Yzabel / July 21, 2005

Scotty’s Dead

It always feels so weird, when a figure that has lived for so long in memories and in imagination sees the real, human counterpart behind it die…Scotty of “Star Trek” fame dies at his Redmond home

LOS ANGELES – James Doohan, the burly chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise in the original “Star Trek” TV series and motion pictures who responded to the command “Beam me up, Scotty,” died early today. He was 85.Doohan died at 5:30 a.m. at his Redmond, Wash., home with his wife of 28 years, Wende, at his side, Los Angeles agent and longtime friend Steve Stevens said. The cause of death was pneumonia and Alzheimer’s disease, he said.The Canadian-born Doohan was enjoying a busy career as a character actor when he auditioned for a role as an engineer in a new space adventure on NBC in 1966. A master of dialects from his early years in radio, he tried seven different accents.”The producers asked me which one I preferred,” Doohan recalled 30 years later. “I believed the Scot voice was the most commanding. So I told them, ‘If this character is going to be an engineer, you’d better make him a Scotsman.”‘The series, which starred William Shatner as Capt. James T. Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as the enigmatic Mr. Spock, attracted an enthusiastic following of science fiction fans, especially among teenagers and children, but not enough ratings power. NBC canceled it after three seasons.

Yzabel / July 19, 2005

Radio Blog

Silmy having slowly but irremediably contaminated my mind with the idea of a radio blog, I’ve given in, and installed one here.Yza’s playlist:(That I consider a little like a “writing playlist”: these songs tend to boost my inspiration, depending on the type of scene I need to work on.)

  • Kitaro/David Foster/Sedaka Dara — Angel Queen: A collector, since it is the end credits song of the Sennen Jou movie, otherwise known as Princesse Millenium or Queen Millenia.
  • Concrete Blonde — Bloodletting (The Vampire’s Song)
  • Kajiura Yuki — Chloe (Noir OST): Eerie enough to inspire me whenever I need to write a scene about Ka’Ellan.
  • John Williams — Duel of the Fates: I didn’t like Episode I. It doesn’t prevent me from thinking that this music goes well with fight/duel scenes.
  • Voltaire — Ex Lover’s Lover
  • Hirasawa Susumu — Forces (Berserk OST): Works well for one of my warrior-types characters
  • Blackmore’s Night — Ghost of a Rose
  • Within Temptation — Jillian (I’d Give My Heart)
  • Theatre of Tragedy — Liquid Man
  • City Hunter OST — Nina: From the City Hunter movie Ai to Shukumei no Magnum. Always makes me think of Kheril.
  • Kanno Yoko — Sôra: From the Escaflowne movie. In fact, it will always remain Tanaquil’s song for me
  • Sol Invictus — The Killing Tide
  • Pendragon — The King of the Castle
  • Type O Negative — Wolf Moon: One always need her dose of Type O (and October Rust remains a very good album).
  • Dead Can Dance — Xavier: A song I had wanted to have for a very long time (while somehow knowing – intuition? – that it was by DCD, even though I didn’t know this band at the time). This one has haunted me for years.

A somewhat eclectic playlist, which corresponds well enough to my own global approach to music. As for the radio blog itself, sorry for using a reduced version: I simply didn’t want to destroy my theme.The radio will remain online… until my bandwidth dies. * crosses fingers *

Yzabel / July 18, 2005

Other Worlds

On the verge of finishing Guy Gavriel Kay’s The Summer Tree, here’s a thought that came to me regarding the concept of “people from our world suddenly transported into another, fantasy world”. A theme that is actually dear to my heart, given that my own current writings is done with this theme in the background (well… in a way, at least).The concept itself, of course, isn’t exactly new. Stephen Donaldson has used it in the Mordant’s Need and Thomas Covenant series. In the Amber cycles, Roger Zelazny’s characters travel through a myriad of worlds (and it is interesting to note that prince Corwin, after all, begins his journey on Earth, while believing himself to be a “normal” man).Read More

Yzabel / July 17, 2005

Kill Harry

The 6th tome of Harry Potter is now out, and what better opportunity than this to come back to a webcomic I had found some time ago already, but hadn’t been updated very often? Well, I found the link back, and was glad to see that the author had gone on with the story.So here, Crazy Kimchi presents Kill Harry. The parallel with Kill Bill is evident, and the elements of Harry Potter’s universe quite well respected, with funny twists, that is.It’s probably necessary to have seen – or at least, know a little – the Kill Bill storyline, however; like for every parody, it takes all its flavor when the hints can be caught.

