The George Lite Zone

Another author with some useful advice on fiction writing is Jim Butcher, author of the Dresden files. His Live Journal website, http://jimbutcher.livejournal.com/, has some useful hints and tips on the art of being a story smith. Check it out.

Jim’s also got a news site, http://www.jim-butcher.com/news/, and another that has a series of podcasts, http://butcherblock.libsyn.com/. Useful stuff to tide you over now that the first season of the Dresden files has drawn to a close.

I’m currently reading his first mainstream fantasy novel Furies of Calderon (Codex Alera) at the moment. Excellent stuff so far, I’ll post a review of it when I’ve finished.

Kurt Vonnegut, Junior. 11-Nov-1922 to 11-Apr-2007

I was sad to hear that Kurt Vonnegut died recently. Author of such SF Classics as Slaughterhouse Five, Cats Cradle and Breakfast Of Champions, he’ll be sorely missed.

In surfing the web recently I came across his eight rules for writing fiction.

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Hopefully they’ll help to produce a new generation of top quality writers to rival the great man.

Kurt Vonnegut, Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction

One of my favorite TV shows of all time was I Claudius (nothing to do with the large amount of sex and gratuitous violence honest). In a totally unrelated vein Google have revamped their personalized portal and re-badged it as iGoogle.

With iGoogle you can easily setup a custom home page and fill it with a plethora of gadgets news feeds and other assorted goodies. You can also setup multiple tabs to better organise things and changing it around is a breeze with everything being done via that old fire breathing dragon excreta (dragon droppings).

As it’s free I’d suggest that you give it a try.

The late great Isaac Asimov (author of amongst other things I, Robot) would have approved.

You can also add a nifty Add To Google button to your blog to allow others to add a feed from your blog to their iGoogle page. Cool. Check out my post on Coded Languages for a geeky set of instructions on how to do this.

Am I mad, in a coma, or have I just been listening to the Life On Mars Original Soundtrack CD. Most excellent. Not surprising really as the picking ground for material, the 70’s, has been identified as the best decade for popular music.

My only criticism of it is the lack of any Hawkwind, not that I’m biased, especially as the show has featured Brainstorm, Silver Machine, Urban Guerrilla, Ejection and You Shouldn’t Do That over its two seasons. Still there’s always the potential for a second soundtrack album at some stage in the future and plenty of material still to chose from.

Track Listing

1. King Of The Jungle (dialogue)
2. David Bowie - Life On Mars
3. Roxy Music - Street Life
4. Wings - Live And Let Die
5. ELO - 10538 Overture
6. John Kongos - Tokoloshe Man
7. Atomic Rooster - Devil’s Answer
8. T Rex - Rock On
9. Free - Little Bit Of Love
10. Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and the Upsetters - Jungle Lion
11. Armed Bastards (dialogue)
12. The Sweet - Blockbuster
13. The Faces - Cindy Incidentally
14. Ananda Shankar - Snow Flower
15. Slade - Coz I Luv You
16. Mott the Hoople - One Of The Boys
17. Lindisfarne - Meet Me On The Corner
18. Frankie Miller - I Can’t Change It
19. Thin Lizzy - Whiskey In The Jar
20. The Audience - I Had A Dream
21. Uriah Heep - Traveller In Time
22. Nina Simone - I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free
23. I Want To Go Home (dialogue)

For the curious and sad amongst you, a full listing of music used in the show follows.

Series 1

Episode 1.1

• David Bowie - Life on Mars
• Blue Öyster Cult - Stairway to the Stars
• Lou Reed - I’m so Free
• The Who - Baba O’Riley
• Deep Purple - Rat Rat Blue
• Deep Purple - Fireball
• Cream - White Room

Episode 1.2

• Wings - Live And Let Die
• Deep Purple - No One Came
• Willie Lindo & The Charmers Band - Drum Song
• Thin Lizzy - Saga of the Aging Orphan
• Deep Purple - Lazy
• Pink Floyd - One of These Days
• The Upsetters - Dream Land

