Stephen Aryan

One Man Army

When I was growing up it seemed to me that there weren’t that many interesting books to read. Looking back, I know I was wrong. Obviously. However, at the time, I read fairly the fantasy genre and I went through pretty much everything I could find. Now I now read across several genres and non-fiction too, but if I just read fantasy novels there is no way I could keep up with the number being published. For starters I’m not a fast reader and although I love fantasy books and love reading, I do want to do other things with my spare time. So, now more than ever, whether it’s novels or comics or TV, it’s important to find your voice and stand out from the crowd.

Last week I read this tumblr article by comic book writer Gail Simone about brutal tips on breaking into the comics industry. It contains a lot of hard lessons, and some might whinge and say she’s just being mean, or she wants to discourage people from even trying. Yes, you have to be utterly realistic, but to be honest, if mean words and a harsh dose of the truth puts you off then maybe you should try something else. Or maybe you’re just not hungry enough. The most thought provoking part for me was her Step Three: Find Your Voice, Dammit. What do you bring to the table? What is unique about you and your view of the world? It’s something I’ll come back to in another post at some point.

For the longest time my parents have known I’ve wanted to be a writer, but even from a young age my dad impressed upon me the importance of a good education and good skills to get a good job. Writing was the passion, the dream, but it wouldn’t pay the bills and I had to be realistic. It didn’t kill my dreams, but it kept my feet firmly on the ground. I have those business skills now, and a good job and nice home, and although the road to get here has been a lot bumpier than I ever anticipated, my head is now in a good place and I can spend more time contemplating the creative. But, as Gail Simone mentioned, you need to be a sales person, so once again, and now it’s happening more times than I can count, I’m using my business and marketing skills as part of my creative endeavours. It’s something I honestly never thought would be needed. The article mentions being a good sales person, and you really need to be. You need to be able to talk convincingly and with passion about your work, about what it means to you, and what it is all about. See a previous post (Ok, but what is it about?) for more info on that!

As well as being a positive sales person you also need to be quite outgoing and approachable, because no one wants to work with or be associated with an arsehole. Ever. Find the worst or most obnoxious person on the train, or in your office, or on the street, and imagine that person wrote a book, comic or TV show you really loved. Now try and read it again with the same passion. I’m not saying you have to become someone else, but a friend of mine, Barry Nugent, is actually quite a shy guy, but in public you would never know it. He’s been podcasting longer than me, he’s written novels, hosted panels at events, and now he is running his own comics empire. He’s grown a thicker skin and the nerves that previously required liquid lubrication before being in public have faded. He’s a professional and he gets it done.

Whether you’re an author, comic book writer or any other type of creative person, you need to be able to navigate the online channels, be tech-savvy enough to know the difference between Facebook and Twitter, attend industry relevant events, get yourself interviewed, post articles on a blog or website, and basically create as much noise as possible about your work. Because although there are people that will help, and many more that work behind the scenes that most people don’t know about, you will have to do a lot of it for yourself. The work doesn’t stop when the novel, comic, or TV show is written. You need to make a splash, you need to stand out, you need to make your voice heard. There are exceptions to the rule, very successful authors, celebs and comic book writers even that never go near social media, don’t have a blog or a website. Good for them I say. But they’re pretty uncommon. For the rest of us, it’s necessary and very important. I saw some grumbling last week about people self promoting. Of course you have to do it and you should be. End of story.

If you’ve built up any kind of online following then those people are there for a reason. They like something about you and not telling them about your work is shooting yourself in the foot. Equally if you only fill your social media streams with self promotion posts and nothing else, then that is also shooting yourself in the foot.

In today’s crowded world, where there are more distractions than ever before across a multitude of different media, a creative person needs to be seen and heard, and you must be both business minded and bursting with imagination.

Books That Changed My Life – Part 2

This has slightly morphed into authors that changed my life more than particular books, but it’s still appropriate as I do mention specific titles by each of the authors.

Legend by David Gemmell – Gemmell was an enormous influence on me growing up, and together with Eddings and Brooks, he is partially responsible for my continuing love of the fantasy genre. Long before someone coined the phrase grim fantasy, or the more recent mocking term, grimdark fantasy, several writers were telling stories about grey characters. People who walked the line between good and evil. Those who stepped over the line in one direction and then the other, so that you were never certain of their loyalty. Starting with Druss, Gemmell showed me a world of very human men and women who were able to achieve the impossible when caught up in extraordinary circumstances. But there was always a cost. Even when magic was involved, which some people say gives you the ultimate mcguffin to get out of any trouble, there were consequences and the piper had to be paid. His characters lived by their own moral code and while some were to be admired, others were definitely disturbed individuals who believed they were doing the right thing. A couple of years ago I wrote a short article about why you should read Gemmell over at Fantasy Literature and I still believe he is required reading. Fantasy has even more striations and sub-genres than a few years ago, but he covered several of them over the course of his career and his audience went with him because of the strength of his writing. I hope some modern fantasy writers will also spread their wings in the same manner rather than continually mine the same sub-genre for the entirety of their career. Many modern fantasy writers are walking in Gemmell’s shadow and some may not even realise it, but long before they came up with it, he’d done it a few times and done it well. After the almost antiseptic feel of Eddings and early Brooks (I say early as his later novels were murkier), where good characters were nice people who fought the good fight, and the bad people all wore hoods and were born in darkness, Gemmell showed me that it doesn’t matter where you come from, it what’s you do that defines you. A hero can be cut-throat who saves an old woman from being mugged or a villain is a warrior who’s fallen from grace or has a moment of weakness. Redemption, loyalty, honour and protecting the weak. These themes were common in Gemmell’s stories and while some people find them archaic and quaint, I think they’re incredibly important and apt, now more than ever in our busy modern lives.