Yzabel / July 16, 2005

The Bone Doll’s Twin

I’ve pondered writing a few book reviews here and there, so here’s one about the latest read I’ve finished. Unsurprisingly for those who know me enough, it’s fantasy, with some predictable aspects, and some that aren’t that common nor especially conform to the “positive” genre.The Bone Doll's TwinThe Bone Doll’s Twin is the first volume of the Tamir Trilogy by Lynn Flewelling, and also the first one I’ve read by this author. The legend has it that in order to be secure and prosperous, the kingdom of Skala must be governed by a Queen descendant of Gherilain; however, the throne is now between the hands of a king, who is working slowly toward getting rid of all female pretendants, whatever their degree of parenthood with the deceased queen, while wanting to secure the throne for his own son.Read More

Yzabel / July 15, 2005

Plan 9 From Outer Space…

No way I can pass on the opportunity to share this. I was reading my feeds earlier on, and while getting the ones from Boing Boing, I saw their post about Plan 9. So, I rushed to Internet Archive to download it, since it seems to have indeed fallen into the public domain (Creative Commons license, here we go).This is cult movie, I say, cult movie.

Bela Lugosi was cast in the role of “Ghoul Man” but passed away before filming really started. So what happens? The producer’s wife’s chiropractor (Mr. Reynold’s was the executive producer) takes over as “Ghoul Man” and holds his cape in front of his face THE ENTIRE MOVIE.Add to this numerous plot inconsistencies, horrid acting, and masses of stock footage – some of which we see several times and you have a terrible but funny movie.

Pray, tell me, who can pass on such yummy details?

Yzabel / July 13, 2005

Looking for Simple Writing Software

For some time, I had been looking for a nice, simple and cheap (read: not more than 50$/€, or, better yet, free) software for writing. The one I currently use is the well-known and very good OpenOffice, and I’m really satisfied with it; however, it lacks an essential component for novel writing in my opinion – the ability to navigate through chapters. When I write, it’s not from Chapter One to Final Chapter, and it becomes a hassle, once I have more than just 20 or 30 pages written, to navigate from one chapter to the other as I follow my inspiration regarding what to write at a precise moment. In a nutshell, what I want from such a software can be summarized as follows:

  • Ability to organize files/chapters into an easily available single project or index, so that I can quickly sift through them
  • Ability to export into a single file, for when I need a complete version to print or send
  • Being close enough to a real word processor, at least when it comes to basic formatting, spellcheck and the likes
  • Not being too expensive
  • Having a trial version, since I don’t buy without testing first
  • A bearable enough GUI. I’m going to work with this a lot, and staring at a butt-ugly software for hours can be discouraging no matter what. (I already have WordPress administration panel when I want that.)

Read More

Yzabel / July 11, 2005

A Writing Theory

Even though this may seem an evidence to some, writing more and more lately has allowed me to finally understand something about my own ways of writing — something that may be key to many blocks I’ve had in the past. Is this something common to other writers, or am I one among few who seemingly understand such evidences very late? I have no idea. I just know that being aware of this has helped me to take gigantic steps in how I had been writing.

There’s a mistake, in my opinion, that should absolutely be avoided when putting down what I could call the “alpha version” of a text, whatever its length: the mistake of absolutely wanting to make it perfect from the start. It only leads to slowing down, to stalling, to starting proof-reading when the article or chapter isn’t even finished yet, and to ending up devoid of all inspiration and ideas, when a few hours ago they had been pressing in one’s mind. There is something very intimidating and very strong in this whole process of proof-reading, really, that will contribute to paralyzing the writer, upon realizing that she didn’t choose her words well enough. This is pretty bad. I wonder if there’s anything worse, in creative writing, than stifling one’s motivation with fears of not being “the best” from second one?…

