Author: Bryan

2010 Best Writers I Discovered In 2010

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Since it’s that time of year, I thought I’d do a few Best Of posts.  The first one is about writers I discovered this year for the first time and really enjoyed. Given my years away from genre reading, a lot of these people are far from new, but here goes anyway, because if you don’t know who they are, you should:

Mike Resnick: I have read more books by him than any SF writer except Orson Scott Card at this point. His writing style is simple like my own without the hard SF. Instead he has great plots and characters in exotic settings like Africa or Africa inspired planets. Just really good solid story telling and craft, and to top it off, not only did I discover his stuff but we became friends this year. He’s been a real help and encouragement to me, and I’m grateful.

Jay Lake: I discovered Jay through Ken Scholes, whom I discovered in 2009 when I found “Lamentation” and loved it so much I bought “Canticle” and read it straight after. Ken is amazing and Ken and Jay are like brothers. Different yet connected at the hip. Jay and I have argued a lot over politics and some over religion. But Jay has been gracious to me and encouraging in my work and life. He’s been inspiring as well because he’s my age and yet he’s fighting cancer with a passion and dignity I don’t know if I could muster under similar circumstances. He’s a heck of a nice guy and if things work out, he’ll be my instructor at Cascade Writers in 2011. His Clockwork Earth series (Mainspring, Escapement, Pinion) introduced me to Steampunk and made me a fan. And his “The Death of A Starship” novella and short stories have awed me as well.

Nnedi Okorafor: I have her novel “Who Fears Death” sitting beside my bed waiting to be read. I’ve only read a short story by her but her conversations with me on Twitter have been deep. She’s passionate, kind, and very, very smart. She’s deep and well worth investing time in as a person, so I know she’ll be worth all of our time as a writer.

Brenda Cooper: Her story “Robot Girl” in Analog last April blew my mind and made me a fan. I have one of her novels here waiting to be read as well, but I’ve read several of her short stories and also spent time chatting with her at World Fantasy and on Twitter and she’s one admirable lady. Also deep and well worth the time.

Blake Charlton: Dyslexic med student and fantasy author and an awesome guy. “Spellwright” held me spellbound, a great read, and I can’t wait to read “Spellbound” and anything else he comes up with. Blake was one of my early Twitter friends and we finally got to hang out in person at World Fantasy. A nice guy, very smart, perceptive, and the first pro to help me out by giving feedback on a section of my novel. It was quite helpful and much appreciated. He’s a great conversationalist with a great sense of humor. Highly recommended.

James K. Burk: His debut novel “The Twelve” is some of the best character and world building in anything I’ve read all year (and I read Song of Ice And Fire this year by the way), so I recommend checking him out. Previously he had several shorts published. I look forward to more from him in the future. He also gave very useful feedback on my novel at the ConQuest 41 Writer’s Workshop and he’s a good friend.

Sam Sykes:Sam’s “Tome Of The Undergates” was the first sword & sorcery I’d read in years and I’m hooked again. Have a whole stack yet to read of the stuff. I can’t wait to read his follow up, “Black Halo,” either. Sam wrote one of the grittiest books I read all year and also one of the most honest, and he also wrote the longest battle scene I’ve ever read. He’s a nice guy and very perceptive and active on Twitter. He was also my first guest on Science Fiction Fantasy Writer’s Chat on Twitter so I owe him props forever.

Wendy Wagner: Another Twitter friend, nonetheless, her stories in several anthologies have been very impressive, but none more than “The Secret Of Calling Rabbits” from John Joseph Adam’s “The Way Of The Wizard.” I can’t wait to read her novel next year, and I’m proud as heck of her for beating me into SFWA membership.  As one who for whatever reason has read more male than female writers, Wendy has me looking at women writers with new eyes.

Christie Yant: Christie is another Twitter friend who has also set me on a path of respect for women writers. Her story “The Magician & The Maid & Other Stories” from “Way Of The Wizard” is coming in Rich Horton’s Annual Best Of next year. She gave some very insightful and thoughtful notes on one of my stories and has been a great resource for me and connected me with a lot of people. A truly talented writer and I look forward to her future output as well.