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson – This is an incredible book. It’s short, and as I mention below with Le Guin, Matheson tells you a great deal with very few words. I’ve read this novel several times and I’m never bored of it. It’s truly horrifying, it’s disturbing, it’s worrying and it’s a story that has sat in the back of my mind for many years, lurking in the shadows like a patient toad. It’s one of the main influences on my comic series, Empyre, and there again Matheson showed me the power of having a good ending that really pays off. I’m not going to spoil it, but the end of this book is a real gut puncher. It makes you look back at everything you’ve just read and reassess it from a different angle. None of the film adaptations have done it justice and the ending is never loyal to the heart of the novel, which is a shame as it is incredibly powerful. One day a ballsy film-maker might do it right but we’ll see. This book also showed me how thin the veneer of modern society is and how quickly people can revert to something more primordial when a few modern comforts are taken away. It’s also a novel about the human spirit, about hope, about faith in humanity and struggling against seemingly impossible odds. There are so many things to discover in this novel and, depending on what you bring to the table when you read it, you can get something different from it every time. A remarkable novel by a master storyteller.

A Wizard or Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin – I borrowed this book, and then the sequels, from my local library when I was a boy and the stories stuck with me for years. A couple of decades later I bought my own copy of the trilogy (there was no quadrology in my day!) and re-read them. Le Guin taught me about the power of words and how you can use the reader’s imagination to fill in the blanks. She taught me about how being frugal with your word count can force you to shape a sentence or paragraph so that it creates a very clear picture in the mind of the reader. You don’t need to ramble on and on, filling pages with endless details and world building, in order to make a character, race, city, or object appear convincing or realistic. In fact some of the most powerful books I’ve ever read are very slim volumes and some, not all, of the modern fantasy novels that are huge doorsteps are extremely padded with fluff. As a boy these novels fired my imagination and that is exactly what should be happening, especially in more fantastical novels. Your mind should help shape the world and characters and be partially responsible for transporting you there. In my opinion putting every single little detail on the page is a bad idea and it can have a negative effect. It can make the reader lazy, it can make the reading experience more passive than engaging, and no matter how exciting the story is, it can appear dull and flat, because the reader is observing it from a distance. Simplicity can beautiful and leave the audience wanting.

Storm Front by Jim Butcher – I’ve put Storm Front but in reality the whole Dresden Files series has had a massive impact on me. To date this is the longest series of books I’ve ever read by a single author. I’ve read more books by Stephen King and some other writers, but they’ve not been parts of a much larger story. In my opinion Jim Butcher is the best architect I’ve ever read. He spends a lot of time planning his novels and he’s done lots of interviews online if you want more info about how he does this. But in short he lays out the structure, works out the ebb and flow and the character arcs so that he knows exactly where he is going with the story. From speaking to some writers I know this approach horrifies them as there is less spontaneous creativity and no veering off down side streets to explore unexpected ideas that crop up during the writing process. The flip side of that is all of his novels have several pay-offs that are really well executed and extremely satisfying for the reader, and when you read the novels one after another, they hang together as a cohesive whole. Despite each novel in the series being a standalone story, each builds on the last as it follows the life of the main character, the wizard Harry Dresden. Butcher has taught me about the benefits of planning a story ahead of time, how subtle foreshadowing can pay off further down the line. He’s also taught me to trust the reader and to respect them. If you start to build towards something then you’d better do it right when the time comes and don’t wimp out or you’ll lose your audience if they can’t trust you. If that means wiping out a favourite character, and it is fitting with the story, then you should do it.

Books That Changed My Life – Part 1

The title and idea of this is…borrowed…from Den Patrick and the other good people at Blackwell’s in Charing Cross. They have written about 5 books that changed their life so go here and read them. So far I’m managed to whittle my list down to 8 books. I’ve probably missed off a couple so I’ll add them later. It also turns out I had more to say on these books than I anticipated so I’ve split it into two parts.

Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings – When I was ten or eleven I remember seeing my brother reading this book. It wasn’t a big book so I wasn’t intimidated by it and when he told me it was fantasy I was intrigued. Looking at it now, in my thirties, I’m less enamoured by it and can’t read it without wincing, however, at the time it was fresh, exciting, and quite simply a wonderful book. Tolkien is a huge influence on many fantasy and genres writers, and he did have an impact on me, but I think Eddings had a greater influence because I read all of the Belgariad and then years later the Mallorian and several other books by him. I spent more time immersed in the worlds that he created and I spent a lot more time with his characters than Tolkien. I felt like Garion was someone I could see wandering the hallways of my school and I really wanted an aunt like Polgara and a grumpy old grandpa like Belgareth. By this time Tolkien had already passed away, so in my mind (at the time when I was eleven) he was old-fashioned fantasy, whereas Eddings was current and writing it for me, right now! Eddings gets a lot of grief from some quarters, and I think some aspects of the criticism are valid, however he was instrumental in my early reading and my love of the fantasy genre, so he definitely deserves to be on this list. These are definitely books to give to younger readers, pre YA even, to ease them into the fantasy genre.

Dune by Frank Herbert – There are some really amazing books, like certain TV shows, films, comedians or even individual comedic sketches, that people will quote for decades after the fact. Monty Python hasn’t been on TV for a long time but people still quote the Dead Parrot sketch, the Knights of Ni from the Holy Grail film, bits from the Life of Brian and so on. This book not only spawned several sequels by Frank Herbert, but it also generated several prequels written by his son and Kevin J. Anderson several decades later. The book has also been adapted into one film and, in my opinion, one really good mini TV series. Regardless of the quality of the sequels and the other spin-offs and adaptations, the ideas in this book are vast and the ground so fertile and rich, with ideas that they need exploring. The material is so interesting and so thought provoking and unique, that I still quote sections, ponder some of the decisions made and I also re-read it. The latter might sound like no great achievement, but there are so many books being published nowadays, and there are so many other distractions vying for my attention and my time, that to actually go back and reread a book is something I almost never do anymore. What Herbert did with Dune is expand my horizons and make me think beyond not only myself and my life, but beyond Earth to the future of mankind and what we, as a species, might accomplish if we ever stopped looking inwards so much and went out there to the stars. It also exposed me to ideas that were so big I couldn’t really grasp them at the time. The first time I read Dune I was too young and I knew I was missing some of the nuances and other material that was there between the lines. It’s such a rich and fertile universe that I just love spending time there and going on an epic journey with Paul. The other incredible thing is that this book hasn’t aged and someone reading it for the first time in 2012 would be as gripped as someone who read it in the 1960s or 1980s. The power of some classic SF novels has diminished, not just because of the advances in technology, but also because the world went in a different direction.

The Green Mile by Stephen King – I first read this in 1996 when it was still coming out in a serialised fashion. I was working in the USA for a summer and on the regular trips into town with my roommates I would regularly check the book store to see if the next installment had come out. You can buy it as a complete novel now, but back then King was releasing in approx six 100 page little booklets. It wasn’t my first King book by that time, but it is the one with which I connect the most. I’ve read many King books, not all of them, and some I’ve enjoyed more than others, but this is still my favourite King novel by a long distance. It’s been more than fifteen years since I read it and I’m still thinking about it. The man is an amazing storyteller and in my opinion he excels at characterisation and making the impossible and the unreal and the scary seem very possible. This is also one of the most emotional novels I’ve ever read and although the phrase rollercoaster is over used, the story took me through a huge range of emotions. This is an incredibly powerful novel about love, loss, the human spirit, sacrifice, compassion, cruelty and miracles. It really puts you through the emotional wringer and for me it is an incredible and very moving book. I should also point out that it is rare that a film adaptation of a novel is very good. The Green Mile by Frank Darabont is one of the exceptions and the film is one my favourites of all time. It’s just that good. For those who are unsure about Stephen King, I always recommend this book over his others.

Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz – I came to Koontz quite late and I took a risk on him, because at the time, I’d not heard much about him. I was browsing a book shop and I lamented to a friend there was nothing new in the SFF section that looked very interesting. She told me to try another genre, so in a slight huff I wandered slightly to my right into the horror section and started reading the back of several books. This was my first Koontz novel but definitely not my last. Some of Koontz’s novels are brilliant and some I haven’t enjoyed, but I’ve now probably read 90% of his back catalogue. In terms of sheer creativity and the breadth of ideas, the man is a genius. He starts with a tiny seed of an idea on a card, often just a few sentences, and from that he turns it into a gripping and spellbinding story. He doesn’t plan, he does it all as he goes along completely organically and most of the time he’s successful in making the story a cohesive whole. Only a few of his novels are huge doorsteps and he taught me about economy of words and that you don’t need to waffle on and on to get the message across. Like King he also taught me that using an everyday word is often far better than something you’ve picked out of the thesaurus. He also taught me about conveying character through dialogue. Odd Thomas is a spooky, weird, and gripping story which starts from a slightly familiar premise but Koontz then takes it in a very unique direction. This novel proved to be so popular that he’s gone on to write several more with the same character, which is something of a rarity for him that he’s only done on a couple of occasions in his career, so it shows you there was something very special about this first one.