So, my theory goes as follows: write. Simply write. Write until your fingers go numb on the keyboard or on the pen, write whatever goes through your head as long as the inspiration strikes. Do not bother about grammar rules, about spelling, about this-or-that sentence looking a little odd. Write, and only when it’s done, worry about proof-reading. You will find mistakes, you will find many things that can be improved, and it will sure take some time to fix it all and polish the text until it is finally right; however, at least it will be written, and not frozen into an attempt of correcting it halfway, which tends to kill imagination as well as your basic train of thought.Once again, it is only a theory, and whether it works or not very likely depends a lot on the people. I think I simply found back something that I should never have forgotten at first – that when taking pleasure in writing, it’s important to not stiffle one’s drive early with petty considerations such as proof-reading when the basic idea isn’t even properly laid down yet.In the end, practicing anyway makes us better at finding the right words on the first attempt…

Yzabel / July 10, 2005

Thoughts on Basic Posting Formats in Blogs

This morning, I stumbled upon what I could call an “essay on the basic posting formats in blogs”. This is something I won’t reproduce here, given that the article is divided in seven parts (eight, if you count the index from which you can reach all other parts) and quite long; however, I’d encourage anyone to read it. You can find it here on Contentious.While I’m aware that lots of bloggers don’t exactly care about what their writing style is like, or even about actually having a “style”, I took interest in this from my point of view of aspiring writer, as well as simply driven by curiosity. It doesn’t have anything to do with languages themselves, it doesn’t show a limited interest due to “being written for English-speaking people only”, and thus was instructing on more than one account. Whether in blogs or in other kinds of articles — who knows where the future and potential changes of career can take me or anyone else? — concision and editorial skills can be a valuable asset. So, I didn’t want to pass on the opportunity to take note, in case this would be useful to me later on.Some of these formats are very familiar; some others, such as the series postings, are seen less often. Regardless, there’s something somewhat fascinating in how all of this is shaped, and has developed over the years from simple links filters to a writing that can now be considered as a style.

Yzabel / July 9, 2005

Quid de l’imagination…?

Un peu plus tôt dans la soirée, occupée à explorer les diverses chaînes de notre abonnement TPS nouveau-né, j’ai été frappée par une scène apparemment des plus banales sur Tfou – une petite vache en images de synthèse, invitant son jeune public à lui envoyer diverses occupations pour l’été car, disait-elle, “sa maman n’avait rien trouvé de mieux à lui suggérer que de faire une collection de broccolis”. Lesdites idées de loisirs seraient diffusées ici et là sur la chaîne durant les vacances.Quid de l’étrangeté de cette scène, me direz-vous? Ceci, tout simplement: depuis quand les enfants ont-ils besoin d’une chaîne de télévision pour leur dire comment passer leurs étés? Je ne crois pas que mes amis de l’époque ni moi-même ayons eu besoin de ce genre d’artifices pour nous “tenir occupés”. Bien au contraire, les journées n’étaient jamais assez longues lorsqu’il s’agissait de faire jouer notre imagination fertile. Un vieux balai sans poils devenait un puissant bâton de combat. Le manche d’un maillet de croquet bon marché se transformait en sabre laser. Un tas de terre, dans le lotissement encore en construction où nous vivions alors, se révélait être une montagne infranchissable donnant libre cours à nos escalades d’alpinistes chevronnés à l’aide d’une corde de remorque et d’un morceau de bois en guise de piolet. J’ai d’ailleurs du mal à me souvenir du type de programmes que nous regardions à la télévision à cette époque, étant donné qu’il ne s’agissait pas là de notre activité première.D’où ma question et ma perplexité… Quinze, voire vingt ans plus tard, la nouvelle génération a-t-elle donc vu décliner sa capacité à l’imagination? C’est là une pensée qui me fait froid dans le dos, et qui néanmoins ne m’étonne plus vraiment, car j’ai pu en voir l’illustration flagrante à plusieurs reprises. Une généralisation n’est bien sûr pas de mise; néanmoins, ce petit interlude télévisé m’a laissé un goût amer dans la bouche.L’on en viendrait vraiment à se demander si tout ce que crée notre société n’est rien d’autre qu’un assistanat permanent, à commencer dès le plus jeune âge…