The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

~ Sean Monaghan ~ 1 Comment

Taking a break from the writing, we went to see the Swedish film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. A wonderful and engaging piece of film making. I love the atmosphere of Scandinavian films – the long shots of cars traversing lonely desolate highways and how the locale a climate become almost a character in the film. We saw Jar City, from Iceland, on DVD a few weeks back and in many ways it’s a similar film – a mystery, with great twists and turns. Both remind me in some ways of The Sweet Hereafter, a film which startled me when I saw it, and which lingers in my mind.

Novel update – it’s about 8.15pm here, so there’s three and three quarter hours until the end of the year. Will I make it? I think there’s still a couple of thousand words to go … so I’m not out partying

Novel update

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Okay, another 1500 words in the last 24 hours. It seems slow, but I feel like I’m threading a dozen needles here as I bring all the threads together in a finish that will make sense. It has diverged so much from my original outline (for the better, I think) that there are many more aspects to manage than I’d first expected. Perhaps another 3000 to finish it off? Mood, excited, tense, despondent, elated.

Novel progresses

~ Sean Monaghan ~ 1 Comment

Quick post here, in between busy-ness. I’ve moved the novel ahead by around 1000 words since my last post, and I’ll get some more done right now. It is a little slower now as I try to make sure things are really tight as they tie up.

Quiet times

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No posts for a few days – I have my head down, trying to complete my novel before the new year. I’m about five or six thousand words out, but with family stuff and holidays it’s actually hard to find concentrated time work on it. December 31st feels like such a psychological point – new year, for new writing and it’s good to work to a target.

The novel is an expansion of my flash fiction story The Rotated, as published on Infinite Windows. Incisive editor Mr Tannenbaum asked me why I’d written the story as flash fiction – there seemed to be so much more to it – the concept, their relationship, why do the invaders come, etc. Sure enough, there was so much more to explore. The story is sitting at around 60,000 words right now, so it is on the shortish side for a print novel, but the plan, if the editor likes it (current signs are good) then it will be serialized on Infinite Windows. I will be making the story nicely Gordian, I hope, in the next few days. Then of course, will be spending coming months on revisions and re-writes. I just need to get the draft done by the 31st … I may not post here for a few days as I try to keep my online time to a minimum.

The New Flesh, best of 2009

~ Sean Monaghan ~ 4 Comments

William Pauley III, editor extraordinaire of The New Flesh Magazine has selected the ten best stories of 2009. There are some extraordinary stories in there, including some of my favourite writers like Jodi MacArthur, Angel Zapata and Laura Eno. And, to blast my own trumpet (after all, that’s a big part of blogs, right?), my own story “Submissions” has made the list.

I’ve got to say, I’m honoured, again. The New Flesh has very quickly proven itself to be a quality site, with some excellent stories. I’m sure that Mr Pauley’s job in putting together this list was a tough one.

My pick for game of the year …

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Osmos
Osmos Screenshot

Okay, I don’t play many computer games – I don’t have the patience or the mental/physical reflexes for most. Usually the first level starts and my car crashes, my warrior is slain, I’m stuck out or sacked or have already gone broke. But I’ve just found Osmos, which takes you into a delicious immersive world, filled with gently drifting motes which coalesce and burst, grow and shrink. The idea, usually is to grow your own mote until you’re the biggest. Usefully this game has sucked away hours of my life I’ll never retrieve, but it’s sure more calming than other games I’ve played. Great soundtrack too from including tracks by a couple of my favourite ambient artists Gas/High Skies and Biosphere. The game is a $10 download, which is cheaper than seeing Avatar – actually, do both.

I won’t use the five star system with half-stars (I could rant about that, but another time), but will give this a four and four-fifths star rating. Which means, nothing, of course.

venusvulture.com clean-up happening

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This is the old site
How the site looks

My website venusvulture.com has been a little neglected, I must admit, probably in favour of this blog.

I do my own coding and uploading, which takes time and effort and I’ve been slack – there are some broken links (the Resting Bell netlabel releases are out of print now, and Bookhabit sold to Smashwords, so my eBook Habitat is also unavailable*), and my publications list is out of date, so there’s lots of clean-up to do.

I’ll be launching the new site in early January with a new look (which I’ve already designed and laid out) with active links.

*I did have the option to move Habitat to Smashwords, but the process is complex and given how little response I got through Bookhabit, I’m not convinced it’s worth it. I also think that Habitat is dated now, in terms of my writing, so it’s probably good to be out of print too.

deepspace ambient

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By quirk of fate, Kim Wilkins’s (see previous post) husband Mirko is a an active creator of one of my other favourite pastimes – ambient music. His output as deepspace is remarkable – guided, abstract and considered. His albums include CDs and some downloadable/last.fm listenable works so there’s a chance to listen before you buy.

It’s kind of cool for me to be a fan of both Kim and Mirko, for different reasons.