So it seems I'm revving up again to do some writing. I have again been reading over what I've written for The Silent Goodbye and doing some small adjustments. This is in preparation for actually doing some more writing.

I'm feeling quite distracted with regard to my writing right now. I think I have too many projects on the go and I don't feel confident that any of them are going to lead to that great Holy Grail: being published.

We'll see. I guess I'll keep plugging away and hope something good comes of it.

Not much of an entry, I know, but they can't all be gems.

Tags: Phillip Gold

Read that title again. Yes, it's true. I actually wrote something. Honest.

With the plot plan for The Silent Goodbye now complete, I took it upon myself to write the first page (yes, all of a single page, perhaps 250 words) of the next section. Not much but it is something. Gold begins his long walk through the humid darkness back to his apartment.

It felt good. Really good. It took a while and I have already identified several revisions that I have to do to that single page but it felt sooo good to be writing again.

It also felt very good to re-read the court-room opening argument scene I had written several months ago and to find myself really enjoying it. It's a good scene. It's effective and dramatic and not so very far from what actually happens in criminal court that I have to be embarrassed by it. Opening arguments in criminal trials can go on for hours, even days, which makes it hard to make them both dramatic and realistic. Gold's opening is extremely short but I think it hits the right mark from a suspense and tension standpoint.

I'm pretty pleased with it.

So we start to work again. Slowly. Carefully. For now. Speed and stamina will come with time.

And another hummingbird appeared in our yard today. I saw him sitting on our clothesline and managed to snap all of two pictures, from long distance and through a dirty window, before he flew away. So check out the Backyard Birds page on this site for a grainy picture of the little humdinger (as my mother used to call them).

The photo is nowhere near the quality my friend Madeleine takes in her backyard back in Ontario but it will do for now.

Sexist Star Trek Note: In the episode "The Trouble With Tribbles", Captain Koloth complains to Kirk that Klingon vessels don't carry "non-essentials", meaning women. He even waves his hands in what appears to be a description of feminine curves as he says it. Yikes!

Tags: Phillip Gold, Star Trek

It has been an interesting week. A very good conference at my home institution has taken up a lot of my and Patti's time, filling it with interesting new people, much-missed old friends and fascinating discussions.

And the birds have been active too. We had a Ruby-Throated Hummingbird come to one of our new creeping vines and an American Redstart at the feeder. Too bad on both occasions the camera was not within reach.

And I actually sat down a couple of times at the laptop to work on the Harry Potter Concordance. I'm near the beginning of The Goblet of Fire right now, which means Harry and his friends are at the Quidditch World Cup. Lots and lots of characters flit on and off stage here, many of whom never reappear but, for thoroughness' sake, I have to catalogue them all. I spent an hour and completed only four pages of the novel.

Whenever I'm conducting a mundane task (like cooking or doing dishes), I set up my portable DVD player and watch an episode of The Original Series (TOS) of Star Trek. I've watched the entire first season and eight episodes of the second so far. It's interesting to see the arc of different television series and how long it takes them to hit their stride. I think the latter half of the first and early part of the second seasons are by far the best of TOS: with the characters established and most of the technology settled, the stories are stronger and deeper.

I have also been watching out for quotes I can use in my "Star Trek on Women" film-clip montage and there is no shortage of stuff (note, these are paraphrases, not direct quotes):

1) "Brain and brain, what is brain!" from "Spock's Brain";
2) Kirk despairing about how his good female officers all leave the service once they find husbands in "Who Mourns for Adonais?";
3) The highly respected, very successful Federation peace envoy who finally admits that her life is empty without the love of a good man in "Metamorphosis"; and
4) Spock telling a visiting computer that Uhura is a woman, which explains why the computer finds her erratic and emotional.

I have to admit, when I start to line up the evidence like that, I wonder how I could possibly watch the show at all. And it was considered advanced in the 1960s.

Meanwhile, we have rain in the forecast for the next week so I may find myself with more indoor time to write or work on other creative projects. The lawn is going crazy but the garden is, for the most part, looking great.

And, of course, the US Men's Open Golf Tournament is on this weekend. Watching golf always makes me miss my Mom even more. We'd watch golf together and marvel at the greatness that is Tiger Woods or take shots at Phil Mickelson or just wonder at the beautiful weather. This is my first US Men's Open without her, the first of many other such firsts I'll have to endure.

Tags: Harry Potter, Star Trek

Life is impressively busy these days. Work keeps throwing me tough situations which seem to be taking up a lot of time. Then there is this huge conference in which I am taking part. And, of course, there's the garden, the bird houses and feeders, the lawn, the house, the laundry, cooking, cleaning, doing dishes.

