Prologue, Part 2
I intend for the two parts of this prologue to stand as the mission statement for this blog. Except that I don't yet have a real mission, a clear purpose for it. Like a lot of bloggers this will be an outlet for whatever I want to write until I figure out what I really want to do.
More about me, so readers will get an idea of the person behind the writing.
I'm an atheist. I was raised as a catholic, was an agnostic in my teens, and eventually came to find that I don't need to believe in a god or gods to be spiritual. I believe in Humanity and its potential, I believe in intelligence and wisdom and the ability to think for yourself (this last thing is something that almost all the organized religions I know about don't seem to acknowledge.)
I was about to write more about religion and atheism here, but I'll keep this for a future entry, otherwise, this prologue would turn preachy, and that's not what I want to write here, at this point.
I'm a big geek. I've always loved technology, as in, anything with buttons. When I was three or four, my parents gave me a pocket calculator (not a kiddie one, actually one that looked a lot like my dad's, except his could also do measuring unit conversions. Really handy.) and just a year later, they bought a home computer (a TI-99/4a, for those of you who know it. For the others, it's the kind you had to hook up to a TV set.)
At 4, I was typing in sample programs I found in books, and even modifying them, through trial and error. Video games have always kept me fascinated, which is why I'm so happy working as a video game designer now.
The only technology I'm afraid of is the technology that's not mine. Like most people, I'm very careful when using an ATM or using the company's phone system for anything more than simple phone calls, because the consequences of a small mistake with technology is exponentially larger than with something less technological. So I'm no technophobe, I'm just afraid of consequences.
I started getting into movies in high school, and then, in college, I took a course in video production, which gave me a great base on which to start my journey. My talent lies in writing, and crafting interesting stories, but understanding movies helps in that I can see how and why some movies work while others fail, and that helps me in crafting my own stories. I also started reading up on screenwriting, and I've found that it really fits my clean, to the point writing style.
What I mean by clean writing style is, the idea, image or situation that I need to communicate is the main driving force behind the writing, so my prose tends to flow pretty fast, without stopping for long, detailed and atmospheric descriptions and deeply philosophical ramblings. If a deep idea needs to be communicated, the story will do it, bit by bit if it's a big idea. Stopping for exposition is boring if nothing else happens to further the story. And that's one of the big things that screenwriting (for commercial films, anyway) forces you to do.
I can appreciate other writing styles, so-called "more stylish writing", and I sometimes enjoy them too, but I often aim to emulate (without imitating) one of my favorite writers, Isaac Asimov.
And that's how I bring in Science Fiction. From Star Trek to Star Wars (which is arguably not really science fiction) to the new Battlestar Galactica, from Asimov to Heinlein to Douglas Adams to William Gibson, I love Science Fiction. A few years ago, I would buy at least 4 SF magazines as often as they came out (SF Age, the first SF magazine I ever found on newsstands, Asimov's, Analog and Amazing when it made a short comeback through WotC) and I would buy almost any anthology I could lay my hands on, being particularly fond of older anthologies (two of my favorites are "The Best of Interzone" which came out in the 90's and "The Best from Orbit" which is a collection of the best stories from a yearly anthology of new stories from the 60's and 70's. If you really love SF, you owe it to yourself to track down these two books.
When I write stories, I tend to write science fiction, because that's what I'm most comfortable with. I'm actually annoyed at a lot of TV and books I see because it's so "down to Earth" and about mundane stuff. I have a real life, and it's fun and interesting enough that I don't need to envy some fictional character's life instead. All I can say to all those people who feel that their lives are much more boring than the the fictional characters they're hooked on is, do something about it. Just do something. Make your own life more interesting. Think for yourself.
I'm also into music. Now, that's a profoundly vague statement. Let me go into some details, that should clarify things. I play some guitar (I own an electric guitar and an acoustic one), some bass (I own an electric bass) and I believe I can sing, but I haven't reached a point where I'm comfortable performing in front of more than 2-3 people. I like songwriting, but I find it hard to match music and lyrics.
Even though I'm a technophile, I generally hate most music that is "performed" automatically, meaning that I'll always prefer the sound of real drums as played by a human being to synthesized, sampled or looped drums. One of the things I've found in the last few years is that most of the software tools that are becoming more and more pervasive in the music industry tend to make working on music's rhythm either easier, or more powerful. The problem is, music is made up of two other things along with rhythm: melody and harmony. Good music has a reasonable mix of all three aspects, but a lot of modern music shows very little harmony or melody, because rhythm is the part that addresses our most primal emotions.
I love the music of The Beatles, Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd, Radiohead, and most of the music that came out of the british progressive rock scene in the late 60's through the 70's. I listen to a lot of other things, but I tend to go back to these most often. I believe I should love Jazz more, but I have yet to find a proper doorway into this, even though I've heard some really great stuff, especially now that I live in Montréal, where one of the biggest Jazz festivals in the world is held, every year.