These 9 are my best and favorite new discoveries this year amongst specfic writers for reasons listed above. Who have you discovered this year?

A Christmas Letter To My Twitter Friends

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I wouldn’t have made it through the past year without my Twitter friends.  Considering I only started tweeting this year, that’s remarkable. 2010 has been the worst year of my life, and probably my wife’s but you’d have to ask her. The year started with the aftermath of a major medical crisis for my wife which almost cost us her life or our marriage or both. Then my 18.5 year old cat died. My baby and closest companion for half my life. Then I was unceremoniously laid off in May with no justification (we suspect it has to do more with my wife’s medical bills than anything but never got quite enough evidence to make a case). I had a bad relationship with a part time job boss whose “my way or the highway”/condescending approach to leadership didn’t work for me at all as an artist, as a person or as a man who’s overqualified for that job and has taught leadership for 10 years. That job ended in October and we promptly lost unemployment due to both the Texas Workforce Commission misrecording statements and an indelicate reasoning by my ex-employer.

Through all this there has been one group I could rely on to be supportive, hear me out, encourage me and generally give a damn. Seriously far too many “real world” friends disappeared when we needed them or were never there in the first place. Yet somehow a group of mostly strangers, mostly people I’d never met until October, were there for me and loaned me their strength.

So to my Twitter Friends I say, May you be richly blessed this Christmas and in the year to come. May you be blessed in measure far beyond the measure which you’ve blessed me. You deserve it, and I couldn’t have made it through without you. Here’s hoping 2011 is an incredible, amazing 2010-forgetting year for all of us!

Bryan

I Hate Bigotry Spread In the Name of Anti-Bigotry

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Just saw a tweet by a guy who said Republicans hate brown skinned because the DREAM Act was voted down.  Well, the DREAM Act is ten year old legislation recently introduced and rushed through by Dems in an attempt to pass it without debate before they lose their majority.  The objections to it were people saying that they wanted time to seriously consider it and revise it if necessary because it was too important to rush through.  Oh yeah, that kind of responsible leadership is bigotry.  Instead of calling those people racists, we should applaud them for having the kind of responsibility our government leaders have all too often lacked of late, but yet they are being labelled bigots.  This, of course, totally ignores the fact that Dems still have the majority and could have passed it if they wanted to. The House approved it. So what if the majority is higher in the House. Obviously even some Dems thought the controversial bill deserved more thought.  That doesn’t make them racist.

This kind of rhetoric is so common today and any true American should find it disgusting.  Labelling people as bigots because they vote against legislation dealing with racial issues is absurd. Maybe there were other factors, such as, maybe it was bad legislation. Legislation has consequences which can last for generations. It should be considered carefully. It is not only unAmerican but indecent to use incendiary false accusations this way solely for political points.  It makes me sick and it is as bigoted an action as what it is accusing others of. Yes, calling someone bigoted falsely is creating a bias against that person. A bias founded on no good reason. It’s manipulative and a lie. And it is despicable behavior which I abhor. All decent Americans should do the same.  It’s become the modus operandi of politicians, particularly the Left, and I’d guess it’s a big part of why the Mid-term elections came out favoring Republicans as they did.

We should all band together a demand a stop to such behavior. It needs to be stopped. It is so harmful.  There is enough real racism in the world without false accusations beings sent forward to confuse the issue and take the focus off real incidents of racism which need to be addressed.

For what it’s worth…

I Believe In Stewardship Not Global Warming

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In January 1989, while out in Los Angeles preparing to transfer colleges, I interviewed actor Ted Danson for my college newspaper because he was an alumnus.  During that interview, Danson discussed his passion for the American Ocean’s Campaign (now Oceana), which he’d  founded as an environmental-focused nonprofit to educate the public on saving our damaged oceans.  He recalled the time he’d been on vacation with his family and saw such pollution on a beach that he felt uncomfortable letting his daughters swim.  I recalled times I’d witnessed similar sludge in the Rocky Mountains.  I recalled driving through the Alps and being shocked how well preserved they were by comparison.  That was the moment I first believed mankind’s habit of damaging the environment without concern for the future was a major problem.