Part 2 next week.

Show Don’t Tell

I’ve posted a few times on here in a vague fashion about some of the comic projects I’m currently working on. Today I’ve decided to just show you some of the artwork and you can judge for yourself. The first two pages are from Empyre (with Adam Bolton and Ryan Taylor on art) and the second two from Flux (co-written with Pete Rogers and with art by Maysam Barza). Empyre has been submitted to a publisher and we’re awaiting their response and we haven’t submitted Flux yet but are getting close.

A New New Hope

I could be referring to the recent news about the American election, a result which gives me hope for the future, but I’m actually referencing the news about George Lucas selling Star Wars to Disney for the small sum of $4.05 billion. Disney have already announced that they are going to release Star Wars Episode VII in 2015 and they will make more films after that.

As an reasonably old person, to me Star Wars means Luke and Han Solo. It means puppet Yoda and puppet Jabba. It means the Death Star and model space ships. It doesn’t mean Qui-Gon, Darth Maul and dare I say it, Jar Jar. I have very mixed opinions about the prequel films, but on the whole I was extremely disappointed by them. The problems with Star Wars have never been the same as the issues that I have with Star Trek. For example in Trek, an alien can be a human with a bit of plastic stuck to the bridge of their nose and that’s it. Not all of the aliens are like that, and some of the most interesting ones in Trek are those who have been fleshed out over many years, Romulans, Klingons, Cardassians etc. Star Wars has always featured dozens of weird looking races, big and small, feathered and scaled, bug eyed and brightly coloured. The technology is diverse and endlessly fascinating. The worlds we glimpse in the movies are varied and there is so much imagination you couldn’t help being curious. The films went on to spawn so many novels, comics and animated projects over the years, which just shows what a big universe it is and how much fun people have spending time in it.

For me, the problems with the prequel films are the way in which the story was told. The actual story itself, the fall of Anakin from cheeky lad in the desert slum to surly apprentice, to uber-overlord of evil in the black mask, is a great story. It’s a tale of loss and falling into shadow. The journey from hero to villain, one that has been told many times before, and long before Breaking Bad did it.

So, I’m very hopeful and positive about Episode VII and beyond, because if VII doesn’t work and the story is not told very well, and the director is poor, that’s fine. Put it down to experience, get someone else in and try it again for the next one. Look at the Batman franchise over the years, or more recently the X-Men film franchise.

The reigns of the story and the universe are no longer in the hands of one man. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a massive fan of George Lucas for many reasons, including Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and all of his charitable work that doesn’t get mentioned as much. I also respect him enormously for saying he is going to give away his money from the sale of Star Wars to charity. He’s a remarkably creative man, but there are other people out there who are better at telling stories. Before, it was his world, his characters, his universe, and he could do whatever he wanted. He could tell the story he wanted in his own way. But we’re moving beyond that now.

So even though in the past I let myself get excited over the prequels, only to have my hopes dashed, I’m going to do it again, keep my fingers crossed, and stay positive about the new films and new direction of the Star Wars universe. I’m also keeping my fingers crossed that someone manages to persuade Mark Hamill to make a brief cameo as an older Luke. It would be very brilliant to see him in the role of older sage that Obi-Wan played to his character as a boy. Here’s hoping.

Bring Me My Red Shirt

There’s an old joke I remember from my childhood about a brave pirate. Whenever his ship is about to be attacked he calls for his red shirt which he wears over his other clothes and then fights as hard as he can. The idea being that no one will know if he is wounded because the blood won’t show. Then one day they are attacked by several ships at once and he calls for his brown trousers.

Anyway, the story is apt as I’m now approaching the critical red shirt stage. I’m not quite at stage two yet, but I think that will be next year when projects are no longer under my control and are in the hands of readers! This week, my artist partner in crime, Adam Bolton, will be at the New York Comic Con. Adam is the artist for an all ages book called ‘Where’s My Shoggoth?’ which came out about two weeks ago from Archaia and he will be signing copies at the Archaia booth. So if you are going to the show, please drop by and say Cthulhu at him and jibber and rave about monsters from the sea. He’ll appreciate that. And buy a copy of Shoggoth as well please. Anyway, Adam is also armed with about ten pages of Empyre (the four issue series which I wrote and he drew) which he will be showing to various people. While he is doing that I’m going to be sat here in the UK, biting my nails down to the quick, checking my phone every ten seconds to see if he’s sent me a text. And if not, why not? Should I text him? When is it appropriate to text him? After the first hour? First two hours? How many times can I text him before I become a nuisance? and so on. As I said, red shirt time.

