A.J. Maguire

Author: ajmaguire

  • Camp NaNoWriMo

    For those who aren’t already aware of the pure awesomeness that is National Novel Writing Month I feel the need to inform you of what it is.  Basically, during the month of November, crazy people (like me) attempt to write 50,000 words in thirty days.  I’ve only won a handful of times — possibly less, I haven’t kept count since starting school — but I can tell you that my published book Witch-Born came out of NaNoWriMo 2008.

    If you’re familiar with that book then you know that it’s actually something like 104,000 words all together, but that’s hardly the point.  The point is that the first half of the book was done in a one month and the second half — which always takes longer for me given the need to tie all the plot lines together and that … ahem … I tend to have a lot of action — was done through the month of December.  After that, I took a year or so to edit it.  (That’s really not that long when you count the months where Alpha Readers had the manuscript and I was left in suspense until I heard back from them.)

    But why am I talking about National Novel Writing Month in August when it’s not official until November?

    Because the crazy people over there at the Letters of Light Foundation host multiple events throughout the year.  These events include Scriptfrenzy and — you guessed it — Camp NaNoWriMo!  This Camp starts TODAY!

    That’s right!  If you’re a glutton for punishment, or if you love words and want to string them together into some strange, convoluted plot where the antagonist becomes the protagonist and the maiden in distress turns out to be a troll in disguise … well then, head over to Camp NaNoWriMo and get started!  It’s free, it’s easy (relatively) and it’s fun.  Your domestic animals may get neglected for thirty days and you may forget to bathe once or twice, but it is otherwise harmless.

    Personally, I’m in summer school, I have a child, one cat, and a full-time job … but I signed up anyway.  I’ll likely lose (again) but my brain needs a break from the projects already on my plate and, quite frankly, I’ve had this science fiction novel simmering in the back of my mind for about six months now.

    So!  In the spirit of Camp NaNoWriMo, I have made a new page where I will post snippets of the work.  I warn that these will be grammatically terrible and might have strange last names like  JoHanna I-Don’t-Know-Yet, but there will be some form of accountability on my part.

  • Cultural Anthropology

    Two weeks ago I had to turn in my final assignment for Cultural Anthropology class.  This assignment consisted of spending several hours in a culture not my own and then, basically, writing about it.  The trouble in this situation is that I am a wallflower.

    I can happily research and write, but when it comes to stepping out of my shell and talking to other people … well … Let’s just say I’m socially awkward.  (In my defense, I think that most writers are.)  So you can safely assume that I was dreading this assignment.

    But the actual experience was wonderful.

    I got to the Basque restaurant Leku Ona intent on trying the food and meeting a Basque person in order to observe and interview them for this paper.  I got there slightly early and was a little lost, wondering where I should go and what I should do, but then this group of people walked in.

    I apologize for not remembering all of their names, but the gist of their story was this; one couple was celebrating retirement by touring the United States for three months and the other two women were friends who had known them prior to their move to Oregon.  Anyway, this group spotted me and welcomed me to sit with them, and — going outside of my comfort zone — I did.

    Personally, I think Providence was watching out for me.  Left to my own devices, I doubt I would have gotten what I needed for my assignment.

    The man, Don, was a retired Pediatrician and his wife was absolutely the most engaging personality I’ve yet to meet.  When they discovered why I was there, they set about trying to help me.  They chatted to the waitress, who got the very Basque chef to come out and talk to us about his country.  And the big kicker came at the end of the meal, when we received an invitation to go into the kitchen to see the chef stuff squid and make black sauce.

    All in all, it was an incredible experience.  I’m hoping that one day I can be as gracious and giving of my time and table space as these wonderful people.

  • Book Review : Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal

    I’ve been a fan of Writing Excuses for a long time now.  I promised myself that I would start to read all of the books from the authors who put out Writing Excuses since they take the time out of their busy schedules to put out this podcast for free.  I started with Brandon Sanderson because he writes Fantasy and I love to read and write Fantasy, so that just made sense.  I read the Mistborn series, which I loved.