Episode 1.3

• The Sweet - Ballroom Blitz
• Uriah Heep - Gypsy
• Free - Wishing Well
• Atomic Rooster - Head in the Sky

Episode 1.4

• Hawkwind - Brainstorm
• David Bowie - Jean Genie
• Jethro Tull - Cross-Eyed Mary
• Hawkwind - Silver Machine
• Slade - Gudbuy T’Jane
• The Rolling Stones - Wild Horses
• The Sweet - Blockbuster

Episode 1.5

• Thin Lizzy - Call the Police
• Status Quo - Good Thinking
• Thin Lizzy - The Rocker
• Cream - White Room
• T. Rex - Jeepster
• Roxy Music - Would You Believe
• Hawkwind - Urban Guerilla
• Hawkwind - Ejection
• Coloseum - I Can’t Live Without You
• Roxy Music - Mother of Pearl
• Nina Simone - I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free

Episode 1.6

• Louis Armstrong - What a Wonderful World

Episode 1.7

• The Hollies - I Can’t Tell the Bottom From the Top
• Britney Spears - Toxic
• Peters and Lee - Welcome Home
• Pulp - Disco 2000
• Nina Simone - Sinnerman

Episode 1.8

• Atomic Rooster - Friday 13th
• Atomic Rooster - The Rock
• John Kongos - Tokoloshe Man
• Atomic Rooster - In the Snow
• Atomic Rooster - Devil’s Answer
• Wizzard - See My Baby Jive
• David Bowie - Life on Mars
• Lindisfarne - Meet Me on the Corner
• Free - Little Bit of Love

Series 2

Episode 2.1

• Atomic Rooster - Head in the Sky
• Roxy Music - Street Life
• Atomic Rooster - Break Through
• Chicory Tip - Son of My Father
• Three Degrees - Everybody Gets to Go to the Moon
• Dusty Springfield - Spooky
• Three Degrees - Year of Decision
• David Bowie - Star Man

Episode 2.2

• Mott the Hoople - Sweet Jane
• Mungo Jerry - In the Summertime
• Derek Wadsworth - Ain’t Got No
• Uriah Heep - Love Machine
• Uriah Heep - Bird of Prey
• The Hollies - Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress
• Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Episode 2.3

• David Cassidy - How Can I Be Sure
• Audience - The Big Spell
• The Sweet - Hellraiser
• Lindisfarne - Poor Old Ireland
• Barclay James Harvest - When the City Sleeps

Episode 2.4

• Frankie Miller - I’m Ready
• Lindisfarne - Court in the Act
• Santana - Samba Pa Ti
• Slade - Coz I Love You
• David Bowie - Aladin Sane
• T Rex - Rock On
• Barclay James Harvest - When the City Sleeps
• Gilbert O’Sullivan - Alone Again Naturally

Episode 2.5

• Hawkwind - You Shouldn’t Do That
• Roxy Music - Just Like You
• ELO - 10538 Overture

Episode 2.6

• Cozy Powell - Dance with the Devil
• Atomic Rooster - Breathless
• Ananda Shankar - Snow Flower
• Elton John - Rocket Man
• The Audience - I Had a Dream
• Shocking Blue - Hot Sand
• Uriah Heep - Traveller in Time
• Thin Lizzy - Whiskey in the Jar

Episode 2.7

• Traffic - Many a Mile to Freedom
• Traffic - Evening Blue
• Roxy Music - Virginia Plain
• The Faces - Cindy Incidentally
• The Sweet - Done Me Wrong Alright
• Cream - Crossroads
• The Sweet - Rock ‘n’ Roll Disgrace
• Mott the Hoople - One of the Boys

Episode 2.8

• Alvin Stardust - My Coo Ca Choo
• Elton John - Funeral for a Friend
• Atomic Rooster - Decision/Indecision
• Tom Waits - I Hope I Don’t Fall in Love with You
• Israel Kamakawiwo’ole - Over the Rainbow
• David Bowie - Life on Mars
• Mott the Hoople - One of the Boys
• David Bowie - Changes