgatory (*SPOILER ALERT*). There were dozens of questions they left unanswered and a part of me is fine with that, it was a story about the characters and not the plot of the island after all. The thing which got to me though was the fact that they had broken a promise to me the viewer. Admittedly it was never of screen that the promise was made, but the theory that they had been in purgatory had been floated around since the first season and the writers vehemently denied they were in purgatory. The end of the series rolls around and let’s be honest, the final proper scene was the characters leaving purgatory and not Jack handing the power over to Hurley. I felt cheated and it felt as though I had wasted the last six years of watching the series because of a big fat lie.

I suppose you could say that my thoughts were that I did not want to end any of my projects in a similar manner, breaking promises to the reader.

My purpose going forward is then crystal clear: PLAN EVERYTHING and DON’T BREAK PROMISES (SPOKEN OR NOT) TO THE READER.

EVER