There. That's a nice prologue that tells you much and very little about me, all at the same time. Such a paradox makes me love being human.
More about me, so readers will get an idea of the person behind the writing.
I'm an atheist. I was raised as a catholic, was an agnostic in my teens, and eventually came to find that I don't need to believe in a god or gods to be spiritual. I believe in Humanity and its potential, I believe in intelligence and wisdom and the ability to think for yourself (this last thing is something that almost all the organized religions I know about don't seem to acknowledge.)
I was about to write more about religion and atheism here, but I'll keep this for a future entry, otherwise, this prologue would turn preachy, and that's not what I want to write here, at this point.
I'm a big geek. I've always loved technology, as in, anything with buttons. When I was three or four, my parents gave me a pocket calculator (not a kiddie one, actually one that looked a lot like my dad's, except his could also do measuring unit conversions. Really handy.) and just a year later, they bought a home computer (a TI-99/4a, for those of you who know it. For the others, it's the kind you had to hook up to a TV set.)
At 4, I was typing in sample programs I found in books, and even modifying them, through trial and error. Video games have always kept me fascinated, which is why I'm so happy working as a video game designer now.
The only technology I'm afraid of is the technology that's not mine. Like most people, I'm very careful when using an ATM or using the company's phone system for anything more than simple phone calls, because the consequences of a small mistake with technology is exponentially larger than with something less technological. So I'm no technophobe, I'm just afraid of consequences.
I started getting into movies in high school, and then, in college, I took a course in video production, which gave me a great base on which to start my journey. My talent lies in writing, and crafting interesting stories, but understanding movies helps in that I can see how and why some movies work while others fail, and that helps me in crafting my own stories. I also started reading up on screenwriting, and I've found that it really fits my clean, to the point writing style.
What I mean by clean writing style is, the idea, image or situation that I need to communicate is the main driving force behind the writing, so my prose tends to flow pretty fast, without stopping for long, detailed and atmospheric descriptions and deeply philosophical ramblings. If a deep idea needs to be communicated, the story will do it, bit by bit if it's a big idea. Stopping for exposition is boring if nothing else happens to further the story. And that's one of the big things that screenwriting (for commercial films, anyway) forces you to do.
I can appreciate other writing styles, so-called "more stylish writing", and I sometimes enjoy them too, but I often aim to emulate (without imitating) one of my favorite writers, Isaac Asimov.
And that's how I bring in Science Fiction. From Star Trek to Star Wars (which is arguably not really science fiction) to the new Battlestar Galactica, from Asimov to Heinlein to Douglas Adams to William Gibson, I love Science Fiction. A few years ago, I would buy at least 4 SF magazines as often as they came out (SF Age, the first SF magazine I ever found on newsstands, Asimov's, Analog and Amazing when it made a short comeback through WotC) and I would buy almost any anthology I could lay my hands on, being particularly fond of older anthologies (two of my favorites are "The Best of Interzone" which came out in the 90's and "The Best from Orbit" which is a collection of the best stories from a yearly anthology of new stories from the 60's and 70's. If you really love SF, you owe it to yourself to track down these two books.
When I write stories, I tend to write science fiction, because that's what I'm most comfortable with. I'm actually annoyed at a lot of TV and books I see because it's so "down to Earth" and about mundane stuff. I have a real life, and it's fun and interesting enough that I don't need to envy some fictional character's life instead. All I can say to all those people who feel that their lives are much more boring than the the fictional characters they're hooked on is, do something about it. Just do something. Make your own life more interesting. Think for yourself.
I'm also into music. Now, that's a profoundly vague statement. Let me go into some details, that should clarify things. I play some guitar (I own an electric guitar and an acoustic one), some bass (I own an electric bass) and I believe I can sing, but I haven't reached a point where I'm comfortable performing in front of more than 2-3 people. I like songwriting, but I find it hard to match music and lyrics.
Even though I'm a technophile, I generally hate most music that is "performed" automatically, meaning that I'll always prefer the sound of real drums as played by a human being to synthesized, sampled or looped drums. One of the things I've found in the last few years is that most of the software tools that are becoming more and more pervasive in the music industry tend to make working on music's rhythm either easier, or more powerful. The problem is, music is made up of two other things along with rhythm: melody and harmony. Good music has a reasonable mix of all three aspects, but a lot of modern music shows very little harmony or melody, because rhythm is the part that addresses our most primal emotions.
I love the music of The Beatles, Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd, Radiohead, and most of the music that came out of the british progressive rock scene in the late 60's through the 70's. I listen to a lot of other things, but I tend to go back to these most often. I believe I should love Jazz more, but I have yet to find a proper doorway into this, even though I've heard some really great stuff, especially now that I live in Montréal, where one of the biggest Jazz festivals in the world is held, every year.
There. That's a nice prologue that tells you much and very little about me, all at the same time. Such a paradox makes me love being human.
posted by shutz at 10:25 PM
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