So, in a sense, I believed one of the tenets of Global Warming long before that theory existed.  Which is one reason I find it easy to say:  I don’t believe in Global Warming theory.  I believe God created the Earth and gave it to man as a home.  I believe we are here as stewards and we have a responsibility to take care of the gift of our planet and preserve it as a gift to be shared with future generations.  I remember hearing about the destruction of Mangrroves by New Orleans and over in Asia as hurricanes hit and realizing the damage had gotten worse than I’d realized.  And thinking we have to stop this.  And I believe we do.

But that doesn’t mean I believe in all this peudo-science used to justify Global Warming.  Climate changes?  Well, Hammartan winds have been causing strange shifts for decades, so why is it all of a sudden Global Warming?  One of my biggest issues with science as a whole these days is summed up in the article http://slate.me/fo8yGr.  Science has become dominated by people with one dominant worldview and ideology.  How can it truly call itself unbiased, how can the methods truly be subjective when the people asking the questions start from such a similar place?  As a science fiction and fantasy writer, I have marvelled how people who can be so creative and open to endless possibility in their writing can be so close minded in their real world attitudes toward God and other subjects.  Is it really so easy to write off a higher being as the iniator of the Big Bang, when one is so convinced a big bang actually occurred?

And the arguments I’ve heard and data I’ve read on Global Warming just prove this to me.  Anyone who even remotely questions the theory is labelled “irrational” or “ignorant.”  What happened to healthy skepticism in science?  Some legitimate questions have been raised about the data and I don’t think true, dedicated scientists of integrity would discount them so quickly.  There’s no doubt, in my mind, that mankind’s activities are harming the environment.  Corporations and governments and others have built for years, destroying habitat and natural resources, without any regard for long term impact.  We’ve known most of my life that oil was not unlimited, that it one day might run out.  The fact that it hasn’t yet, doesn’t change my concern that our dependence on fossil fuels is a long term concern.  In the same way, I can believe that the Earth’s other rich resources have limits. And one has only to read the Wildlife Foundations endangered species lists to figure out  the damage done to the animal kingdom.

Is it really possible for anyone to believe significant damage hasn’t been done to the environment by man?  Not a rational person, no, but rational people still don’t have to believe in Global Warming to be rational.  Sorry folks.  The very suggestion that they do is completely irrational.  This is science, remember?  It’s based on hypothesis which form theories.  In essence, educated guesses, at least until definitive proof exists.  And while definitive proof exists of environmental damage by man, Global Warming theory has not been definitively proven.  So I remain skeptical.

The need for stewardship, however, is obvious.  It occurs not only in personal finance or use of office supplies (particularly witnessed by those responsible for the relevant budgets) but in the face of rising gas prices.  It’s not really a big stretch to apply the concept to other areas as well, such as the environment.  As farmers, my family often spoke of good stewardship of their land.  Land is valuable and to survive, farmers must make the most of every parcel.  Perhaps city folk have a harder time grasping this prospect, but I don’t think it’s that hard.  We have to take care of everything we own if we want it to last.  I learned that every time a childhood toy broke and couldn’t be repaired.

So here I am, proponent of stewardship but Global Warming skeptic. And I am a rational person, despite being a science fiction and fantasy writer.  I have great faith in science and great faith in religion, and I have great faith in human kind.

For what it’s worth…

News

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Hello, blogosphere.  I know I’ve been neglecting you, at least as a contributor.  I have been visiting other blogs and reading.  But that’s not the point, right?  This is supposed to be my blog, so I’m supposed to regularly post here.  Apologies.  Tomorrow will be a new chat log from our chat with Mike Resnick but today, here I am.