Next month in the UK, is the Thought Bubble comic book convention, and Pete Rogers and I will be armed with completed pages from Flux, the mini series we have co-written. Maysam Barza, the artist, has been doing a remarkable job and I am very impressed with his work. Both Pete and I are confident that we have something quite special, so now it’s our turn not to mess it up and speak about it with both passion and clarity. The schedule for Thought Bubble was released yesterday and there is more of a focus on creator owned comics and Image comics than in previous years which is very encouraging. Eric Stephenson, the publisher of Image comics, and several Image creators will be attending, so I’ll be taking notes and listening closely to conversations throughout the weekend.

I think there’s definitely been a shift in the comics industry in the last two years, more so in the last ten months. More established creators are getting involved in creator owned projects, crowd funded projects and digital only projects. I could talk at length about that but I won’t here. The relevance to me is that readers are more open, now more so than ever before, to new voices, new characters and new publishers. For every well established creator working at the Big2, there are now two dozen names I’m vaguely familiar with who are slowly building their own following, through their creator owned and work for hire comics. Three years ago no one knew who Scott Snyder was, but now he is a rising star and his name is very familiar. Equally Jeff Lemire was known to some for his creator owned work like Essex County, and his Vertigo book Sweet Tooth, but it was his step into the mainstream with Animal Man that put him on the radar of many mainstream readers. There have always been new faces (artists and writers) at both companies, but there’s definitely been a bit of a change lately, or at least it seems that way to me.

Online digital platforms and catalogues like Comixology mean that once a reader has gone through their usual stack, there are so many other comics they can try with just a click of a button. Some people, retailers in particular, are very afraid of digital but in my opinion it’s another flavour, not something that will completely replace print. Nothing digital will ever be able to compare to a glorious hardback, super sized, collected edition with a sketch and signatures from the creators. IDW have been publishing some amazing art books that are glorious artefacts that would be inferior, in my opinion, if read on smart phone or tablet.

So the market is shifting and constantly evolving, and I’m trying to wade in and tread water and it is both terrifying and exciting. I’m really looking forward to what happens in the next few months and what 2013 will bring, which could see writing posts about when a comic book project will be published, rather than if it will be published. That’s when I move out of the red shirt phase.

Projects Update

So as it’s three weeks until the New York Comic Con (11-14th October) and there is some related comic news of a sort, I thought it was time for a bit of an all round projects update. Apologies for being vague in some places, but this is because of contracts and NDA’s, not me being petty.

As has been mentioned a few times, I’m currently working on a 4 issue comic book mini-series with artists Adam Bolton and Ryan Taylor. Adam has a new graphic novel coming out from Archaia Entertainment, written by Ian Thomas. It will be released on September 26th in comic shops and October 1st everywhere else. Adam will be attending New York Comic Con this year, and here is a link to a recent interview he did with Ian about their book ‘Where’s My Shoggoth?’ At the end of the interview Adam mentions what he is working on next and I get a brief mention. Without giving away too much, we’ve got a good chunk of the art completed for issue 1 and I’m sure Adam will have some in his portfolio when he is at NYCC. We’re hoping to pitch Empyre to a publisher very soon.

The graphic novel is ticking along, I’m working with a third party to pair me up with an artist. We will then create a submission pack and start sending that out to publishers. The other mini series I’m co-writing with Pete Rogers and with art by Maysam Barza, is also approaching the critical point where we will have enough material to submit to comic book publishers and I’m very excited by the idea and story.

Project Alpaca, is a games project where my contribution is done, and now lots of other people are busy working very hard to make it the best possible version before they release it out into the world. There is not a fixed release date, but realistically I would not expect to see it before 2013.

I have also just finished the first draft of my fantasy novel. I was then swept along by two very busy weeks at work, and since I intended to have a two week break anyway, it worked out well. I now have a little bit of distance and there is an initial list of 50 things I need to fix, both big and small, before I start re-reading it and editing it over the next few months. It will be ready to submit to an agent at some point in 2013. There again I’m not willing to put a date on it, because I will only get one chance to make a good first impression and I want to make it the best version of this book and be 99% happy with it before I show it to any professionals.

Looking back at all of the above, it looks as if I must never sleep as everything is happening at the same time, but of course that’s just how it has worked out as some of these projects have been cooking for a few years. I think 2013 will be a busier year whatever happens, and hopefully a positive year for me creatively.

I Know Kung Fu

Earlier this week I was one of the hosts on a new podcast I’ve mentioned in a previous post, Bags of Action. I love action movies, so every month a group of people get together and talk about an action movie and then everyone gives it a score. In the first episode we talked about Blind Fury and in the second episode we discussed the 2011 film, Haywire, which stars Gina Carano in the lead. You can find Bags of Action of iTunes if you want to listen, but in short we had a number of issues with the film. However, we all agreed that Gina Carano was the best thing in it.