    And now I’ve read Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal — and she totally gets props for having a cool name.  (I mean, really, say her name three times fast.)

    Being a Jane Austen fan, I walked into this book with a small amount of trepidation.  (Of course I did, have you heard of the book Pride and Prejudice and Zombies?)  But as I realized that the author was handling the setting, the time period, the language, with the respect it deserved, I relaxed and truly enjoyed this story.  While I saw who the dastardly man was before he was revealed in the book, I was too busy trying to figure out which man Jane would end up with.

    I was cheering for two specific men, and since I don’t want to give it away for anyone I will refrain from any spoilers.  Still, the fact that I was guessing while halfway through the book says something about the writing.  One of the saddest moments for me when I’m reading a book is when I figure out the ending before I get there.  This book managed to keep me uncertain straight up until … well … I can’t say because then it would give it away.

    Basically, this is a classy book.  It’s a book that takes romance without running it through the hot-and-steamy-bath that everyone seems to want these days.  It’s refreshing and wonderful and I can’t wait to read the next book in the series.  (Mothers, you can totally let your daughters read this book.)

  • Spider-Man (aka – Beware my Geek Side)

    It all started with my uncle.  He loved comics.  This love of comics spread from his children to my brother and, eventually, to me.  My brother, however, was the big Spider-Man lover.  He collected just about every offshoot of the bug-boy while we were growing up.  Thus, I gleaned quite a bit of information just from listening to him rave about Peter Parker.  

    When I learned a new Spider-Man was being made — as in, fresh from the start — I was torn.  I just didn’t think anyone could play the part of Peter Parker as good as Tobey Maguire did.  I mean, the dude was perfect.  He was so geeky and quiet, and he did a great deer-in-the-headlights impression whenever MJ (Mary-Jane) talked to him.

    That said, I loved Andrew Garfield’s rendition of Peter Parker.  I can’t say I can pick between either since I loved them both for different reasons.  Garfield’s Parker had more strength to him, making his jump from supreme-nerd to web-shooting superhero a little more believable.


    Plus, there’s the web thing.  Because in the original movies I was a little twitchy about the webs being a side-effect of the spider bite.  One of my favorite editions of Spider-Man was based off the simple plot device of letting those little web-shooters run out of steam.  Poor Spider-Man ran out of web mid-swing whilst trying to get home with spaghetti sauce (I think that was it — it was some kind of tomato sauce) and fell onto a rooftop.

    This did two things for me — it made Peter fallible without having to pit him up against a super-bad-mutant-or-otherwise-scientifically-enhanced-guy; and it gave me something to worry about.

    In the edition I’m referencing, Peter finds himself in a position where he believes he is dying.  (That might be a spoiler.  Sorry.  But the comic has been out for like … years now … so I don’t feel too bad.)  Anyway, his first thought is of none other than Gwen Stacey.  This is another spoiler, if you haven’t read the comics (or been related to someone who consumed them like they were necessary to their very existence like my brother did) but Gwen Stacey is kind of … er … doomed.

    Sorry.  But she is.  

    Because any Spider-Man geek will tell you that her death was a pivotal moment for Peter Parker’s character.  There are debates raging still about who was his true love — Gwen or Mary-Jane.  Personally, I’m a Gwen Stacey fan all the way.  (Yes, it’s totally like the comic-realm fight of Team Gwen vs. Team MJ.)

    So, while I enjoyed the original three with Tobey Maguire running about in spandex, this new Amazing Spider-Man put right some of the things that were done a little wrong.  We got the web-shooters.  We got Gwen Stacey.  And … yeah, we got Dennis Leary.  