I’ve been doing a lot of different things lately.

First, I am still tweaking my novel manuscript as I wait for the publisher to read it over and approve the contract, so he can send it to me.  I have another small press insterested but I’m debating whether to go back to them because they are less on the same page with me than this one is and that’s important.

Second, I am still trying to get the editing I’ve taken on rolling at a good pace.  I work some each day but the nonfiction job is complicated and history, so accuracy in facts is really causing me to spend a lot of time working slowly to be sure I don’t edit out the wrong things.  But that just delays me getting to other projects.

Third, I am working on outlining novel 2 in the space opera series of which Book 1 is about to sell.  The first was a coming of age/adventure story, but the second is shaping up more into a chase thriller/murder mystery.  So I am working hard to outline it in a way which can help me capture the right pace and page turning effect needed.

Fourth, I am revising some short stories with the hopes that I might finally place on with a paying market.  Three are priority, the first being my prequel to the above mentioned space opera novel series.  What better way to promote the book than get the world and characters out there, right?

It frustrates me how much my crazy, out of control world is effecting my writing.  I used to be so much better disciplined.  I wrote through a major health crisis with my wife a year ago.  But right now, I am just really fighting depression and such loneliness, and so it’s been difficult to keep myself on the same keel as I have previously known through hard times.  It’s weird to “not have time to write” when you are unemployed and spend a lot of time sitting around the house all day.  But somehow I manage to do that.  I do get some reading done, some outling and editing, but not as much as I should be and am capable of.  I can only hope this will change.

In any case, still here, still pushing on, and I hope to have more exciting and useful blog entries soon.  In the meantime, if you’re looking for an inexpensive book for Christmas, my “North Star Serial” is a great buy and appropriate for all ages.  Find it at www.bryanthomasschmidt.net and click the Pay Pal link.

Blessings, For what it’s worth…

Still I Will Thank You – A Thanksgiving Prayer

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Dear God:

Well, you’ve really let us go through the ringer this past year.  It’s been one nightmare after another of painful experiences, and, well, with Thanksgiving here, I have to be honest, I’m struggling to think what to be thankful for.

A year ago, my life was torn apart when my wife got sick, had to be hospitalized twice against her will, and our finances were destroyed by medical bills.  Our marriage almost bought it, too, God, but here we are, somehow hanging on.  Our marriage is better than it was before she got treatment, so still I will thank you, Lord.

Next I lost my dear Lucy after 18.5 years.  My companion and best friend for half my life, I miss her a lot, and I wish I hadn’t been so distracted by Bianca’s illness so I would have gotten her treatment sooner and she might have been less miserable and lived a little longer.  I wasn’t ready to let her go, Lord, but still I will thank you for 18.5 wonderful years she blessed me.

In May, I lost my job for no reason I can fathom.  They couldn’t give me one either really and I can’t prove my suspicions, so here I am still jobless after 7 months and our finances are a wreck again and I’m scared to death, but still I will thank you, Lord, for 7 steady years of employment in there with good companies.

In October, my other job went away when I was replaced, and when the boss said I resigned (his definition of not fighting the decision to bring in someone else), I lost unemployment.  We really need that unemployment, Lord, and I worked hard to get that benefit.  Still I will thank you, Lord, for the months we had it.

Even though some people we used to count as friends have disappeared and not been there to love us through this, especially lately, although we feel alone and abandoned, still you’ve been there.  Even when we don’t feel you.  So still I will thank you, Lord.

Even though I’ve worked so hard to overcome my disability and worked to hard on my writing and creative stuff and until now, I haven’t really had success, even though, still I will thank you, Lord.

Even though I don’t know where our next meals come from when the fridge is empty, even though I don’t know when all this pain will end, even though I don’t know how to rid myself of the anger and bitterness I feel, even though I can’t find a job that pays what I’ve been making, still I will thank you, Lord.

Even though I don’t feel thankful.  Even though I’m mad at you for allowing this.  Even though I can’t even begin to fathom why you’ve allowed it, still I will thank you, Lord.