What came out of that discussion, and a couple of other places, was that with the runaway success of The Expendables and its sequel, and they have already announced plans to make a third Expendables film with Nicolas Cage coming on board, who would you cast in an all female equivalent of The Expendables?

Below are a list of names which are either suggestions from Kim Curran, who I chatted to about this over Twitter, or my own ideas. With each new Expendables film they’ve increased the number of stars in the cast, so let’s pretend there is no limit to how many we could have. So who would you cast in such a film and why?

Gina Carano – We all agreed on Bags of Action that she was amazing in Haywire. You knew that she was doing most (if not all) of her own stunts and every fight scene was her and not someone else. You completely believed that her character Mallory was someone who was very capable of looking after themselves in any situation. No doubt it comes from her own physicality, because of her MMA background and even her time on American Gladiators. Cheesy as the TV show might be, as was the British equivalent, all of the gladiators were fit and athletic people.

Cynthia Rothrock – She is a veteran of dozens of martial arts films and undoubtedly would fill the Sly Stallone role in The Expendables, perhaps pairing up with Gina Carano, as Sly pairs with The Stathem. Although she officially retired from action movies, many of her contemporaries (Norris, Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Van Damme) have recently returned to major action roles after many years away. So perhaps someone could persuade her to come back if such a film were ever made.

Linda Hamilton – Unashamedly I’m a big fan of the Beauty and Beast TV series from the late 1980s starring Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman. It was must see TV for me growing up, and I then saw her next in The Terminator. It was only after seeing her in T2 that I had to completely reassess my view of her as an actress. Gone was the gentle, softly spoken, curvy, kind and caring person and in it’s place was this tough, stringy, cigarette smoking, gun-toting, driven and determined soldier. I like T2, despite being very silly in places, but if you look at her role in T2 in isolation, it’s powerful, disturbing and believable as someone who has been locked up because of her delusions about killer robots from the future.

Sigourney Weaver – There’s not much I have to write about her really other than Alien franchise. She’s done it all. She is an incredibly talented actress who has played a wide variety of characters and continues to do so (I’m really looking forward to seeing her in Red Lights), but never was she more terrifying than Ellen Ripley.

Milla Jovovich – Again, I only need to write two words – Resident Evil. I’ve actually never seen any of those films as they don’t appeal, but after seeing her in other films, such as Joan of Ark and The Fifth Element, she should definitely be in the film in an action role.

Ali Larter – This is one of my choices and there again she started off with a couple of roles where she was often running and screaming in front of the camera (Final Destination) but since then she’s portrayed a wider variety of characters. From Resident Evil, to international fame in Heroes as a fairly dark character, to a femme fatale in Obsessed. I think she would be a great addition to the action team.

Gina Torres – I only need one word this time. Firefly. If you’ve not seen the TV show, then go out and rent or buy the DVD, then watch the film Serenity. Then tell me you don’t believe that her character used to be a tough space marine and I will call you a liar. She can play big, strong, tough and intimidating, but she’s also very good at funny, sensitive and caring. A powerful on screen presence and definitely not someone you would want to upset.

Michelle Rodriguez – Just about every film role I’ve seen she has been playing someone tough and usually a cop, marine, a pilot, space marine or similar. I’m sure she is capable of playing another type of character, but in this fantasy action film of my devising, we’re after actresses who are convincing as tough characters, so she is ideally suited for this sort of film.

Two others I would be remiss if I didn’t mention are Cobie Smulders, who did a great turn as Maria Hill in a little film called The Avengers, and Scarlett Johansson who was also very good as Natasha Romanoff. Cobie Smulders is an interesting actress as previously when Joss Whedon was briefly attached to write and/ or direct a Wonder Woman film for DC comics, I believe his choice for Wonder Woman was Cobie Smulders. She’s extremely accomplished as a comedic actor, as her body of work in ‘How I Met Your Mother’ shows, but in The Avengers we get to see a tougher character in a position of authority.

Other names suggested include Lucy Lawless, Wei Zhao, Zhang Ziyi, Nicola Adams, Michelle Yeoh, Anne Parillaud, Zoe Saldana and Chloe Grace Moretz, although I think the latter might be a little young despite her role in Kick Ass.

So, who would you cast, and also, for a bonus point, what would be the title of the film franchise?

EDIT – It turns out this is actually happening. An all female Expendables type film is being made, as was recently reported in Variety, and Gina Carano will be in the film and most likely in the lead role. I wonder how many others listed above will appear.

Pace yourself

Not long before we started the Bags of Action podcast I compiled a list of action films I’d missed seeing at the cinema. I then expanded the list into films in general I would really like to see, at least once, but not necessarily own. In about ten minutes I had a list of over 40 films. It really wasn’t that difficult because I don’t have as much free time as I used to. Making a trip to the cinema can no longer be a spur of the moment thing. I’ve said for years that at some point I will join a film club and just start renting movies every week, so that’s what I’ve finally done.

