Winnipeg Free Press reviewed Ex Machina
February 27, 2010
The Winnipeg Free Press reviewed Ex Machina. That’s the news! Headlines don’t lie, people!
Why I won’t buy an e-reader
February 24, 2010
SF author Robert J. Sawyer (best known for authoring Flashforward, the basis for the prime time series) has a long screed against e-book typography here.
People probably read posts like this and think they constitute an overreaction. They don’t. Certainly the creators of such devices aren’t concerned, or they would fix these problems — problems that, for them, probably appear minor. They are major.
This is the single reason I won’t buy an e-reader. I have a lot of problems with e-books as a technology, but the single thing actually holding me back from purchasing an e-reader is not my myriad complaints about e-books, but a general lack of adequate typography across a wide range of titles.
If this is holding one person back, it’s likely holding thousands of people back. E-reader industry: listen to Robert J. Sawyer!
Tracy Morgan
February 23, 2010
Tracy Morgan doesn’t get the concept…
#15
February 23, 2010
Oddly, I came in at #15 over this last weekend — not on the bestseller list (yeah, right) but in an ice fishing derby! Had a great time at the catch-and-release event at Jackfish Lake, SK. Caught the ugliest fish I’d ever seen (a burbot).
The creepiest thing wasn’t the fish, but this: shortly before I left, I went out for Chinese food with some friends. My fortune: “If you go fishing, your catch will be plentiful.”
How many books have I written?
February 19, 2010
A lot of new writers believe that an author (1) has an idea for a book, (2) writes the book, and (3) publishes the book. That may be the case for some people, but for me (and many others) it’s a much sloppier process, and can go off the rails. I thought it might be interesting to provide an overview of the books I’ve actually written.
This is just books (no screenplays, single poems, short stories, etc.), so bear in mind that this doesn’t even account for a quarter of the writing I’ve done. We’ll go chronologically:
1. Blood (poetry, discarded)
2. emptying (poetry, discarded)
3. When I Am Hell (poetry, discarded)
4. Ex Machina (poetry, published by BookThug, 2009)
Let’s pause there, to note that I wrote (and discarded) three books before producing a single, publishable one. This doesn’t count all the false starts and partially completed manuscripts. Some people write more than this before publishing their first book.
While nosing around the Internet on this topic, I found a blog posting, where an author did an informal survey. It’s not scientific, but I’m willing to bet that it’s relatively accurate. Here are some of the results (click on them for the full posting):
Let’s keep counting (I’m not done!):
5. The Words of the Book (poetry, with kevin mcpherson eckhoff, being rewritten for BookThug)
6. Clockfire (poetry, forthcoming from Coach House, 2010)
7. Inbox (poetry, seeking publisher)
8. Monsters (poetry, discarded)
9. The Politics of Knives (poetry, seeking publisher)
10. In Defense of My Father, Who Shot Me with a Crossbow Last Spring (fiction, with ryan fitzpatrick, complete in first draft but requiring revision)
11. The Crow Murders (fiction, complete in third draft but requiring revision)
Note that, as I write, Ex Machina is the only book I’ve published. So all eleven books on this list have been written (not just the four above, but the seven below) but only one has been published, and only three have found publishers. (Two firmly, and one tentatively—TWOTB is not under contract yet, so might be cancelled. Although this is unlikely, it’s ultimately hard to say with complete certainty since we’ve gone back to rewrite the book after its acceptance.)
I’ve still got two books basically done but requiring serious revisions before I would even show them to a publisher, so maybe you can say I’ve written nine books, not eleven. And I’ve got two books ready to be published, but with no publisher in sight (one is submitted for consideration, the other is just collecting dust at the moment since I’ve got too much in the pipeline right now).
Let me also point out, that eight books in, I am still discarding manuscripts. Completed manuscripts. Again: this list doesn’t reflect all the work that went into the partially, sometimes half-completed, manuscripts. Sometimes, people, you’ve just got to make the tough call and admit that what you’ve written isn’t publishable (or, while it might be publishable, isn’t up to your own standards).
This may not be typical, but it’s not atypical. I can’t undersell the importance of persistence. Hard work trumps talent.
Jaicko — “Oh Yeah”
February 18, 2010
Akin to Homer’s invocation of the muse in both the Iliad and Odyssey, Jaicko begins by crediting his inspiration for the song to a combination of his own personal attractiveness, some sexy woman he spied on the street, and a sandwich. These things have led him to the idea for the song “Oh Yeah.”
Jaicko has written and recorded the song “Oh Yeah” in order to tell the world that he has written and recorded the song “Oh Yeah.” He has released this song as a radio single. He realizes that the song is annoying, but because it’s catchy he predicts that you will enjoy it despite yourself, and purchase his ringtone.
Although you may be resistant to the song at first, and not want to like the song, eventually you will learn to love it after hearing it on the radio so often. You will even turn up the radio when the song plays, despite yourself, and allow your head to bob in time with the music. Jaicko knows it won’t be considered “cool” to like this song, but is confident that the catchiness of “Oh Yeah” will prevail.
