A Halloween Sci-fi Story!

The ship’s hull loomed up out of the darkness, their spotlights sliding over the pallid metal, momentarily bringing the husk to life before moving away to return it into the cold black.

“No response to any hails.”  Kat peered at the freighter.  “It looks old.  I wonder how long it’s been out here?”  

“Not that long.”  Mike swivelled around in his chair, and tossed a flip chart over.  “It is an old ship, but it’s been on active duty.  I matched the registration to a Mirage company freighter that was returning from the system a few days ago.  The Amazon.  Should be able to get a bounty off them for its return.”

“Okay.  We’d better head over and check out the damage.  See if we can find out what happened to the crew.” 

“We should wait.”  Robert had remained quiet up until now, just starting at the ghostly wreck on the screen. 

“What for?”  

“Do you know what the date is?” 

“Yeah.  Star date four one-“ Mike started, but Robert waved a hand.

“No, no.  I mean the proper date. On Earth.” 

“I guess that depends where you are…”

“It’s the thirty first of October.”  He glared at Kat. 

“So?”

“Halloween.  The night when the barrier between the living and the dead is at its weakest.”

The silence stretched out. 

“You’re joking, right?”  Mike started to laugh.  “Does Halloween even count in space?”

“Of course it does.  You think ghosts care if they are in space or not?”

“Seriously Rob, we’ve got a job to do here.  If we don’t lay claim to this salvage someone else might get it.  And the faster we get it back, the higher a price we can drive.”  Kat got up and went to the door.  “I’m going to engineering to update Linda and Adam on our find.  We’ll go over an in an hour.”

Spaceships are Shiny. (Or: Why Twilight isn’t crap.)

Once upon a time, I was working on some compositing for a module at university.  Part of the scene I was putting together involved a spaceship lasering another spaceship.  As placeholders for this, I quickly modelled a couple of basic ships and textured them up to look a bit battered; a few rust marks, some blast scars.  That kind of thing.

While I was part way through the work, my tutor came over to see what I’d got so far.  She wasn’t so interested in the way I’d put the scene together.  Her feedback was:  “Spaceships are shiny.  Make the ships shiny.” 

I was a little puzzled as to why she thought that spaceships had to be shiny.  After all, real life spaceships aren’t shiny.  Many of the favourites from TV and movies aren’t shiny.  In the end, I did make them shiny for her since she was the one that was going to be marking it.

Personal preference can colour a lot when it comes to art, literature, music.  Which leads me onto the second part: Twilight isn’t crap.  Before everyone protests that it really is, take a moment to think about it.  That book sold millions of copies.  Subjectively, those people didn’t think it was crap.  They enjoyed it, and went on to buy the sequels.

Maybe, at the end of the day, some people just like their vampires shiny. 

…I mean spaceships.

A bit of autumnal inspiration.

First drafts are horrible.  This is something to be accepted.  It doesn't matter if you are the best writer in the world.  You'll read it back and go: "Arg, what was I thinking?"  

But this is okay.  It's the rough sketch before you add colour; you can't expect it to be a masterpiece on the first attempt.  Details don't matter too much, you just give the impression at this stage, and add them in later.

I read somewhere that many authors will do five to fifteen drafts before they are happy with their work.  I'm hoping I don't have to do fifteen, but if that's what it needs, that's what it needs.  For now, I'll just write whatever comes into my head.

Pumpkins

I could tell you how my fantasy novel is well under way.  Or I could tell you how The Eye ofthe Beholder has had more lovely positive feedback.  Instead, I am going to tell you about pumpkins.

Pumpkins are not easily available in the UK, with the exception of one month.  October. 

Every October the supermarkets suddenly have huge boxes of this wondrous squash, plump and smooth and orange and piled high, ready for the taking.

And what do people do with this, the tastiest of treats?  They carve it into a lantern, and then throw it away. 

So here is my save the pumpkin campaign!

Don’t waste this glorious food!

The flesh can be made into soup, pie, bread, even custard!  The seeds make a handy and light snack.  It can be used in sweet or savoury dishes.

When you get your pumpkin this year, make sure you save the seeds and flesh, and try out a delicious recipe.

Please spread the word, and rescue a pumpkin that is destined to be thrown away!

(Also please buy my book!) 

Save me!

Using Stuff.

Sometimes a blank page of paper can be scary, not because you don’t know what to write, but because you’re afraid of “wasting” the paper.  Perhaps you’ll write something that you then never use, or it won’t come out right, and then that bit of paper is useless.  Write on it anyway.

Here is why:

Once, when I was little, I got some stick on earrings for Christmas.  (Stickers that come in pairs that you can stick on your ears.)  They were great.  Lots of different shapes and they were holographic.  How cool was that?
My favourite shape was the lightning ones.  They were certainly the coolest, and to be saved for the most special of occasions.
Sometimes I would get them out and consider sticking them to my ears, so everyone could be all “Wow, that’s the coolest of ear stickers!”
I never did use them.  Eventually I got to that age where I realised that perhaps holographic lightning stickers weren’t as cool as they may have been in the late 80s.
I probably still have them somewhere.  Perhaps they’ll be back in fashion soon, and if they are, this time, I won’t hesitate to use them.