I’m now striking a healthier balance between time spent working and relaxing. And by working I mean writing. Now that I’m not podcasting as much I have a bit more spare time, but rather than immediately fill that time up with other responsibilities (and I’ve turned down a couple, such as book reviews or a column for SFF websites) or more time at the keyboard, I’m using it to relax. That means time spent reading one of the many books on my to read pile, catching up on the slightly smaller stack of comics and watching films.

I’m not writing to a publisher’s deadline so the only pressure is the self-imposed one. Also I think this is slightly healthier than smacking my head on a keyboard night after night after night when the words are not coming. When the words are flowing and I’m in the zone then I will sit down and just write until it’s all there on the page, but it’s not always like that. There may come a point when I am writing to deadline, and from speaking to published authors I know they sometimes have to do it, grind the story out, one word at a time. But I’m not there yet. Now I’m also finding that when I sit down to write, maybe five nights out of seven, I’m enjoying it more. Also, ideas have started to bubble up from other places for other stories and I’m also tying things together better in my head for the current novel. Even in my down time when I’m relaxing, something is working in the background like a screensaver or a virus scan, joining the dots or weaving a huge web that I’m not consciously aware of, well not immediately. It’s a cliché but I’m now able to see the wood for the trees.

It’s easy to fall into a routine and have it actually turn out to be an unhealthy rut without realising. I know what the little voice at the back of my head is saying. Oh, you’re obviously not dedicated. You obviously don’t want this as badly as some who do sit there seven nights a week. Well, if you can work five (or more) days a week in a busy job, for eight to ten hours a day, and then come home and produce something that is excellent, then good for you. I have a lot of other things crowding in my head these days, duties, responsibilities and concerns, and while previously it was easier for me to write every night, I can’t anymore.

The irony is that I’m also hungrier than I’ve ever been, but I’m also a lot more aware that when I do send something to an agent it can’t just be good, it has to be amazing. In fact it has to be excellent. Someone else has to read it and immediately want to pick up the phone, email someone or tell a friend about it. Something in the story has to pop and it has to inspire them, because the right agent will be your champion. I’m also very aware that writing the story is only part of a writer’s job nowadays and there are many related tasks, but your agent has to inspire an editor at a publisher to give you a chance. They then have to be able to convince a number of other people in various departments that it is worth taking a risk on you. All of that begins with you words. I understand the concept of never being 100% happy with something, but when you are ready to let it out into the world it should have been polished (by many hands and seen by many eyes) to within an inch of its life.

I’m also going to stop imposing deadlines for myself because I think they can be unhelpful. Deadlines such as I’m going to get this edited by the end of this month and then send it off the month after. Well, what if you’re not happy with it by the end of the first month? What if deep down you know it’s just not yet ready? Deadlines can be useful and if the novel is published then that will change too, because they become fixed and rigid things that cannot move. The book must be done by this date, so it can be edited by this date, printed by this date and so on, but right now it’s extra pressure I don’t need that I’m heaping on myself.

I’ll never claim to be an artist, and if you ever hear me say that in public you have my permission to slap me across the face, but I do think that writing needs time to breathe. If you write something then put it in a drawer and then don’t look at it for three months, when you next read it the story will feel slightly alien and you may even have forgotten certain parts. This has happened to me and I’ve been both pleasantly surprised and horrified by some old material. Also the book should have been read by several people who have given you their honest opinions. The book starts with you but by the end of it, even though your name is the only one on the cover, dozens of other people are responsible for its success.

So, what does all of this mean? Well, for me, it means I’m in a better place in my head. It means when I sit down to write it is no longer a chore. It’s still a job to me, not a hobby, and I feel that time away from the keyboard is actually helping me write better. The other key factor, of course, is sleep. I’m not short changing myself anymore and writing until I fall asleep at the keyboard. I’m sleeping a bit more for many for the same reasons mentioned above. When I’m asleep my brain is sorting the pieces of the jigsaw, finding the edges and starting to see patterns. I’m less tired for my day job and therefore less tired when I do sit down to write. It means less time at the keyboard some nights, but if all I produce in four hours is 300 words and 200 of those are crap, what was the point? I’d rather have two productive hours and produce something that I don’t have to throw away and start afresh.

A healthy balance is definitely the way forward for me.

What comes next

Last night my co-host, Scott, and I recorded the last episode of our podcast Comic Book Outsiders. We broadcast and recorded it live and some listeners joined in with questions and we even had a guest listener on the show. Unfortunately for him he’d only just discovered the podcast, but at least there is a back catalogue of episodes for him to listen to and lots of interesting comics to discover.

During the show Scott also played a small portion of episode one, where we outlined why we were doing the podcast. Our goal at the time was to promote comics outside the spotlight, those that didn’t get as much attention in the press and comics press, but are equally as fascinating, thought provoking and of equal quality in terms of the writing and art. Over the five years we talked to, and even met, many creative people all around the world making great comics and I hope we managed to open a few eyes and widen a few horizons.