What you have just read is a series of excuses, my way of explaining why I have done no writing whatsoever in the past week. I did take some small steps (like researching Canadian publishers of young adult fiction and talking to a publishing rep at this conference) but, as for actual writing, nothing.

In some ways it's quite depressing. But every time I find myself with an idle moment recently, I just close my eyes or flip on a silly TV show or watch another episode of Star Trek, the original series. I think I'm brain dead.

I still have every intention of getting back to it. I hope to start to package the Abigail Massey stories for an attempt to get them published. I also hope to get back to Phillip Gold according to the plot plan I created and maybe even do some work on The Way Forward.

I even sat down at my laptop with the expectation of at least doing a little work on the Harry Potter Concordance but my mind just wouldn't let me go there.

Things have gotten so bad I'm not even writing this blog very regularly and, when I do, it's about how I'm not writing.

I need to shake this up and get going!

Tags: Phillip Gold, Abigail Massey

We finally got around to watching The Dark Knight this weekend. Well, actually, we watched about a third of it before agreeing it was one of the worst movies we've seen in a long time. So we turned it off. Then I went back yesterday to watch the rest, thinking it must get better.

Nope.

Terrible throughout. In fact, it got worse. Convoluted plot, terrible acting, characters you just don't care about and the introduction of a ridiculous moral tone by the end that makes you just want to vomit. Awful awful awful awful. Worse than that.

And what is it about the Oscar-winning performance of the late and lamented Heath Ledger as the Joker that reminded me so much of "Deal or No Deal" star Howie Mandel as a very young comedian ("what? what?")?

This film should have ended at the 90-minute mark (if it had to be made in the first place) when they had the Joker in jail. But no, they have to go on for another hour with the most violent, silly plot I've ever seen. And the amazing thing is, dozens of people die and no one seems to notice. Cops in helicopters. Cops in cars, trucks and buses. And the hospital that the Joker blew up there in the middle? Gotham General, I think? Didn't it look a little too much like a parking garage as it blew into bits?

What a piece of garbage movie!

We had watched Woody Allen's quirky latest, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, the week before. Now that was a good movie. Worth every minute. Fun and weird and interesting. Great performances. Interesting characters. Well written and witty.

Kind of makes me wonder why we bother getting these high-price action flicks at all!

Oh, and by the way, check out the "Feathers In Fredericton" page of this website for a nifty new addition.

Tags: Batman, Dark Knight

For some reason, my imagination kicked into gear again yesterday and I found myself working through the rest of the plot for The Silent Goodbye. I think it started with the simple idea that the next section of the novel will begin with Gold being dumped off at the motel in the middle of the night and deciding to take a long, hot walk back to his apartment.

I started wondering what he would be thinking about as he made that journey and, even more interesting, I started to visualise the setting through which he would be walking. The motel is located in the west end of the city (Hamilton) and his apartment sits just east of the downtown core. So that makes it an hour-long walk, first down the hill along Main West, then through strip-mall heaven, past the University, across the bridge over the highway, then up the steep hill to Queen Street. Down hill once again past city hall and finally through the dangerous downtown area and into the residential neighbourhoods beyond.

I know. Nothing really special. But I like it as a backdrop. And I like being able to make the city much more a part of the story.

So that's the next part I'll write. I'll have him thinking about the two major challenges that face him: the trial of his client on a sexual assault charge and his own looming duel with the assassin.

I've got the timing down too. The first scene of Gold's journey back to his apartment takes place late on a Sunday night. Since the duel starts on the Wednesday, Gold has to sweat through two full days of fear and preparation. What follows is a full five days of tension, fight or flight, and near misses before the trial finally gets underway the following Monday. With the opening of the trial, the suspense builds as Gold defends his client in the courtroom while trying to defend himself everywhere else.

I had the structure of the plots, several scenes and even some snippets of dialogue wafting through my brain throughout the day, an amazing feeling. Not wanting to forget any of it, I sat down and did a plot plan for the remainder of the novel. Two separate plots which come together at the climax of the book.

It was a fairly large creative effort. Nothing like coming out of the blocks fast!

Tags: Phillip Gold

So now I've gotten into movie making. With iMovie on our new iMac, our digital camera and other stuff, I'm starting to enjoy working with moving pictures and sound, creating interesting effects.

The only problem is, it's really time consuming. A file of my writing takes a second or so to save or print or travel by e-mail. A movie file (especially one that's in reasonable quality with sound) takes forever to do anything. Just moving a two-minute movie from our camera to iMovie takes several minutes. E-mailing it takes even longer. I'll have to learn patience, I guess.