Because your Son died on a cross for me, Lord, when I was so unworthy, still I will thank you, Lord.

But Lord, please let next year be better.  I prefer to thank you when I actually feel thankful.  But still I will thank you, Lord, for life, breath, my wife, my pets, my family, and so much more.

Despite everything, Still I Will Thank You, Lord.

Bryan

Review: Tome of the Undergates by Sam Sykes

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A great read and one I wish I’d had time to read straight through without so many interruptions.  It captured me from the get go and kept me entertained throughout.

The first in a new sword and sorcery series, “Tome Of The Undergates” is about a group of adventurers, led by a human named Lenk, who get hired to retrieve a powerful book stolen by demons which holds the power to threaten the planet.  A motley crew indeed, our adventurers include four humans, a shict, and a dragon man, none of whom are necessarily admirable but all of whom are deeply flawed.

Sykes basically takes two large set pieces — an opening battle and a closing battle, and connects the dots with a few scenes.  The book is told from the POVs of his band of adventurers, whom we only come to know a little over the course of the book.  Instead, the focus is on action and grit, both of which Sykes gives us in abundance.  He’s clearly a master of descriptive verbage, and some of that verbage might not work for those easily offended.  But it does serve to make his battle scenes more realistic than most and it also makes them more powerful and effective at drawing you into the world he’s creating.

His world building is strong but he can certainly do a lot more with it and the same can be said for the characters. I would have liked to see the character arcs developed a bit more.  We get their backstories in bits and pieces, some not even given until the very end.  And while these bits and pieces of world building and characterization are strong, they amount altogether to very little parts of the whole.  We still have a lot to learn, but it’s a small quibble because Sykes is in this for the long haul.  He’s already written a sequel, “Black Halo,” which comes out in Spring 2011, and I’m sure we’ll learn a lot more about these heroes and their world in the further adventures to follow.

A strong and entertaining story, Sykes invests his characters with distinct personalities and makes good use of humor.  Despite their flaws, we like them, and we root for them, and it’s a fun ride to join their journey.  If you like adventure fantasy, you’ll love this.  Recommended.  I look forward to more to come from Sykes in the future.

AUTHOR’S TIP: Thesaurus Abuse No

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I got criticized once that my writing style uses simpler words.  Why not show off your vocabularly or use more sophisticated verbage, they asked.  My answer:  I’m writing for a wide age group, and vocabulary is only useful if it adds to understanding, not if it takes away from it.

For example, my friend, a talented writer, just tweeted this from his WIP:  “Her soul was gnawed through, suffocating, sensitive though numb.”  Out of context, that does very little for me.  Intriguing use of words? Yes.  But meaningless without more context.  Knowing this friend, he’ll give it the context.  So I’m not worried about him, but I’ve seen plenty of writers who use words like this and end up with a jumbled mess.

Have you ever been reading and come across a word you had no idea the meaning of and it ripped you right out of the story and world?  Do you hate that?  I know I do.

Publisher Candlemark and Gleam offers this comment:  There’s a difference between having a good vocabulary and a good grasp of wordplay and being overly clever; think of the poor, overused thesaurus before running amok. Trust us, saying “her violet orbs welled up with viscous, salty fluids” does not, in fact, work as well as “her eyes brimmed with tears.” Won’t someone think of the thesaurii?

It’s not that I’m not impressed with a good vocabulary.  Well used, it can be both educational and intriguing.  I often go through during polishing and substitute words using a thesaurus.  This is to keep it from being stagnant with overly repeated words.  But I’m very careful where and what I replace.  It does you no good to show off words when the reader has to look them up constantly and step out of your story.  It’s distracting, annoying, and, in the end, insulting.  Writing is communication.  Communicate with your readers.  Fiction is story telling.  Telling them a story doesn’t work if they don’t understand it.