So, what next? Well, I’m not getting out of the podcasting game, but I am easing off on the throttle and I will be doing less. I’ve always been a big SFF reader and as part of the podcast we started The Book Club about 3 years ago. Every 6-8 weeks we talk about a novel, alternating between a classic work of fiction and more modern novel. There are no hard and rigid rules, but we tend to term modern as anything from the last fifteen years or so. We’ve covered a wide range of books from I Am Legend, Caves of Steel, Slaughterhouse 5, Fahrenheit 451, The Handmaid’s Tale to more contemporary work such as The City and The City, Empire in Black and Gold, Hull Zero Three and Zoo City. We’ve even been lucky to get some of the authors on the podcast, among them Adrian Tchaikovsky, China Mieville and Lauren Beukes, and pose questions from listeners. For me this podcast is great because it forces me to read some of those novels I’ve always talked about getting around to but never quite managed, both classic and modern. It also forces me to try new stuff and get me out of my usual comfort zone which can make me a bit of a lazy reader. I always have a massive To Read Pile, but the deadline makes me get it done. Another part of the book club I enjoy is receiving feedback from listeners, as they often pick up on things I’ve missed and we always get a wide spectrum of opinions on the book.

There is a Good Reads group here, where you can post comments on the current book club selection and make recommendations for future book club selections if you want to take part.

Every month, but something I’m only taking part in every now and then, is a new podcast called Bags of Action. It mirrors the Book Club in a way, as every month a bunch of people will watch an action movie and then talk about it. We had lots of fun talking about our favourite action heroes on a recent episode of CBO and this is where the seed of the idea came from. There are about seven hosts, and we’ll have guest hosts too, so it will be a rotating cast of people talking about classic and recent action movies. It will be fun and silly and I am really looking forward to taking part. I enjoy movies that make me think and have something to say, but I also like the crazy action-hero popcorn movies. I don’t want to say CBO has not been fun, because it has, but there is an element of work that goes into every episode, preparation for interviews, gathering news etc, and then the post-show work, editing, uploading and distributing. The only thing I need to do for this podcast is watch a movie. We’re recording the first episode later this week, so it will be out in another week or so. You can follow Bags of Action on Twitter here and there is also a Facebook group here if you want to talk about action movies, action heroes and all related geek and sundry. Also if you want to recommend action movies we have to watch, then post it on the Facebook group.

The last podcast I’m doing is a new writing focused podcast called Head Space. At the moment it’s monthly but we’ll see if I stick to that schedule. Episode 1 is already out and it is focused on the craft of writing. Every month I will chat to a writer about their process and how they create characters, story, worlds, their influences and where relevant, their experiences with the editing and publishing process. This is not intended to be a teaching podcast or a How To, it’s just a discussion about writing and how that particular person Head Space Podcast approaches it. I enjoy talking to other writers and finding out how they create and hopefully this podcast will provide interesting food for thought for myself and other writers out there. In episode 1 I spoke with Lou Morgan and you can visit the Head Space blog here (it will soon be available on iTunes under its own name if you want to subscribe there), to download the podcast. We talk about her debut book, Blood and Feathers from Solaris Books, which is released on August 2^nd 2012 and her approach to writing. The book is being launched this Thursday at Forbidden Planet in London where Lou will be reading from the book and signing. Next month on the podcast, I’ll be speaking to Kim Curran and there will be more info on the Head Space blog closer to the time.

The last podcast on the new CBO network is called the Outsider Files and this is Scott’s new solo venture. I’m not sure about the schedule but every episode he will have a guest host on the show and talk to them about all of the stuff that they’re currently enjoying – comics, books, movies, TV etc and just have a nice chat.

That probably sounds like I’m doing more podcasts than before and committing myself to even more, but it’s actually less. We used to do CBO 3 weeks out of four every month and then moved it to a fortnightly schedule. I am always reading something, so The Book Club just makes me read certain books to a deadline, and 6-8 weeks is not tough. I’m not going to be on Bags of Action every episode, so that’s an every now and then thing, maybe every other month or one in three. And while Head Space is monthly, it might drift and become less often, but I’m not worried as I want to enjoy all of the podcasts I’m involved with and not punish myself if it runs late.

One of the questions we received towards the end of the live podcast last night was, am I still excited about comics? In all honesty, I am more excited now than I was five years ago. There are more independent comics now than five years ago and more importantly, many of them are receiving more widespread attention. Of course it’s still a struggle to get noticed in this crowded market, but some great independent comics are now enjoying remarkable sales and widespread attention because of adaptations on TV, animation and even films. Even a rumour of a TV or movie adaptation can cause a massive spike in sales as some properties are bought and then sit in development hell for years. But that’s fine, as long as it helps the creators, increases sales and gets the name of the comic out there into the wider market. So CBO is done, but I’m still very passionate about comics and am now creating some of my own. I hope to have some news about those projects next year but we’ll see how things go.