  • Book Review : Redshirts by John Scalzi

    As already admitted on this blog, I am a nerd.  I love Star Trek.  I enjoy Star Wars.  I read science fiction, fantasy, romance, and just about anything that crosses my desk.  I have an active Audible account thanks to the people at Writing Excuses (a podcast that every single writer in the world should listen to) because they introduced me to it.  I’m also on Goodreads, where I can share my love of the written word to anyone who wants to listen.

    If that wasn’t nerdy enough, I also play Star Trek Online.  Granted, my time is limited with work, son, writing, but I have managed to reach the level of Captain — *insert squeal of pleasure here* — and sometimes allow my son to help “fly” the ship.  He’s four, so I don’t feel too bad when the Borg constantly destroy us.

    With that in mind, Redshirts by John Scalzi was right up my alley for reading material.  Quasi-trekkie, playing off the known joke about how red-shirted individuals on the original show would inevitably die a horrible death, I walked into this book ready to laugh.  And when I discovered that none other than Wil Wheaton was performing the book, I positively beamed with delight.

    I loved this book.  I listened to it while at work and was laughing so hard in some places that my coworkers were concerned for my mental health.  (I work in an upstairs area from them so they couldn’t see the headphones, they could only hear my laugh.  Which, now that I think about it, might have seemed a little creepy. )

    I won’t give any spoilers, but I will admit that about a quarter of the way into the book I was concerned because I was getting attached to these Redshirts.  I didn’t want to see any of them get their faces eaten by exotic alien creatures.  But they had the dreaded red shirts on, so one part of my brain was always waiting for the curtain to come down on them.

    There was one portion of the plot that was a hiccup for me — the discussion of back-stories, which I won’t explain because I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone.  Suffice to say, my rational brain was trying to make sense of a purely irrational thought-process.  But in the end, I chose to ignore this hiccup because … well … I was enjoying the book so much that I just didn’t care.  And … I mean, come on, it’s science fiction.  Fiction being the operative word.

    If you’re on Goodreads, then you can see I gave it 5 stars.  If you’re on Audible — I don’t think you can find me because that’s got a different name on it — but I gave it 5 stars all around there.

    Thank you, John Scalzi, for the wonderful book.  Thank you Wil Wheaton for the wonderful performance.  It was truly a blast.

  • Short Stories

    This week my very first short story EVER came out in the Love and Darker Passions Anthology from Double Dragon Publishing.  The cover is creepy and I haven’t read everyone’s stories yet that are in it, but I’m totally proud of it.  The story is titled “The Man Who Loved Medusa” and it’s the very first story in the book.
          (I mean really, look at that cover.  It gives me the willies.)

    (Also note, if you go the Amazon page you can get a sneak peek at the first bit of Medusa’s story.)

    When I was invited to do a story for this anthology, my first worry was that I wouldn’t know how to write anything less than 90 thousand words.  But as it turned out, I was able to manage this story in under 5 thousand words.  During the process, however, I have to note that there were several differences between novel writing and short story format.

    Let’s face it, you just plain don’t have time to fill the reader in on all the aspects of the world, setting, characters, plot and what have you when you’re working with a short story.  Every time I wanted to go off on a tangent, I had to pull myself back and putt a 1″ picture frame around what I was trying to say.  (Thank you, Ann Lamont, for the 1″ picture frame analogy in your book Bird by Bird.)

    Using Lamont’s analogy here became extremely helpful in writing this short story.  It kept me focused on the who, what, why, and how of the story in front of me.  Note I left out the when and where of the situation.  I learned very quickly that everything — every word, description, and dialog line — had to serve multiple purposes.  The when and where came out within the framework of answering the who and what of the story.

    This was supremely tricky for me, but I’m very proud of the way it came out.  And in fact, I was invited into another anthology for next year dealing with folk tales, which brings me to the second portion of this post; I finished my second short story ever.

    This second short story I am calling, for right now, Fish Wish.  It’s just the rough draft so far, but I can tell you that I threw lunar bases, moon dust, space travel, near asphyxiation, divorce, the folk tale The Fisherman’s Wife, and the term nano-fishers into a big blender and pressed puree!  And that’s not even the best part.  The best part is that I managed to do it all in less than 2 thousand words.