So when I’ve heard people criticize my lack of sophisticated words on occasion, I point to authors who are quite successful and don’t need that.  Authors like Mike Resnick, Orson Scott Card, Kevin J. Anderson, Timothy Zahn, to name a few.  I’d much rather have words a lot more people can read than words only suitable for a select few.  How about you?

Part of having a vocabularly is knowing when and how to use the words.  If you can’t do it well, you don’t really own those words.  So don’t try and fake it, because, trust me, readers will know.  And it won’t give you cred.  It will take away cred.

For what it’s worth…

AUTHOR’S TIP: How I Edit

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It’s been too long since I posted something helpful for writers.  I really do intend to do that more often here, but as life around me is chaotic, so goes my blogging and everything else.  So if you found the previous posts helpful and were waiting, sincerest apologies.  I hope I haven’t chased you off.

Since I am currently halfway through a polish draft of my first novel, which has a contract pending from Diminished Media, I wanted to talk about how I edit.  Everyone has a different method and approach to such things, and there is no wrong or right way.  This is just how I’ve come to do it and I’m sure even that will evolve with time.

Before I talk about how I edit though, it might first be helpful to talk about my writing process.  I am a writer who doesn’t rely on outlines much.  I tend to like to know who my characters are in some rough sense, know a few key plot points, have a TV Guide story pitch sentence and then write and see where the story takes me.  This works well with first novels in series, but as I approach sequels, I am finding outlining a more necessary evil and I’ll likely be embracing that more and more.

My first drafts have one goal:  get the plot, characters and basic arcs down as fast as possible.  I want to get the major characters, scenes, and a sense of the pacing all on paper.  I don’t spend as much time on fancy descriptions or even in depth emotional monologues.  Those I can flesh out later.  I just want the framework to build on.  Now as I learn my craft and develop my skills, I find I put more of this stuff in first drafts, but my goal is just to get the story told.  I have plenty of time to fix things and make it all pretty and bow-wrapped later.

Because writing is a series of questions and answers for me, I aim to ask questions in each scene.  I keep track of these questions on a list and as I go along try and answer one for every new one I ask once the set up has been done.  This helps keep readers satisfied that they are figuring things out and that the story has more surprises.  It keeps them turning pages.  But forgetting to answer any of these questions is deadly annoying, so I keep a list to make sure they all get addressed by the end.

The second draft, at least a month after the first draft’s done with no peeking in between, I go back and read and pay special attention to setting descriptions, character descriptions, character arcs, etc.  I also look for themes or motifs I can use which have just appeared naturally and I find ways to work all of these things into the story and strengthen them, building on my basic blocks.

My third draft is my Ken Rand’s 10% Solution draft where I go back and cut absolutely every non-essential word.  I look at overused or overly repeated words, and I use a thesaurus to find words which can replace these and make the prose more interesting.  I also aim to just tighten wherever I can.

There are often subsequent drafts or even drafts in between some of these to work on particular specifics, but those are the three basic drafts.  Each is usually spread apart by 3 weeks to a month for some perspective and I do my best to immerse myself in other projects and flush the thing from my mind as best I can in between.  It’s very hard to have fresh eyes for your own work, and you cannot hope to make it the best it can be if you don’t find a way to do it.

So that’s how I write, in succinct summary.  How do I edit?

The one advantage of editing is it uses a different half of your brain.  It’s a different thought process and focus than the writing itself, so once you’ve done all those other things you can really start looking at mechanics like grammar, punctuation, word usage, etc.  The Ken Rand draft is editing in a way, and I do much the same in my editing phases, cutting whatever unneeded words I can, etc.  But on the other hand, I am looking primarily for how can I make this as shiny as it can be.  What repeated sentence patterns have I gotten stuck in that I can rework in places to keep it fresh?  Which places can I use more emotion to make action more powerful or build the character-reader connection?  Where can I use more of the five senses to make it more real to readers?  What questions did I fail to answer?  Which did I answer incorrectly or incompletely?  Is anything unclear or convoluted?  Is anything missing — holes, etc.?