“Oh Yeah,” Jaicko feels, will be his claim to fame. Although you may be jealous of his success, you will ultimately accede that it’s a good song and sing along, like millions of others. Jaicko is particularly confident that the song will appeal to Spanish demographics. All told, the song will secure Jaicko’s place in pop history, and impress beautiful women.
rEmiX MACHINA
February 16, 2010
A neat event next week, here’s the scoop:
When Jonathan Ball published his first book, Ex Machina, he issued it under a Creative Commons license that allows for non-commercial, unauthorized derivations. On Feb. 24, 7:00 p.m., at Aqua Books, four artists will present their own creative work remixing or drawing inspiration from the book, in an event titled rEmiX MACHINA. The invited artists are GMB Chomichuk (writer/illustrator/publisher of Alchemical Press), John Toone (poet/children’s author), Colin Smith (poet), and Patrick Short (singer/songwriter for Softcops).
Ex Machina has been called a “very unique long poem . . . exploring the interface between man and machine” (Calgary’s FFWD) which “complicat[es] in a real and tangible way our relationship to the book” (Ryan Fitzpatrick, author of Fake Math). In an interview for Winnipeg’s Uptown (where he writes the “Haiku Horoscopes” humour column), Ball said that the book is about “how machines have changed what it means to be human.” Robert Kroetsch says “[Ball is] one of our most exciting young poets, and Ex Machina is a fresh, daring, original take on the us of us.”
Ex Machina is published by BookThug, a Toronto press known for innovative, unconventional books. The book was launched at McNally Robinson in January and spent two weeks as the only poetry book on the local bestseller list.
Since the book is published under a Creative Commons license, YOU can also remix the book yourself, and submit your remixes to a site launched for that purpose.
Snake River
February 13, 2010
The Short Story
Winnipeg Cinematheque is premiering the independent feature film Snake River, shot locally for a mini-budget of $5000. This film is directed by Joe Novak and based on a screenplay by Jonathan Ball (!) and David Navratil called Way of the Samurai. Snake River runs Feb. 19-21 and again Feb. 24. All shows are at 7 p.m.
Click here for an article about some guy who is apparently the film’s star.
Also, you can read….
The Long Story
Way, way back in “the day” (as it’s called by the hip young kids), I co-wrote, along with my friend David Navratil, a series of four feature film scripts for independent producer/director Joe Novak. Joe came to us with stories and we reworked the stories with him (often changing them almost completely) and then ducked away and developed the script. When we finished, Joe took the script away, and did whatever Joes do with scripts. We were never sure exactly what he was up to, but he was always up to something productive, which is why he was fun to write for—even if nothing was happening, it didn’t seem like the effort was wasted.
First, we wrote a screenplay called Son of the Storm, about an orphan and immigrant to Japan (at a point in history when immigrants were outlawed) who became a samurai. Joe managed somehow to interest the actor Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Mortal Kombat, Memoirs of a Geisha, etc.) in the script, but there wasn’t a suitable role for Cary.
So, Joe went back to the drawing board. We developed a second story/script with him: Way of the Samurai. Cary signed up, in theory, and things started falling into place, but in the end Joe couldn’t raise the financing. Part of the problem was the fact that it’s expensive to shoot a historical film, due to the costumes, sets, etc. involved.
Again, Joe went back to the drawing board. We developed a third story/script with him: Yakuza. A star vehicle for Cary, set in the modern day, with a parallel storyline set in the past, which would probably be more expensive to shoot in the long run but less difficult to finance for esoteric reasons. Of course, it turned out to be too difficult to finance and (you guessed it)….
We wrote a fourth story/script with Joe: Samurai on 47th. This was set wholly in the present day and, without Cary on board anymore, we cranked up the darkness and grittiness and made it a very brutal, vicious script compared to the others.
At this point we’d pretty much had our fill of writing about samurai, at least for the immediate future. We didn’t hear from Joe for a while—apparently because he was busy rewriting/reworking Way of the Samurai as a western, retitled Snake River, and shooting said film.
So we were and weren’t involved in the making of this film. We didn’t really know it was happening, but it was based on our script, although it’s not entirely accurate to say we wrote it (we did, and we didn’t, since we didn’t write the script, but wrote the script that the script is based on, if you follow).
So I have no idea what to expect. I haven’t seen the film and although Dave saw an earlier version Joe’s been reworking it for about a year now, so who knows what it’s like? It was shot for $5000 apparently, which is amazing since judging by that article I linked to above, there is at least one horse on screen, and horses ain’t cheap. I’ve got a lot of respect for anyone who manages to make a feature film under any circumstances, especially with a micro-budget, and Joe is a good guy, so I’m looking forward to checking it out. At the very least, it will be cool to see a feature film kind-of based on something I wrote.
Because I haven’t seen the film, I can’t really say anything to recommend or condemn it, but the script that the script is based on turned out pretty good, if I remember right. You should go see it, more than once! If enough people see it, maybe I’ll get paid!
Rapbot
February 12, 2010
He’s got a toaster, to make a sandwich … and did he mention he can rap in any language?
Derrida on writing and fear
February 11, 2010