I've even created a Youtube Channel for my creations: I'm "markwwnb" and I hope soon to be uploading little bits of film for people to enjoy. I am planning to make a trip down to McAdam soon to film a tour of the station and hotel there, for example, and I'm also thinking of creating some fun short films using clips from existing movies and TV shows.

For example, I was watching the Star Trek episode, "Who Mourns for Adonais?", and I realised it might be fun to package up all the ridiculously sexist things characters on the original series say about women. In that particular episode, Kirk bemoans losing useful female officers when they decide to get married and (of course) leave Star Fleet to take care of their husbands and babies. Later, the god Apollo says a female lieutenant is very intelligent "for a woman". And then there's "Turnabout Intruder", an interesting episode that centres on Janice Lester's frustration at being denied a starship command on the basis of her sex: a seemingly pro-woman plot is undermined by the insulting portrayal of Kirk's body as inhabited by Lester's soul.

The problem is, this new fascination with film-making is taking time away from my writing. And then there's gardening and birding.

So much to do with so little time!

Tags: Star Trek, McAdam Station

Life is hotting up again. Work is very busy and, with all the beautiful weather we've been enjoying, I've got so many yard chores to do it's amazing.

So not much writing is getting done. My brother is in town for a couple of days of rest and recreation and we've been having a really nice visit. Yesterday, Mike and I went to see Star Trek (2009) again and then we went with Patti and Marlee Marie down to McAdam to introduce Mike to the magnificent station and hotel.

It was good to get back to McAdam, now that I've written all of those Abigail Massey stories. As I learned during our visit yesterday, my own fictional image of the station and hotel has actually replaced in my mind the real thing. In writing my stories, I have made several major errors in describing the design of the building and in setting the action in it.

For example, I wrote the stories on the assumption that there were sets of stairs at either end of the building that connect all three floors. Wrong. The stairs from the first to the second floors (from the station and eating areas to the hotel rooms) rise from a space almost a third of the way along the building from the western end, between the ladies sitting room and the formal dining room. The stairs located at the ends of the station connect only the second floor with the third-floor staff quarters.

I also realised that the hotel does not stretch the entire length of the building. It fills only the western two-thirds of the second floor. Another error on my part. Also, the girls' living area has a large kitchen room (where they probably ate) as well as a large shared bath, both located at the top of the stairs. I had the stairs opening directly into the sleeping area and the girls eating at a table in the sleeping area. Interesting. I'll have to do some re-writing to correct my errors.

Patti and I have also discovered the joys of iMovie. We work on Mac computers. We also have a fairly advanced digital camera that, with our memory card, can take up to an hour of good quality moving pictures (with sound, if we wish). That's led us to put the two together and figure out that, with iMovie, we can do some amazing things with the movies we take. I probably won't incorporate those movies into this website but I'll have to see about taking a more active part on Youtube. For example, as I sit here now I realise I should have done a film of our visit to McAdam yesterday. That probably would have become very popular on Youtube.

We'll have to go back.

And I'll have to get back to my writing. After, of course, I mow and edge the lawn, tend to my garden, clear out the dead, dying and unwanted tree bits in the back of the yard and tidy up our growing pile of refuse branches, sticks and trees.

Don't worry. I'll get there.

Tags: Abigail Massey, Phillip Gold, Star Trek

Progress sure is slow. But it is progress, so I guess I shouldn't complain.

Today on my lunch hour I wrote precisely one page of the Phillip Gold novel, The Silent Goodbye. Since I didn't have my working draft with me and am, frankly, not sure where I am in the novel, I decided to write a scene that I know is coming. Facing the terrifying reality of being hunted by a professional killer, Gold gets himself piss-tank drunk on rye and ends up wandering, bleary-eyed, to the cemetery where he passes out on the graves of his mother and his sister.

Symbolism, methinks. Soon I shall join you and that kind of stuff.

It was slow going, which isn't a bad thing, with each word requiring hard work to emerge onto the page (or the screen, to be honest).

I haven't read it over again but I was quite pleased with it as it came out.

Having re-read most of the material on this website (well, The Way Forward and the Abigail Massey stories) I find myself being pulled in several directions. I was surprised by how pleased I am with the Rowling-world novel and I continue to be charmed by the McAdam Station stories. The Gold novel is well underway and, I think, pretty good, so I'm not sure where to turn my attentions first.

It will likely be Phillip Gold, since the book is so far along. I may also return to working on the Harry Potter Concordance, since that is a task in which I found a great deal of joy. Nothing like a close reading of a great writer to keep one inspired.

Don't forget to check out the new page on this site: Feathers In Fredericton. It shows often poor photos of wildlife we've encountered on our walks in and around this beautiful city.

Tags: Phillip Gold