I also read the manuscript out loud, word for word.  It’s different when you read out loud.  First of all, most readers read like this only silently to themselves, so you’ll get a sense of the flow for readers by doing this.  You’ll also find awkward phrasings, run-ons and other issues which you don’t always find just by reading your overly familiar prose.  You can find where you need a better mix of sentence sizes.  You can find where you need to break up paragraphs differently.

I always find I’m overly wordy.  No matter how many times I’ve tried to cut before.  Here’s where I find out how much I overstated and how much I needed more color.  I add more interesting setting decriptions or emotional descriptions.  I trim repeated dialogue and phrases.  I realize I have repeated things too many times and annoyed the reader and cut as many of those as I can.  If I have to keep them, I make them tighter and rephrase them so they don’t sound the same each time.  I also look at where the story lags in pace.  Are things out of order in sentences or paragraphs.  Etc.

The editing can take a while or go quickly, but I always make at least three passes on these things, the middle being the read aloud one, to make sure I don’t miss anything.  After all, when this book gets printed it will represent me potentially well after I die.  I want to be represented well.  Oh I know I’ll write better as time goes on, the more I learn my craft.  And I know publishers, agents, editors will all jump in with improvements as well beta readers.  But I don’t want any of those people to feel their time was wasted so I’ve got to make this the best it can be before they even see it.

I am impatient.  I don’t like to wait.  And I have jumped the gun on stories and novels with betas, agents, etc. too many times.  Burned markets and readers.  It’s too bad.  Because now they might never realize what the book and story came to be.  The potential they saw or didn’t see won’t be realized in their eyes.  Hey, I want everyone to read my stories, because I think I have something important to say.  That’s why I write.  Isn’t that why anyone writes?

In any case, when I’m done I get that feedback and make adjustments to that.  It takes a lot of effort to do all these drafts and editing phases, I know.  It takes a lot of time to wait through them.  But in the end, I want to be proud of what I write, and as I prepare to sign a contract on this novel, my second ever novel attempt and first science fiction novel, despite all the missteps I’ve made in sending it out too early, etc., I’m proud of it.  I’m pleased how it’s come out and I know all the work has made it better.  I can’t wait to see what it becomes after the publisher and editor do their thing.  And I hope it pleases you, reader, so I can write another one and another after that.

In any case, that’s a summary of my editing process.  If you have questions or want more details or just want to say hi, please comment below.  I look forward to hearing from you.

For what it’s worth…

Review: Unstoppable

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An adrenaline pumping action buddy film with good characterization and family friendly language (more than most), “Unstoppable” grabs you from the get go and never stops.  The story of two railroad workers, an engineer and conductor, who find themselves moving head on against an out of control train loaded with cars containing toxic and highly combustible chemicals, the movie unfolds rapidly with the bungling railroad management worried about themselves at every turn while the heroes try and stop a major disaster.  The train is barreling toward major population centers where their families live and it’s too heavy for conventional means to stop.  Their ingenuity and determination, along with that of a few collaborators, are the heart of this film.

Stars Denzel Washington and Chris Pine (the new Kirk from last year’s “Star Trek”) share the heroism nicely.  Both have nice backstories and strong action moments, and both, in the end, play key roles in saving the day.

My only criticism is that, even though this was based on a true story, the portrayal of the railroad management is played too much to stereotypes of the greedy idiots in suits.  Surely things were more complicated than that in real life.  At a short length of under 90 minutes, the writers and filmmakers could have rounded out of those parts a bit more to add depth to the film.

But it’s a minor quibble to a story which keeps your heart racing despite 80% of the screen time taking place aboard a single train between two men.  There are some nice action pieces here, and the writers have done a good job of explaining all the various science and realities of railroad technology which allow the situation to happen and impede attempts to stop the train.

The language is mild for an action flick as well.  A few four letter words scattered but not enough that I even remember them.  And none of the most memorable lines had them.  Given Hollywood’s tendency to equate four letter words with coolness, the filmmakers get high marks from me on this.

Highly recommended.

For what it’s worth…