    Bwahahaha!

    But really, the challenge of writing short stories has made a vast improvement on my novel writing as well.  While I can get away with a longer word count in a novel, the task of allowing setting, dialog, and every word to do more than one thing in respects to my storytelling is … well … wonderful.

  • History Class

    About a year ago I had this crazy idea to go back to school.  (Hey, I’ve got this GI Bill thing and I figured I ought to use it.)  Anyway, among the wonderful classes I get to do this summer is Survey of World History.

    Here’s the kicker — it’s a 5 week long class.

    All of world history in 5 weeks.

    I was so sure I was going to fall over dead from subject overload, but I have to admit that I’m not.  This is the end of week 1 and I am loving the class.  In fact, I’m loving it too much.  For the first three days of class, I couldn’t sleep because I’d get done reading my history book and the Greeks and Romans would be smacking each other around in my dreams.

    (Hey, I’m a writer.  Weird dreams come with the territory.)

    It doesn’t help that I’m already fascinated with the Greek and Roman periods.  In fact, I wrote a short story called “The Man Who Loved Medusa” that just came out in the Love and Darker Passions Anthology.  (It’s the first story in the book, too.)

    History is a great place for inspiration.  History shows us how complicated we are as human beings.  History shows us how ugly we can be to each other, and how heroes are born.  It shows us how far we’ve come, how much we still need to improve, and gives us hope for something greater in the future.

    My favorite subject is probably the Romans.  (Sparta was pretty tough, but let’s face it, the Romans just had this whole … audacity thing going for them.)

  • Alphabet Soup Blog Thingy

    Alright!  So about a week ago my friend Lisa Janice Cohen — author of The Between — challenged me to write a post about ten things I love that begin with the letter “P”.  It seriously took me this long to come up with my list, but here it is!

    Potatoes!  — Anyone who knows me at all will laugh at that this.  I love potatoes in just about any form I can get them.  Except chips.  I’ll eat chips, but I just … yeah.  Not a huge fan.

    Philanthropy — Honestly, we’re all on this planet together and we have a responsibility to each other.  There’s no reason any child should ever go hungry.  We all just need to step up and help where and when we can.  (I’ll even share my potatoes if I need to.)

    Puppies

    —  Oh, come on.  Who doesn’t love puppies?  Just look at them!

     

     

    Panda’s  — Well, I’m kinda cheating here.  I love Red Panda’s especially.  My local zoo just got a new pair and they are so fuzzy and adorable I would just love to take them home and snuggle them.  If I wasn’t afraid of the big teeth, of course.  They do have some sharp chompers.

    Procrustean — Just the word, I promise.  But I mostly love the word because of the history behind it.  And in case you weren’t aware of it, I think I’ll educate you!  In Greek mythology there was this dude called Procrustes.  He was a bit of a bandit, but not in the fun Robin Hood way.  He would put his victims on an iron bed and if they were too short, he would stretch them until they fit.  If they were too tall, he’d start lobbing off appendages to get everything to conform just right.  Thus leading to the definition of Procrustean as ::  marked by arbitrary often ruthless disregard of individual differences or special circumstances.

    And now I’ll bet you’ll never forget what that word means.  And yes, if I’d been given the letter “H” for this, I would likely have chosen History as one of my great loves.  Since I couldn’t, I get to torture you with that image instead. 

    People — Generally speaking, I love people.  We are all so weird.  I mean, just watch us for a day.

    Patterns — I like ivy patterns the best, but when it comes to decoration I do like anything colorful and patterned to give a sense of diversity to a room.

    The Princess Bride — I’m cheating here, too.  But, eh, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out the Princess Bride.  In fact, my son and I just watched it the other night.  He’s insistent that he is the man in the black mask.  But I wouldn’t worry too much.  He insisted that he was Spok when we watched Star Trek, too.

    Paper & Pens — It’s a dangerous thing to let me loose in the office supply section of any store.  Seriously.  I write my first draft via pen and paper.  Every story.  Every time.  I’m sure I’ll have horrible arthritis when I’m older, but for now it works.

    And last but not least …

    Parenthood — There are moments when my son drives me crazy.  When he won’t listen and I have to sit him down and have a discussion with him about what he did wrong and why he can’t do it anymore and all that jazz … but on the whole, being a parent is one of the most fulfilling, wonderful things in this world.

    That’s my list!

  • Travel & Travel Blogs

    One of the things that really helps inspire me are photographs.  It especially helps if these are photographs that I have taken myself, but occasionally I find inspiration in what I see on the Travel Channel or on another person’s blog.

    Oh!

    And let me tell you how much fun I have searching through space photographs!   Just take a look at this image done by gucken over at Deviantart.

    For the Travel Channel, I normally like Anthony Bourdain No Reservations.  He’s just too snarky for his own good sometimes.

    For bloggers who have caught my attention, I’m afraid there are only two.  First there is Katy at her storytellingnomad site.  She has some neat pictures up there of Venice and Europe in general.  I love the pictures, and she adds a bit of the writerly life to her posts by discussing what happened in whichever city she happened to be in.

    The second is Luke Burrage.  You might have already heard of him, and then again you might not.  He runs a Science Fiction Review Podcast that you can get for free on iTunes.  Also, he’s a juggler who works on cruise ships … so he inevitably gets to see wonderful, exotic places.  He is also a photographer and he has some beautiful pictures up on his blog.  (Be patient on his blog link, it’s heavy with content so it takes slightly longer to load.)

    While I would love to visit all the places in the world and experience everything there is to taste, touch, smell and what have you, I’m afraid life is just too short.  However, through these few people I am given a slightly broader scope of experience to work with — albeit vicariously — and I am supremely grateful for the work that they do.

    So!  Kudos to all of you!  And if you, dear reader, know of any travel blogs, pictures blogs, or other forms of art that you think would help stretch my imagination further, then please let me know.

  • Flame Balls

    I’ve been having great fun this week as I near the completion of my first science fiction novel — and I do mean the completion, this is the final draft.  And yesterday, as I was re-writing a particular scene, I allowed an explosion to take place on a space ship.  Which led me on this wild chase to find out how fire behaves in space.

    Which led me to flame balls.

    That’s right, they’re called flame balls.  They don’t burn as hot or as wild as here on Earth, but in zero gravity fire turns into a spherical blob that gives off no light and no smoke, so you can’t find them.  Look here at this wonderful explanation on flame balls!

    The discovery of flame balls has led me to several problems.  First of all, I really wanted to use them, but I can’t.  Not completely anyway.  You see, I built an artificial gravity system on board this particular space ship, which means that they aren’t really in zero gravity.  However, the artificial gravity is … artificial … and located in the flooring, not the ceiling, so the little flame balls can do an upside down teardrop sort of shape.

    Secondly … an explosion on board a space ship while it is in space is hard.  More than one thing gets affected by the explosion.  Compression, airflow, hull integrity … all of it has to come into play.

    But one of the really cool things about a flame ball is that they don’t move like fire here on earth.  They let the oxygen and fuel come to them, instead of spreading to consume everything in their path.  So they’re like little invisible sand-glasses, sucking the oxygen out of a particular place and putting a time limit on any living, breathing person nearby.

    However, I need at least one of the characters in this scene to survive.

    Lucky for me I still have two weeks before school starts again, so I can devote my energy into problem-solving flame balls in space, explosions, and countermeasures that might be taken to keep the entire ship from destruction.

    Oh!  By the way … you can totally fire a gun in space.  (The right kind of gun, mind you, but a bullet nonetheless.)